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Employees shaping their own jobs: how to enable job crafting?	[ "Job crafting", "Job design" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nWhat is job crafting?: Job crafting involves employees redesigning their own work by altering the boundaries of their jobs. Employees use opportunities to shape their own jobs by aligning it with their abilities, values, motives, and passion. In a classical job design, management designed jobs for employees in a top-down approach. In job crafting, individual employees and groups of employees customize their jobs by changing perceptions, tasks, and interactions related to their jobs in ways that would lead to work engagement and job satisfaction.\nHow do employees shape their jobs?: Job crafting originated in 2001 when Wrzesniewski and Dutton proposed a different perspective to view employee work behaviors. Job crafters shape their jobs using three general approaches: cognitive (altering how tasks are perceived - for example, janitors in a hospital might see themselves as part of the professional staff and an integral part of the healing team in a hospital), task (altering the work - teachers coming up with new teaching methods so that learning becomes more meaningful and their jobs less repetitive), and relational (altering the quality or extent of interaction with colleagues - hospital cleaners caring for patients and their families beyond their normal duties) (Wrzesniewski and Dutton, 2001).\nBenefits of job crafting: Employees take initiative to craft their jobs to make work meaningful, engaging, and satisfying. Crafting activities improve person-job fit and can result in positive experiences such as a feeling of achievement, personal growth, and ability to cope with adversity. Job crafting leads to changed perceptions of the meaning of work and one's work identity and leads to better performance. Research has established that job crafting behavior is positively linked to engagement, work performance, job satisfaction, and employees' well-being.\nHow to enable job crafting?: Organizations and managers cannot tell employees how to craft their jobs, as by definition, job crafting is self-initiated. However, they can create conditions that encourage job crafting.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to review the latest developments in the area of job crafting and provide guidelines on how to enable job crafting.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The concept of job crafting is examined through a review, and the author gives his insights on the conditions to be created to enable job crafting.\nFindings: In job crafting, individual employees and groups of employees customize their jobs by changing perceptions, tasks, and interactions related to their jobs in ways that would lead to work engagement and job satisfaction. Job crafting behavior is positively linked to engagement, work performance, job satisfaction, and employees' well-being. Organizations can benefit by enabling job crafting to supplement top-down traditional job design approaches, thereby facilitating continuous improvement of jobs and innovation.\nOriginality/value: The different ways in which employees shape their jobs are examined, and guidelines on how to enable job crafting are elucidated.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Understanding issue complexity when building a socially responsible brand	[ "Social responsibility", "Brands", "Corporate branding", "Issues" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: To date there has been extensive discussion of the benefits to firms and brands of being socially responsible (Knox and Maklan, 2004), including: improved financial performance (Johnson, 2003; Miles and Covin, 2000), building a connection with consumers (Porter and Kramer, 2002), improving product quality (Montillaud-Joyel and Otto, 2004) and even internal benefits such as increases in employee commitment and reduced employee turnover (Dawkins and Lewis, 2003; Maio, 2003), not to mention improving society overall (Sirgy, 2002). It is no surprise that \"CSR is increasingly being recognised by firms as central to core business activities rather than a peripheral consideration associated with philanthropy\" (Bhattacharya et al., 2004, p. 6).Linking socially responsible behaviour with the brand can be essential in developing the brand's values and personality (Kitchin, 2003), as well as creating value in terms of differentiation within the market (Johnson, 2003). The view that corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an integral component of corporate activity and corporate identity was supported by 24 per cent of the business people at the 2004 World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland (The Economist, 2004). While some might consider this percentage low, there is evidence of an increased appreciation of CSR by managers over time (Lewis, 1999).The implementing of a socially responsible brand is not straightforward, and some expected benefits do not necessarily eventuate (Ginsberg and Bloom, 2004; Kitchin, 2003). Because of the complexity of CSR issues, firms promoting the message that their brands (corporate or product) are responsible will have to understand all aspects of the social issues they are seeking to integrate into their brands (Lewis, 2003). These social values also need to be clearly communicated in all internal and external activities (Kitchin, 2003), as well being accurately reflected in organisational activities (Maio, 2003). Any perception of \"puffery\" (exaggeration of brand values) will quickly be picked up and used by activists or other stakeholders to publicise inconsistencies (Miles and Covin, 2000). Of course, given the diversity of social issues, it will be potentially difficult to position a corporate or product brand as being responsible across all fronts. This is more difficult when one considers that the state of knowledge of social issues and society's views on them, inevitably change over time. Thus, what is seen as a responsible action today may be considered harmful in the future (Polonsky and Rosenberger, 2001), and therefore, organisational CSR practices and leveraging of these activities need to continually be revised (Sirgy, 2002).CSR activities are a significant business concern: \"in 20 developed countries surveyed, CSR-related factors collectively accounted for 49 per cent of a company's brand image\" (Business and Sustainable Development, 2001). This result is not surprising as firms' brand images - serving as a representation of the firm - are used as a lens in which stakeholders evaluate all performance, including social performance (Werther and Chandler, 2005). In this way managers explicitly create brand promises to stakeholders on product and corporate attributes, including CSR (Kitchin, 2003). However, if stakeholders perceive implicit higher level CSR promises made by brands - corporate or product - dissatisfaction will occur with any perceived under-delivery against those promises (Kitchin, 2003).CSR is important to a broad range of organisational stakeholders, with an equally broad range of expectations of brand responsibilities (Dawkins and Lewis, 2003; Maio, 2003). For example, between 1995 and 1998 there was more than a 50 per cent increase in the number of business leaders, from 25 to 39 per cent, who believed industry was not doing enough to meet its social responsibilities (Lewis, 1999). Consumers also appear to be exhibiting a significant interest in firms' CSR activities, with 38 per cent of the UK respondents reporting that it was \"very important that a company show a high degree of responsibility ... \" (Dawkins, 2004, p. 1). A study by Business and Sustainable Development (2001) reported that in the USA 42 per cent of customers surveyed indicated they would be likely to switch brands because of CSR issues, although this figure was lower in Europe (25 per cent), Latin America (23 per cent) and Asia (8 per cent). CSR has also been supported by employees, with 90 per cent in one UK study reporting that their firm's social and environmental responsibility was important to them, with 58 per cent saying it was very important to them (Dawkins, 2004).It is, therefore, no wonder that some firms have sought to integrate CSR as a core value in brand positioning (Ginsberg and Bloom, 2004; Middlemiss, 2003; Werther and Chandler, 2005). While promoting CSR-linked brand and corporate identity is not new, the number of brands focusing on CSR values seems to be increasing, although implemented in different ways (Menon and Kahn, 2003; Klein and Dawar, 2004; Maio, 2003).Leveraging CSR requires a shift away from any purely altruistic motives for undertaking socially responsible activities, where no benefit accrues to the firm from its public-spirited action (Drumwright and Murphy, 2000). Leveraging CSR-related activities have been considered a strategic action from which there needs to be a direct \"return on investment\" (Porter and Kramer, 2002). However, attempting to leverage good work may be counterproductive and result in stakeholder scepticism (Mayer et al., 1993). In this way firms and their brands may ultimately lose, or at least not gain the maximum positive social and reputational benefit that they could achieve (Klein and Dawar, 2004).Leveraging of CSR branding requires thorough understanding of the increased issue complexity, especially when CSR is not embraced within the traditional branding concept. That is a brand is designed to embody and reflect the core values and attributes of the \"product\" (Kitchin, 2003; Middlemiss, 2003; Werther and Chandler, 2005). CSR branding, therefore, explicitly means that CSR is a core part of the brand and associated activities communicating brand characteristics. If it is a core business activity (Bhattacharya et al., 2004) and not simply PR or marketing hype (Frankental, 2001), then it is words that are supported by and inextricably linked with action. There must be a long-term commitment to CSR activities, which must be supported at senior management level, taking into consideration the issues that are salient to the brands' stakeholders. There also must be sufficient resources to support actions and provide robust measures of performance (Dawkins and Lewis, 2003; Middlemiss, 2003; Werther and Chandler, 2005). Further, CSR activities must be supported by other core brand and product attributes (Lewis, 2003) otherwise, there is the risk that CSR becomes puffery, which is a consumer concern already in some areas of social responsibility (Mayer et al., 1993).Developing and maintaining a \"responsible\" brand can clearly be difficult for organisations and there are layers of complexities, including understanding the CSR issue, the organisational activities as well as how one would operationalise CSR branding. We suggest that firms need to focus on understanding the domain of CSR issues before they decide to position themselves as \"responsible\". In this paper, we discuss four aspects of issue complexity- issues to include, scope of CSR issues, standards to measure performance and the determination of when performance is in fact responsible. As will be discussed in the following sections of the paper, understanding these aspects of issue complexity will be essential to incorporating CSR in organisations brands.\nIssue complexity: CSR is a broad concept and means different things to different stakeholders, including the firm (Dawkins and Lewis, 2003; Frankental, 2001). As such, the very nature of socially responsible actions expected by stakeholders may not necessarily be clearly understood by the firm (Guay et al., 2004) or the stakeholders themselves (Polonsky and Rosenberger, 2001). Even when organisational behaviour and stakeholder expectations are consistent with the types of issues that might need to be considered, the definition of \"responsible\" perceived performance may vary across stakeholders (Zyglidopulos, 2002). Further, even if performance criteria are widely agreed, the difficulty of making subjective judgements against those criteria may lead to different perceptions of outcomes, i.e. how responsible is responsible enough (Goodpaster, 2003).Social issues\nConclusions and managerial recommendations: Developing CSR is something that requires intensive corporate commitment (Lewis, 2003) and needs to be embraced by senior management, while at the same time translated to strategic and operational activities (Bluementhal and Bergstorm, 2003). Stakeholders, internal and external, expect different types/levels of CSR activities (Dawkins, 2004). Failure to deliver on stakeholder expectations, whether unintentional implied or not, will result in reputational damage. As such managers need to keep all the stated and implied \"promises\" made (Kitchin, 2003). To meet expectations organisations must understand the complexity of the social issues that the CSR claims are addressing. Understanding CSR issue complexity is essential and something that firms should be integrating into operational activities, as well as communication activities (Werther and Chandler, 2005).However, the degree to which CSR is leveraged must be carefully considered. Over-exuberant promotional activities extolling the firm's socially responsible behaviour may be seen to be exploitative. For example, in the 1990s when Mobil first developed plastic bags that were biodegradable, the firm thought that it was on a marketing winner. However, extensive negative publicity was generated when it was identified that while technically true, the bags were biodegradable, the conditions in landfills were such that the bags would in fact not biodegrade. Mobil was soon forced to remove the product following litigation alleging deceptive advertising (Spears and Larson, 1995).CSR-linked brand positioning needs to carefully consider the implications of changes to products and certainly is not a short-term tactical activity. CSR positioning will usually require a significant strategic shift in the way the organisation thinks about itself and its activities, including communications with internal and external stakeholders. That is, there needs to be something truly meaningfully to communicate, i.e. actions speak louder than words.While presently CSR is presently a \"voluntary action,\" increasingly it is becoming expected by a wider range of stakeholders. It may be the case that firms choose to undertake responsible actions without seeking to leverage these actions. Any leveraging of CSR should ensure that the firm has genuinely integrated CSR into its corporate culture and actions. To do this the firm needs to understand its behaviour in the context of issue complexity and be able to substantiate its actions as well as leveraging them. This allows proactive external leveraging with the confidence that actions support the brand positioning.From a managerial perspective, linking directly back to the four sections of issue complexity, organisations should ensure that they can answer the questions summarised in Table I.In answering these questions, managers will be able to understand the explicit and implicit promises they are making to their stakeholders. This will help to ensure that the potential positive and negative impacts of CSR-linked branding are considered. However, the implementation of CSR activities requires that there is something substantial and worthy of being communicated in the first place. There also must be shared managerial vision and commitment to implementation throughout the organisation.In regards to future research, while there has been some work on examining the impact of CSR behaviour on stakeholder, there is in fact limited discussion as to how firms define the scope of issue complexity. The issue of understanding stakeholders' expectations is indeed important and thus the definition of the scope of CSR is a critical issue that warrants future investigation. A second related issue is how does the firm operationalise CSR brand positioning. The research to date has undertaken limited exploration of the activities used to communicate CSR. In general, these have been experiments were variables are controlled. While important, these works have not necessarily covered the gambit of potential actions undertaken and there has been minimal if any discussion as to how different \"communication\" approaches interact. For example, does have detailed web-based material positively influence broader directed communication strategies? There is also limited discussion as to how different communication strategies might impact on different stakeholders. Given that stakeholders have different views and in some cases motivations, one strategy for leveraging CSR may have different effects on different stakeholder. As such research needs to move to broader strategy implantation issues.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To discuss the importance of understanding corporate social responsibility (CSR) by analysing the issues that comprise CSR. Without this understanding it will not be possible for organisations to develop responsible brands.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper draws on the existing business and marketing literature to define four aspects of issue complexity. It also draws on a range of real and hypothetical examples affecting local and global organisations to explain the four components.\nFindings: - Developing CSR requires intensive corporate commitment and failure to deliver on stakeholder expectations will result in reputational damage. It is essential to understand CSR issue complexity and to consider carefully CSR-linked brand positioning. Basically, the implementation of CSR activities requires something substantial and communicable in the first place.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The work is conceptual in nature and additional research needs to be undertaken to better understand how organisations define the CSR issues that they will integrate into activities and how the management of these issues can be undertaken to ensure system-wide implementation.\nPractical implications: - The work suggests that by understanding the four components of issues complexity organisations will be in a better position to integrate CSR-related branding. Without understanding these issues, organisations may potentially unintentionally exaggerate claims or set themselves up to be criticised that they are unfairly exploiting consumers' interest in CSR issues.\nOriginality/value: - Previous research has documented the value of CSR, but to date there have been only limited attempts to systematically examine how managers could know whether they have considered the issue completely and realistically.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Knowledge prioritisation for ERP implementation success: Perspectives of clients and implementation partners in UK industries	[ "AHP", "ERP implementation", "Enterprise resource planning", "Knowledge categorization", "Knowledge identification", "Knowledge prioritization" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Organisations are integrating their business processes seamlessly across the value chain using information systems (Gattiker and Goodhue, 2004; Annamalai and Ramayah, 2011) and are expecting to minimise information redundancy and improve information integrity and security through implementing information systems (Zhou, 2002; Olson, 2004). Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are information systems that are essential for organisations to improve business processes. Over the past two decades, ERP systems have become one of the most important and expensive implementations in the corporate use of information technology. Despite the benefits that can be achieved from a successful ERP system implementation, there is an evidence of high failure in ERP implementation projects in numerous industries (Huang et al., 2004; Sun et al., 2015).\n2. Related work: This section reviews the literature on ERP knowledge types, ERP success variables and the use of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) in IT/IS-related studies.\n3. Research methodology adopted: Pragmatism states that the research question is the vital aspect of determining the research philosophy because pragmatism has the provision to work within both interpretivist and positivist paradigms (Saunders et al., 2009). It has the ability to practically integrate various perspectives to support data collection and interpretation. Therefore, pragmatism guides to study different phenomena in-depth that cannot be fully understood using only quantitative or qualitative methods (Venkatesh et al., 2013). Quantitative approaches are largely based on deduction, while qualitative approaches are based on induction. However, the pragmatic approach is based on abduction reasoning that moves back and forth between induction and deduction. This approach supports the use of both qualitative and quantitative methods in the same research enquiry (Howe, 1988; Maxcy, 2003). This study adopts abduction reasoning with two separate phases; a qualitative phase for inductive reasoning and a quantitative phase for deductive reasoning. There are three reasons to use two phases for this study:\n4. The nature of empirical data collected: This section largely discusses the analysis of descriptive data which were collected by client and implementation partner organisations, and the inconsistencies of 21 clusters/matrices in the AHP method.\n5. Empirical analysis and findings: There are two key types of empirical findings: research findings from interview data (knowledge identification and categorisation) and findings from the survey (knowledge prioritisation). The former is discussed first, then moving on to the latter.\n6. Discussion and conclusions: The knowledge types and elements revealed through the empirical findings of this study were prioritised using an AHP-based online survey. The prioritisation of 4 k-types, 21 k-elements and 4 ERP success variables has extended the findings from the in-depth interviews. Although knowledge prioritisation is not a new concept for IT in general (Zimmermann et al., 2012; Lee et al., 2014), it is a new concept in the ERP field.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Knowledge management is crucial for enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems implementation in real industrial environments, but this is a highly demanding task. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of knowledge identification, categorisation and prioritisation that contributes to achieving ERP implementation success.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study adopts a mixed methods approach; a qualitative phase to identify and categorise knowledge types and sub-types; conducting in-depth interviews with ERP clients and implementation partners; plus a quantitative phase to prioritise knowledge types and sub-types based on their contribution to achieving ERP success for business performance improvement. An analytic hierarchy process-based questionnaire was used to collect empirical data for the quantitative phase.\nFindings: This study has been able to identify, categorise and rank various types of ERP-related knowledge based on in-depth interviews and survey responses from both ERP clients and implementation partners. In total, 4 knowledge types and 21 sub-types were ranked based on their contribution to achieving ERP success; 4 variables of information quality, systems quality, individual impact and organisational impact were used to measure ERP success.\nOriginality/value: The empirical findings demonstrate exactly what kinds of knowledge need to be managed, enabling knowledge prioritisation when a client organisation or an implementation partner steps into an ERP implementation, in a real industrial environment.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Informing practice: information experiences of ambulance officers in training and on-road practice	[ "Information literacy", "Workplace", "Ambulance services", "Education", "Australia" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Information literacy (IL) has been described as the core literacy of the twenty-first century, underpinning all other forms of literacy and making them possible (Garner, 2005, p. 68). In an age of \"fast capitalism\" characterized by increasingly large and complex amounts of information being made available through an ever-changing array of information communication technologies, the idea of IL continues to gain currency. However, the experience of IL and its role in the construction of domain, specific knowledge, still continues to be under-researched and under-conceptualised, especially in the workplace sector.This paper presents the findings of an ongoing collaborative enquiry into the use and experience of information in learning to become an ambulance officer in the New South Wales Ambulance Service. The study is part of a larger suite of discourse-oriented studies that explore the nature, meaning and manifestation of IL as a situated, socio-cultural, workplace practice (Lloyd, 2007).The study approaches ambulance education from an IL perspective in which a qualitative and wholistic experience with information is viewed as the basic building block in the construction of knowledge about work and professional practice. From this perspective, IL is viewed as the catalyst that enables learning about these aspects. As a context-specific practice, IL is constituted through a range of situated activities that facilitate, in the individual, the evolution and construction of domain knowledge (Lloyd, 2005; Tuominen et al., 2005). Therefore, IL is focused through specific information experiences, needs, and skills which cannot be learnt independently of the setting, as it is the setting which gives meaning to the experience. As a socio-cultural practice, IL is also focused through the collaborative interaction between people as they work in consort, developing a shared sense of the meaning of workplace organization, practice and professional performance. In this respect, IL is underpinned by processes such as mediation and negotiation.The research reported here focuses on understanding how novice ambulance officers experience information in the information environment of the Ambulance Education Centre and compares this with the \"working\" information environment of experienced ambulance officers. The study reveals how different experiences with information enable learning about practice and profession to occur. It also illustrates how this engagement alters in the progression from trainee to workplace practitioner. The research investigates the following questions:RQ1. How is the information environment constituted for novices and experienced ambulance officers?RQ2. What types of information are considered important by novices and experienced ambulance officers in learning about their practices and profession?RQ3. How is this information experienced?The outcomes of this research raise questions about our current conceptions of IL, especially the veracity and efficacy of current IL pedagogical practices in preparing individuals to enter the workplace and to engage with information practices that will facilitate learning throughout life.IL in educational and workplace contexts\nMethdology: Research site\nResearch findings: Experiencing information in the training environment\nInformation experience in the transition to on-road practice: The participants' experience of moving out onto the road was uncertain but exciting, requiring trainees to reflect on their knowledge base and their understanding of the performance of practice gained in training. After nine months on the road, the participants who were re-interviewed now viewed the training centre as a \"controlled environment,\" which provided an artificial platform for anchoring preparatory practice, but one that could not account for the realities and uncertainties and the range of information sources they actually need. This left trainees feeling less prepared (a sentiment expressed by novices in the first round of interviews). The protocols that provide the systematic guidelines for patient treatment are still considered \"foundational\" for these trainees, but also provide a level of uncertainty as new forms of information are introduced into the on-road environment.The transition period also produces a level of participant tension as trainees begin to reconcile textual information with their physical and social information experiences in an on-road context. One participant summed this up: \"things don't obviously run like they do on a piece of paper.\" Encountering \"live\" patients and dealing with sensory and emotional aspects of transition was summed up by a new officer who had experienced a stroke patient in the first few weeks of being on the road \"the problem is that they don't tell you at college what a person is going to look like.\" This is coupled with the realization that the training centre is only the \"tip of an information iceberg\", for which they feel unprepared:It gives you that introduction part of it, but the major part of your information and knowledge that you build on is from being out on the road, and doing it, carrying it out and making mistakes.All participants indicated the on-road experience enabled them to think about what they had learnt and to observe the practice of others. The opportunities to engage with social and physical information sources facilitated a level of reflexivity (thinking about their practice), which is limited in the preparatory stages of their training. All participants expressed the desire for greater access to these sources of information in their preparatory training.During the period of on-road training, novices' reliance on textual information appears to gradually decrease as they are drawn into the community of practitioners and begin to \"map their new information environment.\" Mapping out is the process of identifying what sources of information are important for various activities, e.g. who to talk to about administrative matters or identifying practitioners with strong theoretical, experiential or practical knowledge. This is also a process of learning about practitioners whose knowledge or practices may not be as competent or reliable (i.e. whose advice to ignore). It is an incremental process dependent on their acceptance into the periphery of their workplace team. Novices recognize the importance of engaging with social information and the opportunities this provides them to connect with the narratives of the profession, and to access other practitioners as a source of contingent knowledge that is localized and specific to on-road practice. Contingent knowledge helps to fill in the \"information gaps\" that are created when the novices move from the training centre to the environment of on-road work. Commenting on this aspect, one participant stated \"I've seen one-fifth of bugger all really. So you rely on these guys who have been on the road for a while to tell you what to expect.\"All participants reported feeling under-prepared for the information-seeking role, suggesting a lack of confidence in their ability to draw on their codified knowledge in the formulation of appropriate questions:I think the thing that I had to work on was basically talking to the patients, coming up with the right questions to ask to get the information. I was required to come to a preliminary diagnosis [...] because there are a lot of factors going on and it's just like a funnel effect and you need to get all this information, to get to this one point.Thinking about practice\nInformation experience of on-road ambulance officers: Experienced officers described their transition to the working information environment as facilitated by access to, and experience of social and physical information. These sites of information shape the nature of the experience, providing texture to the experience of training, and enabling practitioners to develop a sense of place, and of practice. The role of the experienced officer must be played out physically on the road and in consort with others. The close working relationships formed on the road, allows practitioners to engage in activities such as story telling. As a source of tacit knowledge, hearing stories is important to new practitioners because this provides information about day-to-day practices and professional life. This helps to draw newly commissioned practitioners into the stories of the collective and facilitates engagement with the collective professional identity. Practitioners develop these connections and networks with their experienced colleagues and seek socially distributed knowledge by engaging with other allied heath professionals (e.g. nurses, doctors, and pharmacists). Practitioners see this extension of their information networks as facilitating personal development about the \"finer points\" of practice that cannot be achieved in the artificial and predictable situation of the Education Centre. These practices allow practitioners to map, connect and reflect upon codified knowledge gained in training against the experiences of practice. Practitioners reported this often leads to contestation when information from codified sources conflicts with social and physical information experienced during actual practice.Experienced practitioners reported that over a period of time they learn to listen to their bodies and often develop \"gut feelings\" about their work. They also learn to recognize environmental cues that may provide information about a patient's condition or about dangers to their own safety, and to work and rework codified knowledge against the physical information gained from practice.Social sources of information\nConclusion: The purpose of this study was to identify the types of information considered important by a small cohort of novices and experienced practitioners and to identify how they experience this. Three broad sources of information have been identified, each contributing to the learning experience of ambulance officers. Trainees and experienced practitioners learn to recognize, access and use textual, physical and social sites of information in a range of ways with different outcomes, according to their level of expertise, the context that shapes this experience and their level of participation within the practitioner community.Epistemic sites which are characterized by codified sources of information form the core for novices in preparatory training. Experiencing these foundational sites produces a decontexualized approach to learning in which codified knowledge is experienced as an authoritative source of truth. The outcomes of this engagement are a rule-based approach when dealing with every-day work in pre-hospital care and the development of a recognizable and sanctioned workplace identity which facilitates initial entry as peripheral members of the wider workplace community. In effect novices learn \"to act\", but it is not until they engage with social and corporeal experiences that they are positioned to \"become practitioners\".The decontexual nature of information use in preliminary training situations, limits the body learning which is critical to building knowledge frameworks in pre-hospital care and which occurs once out on the road. The limiting of body learning to the rote learning of procedures reduces the ability of novices to be adequately prepared for on-road situations and results in uncertainty in the first few months of on-roadwork. While novices do acquire information that leads to the development of automatic repetition of procedures, they lack the information gained from on-road experience and interaction with their community that is required to contextualize this form of body-learning.The intensity of preparatory training also limits novice access to sources of tacit and contingent knowledge that are accessed through situated participation as part of the wider community. Although novices do form their own community in the training centre, the lack of grounding information experiences limits learning to epistemic contexts and reflects the rule- and procedure-based learning.Novice engagement with the three sites of information described in this research appears to remain at uncritical level, and the information received during training is largely unevaluated by novices. This response is primarily due to the artificial nature of training, and the lack of practical experience with which to ground training information and the separation of the novice from the practitioner community that acts as a source of intersubjective, contingent and tacit knowledge.The transition to the workplace necessitates a move away from epistemic knowledge towards a greater emphasis on social and physical information as a source of reflection and reflexivity. The transition into is facilitated by experienced practitioners who afford opportunities for novices to engage with information that is contingent and tacit. By engaging with the workplace context, practitioners learn to use other practitioners as sources of experiential knowledge, and they develop socially distributed networks that extend their access to information. They learn to manage multiple sources of information and to map those sources. As their experiences increase, they become more evaluative and critical of information sources using their own experiences, body-learning and other practitioners as a source for reflection and reflexivity to improve their practice.The application of an IL approach to workplace studies reveals the important contribution that a range of information sources makes to preparatory and experienced work practice and reveals the change over time of dependence on sources of information as workers move from novice to expert stage. As this study demonstrates, IL manifests more deeply than just a relationship with text or identification of a suite of skills. In the context of this study, IL manifests through collective practice; with other people allied to (but not within) the area of practice; with the tools of practice; through reflexivity about one's own practice and collective practice. Through the experience of embodied performance, it has both subjective and intersubjective facets. None of these alone, represent IL, however, when viewed wholistically and through the discourse that shapes context, they represent a suite of socio-cultural processes and practices that facilitate becoming information literate in context.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to present findings of an enquiry into the use and experience of information, in learning to become an ambulance officer. The paper aims to explore how the information environment is constituted for novice and experience practitioners. The paper also aims to consider what type of information is considered important by novice and experienced practitioners in learning about practice and profession.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study is approached from an information literacy (IL) perspective, where IL is viewed as the catalyst for learning about work and professional practice. It draws on constructivist-influenced grounded theory method to explore how an IL experience is constituted for the worker.\nFindings: - Three modalities of information which inform practice are described. IL is illustrated as more than just an experience with text or skills-based literacy. It is viewed as socio-cultural practice which is shaped by discourse.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The research was limited to an in-depth exploration of one professional group in one geographic location.\nPractical implications: - The study highlights the value of an IL approach to understanding how information is experienced in a workplace context.\nOriginality/value: - This paper reports original research of significance to information professionals and educators.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Distribution channels of vegetable industry in Indonesia: impact on business performance	[ "Agribusiness", "Business impact", "Structural equation modelling", "Intermediary", "Vegetable farming", "Marketing margin" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Production of vegetables, along with other agricultural products is the backbone of the Indonesian economy. The sector is resilient and absorbs more than half of the workforce and provides a significant contribution to the national income of the country (BPS, 2016). Market supply and demand determine the dynamics of the Indonesian vegetable production.\n2. Literature review: The main pathway of agribusiness is a movement from a semi-subsistence agricultural society to a more diversified agrarian economy involving high-value crops, leading to a food secure economy with improved living standards. When vegetables serve as a cash crop, vegetable industry leads to a profitable business. Smallholders mostly practice intensive vegetable farming, and most development economists consider commercialisation of this activity as a central feature of the development process. The progression starts with broad-based agricultural development, causing a high purchasing power by millions of small farmers. These farmers spend and recycle cash through the economy, motivating demand and employment growth in non-farm sectors. Urban and rural labour forces provide a market for each other, which, in turn, increases the demand for food and other farm products (Jayne et al., 2011).\n3. Research methods: 3.1 Theoretical framework\n4. Results and discussion: 4.1 Distribution channels of vegetables\n5. Conclusion and policy implication: High-valued vegetables play an essential role in the Indonesian economy and public health sectors because the commodities serve as the complement foods consumed daily and in a fresh form. The economic value of vegetables is significant, and the nutritious contents of the vegetables are essential for human health. Daily sufficient consumption of vegetables supports Sustainable Development Goals that have been ratified by many countries, including Indonesia. For the supply side, high-valued vegetables have generated sufficient incomes for producers because intensive farming of vegetables is more profitable than other cereal crops. Shifting from subsistence farming to profit-oriented vegetable farming helps rural people improve their welfare resulting from high income generated from intensive farming. However, there is a marketing issue that restricts producers to obtain optimal income from farming. The issue relates to the inefficient market in terms of long distribution channels in the vegetable market.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the distribution channels of vegetable sectors in Indonesia, its economic impact on the performance of vegetable sales and the factors affecting marketing channels selected by producers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study employed qualitative and quantitative methods. A market survey was qualitatively conducted at producer, intermediary, wholesaler, hotel and food processing company as well as retailer levels. Producer survey was quantitatively conducted at the farm level, by interviewing 556 randomly selected farm households. Structural equation modelling was employed to accomplish the objectives of the study.\nFindings: Marketing channels for vegetables in Indonesia was complex and relatively long. Farmers decided to select particular channels because of business circumstance and their knowledge. Distance and gentleman's agreement with traders limited farmers to choose the desirable marketing channel. Marketing channels affect business performance in terms of high sales and profit.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study only pays attention to the supply side of vegetables. The effect of marketing channels also encumbers the consumers, which are beyond this study. Other studies are expected to highlight the consumer side.\nOriginality/value: This study focused on smallholder agribusiness players. This study uses two surveys as data sources: market survey and producer survey. The market survey serves as vital information to design producer surveys.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
E-inclusion or digital divide: an integrated model of digital inequality	[ "Force", "Access", "Resource", "Digital divide", "Chinese migrant worker", "E-acceptance", "E-inclusion" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The rapid development of information and communication technologies (ICT) has resulted in profound global political, economic, and social transformations. Many regions worldwide have experienced tremendous mobilization in ICT investment and infrastructure. However, contrary to expectations of an eradication of the digital divide, this dynamic problem continues to deepen with the advent of new technologies (Mubarak, 2015). To dissect and diagnose the complexities of the digital divide, a more thorough understanding of the problem is needed.\nDigital divide conceptualizations and measurements: To determine the conceptualizations and measurements necessary for deriving an integrated model for digital inequality, a review of the digital divide literature was conducted. The term digital divide was popularized in the mid-1990s by Larry Irving, former head of National Telecommunications Infrastructure Administration (Irving et al., 1999). Initially drawing from the technological deterministic view where access to devices or technology is the primary driver of the societal changes while human or social factors were seen as the secondary causes (Srinuan and Bohlin, 2011), early empirical studies conceptualized the digital divide as a binary physical access disparity between those who either \"have\" or \"have not\" in terms of ownership or physical access to the internet, digital devices, broadband, and other computing technology (Hartviksen et al., 2002).\nDigital divide causals and determinants: Digital divide research identifies three thematic approaches in the causes and determinants of the digital divide: access (micro determinants), resources (meso determinants), and forces (macro determinants).\nAn integrated model of digital inequality: In response to calls for an integrated model that helps measure and explain the dynamics of the digital divide, we propose the following theoretical model based on the research canon, as shown in Figure 1.\nTesting the digital divide model: Previous digital divide literature does not address all aspects of this problem - specifically, the ways in which access, resources, and forces interact to impact e-acceptance and situational e-inclusion. The researchers therefore have set out here to empirically test this model and the following hypothesis:\nResearch method: The existing data set utilized for this study corresponds with a multimethod study investigating Chinese migrant workers' digital divide problems. Chinese migrant workers are those who migrate from rural regions to fulfill low-level jobs in cities. Since they are on the margins of Chinese society, this population is considered more susceptible to the digital divide compared to dominant groups (Keung Wong et al., 2007). In 2014 and 2015, survey and interview responses were conducted with Chinese migrant workers using the snowball sampling technique. A total of 398 effective survey responses and nine interview responses were collected from migrant workers throughout China, which were about successful or failure experiences and relative reasons when using computing devices (mainly computers and cellphones). The 9 interview responses yielded 46 scenarios of ICT use, of which 34 pertained to e-inclusion while 12 involved possible instances of a digital divide.\nResults: Situational e-inclusion\nConclusion: In this study, we proposed a theoretical framework to examine the complexity of the deepening digital divide problem, and tested our framework using an existing data set of Chinese migrant workers. Results of the survey and interview data supported our framework that the integrative model constructs (access, resource, force, e-acceptance, e-inclusion) could be used to analyze the effects, behavioral elements, and influencing factors associated with the digital divide. The findings support the path tracing causal relationships among the constructs (i.e. forces distribute resources, which impact access, and then facilitate e-acceptance and e-inclusion), as suggested by our hypothesis.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to improve understanding of the societal problem of the deepening digital divide by establishing and testing an integrated conceptual framework for digital divide research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors established the integrated conceptual framework after synthesizing the literature, and then tested the framework by conducting a secondary analysis of a 2014-2015 data set comprised of 398 survey responses and nine interviews with Chinese migrant workers.\nFindings: The results showed that Chinese migrant workers were partially e-included in the digital society. However, they encountered material, cognitive, motivational, and social access limitations due to the lack of financial, material, educational, psychological, interpersonal, and cognitive resources, which caused them to experience a digital divide. Findings support the use of the integrative model as a potential analytical framework to understand and address digital inequalities.\nOriginality/value: This study first proposed an integrative framework to understand the measurements and causes of the digital divide and then empirically tested its feasibility.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Affect transfer in brand extensions: the role of expectancy and relevancy	[ "Brand extensions", "Expectation" ]	[ { "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.Brand extension, which remain companies' most frequently used branding strategy (Volckner and Sattler, 2006), receives significant attention in both academic and practitioner domain. Previous studies focus on a critical question: In which conditions can the equity of the parent brand (B0) be leveraged for an extension product category (Pe)? From a consumer perspective, leveraging brand equity means transferring the brand affect from the parent product (B0P0) to the extension product (B0Pe). Previous studies identify two types of fit that are important in this transfer process: one is the fit between the parent product and the extension product (P0Pe fit) and the other is between the parent brand and the extension product (B0Pe fit).\nLiterature review: For affect to transfer from B0P0 to Pe, two routes are possible: from the parent product (P0) to the extension product (Pe) or from the brand (B0) to the extension product (Pe). Literature addressing P0Pe fit suggests that consumers focus on the category relationship when evaluating brand extensions, as exemplified by Aaker and Keller's (1990) perceived fit concept. Perceived fit consists of three dimensions: complement (how Pe is complementary to P0), substitute (how Pe might can substitute for P0), and the transfer of a manufacturer's expertise. Aaker and Keller (1990) show that, among the three items, only the transfer of manufacturing skills has a direct impact on extension evaluation, whereas the complementary and substitute effects interact with manufacturing skills transfer to influence the extension evaluations. Overall, consumers favor B0Pe when the perceived fit between P0 and Pe is high. A recent study validates the importance of category fit after testing three sub-components of the product category fits (Seltene and Brunel, 2008). Furthermore, a study applies Aaker and Keller's model to the brand alliance study and the results support the validity of the construct as well (James, 2006). The importance of category fit has been addressed in other related areas including marketing communications (Bridges et al., 2000), sequence effect of brand extensions (Keller and Aaker, 1992), and price premium of extension products (DelVecchio and Smith, 2005).A second stream of the literature highlights the B0Pe fit. A brand can be viewed as a collection of attributes (Keller, 1993). To leverage its brand equity in Pe, a brand requires attributes that fit well in Pe. Researchers explore the B0Pe fit on the basis of different types of brand attributes, including image (Park et al., 1991), benefit attributes (Bhat and Reddy, 2001; Broniarczyk and Alba, 1994), and brand breadth (Boush and Loken, 1991; Mao and Krishnan, 2006; Meyvis and Janiszewski, 2004). Generally, these studies concur that B0Pe fit is more important for brand extensions.In the next session, we describe the scheme-triggered affect transfer model, first proposed by Fiske and Pavelchak (1986). The model suggests that congruency between two items facilitates affect transfer from one to the other. Furthermore, congruency consists of two dimensions, expectancy and relevancy (Heckler and Childers, 1992). We propose that expectancy captures the P0Pe fit and influences the affect transfer from P0 to Pe; relevancy captures B0Pe fit and has an impact on the affect transfer from B0 to Pe.\nConceptual framework and hypothesis: Affect transfer process\nMethod: Study 1\nDiscussion: Despite almost two decades of studies into brand extension evaluations, conceptual frameworks remain, at best, divergent. The central issue still is unanswered: According to consumers' liking of the parent product, how much will they like the extension product? Various studies approach this problem from two perspectives: the relationship between P0 and Pe and the relationship between B0 and Pe.The results presented herein reflect an effort to integrate the two dimensions. Evidence indicates that both factors are important in the affect transfer process from B0P0 to B0Pe, and the greatest amount of affect transfers when both conditions (expectancy and relevancy) are met.This framework provides a theoretical basis for explaining the different roles of each factor. Expectancy aligns Pe with B0Pe to make the affect transfer possible, and the confirmation of those expectations generates additional affect (Olson et al., 1996). Relevancy indicates the strength of the affect transfer and influences the amount of affect transferred to P0Be. Collectively, the two factors play different roles; this research offers the first empirical evidence to support that claim.The experimental findings confirm affect transfer at the product and attribute levels. At the product level, most affect transfers when the extension is highly expected and the brand fits that extension well. Expectancies are based on various factors, including product knowledge and experience. Moreover, a competitor's product launch may create expectations about the firm's current products. For example, the phenomenal success of Apple's extension into the cell phone category may create consumer expectancy for other PC manufacturers to unveil their own multifunctional phone. Extensions that meet such expectancy are likely to be favored by consumers. Further research should attempt to identify factors related to consumers' expectancy.The results of Study 1 also show that different product categories respond differently to expectancy and relevancy. Specifically, the expectancy factor is significant for the sporting goods category, whereas relevancy appears more obvious for the food category. A possible reason for this distinction could be consumers' varying levels of involvement. Compared with sporting goods, food categories require less involvement for the purchase decision. In the elaboration likelihood model (Petty and Cacioppo, 1986), consumers process information in a peripheral route and use heuristics to determine their brand associations. Therefore, the relevancy effect may be more obvious than is expectancy. In a similar vein, Nike extensions should be more sophisticated and require central processing, such that consumers' product category expectancies play a more dominant role. However, this study does not test any variables related to consumers' information processing; additional work should determine whether expectancy and relevancy roles vary across product categories that require different levels of consumer involvement.\nManagerial implications: Findings of the study provide several managerial implications to practitioners engaged in brand management and new product launch. First, results suggest that a high level of expectancy increases the amount of affect to be transferred to a new product. An important way to increase the level of expectancy is through the new product pre-announcement. Preannouncement is a strategy usually adopted by industry leader to launch a new brand extension product. In iPhone's case, Apple announces the product months in prior to the official launch, and the increased level of anticipation contributes to the strong sales performance. The topic of preannouncement was widely studied at the market level (Sorescu et al., 2007). At consumer's level, this study first time provides empirical support to such important marketing activities.Second, the study at the product attribute level carries important implications for marketing communication. The study shows that, at the attribute level, a larger amount of affect transfers through high-relevancy attributes than through low-relevancy attributes. An established brand has a rich body of associations, and a firm confronts with different options to present the new brand extension. This study suggests that a brand should highlight the most relevant attribute for the category. For example, if Colgate is associated with expertise in dental care and a fresh feeling. Rather than advertising both attributes across different categories, Colgate should highlight its fresh feeling for the mouthwash category but prioritize dental care expertise in the toothbrush category. Because consumers associate the same brand with different attributes across categories, focusing on the most relevant attribute would help improve the efficiency of marketing communication.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The goal of the paper is to examine the affect transfer process of the brand extension by developing a conceptual framework that integrates two factors important to this process: the expectancy and relevancy of brand extensions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Two experimental studies with a sample of 250 respondents provide empirical support that both expectancy and relevancy positively influence the affect transfer process.\nFindings: - The study first tests both factors at the product level as well as at the product attribute level. The two factors enhance the affect transfer process in different manners. Expectancy facilitates the transfer from the parent product category to the extension, whereas relevancy enhances the transfer from the brand associations to the extension product. The greatest affect transfer occurs when both factors are present.\nOriginality/value: - The study proposes a theoretical framework that for the first time integrates the two main streams of literature in brand extensions. The proposed framework explains the affect transfer process in brand extensions, and helps understand consumers' attitude towards brand extension products.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Survey of isolation room equipment and resources in an academic hospital	[ "Compliance", "Isolation", "Isolation precautions" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) currently affect 7.1 per cent of hospitalised patients in Europe, posing a major risk to public safety (Zarb et al., 2012). HAIs have been shown to significantly impact patient outcomes, increase overall length of stay and cost of care (ECDC, 2015; Chen et al., 2005). Although prevention practices have long been established, HAIs and multi-drug resistant infections in particular are increasing at a rapid rate. Multi-drug resistant organisms (MDROs) currently account for approximately 20 per cent of all HAIs, with rates quadrupling over the past ten years (Sievert et al., 2013; ECDC, 2015). MDRO infections have been found to be attributable to 25,000 deaths and cost approximately EUR1.5bn annually (ECDC, 2015). Hospital-acquired MDROs present greater public health challenges as they are associated with increased morbidity and mortality, have limited treatment options and increased cost of care (Rosenberger et al., 2011; Morales et al., 2012). In 2015, the World Health Organisation was prompted to recognise MDROs as a serious threat and initiated an action plan initiative \"Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance\" (WHO, 2014).\nMethods: Hospital setting\nResults: A total of 14.4 per cent (125/869) of all inpatients were isolated. In addition, 96.9 per cent of patients requiring isolation were found to be isolated (Figure 1). Visible signage was observed outside 93.0 per cent of rooms and 90.8 per cent of rooms had correct signage (Figure 1).\nDiscussion: Despite an understanding of the public health implications of HAIs and the adoption of isolation precautions, compliance with infection control protocols has not necessarily improved (Larson et al., 2007; DiGiorgio et al., 2008). The current rate of HAIs and the widespread increase of resistant organisms implies that the performance and implementation of isolation precautions is often inadequate.\nConclusion: In summary, important aspects of isolation precaution practices were evaluated in a tertiary hospital. The primary cause for isolation was contact precautions due to VRE and MRSA, overall consistent with the reported literature. The majority of patients were isolated appropriately, yet the largest deficit was the availability of resources for disinfection and single-use equipment. Evaluation of isolation precautions is essential in determining compliance with hospital guidelines. The audit tool presented is a valuable approach to identifying areas of improvement of isolation precautions. Audits have the capacity to improve the alarming increase in HAIs, consequently ameliorating patient safety and quality of care. The study demonstrates that monitoring can be beneficial to identify key areas of noncompliance, which will help improve existing policies and reinforce the need for continuing education of healthcare workers.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper, a point prevalence study, is to quantify the incidence of isolation and identify the type of communicable diseases in isolation. The paper evaluates isolation precaution communication, availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) as well as other equipment necessary for maintaining isolation precautions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A standardised audit tool was developed in accordance with the National Standards for the Prevention and Control of Healthcare Associated Infections (May 2009). Data were collected from 14 March 2017 to 16 March 2017, through observation of occupied isolation rooms in an academic hospital in Dublin, Ireland. The data were subsequently used for additional analysis and discussion.\nFindings: In total, 14 per cent (125/869) of the total inpatient population was isolated at the time of the study. The most common isolation precaution was contact precautions (96.0 per cent). In all, 88 per cent of known contact precautions were due to multi-drug resistant organisms. Furthermore, 96 per cent of patients requiring isolation were isolated, 92.0 per cent of rooms had signage, 90.8 per cent had appropriate signs and 93.0 per cent of rooms had PPE available. Finally, 31 per cent of rooms had patient-dedicated and single-use equipment and 2.4 per cent had alcohol wipes available.\nPractical implications: The audit tool can be used to identify key areas of noncompliance associated with isolation and inform continuous improvement and education.\nOriginality/value: Currently, the rate of isolation is unknown in Ireland and standard guidelines are not established for the evaluation of isolation rooms. This audit tool can be used as an assessment for isolation room compliance.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Interview with Professor M.S. Rao, author of Secrets of Your Leadership Success - The 11 Indispensable E's of a Leader	[ "Learning and development", "Soft skills", "Leadership development", "Soft leadership", "Organizational development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Professor M. S. Rao is a leadership development practitioner with over 30 years' experience. He has written 16 books, including: Secrets of Your Leadership Success - The 11 Indispensable E's of a Leader, and Smart Leadership: Lessons for Leaders.\nFirst of all, would you mind telling our readers about your background, and your current position in the field?: I have more than three decades' experience in leadership development as a trainer, educator, author, speaker, mentor, researcher, consultant, and leadership practitioner, conducting training programs for various companies and educational institutions. I earned my PhD in Soft Skills, and have worked as a Professor in educational institutions, and as a Principal of a Business School. I also founded my own firm, MSR Leadership Consultants, India.I have written 16 books, published more than 250 papers in international publications, and maintain two popular blogs. I sit on the Editorial Advisory Board for two of Emerald Journals, act as a reviewer for various prestigious publications, and I am an advisor to the Global Leadership Awards Committee, Malaysia. In both 2011 and 2012 I was honored to be a judge for the Global Leadership Awards.I have a passion for teaching, writing and consultancy in the area of leadership. I have undertaken teaching and training as professions in order to groom leaders globally and to make a difference in the lives of others. I have dedicated the rest of my life to share my knowledge and experience with others, and to serve mankind.\nWhat is soft leadership?: Soft leadership is a new dimension to leadership. I coined this concept by blending several skills and abilities, as there is a growing need for leaders to demonstrate this style with the changing times, technologies and global environment. It contains 11 C's such as character, charisma, conscience, conviction, courage, communication, compassion, commitment, consistency, consideration, and contribution. This is represented in Figure 1.Soft leadership touches on caring, connecting, and communicating with people to accomplish desired goals. Soft leaders are basically people-oriented rather than task-oriented. They empathize with others and look at issues from a human perspective. They have compassion towards others.\nDo you feel organizations are investing sufficiently in soft skills training?: Globally, there are very few organizations that invest in soft skills training programs. Some of them think that employees already possess soft skills, hence there is no need for it. Most companies think that soft skills training is a waste of their precious time, money and energy; they think of it as an expense rather than an investment. During my teaching and training programs, I have encountered numerous misconceptions about soft skills. They are often mistaken for communication skills, interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence, and so on. To debunk these myths I wrote an article entitled \"Myths and truths about soft skills,\" which was featured on the ASTD website. To an extent, there may be some justification to the myths around soft skills as it is an evolving discipline, and it takes little more time for people to understand.\nAnother area in which you specialize is leadership development, a topic your new book, Secrets of Your Leadership Success: The 11 Indispensable E's of a Leader, covers. What was the inspiration behind this project?: Leadership is my passion. If you hit Google you get so many definitions for the terms \"leadership\" and \"leaders,\" and yet there are no standard books on leadership, especially for beginners. Hence, I thought there is need for a book on leadership for students and leaders of all domains. As Philip Kotler coined the 4 P's in marketing, I decided to create 11 E's for leadership. I posted an article on my blog five years ago which got an overwhelming response. A friend of mine, Alan J. Zell, appreciated it and shared it with others in his training programs, and I incorporated the 11 E's into my leadership training programs with great success. It was then I began to explore, research, and write the book. I requested that Norm Smallwood, Co-founder of The RBL Group, create leadership code for this, thus adding value to my book. The book got endorsements from top global leadership gurus Brian Tracy, Marshall Goldsmith, Vijay Govindarajan and Richard Chang, among others.\nWhat can learning and development departments do to encourage leadership amongst the employees within an organization?: Currently employees are more interested in their career advancement. It is a positive sign and makes it easier for L&D department. The only thing they need to do is find out the right tools and techniques to develop leaders. They must spot the potential candidates at an early stage, train and groom them, and create a leadership pipeline to ensure a continuous supply of leaders for organizational excellence and effectiveness. They must follow the following five-step process:1. Recruit leadership researchers and trainers who are passionate about learning and development and who can make a difference.2. Ask them to do intensive research about the current and future needs of the company and design course content accordingly.3. Involve senior leaders within the company to undertake training programs so that they can share their experiences with their employees and connect with them at the ground level. For instance, Jack Welch conducted teaching assignments in General Electric.4. Take feedback after each leadership development program (LDP) about its relevance to ensure effective takeaways. For instance, post-course improvement measurement is imperative to plug the existing gaps, both in the course content and delivery, to deliver better in the next training session.5. Follow up thoroughly to make the training process and procedures better. If there are any deficiencies, address them immediately and move on. The process has to be repeated after each LDP. Remember that leaders are developed daily, not in a day. Leadership development is a long drawn process keeping both short-term and long-term goals in view.\nHow do you see the learning & development field developing in the future?: Globally, several companies have taken great initiative to groom their leaders, such as: General Electric, Procter & Gamble, American Express, Colgate, PepsiCo, Sherwin-Williams, Textron Southwest Airlines, 3M, and Zappos.Presently employees prefer career advancement to a compensation package. Research suggests that Baby Boomers are retiring from senior positions and there is a need to develop leaders from Generation X and Generation Y to keep the leadership pipeline ready to face global challenges. In addition, it is a positive sign that most of Generation Y are ambitious, and are ready to undertake leadership roles and responsibilities. They are more interested in quick career advancement rather than money. They know that money follows once they are equipped with the right mindset, toolset and skill set. They want to work in companies that emphasize L&D, and companies are aware of it. Hence, there is bright future ahead for L&D.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this article is to provide an interview with Professor M.S. Rao.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The interview is conducted by an independent interviewer.\nFindings: - Professor M.S. Rao is a leadership development practitioner with over 30 years' experience. He has written 16 books, including Secrets of Your Leadership Success - The 11 Indispensable E's of a Leader, and Smart Leadership: Lessons for Leaders. In his book Soft Leadership: Make Others Feel More Important, Professor Rao advances his model for soft leadership, blending characteristics of soft skills training with traditional leadership theory. This approach is endorsed by management guru David Ulrich, who provided the foreword for the book. Professor Rao also maintains two popular blogs, http://profmsr.blogspot.com.pitt.idm.oclc.org (Where Knowledge is Wealth) and http://professormsraoguru.blogspot.com.pitt.idm.oclc.org (Knowledge Grows When Shared).\nOriginality/value: - The paper provides useful information from a leading figure regarding soft leadership.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Arabic business relationship characteristics: a social capital perspective	[ "Social capital", "Saudi Arabia", "Wasta", "Business relationships", "Ehsan", "Et-moone" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Understanding is what makes relationships [...] Imam Ali\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 Social capital theory\n3. Methodology: A qualitative method was adopted for this study, as it is suitable for an in-depth exploration of the ehsan, et-moone and wasta concepts. Qualitative methods provide rich detail that assist in the exploration of a phenomenon in an early stage of research (Yin, 2014; Doz, 2011). The use of in-depth semi-structured interviews has previously allowed researchers to gain insights into the role of wasta and et-moone (Abosag and Lee, 2013; Karolak, 2016).\n4. Findings and discussion: In general, ehsan, et-moone and wasta seem to be more complex than how they are described in the literature, and might influence each other. This section presents and discusses the findings. First, it starts by building on the limited literature on Arabic business relationship characteristics by providing an expanded description of these characteristics, and then examines how well they align with the aforementioned social capital dimensions. Second, it discusses inter-relationships among the characteristics, and the influence of other factors (e.g. position and age) on the three business relationship characteristics. As the research interviews were conducted in Arabic and English, literal quotations are presented to better capture the context.\n5. Conclusion: 5.1 Theoretical contribution\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to understand the development of social capital in an Arab business environment, and provide an in-depth description of the nature and role of three key Arabic business relationship characteristics (ehsan, et-moone and wasta), their impact on each other and key influencing factors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A qualitative research design was used, in which face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted with innovation teams (22 team members) at six industrial small and medium-sized enterprises in Saudi Arabia. The interviews were recorded and transcribed, then analyzed (thematic coding) through NVivo.\nFindings: The findings suggest that wasta, ehsan and et-moone align closely with the three social capital dimensions (structural, cognitive and relational); thus, developing these three relationship characteristics most likely results in developing social capital. The findings also expand the description of the three business relationship characteristics. Moreover, ehsan, et-moone and wasta appear to influence each other, and are affected by other factors such as an individual's age and position, and the duration of the relationship. Ehsan has a positive influence on the development of et-moone, while the existence of et-moone appears to be necessary for the establishment of wasta-capital. A high level of ehsan might influence the relationship between et-moone and wasta-use and limit the negative usage of wasta.\nPractical implications: International managers can improve the level of ehsan in their organizational and business relationships through assigning incentives and playing the role of moral champion to encourage ehsan behavior. Managers aiming to increase et-moone may choose team members with a high level of ehsan, emphasizing the development of personal relationships, and providing opportunities for socialization both inside and outside the workplace. A high level of ehsan and et-moone will assist managers to develop and use wasta.\nOriginality/value: This study makes a threefold contribution to the literature. First, it provides an expanded description of the three Arabic business relationship characteristics and how they align closely with the dimensions of social capital. Wasta aligns with the structural dimension and ehsan aligns with the cognitive dimension, while et-moone aligns closely with the relational dimension. Second, it suggests and shows how the three relationship characteristics might interact with each other. Ehsan appears to influence et-moone, and also the relationship between et-moone and wasta. Et-moone appears to have a positive influence on wasta use. Third, the findings also indicate that there might be other factors (e.g. age and position) that influence the interactions between the three business relationship characteristics.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Roadmap layers and processes: resilient and sustainable care facilities	[ "Healthcare", "Sustainability", "Resilience", "Process", "Social care", "Roadmap" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Health and social care facilities[1] include some of the most complex building types and many of them need to be operational 24 h a day, seven days a week and 52 weeks a year, as do other types of infrastructure (e.g. transport, oil and gas and justice). Daily access and operability are subject to surges, which can become critical at peak times and/or in when responding to natural and man-made disasters. Changes in demographics, technologies, diseases and models of care represent further sources of performance risk to built health and social care assets, in particular their resilience and sustainability. Current geopolitical, societal and technological challenges being faced by health and social care facilities worldwide were identified by the World Economic Forum (2015). Strategies for health and social care service provision and infrastructure asset management are not always developed together. Also, the life cycles of technology and care models tend to be considerably shorter than those of built assets, thus resulting in poor economic, geopolitical societal and technological fit.\nHealth and social care facilities in the UK: the challenge: The NHS provides healthcare for patients from 236 Trusts (NHS Digital, 2017), of which 154 are Acute Trusts with circa 16,000 buildings spread across England. Social care is provided from around 21,407 care homes in England, that may own multiple buildings across different settings as well. The built environment where care is provided represents one of the most interesting challenges of the twenty-first century for the Department of Health (DH) England: many old built assets are functionally unsuitable and require robust asset management strategies (Mills et al., 2015). A strategic agenda to develop resilient and sustainable UK critical infrastructure (including public health services) was advocated almost a decade ago (Bosher et al., 2007). The actions envisaged were to protect care infrastructure from extreme natural and human-induced hazards, thus leaving unchallenged a vast array of other threats which are matter of current debate.\nResearch methodology: This study adopted a qualitative approach that \"locates the observer in the world\" and \"studies things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of or interpret phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them\" (Denzin and Lincoln, 2011). The research investigated the processes that are relevant to resilience and sustainability: the nature and the complexity of the processes respond to \"how\" and \"why\" (Gabriel and David, 2005); and different research streams (i.e. case studies) enable to explore areas where research is scarce. Building theory from fieldwork leads to a deep understanding of the complex interaction of people, processes and technology within organisations (Cepeda Carrion et al., 2004). Qualitative research can lead to data overload, which are not always captured by linear path roadmaps (Eisenhardt, 1989), hence raising the need for a cyclical path framework (i.e. planning, data collection, data analysis and critical analysis) (Gabriel and David, 2005).\nRoadmap working definition from literature review: Almost 20 years ago, Garcia and Bray (1997) described a roadmap as \"a document that identifies the critical system requirements, the product and process performance targets and the technology alternatives and milestones for meeting those targets\". Further definitions followed, adding dimensions and specifications until more recent days. Strauss et al. (1998) added the strategic dimension, which appears to be fundamental in the current knowledge. Roadmaps are generally defined as strategic and collaborative tools to enable future co-operation among stakeholders in pursuing shared objectives (Albright, 2002; Rinne, 2004; Wells et al., 2004; Lee and Park, 2005; Kamtsiou et al., 2006). Table I summarises the key definitions that have emerged from the literature search.\nData and findings from literature review: The publications search criteria identified: 74 results in Science Direct; 76 in PubMed; and 83 in Scopus (refined engineering and environmental sciences). The abstracts were used to identify the articles that were relevant to this study, thus reducing the number to 102. The full text review confirmed that 48 articles met the search criteria and scope of this work, with an additional 16 retrieved from their individual citations. This resulted in 64 articles being included in this review. Data were extracted and coded per sector (i.e. 11 in the technology sector, and 6 in the construction sector).\nUse of roadmaps in the UK: In the UK, different sectors (e.g. energy, construction, government and healthcare), both private and public, are increasingly promoting the use of roadmaps, especially at strategic level. For instance, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (2013) has had in place a Renewable Energy Roadmap since 2011, to frame the targets and set the actions to deliver renewable energy deployment. The document, which is structured in technology/sectors, has allowed the Government to describe over 200 activities, including achievements, standing activities, barriers to deployments and timing.\nDH policy framework for operational productivity and performance: In the publication \"Five year forward view - Time to deliver\", the NHS (2015) established the scope for meeting the needs of future patients in a sustainable way through closing the gaps in: health and well-being; care and quality; and funding and efficiency. Far from how the concept of sustainability has been argued and targeted over the past 20 years (Robinson and Cole, 2015), this approach appears to be aligned to the original 1987 definition and includes social and economic dimensions together with the ecological (WCED, 1987).\nData and findings from research streams: Resilience and sustainability are addressed from a broader perspective within their \"natural environment\", as such multiple driving factors are captured from recent research streams that responded to the following criteria: conducted on UK health and social care facilities; and included multiple case studies. The data gathered out of each research stream led to the identification of research-specific drivers; and content analysis captured key issues within each research stream. The identified issues were further explored and then compared across the three research streams, leading to the identification of three layers: organisation, infrastructure and process. The identified issues are summarised below.\nDiscussion: Health and social care priorities\nConclusions: The current economic, geopolitical, societal and technological changes create new challenges for the complex health and social care facilities. As challenges arise, actions will be required prior to any change to improve resilience and sustainability of care facilities. Resilience and sustainability address different issues but are complementary. Many of the challenge are not being addressed in an integrated way. Some research works focus on single issues (e.g. energy or adaptability to models of care). The NHS ten years plan (i.e. 2019-2029) is emerging and the engagement phase is currently taking place; though it tends to focus on service provision rather than on the estate, leaving space for action. No tool which takes a long-term perspective currently exists. In many infrastructure sectors, roadmaps have proven to be useful tools to monitor performance, set targets, define technology and achieve the targets. However, there are no operational examples of how to develop a roadmap for improving the resilience and sustainability of care facilities. This paper provides an example of how to structure layers and processes to develop a roadmap specifically targeted at achieving resilient and sustainable care facilities, within the UK's long-term agenda. The proposed layered structure offers the opportunity to share the knowledge across organisations, hence the national health and social care system still leaving the opportunity to tailor the roadmap to respond to the specific needs of individual organisations.\nLimitations and way forward: This research has studied the UK context to provide a specific example from which to derive potential layers and processes for a roadmap for health and social care facilities. This needs to be acknowledged as a limitation. This work does not aim to be exhaustive; on the contrary it aims at initiating a (Bloomfield and Best) practice in response to a discussion that has already started. More work is needed, particularly towards defining what are the criteria to which a resilient and sustainable (health and social) care infrastructure should respond. Resilience and sustainability of the health and social care facilities may reside in complex sets of factors, which need to be precisely identified, and which can further originate sub-layers, with different level of customised details to improve resilience and sustainability across the estate's built assets.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Health and social care facilities are usually complex buildings that require continuous effort to provide resilient and sustainable responses to changes in demographics, technologies, diseases and models of care. Despite resilience and sustainability concepts being frequently used by practitioners and researchers, ambiguities in their definitions often result in a lack of operational solutions to record, monitor and improve the resilience and sustainability of health and social care facilities. Although the importance and complexity of the issues are widely acknowledged, there is little strategic guidance as to how they should be achieved. The purpose of this paper is to assess the suitability of developing a roadmap for improving the resilience and sustainability of UK health and social care facilities, and to identify the layers and processes needed to construct such a roadmap.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A qualitative approach was adopted, starting with a literature review of different types of roadmaps and their suitability to support the desired improvement objectives. Layers and processes were thus developed using the key issues identified in three recent research streams, and the roadmap was structured.\nFindings: The major findings have been captured within a three-layer, four-step process generic roadmap for improving the resilience and sustainability of health and social care facilities that can be used to monitor performance, plans future actions and implement response to change.\nPractical implications: This paper targets decision makers, especially estate managers, but the proposed layers and processes can be modified for other stakeholders.\nOriginality/value: This paper suggests an original approach for the development of a roadmap for resilience and sustainability of health and social care facilities, and specifically of how to structure layers and processes, envisioning a more integrated development of service provision and infrastructure asset management.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Impacts of the monetary policy on the exchange rate: case study of Vietnam	[ "Exchange rate", "Vietnam", "Monetary policy", "VAR", "Time series", "C32", "E52", "F31" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: It is likely that the exchange rate (RX) is a sensitive element, which significantly affects various social and economic aspects. Therefore, it plays an important role in the economies generally, and particularly for developing and integrating countries such as Vietnam. Integration stance bolsters the role of the RX as a \"bridge\" of internal and external economic activities. As the RX is a crucial factor, it is necessary to investigate shocks including monetary shocks on the RX. This could evaluate the fluctuation of the RX and then, predict its impact back to macroeconomics. Besides that, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) have changed the way to manage the RX since 2016. The RX mechanism now is more flexible, which goes up/down to reflect the market movement. Therefore, shocks including MP shocks could be more sensitive, evaluating impulse responses and variance decompositions of the RX to these shocks that is needed to stabilize the RX in particular and economy in general. The important role of the RX and the necessary evaluation of monetary shocks on the RX are the reasons why this research was carried out, in order to contribute to the existing literatures.\n2. Literature review: Dornbusch (1976) represents the RX overshooting hypothesis, which is well-known and is the central theory in existing international macroeconomics. According to it, the tightening MP causes the RX to decrease instantaneously (i.e. appreciation), followed by its gradual increase (i.e. depreciation). Empirical studies show controversial results, some support the overshooting hypothesis, whereas others do not. Studies by Sims (1992), Eichenbaum and Evans (1995), Peersman and Smets (2003), Favero and Marcellino (2004), Mojon and Peersman (2003) and Linde (2003) are in favor of the overshooting hypothesis. However, other empirical studies reveal abnormal results such as the increase in the RX or the decrease in the RX in a prolonged period due to the tightening MP. Study by Grilli and Roubini (1995) showed the increase in the RX in case of the tightening MP. This phenomenon is known as \"RX puzzles.\" Additionally, the study by Cushman and Zha (1997) shows the decrease in the RX in a prolonged period in the case of the tightening MP. This phenomenon is known as \"delayed overshooting or forward discount puzzle.\"\n3. Methodology and data: 3.1 Methodology\n4. Empirical estimations: 4.1 Monetary policy shocks: money aggregate\n5. Robustness of results: Regarding the Model 1 that considers the monetary aggregate M2 as proxy for the MP, the paper now changes variables in this model. Instead of using the broad money M2 and the REER, the paper uses the narrow money M1 and the nominal effective RX to check robustness. One lag for (zero) recursive contemporaneous restrictions is used to evaluate the impulse response of the nominal effective RX to narrow money M1 shocks in the robustness model. According to results of impulse response of the nominal effective RX to narrow money M1 shocks, the paper shows the \"delayed overshooting\" RX. It means that following narrow money M1 shocks, the nominal effective RX decreases (i.e. depreciation); however, it takes some months in order to reach the peak, followed by the increase in the nominal effective RX (i.e. appreciation).\n6. Policy implications: Regarding to the MP, Vietnam's MP is multi-target framework based on quantitative control (M2). This is a reason why broad money shocks significantly affect the RX as showed in paper's results. However, volume control policy is consistent with the early stages of Vietnam economy transformation. This now appears limitations in the new context where Vietnam deeply and widely integrates into the world. Therefore, Law on the SBV represents significant change in the MP, thus gradually transforming the MP from quantitative control (M2) to qualitative control (interest rate). Nevertheless, what interest rate could be chosen as a new anchor for MP is key matter. From paper's results, it is likely that the OMO interest rate would be more efficient than the base interest rate. The OMO interest rate has a significant impact on the RX; it then influences whole economy through the RX transmission mechanism. Consequently, this interest rate would monitor and orient macroeconomics.\n7. Conclusion: The study evaluates empirically impacts of MP shocks on the RX in Vietnam over the period 2008-2018. The research focuses on three matters: whether or not effects of MP shocks on the RX in Vietnam are consistent with Dornbusch theory; how significant the impulse response of the RX to MP shocks is; and how do MP shocks contribute to fluctuations in the RX. To investigate these issues, the paper uses Vector Autoregression to build up two specific models. The (zero) recursive contemporaneous restrictions are applied in the first model to quantify effects of the broad money M2 on the REER. The (zero) recursive contemporaneous restrictions and sign restrictions are applied in the second model to quantify effects of the OMO interest rate on the REER.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and analyze impacts of the monetary policy (MP) - money aggregate and interest rate - on the exchange rate in Vietnam.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study uses data over the period of 2008-2018 and applies the vector autoregression model, namely recursive restriction and sign restriction approaches.\nFindings: The main empirical findings are as follows: a contraction of the money aggregate significantly leads to the real effective exchange rate (REER) depreciating and then appreciating; a tightening of the interest rate immediately causes the REER appreciating and then depreciating; and both the money aggregate and the interest rate strongly determine fluctuations of the REER.\nOriginality/value: The quantitative results imply that the MP affects the REER considerably.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Developing research priorities with a cohort of higher education for sustainability experts	[ "Delphi method", "Higher education", "Sustainable development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Higher education for sustainability (HES) is a relatively new and emergent area of inquiry. HES research is any inquiry:... directed at advancing our ability to incorporate sustainability concepts and insights into higher education and its major areas of activity: policy, planning, and administration; curriculum/teaching; research and scholarship; service to communities; student life; and physical operations/infrastructure. It also refers to research that treats higher education institutions as complex systems and focuses on the integration of sustainability across all of its activities, responsibilities, and mission (Glasser, et al., 2005).HES is not without strong foundations, but draws on various disciplines including environmental education, policy analysis, higher education, management theory, sociology ecology, psychology and philosophy. HES research differs from these traditional fields in two major ways. First, HES research focuses on transcending disciplinary boundaries and integrating research from many sources and disciplines. This scholarship of integration (Boyer, 1990), interprets, adds context to, and explains research results from a new interdisciplinary perspective. Second, HES research is applied and action-oriented. According to Boyer (1990), the scholarship of application links researcher's expertise in academic areas to specific problems. In this way, HES research is service related, combining theory and practice, and includes both applied research and outreach.Published HES literature to date has focused on sustainability education (Taylor, 1999; Herremans and Allwright, 2000), curriculum development (Bowers, 1997; Filho, 2000; Orr, 1995), physical operations (Creighton, 1998; Keniry, 1995), HES policy analysis (Walton, 2000; Wright, 2002, 2003, 2004), assessment methodologies for HES initiatives (Roorda, 2001; ULSF, 1990), and the development of theory (Eagan and Orr, 1992; Filho, 1999; Cortese, 1992; Filho and Wright, 2002; Shriberg, 2002). HES researchers have been successful in developing a new research paradigm based on a model of integration and application. Further, evidence of the success of HES emerging as a new field of study is, the formation of the Higher Education Network for Sustainability and the Environment in 1999, the creation of the International Journal for Sustainability in Higher Education in 2000, and the development of the Global HES Partnership in 2001 (which includes the International Association of Universities, Copernicus-Campus Secretariat, University Leaders for a Sustainable Future, and the UNESCO (1997)).Despite the initial success of HES research to date, the international HES community has indicated a lack of cohesion amongst researchers due to the interdisciplinary nature of the emerging field and few opportunities for international intellectual exchange. Clugston (1999) states that a critical step in making HES research effective is to develop new modes of collaboration as well as a comprehensive research strategy for the future. Further, both the Luneburg declaration on Higher Education for Sustainable Development adopted in 2001, and the Ubuntu declaration issued at the World Summit on sustainable development in 2002 stated that a more unified approach to HES research is necessary in order to advance the field and mainstream the concept. Recent consultations held with HES researchers in the US (University Leaders for a Sustainable Future Consultation in March 2002), and Europe (CRE-Copernicus Consultation in September 2001) have focused on assessing the development of HES research internationally. The general conclusions drawn from these meetings was that due to the emerging nature of the HES field, researchers must continue to develop an understanding of the critical questions necessary to advance HES research.In order to address these concerns, 35 HES experts gathered in Halifax, Canada in October 2005 to participate in a research consultation. The main goal of the Halifax Consultation was to develop a list of research priorities that would benefit HES stakeholders. The subsequent parts of this paper present the results of the Delphi exercise that was used during the Consultation to develop the research priority list. Further, the paper reflects on the process and the product of the Delphi exercise.\nThe Delphi technique and procedures: The primary focus of the Halifax Consultation was a Delphi technique exercise that aimed to develop a list of HES research priorities. The Delphi technique is a method used to elicit the opinions of a group of experts in order to achieve a consensus position to a specific problem through a series of questionnaires interspersed with controlled feedback. In the past, the Delphi technique has been used to inform important decisions about education and educational policy (Clayton, 1997), develop goals and objectives for the future (Judd, 1970), establish research goals, objectives and priorities (Moore, 1987) and distinguish and clarify goals for the future (Linstone and Turoff, 1975). In traditional Delphi studies, participants remain anonymous to each other. The Real-time Delphi used at the Halifax Consultation is an iteration of the conventional Delphi Technique. In a Real-time Delphi study, experts are known to each other, and engage in round table discussions after the analysis of each round of questionnaires is revealed to the group.Participant selection\nThe Delphi results: It is important to offer some caveats to the results of this exercise. To begin, the Delphi process at the Halifax Consultation was an exploratory exercise. While the results come from a group of HES experts with interests in a variety of HES sub-disciplines, the list of participants could never be inclusive due to time and funding, and is therefore not a representation of all HES experts. Second, the traditional format of the Real-time Delphi was modified during the course of the Halifax Consultation in order to address group concerns. While the results are still trustworthy, traditional notions of validity could be challenged due to the change in procedure. Finally, it is important to note that there was some disagreement among the participants whether the publication of this list of research priorities was appropriate. While having a clear direction of the priorities for HES research was deemed important for the academic community, many were wary of the ramifications the list could have for funding decisions, academic legitimacy, and tenure in the future. The results presented in this paper should, therefore, not be seen as a definitive list, but as a first exploration.Table I shows the 19 research themes developed by the Mediator Committee and the final results of round 3 in which each participant chose the ten themes she/he thought were most important to further HES research.Impacts of teaching and learning methods\nReflections on the Delphi process: While reliability and validity are not applicable to the Delphi technique (Fish and Busby, 1996), catalytic validity is an appropriate concept for this study. Catalytic validity demonstrates the degree to which those being studied come to understand their own reality in order to prepare them to transform it (Kincheloe, 1998). Further, Lather (1986) states that catalytic validity is achieved when respondents gain self-understanding and ideally self-determination through their participation in a research study. In reflecting on the Delphi exercise, the majority of participants who provided feedback said that it was a meaningful exercise in order to gain some consensus amongst the HES academic community. Most participants agreed that while the Delphi was at times confusing and frustrating, it was a useful tool in helping to explore HES research possibilities. Further, most participants found the process to be a good catalyst to engage in reflection and discussion with colleagues whom they would not normally be able to connect with due to geographic barriers.However, the Delphi exercise was by no means a perfect process. The reductionistic nature of the Delphi technique (i.e. eliminating and ranking) in many ways hindered creativity. As one participant suggested, the Delphi confirmed existing frames of reference rather than opening up new ones. Participants indicated that there was not enough time to reflect on the large number of research ideas generated in round 1 which had an effect on the subsequent rounds. Further, the three day workshop did not allow for in-depth discussions regarding the established list HES research and priorities developed. In retrospect, a series of three meetings (one dedicated to each Delphi round) would have allowed for more meaningful discussions regarding the process and the results.\nConclusion: The results from each round of the Delphi (which can be viewed in a detailed online report at http://halifaxconsultation.environmentalscience.dal.ca/) give an interesting perspective on a group of HES experts conceptualizations of what constitutes important research in the field and can be used to develop research programs and projects in the future. The first round indicates the individual participants priorities for HES research, while the results of the subsequent rounds illustrate the group coming to consensus on research priorities for the HES field. While the priority list from the final round of the Delphi exercise may not be definitive for the field, the results can be used as a starting point for discussions regarding the prioritization of research and in creating action plans for the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD).It is hoped that the results of the Delphi exercise conducted at the meeting will contribute to the tremendous work efforts to come and will prove to be an important component in the process of furthering the field of HES in the future. The Halifax Consultation was the first international meeting to focus on HES research. The results of this Delphi exercise have been used in subsequent meetings as a starting point for further discussions amongst the HES community. The topic was one of four focal points in Gothenburg Sweden, December 7-9, 2005 at a consultation titled \"Drivers and barriers for learning for sustainable development in higher education.\" A joint UNESCO-UNU Workshop titled \"Setting the stage for a strategic research agenda for the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD)\" in February 2006 focused on identifying steps for developing a strategic research agenda. It will be interesting to compare the findings of these meeting to this Delphi study.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine the results of a Delphi exercise used at the Halifax Consultation in which 35 experts representing 17 countries gathered to develop research priorities for the emerging field of higher education for sustainability (HES).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The Delphi technique was used to elicit the opinions of a group of experts in order to achieve a consensus position on a research priority list through a series of questionnaires interspersed with controlled feedback.\nFindings: - The final stages of the Delphi exercise revealed 19 research theme areas that were ranked by the group to develop a final priority list.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The results from each round of the Delphi give an interesting perspective on experts conceptualizations of what constitutes important research in the field. Further, the final results can be used to develop research programs and projects in the future.\nPractical implications: - Reflections on the use of the Delphi in developing research priorities can aid in the future use of this technique. Further, the results have been used as the foundation for further consultations with researchers and practitioners in this field in creating action plans for the United Nations decade of education for sustainable development.\nOriginality/value: - The Halifax Consultation represents the first international meeting to focus on HES research. It is hoped that the results of the Delphi exercise conducted at the meeting will contribute to the tremendous work efforts to come and will prove to be an important component in the process of furthering the field of HES in the future.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Open access and document supply	[ "Open repositories", "Document supply", "Service development", "Open access" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nPerfect strangers (introduction): Everything seems to oppose document supply and open access. Open access is direct communication between the author and the reader, with a minimum of mediation and tools and a short value chain, while document supply introduces added value mediation into the value chain of scientific communication. Finding material in open repositories, especially via Google, seems to be a cost-effective alternative to paid document supply; in other words, open access is free, while document supply is not. Open access implies profusion of information and equity of access and availability, while document supply is a response to information scarcity and inequality. Open access is a matter of digital natives, closely related to the success of the Web, Google and social media, whereas document supply reaches back to the Gutenberg era and Xerox. Regarding reuse, open access tends to maximize reuse rights (\"libre\" open access), while document supply conditions often make reuse difficult if not impossible. Document supply is client-centred service, while open access shifts the focus on the supply side and the producer. And last but not least, open access is trendy, while document supply attracts much less attention.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to provide an overview and update of what one actually knows about the impact of open access on inter-lending and document supply.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A review of recent papers, published after the Berlin Declaration on Open Access in 2003.\nFindings: Everything seems to oppose document supply and open access. Open access has contributed to the recent decline of interlibrary loan (ILL) and document supply requests but is not the only reason and probably not the most important. Open repositories and open-access journals have the potential to substitute ILL and document supply; yet for different reasons, including legal compliance, this substitution remains of limited interest. ILL and document supply institutions have started to integrate open access into their workflow and service provision in different ways, and the paper provides a conceptual framework with some perspectives for further service development.\nOriginality/value: Paradoxically, relatively few papers make the link between open access and document supply, with empirical and/or conceptual elements. This paper proposes a synthesis and opens perspectives for future development and research.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Organizational structure and innovation performance: Is employee innovative behavior a missing link?	[ "Integration", "Innovative behaviour", "Innovation performance", "Formalization", "Centralization" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Organizational innovation is an underlying factor that assists companies to survive in a rapidly changing world (Pundt et al., 2010) and it is perceived to be one of the means of achieving organizational success and competitiveness (Jafri, 2010) because it helps organizations outperform competitors, excite customers, and build new product portfolios (Cingoz and Akdogan, 2011). Thus, today's organizations require more creative and novel ideas from employees who can contribute to innovation performance. We believe that it is not just organizations that benefit from employees' innovative behavior but employees also benefit from their own innovativeness. Individuals engaging in creative activities have the chance to develop their competencies and task mastery (Amabile, 1996). What is more, individuals who display innovative behavior are more likely to receive rewards for their innovativeness and to be promoted (Kim et al., 2009). Moreover, the innovativeness of employees influences their social networking and social status (Greenberger and Strasser, 1986). Because there is a high demand for innovative individuals by organizations and every organization tries to retain innovative people, innovative individuals have a better chance to maintain their positions in the face of downsizing and find new jobs (Noe et al., 2011). Therefore, the significance of innovativeness at both the individual (Jansen et al., 2006; Nayir, 2014; Tang et al., 2013) and organizational levels has been widely acknowledged by previous studies (Woodman et al., 1993; Janssen et al., 2004; Van de Ven, 1986).\nLiterature review: Employee innovative behavior\nMethods: Data and sample\nResults: We used the confirmatory factor analysis to evaluate the measurement model using IBM SPSS Amos 21. The overall model fit was assessed by kh2, CFI, GFI, TLI, and RMSEA. According to Byrne (1991) a kh2/df ratio larger than 2 indicates that there is an inadequate fit, whereas a kh2/df ratio value of less than 2 represents a nominally plausible model. Moreover, a good model fit is demonstrated when the RMSEA value is below 0.06 (Hu and Bentler, 1999) and when the CFI and TLI values exceed 0.90 (Hair et al., 2011). All these model fit indices indicated that the measurement model had adequate fit (kh2=230.585; kh2/df=1.159; p<0.05; CFI=0.987; GFI=0.874; TLI=0.985; RMSEA=0.034) with the collected data.\nStructural equation modeling analysis: The structural equation modeling procedure was utilized to evaluate the validity of the suggested hypotheses. The structural model analysis demonstrated adequate fit, as judged by the goodness-of-fit indices (kh2=277.791; kh2/df=1.157; p<0.05; CFI=0.984; GFI=0.866; TLI=0.981; RMSEA=0.034).\nDiscussion: This study has examined the links between centralization, formalization, integration, and innovative behavior, the relationships between innovative behavior and organizational innovation performance, and the mediating role of innovative behavior on the associations between centralization, formalization, integration, and organizational innovation performance. The model was tested on a data set comprising 140 functional managers from 140 organizations. The empirical findings revealed the following.\nTheoretical implications: In dynamic marketplaces, innovativeness is necessary to create and sustain superior performance (Nijssen and Frambach, 2000) and to achieve organizational success (Jafri, 2010). Thus, a number of studies (Subramanian and Nilakanta, 1996; Damanpour, 1991; Woodman et al., 1993; Janssen et al., 2004; Van de Ven, 1986) have investigated the antecedents of organizational innovation in business organizations.\nPractical implications: The results of our study have demonstrated that organizations with centralized structures decrease the innovative behavior of their employees. Therefore, we recommend that organizations use self-managed teams that have the autonomy to make decisions (Rhee et al., 2014). When employees have autonomy in certain decision-making processes they are more likely to generate and implement new ideas (Holsapple and Joshi, 2001) because autonomy gives employees a chance to carry out proposals and motivates them to experiment in ways that lead to the generation of new knowledge and ideas (Pertusa-Ortega et al., 2010).\nLimitations and future research directions: Although our study extends the literature, it has several limitations and so we have made suggestions for future research. First, our study examined the mediating role of innovative behavior between three elements of organizational structures (i.e. centralization, formalization, and integration) and organizational innovation performance. Thus, we would suggest that future studies might investigate the impact of other elements of organizational structures, such as work specialization and departmentalization on employee innovative behavior, and whether this subsequently influences organizational innovation performance. Moreover, in our study, we focused on the general form of organizational innovation performance rather than various types of firms' innovativeness, such as market, product and process innovation. Hence, we would recommend that future research should examine the mediating role of employee innovative behavior on the links between centralization, integration, and various types of organizational innovation performance such as market, product, and process innovation. Third, we only collected data from manufacturing companies, and thus our findings might not be transferable to organizations operating in other environments and industries. Therefore, we would recommend that future studies investigate the applicability of this model in the service industry.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating role of innovative behavior on the relationships between organizational structure, such as centralization, formalization, integration, and organizational innovation performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors collected data from 140 functional managers of manufacturing organizations in the Republic of Korea. The authors used structural equation modeling procedure to evaluate the validity of proposed hypotheses.\nFindings: The results suggest that innovative behavior mediates the links among centralization, formalization, and organizational innovation performance. However, the findings indicate that innovative behavior does not mediate the relationship between integration and organizational innovation performance.\nOriginality/value: This work is the first to examine the mediating role of innovative behavior on the associations among centralization, integration, and organizational innovation performance.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The influence of time of day on decision fatigue in online food choice experiments	[ "Food choice", "Paradata", "Fatigue effects", "Stated choice experiments", "Online surveying", "Error variance", "Time of day" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Stated choice experiments (SCE) are nowadays widely used in many areas, among them are food choice and marketing. In addition to eliciting consumer preferences often with the aim of generating policy or marketing advice, many scientific investigations have focused on testing and improving methodological aspects of SCE. One such aspect is that of decision fatigue. It is well known from social and consumer psychology that making choices requires a cognitive effort (Baumeister, 1998; Muraven and Baumeister, 2000; Gailliot et al., 2007; Masicampo and Baumeister, 2008). Since cognitive capacity is limited, making choices may thus lead to decision fatigue. In the SCE literature, decision fatigue has only been linked to the design dimensions of the SCE itself and particularly to the number of choice tasks presented to a respondent, i.e. decision fatigue developing over the course of the SCE survey. However, applying the relation between decision making and self-control put forth by Baumeister (1998), it may be hypothesized that decision fatigue in SCE surveys is caused by depletion of mental energy (Baumeister and Tierney, 2011), not only confined to the effects of answering a sequence of questions in the SCE survey itself, but also as a consequence of the time of day that respondents answer the SCE questionnaire.\n2. Previous literature: Baumeister and Tierney (2011) find that mental energy is depleted as the day progresses and the individual is continually faced with different situations requiring decision making. Hence, respondents participating in SCE surveys as well as other questionnaire surveys at various times of the day are likely to differ in the degree to which their mental energy is depleted when starting the questionnaire. Investigating ethical behavior and its relation to self-control, Kouchaki and Smith (2014) find that people are more likely to behave unethically in terms of lying and cheating later in the day than in the morning. This so-called \"morning morality effect\" could potentially cause differences in obtained responses (or underlying behavioral decision strategies) in SCE interviews conducted at different times of the day.\n3. Methodological approach: Based on timestamps recorded during the online interviews, we generate an indicator for time of day by defining time intervals and setting the value of the corresponding dummy variable to one. In line with Dickinson and Whitehead (2015), the intervals were 6-11.59 a.m. for morning, 12-5.59 p.m. for afternoon, 6-11.59 p.m. for evening, and the remaining hours from 12-5.59 a.m. were defined as night. Second, to allow for potential recharging of mental energy through meals we use evidence from food sociology about the time of day when people in Denmark typically have their main meals.\n4. The empirical survey: The empirical SCE survey used for testing our hypothesis concerns Danish consumers' preferences for cheese. Respondents were asked to imagine that they were in an everyday grocery shopping situation and they were going to buy a 500 gram piece of medium fat cheese. Based on focus groups and pilot testing, the following three quality attributes were used in the survey: type of production, country of origin, and type of store. Prior to the valuation section of the questionnaire, the respondents were presented with a scenario description explaining the various attributes and their corresponding levels. Each attribute was assigned three levels, and a six-level price attribute was also incorporated in the design. The attributes were described as shown in Table I.\n5. Results: Non-parametric results\n6. Discussion and conclusion: In this paper we investigate time of day related decision fatigue by using data from a SCE survey conducted online and by utilizing paradata on the recorded time of day when each interview was started. We link the time of day measurements to typical eating patterns as identified in the food sociology literature to control for potential recharging periods during the day. In marketing it is well known that people often make different choices when, for example, hungry than when they are full. Accordingly, it is surprising that, at least to our knowledge, no one has so far taken this into account when conducting stated choice surveys online.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Fatigue effects related to answering a sequence of choice tasks have received much scrutiny in the stated choice experiments (SCE) literature. However, decision fatigue related to the time of day when respondents answer questionnaires has been largely overlooked in this literature even though time of day related fatigue effects are well known in the psychology literature. The purpose of this paper is to hypothesize that variations in the time of day when respondents answer an online food choice experiment will translate into observable fatigue effects in the food choices.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An empirical SCE concerning food choices is conducted using a web-based questionnaire for interviews in a pre-recruited online panel of consumers. Timestamps collected during the online interviews provide knowledge about the time of day at which each respondent has answered the survey. This information is linked with knowledge from a food sociology survey on typical meal times as well as biophysical research linking food intake to blood sugar and mental energy in order to generate a proxy variable for each respondent's level of mental energy when answering the food choice tasks in the questionnaire.\nFindings: Results show evidence of a time of day effect on error variance in the stated food choices as well as the subsequently estimated market share predictions. Specifically, respondents provide less consistent answers during the afternoon than at other times of the day.\nOriginality/value: The results indicate that time of day can affect responses to an online survey through increased fatigue and correspondingly less choice consistency. Thus, especially online surveys might account for this in data analysis or even restrict accessibility to the online survey for certain times of day.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
An experimental study into the effects of self-disclosure and crisis type on brand evaluations - the mediating effect of blame attributions	[ "Disclosure", "Brand attitude", "Purchase intention", "Crisis management", "Brand trust", "Blame attribution" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: While brands are valuable assets for any company, they also are vulnerable to the scathing effects of a crisis. Any crisis can disturb an organization's process, and when inadequately handled, might damage the value of a brand (Benoit, 1997; Coombs, 2007; Davies et al., 2003; Dawar and Pillutla, 2000; Hegner et al., 2014). Research shows that the reputational damage of a crisis is minimised if the brand is the first to inform its stakeholders of the crisis instead of the media exposing it (Fennis and Stroebe, 2014). Successful management of a crisis largely depends on how a brand acts after the crisis hits, and this strongly confirms the strategic value of effective crisis management (Benoit, 1997; Brown and White, 2011; Coombs, 2007; Souiden and Pons, 2009). When something goes wrong, the brand may decide to be the first to fully admit that something with potentially harmful consequences exists (self-disclosure), just as it can also opt to stay hushed about the incident until a third party (e.g. the media) discloses it.\nTheoretical framework: Brand crisis and self-disclosure\nMethodology: Design\nResults: To test for homogeneity of variance in the multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), we examined whether the population variance-covariance matrices of the different groups in the analysis are equal by using Box's test. The results show equality of the matrices (Box' M = 22.58, p = 0.24). Homogeneity of variances in the ANOVAs is assessed by Levene's test. All values of significance are higher than 0.10, thus homogeneity of variance can be assumed. Furthermore, respondents' involvement with the crisis and the credibility of the news article were not significantly different across the four scenarios, which confirmed the equality of our manipulations. Before testing our hypotheses, MANOVA was conducted to assess the relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variables. Including the control variables in the MANOVA shows no influence of the control variables' credibility (Wilks lambda = 0.99, F = 0.38, p = 0.77) and involvement (Wilks lambda = 0.98, F = 0.84, p = 0.48) on the dependent variables nor any interactions with the independent variables. Thus, we excluded them from our analyses.\nDiscussion: As mentioned, more complex products, more demanding customers and more vigilant media are making brands increasingly vulnerable to crises situations. Regardless of the type, a crisis can have deleterious ramifications for a brand's reputation and its financial assets (Hegner et al., 2014; Raithel et al., 2010; Rea et al., 2014). The negative implications of a crisis for the brand increases the significance of research into ways to soften such a blow (Fennis and Stroebe, 2014; Hegner et al., 2014). A small number of studies have indicated that self-disclosing instead of staying silent has beneficial effects for a brand in times of crisis. However, it remains to be investigated whether or not the impact of self-disclosure holds true for any kind of crisis. Hence, the purpose of this study is to address the research question pertaining to the relationship between disclosure of a crisis and the crisis type on customers' evaluation of a brand.\nPractical implications: Our findings show that in case of a moral-harm crisis self-disclosing a certain incident seems to be an advantageous strategy. Although we were not able to validate the utility of self-disclosure when used during a product-harm crisis, we still want to argue in favour of this strategy. First, self-disclosing a negative event leaves fewer arguments to discuss and conflict about to third parties. Second, as consumers do not expect that brands would act against their self-interest and report negative information, brands can create an image of honesty. This might aid in protecting a brand's reputation (Fennis and Stroebe, 2014; Tomlinson and Mayer, 2009). Additionally, brands that self-disclose information can acquire a degree of control over the information compared to merely reacting to accusations from the media. Thus, brands are able to frame the information they give to the public and influence consumers' processing of the information (Arpan and Pompper, 2003).\nLimitations and future research: This is one of the few studies that look into the extent to which the impact of disclosure on customers' attitude, trust, and purchase intention depends on the type of crisis. Nonetheless, there are still several points that should be considered for future research. First, future research should consider the interaction between disclosure, crisis type and the brand's pre-crisis reputation. As Fennis and Stroebe (2014) propose, investigating the interaction between pre-crisis reputation and disclosure in relation to a specific crisis type would be an interesting research agendum. Further, we decided to use a fictitious brand to control for memory effects of prior information. Nevertheless, consumers' previous experiences with a brand shape their perception when a crisis strikes. How crisis information is interpreted and evaluated by consumers depends on their relationship with the brand. Additionally, the management of a brand in times of crisis is influenced by the relational capital to alleviate the effect of harmful news. Thus, varying brands and their relational capital would be an interesting research opportunity.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Brands facing a crisis have to decide whether to disclose crisis-related information themselves or to wait and take the risk that a third party breaks the news. While brands might benefit from self-disclosing the information, it is likely that the impact of crisis communication on customers' evaluation of the brand depends on the type of crisis. This study aims to investigate the influence of type of crisis on the relationshp between disclosure and brand outcomes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A 2 x 2 between-subjects experiment with 180 Dutch participants was conducted.\nFindings: Results show that self-disclosure of a negative incident positively affects consumers' attitude, trust and purchase intention compared to third-party disclosure. Additionally, disclosure and crisis type interact. In times of a product-harm crisis, self-disclosure does not represent an advantage to third party disclosure, while in times of a moral-harm crisis disclosure by the brand is able to maintain customers' positive attitude towards and trust in the brand compared to disclosure by a third party. Moreover, blame attribution mediates the effect of crisis type on brand evaluations.\nOriginality/value: Recent research indicates that self-disclosing crisis information instead of waiting until thunder strikes has beneficial effects for a brand in times of crisis. However, these studies use the context of product-harm crises, which neglects the possible impact of moral-harm crises. Furthermore, this study adds the impact of blame attributions as a mediator in this context.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Investigating work and learning through complex adaptive organisations	[ "Organisations", "Complexity", "Workplace learning", "Phenomenography", "Complex adaptive systems" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This paper outlines an empirical study which investigated the question: How do professionals experience work and learning in complex adaptive organisations? A conceptual framework based on a complex adaptive systems approach (Holland, 1995) was developed for this study, introducing the concept of complex adaptive organisations. Complex adaptive organisations are used to describe the framework as well as to differentiate organisations as human social systems from other examples of complex adaptive systems found in nature (e.g. flocks of birds and computer networks). Individual participants in this study are referred to as \"professionals\" to differentiate them from non-human agents within complex adaptive organisations as well as to describe their work within office-based contexts.\nComplexity approaches and complex adaptive systems: Complexity approaches offer new understandings of learning and practice in the context of work (Fenwick, 2012; Fenwick and Dahlgren, 2015; Johnsson and Boud, 2010; Lancaster, 2012). Complexity approaches is a broad term given to a number of different areas of scientific and social science research (Mason, 2008) referring to investigations of specific types of systems called complex systems. Complex adaptive systems are specific types of complex systems containing agents which adapt their strategies for working within systems to increase their chances of success, usually through learning processes (Holland, 1995), emphasising learning and adaptation as critical aspects of the system.\nComplex adaptive organisations conceptual framework: Central to the CAOCF is the concept of complex adaptive organisations. A complex adaptive organisation is one that displays, and is shaped by, the four key elements, namely, emergence, adaptation, complex social systems and agency. These four elements were identified from the complex adaptive systems (Barabasi and Albert, 1999; Holland, 1995; Mitchell, 2009; Strogatz, 2008; Watts and Strogatz, 1998) and workplace learning (Kersh, 2015; Vahasantanen et al., 2017) literature as having the greatest potential for insights into work and learning in contemporary organisations.\nMethodology: This study adopted an adapted phenomenographic approach which sought to identify the different ways in which people experience aspects of their world (Marton, 1994). Phenomenography's positioning as an empirical research method (Marton and Booth, 1997) which describes individual experiences of phenomena provided a robust but still flexible methodological basis for the study. Traditionally, phenomenography focuses on a single phenomenon; however, this study investigated experiences of both work and learning. This study therefore adopted a \"hybrid\", or adapted, approach, incorporating core aspects of phenomenography (Bailey, 2015) but with one analysis for both phenomena. The methodology also rejected the assumption, commonly held in phenomenography (Tight, 2016), that the categories of description form a hierarchy to maintain a fluid approach, in keeping with the complex adaptive systems approach of the study.\nFindings: Using the adapted phenomenographic approach described above, and framed by the CAOCF, the transcripts were analysed through an iterative process over the course of one year to develop the categories of description. The CAOCF was used to \"bracket\" (Ashworth, 1999) the analysis, enabling theoretical assumptions to be defined. Through the analysis, it emerged that professionals in complex adaptive organisations experienced work and learning in four interrelated ways:\nDiscussion: Collectively, the four categories of description discussed above indicate that learning by professionals in complex adaptive organisations was primarily experienced through work, and that learning was strongly shaped by the degree of work fluidity experienced. The degree of work fluidity was influenced by adaptation, emergence, complex social networks and agency which, in turn, influenced more flexible learning responses from the professionals. Despite this, the professionals reported that organisations were still providing, and recognising, structured learning initiatives as the primary source of learning at work.\nConclusion: This paper reported an empirical study of the work and learning experiences of professionals that innovatively used a complex adaptive systems approach to conceptualise and analyse the interview data. The data analysis indicated that professionals in complex adaptive organisations experience learning primarily through work, strongly influenced by the fluidity of their day-to-day work. The experiences of professional learning through participation contrasted with their experiences of the learning opportunities afforded by organisations, which were predominantly structured.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to outline an empirical study of how professionals experience work and learning in complex adaptive organisations. The study uses a complex adaptive systems approach, which forms the basis of a specifically developed conceptual framework for explaining professionals' experiences of work and learning.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 professionals from a variety of organisations, industry sectors and occupations in Sydney, Australia. The transcripts were subjected to an adapted phenomenographic analysis, and an analysis using the complex adaptive organisations conceptual framework (CAOCF).\nFindings: The findings indicated that professionals experienced learning mainly through work, where work was experienced as fluid and influenced by varying degrees of emergence, agency, complex social networks and adaptation. Further, the greater the degree of work fluidity, the greater the impetus towards learning through work, empirically indicating that the experience of learning in contemporary organisations is entwined with work.\nOriginality/value: This study used the concept of complex adaptive organisations as a conceptual framework, coupled with an adapted phenomenographic methodology, to investigate individual professionals' experiences of work and learning. The adoption of the concept of complex adaptive organisations provided a rigorous way to adopt a complexity approach. In particular, the concept of emergence provides insights into how organisational complexity influences work and, subsequently, learning and adaptation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Intellectual capital and technical efficiency of banks in an emerging market: a slack-based measure	[ "Non-radial technical efficiency", "Slacks", "Credit risk", "Intellectual capital", "Data envelopment analysis", "Emerging markets", "Convergence" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The business of banking predominantly involves risk management. The performance of managers in appropriately combining inputs to produce outputs has a key impact on the efficiency of their banks. For example, non-performing loans have been at high rates in African and emerging market banks over the years (Amuakwa-Mensah and Boakye-Adjei, 2015). The source of these bad loans is the information asymmetry that results in adverse selection and moral hazard. Tied to managerial performance is the intellectual capital, which serves as a strategic tool for bank management with the potential to enhance shareholder value, competitive advantage and even drive transient advantage of banks (McGrath, 2013;Ordonez de Pablos, 2003; Riahi-Belkaoui, 2003). The ability of bank managers to understand the impact of intellectual capital performance is of benefit in strategic decision making geared towards enhancing performance. It is reported that while the financial statements contained about 20% of intangible assets in the 1970s, they now contain about 80% of intangible assets (Corrado and Hulten, 2010; Sullivan and Sullivan, 2000). In spite of this radical change in the composition of the asset structure of firms, the IAS 38: Intangible Assets promulgated by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) in the 1990s has not been revised to account for this. Also, the accounting standard does not offer any mathematical model to measure intellectual capital. Essentially, it is worth noting that it is very difficult to account for this concept using the recognition or measurement criteria that the IASB provides or the conceptual framework underlying the standards.Intellectual capital has been identified by the International Integrated Reporting Council as one of the key capitals that organisations have which can drive their performance (IIRC, 2013; Zambon, 2016). The other capitals identified are natural capital, manufactured capital, financial capital, human capital and social (relational) capital. Intellectual capital is the overall knowledge base of organisations. Thus, with the current knowledge/information economy or the fourth industrial revolution, the concept has gained relevance and importance among analysts. In literature, intellectual capital has been decomposed into human capital efficiency, structural capital efficiency and capital employed efficiency (Onumah and Duho, 2019). One of the commonly used quantitative models that make use of this decomposition is the Value-Added Intellectual Coefficient of Pulic (1998, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2008). Cabrita and Vaz (2005) posited that since human interaction is a vital source of intangible value (e.g. services), human capital is a prime component of intellectual capital (Edvinsson and Malone, 1997; O'Donnell et al., 2003; Stewart, 1997). Structural capital encompasses the capabilities of the organisation in terms of culture, procedures, routines, systems, technological infrastructure and the structures available to meet the internal and external challenges (Cabrita and Vaz, 2005). Capital employed (relational capital) concerns the relationship that the organisation has with its stakeholders.Efficiency can be measured in different ways such as cost, profit, technical and revenue. Studies have examined technical efficiency using the radial model (Adesina, 2019; Onumah and Duho, 2020), which does not account for slacks in the inputs or outputs. The slack-based model of technical efficiency (SBM-TE) is superior to the radial model since it accounts for non-radial slacks which if ignored can lead to wrong inferences (Tone, 2001). In effect, the inferences made about the impact of intellectual capital and its components on the technical efficiency could be affected by the inefficiencies in the radial model. This calls for further investigation into the relationship using this superior model. There is little knowledge about whether efficiency converges or not in banks in emerging markets. Two concepts of convergence namely beta-convergence and sigma-convergence have been introduced by Barro, Sala-i-Martin, Blanchard, and Hall (1991), which have been employed in the bank efficiency literature. The beta-convergence tests whether inefficient banks \"catch-up\" with the efficient banks over time while the sigma-convergence tests whether the dispersion in efficiency scores decreases over time.This study examines the relationship by addressing three key research questions, which are:RQ1. Does slack-based technical efficiency converge in emerging market banks?RQ2. What is the impact of intellectual capital and its components on the SBM-TE of emerging market banks?RQ3. What differences exist in the intellectual capital and SBM-TE nexus in terms of ownership and stock exchange listing?Firstly, the study computes SBM-TE scores using the method of Tone (2001), with internal risk (credit risk) accounted for. Secondly, the study regresses the SBM-TE scores on intellectual capital performance or its components while controlling for exogenous variables. The results reveal that SBM-TE was at 79% for the industry over the study period. There is evidence of both beta-convergence and sigma-convergence among banks, suggesting that inefficient banks in emerging markets \"catch-up\" with efficient banks over time and that the dispersion of efficiency scores decreases over time. Both beta-convergence and sigma-convergence are high among listed banks and local banks. The result shows that rating the components of intellectual capital, human capital efficiency is the highest, followed by capital employed efficiency and structural capital efficiency. As regards the regression results, the study found that intellectual capital significantly drives SBM-TE and human capital is the main driver of efficiency. The study recommends that banks should focus on building their intellectual capital base with a key focus on human capital development and relational capital. Banks in emerging markets are advised to channel investments towards developing their structural capital and relational capital. Also, bank managers (and their management accountants, bankers, financial analysts and auditors) should take steps to employ intellectual capital metrics in their financial analyses.The rest of the paper has four sections. The next section provides stylized facts about the Ghanaian banking industry while Section 3 provides a literature review. The fourth section describes the methodology employed for the study. The penultimate section reports and discusses the results while the sixth section draws a conclusion on the study.\n2. Stylized facts about Ghanaian Banking Industry: The Ghanaian banking industry has an over-a-century history starting from 1896 (Onumah and Duho, 2019). The industry has grown in depth, size, level of transaction and relevance to the national economic development. The industry through financial intermediation has contributed immensely to economic development. Notwithstanding, the industry has been bedevilled with high levels of non-performing loans, corporate governance issues and risk management issues that affect the industry and the economy as a whole (Amuakwa-Mensah and Boakye-Adjei, 2015; Tsamenyi et al., 2007). Competition increased in the industry over the years and this resulted in growing interest in employing innovation and advanced technologies in the operations of the banks. Examples of some technological applications for the provision of services in the industry include mobile money, online banking services, digital banking and Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) among others (Duho and Onumah, 2019). The following sections provide some insights into the trends and discussions regarding non-performing loans and the status of ATMs in the industry. It is essential to note that, the concern for reducing non-performing loans and thus increasing efficiency, as well as, the use of intellectual capital to drive value in reducing the non-performing loans and increasing efficiency is the general premise of the current study. 2.1 Non-performing loans statistics\n3. Literature review: A critical review of literature is conducted on the slack-based measure of technical efficiency in banks. In addition, studies that draw a relationship between intellectual capital and performance have been reviewed. 3.1 Slack-based technical efficiency and intellectual capital\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Data\n5. Results: 5.1 Descriptive statistics\n6. Conclusions and implications: The bank efficiency literature has examined different types of efficiency measures, namely cost efficiency, revenue efficiency and profit efficiency. Fundamental to all these efficiency measures is the technical efficiency, which measures how efficient management is in obtaining maximum outputs from available inputs. The classical technical efficiency measures fail to account for slacks in inputs and outputs. In addition, most studies failed to account for risk in their efficiency scores, which is essential since the core business of banking is risk management. While this understanding is relevant in the current knowledge-based economy, it is only of late that few studies examined the nexus between intellectual capital and technical efficiency. Unfortunately, such studies failed to account for slacks. In addition, there is limited knowledge as to whether the efficiencies of banks in emerging markets converge or not. The test of convergence among banks is essential in understanding whether inefficient banks \"catch-up\" with efficient banks over time or whether the differences in efficiency among banks decrease over time. The current study filled the paucity in literature by examining the convergence of efficiency among banks, providing an insight into how intellectual capital and its components affect SBM-TE and exploring the differences in the effect based on listing status and ownership status, using a dataset of 32 banks from 2000 to 2017.The results suggest that the average SBM-TE score of the banks over the study period is 79%. This suggests that an inefficient bank needs to enhance technical efficiency by 21% to be at par with the best performing banks. As regards the intellectual capital scores, HCE is the highest component of VAIC(tm), followed by CEE and SCE, an indication that the human capital theory is prevalence among banks. The test of convergence suggests the presence of both beta-convergence and sigma-convergence among banks. The presence of beta-convergence suggests that inefficient banks utilise the technologies, production methods, strategies and leverage on the innovations of the efficient banks, resulting in the \"catch-up\" effect. The presence of sigma-convergence suggests that the difference in efficiency among banks converges over time. Listed banks and local banks have a higher speed of convergence, suggesting that these banks leverage more on the technologies of their counterparts in enhancing their efficiency.The regression analysis suggests that VAIC(tm) and HCE drive the technical efficiency of banks. This result is prevalent among non-listed banks and foreign banks. This suggests that non-listed banks and foreign banks are effective in taking advantage of intellectual capital resources in achieving a competitive edge. There is evidence of economies of scale among the banks such that a small bank size decreases efficiency, but as the banks become larger, they tend to become more efficient. The result suggests that competition has a negative significant effect on technical efficiency, suggesting that the quiet-life hypothesis does not hold. Thus, competition among banks decreases efficiency. The result also indicates that banks with excessive investments in physical assets have low efficiency. This explains the importance of intangible assets in enhancing the efficiency of banks.The results give credence to the need for more focus on integrated thinking and focus on intellectual capital in bank regulation and bank management in emerging markets. The study gives support for the directive of Bank of Ghana in 2016 for banks to provide value-added statements as part of their financial statements. Such initiatives have been argued to be the steps that lead to the integrated thinking that fosters integrated reporting. The prevalence of the human capital theory also gives support to the 2018 Corporate Governance Directive issued by Bank of Ghana, which clearly defined key human capital choices right from the board room. This will have an effect on the overall intellectual capital performance of banks given that the board of directors have a role to play in developing relevant intellectual capital, human capital and relational capital (Haller and van Staden, 2014; IIRC, 2013).Bank managers should essentially be concerned with the low level of structural capital in emerging market banks. Structural capital serves as the means to address the internal and external threats that banks face. More so, low-level structural capital suggests that internal processes, procedures, organisational culture and technological infrastructure are weak or low. Value addition should be the main focus of banks since it yields benefits for not only the shareholders but all other stakeholders. The VAIC(tm) model can be employed internally for decision making to understand how branches are performing and how a bank is performing generally regarding intellectual capital. Input and output optimisation can be done with the use of emerging technologies such as big data analytics and visualisation among others. For instance, with the use of big data analytics, bank managers can reduce slacks, reduce bad loans and enhance efficiency by monitoring input usage, loan management and using the insights from such tools for decision making.There should be efforts by regulators, policymakers and bank managers to enhance the beta-convergence and sigma-convergence among banks in emerging markets. This is possible at the macro-level with the implementation of effective policies and regulations, as well as creating a strong business ecosystem with improvements in technological infrastructure. In Ghana, the leapfrogging advantage of technology can be achieved with more strategic initiatives taken on the part of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) to enhance the technological infrastructure development. Similar efforts are needed across other emerging markets so as to enable banks use technologies to improve their performance, create value and provide services that meet the preferences of their customers. Future research can examine bank branches and how intellectual capital affects their efficiency. Other studies should examine the effect of various regulatory regimes on banks' efficiency.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper investigates the impact of intellectual capital and its components on slack-based technical efficiency (SBM-TE) of banks.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data envelopment analysis is used to compute SBM-TE scores and the Value-Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAIC(tm)) model is used to measure intellectual capital. An unbalanced panel of 32 banks that operated from 2000 to 2017 has been used.\nFindings: Overall, the efficiency scores are averaged at 79%, suggesting that an inefficient bank needs to enhance technical efficiency by 21% to be at par with the best performing banks. Beta-convergence and sigma-convergence exist among banks with faster speed evident among listed and local banks. Intellectual capital has a positive impact on SBM-TE and human capital is the main driver of technical efficiency among banks. This result is specifically evident among non-listed banks and foreign banks. Economies of scale property are also evident among the banks. Competition and asset tangibility inhibit technical efficiency among banks.\nPractical implications: Banks are advised to invest in value-adding emerging technologies and their employees so as to enhance their efficiency. The study offers insights for policymakers, practitioners and researchers in emerging markets.\nOriginality/value: The study is premier in employing the SBM-TE to explain the intellectual capital and efficiency nexus, as well as, testing for both beta-convergence and sigma-convergence.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Prevalence and potential virulence of Escherichia coli in ready-to-eat raw mixed vegetable salads in collective catering in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire	[ "E. coli", "Pathovars", "Virulence genes", "Vegetable salads" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Escherichia coli is a bacterium that is part of the intestinal flora of warm-blooded animals and humans, and colonizes the colon from the first hours of birth (Abubakari et al., 2015). Most E. coli are banal commensals and non-pathogenic; however, some strains have acquired virulence factors and are associated with intestinal or extraintestinal pathologies (Baliere, 2016). All pathogenic strains of E. coli pathogens are able to multiply, persist in the digestive tract by bypassing the host's immune defenses, and induce cellular damage (Kaper et al., 2004). These strains have developed different modes of interaction with their host, resulting in various clinical signs (Kaper et al., 2004). In human medicine, based on host-bacterial interactions and clinical signs of infection, pathogenic E. coli strains are classified as pathovars that include specific serotypes (Kaper et al., 2004). Currently, strains involved in human intestinal infections are classified into six pathovars with specific genes: Enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC: eaeA), Enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC: Stx1, Stx2), Enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC: Lt, St), Enteroinvasive E. coli (EIEC), Enteroaggregative E. coli (EAEC: EaggA) and diffusely adherent E. coli (DAEC) (Kaper et al., 2004). These pathovars cause many varieties of gastrointestinal diseases with high morbidity and mortality (Sousa, 2006), particularly in children in developing countries, and are considered major pathogens responsible for foodborne infections (Kaper et al., 2004). Each year, E. coli is responsible for the death of 2m people from intestinal and extraintestinal infections (Kosek et al., 2003; Russo and Johnson, 2003).\n2. Material and methods: 2.1 Sampling and origin of E. coli strains\n3. Results: 3.1 Confirmation of E. coli strain identification\n4. Discussion: This study revealed the presence in ready-to-use raw mixed vegetable salads of potentially pathogenic strains of E. coli possessing virulence factors. This result matches those of previous studies carried out in Cote d'Ivoire that have demonstrated the circulation of pathogenic E. coli strains in various food matrices (Kambire et al., 2017; Dadie et al., 2010; Dadie, 2013; Wognin, 2014; Kouame et al., 2017). The presence of pathogenic E. coli in salads in our study may be due to contamination of vegetables during cultivation or sale on the markets. According to some authors, the risk of microbial contamination associated with vegetable salads is very high and can occur at any stage of production, from the environment in which they are prepared and consumed to improper hygiene during handling, cultivation, and pre- and post-harvest handling (Cuprasitrut et al., 2011; Taban and Halkman, 2011; Simoes et al., 2001). In developing countries, many factors can contribute to contamination, including the use of non- or poorly composted manure, untreated wastewater used for irrigation and poor post-harvest handling, especially in markets. Unhygienic handling practices are considered to be one of the main factors of contamination (Ensink, 2007; Mensah et al., 2002). The presence of potentially pathogenic E. coli in vegetable salads was also reported by Abubakari et al. (2015) in Ghana, Campos et al. (2013) in Portugal, Castro-Rosas et al. (2012) in Mexico, Kochakkhani et al. (2016) in Iran, Ozpinar et al. (2013) in Turkey, Reuben and Makut (2014) in Nigeria and Shah et al. (2015) in Pakistan. Pathogenic E. coli bacteria were not detected by Saeed et al. (2013) in Iraq.\n5. Conclusion: This study highlighted the presence of potentially pathogenic E. coli strains, particularly ETEC, EAEC, EPEC and STEC, in the ready-to-eat vegetable salads served in collective catering in Abidjan. The presence of these pathovars highlights the influence of poor farming practices and of the conditions for preparing salads in collective catering. Adequate measures to prevent the contamination of vegetables in the field include the use of safe compost. Since salad preparation is the last step before consumption, contamination must be minimized through the application of good handling practices, compliance with hygiene rules in food services and the use of disinfectant to reduce contamination of vegetable salads.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Vegetable salads, despite their recognized health benefits, are an increasingly common cause of foodborne illness worldwide. The purpose of this paper is to determine the prevalence of E. coli with virulence genes in ready-to-eat raw mixed vegetable salads sold in collective catering in Abidjan.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A total of 436 strains of E. coli were isolated from 306 ready-to-eat raw mixed vegetables salads and then identified biochemically and molecularly based on the uidA gene responsible for beta-glucuronidase activity. The virulence genes were determined by polymerase chain reaction.\nFindings: The prevalence in vegetable salads of E. coli with virulence genes was 35.3 percent. The distribution of pathovars was 21.2 percent enterotoxigenic (ETEC), 4.9 percent enteropathogenic (EPEC), 0.7 percent Shigatoxigenic (STEC), and 7.5 percent Enteroaggregative E. coli (EAEC). It appears from the study that vegetable salads sold in collective catering in Abidjan are at risk for contamination by E. coli pathovars.\nOriginality/value: Processing conditions for these salads during preparation appear to be hygienically insufficient, so measures to control the risk of contamination are necessary.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Corporate social responsibility strategy: strategic options, global considerations	[ "Corporate social responsibility", "Corporate strategy", "Globalization" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In 2003, Corporate Governance (Vol. 3 No. 3) published a series of articles on global responsibilities. Topics in this edition covered the global responsibilities of management (Perez, 2003), the role of business schools in educating on a global perspective (Lorange, 2003) and the contradictions and consequences of global strategies (O'Higgins, 2003), among others. While we believe special issues on global responsibilities in journals such as Corporate Governance certainly add insight into an important topic, what we believe is missing are more substantive discussions of a firm's social responsibilities (hereafter referred to as corporate social responsibilities (CSR)) in the context of corporate strategy in a global context. More specifically, in his ground-breaking book on corporate strategy, Kenneth Andrews of the Harvard Business School argues that with respect to corporate strategy, strategists address what the firm might and can do as well as what the firm wants to do (Andrews, 1971). However, he also argues that strategists must address what the firm ought to do. The \"ought to do\", in Andrews' parlay, refers to CSR.\nCSR strategy: what are the options?: Although there are no precise definitions, Carroll (1979) conceptualises CSR in the context of economic, legal, ethical and discretionary (or philanthropic) responsibilities. Enderle (2004) suggests firms have three responsibilities to society: economic; social; and environmental. The work of Carroll (1979) and Enderle (2004) are important in that they offer insight into what constitutes a firm's responsibilities. However, their work offers little guidance as to what types of strategies a firm might choose to pursue with respect to CSR. To fill this gap, we rely on standard strategic management concepts to develop our ideas.Most conceptualizations of strategic management suggest that there are two levels of strategy making: corporate strategy; and business unit strategy. Corporate strategy is concerned with the scope of the firm in terms of the industries and markets in which it competes while business unit strategy is concerned with how the firm competes within a particular industry or market. For purposes of this paper, the perspective of \"corporate\" strategy is equated to the home country while \"business unit\" strategy is equated to the host country. This metaphor is adopted so that the discussion can be steered toward strategy decision making in the core base of operation while considering factors that might affect the \"movement\" of the base CSR strategy to existing or planned operations around the word. Thus, turning our attention to \"corporate\" strategy, four strategic options are described, including: the shareholder strategy; the altruistic strategy; the reciprocal strategy; and the citizenship strategy.CSR strategic option 1: the shareholder strategy\nFrom home country to host country: global considerations for CSR strategy: Choosing an option with respect to setting the policy for CSR in the home country is one thing. However, while in many cases the drivers (e.g. regulatory, ethical, economic) that serve as the impetus for the development of CSR strategies are the same worldwide, the context of CSR can vary considerably between countries, reflecting the distinctive traits of countries themselves (Waddock and Smith, 2000; Rochlin and Boguslaw, 2001). Furthermore, regional - if not local community - differences all bear down on what constitutes socially responsible behaviour of a business firm (Post, 2000; Warhurst, 2001). Meeting the challenges of CSR in a global context is much more difficult than it appears. Without careful consideration of host country differences, firms might make poor decisions regarding what constitutes appropriate CSR strategies in foreign lands and cultures (Kusku and Zarkada-Fraser, 2004). This can ultimately undermine both financial results and the firm's reputation (Petrick et al., 1999).Within a global context, business firms around the world share common language with respect to products, production, marketing, finance, profits and so on. However, they are inevitably embedded in a specific city, city-state, city-providence, city-nation, etc. For example, firms such as Coca-Cola, Sony and Shell are all based in a particular city-state - but they have production facilities, suppliers, and sub-contractors operating in quite different city-states around the world. Here, aspects of the location of various stakeholders may vary widely which consequently affects CSR differently (Burton et al., 2000). Thus, given the locale of where a business firm operates (or plans to operate) in the world, they are embedded within the various traditions of that particular setting. To address CSR strategy in a broader, global context, four key aspects are discussed: culture; regulatory environment; NGOs; and global standards.Culture\nConclusion: Although some strongly oppose any responsibility of the firm beyond the economic (Friedman, 1970), research does suggest that CSR beyond just the economic \"pays\" (Griffin and Mahon, 1997; Margolis and Walsh, 2001; Orlitzky et al., 2003). That is, CSR does have a positive financial benefit to firms. Conversely, the total social costs that must be born by US businesses due to socially irresponsible behavior is well over two trillion dollars per year (Estes, 1996). Such findings suggest that CSR is an area of corporate concern that can not be overlooked. In fact, CSR is argued to be essential to a firm's overall strategy (Andrews, 1971; Carroll and Hoy, 1984). Furthermore, as globalization continues to broaden its reach, firms must increasingly acknowledge and assess their responsibilities on a global scale (Perez, 2003, Carroll, 2004). Thus, managers should pay keen attention to the matters of CSR and this paper offers some guidance as to how they might strategically approach the subject.Specifically, from a strategic perspective, we have suggested that businesses have four CSR strategic options to consider: first, the shareholder strategy; second, the altruistic strategy; third, the reciprocal strategy; and fourth, the citizenship strategy. The shareholder strategy is based on Friedman (1970) and holds that its only responsibility to society is an economic one. The altruistic strategy, on the other hand, is one based on \"giving back\" to the community in the form of monetary donations to various groups and causes. The reciprocal strategy takes a more strategic approach to CSR in that it views social responsibility as good business. That is, by taking on broader social responsibilities, the firm not only offers improved benefits to society, but it also benefits in the form of financial and other tangible rewards. Lastly, the citizenship strategy is the most strategic. In the citizenship strategy, a firm identifies and dialogues with its stakeholders as part of input to corporate strategy formulation. By doing so, CSR strategy is specifically directed at individual stakeholder needs, be they employees, customers or even the environment. By offering full and open disclosure through mediums such as triple bottom line reports, firms leveraging a citizenship strategy aim for public transparency and accountability. In the end, by targeting social responsibilities towards specific stakeholders, the goal is to increase long-term value creation for those stakeholders as well as for the firm's financial and reputational position in the market. Although there certainly might be variations, these four options offer a baseline view of specific CSR strategies. However, as discussed in this paper, choosing a CSR strategy in the home base does not necessarily translate into a \"global\" program.When extending a CSR strategy from home to host countries, various aspects, such as local cultures, regulatory environments, NGOs and global standards, must all be taken into consideration (Figure 2). Given that local cultures tend to view CSR differently (Orpen, 1987; Burton et al., 2000), firms must carefully examine the location of operation before transposing home to host CSR strategies. As with culture, regulatory environments also differ from country to country. However, some emerging regulations, such as the OECD convention on bribery of foreign officials, are universal in nature. Thus, as with culture, a thorough examination of the regulatory environment is an important consideration with respect to global CSR strategies. As for NGOs, their influence continues to increase around the world and many countries have powerful NGOs that are specifically focused on issues of importance in the focal country. Thus, understanding the \"who's who\" of NGOs in any given country lends itself to informed decisions with respect to CSR strategies in that country. With respect to standards, global CSR standards such as the ISO 14000 and 14031 for the environment and the Social Accountability (SA) 8000 for labor-related issues are becoming important benchmarks for which to compare who is practicing CSR and who is not in the world. Thus, by adopting appropriate global CSR standards, firms are signalling their adherence to socially responsible practices in business, which is becoming an increasingly important means of competitive differentiation in a global economy (Waddock et al., 2002).Lastly, for scholarly consideration, we suggest researchers develop means of testing the various CSR strategies outlined in this paper. For example, case studies or survey instruments could be used to collect data on each CSR strategy. By including different industries and countries, analysis could reveal the types of CSR strategies most followed. This would be important for benchmarking similarities/differences across both industries and countries. Where financial results are collected, the results would also be important to compare and contrast the relative value of each CSR strategy. Here, the research findings would add to the growing body of evidence examining the CSR-firm performance association, which is an important area of research content according to scholars (e.g. Margolis and Walsh, 2003).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To further the dialogue on corporate strategy and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Specifically, to describe four options with respect to CSR strategies and to offer points of consideration for moving home country CSR strategies to host countries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The approach is based on developing a conceptualization of various CSR strategic options. The paper also incorporates key global considerations for moving home country CSR strategies to host country operations.\nFindings: - The analysis suggests that CSR can not be separated from corporate strategy. Thus, firms have several factors to consider with respect to choosing appropriate CSR strategies. Not only are there fundamental strategic goals and outcomes to consider, but also a variety of cross-border factors that can potentially complicate the success of CSR strategies if not examined appropriately.\nPractical implications: - As with any good decision-making exercise, managers would do well to explore a variety of options before making a final decision. This paper offers four CSR strategic options from which managers can explore the development of a CSR strategy. However, recognizing the increasing influence of globalization and the need to expand operations overseas for many, if not most companies, the paper also suggests a number of salient factors that can effect the movement of CSR strategies from a home to host country. Thus, the paper offers a useful framework for making strategic decisions with respect to CSR.\nOriginality/value: - The value of the paper rests in its dialogue of CSR in the context of corporate strategy and global business. With few exceptions, CSR and strategy have been given short shrift in the literature. Thus, by expanding an important component of corporate strategy and placing it in a global context, the paper properly expands on an essential topic in business.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Digital collection development and sharing on a national scale: A case study of the Digital Library Promotion Project	[ "Public libraries", "Cooperation", "Digital library", "Digital resource sharing", "National level", "Resource co-construction" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. The problems of digital collection development in Chinese public libraries: Chinese libraries have been devoted to digital library research and construction since the 1990s. Digital resource development is the core work of digital library construction. According to a survey done in 2013 (Li, 2014), digital resources totaled more than 5,050 TB among provincial and municipal libraries in China; this is the greatest embodiment of the achievements made by Chinese public libraries in their efforts to meet the changing needs of user in the information era.\n2. The implementation of the Digital Library Promotion Project: 2.1 Background\n3. Collection developing method of the Digital Library Promotion Project: The DLPP has been concentrating on resource co-construction since 2013. Up to mid-2016, more than 300 public libraries (provincial and municipal) had participated. Based on collection strength and other features of member libraries, six main programs have been introduced, involving library activities in catalogue, digitization, web archive development, database construction and public education. In terms of construction method, the DLPP mainly relied upon three ways: union catalogue, the construction of resources and joint procurement.\n4. Resource sharing: The original intention and ultimate goal of the DLPP is to construct a comprehensive resource-sharing network among public libraries. With the huge amount of resources co-constructed and integrated, the DLPP has always been committed to exploring a resource-sharing mode between member libraries, and \"providing service in accordance with construction\" is one of the principles developed in the process. For this reason, the DLPP has constructed a private network for information exchange and resource sharing. Through this network, libraries can upload and download resources with greater safety and efficiency and can also access all the jointly purchased databases. Furthermore, a unified user management system (UUMS) has been developed to combine all the user information of member libraries into one user database, by which users, regardless location, can get access to shared resources according to their rights assigned. By the end of 2015, more than 250 libraries gained access to the shared resources through the private network, and 58 libraries have their users included in the UUMS (users of these libraries can thus access the shared resources). Up to now, the DLPP has provided more than 140 TB resources, both self-built and purchased for sharing. Resource types include: books, periodicals, newspapers, dissertations, rare and ancient books, reference books, audio and video materials, etc.\n5. Implications: The resource development programs of the DLPP were launched in 2013. Through the joint efforts of member libraries, significant achievements have been accomplished. The quantity of resources retained by individual libraries has been greatly improved, with 100 TB for each provincial library and 30 TB for each municipal library. On a national level, a series of databases with a variety resource types and significant regional content have been built, and a national resource preservation system has taken its initial shape. The DLPP and individual libraries, respectively, have carried out specialized and layered services for researchers, enterprises and institutions, the army, ethnic minorities and others special groups, based on the resources that have been co-constructed and shared. The service effect is becoming increasingly prominent; in 2015 alone, page views of the DPLL website amounted to more than 7.9 million. There are interesting implications resulting from the success of the DLPP.\n6. Future development: The DLPP is a giant systematic project in public culture, the implementation of which has boosted the development of the digital library in public libraries all over China. There are other resource sharing programs, such as the China Academic Library and Information System and the China Academic Social Sciences and Humanities Library in the academic domain, and the Cultural Information Resources Sharing Project at the community cultural level. They are inter-related and complement each other, thus constituting the national information resources system. Cooperation and sharing are the focus of digital libraries, whose future is to break the limits of space and organizational boundaries to build an inter-connected, full-media library service system. The DLPP will continue to take the initiative in promoting the building of the digital cultural system of the nation as a whole, via cooperation with other organizations: museums, art galleries and cultural centers. In the meantime, the concepts, models, standards, technical platforms and other outcomes developed by the DLPP can be used by other organizations, such as academic and research institutions and companies and businesses operating in this area, so as to provide a sound basis for merging digital libraries in different sectors, leading to the successful future development and sharing of a truly national digital cultural system.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the resource construction mode of the Digital Library Promotion Project, so as to summarize the general characteristics of successful collaborative collection building for digital libraries. Digital Library Promotion Project (DLPP) is a digital culture boosting project launched by the Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China with National Library of China as its implementing unit. The project aims to build a nation-wide library network that could support and guarantee resource development and sharing among public libraries all over China so as to achieve equalization in public culture service among people from different parts of the country. This paper is a case study of the digital library development in China. The present situation of Chinese public libraries is accounted in this paper, and the developing mode and mechanism in cooperation between libraries of different administrative ranking are discussed along with the future development of the project. This paper may provide references to countries and libraries in their efforts to pursue sustainable development.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper is a case study of digital collection development and sharing in a developing country where regional differences are large. The paper starts with the environmental scan of the resource situation of public libraries in China, which is the background and significance of the DLPP. The main part of the paper is the introduction and analysis of the collection developing method of the DLPP, including: union catalogue, co-construction of featured resources and joint procurement of databases. Through analyzing the mechanism in collection development and sharing, this paper discusses the measures that guarantees the success of the project.\nFindings: Through analyzing the mechanism in collection development and sharing, this paper discusses the measures that guarantee the success of the project, these are: sustained financial support from the government, scientific mechanism for cooperation, flexible handling of copyright issues unified standards in resource development and targeted training programs.\nOriginality/value: This paper is a case study of the digital library development in China. The present situation of Chinese public libraries is accounted in this paper, and the developing mode and mechanism in cooperation between libraries of different administrative ranking are discussed, as well as the future development of the project. This paper may provide references to countries and libraries in their efforts to pursue sustainable development.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Making visible the dance: Strategies and tactics in teacher and student classroom interactions	[ "Media", "Identity", "Critical literacy", "English teaching", "New literacy", "Literacy and identity" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Twenty years ago, notes were surreptitiously passed around the English classroom. Now, young people text on cell phones in their pockets, without even breaking eye contact with the teacher. While the props have changed, in many cases, the scene remains familiar. Official teacher scripts revolving around discourses of \"productivity\" and \"order\" have perhaps always resonated in tension with the backchannels featuring student counterscripts (Gutierrez et al., 1995) which often foreground social and identity practices (Rust, 2015). This piece deconstructs the multimodal discursive dance in a High School English classroom between teachers and one focal student (Elsa) during the several week course of her creation of a photography project representing her figured world (Gee, 2011) of \"school as jail\".\nTheoretical framework: classrooms as spaces and discourses: As Leander and Sheehy (2004/2011, p. 3) point out:\nLiterature review: Many conceptualize the potential of the student/teacher dance as \"the informal or formal crossing of boundaries\" (Greenhow et al., 2009, p. 248) or \"third spaces\" (Wilhelm, 2012; Pahl and Roswell, 2005; Jocson, 2008; Benson, 2010):\nMethodology: Context and participants\nFindings: The tactics and strategies described below all occurred during Elsa's creation of the Photovoice Project, during which she was asked to use at least five photographs and five captions to depict an issue of concern about her school that emerged from interviewing various school stakeholders. In the series of photos, she highlights the way that \"tutorial\" (a study hall of sorts that takes place in the auditorium) makes her feel like a criminal sentenced to jail time.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to delve deeply into the sometimes clashing interplays in English classrooms to explore the ways in which new media makes visible long-existing discourses and assumptions about the purpose of schools and the roles of teachers and students.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This piece draws upon discourse analysis and utilizes the frame of strategies versus tactics (de Certeau, 1984) to trace the complex classroom interplays between a high school English teacher, a partnering researcher and a high school junior during the process of a month-long digital photography project.\nFindings: Data reveal that, at times, both teachers and students made moves to preserve the status quo of the school space (through strategies), and at other times, worked to reshape the space for more relevant purposes (through tactics.) Strategies that emerge from teacher moves include the formalization of requirements and the controlling of bodies; the student strategy described is the perpetuation of stereotypes. Teacher tactics reported include repositioning identities, reframing \"the work\" and opening up space for inquiry. Student tactics include resistance, shifting to the personal, subverting a given task and self-positioning. The author argues that generative potential exists at the intersection of teacher tactics and student tactics, and calls for furthering the co-construction of classroom spaces.\nOriginality/value: By zooming in on the process, rather than the product, that ensued as the focal student created and defended her photographs representing school as jail, this paper emphasizes the agency that both teachers and students can enact in sometimes limiting classroom spaces.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The tools and techniques of effective change management: Why some reformers succeed while others fail	[ "Change management", "Leadership", "Organizational development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: \"A change leader looks for change, knows how to find the right changes and knows how to make them effective both outside the organization and inside it\", said management guru Peter F Drucker. Alan Mulally, of Ford; Jack Welch, of General Electric; Carlos Ghosn, of Renault; and Lou Gerstner of IBM, are examples of leaders who succeeded in overcoming obstacles and in turning round their organizations.\nIs change essential?: People change with changing times and circumstances and new technologies that affect their personal, professional and social lives. It is almost impossible to avoid change. Organizations must similarly change with the changing times, circumstances and technologies.\nWhy do people resist change?: Employees often react negatively to a change in their work location, the nature of their work or the policies and procedures governing their role. The reasons include employees not having the competencies and qualifications needed for their current or new role, fearing that their workload will increase, suspecting the motives of the organization that is requiring them to change and suspecting that they will lose out financially by the change or see their status reduced. These reactions can be reduced by proper training, trust-building measures and constant reassurance.\nChange leadership: Many people assume that the status quo is good. They fear that change will involve uncertainty and complexity. Change leaders need to build confidence about the merits of change and the need to shed what is not good for the organization.\nCharacteristics of change leaders: Change requires flexible leaders who can adapt to various situations, styles and people, to manage the change successfully. As leadership begins and ends with example, change leaders must \"walk the talk\". They must have a strong vision and be clear where they are taking their people. They must possess strong communication skills to get across the message about change and to clear any apprehensions. They must demonstrate fire-fighting and trouble-shooting skills during the process of change. They must empower and motivate others and make change an integral part of the organizational culture. They must have a \"can do\" attitude and be highly focused on doing the right things, right. They must have charisma and good listening skills. They must be confident and competent. They must have sound judgment based on the past successes and failures and intuition. They must learn to prioritize tasks and show and celebrate small successes. They must be risk-takers and learn to overcome bureaucratic bottlenecks during the process of change. They must create common ground where people can focus on commonalities rather than differences. They must have a burning desire to effect the change. They must have good analytical and problem-solving skills and be able to see the big picture. Above all, change leaders must be passionate in their endeavors to effect change smoothly and successfully.\nConclusion: The only constants in the corporate world are competition and change. Every change is made for a reason. Every change should be followed through only when the positives outweigh the negatives. Change requires a new mindset, tool-set and skill-set.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Equips leaders with tools and techniques to lead change effectively.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Explains various aspects of change leadership, including the characteristics of change leaders, and outlines a blueprint to effect change successfully.\nFindings: Argues that change requires a new mind-set, tool-set and skill-set. Lists some of the reasons for resistance to change.\nPractical implications: Highlights the differences between change and growth and considers the implications of these.\nSocial implications: Seeks to justify the need to change in the current global business environment.\nOriginality/value: Concludes that change is imperative for an organization to succeed in the modern business environment.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Overcoming irrationality: the Popperian approach	[ "Conjecture and refutation", "Irrationality", "Popper’s critical approach" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: I am often told that I see the world in an unusual way. As an academic for more than a decade, I have written about how educators and others make decisions in their practices, using a critical-rationalist approach. This paper reveals how educational and corporate leaders may counteract the all too human tendency to accept implicit assumptions and unstated expectations at face value.\nHow a fire led to a study of irrationality: On what otherwise seemed to be a normal Wednesday morning, everything changed in a matter of minutes. A massive fire, originating from my neighbour's house, suddenly broke out. Flames and smoke could be seen throughout the city. The street was closed for hours as 100 firefighters battled the blaze. Despite their best efforts, the neighbour's house could not be saved. As well, our home sustained substantial damages due to proximity and water. We lost our car, most of the contents of our home and have had to temporarily live in an apartment complex in a different part of the city.\nConjecture and refutation: Popper denies the existence of induction, a view put forth by many (e.g. Francis Bacon and J.S. Mill). This view says that the scientist arrives at theories from reports of individual observations and experiments and then proceeds to universal conclusions (laws and theories). Popper believes that a scientific theory could not be proved but only be disproved or falsified. For example, the theory that \"all swans are white\" is disproved by the observation of a single black swan. Instead, Popper and others (e.g. William Whewell) proposed that scientific reasoning works by setting up conjectures or hypotheses and deducing conclusions from them by testing the conclusions to see if these conclusions are true. If the conclusion is false, then the hypothesis is false. Popper calls this procedure the hypothetico-deductive method or the method of conjecture and refutation (Popper, 1957/1980).\nThe Placebo effect: Studies have shown that the pricier the medicine, the quicker they make patients feel better. Why is this so? Can this be attributed to the placebo effect (Ariely, 2008)? \"Placebo\" comes from the Latin word meaning \"I shall be\". It was used in the fourteenth century to refer to sham mourners who were hired to wail and sob for the deceased at funerals (Ariely, 2008). By 1785 the term appeared in the New Medical Dictionary, attached to some of the more marginal practices of medicine. By 1794, an Italian Physician, by the name of Gerbi, recorded in the medical literature one of the earliest examples of the placebo effect. It was this Dr Gerbi who made an odd discovery; the secretions of a certain type of worm cured tooth ache. When he rubbed the secretions on the tooth, the ache went away for up to a year. He went on to treat hundreds of patients using worm secretions. In total, 68 per cent of his patients reported that their pain went away for a year even though the secretions had nothing to do with the toothaches. But, Gerbi and his patients believed that that the secretions helped. As it turned out, the secretion was only a placebo.\nThe tragedy of the commons: Trust and money are important for the economy. When people trust each other, they are more likely to do business or transact with each other. In the old days, business was conducted on a gentleman's handshake. But when the handshake results in fraudulent schemes, the trust disappears and all subsequent business becomes more difficult (Ariely, 2008).\nErosion of trust: Popper's approach: E-mail has become a household word and, every day, I receive many e-mails, including many spam and junk e-mails. A few years ago, when I moved to Ottawa, I received an e-mail from an internet company offering me free installation. Since I needed access to the internet and it was free, I decided to take the offer and called the company. A few days later, a technician came to my door to do the installation. A month later, I received a bill for the free installation and found that it actually cost me $240. When I called the internet company, a customer representative directed me to the terms of agreement in the fine print on the contract that I had signed, stating that I will be charged $89 instead of $79 for the high speed internet for the next two years with the waiving of the installation fee. What prompted me to agree to take such an offer? Was it the word \"free\", or impulse, or being new to a city that made me make that decision? Or was it the dubious offer and the marketing scheme? Through the error elimination process, I experienced what Ariely (2008) explained: \"Free gives us an emotional charge that we perceive what is being offered as immensely more valuable than it really is\". Why? He went on to say, \"I think it's because humans are intrinsically afraid of loss. The real allure of Free is tied to this fear. There's no visible possibility of loss when we choose a Free item\" (p. 60).\nApplying Popper's approach: Many of our assumptions regarding facts are erroneous and there is much we think we know but do not know. In some cases, our ignorance has no major consequences as to whether we succeed, despite errors and limitations in our knowledge. Yet, in other cases our ignorance can be an impediment to our success. For example, the mould in the walls could present health risks to the claimants. Even though ignorance does not invariably prevent us from succeeding, Swann (2003) suggests that there is still much to gain from trying \"to (a) avoid solutions to practical problems that embody erroneous assumptions about the effectiveness of the solution, unintended consequences, and the existence of better alternative solutions, and (b) advance our knowledge\" (p. 262). These actions become even more important when a large number of people are affected by the decisions made. The adjuster intervenes with the intention of achieving specific goals; that is, giving the claimant back a smoke and soot free house. There are situations where the adjusters can address practical problems without the help of explicit theory. However, there are many situations where it would be dangerous for them to do so, because their claimants would be adversely affected by their actions; for example, believing that using the hydroxyl generator will solve all the problems in a home severely affected by water due to fire. The unintended consequences resulting from adjusters' actions may also be harmful and farther-reaching (Popper, 1961, Section 20). In this case, the claimants may be exposed to mould, which can have long-term health consequences. There is no doubt that some courses of actions are better than others because they have better (less harmful) consequences and solve more problems. Often we see adjustors taking a course of action that is radical without being clear about the problem that the action is intended to solve.\nConclusion: The examples used in this paper illustrate that Popper's approach is robust and applicable in a variety of contexts and is not limited to educational organizations. Furthermore, it showcases our irrationality, and helps us understand when and where we may make erroneous decisions. Popper's approach can assist individuals in eliminating the errors contained in their solutions or theories by getting us to test our hypotheses. This is also where Popper's approach can encourage organizations and policy makers to revise their thinking and consider how to design policies and products to maximum outcome and utility.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how associationism mistakenly assumes that direct experience is possible; that is, there is expectation-free observation and association without prior expectation. Thus, associationism assumes that learning involves the absorption of information from the environment itself. However, contrary arguments take the position that, for an individual to make a connection between his/her behaviour and its consequence(s), he/she must first have an expectation in order for a connection to be made.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper uses a personal experience to illustrate how implicit assumptions and unstated expectations can be found in the corporate world. It offers to answer questions that will lead to an examination of overcoming irrationality through utilization of the Popperian philosophy of associationism.\nFindings: When evaluating a practice, it is easier to find evidence of some sort to support the practice, especially if we are either disposed to do so or if our colleagues and organizations have recommended that we adopt these practices. However, if we are committed to genuinely improving our practice, Swann (2009) suggests that we become critical and ask, \"What are the unintended and undesirable consequences of doing things this way?\" (p. 8).\nResearch limitations/implications: Popper's approach needs to be developed or learned through stages and with time. We need to be aware that it takes time to master the use of this approach. Merely introducing or having organizations learn the different methods or short cuts have only a limited effect in improving their ability to deal with issues in different contexts.\nPractical implications: The examples used throughout this paper illustrate that the adoption of Popper's approach does not necessarily require large-scale experiments. In fact, a well-conducted case study can be effective in casting doubt on existing assumptions. Regardless of the nature of the research strategy and the scale of the experiment devised to test a hypothesis, the task of testing can and will be problematic.\nSocial implications: Expectations can make us look foolish from time to time, but they can also be very powerful or useful because they are more than mere anticipation. If we are unable to strip away our preconceptions or prior knowledge, we can at least acknowledge our biases and, in doing so, we may not continue to be trapped within our own perspectives, which can blind us to the truth.\nOriginality/value: The examples used in this paper illustrate that Popper's approach is robust and applicable in a variety of contexts and is not limited to educational organizations. Furthermore, it showcases our irrationality, and helps us understand when and where we may make erroneous decisions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Does perceived organizational support and employee development influence organizational citizenship behavior? Person-organization fit as moderator	[ "Organizational commitment", "Organizational citizenship behavior", "Perceived organizational support", "Banking sector", "Employee development", "Person–organization fit" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Organizations in recent decades have become increasingly people-centered. The human perspective has become the main differentiator in the labor market. Human resource functions have acquired immense importance; therefore, leaders have paid significant attention to hiring, retaining and developing employees because of the tight talent market (Srikanth, 2019; Islam and Ahmed, 2018). Therefore, the scarce talent acquired creates a differentiated value that is rare, cannot be copied, and is difficult to replace (Wu and Liu, 2014). These arguments provide the foundation for this study to examine the effects of organizational initiatives on employees' citizenship behavior that can be instrumental in organizational success.\nLiterature review: Theoretical foundation - organizational support theory\nHypotheses development: Relationship between perceived organizational support and organizational commitment\nResearch methodology: Data collection and sample size\nData analysis: Measurement model evaluations\nResults and discussion: The hypothesized relationships were examined by a structural model (Figure 3). The study proposed that POS and employee development positively interacts with organizational commitment to influence employee citizenship behavior. By using employee citizenship behavior as a dependent variable, control variables (i.e. age, job nature and years of work experience) were entered to observe their impact on employees' pro-social behaviors. The result of the structural model is presented in Table 4.\nTheoretical contribution and practical implications: The study significantly contributes to the theory in the field of human resource management and organizational behavior. Numerous studies have highlighted the role of organizational support and employee development in enhancing their citizenship behavior (Jehanzeb and Mohanty, 2018; Islam and Ahmed, 2018; Tremblay et al., 2019). The results of the study validate the organizational support theory of Eisenberger et al. (1986) and advocated the role of organizational support and development programs in enhancing employees' commitment. Similarly, the study by Kurtessis et al. (2017) has supported the relationship between organizational support and OCB as endorsed by Eisenberger's theory of organizational support.\nLimitation and scope for future research: The study has some limitations regarding individual and environmental factors. These limitations still have plenty of scope for future research. First, the potential limitation of the study is the sample size, which can be increased in the future for a broader view. To test the hypotheses, the researcher distributed 400 questionnaires and received 340 responses from employees working in public and private banks in Pakistan. Given that the study selected branches of public and private banks located in five metropolitan cities in Pakistan, it would have been better if more bank branches and cities participated in the future study.\nConclusion: The research aimed to examine the impact of POS and employee development on OCB, while organizational commitment and OCB were being moderated by P-O fit. The results reported a positive relationship between most of the study variables, except the nature of the work, years of experience and POS at OCB. Similar to the study's findings, employees are satisfied and attached to a supportive organizational climate. Therefore, employee development generally improves employees' perception of their organizations and engages in voluntary activities.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between perceived organizational support (POS), employee development and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) while considering the moderating effect of person-organization (P-O) on this association.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using a stratified sampling technique, the data was collected from 331 employees working in different bank branches located in five metropolitan cities of Pakistan. To test the hypotheses, the structural equation modeling technique was applied using AMOS 21.0.\nFindings: The results of the study strongly supported the relationship between POS, employee development and organizational commitment. However, an insignificant relationship was found between POS, employee development and OCB. The results also reported a significant relationship between organizational commitment and OCB. Moreover, the relationship between organizational commitment and OCB was found to be moderated by P-O fit.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings of the study can be useful for banking organizations and policymakers responsible for employee and organizational productivity. The findings of the study can also assist the organizational leaders in working on long-term employee support programs to maximize their commitment to the organization. The study also provides the scope and space for potential scholars and researchers for carrying out further research.\nOriginality/value: While there is extensive literature is available on POS, employee development and its impact on OCB. However, it appears that very little work has been done to examine the moderating role of the P-O fit in the relationship between organizational commitment and OCB. Therefore, this study can be considered as original and of great value in understanding its relationships between various constructs in the scenario of Pakistan.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Governance of artificial intelligence and personal health information	[ "Big data", "Governance", "Artificial intelligence", "Deep learning", "Personal health information" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction and motivation: Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies increasingly enable innovations from searching the internet to voice and facial recognition, smart appliances, and even to driverless cars. In the past, key limitations of AI have been the availability of sufficient data for training algorithms and the inability of AI systems to manage data in their natural form. Now, with omnipresent digitalization of data about humans and their activities, deep learning[1] algorithms increasingly are able to take advantage of stockpiles of \"big data\" to enhance a learning model's performance and extend the sophistication and reach of AI applications (Chen and Lin, 2014; Jordan and Mitchell, 2015).\n2. The complexity of personal health information data and challenges of data governance: The term PHI data relates to a variety of data domains that contain personally identifying (or potentially identifying) characteristics: medical history data; clinical data collected in EHR systems of hospitals, physicians, and laboratories; pharmacy prescription data; patient-generated health data from medical devices (such as a glucose monitor) or general purpose activity tracker (such as a Fitbit step tracking device); and medical expense claims data. Other PHI data domains are created by analyzing data not directly connected to health status, but health status can be inferred analytically. These data can be characterized as consumer-generated health data, for instance trace data from internet search activities, credit card purchases and online shopping, or geospatial/location data.\n3. Controlling the health-care artificial intelligence juggernaut: Given the sensitivity of personal health data and existing legal and regulatory protections, PHI data governance approaches are more mature than in many socioeconomic sectors (Hripcsak et al., 2014; Rosenbaum, 2010). However, existing PHI data governance structures are unlikely to be sufficient to control the combined momentum of AI, deep learning and aggregation of PHI, or thus to help channel developments along societally beneficial and equitable directions.\n4. Concluding remarks: Giddens (1990) termed circumstances in which the momentum to pursue scientific advancements crushes consideration of possible societal consequences as a juggernaut. In this essay, we have questioned whether growing trends towards (relatively) unfettered use of personal health data in machine learning will fuel a health AI juggernaut. The promises of health, health services, and health system transformation that might be possible through AI/machine learning innovations are substantial and compelling. We argued that the scale and scope of PHI data consumed by deep learning models and the opacity of these algorithms will overwhelm current approaches to PHI data governance, in particular, preemptive data regulations and informed consent practices. To merely maintain some balance between individual rights and autonomy, and corporate interests in extracting value from PHI through AI, new data governance techniques and tools will be required.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to assess the increasing challenges to governing the personal health information (PHI) essential for advancing artificial intelligence (AI) machine learning innovations in health care. Risks to privacy and justice/equity are discussed, along with potential solutions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This conceptual paper highlights the scale and scope of PHI data consumed by deep learning algorithms and their opacity as novel challenges to health data governance.\nFindings: This paper argues that these characteristics of machine learning will overwhelm existing data governance approaches such as privacy regulation and informed consent. Enhanced governance techniques and tools will be required to help preserve the autonomy and rights of individuals to control their PHI. Debate among all stakeholders and informed critique of how, and for whom, PHI-fueled health AI are developed and deployed are needed to channel these innovations in societally beneficial directions.\nSocial implications: Health data may be used to address pressing societal concerns, such as operational and system-level improvement, and innovations such as personalized medicine. This paper informs work seeking to harness these resources for societal good amidst many competing value claims and substantial risks for privacy and security.\nOriginality/value: This is the first paper focusing on health data governance in relation to AI/machine learning.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Competencies acquisition through self-directed learning among Malaysian managers	[ "Competences", "Self managed learning", "Malaysia", "Managers" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Background of the study\nLiterature review: The concept of job competency\nMethodology: Instrumentation\nData analysis: The data gathered was analyzed by using Statistics Package for Social Science (SPSS 11.0). Descriptive statistics was performed for the respondents' competencies, learning methods and for examining the extent of self-directed learning readiness among the respondents.Factor analysis was conducted for methods of learning, and it produced three factors. Next, another factor analysis was done on the 48-items of the SDLRS. This analysis produced 11 factors but only eight factors were reported. The eight factors were selected because they complied with Kaisers' rule of more than 1.0 to be converted as a factor. At the same time, the other three factors were not selected because they were unreliable. The reliability coefficient for Factor 9 and Factor 10 were 0.4182 and 0.1862 respectively. No further deletion can be done as both factors only have two items each. Factor 11 has only one item. Next, the eight factors were labelled accordingly based on the items within each factor. Then, a reliability test was done for the items within each factor for the eight factors. All of the eight factors were reliable. The detail results of each factor and their reliability results are shown in Table I.\nFindings: Respondents background\nDiscussion and conclusion: To conclude, findings from this study support earlier studies by re-emphasising the contribution of job-related activities in developing employees' competence. The present study identified communication, managerial, and job knowledge competencies as the main competencies required by the Malaysian managers. These findings support the previous findings where in his study he found that writing skills, computer use skill, and industry understanding as important competencies among the American managers. Not only the competencies required are similar, but also the way they acquire those competencies are quite similar.It is interesting to observe that self-directed learning methods such as self-education and working in a team are among the prevalent methods used by the respondents to acquire their competency and these managers do possess the attributes of self-directed learners. These findings are important because they show that the managers are learning on their own and they are capable of doing so. In Cheetham and Chivers (2001) study, they found that on the job training was the highest contribution to competence to the professionals in their sample. These authors also found that working as part of a team and self-reflection are other common methods used by their respondents. Billett (2000) highlighted that participation in work activities at workplace contributes towards developing individuals' work-related knowledge. These findings show that Malaysian managers too find that on-the job training, working as part of a team and self-education are common among the Malaysian managers and executives.Employees should continue learning to perform new and changing tasks, at the same time they should also learn how to learn efficiently. It is important to note that self-directed learning is a complex process and the endeavour can result in non-accomplishment, frustration or even failure. Self-directed learner must possess special attributes such as determination, independence, and discipline. The organisation should encourage and probably want to consider rewarding the learners' efforts. As majority of the work force in Malaysia are Muslims, by their religion requirement they should embrace learning and be responsible for their own learning and seeking knowledge.This study shows the contribution of workplace as effective learning environment, as managers learn most on the job training. Given the emphasis being placed on the importance of work place learning, it is timely to advance a workplace curriculum by integrating the everyday learning experiences and guided learning strategy in the organisation. This is important because not all people learn equally well from the same kind of experiences at work. By understanding how employees learn in their workplace, managers may be able to develop programmes that are relevant to the workplace policy requirement and to the employees' learning styles.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine how Malaysian managers acquire job competencies through self-directed learning activities at their workplace. Specifically it aims to investigate what types of job competencies are required for the managers, how they learn to acquire those competencies, and whether the managers have the self-directed learning attributes and capability to acquire job competencies by self-directed learning activities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The data were collected through survey. The survey adapted the Self-Directed Learning Readiness Scale (SDLRS) developed by Guglielmino. In total 238 respondents participated in this study.\nFindings: - The findings show that the respondents have identified communication, managerial, and job knowledge as the main competencies required for their jobs. Most of these competencies are acquired through on-the-job training, working as part of a team and self-education. The findings also reveal that the respondents do possess the attributes of self-directed learners.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The findings support previous research. Given the different cultural background of the Malaysian managers, their ways of learning are similar to those of Western managers. Future research can investigate how employees in other professions learn on their jobs and what other factors may influence self-directed learning.\nPractical implications: - Given the emphasis being placed on the importance of work place learning, it is timely to advance a workplace curriculum by integrating the everyday learning experiences and guided learning strategy in the organisation, so that the employees' learning can be facilitated more effectively.\nOriginality/value: - The paper includes the different cultural context of how Malaysian managers learn.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Integrating wireless sensor networks and the internet: a security analysis	[ "Computer networks", "Wireless", "Data security", "Integration", "Internet" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: If a computer system needs to obtain data from a certain environment, one of the tools that may be used is wireless sensor networks, also known as sensor networks or WSN. The elements of these networks, the sensor nodes, can measure various physical properties like temperature and radiation, and produce data streams that are sent to a powerful device known as base station. These networks have certain features, such as self-configurability, autonomy, and easiness of deployment, that make them extremely useful for a variety of applications: environmental monitoring, home automation, medical applications, and many others. In fact, WSN are considered as one of the fundamental parts of the \"pervasive computing\" paradigm, where ubiquitous computers help us in our daily lives.The issue of accessing to the data streams produced by sensor networks has not been profoundly considered. It is assumed that, once the data is retrieved from the sensors, the user of the network will be able to read it directly through the base station. However, this assumption must be challenged. All data streams produced by any sensor network should be available to any authorized user, being human or machine, anywhere in the world, by using standard mechanisms. By integrating the sensor networks into the internet, this vision can become a reality. There are many ways to accomplish this integration: from considering the base station as an internet host that interfaces with the network services, to including the sensor nodes into the IP infrastructure.Whatever the case may be, security becomes a really important factor. Sensor networks must be secure by themselves, and the interactions between the sensor network and the internet must also comply with certain security properties. Sensor network security has received a lot of attention from the research community, but the secure integration of sensor networks and the internet is an underdeveloped research subject. The purpose of this paper is to analyze which are the major security issues that need to be solved in order to successfully integrate the sensor networks and the internet. Also, once those security issues are identified, this paper will review if the existing technology, protocols, and implementations are suitable for this purpose.The structure of the paper is as follows. In section 2 we will review the sensor network technology, and how it could be integrated as part of the internet. Section 3 will introduce the major security challenges that may hinder this integration process, showing both the sensor network security issues and the integration-specific security issues. Section 4 will analyze whether these security challenges remain to be open problems or can be solved using existing technologies and mechanisms. Finally, section 5 concludes the paper.\n2. WSN and the internet: 2.1 WSN overview\n3. Security challenges: 3.1 WSN-specific security challenges\n4. Security achievements and open issues: 4.1 Securing wireless sensor networks\n5. Conclusions: The real potential of sensor networks can be fully unleashed if they are connected to the internet. One of the existing challenges in this area is to assure the existence of certain security properties in the collaboration and integration of sensor networks and internet hosts. Not only sensor networks should be secure by themselves, but also the interaction between these networks and the internet should comply with security properties such as confidentiality, integrity, authentication, authorization, accountability, and availability.This paper has reviewed how sensor networks can securely interact with the internet, and whether existing technology mechanisms are suitable for this scenario. Currently, it is possible to use the base station as a secure front-end proxy that interfaces with the network services, although it is not possible to open a direct channel between hosts and motes, amongst other issues (single point of failure, information consistency ...). Other security challenges appear if the sensor nodes are completely integrated into the internet: creation of end-to-end secure channels, specific protection mechanisms (against denial of service attacks, battery exhaustion attacks, and many others), availability and accountability, sensor node capabilities, and many others. Still, the benefits of integration surely justify the effort of overcoming these challenges.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to analyze the security issues that arise when integrating wireless sensor networks (WSN) and the internet. Also, it seeks to review whether existing technology mechanisms are suitable and can be applied in this context.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper considers the possible approaches that can be used to connect a WSN with the internet, and analyzes the security of their interactions.\nFindings: - By providing the services of the network through a front-end proxy, a sensor network and the internet can interact securely. There are other challenges to be solved if the sensor nodes are integrated into the internet infrastructure, although there exists interesting advances on his matter.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The complete integration of sensor networks and the internet still remains as an open issue.\nPractical implications: - With the current state of the art, it is possible to develop a secure sensor network that can provide its services to internet hosts with certain security properties.\nOriginality/value: - The paper studies the interactions between sensor networks and the internet from the point of view of security. It identifies both solutions and research challenges.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The impact of professional capital on educational excellence and equality in Estonia	[ "Professional learning", "Leadership", "Decision making", "Community", "Professional capital", "Knowledge mobilization" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Estonia regained its independence in 1991 following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The new government implemented a series of deep reforms to its education system. After 25 years of reform Estonia's education system outperforms not only the other Baltic States and the former socialist countries in Eastern Europe but also most other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It is clearly a highly effective system.\n2. Contextual factors influencing the education system (inputs): 2.1. Country's general level of development\n3. Factors initiated by the education system (processes): When Estonia regained independence in the early 1990s, the country had a serious challenge to develop and implement new education policies that reflected the changes in society. The education system needed a rapid response to a wide range of issues such as: the formation of a new democracy, more personalized learning, creating a new system of shared values and sustaining the national public school system. Estonia became more autonomous, within the Soviet Union, following the \"perestroika\" movement during the 1980s. Growing autonomy provided opportunities for leaders and key people in the education system to visit Scandinavia, USA, Canada and other countries to learn about contemporary ideas of schooling and understand different principles (Sarv, 2015). Policy makers were well-placed after independence to shape their new understandings of education into legislation that would move the country forward through the new Republic of Estonia Education Act (Riigikogu, 1992) and the Act of Basic School and Gymnasium (Riigikogu, 1993), which decentralized general education to the school level.\n4. Summary: Education is complex and has connections with many aspects of human life. Therefore it is impossible to indicate a single, or even the main, reason why Estonian students perform so well in international comparative studies. Estonian people belong to Western culture through their beliefs, understanding and shared values. That culture attaches a high value to education and human development. There is a long tradition of schooling in Estonia that has existed for centuries and Estonian people appreciate what education provides. The result of this appreciation is a highly educated population and especially highly educated women who form 84.5 per cent of the teaching profession (OECD, 2014, p. 260).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Estonia's results in programme for international student assessment (PISA) studies between 2006 and 2012 showed both high-level attainment and social equity. The combination of excellence and equity makes Estonia stand out from other countries. The purpose of this paper is to explore the wide range of factors that influence Estonian students' performance in these tests and note how professional capital fits into the overall picture.\nDesign/methodology/approach: First the authors present a brief analysis of the outcomes in terms of the PISA results. Then the authors describe a wide range of contextual factors in Estonia such as: the country's general level of human development; historical and cultural factors; demographics and social factors. These are the inputs to the education system. Finally the authors explore the interplay between features of the education system itself - the schooling processes - and note the impact of professional capital.\nFindings: The authors judge that the interplay between professional capital with other factors that work in harmony explains why the system is highly effective. This coherence is not accidental; it is the outcome of a series of deliberate reforms and investment over a single generation.\nOriginality/value: Between 2009 and 2012 Estonia increased its share of top performers in PISA tests while, at the same time, reduced the proportion of low performers. This is commonly referred to as \"raising the bar and closing the gap\". Individual schools struggle to close attainment gaps between different groups of students. Estonia is one of a very small number of countries to achieve both excellence and equality across the whole national system.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Benchmarking in service marketing - a longitudinal analysis of the customer	[ "Consumer behaviour", "Benchmarking", "Services marketing" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: While consumer behaviour is a complex phenomenon extending over long periods, from the pre-decision phase to the decision, from the purchase to the post-purchase phase, empirical studies typically concentrate on a particular phase, e.g. the post-purchase phase, or isolated phenomena, such as satisfaction or regret. Early phases are usually captured retrospectively, questioning the validity of findings. In contrast to a cross-sectional study, a longitudinal design lives up much better to the complexity of consumer behaviour. However, as longitudinal studies are costly and, by definition, time-consuming, sample sizes are typically much smaller compared to cross-sectional studies. Furthermore, representativeness is the exception rather than the rule in longitudinal studies. However, small sample sizes also entail advantages, e.g. most qualitative approaches are confined to a small number of respondents, and respondents can be contacted more often. Furthermore, it has to be kept in mind that small sample sizes do not preclude quantitative assessment provided well-tested, psychometrically sound measures are used. Hence, longitudinal studies are perfectly suited to mixed-method approaches. As phenomena are measured at the time they occur rather than being reconstructed from data collected at a later stage, the responses are more authentic and promise to be more valid (Bolger et al., 2003; Kirchler et al., 2000). Qualitative insights, in combination with quantitative assessment, provide a much richer picture of the individual consumer, enabling the derivation of ideas for customer-focused benchmarking (Bartley et al., 2007). In this study, consumers have been attended during their decision-making process considering services in tourism industry. Data were collected by applying the diary method (Bolger et al., 2003). Various constructs which are typically associated with successive phases of consumer behaviour were measured repeatedly. The same applies to the collection of qualitative information.\nResearch background: Benchmarking and services\nDecision making in a service context: Regarding individual purchase decision making, perceived risk (PR), cognitive dissonance (CD), satisfaction (SAT), complaint behaviour and loyalty are relevant psychological constructs typically considered. Compared to the purchase decision-making process of physical products, the decision-making process in case of services implies a particularly high potential for the occurrence of undesired psychological post-purchase phenomena such as CD or dissatisfaction because these phenomena can be seen as unpleasant side-effects of the purchase, affecting both the customer and the service company. Regarding the development of innovational strategies in service marketing, empirically based knowledge of consumers' needs and requirements is crucial. From a consumer behaviour point of view, the examination of the individual consumer's decision-making process has always been of key interest regarding service marketing related fields of application. In practice, however, the measurement of psychological phenomena related to the purchase decision process is often limited to a single point in time. The investigation of the development of the constructs over time, the behavioural consequences of these phenomena as well as the possibility to assess the effect of marketing-mix activities by a service company require a longitudinal design. Information on the customers' feelings during the whole decision-making process is an important input for the marketing concept of a service company. Understanding why customers show a certain behaviour helps tailor future product development aiming at enhancing the number of loyal customers.Psychological constructs involved\nResearch objectives and methodology: Design of the study\nEmpirical results and analysis: Quantitative findings (aggregate level)\nConclusions and implications: The showcase exemplifies the general implication that, in terms of customer satisfaction and loyalty, travel agencies are advised to pay more attention to individual cases. Employees should become aware of the fact that they have some potential to counteract such negative developments within their consultancy activities. Internal marketing activities become very important when communicating empirical findings on customers' psychological states to the employees. It is particularly important to realise that increasing customer expectation may raise his or her willingness to pay but at the same time it contributes to, or makes more likely, a gap between expectation and perceived quality. The emerging CD impairs satisfaction and finally interferes with loyalty. Reduced repurchase intention and a lack of positive word-of-mouth or even manifest negative word-of-mouth will more than offset the initial increase in the willingness to pay in the current transaction. Of course, abating expectations is no real option. On the one hand, there is less room for disconfirmation but on the other hand, the consumer may refrain from booking a holiday altogether or resort to low-value packages which, in the end, do not result in satisfaction either. Consequently, it is important to identify the real needs of the consumer and, based on the professional expertise of the travel agency, suggest suitable packages which are attractive and which meet the consumer's individual expectations. However, the emphasis on the individual must not stop at the time of booking. Individually tailored communication, shortly before departure, e.g. at the time of handing over the travel documents, and also after returning from the holiday may help reduce or prevent the development of CD. Since treating consumers individually requires individual information, it is crucial to record and store any information and any sort of feedback the consumer provides for future reference. Short questionnaires, administered in an early stage, e.g. during a consumer's first inquiry or at the time of booking, may provide useful information about the consumer's susceptibility to CD and/or his/her concrete expectations. Given that only a fraction of unsatisfied consumers actually complain, information should also be collected in a pro-active manner after the holiday. If the consumer realises that the travel agency is interested in her or his experience, opinion and perceptions, this may in itself be a contribution to alleviate CD, if there is any. In case of severe shortcomings and an alarming level of CD, a pro-active compensation may be offered in order to safeguard a long-term relationship and positive word-of-mouth.Generally, \"customer companionship\" during the whole decision-making process could be a valuable instrument within the field of customer relationship management in service industries. Providing individualised up-to-date information (e.g. on weather conditions, local trips and activities available, etc.) during all phases could be a useful tool to be considered. This individualised information could be given by offering additional services using, e.g. text messaging prior to departure as well as during the holiday. The latter would help customers to orientate themselves at their holiday destination more easily. Innovations like this would help to lower consumers' PR prior to consumption, to avoid wrong expectations and to enhance satisfaction during and after the holiday. Similarly to a business-to-business context, the idea of so-called customer value models (Anderson and Narus, 1998) can be adapted to a business-to-consumer context (Graf and Maas, 2008). A mix of quantitative and qualitative individual level data are necessary to build a tailor-made value model for different target groups. Customised service packages regarding the products and/or services themselves but also consultancy and informational activities during the decision-making process can offer a real value added to the customers. Furthermore, mixed-method designs integrating new technologies such as, e.g. Web 2.0 applications (Hagemann and Vossen, 2008) offer a set of alternative methods of data collection in this respect. Discussions and postings in internet communities are another possible source of individual case study information. Web 2.0 applications provide the possibility for customer-integrated service development processes.The general findings emphasise that CD is worthwhile being explored and monitored for it may have a persistent harmful effect on satisfaction and word-of-mouth. However, first findings of the individual analysis revealed that there is no common pattern of how CD evolves over time that applies to every consumer vulnerable to CD. A reason for this diversity is the fact that there are widely different triggers of PR, dissonance or a lack of satisfaction, like, e.g. critical incidents during the trip or the return trip, or unfavourable behaviour of service employees. This is especially important for those service companies that aim at the satisfaction of the majority of their clients and not at the short-term maximisation of the number of transactions. Based on these findings, the importance of innovative solutions pertaining to both the training of service employees and the technological applications involved is demonstrated.As the service sector has become an increasingly competitive and dynamic business environment (Levenburg, 2006), in order to stay competitive, thinking \"out of the box\" is a promising innovational strategy regarding both marketing activities and marketing research methodologies applied. Further analysis regarding different phase-related categories of triggers of PR, CD and satisfaction as well as further analyses of the qualitative data on formal and informal communication will allow for more specific managerial implications. Whether the ideas gathered through the qualitative individual case study analysis generalise to a broader population of consumers is subject to further research. Regarding the general difficulty of capturing emotions as partly unconscious elements by traditional questionnaires, further investigations should incorporate psychophysiological approaches such as galvanic skin response or other neuro-scientific methods such as electroencephalography or functional magnetic resonance imaging.Individual case studies mapping consumer behaviour are particularly well suited in mixed-method designs, be it in cross-sectional studies or longitudinal investigations. As shown in the present study, a detailed analysis of an individual decision-making process is an exploratory approach aiming at generating new and innovative ideas for tailor-made marketing activities. Findings gained through multiple case study analyses serve, akin to traditional focus groups, as an idea-generating method. As subjectivity is a major limitation of the case study approach, only quantitative follow-up investigations can shed light on the question whether individually derived marketing activities are also effective for larger segments of consumers or even the total population.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the temporal development of the customers' psychological state, described by a multitude of constructs, throughout the whole decision-making process in a service context in order to derive ideas for customer-focused benchmarking.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A combination of qualitative and quantitative data contributes to a better understanding of psychological phenomena during purchase decision making. The present longitudinal study investigates the consumers' psychological state during the decision-making process considering services in tourism industry applying the diary method. Qualitative in-depth investigation of individual case studies provides further information for interpreting the results of quantitative analyses which aim at measuring constructs such as perceived risk, cognitive dissonance (CD), satisfaction and arousal on a higher level of abstraction.\nFindings: - Findings show that qualitative and quantitative data not only complement one another but also their interaction provides additional information about the individual consumer decision-making process. As the longitudinal quantitative analysis shows that CD does not completely dissolve over time and significantly influences the level of satisfaction, complaint behaviour and word-of-mouth, additional qualitative data help interpret these findings and derive more effective marketing implications.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Implications for the marketing-mix of service companies in general and travel agencies in particular are derived. The paper underlines the potential of innovational methodological approaches in marketing research.\nOriginality/value: - The paper introduces a longitudinal mixed-method approach to collect customer-focused information relevant for benchmarking purposes of service companies. It contributes to scientific knowledge of decision making in general and CD in particular.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Strategic hybrid lateral transshipment for cost-optimized inventory management	[ "Cost optimization", "Lateral transshipment", "Proactive transshipment", "Reactive transshipment", "Wholesaler inventory management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Nomenclature\n1. Introduction: Inventory managers face continual increasing pressure to achieve cost optimization, a situation that has been exacerbated by intensifying competition and increased customer demand for more competitively priced products of better quality. Firms must be proactive in strategically looking for new markets and at the same time retain their existing customers if they are to survive. While maintaining high stock levels generates high customer satisfaction through reliability of product supply, firms need to identify the minimum sustainable stock level in order to obviate the high inventory cost. When firms find that demand cannot be met with stock on hand, they might consider sourcing it from another entity in the same echelon; such access enables instantaneous delivery but comes at a considerably higher cost (Axsater, 2014; Seidscher and Minner, 2013). This study examines the potential for a cost-effective extension of reactive lateral transshipment combined with extra quantities (i.e. proactive lateral transshipment) that enables the inventory managers to meet the expected demand, as an interim strategy until regular periodic supplies are received.\n2. Literature review of reactive and proactive lateral transshipments: Lateral transshipment can be divided into proactive lateral transshipment and reactive lateral transshipment (Lee et al., 2007; Paterson et al., 2011). Proactive lateral transshipment, also called preventive lateral transshipment, occurs at a point of time before an inventory shortage happens. It is used to balance the inventory level of different locations at the same echelon and reduce the risk of future stock-out (Jonsson and Silver, 1987; Bertrand and Bookbinder, 1998; Banerjee et al., 2003; Lee et al., 2007; Tiacci and Saetta, 2011). Reactive lateral transshipment, also named emergency lateral transshipment, occurs when the demand has been realized and a shortage is resulted. Shipments are assumed to be fast enough to satisfy the shortage (Tiacci and Saetta, 2011).\n3. Model development: 3.1 Model setting\n4. Numerical experiments and discussion: The proposed decision rules are tested in a numerical simulation study. Let us consider a wholesaler ABC which operates in a geographic region with other multiple wholesalers. It is assumed that the retailer demand follows a compound Poisson distribution with arrival intensity l(t)=l for any time, t. Based on Axsater (2007), the expected retailer demand at wholesaler ABC during time t is given by:(15)\n5. Discussion and conclusion: This study investigated the possibility of lateral transshipment for fulfilling not only urgent demand at the beginning of the scheduling period but also some of the expected demand during supplier lead time. We considered the possibility of combined reactive and proactive approaches to lateral transshipment in a wholesaler environment where lateral transshipments are more expensive but instantaneous. We are unaware of any other study which has closely focused on a similar scope. Hence, our contribution to the lateral transshipment knowledge base is novel.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Logistics practitioners must continually improve inventory management processes as they daily respond to the twin drivers of customer satisfaction and cost efficiency. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the scenario of sourcing goods through lateral transshipments in a periodic-review policy setting, against a backdrop of cost optimization objectives.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors develop decision rules that make cost-optimized selection between backordering and combined reactive and proactive lateral transshipment options possible. This necessarily takes account of the trade-off between purchasing, holding and backorder cost components. In addition, the authors use simulation studies to illustrate the superior performance of the proposed decision options.\nFindings: According to results of the simulation studies, the proposed two-step decision rule generates the lower inventory cost than the alternative decisions rules. The outperformance of proposed two-step decision rule is valid in different scenario.\nPractical implications: This study develops the decision rules to assist wholesaler logistics practitioners to make optimized decisions with regard to whether they should proactively lateral transshipments and if selected, the optimum size of the extra lateral transshipment.\nOriginality/value: This study has made a significant contribution to the existing knowledge base as it develops decision rules for a combined proactive and reactive approach using lateral transhipments to meet both urgent demand and a part of the demand expected during the supplier lead time in a cost-efficient way.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Female board members: the effect of director affiliation	[ "Corporate governance", "Diversity", "Board of directors", "Female directors", "Director affiliation", "Family companies", "Borsa Istanbul", "Director independence" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Gender diversity in corporate boards continues to attract more and more attention from academics and policymakers. As the number and percentage of female directors on boards have continued to increase in many countries over the past two decades (Gabaldon et al., 2016; de Cabo et al., 2019), discussions still continue regarding whether board gender diversity is beneficial for companies. Generally, increases in the representation of women in corporate boardrooms are the results of mandatory quotas imposed on public companies in many countries, such as France and Norway, among others (Adams, 2016). Yet, the representation of women on corporate boards continues to increase, even in countries where such quotas are not mandated, such as the USA (Wiersema and Mors, 2016), as well as in countries with only voluntary female director percentage targets, such as Turkey[1]. This trend in the representation of women in company boards, even in the absence of mandatory quotas, requires a deeper investigation of the issue.\nThe Turkish setting: For a number of reasons, Turkey provides an interesting setting for broadening our understanding of the dynamics of the effects of gender diversity on company performance. First of all, Turkey is an emerging market where controlling business groups are very common (approximately 77 per cent of female directors are representatives of these controlling business groups). These large groups usually control companies via voting agreements and through indirect ownership, which is not the case for most countries generally researched on this topic. In such a setting, companies usually assign the same directors (including female directors) to multiple company boards to have influence on decisions made in boardrooms. Thus, whether gender diversity would improve company performance might not be a priority for holding companies. Therefore, the affiliation of female directors could be expected to matter in terms of the effect of gender diversity on company performance.\nTheory and research questions: Board gender diversity literature relies upon multiple theories. One of them is agency theory. According to agency theory, a fundamental task performed by board of directors is monitoring (Jensen and Meckling, 1976). In this regard, directors acting as fiduciaries of shareholders would be expected to reduce the conflicts between shareholders and managers that arise as a consequence of the separation of ownership and control. If a board performs its monitoring function effectively, the potential costs of managers pursuing their own interest at the expense of shareholders would be reduced (Hillman and Dalziel, 2003). As board independence gets stronger, a board would be expected to perform its monitoring function more effectively and, therefore, manager-shareholder conflicts could be mitigated. This is mainly because independent directors would be expected to have reputational concerns (Masulis and Mobbs, 2014). Thus, as a board gets more diverse and more independent, the board's monitoring could become more effective as a result of different points of perspective and views in the boardroom (Garcia-Meca et al., 2015), because directors with diverse characteristics such as gender could be more likely to ask \"out-of-the-box\" questions.\nData and variables: The director and company governance data in this study are hand-collected, and gathered from annual reports of companies that are submitted to the Public Disclosure Platform (PDP) of Turkey[6]. The sample covers all the companies quoted at the Borsa Istanbul, except financial companies as discussed below, between the years 2009 and 2017. The year 2009 is chosen as the initial date because no annual reports are available via the PDP before 2009 and most of the companies' annual reports are not accessible from any other resources. The current study excludes banks, insurance companies, leasing companies and factoring companies from the sample because their financial statements are prepared in formats different from non-financial companies. The final sample includes data for 15,842 director-years and 2,279 company-years. To prevent any survivorship bias, data for companies that were delisted during the sample period, and their directors, were also hand-collected. All the non-director and non-company governance data were gathered from the Finnet Company, which is an official data provider of the Borsa Istanbul.\nDescriptive statistics: Tables I and II present the descriptive statistics of the sample. On average, the ROE is 0.05 and the ROA is 0.03. The average market value is approximately 1,365,000,000 Turkish Liras and the average book-to-market value of equity is 0.91. The average sales are approximately 1,896,000,000 Turkish Liras and the average total assets are approximately 2,771,000,000 Turkish Liras. On average, there are approximately two blockholders per company. Average board size in the sample is 6.95 directors with 1.63 independent directors.\nModel specifications: This section discusses the rationale underlying the choice of models used throughout the study. One of the group of models used in this study is pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) models to investigate the effect of gender diversity on company performance. However, if the regressors in the model are endogenous, then the pooled OLS estimators are biased and inconsistent (Bhagat and Black, 2002), and it is very likely that unobservable company characteristics would affect company performance and value (Yermack, 1996). Therefore, potential problems related to endogenity resulting from omitted unobservable company characteristics should be corporate governance variables that could potentially lead to spurious correlations between these variables[11]. Therefore, firm fixed effects models are used to address such a potential problem. Yet, these models have their shortcomings as well. Specifically, these models cannot be considered (Anderson et al., 2011). As Adams and Ferreira (2009) explain, these omitted unobservable characteristics affect the selection of female board members and overcome potential reverse causality concerns. It is possible that while gender diversity on a board could affect company performance, company performance could affect the incentives of female directors to join the company (Anderson et al., 2011; Adams, 2016). This would lead to a reverse causality problem[12]. To address any such problems, various other models are used in this study.\nResults and discussions: gender diversity and company performance: The results of various models that use ROE as the dependent performance variable and the percentage of female directors on boards as the main independent variable of concern are presented in Table III. Column 1 presents the results from a pooled OLS model, and Column 2 presents the results from a firm-fixed effects model. Column 3 presents results of a system-GMM model. Column 5 presents results of a two-stage least squared model with IVs (2SLS-IV) and Column 4 presents results of the first-stage regression of the 2SLS-IV model. Year dummies are included and robust standard errors are used in all the models. Table IV has a similar setting with the exception that in this case, the female director dummy, which takes the value of 1 when there are one or more female directors on a board, is used in the models instead of the female director percentage variable.\nResults and discussions: determinants of female director presence: This section presents the findings regarding the potential determinants of the presence of female directors on some company boards and not others. Table V presents the results of a probit regression[20], with the results reported in the form of marginal effects.\nResults and discussions: affiliated versus unaffiliated female directors: As stated before, public companies in Turkey can be characterized by high ownership concentration. Almost all of the companies quoted at the Borsa Istanbul are ultimately controlled by either holding companies owned by families or other diversified controlling groups (Ararat et al., 2010). In this setting, one could expect the conflict between controlling shareholders and other minority investors to be more pronounced, as suggested in Ararat et al. (2015).\nConclusions and discussion: The current study investigates whether or not the presence and the percentage of female directors on corporate boards have an effect on company financial performance in a setting that is substantially different from the settings that are the focus of previous research on this subject. In addition, the current study investigates whether the affiliation of female directors matters performance-wise in this setting by using a unique hand-collected data set that covers all non-financial public companies quoted at the Borsa Istanbul between the years 2009 and 2017. The findings demonstrate that female directors have a positive effect on company financial performance. It also demonstrates that the effect becomes larger as the level of the independence of female directors becomes greater. These findings are in support of the findings of previous studies, such as Erhardt et al. (2003), Smith et al. (2005), Garcia-Meca et al. (2015), Reguera-Alvarado et al. (2017) and Moreno-Gomez et al. (2018).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to investigate whether female directors have an effect on company financial performance in a patriarchal emerging country that has a collectivistic culture with a substantial gender equality gap and is characterized with a paternalistic management culture. In addition, it aims to investigate whether the affiliations of female directors matter performance-wise in a setting where the majority of the companies are ultimately controlled by large business groups including families.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The current study uses a unique hand-collected data set that covers all non-financial public companies quoted at the Borsa Istanbul between the years 2009 and 2017. To investigate the relationships between the presence and ratio of female directors and company financial performance, the current study uses the pooled ordinary least squares method, as well as the firm-fixed effects method to overcome potential omitted variables problems and various generalized method of moments methods to overcome potential reverse causality problems.\nFindings: The findings of the current study demonstrate that the presence and percentage of female directors both have a positive effect on company financial performance in a cultural setting where the opposite might be expected. They also present evidence suggesting that the effect becomes larger as the level of the independence of female directors becomes greater.\nOriginality/value: The current study demonstrates that the presence of female directors on boards has a positive effect on company financial performance, even in a cultural setting that is very different from those of countries where the majority of previous studies on female directors are conducted on. In addition, it demonstrates how company financial performance varies with the level of the affiliation of female directors.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Leanness estimation procedural hierarchy using interval-valued fuzzy sets (IVFS)	[ "Supply chain management", "Decision support systems", "Lean production" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Lean is the term used to describe the production systems and methods developed by the Toyota Company in the post-war years. Lean comes about by focusing on the reduction of the non-valued activities within the organization. Lean is all about achieving more value by utilizing fewer resources more effectively and efficiently through the continuous elimination of non-valued added activities or waste.\n2 Prior state of art on leanness evaluation: Based on a comprehensive literature review, Hamid (2011) identified several factors as a driver to the success of lean services implementation. Saurin et al. (2011) introduced a framework for assessing the use of lean production (LP) practices in manufacturing cells (MCs). The development of the framework included four stages:\n3 The concept of IV fuzzy sets: In the following, some basic concepts of IVFNs and their arithmetic operations have been discussed.\n4 Proposed leanness estimation procedural hierarchy: implementation: Leanness evaluation has been made by the procedural framework as described as follows. This evaluation framework has been implemented in a famous locomotive part manufacturing industry at eastern part of India. The evaluation framework is based on a lean capabler-attribute-criterion hierarchy adapted from the work by Vinodh and Vimal (2012).\n5 Research implications: Lean manufacturing constantly stresses how important it is to \"achieve cost reduction by complete elimination of waste\". Running an operation lean means: removal of waste of all kinds (e.g. time, motion, inventory, poor cost of quality, etc.); an organization that stimulates productivity and quality; and an organization using value-added processes. In this context, the foregoing research aimed to carry out to assess the leanness of an organizational supply chain using fuzzy based MCDM approach. During this research, a leanness measurement model incorporated with fuzzy-logic has been designed. This was followed by the substitution of the data gathered from a particular manufacturing organization; as a case study. After the computation of leanness index, the probable areas for leanness improvement were identified. Organization should think of possible means towards improving these ill-performing areas. The approach contributed in this research could be used as a test kit for periodically evaluating organizational supply chain leanness.\n6 Conclusions: Lean manufacturing strategy has become a major avenue for both academics and practitioners in recent era. Many organizations around the world have attempted to implement it but the lack of a clear understanding of lean performance and its measurement necessitates effective in-depth research while implementing lean practices. Literature addressed lean techniques and tools, but very few studies were found to focus systematically on evaluation of lean performance appraisement index. In order to fill the current gap, this paper presents a systematic and logical lean appraisement platform based on IV fuzzy sets theory in order to estimate the lean performance of manufacturing systems.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Lean manufacturing is an operational strategy oriented toward achieving the shortest possible cycle time by eliminating waste. It is derived from the Toyota Production System and its key thrust is to increase the value-added work by eliminating waste and reducing incidental work. In today's competitive global marketplace, the concept of lean manufacturing has gained vital consciousness to all manufacturing sectors, their supply chains, and hence a logical measurement index system is indeed required in implementing leanness in practice. Such leanness estimation can help the enterprises to assess their existing leanness level and can compare different industries who are adapting this lean concept. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The present work exhibits an efficient fuzzy-based leanness assessment system using generalized interval-valued (IV) trapezoidal fuzzy numbers set. The concept of \"degree of similarity\" between two IV fuzzy numbers has been explored here to identify ill-performing areas towards lean achievement.\nFindings: The methodology described here has been found fruitful while applying for a particular industry, in India, as a case study. Apart from estimating overall lean performance metric, the model presented here can identify ill-performing areas towards lean achievement.\nOriginality/value: The major contributions of this work have been summarized as follows: development and implementation of an efficient decision-making procedural hierarchy to support leanness extent evaluation. An overall lean performance index evaluation platform has been introduced. Concept of generalized IV trapezoidal fuzzy numbers has been efficiently explored to facilitate this decision-making. The appraisement index system has been extended with the capability to search ill-performing areas which require future progress.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A simple heuristic model for injury prevention	[ "Modelling", "Safety", "Injuries" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 The basic prevention drum: The drum model we propose was born of the belief that prevention experience should be transferable between groups in similar industries and interchangeable between industries. Its growth was driven by the fortuitous opportunity to share lessons learned from a mining setting with the airline industry and vice-versa. The \"drum model\" was developed over several years, and traces of its growth can be followed in previous publications (Blanco, 2000a, b, 2001; Blanco and Lewko, 2003).The model's purposes are to sharpen the prevention-related questions, organize the answers, and help remember and explain both. The image, of a drum, is used to make the model memorable and portable, and mathematical terms are used to expand the intuition of the significant points; the model is intended to provide a qualitative, not an engineering, interpretation of probability.Imagine that all future events associated with a system can be represented by a drum containing balls where each ball represents a potential future event. This drum is shown by Figure 1 which contains a very large number of green balls, representing potential good events, and a few red balls, representing potential failures. It is perfectly mixed and releases one ball at a time, red or green, according to their respective concentrations in the drum. The initial red to green ratio reflects the current capability of the system being simulated (Blanco and Lewko, 2002).All balls return to the drum except for the red balls, representing injuries, that are removed as management and workers learn how to reduce failures. By reducing the concentration of potential failures, the red-ball concentration in the drum drops following an exponential \"decay\" curve. At this stage of development, the model is not intended to provide numerical predictions but rather to suggest trends and test the effect of prevention strategies.This is a negative feedback system. It improves rapidly at first and slows down as it gets close to the minimum capability, in terms of failures, of the current technology. This agrees with the observed long-term experience: most activities are safer today than they were years ago. Figure 2 shows 50 years of mining fatalities in the Province of Ontario, Canada. Figure 3 shows 36 years of traffic fatalities in the USA. We live longer lives, and whether it is mining, manufacturing, or health care, we have been improving.We have identified the causes of some failures and we have prevented them or, at least, we have learned how to neutralise their effects. Thus, the decay curves.\n2 Some insights from the model: 2.1 Recurring injuries will persist with statistical regularity until prevented\n3 More insights from the model: Safety data are usually aggregated by industry sectors with multiple companies, or by managerial areas with multiple departments, or by multiple work crews in one managerial area. The drum model allows for each sub-group operating its own mix of technologies and management skills, reaching its own rate of failure.3.1 Averages can mask important differences among sub-groups\n4 Stretching the drum model: Figure 2 showing 50 years of mining fatalities and Figure 3, showing 36 years of traffic fatalities, are decay curves. Duffey and Saull (2003) have analyzed incident data from various industries and consistently find decay curves. These decay curves represent aggregate long-term data from many companies and many groups with a wide range of technologies and management skills. In its simplest form, the drum model assumes that all red balls, representing failures, are recognized as soon as they occur (released from the drum) and result in immediate learning, so that the concentration of red balls falls (identified causes result in potential failures being removed from the drum) without delay; this produces a decay curve which is the statistical outcome of learning from experience.4.1 An improved model\n5 A case history: This is the case study of a large plant in Canada, employing about 1,500 people. Injury rates had remained at a high plateau for several years and invited a review of historical data. The injury records of all employees with at least 14 years seniority were analyzed and the historical record was a surprise. Over the study period 55 percent of the workers were injury free; 4 percent, mostly mechanics and electricians, accumulated five injuries each, ten times the plant average. In proportion, more mechanics were injured than operators, and more electricians than mechanics. It turned out that the hazards were not \"normal\" and they were not \"evenly distributed\".Injuries had usually been interpreted as one-of-a-kind random events, evidently a misleading model. Compensation costs disappeared into corporate overhead, so the cost-incentive to improve was remote or lost (Reinhardt, 2000), but finding an unexpected injury distribution in the historical record required a better understanding. Investigation revealed a tangle of inadequate tools, irrelevant procedures, inadequate training, delayed repairs, and an undependable work order system that clearly favoured equipment over people, all good sources of \"viscosity\".Over time, as corrections were made, the gains in safety and efficiency were remarkable (Figure 7), but they were not all made through technological improvements; they mostly required management and system changes, that is decreasing management and system \"viscosity\". Over the years, the injury rate averages seemed to drop in stages. Normal delays of discovery, design and implementation of improved systems could explain, at least in part, the staged improvements.5.1 An action research program\n6 Using the model to improve safety and efficiency: A drum model capable of staged improvement can help understand the related but separate effects of technology and management on injury rate. For example, Figure 7 shows that a manager's actions took less time to get results than would have been required for a shift in technology. Results improved by improving systems and by focusing prevention on the procedures, equipment, areas or groups that needed it most. At the same time, efficiency improved, indicating that safety and efficiency are not independent facets of operations, and that prevention, by removing the chance of \"red balls\" increases the chances of \"green balls\".6.1 Prevention policy questions from time series of rate data\n7 Obstacles to prevention: Kahneman, the Princeton University Psychology Professor, won an economics Nobel Price for research showing that people's actions depend more on their own subjective experience than on objective reality (Kahneman and Tversky, 1984).Subjectivity was certainly a component of the management and system \"viscosity\" in the case that we discussed earlier. Observation suggests that \"viscosity\" is widespread, and cost practices contribute their share of \"viscosity\". Change is difficult enough and requires careful removal of the obvious disincentives.7.1 Cost practices\n8 Conclusion: At the start, we proposed a deceptively simple heuristic model to link safety with prevention with the aim of providing diagnostic capabilities and prevention insights.We discussed insights such as that injury records may contain patterns that signal injury causes, or that injury rates will remain statistically stable until something changes, or that stability may lead to risk-complacency, or that injury rate data decay towards a long-term limit. We used the model to seek prevention possibilities hidden in the aggregate data, and we used period data to identify areas or groups in need of help.We then proceeded to adapt the model to a more complex reality by using four parameters:1. a rate of improvement, \"r\" that reflects the preventive activity2. a rate of deterioration, \"m\" that reflects normal or intended obsolescence and lapsing of procedures and practices3. an intrinsic limit, \"a[?] \"reflecting technological safety capability and4. a \"viscosity\" \"V\" that adds the impact of management system malfunction to the technological limit.We then proposed a simple exponential decay equation that can simulate the periods of statistical stability separated by periods of rapid change observed in real-time injury data. This negative feedback equation opens the injury prevention field to insights derived from the systems and evolution fields.Throughout the discussion we have observed that the model treats efficiency and safety as if they were strongly correlated and perhaps not separable. The heuristic power of the model is evident in that parameters and insights can help define prevention activities to reduce the rate of injury, and by implication, to lengthen operational periods between consecutive injuries.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to propose a simple heuristic model that provides diagnostic capabilities and prevention insights.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper brings together findings from previous research including injury statistics from several industries to illustrate that the model's predicted results can be found in practice. This is a conceptual paper that applies a simple heuristic model to existing data. The model leads to an equation with four parameters: a rate of improvement reflecting prevention, a rate of deterioration reflecting obsolescence and lapsing of procedures and practices, an intrinsic limit reflecting technological capability, and a \"viscosity\" that adds the impact of management system malfunction to the technological limits and normal delays.\nFindings: - The model says that, on the average, injury rates decrease with time if the rate of rejection is greater than the rate of mortality. If \"r\"<\"m\" injury rates increase exponentially with time, and drastic results can follow. When \"r\"=\"m\" the model produces a constant rate of failure that will continue until something is done to increase \"r\" or decrease \"m\". A constant rate of failure means that an apparent safety limit has been reached. Unless this corresponds to the technological limit, a constant rate means that some preventable failures are recurring with regularity: they risk being accepted as \"hazards of the job\". Stable periods may be normal, but they can lead to complacency.\nPractical implications: - The heuristic power of the model is evident in that parameters and insights from applying it can help define prevention activities to reduce the rate of injury and, by implication, to lengthen operational periods between consecutive injuries.\nOriginality/value: - The drum model can help managers understand the separate but related effects of technology and management on injury rates. The model can be used to seek prevention possibilities hidden in the aggregate data, and it can help the manager to use period data to identify areas or groups in need of help.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Marking walls and borders	[ "Latinos", "Cities", "Social inequality", "Race relations", "Youth", "Residential segregation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Humans have marked their existence on walls for over 40,000 years. The markings are an effort to record our experience in a particular space. In the USA, youth of color have similarly sought to mark out a place for themselves in the urban environment. When they mark walls, they compete with a variety of other agents for recognition and legitimacy. Theirs is an effort to mobilize cultural capital and compete against multiple forms of political and economic control and enclosure.\nLiterature: Space is central to urban youths' survival strategies, which they adopt \"in the absence and in lieu of effective and comprehensive polices to redress racial disparities\" (Hunter and Robinson, 2016, p. 393). Scholars like Orlando Patterson (2015), Alford Young (2011) and William Julius Wilson (2010) consider structural analyses cannot fully explain urban poverty and suggest renewed attention to youth culture. Using an \"asset frame,\" scholars consider \"place-making\" central to how inequality works (Hunter et al., 2016; Lee and Zhou, 2016).\nMethods: Sociologists share a long and rich tradition of associating opportunity with space that traces back to W.E.B. DuBois' research on the seventh ward in The Philadelphia Negro (1899). They treat space as a causal factor, but sociologists like Herbert Gans (2002) consider we reify space and conflate a variety of social institutions and actors. Attempts to distinguish place as action and/or process mean seeing it as a \"space filled up by people, practices, objects, and representations\" (Gieryn, 2000, p. 465). How place is made out of space remains unclear. For example, some scholars distinguish \"place-making\" from \"placemaking\" (Lew, 2017). Other scholars explore the scale at which space influences human experience, but do not explain the relationship between place and space. Geographers like Katherine McKittrick argues against the uncritical naturalization of space as something that \"just is\" (McKittrick, 2006, p. xi). Similarly, Doreen Massey views space as \"social relations stretched out\" over time (Massey, 1994, p. 2). These perspectives suggest we should re-envision space as dynamic and continually reproduced through struggle and competition between groups. In this analysis, I treat place as a field where different actors compete to control space and what kinds of things and people belong there. Analyzing place in this way enables us to understand emplacement and displacement as part of a related dynamic. In other words, treating place as a relational field elucidates the ways what is \"out of place\" changes.\nContext: There is an important political history to murals, particularly in Mexico. This historical context shapes the meaning of murals in SWD, particularly because the majority of its residents are Mexican or of Mexican ancestry. For instance, Mexican Revolutionaries fought imperialism partly by producing public art[1]. After the Revolution, Mexican muralists (Jose Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueros) continued to conceive of their work in leftist terms that sought to not only resist imperialism, but redefine public art as an art \"of the people.\" For example, David Siqueiros was a captain in the Mexican Revolutionary Army and commissioned to produce significant murals. He was also repeatedly imprisoned for his political work as an avowed Communist and made an attempt on Leon Trotsky's life (White, 1994).\nData: Changing the City's color/funding the recolonization of space\nConclusion: Latina/o/x youth living in SWD compete with a variety of agents to access and use space. This struggle is marked when actions are \"out of place.\" The case of graffiti in SWD is one example of a symbolic struggle to control space/place vis-a-vis public art. The neighborhood has been characterized for generations by multiple forms of graffiti that included memorial murals, business signs and tags. More recently, however, graffiti has become an important part of \"creative city\" redevelopment in Detroit. Both government and businesses use public art to \"brand\" spaces and attract new populations to the city.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to reconceptualize space as a field of struggles between multiple agents.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The author draws from field theory and uses visual methods to explain how graffiti shapes how neighborhoods are branded and aligned with creative city redevelopment plans.\nFindings: By exploring space/place as field, the author moves beyond the structure/culture dichotomy to explain both place making and displacement.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings suggest gentrification is not an abstract force, but rather the outcome of struggles to define place and attract new, consuming populations to the neighborhood.\nOriginality/value: Sociologists share a long and rich tradition of associating opportunity with space that traces back to W.E.B. DuBois' research on the seventh ward in The Philadelphia Negro (1899). More recently, sociologists have reified space and have attempted to distinguish place as an outcome of human experience. How space and place is reproduced remains unclear. This paper contributes toward the understanding of space, place-making and displacement.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Effects of feature selection on lane-change maneuver recognition: an analysis of naturalistic driving data	[ "Feature selection", "Machine learning", "Effect size", "Lane-change maneuvers", "Naturalistic driving data" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Lane-change (LC) accidents are accounting for about 4-10 per cent of all crashes (Barr and Najm, 2001) and 1.5 per cent of all motor vehicle fatalities in the USA (N. H. T. S. Administration, 2015). With the development of advanced driver assistance systems, functions such as lane departure warning (LDW) and lane-change assist (LCA) hit the market to help avoid LC related accidents (Visvikis et al., 2008). One of the key problems is how to correctly recognize driver's LC maneuver in advance. When an improper LC maneuver is occurring, the driver assistance systems should either give warnings or assist this person aborting the maneuver.\n2. Related works: 2.1 Lane-Change maneuver recognition\n3. Lane-Change scenario modeling: In Do et al. (2017), nine cells and 32 cases (25) were considered in the driving contextual traffic. But the authors did not give the specific boundary of the cells. Kasper and Weidl modeled the cell by carrying the speed-dependent information when a cell will be occupied or will become free (Kasper et al., 2012). But they assumed that the vehicle can move unobstructed toward certain cell, which cannot be satisfied in some situation where a car wants to overtake the ego car. In this paper, we model the cell grid by considering the dynamic relationship between the ego car and the surrounding cars. A three-cell grid is used to model contextual traffic where the ego vehicle executes the LC maneuver, for both left and right LC with eight cases.\n4. Data processing and feature extraction: 4.1 Naturalistic driving data\n5. Method: 5.1 Feature evaluation\n6. Results and analysis: 6.1 Analysis from effect size and p value\n7. Conclusion and future work: In this paper, a statistics-based feature selection method for recognition of LC maneuver is proposed using naturalistic driving data from the time domain and the frequency domain. The extracted features include original features collected from on-board sensors and compound features like TTC, TLC as well as time-window features. Totally 95 features are extracted as candidate features. We found that for different LC scenarios, the final selected features are different. There is no feature being sufficient for all the LC scenarios. In addition, features refer to vehicle lateral movement which are frequently being used as features regarding to LC, such as yaw rate (yawRatet, #1), lateral acceleration (axt, #3) as well as TLC (\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Feature selection is crucial for machine learning to recognize lane-change (LC) maneuver as there exist a large number of feature candidates. Blindly using feature could take up large storage and excessive computation time, while insufficient feature selection would cause poor performance. Selecting high contributive features to classify LC and lane-keep behavior is effective for maneuver recognition. This paper aims to propose a feature selection method from a statistical view based on an analysis from naturalistic driving data.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In total, 1,375 LC cases are analyzed. To comprehensively select features, the authors extract the feature candidates from both time and frequency domains with various LC scenarios segmented by an occupancy schedule grid. Then the effect size (Cohen's d) and p-value of every feature are computed to assess their contribution for each scenario.\nFindings: It has been found that the common lateral features, e.g. yaw rate, lateral acceleration and time-to-lane crossing, are not strong features for recognition of LC maneuver as empirical knowledge. Finally, cross-validation tests are conducted to evaluate model performance using metrics of receiver operating characteristic. Experimental results show that the selected features can achieve better recognition performance than using all the features without purification.\nOriginality/value: In this paper, the authors investigate the contributions of each feature from the perspective of statistics based on big naturalistic driving data. The aim is to comprehensively figure out different types of features in LC maneuvers and select the most contributive features over various LC scenarios.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The development of Malaysian universities: Exploring characteristics emerging from interaction between Western academic models and traditional and local cultures	[ "Hybridity", "Malaysian universities", "Traditional and local cultures" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The development of higher education in the Asian region in the past decade has been quite impressive when compared to other regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab States. The rapid expansion of higher education in Asia can be attributed to increasing social demand for higher education brought about by partly population growth, the democratization of secondary education and the growing affluence of many countries. The statistical data shows that the tertiary gross enrollment ratios from 1999 to 2009 have increased from 14 to 28 percent in East Asia and the Pacific, from 19 to 22 percent in Central Asia, and from 9 to 13 percent in South and West Asia (UNESCO Institute of Statistics, 2011). Besides widening access to higher education, many governments are implementing policies to improve educational opportunities among the disadvantaged groups in particular the women, rural populations, the poor and the minority groups.\nResearch problem: A comparative study consisting of nine cases has been launched to explore this research question. The nine cases comprise three mainstream universities, three Islamic universities and three Chinese community-based universities to provide a robust sample in capturing the diversity of ethnic/religious influence in Malaysian higher education. Mainstream universities refer to the majority of universities in Malaysia which have strong British and American influence, and the three selected include a public research university, private non-profit university and private for-profit institution owned by a company listed on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange. Two of the three Islamic universities are public universities and the other is private, while all three Chinese community-based are private institutions.\nLiterature review: Much has been written about the Western origins of Asian universities. Altbach (1989) states that \"In Asia, as in other parts of the Third World, the impact of Western academic models and institutions has been significant from the beginning and it remains important even in the contemporary period\" (p. 9). The Western academic models include patterns of institutional governance, the ethos of academic profession, the rhythm of academic life, ideas about science, procedures of examination and assessment, in some cases the language of instruction, and other aspects of higher education. Studies have shown that various models have been imported by many Asian countries during the colonial period including China, Japan and Thailand even though these countries have not been under colonial rule. The French model was imported by former French colonies such as Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam with the Dutch influence in Indonesia as well as the American influence in the Philippines. The British model was inherited by India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong, while the German model had its impact in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan (Neubauer et al., 2013). It was pointed out that the continuing impact of the West is still very significant throughout Asia as exhibited in the pervasive and subtle influence of the English language, the idea of the university as a meritocratic organization, the importance of scientific research, the notion of academic freedom and institutional autonomy (Altbach, 1989).\nConceptual framework: The concept of hybridization is commonly used not only in the natural sciences but also in the social sciences in fields such as cultural studies, media studies and studies of globalization. Hybridization is defined as \"the ways in which forms become separated from existing practices and recombine with new forms in new practices\" (Rowe and Schelling, 1991, p. 231). This principle can be extended to structural forms of social organization, including the universities. In cultural studies, cultural hybridization refers to an amalgam of cross-cultural influences which are blended, patchworked and layered upon one another (Yazdiha, 2010). The notion of cultural hybridity in postcolonial theory is the culture arising out of interactions between \"colonizers\" and \"the colonized\". In a communication theory, hybridity is a used as a device for describing the local reception of global media texts as a site of cultural mixture (Kraidy, 2002). This notion is further extended to the studies of cultural globalization where hybridity is taken as a clear product of global and local interactions.\nThe Malaysian case: Malaysia is an interesting case because it has not only a strong colonial influence under the British rule, but it is also a Muslim country that is undergoing Islamic resurgence. The rest of this paper is an analysis of the British legacy and American influences on the Malaysian universities in general and more specifically an analysis of the Islamic universities which can be viewed as a hybrid university.\nIslamic universities: Unlike other countries such as Indonesia, Islamic higher education in Malaysia is a recent phenomenon. While the Indonesian's Institutions of Islamic Higher Education were established as early as in the 1940s as natural extensions of the widely spread madrasahs (traditional Islamic schools) and pesantrens (traditional Islamic boarding schools) (Fu'ad and Jamhari, 2003), the first Islamic university in Malaysia was established in 1983 and this is the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). A few other Islamic higher education institutions were established even later such as the Selangor International Islamic University College in 1995 and Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) in 1998.\nPossible hybridities: The following is a list of possible hybridities that may be found in various higher education institutions in the Malaysian context. This list is compiled from anecdotal evidences which need to be proven through systemic empirical investigation. Moreover, each of the possible hybridities lies in a continuum with the dichotomies at the extreme ends but the manifestation of each hybridity can occur anywhere along the continuum in a particular setting. The list is neither exhaustive nor is it arranged in any particular order of importance:\nConclusion and way forward: What have presented in the above sections is the conceptual framework for the research project on \"Hybridity in Malaysian Universities\" including a list of possible hybridities that may be found in various types of Malaysian universities. Anecdotal evidence across the three types of universities outlined in the conceptual framework underlined the possible hybridities that were the result of interaction with contemporary external influence and local traditional and culture in Malaysia. Further work on the research project would involve collecting empirical data to test the posited hypotheses. It is proposed that these data would be collected from a sample of nine universities consisting of three mainstream universities, three Islamic universities and three Chinese universities. Data will be collected using a variety of methods including:\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate, in general, what are the contemporary external influences that have been dominant in Malaysian universities and what are the major local traditional practices that are also found in these universities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: From the literature review, the paper proposes a conceptual framework to explore hybridity in governance and management, programs and curriculum, teaching and learning, and research and service.\nFindings: Using the conceptual framework, the paper discusses the Malaysian higher education in terms of Western influence and indigenization of Western models, the background context of Islamic universities and seven possible hybridities compiled from anecdotal evidences.\nOriginality/value: The conceptual framework and possible hybridities identified in the paper serve to provide the guide to a more systemic empirical investigation to examine the characteristics of Malaysian universities emerging from the interaction between external influence and local cultures. The Malaysian case also potentially contribute in exploring the question, \"Are Asian universities different from Western universities?\".\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Physical and emotional nourishment: Food as the embodied component of loving care of elderly family relatives	[ "Elderly", "Food", "Family", "Practice theory", "Elderly care", "Family consumption" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: If you really want to make a friend, go to someone's house and eat with him. The people who give you their food, give you their heart - Cesar Chavez.\nIntroduction: The fluidity of family life continues to attract academic attention as families construct their family identity (O'Malley and Prothero, 2006). Single, blended, nuclear and extended families seek to mutually construct their identity through their own ideological (Epp and Price, 2008; Miller, 1998) and cultural lens (James and Curtis, 2010). For Morgan (2011, p. 3), \"there is no such thing as The Family\", rather there are a series of practices enacted and re-enacted by family members, which display \"doing\" family in its many guises. The notion of what it means to be a family and how they \"do\" family in the private and public spheres is important for consumer researchers (Huff and Cotte, 2016; James and Curtis, 2010). This is increasingly significant for this intergenerational relationship of adult ageing parents and their adult children. These complex and dynamic relationships are exacerbated when elderly members of the family require increasing levels of care (Barnhart and Penaloza, 2013; Huff and Cotte, 2016). Usually, these are two independent but connected family configurations with shared values and practices with strong loving relationships. Conversely, this can be a site of anxiety where there are different values and practices with tense, difficult relationships that are created over time (Dean et al., 2014). We need to have a deeper understanding about the range of family practices during this life stage transition (Phipps and Ozanne, 2017) through what has been theorised as the \"third\" to the \"fourth\" age (Higgs and Gilleard, 2015). Understanding the nuances in family structure, particularly relating to elderly care, is paramount in developing social policy that meets the demand for care in the modern era (Pyke and Bengtson, 1996; Daly, 2002; Silverstein and Giarrusso, 2010; Stolt et al., 2011). This is particularly important when we consider the ageing population and its impact on the families and family members who \"the burden of care\" falls upon (Szinovacz and Davey, 2007). Traditionally, the mother has been the primary caretaker, and this role is enacted with the pride of caring for the family (Miller, 1998; DeVault, 1991) with love as \"the ideological foundation for the complex relations that exist between family members\" (Miller, 1998, p. 150). Nevertheless, family responsibilities such as caring are considered as \"developing commitments\" (Finch and Mason, 1993, p. 167) where practices are negotiated and developed over time. Moreover, the family \"is not a naturally occurring collection of individuals; its reality is constructed from day to day through activities like eating together\" (DeVault, 1991, p. 39). The aims of this research are twofold; first, using practice theory we seek to add to this nascent body of literature by exploring the practices of food consumption within the elderly family and, second, focussing on family meals and food consumption, we respond to Phipps and Ozanne's (2017) call to understand how family practices are maintained or adapted as elderly relatives transition towards elderly care.\nMethodology: This research is part of a wider study examining how families deal with the care of an elderly member of the family as they transition from the \"third\" to the \"fourth\" age (Higgs and Gilleard, 2015). Using a phenomenological approach, this research sought to build a deep understanding of the social interactions and interplay between an individual's lifeworld and their family relationships (Berger and Luckmann, 1966/1991; Cunliffe, 2008; Edvardsson et al., 2011). Phenomenology is helpful as it illuminates the interpersonal interactions and the collective experiences to construct meaning (Moran, 2000; Kvale and Brinkmann, 2009; Lowrie, 2007). It takes into consideration the perspectives and interpretations of the family members and the researcher so meaning is constructed \"prior to, during and after the actual exchange and use(s) takes place\" (Penaloza and Venkatesh, 2006). Furthermore, building an understanding of the behaviour within the family is intersubjective and dialogic - that is, influenced and shaped by the collective \"we\" to produce a collective understanding (Cunliffe, 2008). The discussions of family experiences between the research participants and the researcher were a valuable data resource, which could expand knowledge and understanding of caring for elderly family members (over 65 years old). We sought to understand the meaning of the lived experiences of the individuals within the family and how food is related to the care of the cared for family member (Table I).\nFindings: The aim of our research was to understand how the preparation, sharing of food and the family meal helps to \"do\" family. Using practice theory, we sought to understand how family meals and food consumption are maintained or adapted, as elderly relatives transition towards elderly care. The families selected in this sample were all composed of different family members, some lived closed by and others were quite distant. The levels of engagement with family activities also differed, and this was due to attempts to retain independence from the cared for perspective; and family members who were too busy to attend to everyday activities such as preparing and cooking meals.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This purpose of this study is to examine the fluidity of family life which continues to attract attention. This is increasingly significant for the intergenerational relationship between adult children and their elderly parents. Using practice theory, the aims are to understand the role of food in elderly families and explore how family practices are maintained when elderly transition into care.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A phenomenological research approach was used as the authors sought to build an understanding of the social interactions between family and their lifeworld.\nFindings: This study extends theory on the relationship between the elderly parent and their family and explores through practice theory how families performed their love, how altered routines and long standing rituals provided structure to the elderly relatives and how care practices were negotiated as the elderly relatives transitioned from independence to dependence and towards care. A theoretical framework is introduced that provides guidance for the transition stages and the areas for negotiation.\nResearch limitations/implications: This research has implications for food manufacturers and marketers, as the demand for healthy food for the elderly is made more widely available, healthy and easy to prepare. The limitations of the research are due to the sample located in East Yorkshire only.\nPractical implications: This research has implications for brand managers of food manufacturers and supermarkets that need to create product lines that target this segment by producing healthy, convenience food.\nSocial implications: It is also important for health and social care policy as the authors seek to understand the role of food, family and community and how policy can be devised to provide stability in this transitional and uncertain lifestage.\nOriginality/value: This research extends the body of literature on food and the family by focussing on the elderly cared for and their family. The authors show how food can be construed as loving care, and using practice theory, a theoretical framework is developed that can explain the transitions and how the family negotiates the stages from independence to dependence.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How social media usage influences B2B customer loyalty: roles of trust and purchase risk	[ "Integrity", "Customer loyalty", "Social media usage", "Ability", "Benevolence", "Purchase risk" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Social media has been pervasively used to establish and maintain personal connections and professional contacts (Neubaum et al., 2014). Social media marketing refers to using social media integrated with other communication channels to achieve organizational goals by creating value for stakeholders internally and externally, including clients, employees, suppliers and government agents (Felix et al., 2017, p. 210; Andersson and Wikstrom, 2017). In the business-to-consumer (B2C) domain, social media usage targeting the general public has been proved effective in attracting consumers' attention (Hudson et al., 2015), enhancing interaction (Kim and Ko, 2012) and improving sales performance (Kumar et al., 2016; Rodriguez et al., 2012), customer relationship performance (Harrigan et al., 2015; Trainor et al., 2014; Trainor, 2012), brand performance (Dijkmans et al., 2015; Hudson et al., 2015; Gensler et al., 2013; Rapp et al., 2013) and operational performance (Paniagua and Sapena, 2014). In contrast, in the business-to-business (B2B) domain, social media targets professionals. The interactivities with buyers may be different from that with consumers (Buvik and Reve, 2001). Existing studies investigate the effect of B2B communication strategies on different social media platforms (Swani et al., 2014; Lashgari et al., 2018), distinguish different influences of social media's blocks on buying process (Diba et al., 2019), and confirm the positive influence of social media in creating sales opportunities, relationship management (Rodriguez et al., 2012), buyers' satisfaction (Agnihotri et al., 2016), brand performance and retailer performance (Rapp et al., 2013). However, it remains debatable whether social media usage is effective in enhancing B2B customer loyalty.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Social media usage\n3. Conceptual model and hypotheses: 3.1 Social media usage and trust\n4. Methods: 4.1 Data collection\n5. Analysis and results: We use SmartPLS 2.0 statistical software to assess the measurement models and the structural model.\n6. Discussion: Our research confirms that social media usage can enhance buyers' trust beliefs in the ability, integrity and benevolence of salespeople; thereby, integrity and benevolence improve customer loyalty. Additionally, buyers' trust belief in benevolence can reduce purchase risk, indirectly increasing customer loyalty. The trust belief in a salesperson's altruistic attributes (integrity and benevolence) influences customer loyalty in professional B2B interactions. However, the ability does not influence customer loyalty in a B2B context. Thus, our research contributes to the literature on trust beliefs, purchase risk and customer loyalty.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: In the digital era, business-to-business (B2B) salespersons are encouraged to communicate with buyers on social media platforms and shape customer loyalty. However, the effect of social media usage and its mechanism remain unexplored. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how salespersons' social media usage influences B2B buyers' trust beliefs and purchase risk, and therefore, customer loyalty.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors conduct an online-survey, use partial least squares structural equation modeling to analyze the data, and adopt SPSS PROCESS macro 2.13 to test mediation effects.\nFindings: Salespersons' social media usage can enhance buyers' trust beliefs on salespersons' ability, integrity and benevolence, but only the latter two can improve customer loyalty. Social media usage does not directly affect purchase risk, and only benevolence can reduce purchase risk. Serial mediation models reveal that the effect of social media usage on customer loyalty is mediated by buyers' trust beliefs on salespersons' integrity/benevolence and purchase risk.\nOriginality/value: First, the authors confirm the effect of social media usage on customer loyalty in B2B context and refute the fallacy of social media uselessness in B2B practices. Second, the research shows that buyers' trusting beliefs on salesperson's ability and integrity do not significantly influence perceived risk. The finding is different from the stereotypical judgment in B2C scenarios. Third, the authors distinguish differently weighted influences of buyers' trusting beliefs on salesperson's ability, integrity and benevolence, and highlight the role of salespersons' altruism attributes in shaping customer loyalty.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Welcome to World 2.0: the new digital ecosystem	[ "Worldwide web", "Innovation", "Intelligence", "Communities" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nWelcome to World 2.0: the new digital ecosystem: Technology, communications, and business are undergoing extensive transformations. The paradigm shift we witness in the Internet, telecommunications, and mobile technologies deeply influences the business world around us. This paper aims to provide a big picture of the new paradigm through the introduction of the concept of \"World 2.0\".I define World 2.0 as an interactive, hyper-connected, immersive, virtual, digital online ecosystem or mega-platform where users create and share knowledge (e.g. Wikipedia, Delicious), innovate and collaborate together (e.g. InnoCentive), have fun and entertainment (e.g. Zango, Second Life), interact, network or connect with each other (e.g. LinkedIn, Facebook, Skype, or Twitter), design new products or buy and sell merchandise (e.g. Ebay, Craigslist, or Amazon), connect and communicate globally with mobile devices (e.g. iPhone, Blackberry), write reflection blogs (e.g. blogger), share their photos (e.g. flickr), podcast their presentations or make creative films (e.g. YouTube), develop projects (e.g. wikis or Google docs), and express themselves to the world.World 2.0 is radically different from the world as we know it: the blogosphere is doubling in size every six months. The new generation internet tools, so-called Web 2.0 tools, have fostered the growth and popularization of web-based communities, social networking sites, video sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies. These tools have made it possible for professionals from all over the world to collaborate, interact, and participate in the process of innovation and value creation. In our everyday lives, we have all become mobile data users - sending e-mails, sharing photos, downloading songs, and using social networking sites. Whole libraries and free MIT courses are now on the internet, as they make up the \"global commons\". The semantic web (Web 3.0) will allow applications to \"understand\" sentences and natural language. More than half of today's teenagers (\"the net generation\") are mobile data users and a great majority use social networking sites or Web 2.0 portals. Peer-to-peer networks transform the one-to-many model of communication to the many-to-many model where consumption and production are merged in a distributed economy of micro-production systems and micro-income streams (Stalnaker, 2008). \"Massively multiplayer online games\" or \"alternate reality games\" attract and support thousands of players simultaneously on the internet, where players interact, communicate, cooperate, and compete with each other on a grand scale. Avatars play, shop, communicate, entertain, travel, and interact with each other on immersive digital environments, highly visual 3D virtual worlds and metaverses. Factors such as 3D graphics, CAD software, graphics hardware acceleration, interactive user input, head mounted displays, and realistic environmental effects like wind, seat vibration and ambient lighting make users feel like they are part of the simulated \"universe\".How can companies adapt to cope with these changes? Companies facing World 2.0 are adopting new business models to harness the collective intelligence of people outside their boundaries to spur breakthrough innovation (Nambisan and Sawhney, 2007). Instead of relying on internal R&D groups, companies form trust-based long-term relationships with external innovators and customers to build vibrant new business ecosystems (Tapscott and Williams, 2006). They tap into the global brain and benefit from the global talent pool to spur innovation and creativity in the digital ecosystem. For example, P&G increased its R&D productivity by nearly 60 percent and doubled its innovation success rate using these approaches. A striking example illustrating the open innovation model is the case of InnoCentive, a global community of scientists from diverse disciplines and from 170 countries that helps companies find solutions to their R&D problems. This paper aims to provide managers and professionals with an integrative vision of this changing business and innovation landscape through the concept of World 2.0.\nFive shifts of World 2.0: World 2.0 ecosystem can be described through five C's: creativity, connectivity, collaboration, convergence, and community (Figure 1). These World 2.0 shifts are described below.Creativity\nImplications of World 2.0 for professionals and managers: The concept of World 2.0 gives managers and professionals a fresh perspective and an integrative vision of the twenty-first century business and innovation landscape. World 2.0 is an open, flexible, innovative, boundaryless, global mega-platform where people share collaborative, inspirational, interactive, immersive, and multimedia experiences with people from all over the world. Here are the organizational strategies for managers and professionals to cope with the unique innovation challenges of World 2.0.Expand the innovation ecosystem outside firm boundaries to tap into the global brain\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to introduce and describe World 2.0; the interactive, hyper-connected, immersive, collaborative online ecosystem.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper reviews paradigm shifts in technology and the internet that transform the world of business and innovation.\nFindings: - The author proposes five shifts that characterize and describe World 2.0: creativity, connectivity, collaboration, convergence, and community. These shifts define the new global landscape of business, technology, and innovation.\nPractical implications: - The article provides managers and professionals strategies for innovation in the World 2.0 ecosystem.\nOriginality/value: - The concept of World 2.0 provides managers and professionals a fresh perspective and an integrative vision of the twenty-first century business and innovation landscape.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Consumers' decision to boycott "unethical" products: the role of materialism/post materialism	[ "Boycotting", "Theory of planned behaviour (TPB)", "Materialism/post-materialism", "Moderation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Boycotting (Tallontire et al., 2001) is usually considered to concern consumers' decisions to refuse buying products produced by business or countries (Farah and Newman, 2010) that challenge consumers' ethical considerations regarding environmental degradation, exploitation of workers or local producers in the underdeveloped countries, child labour, animal rights etc. (Ethical Consumer, 2015). Effective boycotts are considered to be one of the most important means by which consumers can induce ethical business practices (Hahn and Albert, 2017) and put pressure on retailers to introduce sustainable developmental actions (Lavorata, 2014).Consumer boycotts constitute a prominent marketing issue. As the number of boycotting campaigns increased over time (Yuksel and Mriteza, 2009; Braunsberger and Buckler, 2011) boycotts became a serious threat for those industries that have been considered \"guilty\" about \"unethical\" or egregious strategies (John and Klein, 2003), as well as for retailers delivering products coming from \"unethical\" producers and/or governments (GrabYourWallet, 2019).It has been long ago pointed out that there is a need for academic research to focus on the antecedents of consumers' participation in boycotts (Klein et al., 2004). In fact, although, there have been a few in numbers, albeit fine research examples in the specific area (see: Klein et al., 2004; Shaw et al., 2007; Farah and Newman, 2010; Hassan et al., 2016; Hoffmann et al., 2018), which pointed to boycotting and its antecedents as a distinct consumer behaviour phenomenon. Thus, there are still various gaps with respect to the drivers or barriers of boycotting, as supported in extant literature (John and Klein, 2003; Yuksel and Mryteza, 2009; Farah, 2014; Hoffmann et al., 2018).Previous research (Farah and Newman, 2010; James, 2010; Hoffmann et al., 2018) indicated that the most important gap concerns the conceptual frameworks that have been adopted so far, which remained rather narrow. In terms of content, there have been studies, in which boycotting was operationalized through just one item (Hoffmann et al., 2018) on a scale of ethical consumption (Cowe and Williams, 2000). Past studies approached only the financial aspect of boycotting (Friedman, 1985) or just the cost-benefit aspect (Sen et al., 2001; Braunsberger and Buckler, 2011). Besides, there have been examples, which approached only one boycott campaign against a certain product (Klein et al., 2004; Dekhil et al., 2017), and thus, the generalization of their results would be rather unsafe.A few researchers examined boycotting behaviour adopting socio-cognitive models (Shaw et al., 2007; Farah and Newman, 2010; Lavorata, 2014; Hassan et al., 2016) originally applied in other fields, such as Ajzen's (1991) Theory of Planned Behaviour/TPB. Furthermore, there have been a few efforts to modify or expand TPB in order to increase its predictive ability (Shaw et al., 2007; Lavorata, 2014; Hassan et al., 2016). Variables exogenous to a certain conceptual model are often suggested to moderate the theoretically assumed relationships (Preacher et al., 2007). Vermeir and Verbeke (2008), Chatzidakis et al. (2016) and Hoffmann et al. (2018) following Chatzidakis et al. (2007) examined exogenous parameters that were found able to moderate the relationships of the model under examination. It is to be noted that no attempt has been found to include any personal value construct(s) as a moderating factor in a TPB application with regards to boycotting.Therefore, the aim of this study is, first, to explore the predictive ability of TPB to explain Greek consumers' intentions to boycott \"unethical\" products and second, to investigate the moderating role of selected values in the behavioural intention formation process.\nTheoretical framework: Boycotting as a planned behaviour\nResearch design and methods: Sample\nResults: Data examination\nDiscussion and conclusions: This study aimed to contribute, to an extent, to our knowledge regarding boycotting in the retail field due to ethical causes, as the relevant previous research has been notably limited. The application of TPB verified the theoretical assumption that boycotting intentions is a planned, not impulsive behaviour, as it was found to be directly predicted by attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control, which in their turn were found to be influenced by their respective beliefs. TPB was found powerful to explain a large portion of the variance (almost 60%) in the consumers' intentions to participate in a boycott against \"unethical\" products next time they go shopping at an S/M. The variance explained in this study was larger than the usual 30-50% range in previous studies of various topics (Fife-Schaw et al., 2007) or the 28-33% in TPB applications with relevance to boycotting (Shaw et al., 2007; Hassan et al., 2016).The effort to expand TPB with the inclusion of values, namely Inglehart's (1977) Materialism/Post-materialism (M/PM), as a moderating factor, was found successful. Post-materialists were found to hold stronger intentions to boycott \"unethical\" S/M products than Materialists do. The differences detected in the results between Materialists and Post-materialists provided valuable information about the decision making of those groups with regards to boycotting participation. The moderating role of M/PM indicates that the planned decision to boycott can also be viewed as an expression of people's sociopolitical values. This finding, at least to an extent, adds knowledge to previous assertions that boycotting is an alternative (non-conventional) political action in the market arena of consumers' negotiations with business (Micheletti et al., 2003, pp. xiv-xv; Micheletti and Stolle, 2008).Materialists were found to form their decision based mostly on Attitudes and Perceived Behavioural Control than on Subjective Norms. These findings are in line with previous results, in which attitudes (Shaw et al., 2007; Farah and Newman, 2010) or control (Hassan et al., 2016) were found to have a stronger impact on boycott intentions. It is to be mentioned that these previous results concern the whole sample of each referred study. Further elaboration of the findings, in this study, indicated that Materialists are mostly influenced by attitudes about boycotting being good, effective, favourable, pleasant, etc., interactively with perceptions about their own control over this action. It can be argued that materialists, who focus on \"lower order\" needs for material comfort and physical safety (Inglehart, 1990, pp. 66-68), base participation decisions on more personal criteria, namely evaluation of the behaviour and capability to perform this behaviour. In this sense, materialists seem to rely more on their own judgments than on the other persons' opinions and/or actions.Post-materialists, on the other hand, were found to form their decisions based, almost exclusively, on perceptions of social pressure. It seems that post-materialists are motivated mostly by important others' approvals and expectations, especially if people of their family, friends and colleagues set an example, when themselves participate in boycotting \"unethical\" retail products. These findings do not follow the line of the above-mentioned previous studies. They reveal new, rather hidden insights as to the specific segment of post-materialists, namely those people, who focus on the \"higher order\" needs for self-expression, affiliation, aesthetic satisfaction and quality of life (Inglehart, 1990, pp. 66-68). Post-materialist values reflect people's subjective sense of security, which is formed by the society's social welfare and not the kind of security obtained by the objective economic level as materialist values do (Inglehart, 2008). Indeed, in the results of this study, it was revealed that post-materialists seem to rely mostly on important referents in contrast to materialists, who are mostly motivated by their own judgement. Therefore, it can be argued that post-materialists, who are described by Inglehart (1981) as dissatisfied with the established order and supportive of social change, make their decision to boycott \"unethical\" products because they feel social pressure to do so. They believe that they are expected to take action in order to change \"unethical\" conditions not just in the marketplace but in the overall society, too.\nLimitations and future research suggestions: There have been some limitations in this study, which might be viewed as guidance for further research suggestions. For example, the usual self-report issue, in addition to the nature of boycotting participation, which is considered to be a socially desirable behaviour. No control for social desirability was attempted in this study; this should be taken care of in future research efforts. It is also noted that the results of this study are based on a sample of just one city, and thus, generalization of them to the whole country is not implied.Investigation of the ability of demographics or other psychographics to moderate the TPB relationships can be pursued in future studies. Finally, future research efforts might try to measure the actual behaviour, too and subsequently evaluate the impact of intentions on it. Following Ajzen's (2006) suggestions, the same sample could be surveyed again for respondents to be asked whether they have actually participated in a boycott campaign. Of course, this procedure can be implemented solely in a period when a successful boycott campaign is running.\nImplications: The results of this study might be found useful to either the enterprises that are interested and willing to avoid \"unethical\" business practices and/or to those consumers' groups or associations that have decided to promote a boycott campaign against products or brands that have been found \"guilty\" about environmental degradation, exploitation of workers or local producers, child labour, animal rights, etc. (Ethical Consumer, 2015).Companies, first, have to take all necessary measures in the overall marketing mix in order to either avoid a possible and/or stop an already existing boycott call. Circulation of positive information about the alleged \"unethical\" brand, unrelated to boycotting, is the most successful strategy in reducing the likelihood of boycotting (Yuksel and Mryteza, 2009) in the retail field. Communication efforts should aim to decrease positive attitudes towards boycotting by promoting the valuable outcomes of purchasing the brand of a retail product. The personal benefits that loyal customers obtain by purchasing a favoured brand of high quality or by their favoured retail chain should be outlined. This strategy requires honest, sustainable retail practices towards environmental protection and fair labour conditions (Bezencon and Etemad-Sajadi, 2015). Sensitive, ethical consumers can be loyal to retailer stores, which promote and encourage consumers to buy organic, local, and seasonal food and to minimize food waste (Tjarnemo and Sodahl, 2015). Primarily, all communication efforts should aim to decrease the social influence towards boycotting by promoting that customers of the particular brand or retail chain \"know better\" than others. For retailers, the challenge is to promote ethical consumption as a process of finding ways to bring together the societal discourse with their supply-chain and market demand (Lehner, 2015).Second, based on the findings of this research study, it is implied that on the opposite side, consumers' groups or associations when designing a boycott campaign should address their call targeting mostly to consumers, who hold post-materialist values. The marketing mix should create an atmosphere able to persuade post-materialists that they act upon their post-materialist values, namely formulation of a friendly, less impersonal society, in which citizens can influence business decisions. Advertising should promote reverse of the social injustice, change of the \"unethical\" status quo and abolition of \"unethical\" practices.Primarily, communication campaigns should aim to increase the social pressure perceived by consumers when they consider taking part in boycotts. Advertising slogans should emphasise on the most productive elaboration of the \"higher order\" needs, namely the post-materialist values, which concern the welfare of the society as a whole and not just the individual. The relevant messages should be designed to target two distinct, although complimentary audiences, namely, consumers in general and boycotters themselves. Consumers, in general, should be convinced that they are expected by their close reference cycle (family, friends, colleagues) to boycott \"unethical\" retail products; they should be motivated to fulfil these expectations. On the other hand, boycotters should be transformed into a kind of advocates. The idea that it is their own duty to convince their close people to participate in a boycotting campaign should be instilled into any boycotter's mind.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Although boycotting campaigns have been increasing, a limited amount of academic research has been focussed on the antecedents of consumers' participation in the retail field. This paper presents an examination of consumers' intentions to boycott the \"unethical\" supermarket products by a Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) application. Materialism/Post-materialism was incorporated in the research as a moderating variable.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Personal interviews were taken in a sample (420) selected by a probability sampling method. Structural equation modelling was performed to analyse the data.\nFindings: TPB was found powerful to explain boycotting intentions. Consumers, who more strongly intent to boycott, are affected more by social norms than by attitudes and perceived behavioural control. Those consumers believe more strongly that boycotting \"unethical\" retail products will generate valuable outcomes, will comply with their referents' expectations and will not be obstructed by any barriers. Post-materialists were found to hold stronger intentions than materialists. Materialists are mostly influenced by their attitudes and their perceived control over participation in boycotting. On the contrary, post-materialists are solely influenced by their feelings regarding social pressure to boycott.\nResearch limitations/implications: Control for social desirability should be included in future research. National or multinational samples more effective for generalization. The ability of other psychographics or demographics to moderate TPB relationships could be further investigated.\nPractical implications: Retailers, who try to avoid potential boycotts, should primarily aim to diminish the social influence towards boycotting. Secondarily, they should aim to decrease the consumers' positive attitudes and perceived controllability over participation in boycotting. On the other side, consumers' groups or associations when designing a boycott campaign should address their call targeting to post-materialist consumers. Messages for a boycotting call should enhance the important referents' pressure towards a friendlier society in which people's action is able to ethics in the market.\nOriginality/value: In this study, TPB was expanded by the incorporation of values, namely Materialism/Post-materialism, as a moderating factor.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Berth scheduling at marine container terminals: A universal island-based metaheuristic approach	[ "Optimization", "Supply chains", "Marine transportation", "Berth scheduling", "Island-based algorithms", "Marine container terminals", "Parallel algorithms" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: During the past three decades, the offshoring of manufacturing activities (i.e. relocation of the production facilities or supply basins to a foreign country, aiming to decrease the production expenses) has become a popular approach and was adopted by a lot of firms (Da Silveira, 2014). This tendency has created an increasing demand for containerized marine transportation and global trade. Hence, the marine container terminal (MCT) operators are expected to enhance the MCT operations, given the available handling resources, to increase the MCT throughput and effectively serve the growing demand. The basic operations at each MCT can be classified into the seaside operations, the marshaling yard operations, and the landside operations (Dulebenets et al., 2018). This study investigates the seaside operations with a primary focus on the berth scheduling problem (BSP). The BSP is a decision problem, in which the arriving vessels have to be assigned to the available berthing positions, and the order of vessel service has to be determined for each berthing position (Bierwirth and Meisel, 2015).\n2. Review of related studies: Bierwirth and Meisel (2015) conducted a comprehensive literature survey, which covers the studies related to berth allocation, quay crane assignment, and quay crane scheduling problems. Carlo et al. (2015) also published a survey study, covering the studies related to the seaside MCT operations. The literature review under this study will focus on two study groups:\n3. Problem description: In this section of the manuscript, the BSP, which is investigated in this study, is described in detail. Several types of MCT berthing layouts have been defined in the BSP literature, including discrete, continuous, indented, hybrid, and channel berthing layouts (Bierwirth and Meisel, 2015). In this study, a discrete berthing layout was adopted, based on which the wharf is divided into a set of berthing positions (B = {1, ..., n}), and each one of them can serve one vessel at a time. Figure 1 illustrates the berthing layout of the MCT, where a group of vessels (V = {1, ..., m}) are served at n discrete berthing positions. The vessel arrival patterns in BSPs can be categorized into dynamic and static. The former arrival pattern was adopted in this study. Based on the dynamic vessel arrival case, the vessels have not arrived at the MCT yet, but the liner shipping companies have already informed the MCT operator regarding the expected vessel arrival times. Let T = {1, ..., p} be the set of discrete periods in the considered planning horizon, and\n4. Mathematical formulation of the optimization model: Under this section of the manuscript, the mathematical model, developed for the Spatially Constrained BSP (SCBSP), is described in a comprehensive manner. A mixed-integer linear mathematical formulation was adopted for the considered BSP. In Table I, the nomenclature, which will be used from now on, is presented.\n5. Solution strategy: In this study, the developed SCBSP mathematical model was solved using the proposed UIMA. The key steps of UIMA are illustrated in Figure 2. The data, required for the execution of UIMA, are loaded in the first step. Then, the initial population is generated based on the two strategies:\n6. Numerical experiments: In this section of the manuscript, a detailed evaluation of the developed UIMA algorithm is conducted. UIMA will be compared to the EA, PSO, EDA, and DE algorithms, which are executed separately (i.e. without using an island concept). Moreover, the developed SCBSP mathematical model will be solved using a group of single-solution-based metaheuristic algorithms, which have been widely used in the BSP literature, including the following:\n7. Conclusions and future research extensions: The MCT operators are looking for effective decision support tools that can assist with berth scheduling to serve the increasing demand for containerized trade and avoid potential vessel service delays. Island-based metaheuristic algorithms have been found to be efficient for various challenging decision problems, but have not been used in the berth scheduling literature. A UIMA was proposed in this study, aiming to solve the spatially constrained BSP. The UIMA population was divided into four sub-populations (i.e. islands). Four different population-based metaheuristics were adopted to search the islands, including the following:\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Marine transportation has been faced with an increasing demand for containerized cargo during the past decade. Marine container terminals (MCTs), as the facilities for connecting seaborne and inland transportation, are expected to handle the increasing amount of containers, delivered by vessels. Berth scheduling plays an important role for the total throughput of MCTs as well as the overall effectiveness of the MCT operations. This study aims to propose a novel island-based metaheuristic algorithm to solve the berth scheduling problem and minimize the total cost of serving the arriving vessels at the MCT.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A universal island-based metaheuristic algorithm (UIMA) was proposed in this study, aiming to solve the spatially constrained berth scheduling problem. The UIMA population was divided into four sub-populations (i.e. islands). Unlike the canonical island-based algorithms that execute the same metaheuristic on each island, four different population-based metaheuristics are adopted within the developed algorithm to search the islands, including the following: evolutionary algorithm (EA), particle swarm optimization (PSO), estimation of distribution algorithm (EDA) and differential evolution (DE). The adopted population-based metaheuristic algorithms rely on different operators, which facilitate the search process for superior solutions on the UIMA islands.\nFindings: The conducted numerical experiments demonstrated that the developed UIMA algorithm returned near-optimal solutions for the small-size problem instances. As for the large-size problem instances, UIMA was found to be superior to the EA, PSO, EDA and DE algorithms, which were executed in isolation, in terms of the obtained objective function values at termination. Furthermore, the developed UIMA algorithm outperformed various single-solution-based metaheuristic algorithms (including variable neighborhood search, tabu search and simulated annealing) in terms of the solution quality. The maximum UIMA computational time did not exceed 306 s.\nResearch limitations/implications: Some of the previous berth scheduling studies modeled uncertain vessel arrival times and/or handling times, while this study assumed the vessel arrival and handling times to be deterministic.\nPractical implications: The developed UIMA algorithm can be used by the MCT operators as an efficient decision support tool and assist with a cost-effective design of berth schedules within an acceptable computational time.\nOriginality/value: A novel island-based metaheuristic algorithm is designed to solve the spatially constrained berth scheduling problem. The proposed island-based algorithm adopts several types of metaheuristic algorithms to cover different areas of the search space. The considered metaheuristic algorithms rely on different operators. Such feature is expected to facilitate the search process for superior solutions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Designing public web information systems with quality in mind: Public reporting of hospital performance data	[ "Customer satisfaction", "Hospitals", "Performance management", "Worldwide web", "Information systems", "United States of America" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Starting in the late 1990s, few States had posted public information about patient satisfaction and hospital performance (Barr et al., 2002). In 2005 the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) launched its Hospital Compare web site (WSHA, 2005). This event was recognized internationally as an enormous step forward in meeting the need for objective information to inform consumer choices (Canhealth.com, 2005). Since 2005 the number of States mandating public reporting of healthcare associated infection rates as a measure of hospital performance has grown quickly and steadily. The Washington State Department of Health is required by law to launch a healthcare-associated infections public information web site by December 2009.The impacts of public reporting, and reliability of measurements included in those reports, are being assessed in a body of literature that has grown less quickly. Thus far, evaluation results for the longest established public web sites uniformly show low usage (Harris and Buntin, 2008; Kaiser Family Foundation, 2008; California Healthcare Foundation, 2008) and disappointing impact (Fung et al., 2008). To give our new web site a greater chance for success, we identified underlying issues thought to explain past poor performance of other sites. We then established design principles based on research evidence informing those underlying issues. Finally, we developed prototypes for our web site consistent with these principles and are refining prototype generations by successive evaluation periods. In a pilot study at the third-generation prototype stage, our transition from showing single-page mock-ups to showing a fully functional web site, we explore use of an on-line evaluation approach to determine whether our design process is meeting performance expectations. In a subsequent fourth-generation stage, we engage a formal usability engineering assessment method to determine how well our evolving product conforms to established heuristics that have been applied to a wide range of information systems.\nMethods: Third-generation prototype evaluation\nResults: Third-generation prototype evaluation\nAnalysis and discussion: The Plone platform generated cryptic initial instruction messages that confused several recipients, and at least one found the on-line response format awkward (\"would be nice to move between survey questions and the web site\"). The evaluation period also coincided with an influenza pandemic, which kept many busy with higher-priority tasks. We may consider other approaches to conduct evaluations of our next prototypes.Selecting quality metrics that can be measured with sufficient precision, accuracy and reliability is fundamental to creating information for any audience (McKibben et al., 2005; Joint Public Policy Committee, 2007; NQF, 2008b) This raises concerns about current practices in public reporting of healthcare-associated infection rates (Birnbaum, 2008; Edmond, 2007). Two respondents expressed related concern (\"Doing this with VAP is tough!\", \"I am extremely uncomfortable to say this data is accurate. It is not validated like other data sets in the industry ... \"). It also is important to distinguish between patient satisfaction versus quality of care measurement tools, and recognize that few of those many metrics have been validated (Gill and White, 2009). Therefore, we are attempting to explain context and limits to interpretation instead of just publishing event rates on our evolving web site.Understanding the intended audience is fundamental to designing an effective product. We appear to be the first State program to develop its healthcare-associated infections public web site by refining prototypes through successive focus group evaluations. Our initial audience has been the program's advisory committee. This group includes representatives of: the public; community organizations devoted to transparency and effectiveness in quality and safety of patient care; societies that represent the health professions; the healthcare industry and health plan insurers; and experts in epidemiology and infection surveillance, control, and prevention. We will continue evaluation-refinement cycles as our prototypes evolve and expand the range of participants in every cycle.We chose this approach because there is no ideal web site we could identify as a model to follow. The search for an ideal model is complicated by the fact that \"There are many, many instruments for assessing quality of health information (web sites), most of them haven't been properly validated\" (National Prostate Cancer Web site, 2005). Our goal is to create the most effective web site possible, through a continuous quality improvement process, while adding to knowledge about the most effective ways to communicate in this manner (Mazor et al., 2009; Cleveland, 1993, 1994; Wheildon, 2005; Krug, 2006; Tufte, 1983). Evaluation results, to date, suggest that the prototyping process and its resulting product are well along in meeting performance expectations.We completed a third-generation prototype evaluation over the month of May 2009, and a fourth-generation prototype evaluation cycle over the month of June. The results from these evaluation cycles are being iteratively fed back into refinement of the site. An even wider circle of people will be recruited for a fifth cycle, including as many infection prevention and control professionals and healthcare executives, as well as members of the public throughout the State of Washington, as possible. Evaluation and refinement will continue after public launch of our web site in December 2009, seeking even broader public participation. In this manner, we are actively seeking the voice of the customer in order to produce a more effective public information web site.\nAcknowledgements: The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.The authors thank Pamela Lovinger, Michael Davisson, Laura Blaske and Robert Clark for advice and encouragement during the project; and the members of our Healthcare Associated Infections Advisory Committee as well as the graduate students in the University of Victoria's Health Informatics 591 course on usability engineering for their participation in evaluating our evolving prototype designs. We also thank Roxie Zarate, MPH, Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists Applied Epidemiology Fellow, for assistance with parts of the data analysis.This paper was special guest edited by Madhav Sinha, President and CEO of the Total Quality Research Foundation Canada and Founder and Chair of the Canadian Quality Congress, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.This paper comes from the \"first\" annual Canadian Quality Congress presentations held last August 2009 in the campus of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, sponsored and organized by Total Quality Research Foundation (TQRF) Canada.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to describe evolution of a new public information web site, through evaluation-refinement prototyping cycles.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - An expanding range of participants is being engaged in formal evaluations as the site design evolves. The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Score is applied to assess ease of reading in the wording used; the National Quality Forum guideline statements are applied to determine whether the prototyping design process is meeting performance expectations; and then Nielsen's heuristics are applied to evaluate ease of use of the latest prototype.\nFindings: - The page wordings started at a high reading grade level to be technically correct, with a strategy to progressively reduce levels without losing meaning. Reading level was reduced to an average of two and as much as six grades through editing between the third and fourth-generation prototypes. None of the National Quality Forum principles were found missing from the development process. The prototype web site was ranked at the middle compared to official public web sites of seven other States' healthcare-associated infection programs, some of which had been open to the public for more than a year. Many of the heuristic violations that weighed against the prototype were described as being minor and easily fixed. Collaboration between a State health department and a university to advance this evaluation-refinement process was valuable to both parties, enhancing the ability to produce a new public information web site that is more likely to meet the needs of its intended audience.\nPractical implications: - In response to increasing expectations of transparency and accountability, a growing number of public web sites are displaying hospital performance data. Washington State's mandatory public reporting of healthcare-associated infection rates is a recent example of this trend. The Department of Health is required by law to launch a public information web site by December 2009. The research was based on an evidence-based approach to understand and meet the information needs of the public.\nOriginality/value: - Although few studies have evaluated the usage and impact of hospital comparison web sites, these studies uniformly show relatively low usage and disappointing impact. Using the research literature, issues thought to account for poor usage and low impact, and developed design principles that address this poor past performance were identified. Throughout 2008 and 2009, successive prototypes were developed for the web site structure guided by those principles and refined each generation of prototype through focus group evaluations. This paper explains the approach, and summarizes results from the evaluations, leading to improvements before the final design first opens to the general public.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Context challenges the champion: improving hip fracture care in a Swedish university hospital	[ "Quality improvement", "Clinical guidelines", "Patient pathway", "Medical schools", "Universities", "Sweden" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A swift operation followed by fast rehabilitation and discharge is recommended for traumatic hip fractures (Manninger et al., 1989). In 2003 the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare (NBHW) issued a national guideline requiring that hip fracture patients (when in need of surgery) should be operated on within 24 hours of admission (Socialstyrelsen, 2003). Failure to follow the guideline is likely to cause unnecessary suffering to patients and increase costs of care. In 2005 Stockholm County, a regional health service provider introduced a financial incentive to hospitals to meet the requirement. Still results have not been convincing. Several attempts were made at one of the region's university hospitals, caring for 20 per cent of the county's hip fracture patients, to improve the care for that patient group (Svensson et al., 1996, Thor et al., 2004). This study reports a patient pathway process improvement initiative in the hospital that was part of larger project, which included empowering patients through staff training and testing new operation techniques by the use of computer simulation of the osteoporotic bone.Background\nAim and research questions: The aims were to describe and explain a programme of changes to improve hip fracture care and outcomes in a Swedish university hospital. The review of previous research and the interests of the managers with who the researchers cooperated in the study led to the following four questions (Q) being defined:Q1. What were the assumptions or \"programme theory\" underlying the improvement initiative?Q2. How did the improvement initiative affect the perception of personnel about hip fracture patients?Q3. How did the initiative affect the quality of patient care?Q4. Which factors helped and hindered the implementation of the improvements?\nMethods: Case study design\nFindings: Planning phase: 2005-2006\nAnalysis: The Pettigrew and Whipp framework was applied to describe and explain the actions taken and the intermediate changes and outcomes observed. Following the Pettigrew and Whipp framework, the content describes the details of the initiative and the process how the initiative was carried out. The context describes the organisation in which the project was conducted and the outcomes the intermediate and final results.Content of the change\nDiscussion and conclusions: Based on the analysis in the previous section a number of interesting findings will be discussed and reflected on relevant theory. The original motive for the project was to enable patients to take a more active role in their rehabilitation and to start mobilisation early. The project leader describes how this led to a second aim of improving patient flow, especially to ensure operations within 24 hours on hip fracture patients. The data show the PL, project team and others carrying out a number of actions to improve flow and develop patient \"empowerment\", and some success in some departments but not with orthopaedic surgeons. It also shows how the project was overshadowed by wider events and the limits to what an enthusiastic and respected clinical leader and project team could achieve.To answer the four research questions defined at the outset, the study drew on the different data gathered in the case study and below reports the evidence providing some answers to the questions:* Q1: What were the assumptions or \"programme theory\" underlying the improvement initiative? The project leader's statements suggest that he was motivated to improve care for hip fracture patients both by a feeling that these patients had not been given sufficient priority and by ideas for change, which he felt, could be carried out. As a clinician scientist he originally planned a research study combined with a plan for increasing patient involvement in care in order to help them regain control. It appears that he and the project group acted out of a \"programme theory\" based on assumptions that showing data on the poor prognosis and the low priority given to the patient group would stimulate others to action, and that the national guidelines would be unquestioned. Also, that forming a multi-professional improvement team of staff from the different clinical units involved in the care path, and widely communicating about the efforts to all staff involved, would lead to an acceptance and implementation of a redesigned care pathway. Part of the strategy was to raise interest by giving the initiative a provocative name - the\" Jungle Path\". Olsson et al. (Olsson et al., 2006) has showed that implementation of integrated care pathways (ICP) could significantly reduce the length of stay and improve the quality of care for hip fracture patients. The underlying assumptions of the clinician-project leader were intuitive, but consistent with what is known to be an effective strategy.* Q2: How did the improvement initiative affect the perception of personnel about hip fracture patients? There is evidence that nursing staff recognised the patients were a \"forgotten group\", and that little attention was paid to the requirement to treat the patients within 24 hours. The \"Jungle Path\" and the discussions it initiated led to an increased focus on the patient group. Some scepticism and resistance to the national guidelines was expressed in interviews with orthopaedic surgeons. The requirement to operate on hip fractures within 24 hours was seen by them as arbitrary and with questionable support in the literature.* Q3: How did the initiative affect the quality of patient care? The original goal was to reduce waiting for the operation in order to meet the guidelines requirement of treatment within 24 hours. The proportion of patients receiving their operation within that time limit increased only marginally. However, there is evidence that staff paid more attention to this patient group which might have lead to an increased level of care. It is likely to assume that a better anchoring in the hospital management could have helped to strengthen the project and reduced waiting time to operation. The importance of establishing the project idea at the strategic management level cannot be underestimated.* Q4: Which factors helped and hindered the implementation of the improvements? The single most important promoting factor mentioned by interviewees was the dedication and strong commitment of the project leader as well as his seniority and the respect with which many held him. Additional facilitators were the national guidelines with the time limit requirement, authorisation of emergency department nurses to order painkillers and x-ray referrals, and the use of a multi-professional improvement team with largely stable membership over the three-year project. Obstacles were that all did not know national guidelines, and there was some criticisms concerning its evidence base. Some physicians felt that applying guidelines for only one patient group was difficult in their clinical situation, with other urgent patient needs competing for attention. The fact that many development activities took place in parallel was a distracting factor for staff. Originally, the launch of the CEO's \"flow\" improvement programme highlighted the importance of working with patient pathways and added legitimacy to the \"Jungle Path\". Later, the focus of the \"Jungle Path\" on only one patient group was seen as deviating from the \"flow\" improvement programme approach and was felt inappropriate by its leaders.The initiative was launched at one of the divisions of a large university hospital. Other research suggests that the size of the hospital might be a further complicating factor. Shortell et al. report that larger-size hospitals are less likely to have group-oriented cultures that emphasise teamwork, empowerment and related attributes, which in turn are known to promote staff involvement in change processes and contribute to their success (Shortell et al., 1995). It is also possible that not using a more systematic project management method and continuous improvement methods contributed to underachieving the aims of the project, although doing so would probably not have overcome the resistance of the orthopaedic surgeons to changing their working practices.Additional observations\nConclusions: This study has gone some way towards identifying factors helping and hindering practical implementation of change work. A framework for collecting data allowed the case study to discover a number of patterns, which could explain the changes which were and were not made. This framework helped understand how the context of a process improvement change affects what can and cannot be achieved, and the extent of and limits to the role of clinical leader in achieving changes. It showed that an energetic and respected clinician could achieve some changes, but how the context both supported and limited what could be achieved. The study revealed that the clinician was able to forcefully communicate a clear vision and was able to engage many clinical staff and create the conditions for changes in patient pathways. But without an overarching plan, well founded with and actively supported by top management and other clinicians, the changes were limited to parts of the pathway. Clinical guidelines were not sufficient to convince key clinicians to support the change. A \"strategic\" approach by the clinician champion, adapting to and utilising changes in context, led to his losing direct control, but increased the chances of improving conditions for the patients who were the subject of the original project. One lesson for further policy improvement is to include the aspect of effective anchoring in the involved departments as well as the management organisation.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to describe and explain a clinician-led improvement of a hip fracture care process in a university hospital, and to assess the results and factors helping and hindering change implementation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper has a mixed methods case study design. Data collection was guided by a framework directing attention to the content and process of the change, its context and outcomes.\nFindings: - Using a multiprofessional project team, beneficial changes in the early parts of the care process were achieved, but inability to change surgical staff work practices meant that the original goal of operating patients within 24 hours was not reached. After three years, top management introduced a hospital-wide process improvement programme, which \"took over\" the responsibility for improving hip fracture care.\nResearch implications/limitations: - A clear vision why change is needed and what needs to be done, which is well communicated by a respected clinical leader, can motivate personnel, but other influences are also needed to bring about change. Without a plan agreed and supported by top management, changes are likely to be limited to parts of the process and improvements to patient care may be minimal. These and other findings may be applicable to similar situations in other services.\nOriginality/value: - This case study is an illustration of both the strengths and the weaknesses of a \"bottom-up, clinician-champion-led improvement initiative\" in a complex university hospital.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Workflow and web service standards	[ "Work flow", "Process management", "Standards" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Workflow and business process management (BPM) standards would greatly help workplaces by allowing multiple systems to be easily integrated. Such standards have been under development for a long time, resulting in what seem to be very few real results. There are a number of reasons why these standards seem like they can be developed quickly, but in practice they are rather difficult to agree upon. It reminds me of the Dartmouth Summer Research Project which was hoped to solve the few remaining unsolved barriers to artificial intelligence - in the summer of 1955 (McCarthy et al., 1955). Almost half a century later true AI still eludes us. This is surprising only because intelligence (the natural kind) seems to come so easily to us. Similarly, business processes (the natural kind) seem so easy to us that the lack of standards seems unreasonable. There are a number of reasons for this, but before discussing the inherent difficulties, let's start with a quick overview of the history and the current status.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Aims to discuss the development of workflow standards in the context of the internet.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Outlines the history behind process interoperability standards such as Wf-XML and BPEL4WS.\nFindings: - Concludes that it will take a while for the dust to settle and the winners of the current standards battles to emerge.\nOriginality/value: - Provides a useful source of information on workflow and web service standards.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Effect of country image and materialism on the quality evaluation of Korean products: Empirical findings from four countries with varying economic development status	[ "Materialism", "Country image", "Korean cosmetics", "Product quality" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: It is essential to understand how global consumers evaluate Asian firms' product quality and the factors associated with the evaluation to enable such firms to market their goods effectively in global marketplaces. A well-documented factor is country image (Gorostidi-Martinez et al., 2017; Laroche et al., 2005; Pappu et al., 2007; Wang et al., 2012). However, the effect of country image might not be absolute (e.g. Manrai et al., 1998). Country image comprises one's descriptive, inferential and informational beliefs about a particular country (Martin and Eroglu, 1993). Therefore, its influence on product evaluation might change with respect to the country to which the global consumers belong. For instance, the evaluation of a Korean product might be higher in Vietnam than in France, as Vietnamese consumers perceive Korea as an economically advanced country more so than the French. Hence, an understanding of whether global consumers' evaluation of products from an Asian country is the same or different and the reasons behind the differing effects, if any, is required.\nLiterature review: Country image\nConceptual framework and hypotheses: Based on the previous discussion, we propose a research framework and hypotheses in Figure 1. The rationale for each hypothesis follows in the next section.\nMethod: Data collection\nResults: Measurement model\nConclusion and implications: Overall, this study discovered a positive influence of macro and micro country images and materialism on the product evaluation of Korean cosmetics as well as the moderation effects of materialism and a country's economic development (i.e. developing vs developed countries). The major findings have been discussed below.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: It is critical to understand how global consumers evaluate the quality of Asian products while marketing Asian products in the global marketplaces. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of Korea's macro and micro country image and global consumers' materialism level on the quality evaluation of Korean cosmetics among consumers in four countries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data from 900 participants were collected from consumers aged 20 or older living in economically developed countries (the USA and France) and economically developing countries (China and Vietnam) via professional online survey firms. Multiple regression analyses were used to analyze the data.\nFindings: Along with the direct effect of macro and micro country image and materialism on product quality evaluation, a moderating effect of materialism and the respective country was discovered. Subsequently, the effect of macro country image on quality evaluation was found to be only significant in the USA and France and not in China and Vietnam. In contrast, the impact of micro country image was robust across all four countries. Furthermore, the effect of materialism on product quality was significant only in Vietnam. This implies that materialistic consumers in emerging markets might have favorable perceptions regarding the quality of Korean cosmetics.\nOriginality/value: This study advances country image research by providing new theoretical and managerial implications for countries whose image is less distinctive with respect to the effective marketing of products by the destination countries' development status and consumers' familiarity.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Links between sustainability-related awareness and behavior: The moderating role of engagement	[ "University", "Sustainability", "Behavior", "Engagement", "Awareness" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: As of 2015, an estimated 6,300 million metric tons (Mt) of plastic had been produced globally, yet only 567 Mt has been recycled (Geyer et al., 2017). Furthermore, it is estimated that by 2050, 12,000 Mt of plastic waste will be either in landfills or in the natural environment (Geyer et al., 2017). These statistics indicate an urgent need to identify factors that are most effective at facilitating changes in sustainable behavior (e.g. waste-prevention). As current consumer-driven behaviors and culture are inherently unsustainable, working toward changing behavior at the individual level is an essential component to being environmentally responsible citizens and working toward promoting a culture of sustainability (Moore, 2004; Zsoka et al., 2013). A culture of sustainability has been defined as:\nMethods: Data\nResults: The below sample characteristics are presented followed by results from the testing of both research questions. Table I provides descriptive statistics on all study variables. Just under two-thirds (64.6 per cent) of the sample were female, 26.4 per cent declared as engineering majors in 2015, 51.9 per cent were majoring in literature, sciences and the arts and 21.7 per cent were other majors. There was an increase over time in reports of both waste prevention (2012 mean = 6.5; 2015 mean = 7.1) and sustainable travel/transportation behaviors (2012 mean = 7.8; 2015 mean = 8.1). Both indicators of operational awareness increased from 2012 to 2015 and were similar on the standardized 0-10 scale. Waste-prevention awareness increased from 4.0 in 2012 to 4.4 in 2015 and travel/transportation awareness increased from 4.0 to 4.6. In terms of educational awareness, only 14.0 per cent of the panel reported that they were taking a course that addressed sustainability during their freshmen year. This increased to over one-third (35.2 per cent) when the panel of students were seniors. Lastly, in terms of engagement almost three-quarters (73.5 per cent) of the students reported that they had engaged in one or more sustainability activities during their time on campus.\nDiscussion: This study demonstrates that greater sustainability awareness from an operational standpoint can have some impact on increasing sustainable behaviors among students. While this is an indirect approach to increasing sustainable behaviors, and is dependent on the behavior at hand, the results of this study demonstrate that higher levels of awareness about sustainability-related operations did result in behavioral change over a four-year period. This study complements other studies which have demonstrated the importance of student awareness and perceptions of campus sustainability initiatives (Nejati and Nejati, 2013).\nLimitations and future directions: This study was limited, in that it only examined two sustainable behaviors (waste-prevention and travel/transportation). Given that this study found that the link between awareness and behavior varies across behaviors suggests that more studies are needed on additional sustainable behaviors (e.g. conservation of energy).\nConclusion: Using the University of Michigan as a case study, this study contributes to a growing literature focused on how to promote and facilitate changes in sustainable behavior on university campuses. This study found that the ability of awareness to influence sustainable behaviors is behavior specific. The finding that the awareness-behavior link varies by behavior highlights the importance of not taking a one size fits all approach to influence sustainable behaviors. This study's findings also suggest that allocating resources toward awareness will have a greater impact on waste prevention compared to travel/transportation behaviors. Consistent with previous research this study did not find a significant link between sustainable travel/transportation awareness and behavior, and highlights the role of barriers in facilitating this behavior. Regarding the conditioning role of engagement, this study had mixed findings. While engagement was found to moderate the awareness-behavior link for travel/transportation, the direction of the finding suggests other factors are more salient at predicting this behavior. While this study and its findings are unique to the University of Michigan, it serves as a case study that highlights how to promote specific sustainable behaviors efficiently. This can help facilitate the efficient allocation of university resources. Thus, the lessons learned from this campus setting have implications for other university campuses as well as other non-university communities such as cities and corporate campuses.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Sustainability literature has cited the influential role of both awareness and engagement in facilitating increases in pro-environmental behaviors. The purpose of this study is to compare these links across behaviors and explore their interactive influence.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Two research questions were examined: 1) Is awareness about campus efforts regarding waste-prevention and sustainable travel/transportation options associated with increases in student waste-prevention and sustainable travel/transportation behaviors? 2) Is the link between sustainability awareness and changes in behavior conditioned by student engagement (i.e. participation) in campus sustainability activities and events? Research questions were examined using data from the University of Michigan Sustainability Cultural Indicators Program. A sample of freshmen completed a Web-based survey in 2012, and again as seniors in 2015.\nFindings: Greater awareness of campus waste-prevention efforts in 2015 was associated with significant increases in student waste-prevention behaviors from 2012 to 2015. Also, among students who were engaged (i.e. reported participating in a campus sustainability activity/event), greater travel/transportation awareness in 2015 was associated with a significant decline in sustainable travel/transportation behavior. Consistent with previous studies this study found a link between sustainability awareness and increases in sustainable behavior. However, this study also indicates that this link is not present for all behaviors (i.e. use of sustainable travel/transportation). This study also found that engagement does not amplify the awareness-behavior link.\nOriginality/value: Understanding key drivers of changes in sustainable behavior for specific behaviors can inform the allocation of resources and help university campuses reach their sustainability goals.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Up close and personal: The value of feedback in implementing an individual energy-saving adaptation	[ "Intervention", "Sustainability", "Technology", "Adaptation", "Feedback", "Energy reduction" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Reducing energy use through conservation and efficiency has been identified as one of the more cost-effective options for meeting targets for significant reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions worldwide (Alcott and Mullainathan, 2010; Carrico and Riemer, 2011). A recent Global Industry Analysts' report demonstrates that an increasing number of profit and not-for-profit organizations are showing interest in reducing emissions through workplace conservation initiatives (IT Briefcase, 2012). The report further shows that an increasing number of technological solutions to support these sustainability efforts are being offered. For example, \"Green IT\" services are expected to surpass US $5 billion by 2015 based on data collected from key players in the global market including Accenture PLC, BT Global Services, Deloitte, Global Green Consulting Group, Inc., Hewlett-Packard Company, International Business Machines Corporation, Sustainable IT, Tata Consultancy Services, Computer Sciences Corporation, Dell, Inc., Intel Corporation and Oracle, among others (IT Briefcase, 2012). Encouraged by the success of the energy star rating program and the general concept of energy conservation, state and federal governments in the USA and across the globe are developing regulations and standards to encourage the adoption of energy conservation technologies in both the public and private sectors (Pollard, 2013).\nMitigating climate change: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines climate change mitigation as \"a human intervention to reduce the sources or enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases\". (IPCC, 2014). Climate change mitigation is one of the main strategies necessary in developing a comprehensive approach to managing climate change risks (Klein et al., 2007; Wilbanks et al., 2003). Mitigating consumer demand for energy through behavioral interventions has been shown to be an essential component of efforts to reduce GHG emissions. Carrico and Riemer (2011) and Taylor et al. (2006) reviewed numerous published reports of opportunities that exist to integrate mitigation into broader development strategies and policies. These include:\nHigher education takes the lead: Reviews of energy efficiency strategies and policies at US colleges and universities show that numerous higher education institutes are developing new sustainability programs and policies to mitigate escalating energy expenses (Cabrera and Zareipour, 2011; Owen et al., 2013). Further evidence of this is provided by the early participation and growing enrolment in the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). During the period from December 2006 through September 2007, 379 college and university presidents took a pledge on behalf of their institutions to pursue climate neutrality in campus operations to promote education, research and community engagement needed for the rest of society to do the same and to hold themselves accountable by publicly reporting on their progress (Swearingen-White, 2009). In their five-year report on its progress (ACUPCC, 2013), the ACUPCC reports that as of January 18, 2013, 677 USA university presidents, representing all 50 states and every type of public and private institution had made the ACUPCC pledge. During this same time period, 1,583 GHG inventories, 465 Climate Action Plans (CAP) and 235 Progress Reports on the CAP had been submitted by the signatories (ACUPCC, 2013). This report indicates that signatories have demonstrated a profound and positive impact in negating the effects of climate change and integrating sustainable practices on their campuses since the initiative's inception in 2007.\nWhat drives sustainability behavior?: Feedback has been shown to be one of the more effective methods for promoting energy conservation in various contexts. Abrahamse et al. (2005) report that it is a long-standing method typically associated with residential energy conservation. In their study of a group of households, Seligman and Darley (1977) used daily feedback to promote a reduction in electricity use at home. These findings have been replicated numerous times with typical energy reductions in the range of 5-15 per cent being reported (EPRI, 2009). More recently, Carrico and Riemer (2011) demonstrated positive results on conservation behavior when providing monthly feedback in a work environment.\nResearch method: A mixed-method approach was taken in this study. Two sources of quantitative data and two sources of qualitative data were collected. Quantitative data were collected through:\nResults: Climate change mitigation at a medium-sized university\nConclusions: The failed university-wide computer-related energy-reduction mitigation strategy provided the impetus for the current research. As a result, the researcher designed and conducted a research study to test the usefulness of a behavioral intervention to reduce energy on campus. In stark contrast to the unsuccessful mandated IT energy-reduction mitigation strategy, the voluntary behavioral intervention implemented in the current study was a huge success. When participants were empowered to reduce energy voluntarily, they responded positively to the implementation of an individual energy-saving device. Evidence of this was provided in level of use and the survey responses in which participants reported they thoroughly enjoyed and supported both the process and the technology that was implemented to encourage individual-level energy savings on campus. In particular, the study contributes to our understanding of factors that drive individual sustainability attitudes and behaviors at work. For example, while it could easily be inferred that resistance to the earlier mandated computer-related energy-saving mitigation strategy demonstrated employees' lack of interest in sustainability, whereas the current results disproved this inference. When approached on an individual level and provided with clear, concise feedback on a regular basis, employees actively engaged in sustainability practices and reported that they did so because they wanted to be socially responsible and were genuinely interested in conserving energy at work.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this research is to explore the drivers of computer-related sustainability behavior at a medium-sized US university and the extent to which an inexpensive energy-saving device installed on 146 administrator, faculty and general staff workstations achieved significant savings in kWh, CO2 kg and dollars.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A mixed-method approach was used to collect qualitative and quantitative data to inform the study, and an intervention was introduced to raise awareness of energy-saving initiatives on a medium-sized university campus at an individual level. A simple computer energy efficiency device to measure the kWh, carbon emissions and monetary savings was installed on office workstations of 146 administrator, faculty and general staff. The research design enabled analysis of university mitigation strategies along with energy-saving behaviors, attitudes and savings in CO2 kg and dollars resulting from the installation of the adaptation intervention.\nFindings: Extrapolating individual workstation savings over the eight-week study period suggests potential annual average savings of $122,087.21; 1,327,003 kWh of energy; and 577,044 kg CO2. Usage behaviors and attitudes of study participants toward green practices in general and the specific energy-saving device showed participants hold highly positive attitudes toward both. Themes that captured participants' feeling toward the energy-saving device included: easy to use; enjoyment; feedback; habit and technical issues. Drivers that most highly motivated participants to save energy at work were participants' sense of social responsibility and the recognition of the need to reduce energy at work.\nPractical implications: The implementation of a voluntary individual-level energy-saving adaptation has the potential to be more far effective than expensive mandated strategies imposed on university employees and the value of feedback in positively influencing sustainability behavior.\nOriginality/value: This study is one of the first to report on the implementation of a voluntary individual-level climate change adaptation intervention on a university campus. The research addresses concerns voiced in previous literature that higher education is not stepping up the critical role in climate adaptation required of it and contributes to the sustainability in higher education literature by providing empirical evidence of the usefulness of implementing a simple adaptation technique. Specifically, it documents how increasing sustainability awareness in university employees can encourage socially responsible and energy conversation behaviors and achieve significant energy savings in dollars, kWh and CO2 kg.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Investigating member commitment to virtual communities using an integrated perspective	[ "Community networks", "Customer retention", "Facilitators", "Human‐computer interaction", "Social networking sites", "User behaviour", "User studies", "Virtual worlds", "Communities" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Virtual communities provide a forum for people to interact and communicate in a computer-mediated environment. Virtual communities have increased rapidly (Smedberg, 2008) and have received widespread attention over the past decade (Shang et al., 2006). However, despite significant growth in the number of virtual communities, relatively few communities have obtained member commitment (Gupta and Kim, 2007). Numerous marketing studies have documented that commitment is positively related to customer retention (Garbarino and Johnson, 1999; Hennig-Thurau et al., 2002; Sirdeshmukh et al., 2002; Anton et al., 2007; Kaltcheva et al., 2010). In the context of virtual communities, member commitment also has a significant influence on voluntary behavior (Kim et al., 2004), and the success of virtual communities (Wiertz and de Ruyter, 2007). Thus, the primary goal of online communities may be to persuade members to remain with and commit to the community.Therefore, researchers are interested in understanding how to maintain community numbers. For example, previous studies examined the determinants of online community user participation from a social influence perspective. The results revealed that both social identity and group norms have significant effects on user participation (Zhou, 2011). Conversely, Lin (2007) examined the determinants of virtual community sustainability from a system perspective. The findings indicated that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use determine the sustainability of virtual communities. Overall, research suggests that social factors and system characteristics influence an individual's intention to remain in a virtual community (Chen, 2007).Involvement theory suggests that some people have more specific requirements than others (Phang et al., 2010), and that consumer involvement can be attributed to individual characteristics (Phang et al., 2010). Although involvement seems to be a critical factor in predicting individual attitudes and behavior (Ha and Lennon, 2010), the effects of issue involvement on commitment in the context of virtual communities have not been empirically tested. Understanding the effects of consumer characteristics on commitment is vital when designing a positioning program.In addition, although the impact of social factors and system characteristics on an individual's intent to remain have been studied (for example, Chen, 2007), few studies integrated member characteristics into the framework as antecedent variables of member commitment. Thus, this study integrates the roles of individual factors (issue involvement), social factors (social interactivity), and system factors (system interactivity), and explores how these factors affect member commitment to online communities. The primary advantage of this framework is the consolidation of individual, social, and system factors as predictor variables, which can facilitate a greater understanding of how virtual community member commitment is formed.\n2. Literature review and hypotheses development: A virtual community is a community that exists in computer-supported virtual space. They are an important method of social interaction in today's world (Jaeger and Xie, 2009). According to Steuer's communication model (1992), communication occurs not only between the sender and the receiver, but also between the user and the mediated environment with which they interact. Thus, online community interaction can be viewed from two conceptual angles. First, it can be considered social interaction, namely, community members communicate with other members through the online community platform. Second, the human-computer interaction of online communities can be considered from a technology interface perspective. Thus, virtual communities can focus on creating functional benefits that improve system interactivity from a technology perspective. By contrast, social interactions are more important from an interpersonal relationship perspective. In the e-commerce environment, both computer-mediated interpersonal interactions and human-computer interactions contribute to relationship quality (Sun, 2010). Previous studies have also suggested that social factors (sociability and social usefulness) and system factors (usability, information quality, and system quality) can be used to identify characteristics that influence the success of virtual communities (Preece, 2001; Lin, 2008).Apart from social factors or system factors, virtual communities are self-selecting interactive groups of individuals, who are linked by common interests or goals (Pentina et al., 2008). If an issue discussed in an online community is perceived as important, members are motivated to participate in this community. Thus, individual-related factors, such as each member's level of issue involvement, may influence the levels of online community participation, and the extent of member commitment. Based on these findings, this study suggests that the drivers of member commitment to virtual communities can be categorized into three groups: issue involvement, social interaction, and system interactivity.2.1 The impact of the degree of issue involvement on member commitment\n3. Method: Participants were undergraduate students from four universities in Taiwan. Survey data were collected during class time at these universities. Undergraduate students were selected as the sample for this study because they are already familiar with virtual community services. According to a recent survey conducted by Taiwan Network Information Center (TWNIC), 85.68 per cent of Internet users aged 20 to 24 are virtual community users (TWNIC, 2011). Because the research context (virtual communities) is relevant to undergraduate students, using them as the study sample is appropriate. Students who were members of virtual communities were asked to voluntarily participate while in their classes. They were questioned regarding their perception of the virtual community of which they were a member. The survey objective and the importance of their cooperation was emphasized. A two-page survey questionnaire was provided to all voluntary participants. The questionnaire instructed students to consider their \"currently most visited online community,\" and to use scales to report their perceptions of that virtual community. Among the 658 undergraduate students, 408 voluntarily participated in this study, achieving a response rate of 62%. Six of the returned questionnaires had at least one unanswered question; therefore, they were eliminated from the sample. This resulted in a final sample of 400, which comprised an equal number of male and female participants. This study used Box's M statistics to test the homogeneity of the covariance matrices of the four data sets. The results indicate that the respondent questionnaires were the same for the four universities (p=0.09 >0.05). Therefore, the four data sets were aggregated for further analysis.3.1 Measures\n4. Data analysis and results: Data analysis involved two main phases. First, whether the measurement items possessed appropriate properties to represent their respective constructs was tested through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using LISREL 8.7. This study employed the chi-squared test, comparative fit index (CFI), incremental fit index (IFI), goodness-of-fit index (GFI), and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) to evaluate the model fit. Reliability of the scale items was tested using composite reliability (CR) and average variance extracted (AVE), as suggested in literature (de Matos et al., 2007). Next, to test the hypotheses, we performed structural equation modeling (SEM), examining the effects of issue involvement, social interactivity, and system interactivity on member commitment.4.1 Measurement accuracy analysis\n5. Conclusion: We propose that commitment is derived from a combination of individual, social, and system factors. The findings of this study reveal that individual factors (member's issue involvement) and social factors (perceived social interactivity) contribute significantly to member commitment to an online community. This study finds that users commit to a virtual community through issue involvement and social interactivity, and allocate a higher priority to issue involvement when deciding whether to commit to an online community. Although previous studies have found that community interaction influences members' community commitment more than system quality does (Jang et al., 2008), this paper provides further empirical evidence that the most important predictor of member commitment to an online community is the member's issue involvement.5.1 Managerial implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Although the number of virtual communities has increased dramatically over the past few years, attracting and maintaining members remains the biggest challenge to establishing virtual social networks. This study seeks to integrate the roles of individual factors (issue involvement), social factors (social interaction), and system factors (system interactivity), and to explore how these factors contribute to member commitment in virtual communities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A total of 402 undergraduate students, who are all current members of virtual communities, participated in this study. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM).\nFindings: - The findings reveal that member commitment to communities was influenced more by their issue involvement compared to their perceived social interaction or perceived system interactivity.\nOriginality/value: - This research contributes to online community literature by integrating critical antecedent factors in the field of community commitment behavior. The findings indicate that issue involvement is more important than social interaction and system interactivity for influencing member commitment to communities. Additionally, the findings suggest that online community administrators should consider community positioning and topic selecting programs when attempting to influence users to commit to communities.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
E-commerce and globalization: an exploratory study of Egypt	[ "Electronic commerce", "Globalization", "Communication technologies", "Culture", "Egypt" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Developed countries that have been offering e-commerce have shown impressive improvement in their respective economies (Javalgi et al., 2005) however Middle East in general, and Arab countries in particular, still lag behind in e-business. The particularity of local culture, politics and ICT infrastructure are playing an important role in adopting and usage of global systems (Elbeltagi et al., 2005; Stahl and Elbeltagi, 2004). For example, local usage of Geographical Information Systems in India is affected by cultural attitudes to maps and cartography. Using maps is not seen as important in a country where it is usually easier to ask someone for directions (Walsham, 2001). In China, customers would not choose electronic business for the reason of convenience, unless the commodities are cheap enough, which is an obvious fact (Yu, n.d.). In a cross culture study between USA and Greece, it found that there was a difference between the two countries in terms of uncertainty avoidance which shows that there is a growing influence of globalization in e-commerce. There are a lot of authors argue that in the new knowledge economy, in general and e-commerce in particular, is expected to remove barriers of language, culture and national boundaries causing a globalize and unified societies (Sagi et al., 2004; Raman, 2000). However, in order to appreciate how this will come about, one must look at the cultural differences among countries and the way these differences impact e-commerce. Otherwise potential consumers might resist and reject the whole idea of buying from international companies that does not give enough thoughts about their particular culture, political systems, values and may be religion. Companies that expect to take advantage of globalization and cater to a world market must be aware of the varying ways cultures affect e-commerce, in order to be able to use the right strategy that suit its potential markets.\n2. E-commerce challenges and potentials in Egypt: Egypt is moving steadily toward knowledge economy this has been marked by the formation of Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) in October 1999. Since this date the Egyptian government have set national plans to encourage private sector participation, to increase and leverage ICT-related investments, and to create job opportunities; all this because the government is ambitious and want to use ICT to raise the standards of living of individuals and to create a prosperous society. That is along with preparing the next generation from enabled youth to deal with this technology and use it to achieve the development needed for making of a dynamic society. A society that is so transparent, in terms of information and speed of decision making, a society that we call now a Global Information Society (Hashem, 2002).The business potential of e-commerce technologies is seemingly irrefutable given the nearly more than 1 billion internet users worldwide by end of 2005. Of these 1 billion users, the largest share, 175 million with an estimated 43.7 million broadband households, reside in USA (Stylianou et al., 2003). Although growth in both the USA and abroad is expected to continue unabated, analysts predict that the US share of this global market will gradually decline. In contrast, other parts of the world are expected to grow at a faster pace, for example, in Africa and Arab countries internet users have grown by 400 per cent according to CIA World Fact book. According to International Telecommunications Union Egypt came on top of all African countries in terms of internet users. If we consider that most users in Egypt and other African countries access internet via cafes and other multi-user locations such as schools and offices, which make an exact count difficult. Egypt in particular, is expected to gain market share - particularly in light of the prediction that it will surpass other parts of the world especially if the oil prices is continued to grow as it is at the moment and the change in the perception of both customers and businesses that the internet applications potentials is booming (Aladwani, 2003). However, there are still many challenges for internet usage in general and e-commerce in particular. One of the main challenges is internet remains English language-dominated, and this poses a particular challenge for speakers of languages which are not written in the Roman alphabet. The World Wide Web and Arabic browsers have ameliorated that problem somewhat, but text-based areas such as E-mail remain problematical. The expense of computers, the uncertain quality of some country's telephone infrastructure, and governments fear that the new medium will provide an easy way for dissidents to \"publish\" their manifestos and reach ordinary citizens. One should not be deceived by the rapid growth rates, where there is, in most of Arab countries, some sort of censorship and surveillance of access to the internet.On the other side most of Arab countries have initiatives to encourage their own citizen to adopt ICT as a step toward creating information Society, which these governments think it is paramount step for development either economically or socially. For example Egypt has initiative called \"PC for every home\". In addition to that the MCIT have introduced many initiatives to transform both the Egyptian society and the Egyptian economy (All initiatives can be accessed from the MCIT's homepage: www.mcit.gov.eg/index.asp).In addition to these initiatives, ICT sector in Egypt witnessed a lot of attention and it become one of the high priorities of the Egyptian government especially after the first minister of MCIT, Dr. Ahmed Nazif, promoted to the position of Prime Minister in August 2004.There are several critical factors for successful implementation of these initiatives. These include strong governmental support; a suitable legislative and investment environment, as well as a state of the art infrastructure and investment in human resources. When we read and interpret all these initiatives it comes to our mind that a fully functioning, effective Egyptian Information Society is now just around the corner. Is these initiatives are taken seriously and followed through? This question needs another research itself to answer it.\n3. E-commerce and globalization: Internet and E-commerce which have been responsible for continuing gradual removal of barriers of language, culture, values, legal and national boundaries will play an important role in globalization and accelerate international trade (Raman, 2000; Lee and Littlejohn, 2004). The internet and e-commerce make use of smart cards to facilitate payment, doing of our banking online, and a variety of other online services relevant to e-commerce, common for most western citizens and potentially easy to use and useful among the majority of Arab consumers (67 per cent) as indicated by some researchers (Aladwani, 2003; Lee and Littlejohn, 2004). However, internet and e-commerce in a setting of globalization could mean many different things to different people, because of cultural ways of doing things. In some conservative countries in Arab world Internet has seemed a dangerous beast until now in other countries it just medium for elite to use. Also there is a variation in how access is obtained. In several countries, the government telecommunications monopoly is the only Internet Service Provider (ISP). In others, including Egypt, Jordan, and Tunisia, there are multiple competing ISPs.Bin et al. (2003) indicated that: \"most American companies today are so focused on their domestic market that they do not pay any attention to the overseas markets. Nevertheless, e-commerce is global in nature and the international markets represent immense potential\". Many researchers highlighted that there is a significant cultural differences regarding online shopping between different regions in the world especially between western users and others, i.e. Korean internet users and American internet users (Park and Jun, 2003). Even among what we could perceive as a common western cultures, researchers found differences in the way that people use the Internet (Sagi et al., 2004). In addition to that when a comparison is made between the Internet use among Arab and non-Arab states in general, it is seen that the Arab countries in general are lagging behind where most of Middle East countries usage of internet are not Arab, i.e. Turkey and Israel. Even more there are differences among Arab countries in use of the internet, where most of the use is in the gulf states (Aladwani, 2003).As Jupiter Communications reported at the beginning of 2001, two-thirds of leading USA web sites ignore the needs of non-USA or non-English speaking visitors and it revealed that because of that the USA share will drop significantly which will give room to other growing economies, i.e. Europe, China, South East Asia and other regions to use this opportunity and focus more on e-commerce.Egypt as the largest internet market in Africa and in Arab countries would increase its Internet share considerably as it has the largest number of Internet service providers. Only about 5 per cent of Egypt's population is online (see Figure 1), which means that there is a great potential for this industry to grow in the near future.The cultural differences that some US companies in Egypt like Micro Soft and ORACLE are experiencing include a combination of language and habits of people. The differences as well include values and infrastructure, which includes payment system, logistic system, laws, and taxation to name some elements. In the USA, people are more likely to pay online using a credit card. Seventy per cent of Americans who shopped online have used a credit card. In Egypt, people are used to paying cash for what they want, and so the most common method that Egyptians use for ordering things online is paying cash when the product is received. Most of the shopping sites established their branch offices in the big cities of Egypt. Part of the reason for this is that Egypt does not have real credit cards system that reach out to the general public of the Egyptians either because the commercial banks offer these kinds of services to elite customers or due to the high level of illiteracy among Egyptians (more than 30 per cent according to informal reports). Egypt as well does not have effective centralized settlement system and the inherent attitude of the Egyptians people is to pay cash for what they buy. The Egyptians are also reluctant to get involved in the internet banking to any great extent if it is available at all (where most of Egyptian banks still in the process of introducing this service) and even the uptake of the service for the banks that offer this service is in all means does not match the investments and the expectations.It is estimated by the end of year 2007, there would be about 15-20 million people in the Arab world, or 10 per cent of the total Arab population would have the Internet connection. As indicated by Pons et al. (2003) and Aladwani (2003) that e-commerce would greatly revolutionize trade between the Arab countries and other countries and it is expected that 80 per cent of consumers in this region will use e-commerce if they have the opportunity to do so.\n4. Conclusion: There are a lot of differences in the way different people use the internet and e-commerce, and this is largely due to their cultures and their habits. Some people, like western countries, use credit card as part of their way of life, so that the internet and e-commerce provides the opportunity for them to expand their operations. In Egypt, where people are inclined to trust their locality because of the personal touch of providing the service and the social bonds that could come out of these type of transactions. In addition to that the habits of paying cash for what they buy explains why smart card as an instrument for buying things is not readily popular among Egyptians, especially with the majority of the people from lower and middle class. Only people in high class use credit and debit cards to pay for their shopping as a way of showing their class. Therefore, to expect expansion of business through the Internet would be disappointing for a Western company that hopes to do business on the Internet in a foreign country that does not use credit card or debit cards as a way of life.Based on this it could be concluded that the e-commerce in Arab countries in general and Egypt in particular depends on unique traits of the society, values, culture, language and may be religion. Therefore, though e-commerce has some merit in targeting global customers, it should consider cultural differences when adopting and applying global marketing strategy. Eventually, proper cultural transformation in international marketing will be necessary, even in the Internet age.\n5. Limitation and future research: This study has some limitations owing to its exploratory stage, and presents several challenges with respect to theory building and methodology. Empirical data and sampling will be required for further research. A comprehensive cross culture study among Arab countries and how a framework of culture could affect the online shopping behavior will be required for further research.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to address how cultures could affect the way different people use the internet. The study showed that there is a great potential for e-commerce in Egypt in particular and Arab world in general. However, there are many challenges, where people are used to paying cash for what they buy, the credit or debit card as an instrument for buying things is not readily acceptable by public Egyptians.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This is an exploratory study based on analysing secondary data and observation. The reason for choosing this approach in this stage of research is the lack of research that deals with this particular issue in the chosen case study.\nFindings: - The results showed that e-commerce has some merit in targeting global customers, if it considers cultural differences when adopting and applying global marketing strategy. Although there are many governmental initiatives to adopt ICT on all levels in Egypt, the reality still far behind and there is still a lot need to be done from both government and private sector to gain the benefits required. Research limitations/implications-Limitations include the use of secondary data and observation as the research method in this study. Empirical data and sampling will be required for further research. A comprehensive cross culture study among Arab countries and how a framework of culture could affect the online shopping behavior will be required for further research. Managerial implications are discussed with respect to formulating suitable marketing strategy to fit with the cultural differences of the Middle Eastern courtiers especially the language, values and religion.\nOriginality/value: - Provides insights for future researchers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Asymmetric and nonlinear inter-relations of US stock indices	[ "Non-linear", "Stock markets", "Crises", "Inter-relations", "G01", "G11" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The increased inter-relationship of international financial markets and their gradual integration towards a global financial system leaves little space for diversification benefits to pass to the market participants (Gagnon et al., 2016; Mimouni et al., 2016; among others). Investors favour countries whose returns are more correlated with home assets. This preference for familiarity makes international diversification less effective (Bergin and Pyun, 2016). In addition, the recent US (2008) and EU (2013) financial crises have revealed that the financial markets are heavily interrelated (Gagnon et al., 2016). The US and EU markets affected each other in these crises. The literature has also extensively studied the international impact of these two market failures on the rest of the world (Jin and An, 2016; Oztek and Ocal, 2017). The choice of the US stock market is motivated by the important role that this market plays in the world's financial environment. A huge number of studies have dealt with the impact of the US financial crisis and EU crisis at the cross market level but few have examined the relative economic phenomena within the same market. We believe that this investigation should have added value to our knowledge. In addition, diversification is a crucial issue: the construction of a \"national\" portfolio may not be so dangerous if one considers that both systemic and currency risks are absent. These possible strategies are also beneficial to explore.\n2. Literature review: The behaviour of the financial markets, especially during crises periods, is a crucial issue for investors who are interested in portfolio diversification, risk assessment and management. Many studies have been conducted for this purpose and their common result is that the transmission of shocks from one market to another increase in times of crises (e.g. Forbes and Rigobon, 2002; Dungey et al., 2015; Barunik et al., 2016). In addition, the empirical research shows that the recent US and EU financial crises indicate that the financial markets are heavily interrelated (Gagnon et al., 2016). In particular, the US and EU markets affected each other in these crises. The literature has also extensively studied the international impact of these two market failures to the rest of the word (Jin and An, 2016; Oztek and Ocal, 2017).\n3. Data: 3.1 Data description\n4. Dynamic interdependence across US stock indices: The present section researches Breitung's non-linear cointegration relationships and the M-G non-linear causality model across US stock indices, as recently studied in Choudhry and Osoble (2015).\n5. US stock index return shocks in explaining the forecast error variance of other US stock indices: The forecast error variance and spillover index, as introduced by Diebold and Yilmaz (2009, 2012) and suggested by Narayan et al. (2015), are employed to the relationship between US stock indices. Both forecast error variance and spillover effects are based on a generalised VAR (GVAR) model. In the present paper, there are two variables (two US stock indices from a different index group). Following Narayan et al. (2015), these variables are denoted as\n6. Bivariate spillover effects among the US stock indices: In this section, we employ a bivariate VAR(k) - ABEKK(p, q, g) (asymmetric BEKK) model to assess the return and volatility spillover effects among the US indices (k, p, q and g refer to number of order in the VAR, ARCH, GARCH and asymmetric BEKK order)[2].\n7. Conclusions: This paper examines the inter-relations of the US stock indices. Many methods are employed for robustness purposes. Asymmetries, interdependences, non-linear cointegrations, non-linear causalities, the effects of an index return or volatility shocks to the forecast error variance of another index, as well as return and volatility spillovers are all highest in the Lehman Brothers sub-period, while second comes the EU crisis and last is the post-crisis sub-period. This result is consistent with the results in all of the other papers. It is also consistent with Sander and Kleimeier (2003) and Ramlall (2009). It is also quite rational because the Lehman Brothers crisis at that time affected the US markets more than any other nation's markets. Moreover, the EU crisis mostly affected the European markets and was felt to a lesser extent in the USA. The post-crisis period had no shock to affect the inter-relations among the US stock indices. It is also theoretically sound because more intense interrelations are expected in the crisis periods. Higher uncertainty, as a result of crises, triggers stronger ties across indices. When investors are fearful because of the turbulent environment they tend to search for negative events because their impact is expected to be more significant. Given that they react only and more intensively to negative events, they feed the turbulent environment that made them fearful. Such investing behaviour creates a vicious circle of negative expectations. Higher stability in calmer periods, like the post-crisis sub-period of the present study, enhances independence and growth for the constituents of each index and the indices per se. This reveals the major contribution of this paper: the inclusion of US stock indices in a portfolio, because of their low quality interrelations, can increase portfolio diversification benefits in the post-crisis period.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the inter-relations among the US stock indices.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data of nine US stock indices spanning a period of sixteen years (2000-2015) are employed for this purpose. Asymmetries are examined via an error correction model. Non-linear inter-relations are researched via Breitung's nonlinear cointegration, a M-G nonlinear causality model, shocks to the forecast error variance, a shock spillover index and an asymmetric VAR-GARCH (VAR-ABEKK) approach.\nFindings: The inter-relations are significant. The results are robust across all types of inter-relations. They are highest in the Lehman Brothers sub-period. Higher stability after the EU debt crisis, enhances independence and growth for the US stock indices.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the knowledge, this is the first study to examine the inter-relations of US stock indices. Most studies on inter-relations concentrate on the portfolio analysis to reveal diversification benefits among various asset markets internationally. Hence this study contributes to this literature on the inter-relations of a specific asset market (stock), and in a specific nation (USA). The evident inter-relations support the notion of diversification benefits in the US stock markets.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Identifying critical performance indicators and suitable partners using a benchmarking template	[ "Benchmarking", "Higher education", "Performance indicators", "Importance-performance matrix", "Performance measures", "University ranking" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: How good is good enough to be a world-class university? Obviously world rankings of universities are a measure of performance. Nevertheless, there has been an ongoing debate about the ambiguity of the methodology of the ranking with regard to the computation of the scores and the validity of the performance indicators (Sadlak and Liu, 2007). University rankings have been criticised for their criteria which are biased and too narrow given the wide variety of university strategies and missions. In addition, it has been shown that some of the indicators can be and have been manipulated by universities in their attempt to be ranked higher. Both national and international university rankings employ different methodologies and have different purposes. Therefore, it is not surprised that the UK universities that perform very well in national rankings do not have a higher standing in international rankings compared to those that perform moderately well in national rankings (Thomas, 2009). Therefore, a level of uncertainty must be taken into account because many different indicators or criteria are used in national and international rankings to make comparisons and rank a university (Dill and Soo, 2005).\nBenchmarking: Performance measurement using indicators is normally compulsory for every university to report against and it is used for comparison. On the other hand, benchmarking is more optional and desired on a part of a university. Benchmarking is the activities of understanding, measuring, comparing and adapting internal processes with other organisations which can be competitors or best-in-class. Therefore, benchmarking is a tool for continuous improvement due to systematic comparison and learning in partnership for better performance. Benchmarking and performance indicators should be performed in parallel. Benchmarking without performance indicators or vice versa is likely to lead nowhere because lack of context and motivation to change (Meek and van der Lee, 2005).\nBenchmarking process: Universities are competing with each other nationally and internationally to climb up their rankings by producing high quality teaching and research. Therefore, universities benchmark with other universities for comparison, assessing and improving performance of the processes. Benchmarking process in terms of what to benchmark, criteria for selecting benchmarking partners as well as designing and implementing effective improvement are discussed as follows. This forms a basis of proposed benchmarking template with the selected performance indicators.\nBenchmarking template: This template is intended for use by senior managers in higher education institutions to improve their standings in the national and global university rankings. It provides a comprehensive checklist of the performance indicators used in the national and international rankings. Once completed it will help institutions to:\nCase studies: The proposed template developed in the previous section has been designed to meet the specific needs of higher education institutions in the UK. The template can be used as a basis to assess the current performance of any university in the UK and their national as well as international rankings. Furthermore, it gives guidance on issues of which performance indicators should be improved and which partners should be selected for internal and external benchmarking. Two universities (Imperial College London and University of Leeds) have been chosen as featured case studies to illustrate the proposed template as described below.\nConclusions: Based on the in-depth analysis and systematic comparison of appropriate measures of performance among the universities in the UK, the research aims to develop a user-friendly template of performance indicators for benchmarking as a practical tool for self-evaluation and self-improvement. The proposed template is intended for use by senior managers in higher education institutions to improve their standings in the national and global rankings. Once completed it will help institutions to assess their performance, identify areas for benchmarking and select suitable internal and external partners. Imperial College London and University of Leeds have been chosen as featured case studies to illustrate the proposed template. The proposed template is designed to be used before formal benchmarking activities or site visits such as assessing performance, identifying areas for benchmarking and selecting partners. There is more work to be done during and after the formal benchmarking activity which has not been addressed in the template.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Overall, the UK's representation in the top 100 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings has declined since 2011. The basic rationale of the project is to improve performance of universities generally and their standings in rankings particularly. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The key research questions of this study ask which performance indicators should be improved and which benchmarking partners should be chosen. Two selected universities have been chosen as featured case studies to illustrate the proposed template.\nFindings: A user-friendly template for benchmarking has been developed as a tool for self-evaluation and self-improvement by having a systematic comparison of appropriate measures of performance among the universities in the UK. The template can be extended by identifying internal and external benchmarking partners for the corresponding indicators.\nResearch limitations/implications: There is more work to be done during and after the formal benchmarking activity which has not been addressed in the template.\nPractical implications: This is a practical approach. It is very simple to be implemented for self-evaluation and self-improvement.\nSocial implications: Once completed it will help institutions to assess their performance, identify areas for benchmarking and select internal and external partners.\nOriginality/value: This is a new and practical approach. The proposed template is designed to be used before the formal benchmarking activities or site visits.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Comparison of facilities management in private domestic buildings among different elderly groups in Hong Kong	[ "Housing", "Facilities management", "Elderly people", "Living environment", "Personal characteristics", "Private domestic buildings" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Problems regarding ageing are a global phenomenon. The number of elderly people aged 65 years and above in Asia is estimated to increase from 331.7 million (7.6 per cent of the total population) in 2015 to 578.6 million (11.8 per cent of the total population) in 2030 (United Nations, 2015). Due to the decline in their health and mobility, elderly people spend most of their time at home and depend largely upon the facilities in their living environments for daily activities (Ewen et al., 2017; Tse, 2012). The provision of suitable housing choices to meet elderly people's needs is therefore essential in the tackling of problems related to ageing and in encouraging independence.\nFacilities management in private domestic buildings: PD buildings provide accommodation to residents who are either not eligible for public and subsidized housing provided by the government or are eligible for but do not receive government-provided public and subsidized housing due to the limited availability of this type of housing. Condominiums are common real estate apartments divided into several units with separate owners, while the unit owners share the common areas in the estate. The rate of acceptability and supply of this form of residential buildings varies in different cities across the world. There are about 1.4 million residents (10 per cent of the households) living in condominium apartments in Japan (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, 2010), while PD buildings in Hong Kong are mainly condominiums accommodating 1.23 million people (52.5 per cent of the households; Census and Statistics Department, 2017) and 1.6 million individuals (12.1 per cent of the households) in Canada reside in condominium apartments (Statistics Canada, 2013).\nPersonal characteristics of the elderly: There are many different definitions of \"elderly\", based on chronological age, frailty and function of elderly people, but with a major emphasis on chronological age. Using the chronological definition of elderly, researchers have differed in their choices of calendar age used. For instance, the elderly have been referred to as those aged 65 years or more (Orimo et al., 2006). In contrast to this, the United Nations has agreed that those aged 60 years and above are classified as elderly. The current variation in life expectancy has led to the classification of the elderly into three different age groups: young-old (60-69 years), middle-old (70-79 years) and old-old (80 years and over; Chiu and Ho, 2006; Forman et al., 1992). The frailty of the elderly refers to the state of high vulnerability to adverse health conditions, such as dependence, the need for long-term care and mortality (Fried et al., 2004). This is a result of the decline in the physical condition of the elderly, caused by diseases. On the other hand, functional capacity looks at the ability of elderly people to perform what is required of them, or the difference between what is desired to be done and their ability to do them (World Health Organization, 1989). Mobility is a functional limitation of the elderly that affects their need for space and involvement in physical activities, such as walking long distances or engaging in rigorous exercise (Adams et al., 2012).\nConceptual model: In view of the above literature about the relationships between the personal characteristics of elderly residents and their satisfaction with FM items, a conceptual model was proposed (Figure 1). Several hypotheses were established for the relationships between the following items:\nResearch method: Measurement\nResults: Personal characteristics of the elderly respondents\nDiscussion: The result of the t-test reveals that natural daylight (F11) was significantly different among elderly men and women, while the one-way between-groups ANOVA (Table VI) indicates that the following FM items have significant differences among the personal characteristics of the elderly: the size of the bedroom (F5), turning spaces at the doors (F9), the temperature in the bathroom and/or toilet (F16), wall colour (F31), floor colour (F32), the height of the toilet (F36), handrails in the living room and bedroom (F37), the height of the lifting bar in the toilet (F38), ease of closing or opening the doors (F39) and the width of doors (F41).\nRecommendations: Practical implications\nConclusion: The specific needs of the elderly are important in designing comprehensive FM for their daily life activities. An adequate understanding of their changing characteristics is essential in meeting such needs. This study identified 41 FM items and four personal characteristics of elderly people living in PD buildings. The differences in the satisfaction levels between the FM items and the personal characteristics of the elderly were analysed quantitatively using t-tests and a one-way between-group ANOVA. The t-tests revealed that satisfaction with natural daylight was significantly different among elderly men and women. The one-way between-groups ANOVA indicated that satisfaction with the size of the bedroom, turning spaces at the doors, the temperature in the bathroom and/or toilet, colour, accessibility and ease of closing or opening the doors was significantly different among elderly people belonging to different age groups, marital statuses and education levels.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Personal characteristics, such as age, marital status, education level and gender, vary among elderly residents in residential apartments. These characteristics may influence the elderly residents' satisfaction with the facilities provided in their residential apartments. To ensure appropriate facilities management (FM) items are provided for the different categories of elderly people, it is necessary to understand their basic needs. Therefore, this paper aims to compare the satisfaction with FM items among elderly people with different personal characteristics in private domestic (PD) buildings.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A questionnaire survey was conducted among elderly people with different personal characteristics in PD buildings to collect information about their levels of satisfaction with FM items. A total of 41 FM items and four characteristics of the elderly, namely, age, gender, marital status and education, were identified in this study.\nFindings: The result shows that satisfaction with natural daylight was significantly different among elderly people of different genders, while the one-way between-groups ANOVA indicate that satisfaction with the size of bedrooms, turning spaces at doors, temperature in bathrooms and/or toilets, colour, accessibility and ease of closing or opening the doors were significantly different among elderly people belonging to different age groups and of different marital status and education level.\nOriginality/value: Designers and private developers are therefore recommended to increase the sizes of bedrooms, install windows on opposite sides of walls in the flats and ensure there is an adequate light reflection ratio for wall and floor colours, to accommodate elderly people's special characteristics.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
"The new patient": the emergence of a political persona	[ "Denmark", "Governance", "Patient-centred care", "Health policy discourse", "Patient roles" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Over the last two decades, \"the new patient\" has become a key issue in healthcare. The predominant manifestation has been the preoccupation with \"patient centeredness\" among healthcare professionals, patient advocates and healthcare researchers who highlight the need and practical means for reconfiguring the doctor-patient relationship (Gerteis et al., 1993; Stewart, 1995; Bensing, 2000; Mead and Bower, 2000). The aim has been to develop a broader and more holistic approach to health and healthcare, to problematize the so-called \"sovereign authority\" of professional expertise, and to highlight the basic mutuality of this relation and the actual or potential agency of \"the new patient\" in producing his or her own healthcare. Patient-centred care has therefore also been strongly associated with a quest for patient empowerment in an attempt to strengthen the position of patients as healthcare actors (Holmstrom and Roing, 2010; Aujoulat et al., 2007).\nThe making up of the patient as a political persona: Our analysis is built on the insight that in political debates over problems and solutions, new types of agency or identity are being defined. While a common-sense approach to political problem solving would emphasize how policy making is an expression of rational agency, i.e., a process of defining goals, identifying problems and choosing adequate solutions, a growing body of literature now shows how policy making is a process that constitutes agency rather than simply reflecting it (March and Olsen, 1989; Hajer, 1995; Pierre and Peters, 2000; Fairclough, 2001).\nMethod: Our study builds on an analysis of official discourse. We analyse public policy documents to see how the meaning of words, concepts and statements is conditioned by their internal relation within a textual universe. The analysis builds on contemporary discourse analytical approaches to public policy (Fairclough, 2001; Hardy and Thomas, 2015; Fischer, 2003; Nexo and Koch, 2008). Discourse analysis is well suited for the analysis of how the world is not only described but also, in a sense, \"made up\" in the process of communicating about shared issues in various political or institutional settings.\nThe Danish healthcare context: The Danish healthcare system serves a population of approximately 5.7 million. The healthcare system is organized into three levels: a municipal level focusing on health prevention, rehabilitation and primary care; a regional sector focusing on hospital care and specialized care; and a national sector focusing on regulation, quality assurance and overall funding. Healthcare services have been predominantly public and tax financed (for overviews, see Vrangbaek and Christiansen, 2005; Olejaz et al., 2012).\nTwo discourses on the patient and public healthcare: Controlling public expenditure: the rise of the responsible citizen\nDiscussion: unravelling \"the new patient\": The change in the persona and role of the patient within the healthcare system in Denmark - as articulated in health policy documents - indicates a shift in healthcare governance whereby the role of the state, doctors and patients are all re-described.\nConclusion: In this paper, we have shown how the personae of the patient have become articulated as key concerns in health policy discourse and as important features of particular rationalities of governance within the healthcare sector. The analysis nuances and contributes to the current consensus on the need for patient centeredness and patient empowerment as it shows that \"the new patient\" has emerged politically as a solution to problems of governance and therefore as part of a transformation of authority relations, not exclusively in the clinic but in the healthcare system as a whole. The analysis equally nuances common ideas about marketization, NPM and the rise of the patient-consumer by indicating not only that the patient-consumer (also) is part and parcel of a solution to a policy problem but also that in Denmark, earlier solutions to policy problems have led to the mobilization of the patient in the exact opposite role of the consumer, i.e., as the modest and self-restraining patient who thinks twice before burdening the healthcare system. Such tensions should be remembered in today's patient discourses, where the patient as \"co-producer\", \"partner\" or \"citizen-consumer\" is often expected to be simultaneously a responsible citizen and a demanding consumer of health services.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how the patient comes to be seen as a solution to governance problems.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper studies health policy discourse in Denmark from 1970 to 2000. Based on an analysis of national policy documents, the paper traces how the patient is redefined as part of governance problems.\nFindings: The paper suggests that \"the new patient\" coincides with changes in healthcare governance and is not just a clinical concern. The persona of the patient has been mobilized in dissimilar ways in addressing specific policy problems, resulting in both a duty-based idea of a socio-economically responsible patient and a rights-based idea of a demanding health-service consumer.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study is limited to policy documents that address healthcare governance in one country. It does not describe the broader evolution of patient ideas or the practical impact of political discourses.\nPractical implications: Practitioners should expect to encounter conflicting views of patient responsibilities, interests and involvement. Such conflicts are not only related to a lack of conceptual clarity but are indicative of how the new, active and responsible patient has become a key clinical concern and a central element of health policy governance.\nOriginality/value: The paper contributes to the understanding of \"the new patient\" in discussions on patient-centred healthcare and empowerment by emphasizing the definition of the patient in a political context. The latter has often been ignored in existing research.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Expected maintenance waste reduction benefits after implementation of Just in Time (JIT) philosophy in maintenance (a statistical analysis)	[ "Maintenance", "JIT in maintenance", "Wastes", "Wastes in maintenance", "Just in Time (JIT)" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Manufacturing companies face augmented demands in terms of extreme flexibility and speed in operations in order to stay competitive in today's fast-changing market (Cholasuke et al., 2004). To manage this challenge, companies are searching for new ways to advance their manufacturing practices (Kutucuoglu et al., 2001). During the past decades, adopting just-in-time (JIT) production principles has been widely popularized in order to allow for increased profitability and productivity (Stuchly and Jasiulewicz-Kaczmarek, 2014).\n2. JIT in Maintenance: JIT in maintenance is a moderately new term that came into the role in the 90s of the twentieth century, but the philosophy is well conventional in total productive maintenance (TPM) (Shahanaghi and Yazdian, 2009). JIT in maintenance in addition to TPM approach applies some innovative techniques to render an additional structured accomplishment path, tracing its original roots back to Henry Ford with modern refining born in Japanese industries, exclusively the Toyota Production System (TPS). JIT in maintenance is the relevance of JIT principles in maintenance environments (Monden, 1998). JIT system recognizes seven forms of waste in maintenance. They are over production, waiting, transportation, process waste, inventory, waste motion and defects. In JIT in maintenance, the seven deadly wastes are recognized and hard work is made for the uninterrupted improvement in procedure by eliminating these wastes. Thus, JIT in maintenance leads to maximize yield, productivity and profitability. JIT in maintenance basically focuses on tools reliability and reduces need for maintenance troubleshooting and repairs. JIT in maintenance protects equipments and system from the root causes of malfunctions, failures and downtime stress. For the sources of waste, uptime can be improved and cost can be lowered for maintenance (Swanson, 1997).\n3. Research methodology: This section explains the methodology used in the survey of manufacturing firms, data analysis and interpretation of analysis results. Literature indicates that survey is a very potential tool to explore the applicability of any concept in real sense. Since the focal point of this research is to describe how certain tools and technologies are being applied in maintenance of the industries, a survey method is very suitable here. A questionnaire-based survey method is used to pull together the responses from the manufacturing community regarding JIT practices in maintenance. Therefore, six phases of survey methodology will be used here to reach on the conclusion. These are questionnaires design; data collection; data preparation; data analysis; reliability testing; and hypothesis testing and ranking of maintenance wastes.\n4. Conclusion: This questionnaire study has indicated that in today's world which is full of new competitive challenges, all the organizations are highly dependent on maintenance for the effective running of their respective organization and there is a great scope of the implementation of JIT philosophy in maintenance of industries. In terms of the expected maintenance waste reduction benefits, we conclude that maintenance department have a large inventory of spare parts and consumes a large capital; if we have an inventory of spares according to the requirement, then we can utilize the saved cost of maintenance inventory in some other useful purposes and the maintenance professionals can address the large excessive maintenance issues such as an inefficient work order system, time-consuming reporting forms, and ineffective training which results in the failure to convey needed instructions; if we implement the JIT elements successfully in maintenance, we reduce all the above-discussed extra activities of maintenance professionals to a high extent. Waste of rejects/rework/scrap in case of poor maintenance, waste of processing, waste of the transport of spares and waste of motion all the four wastes have approximately equal weightage in their reduction after the implementation of JIT philosophy in maintenance, which shows that if we successfully implement JIT elements in maintenance, then we can reduce all the four wastes of maintenance near to a high level. Waste of waiting for spares gets the last rank in all seven types of wastes.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The maintenance department of today, like many other departments, is under sustained pressure to slash costs, show outcome and support the assignment of the organization, as it is a commonsensical prospect from the business perspective. The purpose of this paper is to examine expected maintenance waste reduction benefits in the maintenance of organizations after the implementation of just-in-time (JIT) managerial philosophy. For this, a structured questionnaire was designed and sent to the 421 industries in India.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The designed questionnaire was divided into two sections A and B to assist data interpretation. The aim of the section A was to build general information of participants, type of organization, number of employees, annual turnover of the organization, etc. Section B was also a structured questionnaire developed based on a five-point Likert scale. The identified critical elements of the JIT were included in the questionnaire to identify the maintenance waste reduction benefits in the maintenance of organizations.\nFindings: On the basis of the 133 responses, hypothesis testing was done with the help of Z-test, and it was found out that in maintenance, we can reduce a large inventory of spare parts and also shorten the excessive maintenance activities due to the implementation of JIT philosophy. All the four wastes: waste of processing; waste of rejects/rework/scrap in case of poor maintenance; waste of the transport of spares, and waste of motion, have approximately equal weightage in their reduction. Waste of waiting for spares got the last rank, which showed that there are little bit chances in the reduction of waiting for spares after the implementation of JIT philosophy in maintenance.\nPractical implications: The implication of the research findings for maintenance of organizations is that if maintenance practitioners implement elements of JIT philosophy in maintenance then there will be a great reduction in the maintenance wastes.\nOriginality/value: This paper will be abundantly useful for the maintenance professionals, researchers and others concerned with maintenance to understand the significance of JIT philosophy implementation to get the expected reduction benefits in maintenance wastes of organizations which will be helpful in the great saving of maintenance cost and time side by side great increment in the availability of machines.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Effects of asymmetric information on market timing in the mutual fund industry	[ "Mutual funds", "Market timing", "Information asymmetry", "Market uncertainty", "G12", "G14", "G18" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The global financial crisis of 2008 had a huge impact on the fund industry due to the collapse of many well-established companies in the sector. This financial storm led to changes in investors' habit, by inter alia: reducing their market risk exposure and confronting them with liquidity risk, systematic risk and other leverage effects (Fabozzi et al., 2010). Accordingly, investors failed to anticipate the global financial meltdown substantially because they were unable to time the market properly[1] (Tchamyou and Asongu, 2017). In essence, there are some dynamics like modifications in the disclosure of the underlying asset or differences in investment scenarios that could not be captured by the timing ability of mutual fund managers (Bodson et al., 2013). It logically follows that the market timing[2] inability of fund managers prior to the underlying crisis is most traceable to the information asymmetry and market uncertainty. Though the fund industry suffered from the 2008 financial crisis, active mutual funds[3] are becoming increasingly popular. In addition, the USA in which the crisis originated still represents the largest mutual fund market worldwide. As shown in Figure 1, there were $30 trillion worth of 7,707 open-end mutual funds with total net assets of $15,000 trillion by the end of 2013, with the USA and Europe representing 50 and 31 percent, respectively (ICI, 2014).\n2. Data and methodology: 2.1 Data\n3. Empirical analysis and discussion of results: 3.1 Presentation of results\n4. Conclusion: In this paper, we have investigated the effects of the information asymmetry on market timing in the mutual fund industry. The empirical analysis is based on different fund categories: equity funds; fixed income funds; allocation funds; alternative funds; and tax-preferred funds. The following findings have been established. First, the information asymmetry broadly follows the same trend as volatility, meaning that while fund managers reduce their risk exposure to the underlying factors, their responsiveness to volatility is higher relative to the information asymmetry. Second, with respect to liquidity, fund managers tend to raise (cutback) their risk exposure in time of high (low) market liquidity. Third, we also find evidence of convergence in equity funds, implying that equity funds with lower market exposure are catching-up their counterparts with higher market exposure.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of information asymmetry (between the realized return and the expected return) on market timing in the mutual fund industry.\nDesign/methodology/approach: For the purpose, the authors use a panel of 1,488 active open-end mutual funds for the period 2004-2013. The authors use fund-specific time-dynamic betas. The information asymmetry is measured as the standard deviation of idiosyncratic risk. The data set is decomposed into five market fundamentals in order to emphasis the policy implications of the findings with respect to: equity, fixed income, allocation, alternative, and tax-preferred mutual funds. The empirical evidence is based on endogeneity-robust difference and system generalized method of moments.\nFindings: The following findings are established. First, the information asymmetry broadly follows the same trend as volatility, with a higher sensitivity to market risk exposure. Second, fund managers tend to raise (cutback) their risk exposure in time of high (low) market liquidity. Third, there is evidence of convergence in equity funds. The authors may, therefore, infer that equity funds with lower market risk exposure are catching-up with their counterparts with higher exposure to fluctuation in market conditions.\nOriginality/value: The paper complements the sparse literature on market timing in the mutual fund industry with time-dynamic betas, information asymmetry and an endogeneity-robust empirical approach.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Personality and fashion consumption: a conceptual framework in the Indian context	[ "India", "Structural equation modeling", "Fashion shopping", "Empirical study", "Emotions", "Consumer personality" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Fashion has become an integral part of global business and covers a wide range of products such as clothing, food, perfumery, music, housing, automobiles, etc. Fashion shopping is no longer limited to a purchase transaction but has become an engaging and socializing activity (Kang and Park-Poaps, 2010) and is associated with both pleasure and leisure motives (Otieno et al., 2005).\nLiterature review: Personality\nResearch gaps and the conceptual model: Researchers have investigated dyadic or triadic relations between several of the variables mentioned in the hypotheses of our study. For example, impulse buying in fashion shopping was found to be related to fashion involvement (Han et al., 1991); or, positive emotions were observed to play a mediating role between the impulse buying and hedonic consumption (Park et al., 2006). However, there is no study until date that integrates consumer personality in the fashion buying context to constructs such as emotions, involvement and hedonic consumption. This is important since researchers have already found impulse buying in fashion shopping to be related to positive emotions, involvement and hedonic consumption (Park et al., 2006). Long-term personality traits have also been cited as predictors of hedonic decision-making process, since emotional involvement is a result of personality that leads to hedonic consumption (Hellen and Saaksjarvi, 2011). The role of consumer personality in fashion shopping is important as it includes both rational and emotional aspects of decision making (Wong et al., 2014).\nMethodology: Questionnaire design\nResults: Phase 1\nDiscussions: The present study for the first time integrates constructs such as personality, emotions, involvement and impulse buying in the same conceptual model and tests it empirically. Findings of the study have both academic and managerial implications. The study explores the relative importance of personality in fashion shopping. Theoretically, it is adding to the existing literature that argued the importance of personality and emotion in the consumption process. The study empirically validates the point that customers process information/take their purchase decisions based on their personality identities and values (Kropp et al., 2005; Chang, 2010). This finding can help the marketer to formulate its strategies. According to Sarabia-Sanchez et al. (2012), \"It is necessary for companies to link personal values with fashion shopping styles to focus their retail marketing mix strategies properly on the consumer psychographic aspects. As consumer values and shopping styles change slowly, monitoring and anticipating the evolution of values, shopping styles and their links is crucial for developing suitable long-term strategic approaches to respond better to the market and consumers\" (p. 193). Our findings strengthen this point empirically.\nManagerial implications: The present study integrates constructs such as personality, emotions and impulse buying in the context of fashion shopping. Thus it provides direction to the marketing manager on the nature of the relationship between these variables (i.e. personality, fashion involvement, positive emotion, fashion-oriented hedonic consumption and impulse buying). This would ultimately lead to increase the point of purchase sales. The first set of findings suggests that consumer personality does impact fashion shopping at an early stage. This implies that the fashion marketer has to be meticulous in the communication plan which conveys the right message about the target audiences' personality and if possible the brand personality. Second, practitioners need to design a marketing strategy that evokes positive emotions in the consumers to influence their involvement. For example, they could feel proud and satisfied after the fashion shopping task is over. Third, practitioners should also focus on the marketing activities that stimulate the affective component of consumers that would in turn increase the chance of impulse purchase in fashion shopping. This phenomenon is related to the concepts of experiential marketing that deals with the creation of the right hedonic experience that indulges consumers and makes them buy. In case of fashion shopping, the buyers are already open to experiences and thus the job of the marketers is expected to be easier.\nConclusions and scope: The present study has successfully examined the relationship of consumer personality, emotions, hedonic consumption and fashion involvement with fashion-oriented impulse buying. Thus, it has integrated various facets of fashion buying behavior that was hitherto explored but not in unison. It has generated and validated five hypotheses related to the influence of constructs such as personality, emotions and hedonic shopping behavior in the context of fashion shopping. The marketing manager needs to consider these issues and devise strategies to create more positive emotional environment for the consumers. They need to create a shopping environment to stimulate the hedonic aspect of consumption and should induce more positive mood atmosphere to attract and satisfy consumers. As emotions and feelings play a major role in employee-customer interaction, they need to give more attention to the entertainment, excitement and interest.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to integrate consumer personality to fashion involvement, fashion-oriented impulse buying behavior, consumer emotions and hedonic consumption in the Indian context.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on a literature review of personality, fashion involvement, emotions, fashion-oriented impulse buying behavior and hedonic consumption, the authors formulated a conceptual model and subsequent hypotheses. Previously valid and reliable scales were used in the study. The data were collected through mall intercept survey with the sample consisting of respondents in the age group 20-45. Factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used as data analysis tools.\nFindings: Major findings indicate a positive and significant effect of personality on positive emotions. The findings also confirm a significant and positive relationship between fashion involvement and hedonic consumption and hedonic consumption and fashion-related impulse buying behavior. Interestingly, positive emotions were found to mediate the relation between personality and fashion involvement.\nResearch limitations/implications: The major implication of the present study is that impulse buying in fashion may be resultant of a complex network of interlinked constructs. One limitation is the restriction to the Indian context.\nPractical implications: The findings note the need for creation of an experiential environment for a fashion shopper that could lead to positive emotions and subsequently impulse purchase.\nOriginality/value: The present study for the first time integrates constructs such as personality, emotions, involvement and impulse buying in the same conceptual model and tests it empirically.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
An overview of knowledge management practice among teachers	[ "Primary school", "Primary school teachers", "Knowledge distribution", "Knowledge management practice", "Knowledge storage", "School knowledge management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Despite the growing significance of globalization, the education system has become an effective medium to improve the competitiveness of a country. Most countries in the world including Malaysia attempt to transform in their educational system along with the current changes. Particularly, the implication of international education standards and usage of technology in the education system are signs of transformation in Malaysian educational system (Malaysian Ministry of Education-MOE, 2013). Realizing the importance of the transformation, Malaysian Teacher Education Institute (2011) has identified teaching qualities as prerequisites in enhancing teaching and learning activities. All these initiatives are considered as the base to transform the education system in the country.\nLiterature review: Knowledge\nTheoretical framework: Based on a few studies in Malaysian context, knowledge management is known as a process involving collecting information, storing and retrieving, disseminating, sharing, using and applying knowledge (Ramayah et al., 2014; Kuah and Wong, 2012; Awang et al., 2011). A thorough review of these processes in Malaysian education setting has revealed the similarities to Meyer and Zack Knowledge Management Cycle (1996). Knowledge acquisition, refinement, storage/retrieval, distribution and presentation are five vital dimensions in Meyer and Zack Knowledge Management Cycle. Therefore, all the five dimensions of knowledge management from Meyer and Zack Knowledge Management Cycle were adopted as the gist of this study. Figure 1 shows the theoretical framework of this study.\nMethodology: This is a quantitative study using survey design. The targeted respondents of this study were teachers from government primary schools located in southern region of Malaysia. Convenient sampling was used as the population is huge and impossible to include all in the study. Convenient sampling is a non-probability sampling. This sampling method was chosen because of the time and cost constraints. This method is very suitable in getting overall ideas about the knowledge management practice among the teachers as they are homogenous in carrying out the tasks in schools. Moreover, school teachers are provided with identical teaching and learning guidelines from Ministry of Education (MOE), 2012. There were 15 primary schools targeted in this study. To be specific, eleven out of fifteen schools were national schools. The rest were vernacular (Tamil and Chinese) schools. 300 copies of self-administrated questionnaires were distributed among all the teachers in the aforesaid fifteen schools. The survey was conducted between the months of February and April 2017. The researcher sent out the questionnaires personally to the teachers to ensure a maximum response rate. Therefore, 87.6 per cent which is equivalent to 263 teachers responded to the survey. Nevertheless, thirteen out of 263 completed questionnaires were rejected because of some errors. Thus, only 250 completed questionnaires were analyzed to get the results.\nFindings: The population of this study comprised 1,313 teachers from 20 primary schools across Southern Malaysia. Table I shows the demographic profiles of the 250 (N) respondents in this study. The dominance of female teachers in Johor, Malaysia is proven by the 81.2 per cent of female respondents in this study. The analysis shows that 41.2 per cent of the respondents are between 30 and 39 years old, 31.6 per cent are aged 20 to 29 years old, 19.6 per cent are aged 40 to 49 years and the least (7.6 per cent) are those above 50 years old. The statistic is representing expansion of relatively young in teaching workforce (Ministry of Education-MOE, 2013). This might be one of the main reasons why more novice teachers (36.8) with less than six years working experiences responded compared to the experienced teachers. Majority of the respondents are Malay (68.8 per cent), followed by Indian (25.6 per cent) and Chinese (5.6 per cent). Most of the respondents are from national school (70.0 per cent) as there are 555 national primary schools altogether. Respondents from Tamil and Chinese school are 25.2 per cent and 4.8 per cent respectively.\nDiscussion: This study contributes to the existing literature in a way narrowing the research gap by identifying the level of knowledge management practice in primary schools which has received comparatively little attention to date. The uniqueness of this study is that the initiatives to identify knowledge management practice have not been addressed comprehensively in primary schools by past researchers.\nImplications: After addressing the research questions, the overall findings specify that there is a necessity to develop strategies to boost the practice of knowledge management among primary school teachers. It is also essential that the crucial dimensions identified in this study will be given significant attention as knowledge management has the ability to enhance the quality and excellence of an education institution (Ramachandran et al., 2013). In establishing a systematic knowledge management practice, the following suggestions can be used as guidelines. Teachers may adapt the dimensions of knowledge acquisition, knowledge storage and knowledge presentation to improve their performance in carrying out educational tasks in schools. Moreover, they can use the presented new knowledge to expand their research work on how to increase the significance of teaching and learning activities in schools. Significantly, teacher education plays an important role in establishing knowledge management practice among teachers. For instance, an early exposure to knowledge management practice in Teacher Education Institutes would allow the teachers to master it. A systematic knowledge management can then be implemented to enhance the teaching and learning activities in schools.\nConclusion: This paper has contributed in expanding the knowledge of knowledge management practice in the context of primary schools, which have received a petite interest among researchers. The findings of this study have answered all the five research questions mentioned earlier. It is hoped that the findings will help the primary schools to examine their current practice of knowledge management. Therefore, suitable actions can be taken earlier to minimize the inefficiency. Furthermore, the suggestions for improvement would provide a clear view on how to enhance knowledge management practice in primary schools.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to focus on the practice of knowledge management in Malaysian primary schools. Its objective is to identify the level of five knowledge management dimensions, which includes knowledge acquisition, knowledge refinement, knowledge storage/retrieval, knowledge distribution and knowledge presentation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A cross-sectional survey was designed to collect the primary data from 250 primary school teachers within southern Malaysia. The levels of knowledge management practice were identified through close-ended questionnaires adapted from the Meyer and Zack's Knowledge Management Cycle (1996).\nFindings: The quantitative data analysis indicated that all the knowledge management dimensions are moderately practiced by the primary school teachers. However, knowledge storage and retrieval was the dominant dimension compared to the others, whereas knowledge distribution was the least dominant knowledge management dimension.\nResearch limitations/implications: Knowledge management practice is essential to teachers in creating and delivering quality teaching and learning activities. Therefore, educational leaders, officials and teachers training institutes should plan a clinical workshop on knowledge management practice to improve the quality of teaching and learning activities.\nOriginality/value: This study is perhaps the first study to investigate the practice of knowledge management among teachers in Malaysian primary schools.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Knowledge sharing issues in the introduction of a new technology	[ "Knowledge management", "Knowledge sharing", "Customer relations", "Psychological contracts", "United Kingdom" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Customer relationship management (CRM) is emerging as a key element in system integration. It has attracted a lot of attention, a high failure rate, but also CRM systems remain relatively understudied academically. Linkages between knowledge transfer and psychological contracts also remain understudied in the implementation of a CRM, or indeed any other, system. Exploratory intensive case research is a highly useful device for providing insights into these issues. The research was carried out as part of a processual analysis (Pettigrew, 1997) to understand the process of implementation of a CRM system from a knowledge perspective in a contemporary situation in one organisation. The research intends to secure an improved understanding of the mechanisms and patterns of the implementation processes of a CRM system at a UK city council. After a critique of the relevant literature, we detail the research methodology, then describe, analyse and draw implications from the case.\n2. Literature review: There are five research literatures relevant to this study that can usefully be brought together to provide a lens for analysing the selected case history. These studies cover information technology (IT) implementation, organisational cultures and sub-cultures, knowledge and its transfer, psychological contracts, and CRM systems.On implementation, Rogers (1983) has identified five conceptual characteristics of innovations that help explain adoption rates: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability and observability. The research literature supports strongly Rogers' (1983) first three characteristics as major determinants of information systems (IS) success or failure defined typically in terms of IS usage and/or user satisfaction with the system (Cooper and Zamud, 1990; Kwon and Zamud, 1987; Tornatzky and Klein, 1982). Kwon and Zamud (1987) developed a stage model of implementation, while Davis (1989) argued that perceived usefulness is a strong correlate of user acceptance. In such representative studies, the importance of knowledge sharing and shared psychological contracts is implicit, but not explicitly stated or researched. Davidson (2002) argues that frames and shifts in frame salience influence sense making during requirement determination, while Orlikowski and Gash (1994) show shared frames as closely related to the concept of subcultures. According to Geertz (1973) and Van Maanen and Barley (1985), subcultures rely heavily on cognitive elements such as common frames of reference.Pre-existing structures and cultures may shape differing stakeholder perceptions regarding the new system and its implementation and performance. While the literature on organisational culture is large, that referring explicitly to IT implementation is surprisingly small. An early survey done by PriceWaterhouse (1991/1992) found 47 per cent of UK IT directors stating that their main problem was the culture gap existing between IT and business professionals, with 56 per cent believing that the culture gap was losing or seriously delaying IT opportunities for their company to gain competitive advantage. The management literature is replete with various subsequent attempts made to improve the communication and participation between the subcultures to enable a successful implementation of an IT system (Wright-Cummings in Willcocks et al., 1997). However, these efforts have rarely investigated the factors enabling and inhibiting communication across subcultures from a knowledge perspective (for examples see Louis, 1985; Boland and Tenkasi, 1996; Nonaka, 1994; Davis and Olson, 1985; Mumford et al., 1978; Bostrom and Heinen, 1997; Checkland, 1981; Wood and Silver, 1989). These studies showed that the need for improving communication between subcultures is vital. These attempts so far, however, have not investigated in depth the cultures within IS implementation, but especially the \"culture behind the clicks\" represented by the developers, programmers and technicians, and the resulting distinctive perspective on the implementation process that might result.Strong hierarchical enterprises prevent smooth cross-functional communication and consequently inhibit cross-functional cooperation or knowledge sharing. Breaking down hierarchies can enable knowledge transfer (Nonaka, 1994). However, organisations that maintain hierarchical levels and silos will not encourage it. Knowledge in such organisations frequently becomes \"sticky\" that is, residing in one area or silo and not easily moved to the other parts of the organisation (Bartlett and Goshal, 1998). The non-codified techniques play an important role in industrial production and in technical and technological innovation (Perrin, 1990).Anderson and Schalk (1998); Makin et al. (1996); Rousseau (1995); Shore and Barksdale (1998); Thibaut and Kelley(1959) argue that psychological contracts play an important role in the outcome of interaction between individuals. Psychological contracts can link to knowledge issues where knowledge is construed as situated practice and as culture, and culturally and historically specific tools and concepts (Brown, 1998; Schultze and Leidner, 2002). The extent to which an employee and employer feel obligated to one another takes place as follows: mutual high obligations, mutual low obligations, employee over-obligation, and employee under-obligation (Shore and Barksdale, 1998). While studying a variety of psychological contracts, Sels et al. (2003) used a feature-oriented approach across a large, representative sample that covered different hierarchical layers and relevant professional categories. Six different clusters were found: loyal, instrumental, weak, unattached, investing and strong. These were discovered to have different patterns of employer and employee obligations, a different profile and different levels of affective commitment and employability. This study, however, does not explore a relationship between the type of psychological contracts and the knowledge transfer. To date few links have been established between knowledge transfer and psychological contracts.A survey done by The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI, 2000) found that 41 per cent of the organisations with CRM projects were either experiencing difficulties or close to failure. The survey further revealed that 91 per cent either have or plan to deploy a CRM solution in the near future, but that only 22 per cent of companies have appointed a chief customer officer to facilitate change. Failure rates of CRM projects may be as high as 70 per cent (Tafti, 2002). As Ciborra (2000) bluntly states: \"CRM seems to have no built-in mechanisms by which it acquires its own momentum and (by which) the diffusion becomes a self-feeding process\". The studies so far have looked into the macro level interaction in the paradox of CRM. This research will investigate the micro level interactions in a \"transformational\" CRM project (Goodhue et al., 2002).Our review has aimed to integrate of disparate literatures in order to provide a set of lenses and concepts to further study the introduction of a CRM system. This integration is shown in Figure 1.\n3. Research approach: Initial analysis of issues regarding knowledge transfer across the key subcultures of the implementation process of a CRM system, has generated the following exploratory organising research questions:* How is tacit knowledge surfaced and transferred across, or blocked and contained within key subcultures and with what effect on the adaptation and acceptance of a CRM system?* What is the role of psychological contracts in the process of CRM systems implementation?This study uses Pettigrew's (1985) five-fold framework to analyse the internal and external contexts, history and the process and content of change. The framework has been widely used in management of change and IS research (Willcocks and Margetts, 1994). Time and history are central to processual analysis, enhancing the understanding of the contemporary situation at the research site (Pettigrew, 1997). We employ a longitudinal case study approach to collect and critically analyse empirical data. The research into the period 2001-2005 was carried out across the period January 2003 to August 2004. The case study approach is the most commonly used qualitative method for research in information systems (Orlikowski and Baroudi, 1991). The techniques for collecting data included historical analyses, including: data from project reports and minutes of project team meetings; attending informal staff meetings; participant observation; and conducting interviews with stakeholders. The use of observation as a method of data collection is well documented (Bell, 1992). The variety of methods chosen to gather data (historical analyses, interviews and taking of field notes) created a useful form of triangulation (Yin, 1994). According to King (1994), an in-depth interview is a direct personal interview in which a single respondent is probed by an interviewer to uncover underlying motivations, beliefs, attitudes and feelings on a topic. It has a low degree of structure, a high proportion of open questions and a focus on specific situations and action sequences in the interview process (King, 1994). A total of 15 semi-structured interviews were conducted with the stakeholders of the CRM system. The interviews were loosely structured consisting of open-ended questions mapping the area to be explored, at least initially, whilst allowing the interviewer or interviewee to diverge in order to pursue an idea or response in more detail. Interviewees included people from senior management, middle management, technologists, and end-users of the CRM system at each site. Having transcribed the recorded interviews, colour coding was used to help in analysing the data. Colour coding helped to increase the consistency of the analysis. It also facilitated searching, marking up, linking and reorganising data in a short period of time (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000). The data from key stakeholders from different sites were compared to find the similarities and dissimilarities across the case. We recognised throughout that the process of sifting and sense-making developed an interpretation of interpretations (Stanmark, 2001). The approach and assumptions of this research fall into the interpretive discourse as defined by Schultze and Leidner (2002).\n4. Case study: a UK city council (UKCC): 4.1. History and context\n5. Further analysis: We have included some preliminary analysis already in the process of structuring the case history. In this summary analysis section the framework adopted to structure and explain events and evidence longitudinally (Pettigrew, 1985; Willcocks and Margetts, 1994) is again used to highlights the key points raised in the analysis regarding the CRM X implementation (see Figure 2).5.1. Emerging issues\n6. Conclusion: By mid-2004 UKCC was at the adaptation and acceptance stage where they were trying to develop the system further, to promote the integration, and streamline the processes as much as possible. The impact of knowledge creation, retention and exploitation on the ongoing process of implementation is of high importance to the organisational promoters of CRM, as is the building of improved psychological contracts based on optimal utilisation of the system.The exploratory research here has sought to extend the analysis of IT implementation to CRM systems, and to include in that analysis knowledge issues - including tacit knowledge transfer, knowledge silos, psychological contracts. A longitudinal approach has elicited how contextual, cultural, political and structural factors have influenced propensity to share knowledge and pursue common cause in the CRM implementation and use at UKCC, and the factors that could alleviate knowledge bottlenecks and facilitate more optimal utilisation of the system. While our initial research questions were cast in an exploratory form, the research has only confirmed what our initial reading of the literature led us to believe - that knowledge issues, and what constructs them, are not just implicit in all systems implementations, but can be key reasons why a system optimises or fails in the light of its different stakeholders' interests.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This exploratory case study research aims to apply a processual analysis to the implementation of a customer relationship management (CRM) system from a knowledge management perspective to a contemporary (1999-2004) situation within a UK city council. The paper seeks to place a specific focus on areas neglected in previous CRM studies - sub-cultures, psychological contracts, how tacit knowledge is surfaced and transferred, and with what effects on implementation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper investigates how the system stakeholders and the information system (IS) itself evolved through encountering barriers, sharing knowledge, finding new uses, inventing work-arounds.\nFindings: - A rich picture emerges of sub-cultural silos of knowledge linked with psychological contracts and power-based relationships influencing and inhibiting adoption and acceptance of the CRM system.\nOriginality/value: - This case study research provides useful information on the implementation of a CRM system from a knowledge management perspective with a specific focus on sub-cultures, psychological contracts, how tacit knowledge is surfaced and transferred, and with what effects on implementation, which are areas neglected in previous CRM studies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
C. Bertrand Thompson and management consulting in Europe, 1917-1934	[ "Management", "Scientific management", "International management", "C. Bertrand Thompson", "Management consulting", "Taylorism" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: [C']est l'homme le plus remarquable que j'aie jamais rencontre, Planus (1964, p. 40).\nIntroduction: If management scholars are familiar with the name C. Bertrand Thompson (1882-1969), it is either as a scientific-management bibliographer (Greenwood and Greenwood, 1976) or as a disciple of Frederick W. Taylor (Greenwood, 1984). Both are accurate descriptions, but fail to convey the complexities and contributions of Thompson's life and work. By drawing on rarely accessed published and unpublished materials, we develop a portrait of a unique man of significant accomplishment, whose contributions as a pioneer management theorist and consultant deserve to be more widely known and more deeply appreciated. Knowing more about Thompson's life and work will, perhaps, lead others to agree with the remarks of French consulting engineer Planus (1964, p. 40) who, after working together in France, described Thompson as, \"the most remarkable man that I ever met\" (Planus, 1965) (Figure 1).\nThompson's background: Clarence Bertrand Thompson was born April 12, 1882 in Denver, Colorado, to Medora Gertrude Thompson (nee Reed), a domestic servant, and James Beauregard Thompson, a hotel waiter. His parents had met in Boston, in the 1860s, where James worked as a jeweler; they married in 1873 (Massachusetts Town and Vital Records, 1873) and moved to Denver in 1880. An older sister, Beatrice Sumner Thompson, named for the abolitionist Charles Sumner, was born in 1874[1].\nThompson and the Harvard lectures: While pursuing his master's degree, Thompson served as an assistant in the Harvard University Economics Department (Greenwood and Greenwood, 1976). It was at this time that he \"discovered\" being \"rather more interested in real business than in the theory about it\" (Harvard Class of 1908, 1933, p. 696). Upon graduating in 1909, he thus accepted a position with the Boston Chamber of Commerce as Secretary of its Committee on Industrial Relations, chaired by Boston department-store owner Edward A. Filene. Through his work, Thompson \"fell by accident\" on Taylor's Shop Management (1903). He was so taken by Taylor's \"task-management\" system that he arranged for the Chamber to invite Taylor to lecture in Boston (Thompson, 1966a, 1966b).\nC. Bertrand Thompson: international management consultant: Thompson's first opportunity to develop the Taylor System as an independent consultant came in 1916. Although Edwin Gay had offered Thompson an appointment as Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, he declined. Seeking to apply his scientific management training, Thompson accepted a consulting assignment reorganizing the retailing and wholesaling operations of the Pacific Commercial Company's 17,297-acre Calamba Sugar plantation in the Philippines (Scruggs and Howard, 2015; Thompson, 1966a, 1966b). In the following year, he was asked by the British Embassy in China to organize the recruitment of 125,000 workers and prepare them for the construction and repair of roads in France during The Great War. During the same period, Cooke asked Thompson to take a position in Washington, DC, \"to organize the storage of war materials between the factory and shipment in the US\" (Thompson, 1966a, 1966b). Thompson declined both requests, and accepted instead an offer from Henry Le Chatelier to assist Louis Loucheur, who, in 1917, became the French Minister of Munitions, in applying scientific-management to the manufacture of ordnance.\nThompson et compagnie: Bureaux de conseil en organisation scientifique: Moutet credits Thompson with being the first to establish a scientific-management consulting practice, Thompson et compagnie: Bureaux de conseil en organisation scientifique, in France. Although others would follow, Thompson had a head start as a result of his work with de Freminville, his consulting experiences in the USA and Asia and his association with Taylor and other scientific-management pioneers. Despite these credentials, Thompson was initially unknown to French industrialists. \"At first, in order to ensure the success of his enterprise, he advertised in newspapers and more directly to the scientific community in general\" (Moutet, 1997, p. 32). Thompson sought \"to demonstrate to French industry it needed a true Taylor disciple in order to apply the latest techniques\" (Moutet, 1997, p. 32). With the Parisian publisher Payot providing the translations, he assembled an \"industrial library\" of scientific-management that included books by Ida M. Tarbell, Henry L. Gantt, Charles B. Going and Wallace Clark, as well as his own books How to Find Factory Costs (Thompson, 1916a) and Methodes americaines d'etablissement des prix de revient en usines (Thompson, 1920b).\nThompson's reflections on Europe and Russia: Thompson retired from consulting in 1934. He was proud of his legacy, in particular, of those members of his firm, such as \"Paul Planus and \"one woman\" [Garcin-Guynet] who have had conspicuous success in carrying on the pure Taylor tradition\" (Thompson to E. Dale, August 10, 1966). France had been:\nConclusion: C. Bertrand Thompson authored six books on sociology, economics and management. In addition, he published more than 50 articles in these subjects and in chemistry (Thompson, 1967). His career spanned over 70 years in various roles: lawyer, minister, professor, consultant, engineer, lecturer, researcher and biochemist. In his adult life, no matter what position or profession, he continued to engage in his diverse hobbies. Each day he set aside significant time for reading literature, philosophy and history. He collected fine books with an emphasis on typography; at one time, the collection numbered in the thousands of volumes (Harvard Class of 1908, 1933). His wide-ranging interest in music and pronounced talent as a pianist allowed him to equally amuse his toddler niece with a rendition of Claude Debussy's Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune (Reynolds) and Russian novelist Vladimir V. Nabokov with an original interpretation of a Mikhail Lermontov poem set to music (Boyd, 1993).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to highlight myriad accomplishments of C. Bertrand Thompson, who is perhaps most well known as a scientific-management bibliographer and a Taylor disciple, in the belief that his contributions as a pioneer management theorist and consultant in Europe deserve to be more widely known and more deeply appreciated.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Archival, primary and secondary sources were used in the research.\nFindings: Thompson was among the first to bring management consulting to Europe. He understood the importance of adapting scientific-management principles to meet the diverse needs of each client for whom he consulted. Thompson's strong belief and value system remained constant throughout his life.\nPractical implications: Understanding the needs of customers or clients and adapting systems to meet those needs is essential in achieving success as a consultant.\nOriginality/value: By drawing on rarely accessed published and unpublished materials, this paper discusses Thompson's many contributions to management thought and practice, most of which previously have not been highlighted in the referent literature.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The value of textual haptic information in online clothing shopping	[ "Clothing", "Consumer behaviour", "Purchase intention", "Need for touch", "Online commerce", "Textual haptic information" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Babies' first sensory input in life comes from the sense of touch while still in the womb, and touch continues to be the primary means of learning about the world (Field, 2014; Montagu, 1988). Touch is the only sense that covers the entire body, making it more accessible when compared to other senses (Bamarouf and Smith, 2009; Montagu, 1988) and crucial to the understanding people have of the world around them. Yet, available research showed considerable individual differences regarding preference for the use of touch as a mean to obtain information and the fact that consumers vary greatly in the amount of touch they need while shopping (Peck and Childers, 2003). While some consumers only grab the products they intent to buy, others touch them only as a mean to record new experiences. It is well known that in traditional retail shopping there is a close relationship between touch, information acquisition, desire development and the motivation to purchase products (Peck and Childers, 2003, 2006). This relationship is, however, limited in non-touch shopping channels (e.g. online shopping) where touching the product is not an available possibility. According to Klein (1998) and Bamarouf and Smith (2009), the technologies that could aid to minimize the impact of the lack of sense of touch still exhibit numerous problems, such as incompatibilities between devices, prices, modeling difficulties, network limitations and hardware resources required, among others, and will only be satisfactorily and widely used in the long term. It is, therefore, necessary to look for alternative ways to minimize the effects associated with the physical separation between consumers and products.\n2. Background: 2.1 Haptic or tactical system\n3. Model and hypothesis development: Peck and Childers (2003) assume that the preference for haptic information system differs among consumers, making each one unique on its NFT. Consumers with high NFT can get more information and faster from the haptic system when compared with individuals with low NFT (Higgins, 1996). In particular, individuals with higher NFT are able to access touch-related attributes faster than individuals with a lower NFT. Simultaneously, consumers with greater preference for tactile exploration prove to be less likely to buy online since the lack of tactile stimuli make it impossible to obtain information about the product's haptic attributes (Agardi and Dornyei, 2011; Peck and Childers, 2003). Thus, the NFT of the consumers seems to affect the way they position themselves in relation to the product sold online. If a consumer is characterized as high on NFT it tends to reflect his level of NFT on the product about which he/she cannot do a physical assessment. Thus, it is proposed:\n4. Methodology: In order to answer the research questions and test the hypothesis a three stage process was designed and employed (see Figure 3).\n5. Results: The average NFT of subjects involved in the first stage was 4.81, with a maximum of 6.50 and a minimum of 3.17 on a scale ranging from 1 to 7, with 1 being a very low NFT and 7 a very high NFT. Considering the subjects' restrictions to participate in the second stage, the group chosen (three males and two females) had an average NFT, ranging from 3.25 to 4.25.\n6. Discussion: The results support H1 in Condition 1 (b=0.323, t=2.401, p<0.05) and in Condition 2 (b=0.446, t=3.501, p<0.05), indicating that the higher the consumer's NFT, the greater the NFT presented by individuals when facing the product, thus confirming Peck and Childers' (2003) previous findings. This could mean that there is a strong association between consumer NFT and the NFT of the product itself, as if one was the reflection of the other.\n7. Conclusions: This study investigates the relationship between NFT, textual haptic information and intention to purchase clothes online, providing evidence for a better understanding of the impact of the textual component of haptic information and on the intention to purchase high NFT products, such as clothes, in online environments.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the potential of textual haptic information to minimize the effects of need for touch (NFT) in global online environments by testing the effect of hands on description on consumer perception and intention to purchase.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study was developed in three stages. A total of 140 valid responses were obtained in stage three. Multiple linear regression models and paired-samples t-test were applied to test the hypotheses.\nFindings: The results show that textual haptic information has a positive impact on consumers' perception and on the intention to purchasing.\nPractical implications: To improve online sales firms should minimize the drawback of the inability of touching the product by providing textual haptic information.\nOriginality/value: The findings are especially valuable since the number of studies assessing NFT in online apparel commerce is currently very limited. Thus, this study adds new empirical evidences to existent body of knowledge and could assist the development of global marketing strategies for increasing online fashion sales.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Zines in libraries: how, what and why?	[ "Publications", "Information", "Literacy", "Magazines" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nI. Introduction: the history and importance of zines and alternative materials: The alternative press, a broad term that includes small, underground and independent presses, has played a vital role in our culture and in one form or another has been around since the invention of print. Alternative publications frequently reflect the cutting edge literary and social trends of the day and are often excluded from mainstream information and entertainment outlets. Numerous authors find their way into print through alternative press publications that encourage risk taking and do not focus on profit as their primary concern.Zines, an example of a type of alternative press publication, first emerged in the 1930s and 1940s. Originally known as \"fanzines,\" a contraction of \"fan magazine,\" these self-publications were circulated among science fiction enthusiasts as a way to exchange ideas and share common interests.Due to increased social and political activism and easy access to cheap mimeograph and later photocopy machines, the underground press flourished in the 1960s and 1970s. This publishing explosion took on a variety of forms including alternative newsweeklies, literary magazines, newsletters, poetry chapbooks, political manifestos chapbooks and more. Much of this output was considered \"self published.\" It was out of this flourishing publishing climate that zines became increasingly visible. By the 1980s, with desktop publishing on the rise, zines enjoyed another boost in popularity.Zines are \"do-it-yourself\" (DIY) magazines, independently produced and published for love rather than profit. They cover a myriad of topics and come in all different formats, shapes and sizes. Many are photocopied and stapled, while others are professionally printed. Common types include art, compilation, electronic, literary, music, personal and political. Zines document contemporary popular culture making them important primary source material. They provide a forum for marginalized writers, whose ideas give voice to underrepresented points-of-view, and they offer a unique form of expression for anyone who cares to create one.Collecting zines, and other alternative press materials, is essential and at the core of librarianship's mission. We are mandated by the Library Bill of Rights to build diverse collections that represent all points of view and to provide free and open access to those collections.\nII. Collection scope and collection history: Since zines are a specialty of the DIY community, the following will document how the zine collection was implemented at Barnard College and the New York Public Library, and how techniques used there might be adapted for other libraries.Barnard College Library\nIII. Acquisitions and collection development: The inherent qualities of zines create a unique set of problems for the librarian attempting to collect and process them. Zines often are produced by one person, with a limited budget and published on a schedule unique to each zinester. Frequently it is not the monthly, weekly, or quarterly schedule that serials librarians prefer. Bibliographic information may be missing from the zine, making it difficult to track. All of these factors make traditional serial acquisitions procedures difficult to apply to zines.Another challenge in collecting zines is that there are few formal review sources such as Library Journal or Choice to help with zine selection. This lack of standard review sources means that collections will not suffer the uniformity that results when nearly all libraries select from the same tools. There are, however, a few established review and distribution sources to consult for zines - both print and online. Current publications such as Zine World, Best Zine Ever, and Xeroxgraphy Debt are good sources for reviews. Websites such as Street Librarian, New Pages Zine Rack, and Zine World: A Reader's Guide to the Underground Press are equally useful. Electronic Poetry Center and the St Mark's Poetry Project's websites provide particular insight to literary zines. Magazines for Libraries has a zine section, which has increased in size with each new edition, and offers an extensive core list of zines for libraries wanting to build new zine collections or add on to existing ones. A problem with even the most established zine reviews is that the librarian still has to track down the zine. The reviews, through no fault of their own, do not always indicate where to buy the items reviewed. As was stated earlier, the zines themselves do not always provide purchasing and bibliographic information.Zines are about the people who create them and are unique in their personal and political expression. Quality, style, longevity, and frequency may all be examined on some level, but typically zines are reviewed by zinesters themselves: reviews are based on genre type, appearance, subjects, creativity, views and opinions expressed, etc. They are reviewed in the same spirit in which they are created.Attending zine conferences, known as zine fests or zine symposia, is the best way to get to know zinesters. These gatherings also provide an excellent opportunity to buy zines. Two particularly worthwhile events are the Allied Media Conference in Bowling Green, OH, where there is usually a zine librarians' caucus and the Portland Zine Symposium in Oregon. There are many state and regional zinefests, so it is not necessary to travel far to attend one.Zines can also be found in many bookstores and infoshops as well. Even some megastores like Tower Records have zines for sale. You can buy them online from others, including Quimby's Bookstore in Chicago and Reading Frenzy in Portland, OR. Libraries can also purchase single issues directly from the publisher or from alternative distributors, called \"distros,\" zine dealers that are similar to jobbers in the book trade. Distros perform a role that jobbers do not in that they provide reviews as well.What makes zines significant is that they are created outside the mainstream, including the conventional ideas of what makes an item \"valuable\" for collection development purposes. Zinesters publish for their own reasons and while they may - or may not - be happy to see their zine in a library, they will continue creating, publishing and distributing their own way. The zine world may mimic corporate publishing in some ways, but it is not merely a smaller version. Zine publishing has its own rules, the first being that there are none.Barnard College\nIV. Technology, cataloging, access and preservation: As was indicated earlier, zines offer some challenges to the cataloger. Often they are without surname, date and place of publication, and pagination. To make up for that lack, they sometimes include extras such as lip-gloss, condoms, stickers, or human hair.Barnard College Library\nV. Future directions for zine collecting/summary: Zines document contemporary culture in the same way that newspapers, magazines, TV, radio and movies do, but from a much different point-of-view. It is important for libraries to collect zines, and all alternative press materials, to ensure balanced and diverse collections, as well as securing primary source material for scholars today and in the future.Barnard College Library\nVI. Literature review/future research: A library literature search on zine* yields 38 hits, as of August 18, 2005 (this is using the database on Wilson's platform, querying \"All - Smart Search.\" Repeating the search within the full text brings up 299 results, many of them irrelevant). Four of the hits are reviews of Julie Bartel's book From A to Zine: Building a Winning Zine Collection in Your Library, which while general enough to be tremendously useful, is drawn primarily from developing the YA collection at the Salt Lake City Public Library.Other than three of the reviews, the only other article from 2005 is about e-zines. There are six items in 2004, one is a review, another is a companion piece to this year's e-zine article, and one more web-related item. There are two from 2003 and three from 2002 - one of these about e-zines. 2001 brings us four more e-zine articles out of six. In 2000 there's nothing. From 1990-1999 nine of the results are real contributions to the literature on print zines in libraries.Clearly, there is plenty of potential for future research. With item level treatment of the materials still in its infancy, zine cataloging is an especially rich area of exploration. In the summer of 2005, the Library of Congress and the Rare Book and Manuscript thesaurus respectively established subject and genre headings for zines, but that is just the beginning. Currently much of the collaboration between zine librarians is being done online, via the Zine Librarians Yahoo Group. There is also a group, headed by Donny Smith, a librarian and long-time zinester, working on a book on \"zinebrarianship.\" Librarians interested in the topic of zines in libraries have formed an unofficial Zine Interest Group that meets at ALA conferences. ZIG members have discussed writing articles on all aspects of zine librarianship for library as well as other types of publications, but to date their busy work schedules have prevented that.\nVII. Works cited: * Allied Media Conference: www.alliedmediaconference.com/* American Library Association Library Bill of Rights: www.ala.org/ala/oif/statementspols/statementsif/librarybillrights.htm* Barnard Library Zine Collection: www.barnard.edu/library/zines/index.htm* Bartel, Julie, From A to Zine: Building a Winning Zine Collection in Your Library (American Library Association, Chicago, IL, 2004).* Electronic Poetry Center: www.epc.buffalo.edu* Library of Congress Authority Record for Zines: http://authorities.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?GetAuth Recs=1&SEQ=20050818144217 &PID=27798* Martin, L.J.: www.theyellowperil.com/* Microcosm Publishing: www.microcosmpublishing.com/* New Pages Zine Rack: www.newpages.com/magazinestand/zines/default.html* PayPal: www.paypal.com/* Perez, C.C.: www.livejournal.com/users/bibliophile/* Portland Zine Symposium: www.pdxzines.com/* Quimby's Bookstore in Chicago: www.quimbys.com/* Reading Frenzy: www.readingfrenzy.com* RBMS. Binding Terms: A Thesaurus for Use in Rare Book and Special Collections Cataloguing and Genre Terms: A Thesaurus for Use in Rare Book and Special Collections Cataloging http://library.osu.edu.pitt.idm.oclc.org/sites/users/russell.363/summer2005.htm#Zines* Saint Mark's Poetry Project: www.poetryproject.com* Salt Lake City Public Library Zine Collection: www.slcpl.lib.ut.us/details.jsp?parent_id=144&page_id=145* Smith, D.: www.geocities.com/donnysmith.geo/* Street Librarian: www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/7423/* Xerography Debt: www.leekinginc.com/xeroxdebt/index.htm* Zine Librarian Zine: www.zinelibrarian@yahoo.com* Zine Librarians discussion list: http://groups.yahoo.com.pitt.idm.oclc.org/group/zinelibrarians/* Zine World: www.undergroundpress.org* Zinebrarianship book group: www.zinebrarianship.blogspot.com/* Zines at The New York Public Library: www.nypl.org/research/per/zines\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper sets out to discuss the importance of collecting alternative press materials, particularly zines, in libraries and presents case studies of zine collections; Barnard College Library and the New York Public Library.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper builds on work presented by the authors and others at the 12th National ACRL conference in Minneapolis, where zine collections in different types of academic and research libraries were discussed.\nFindings: - Zines document contemporary culture in the same way newspapers, magazines, TV, radio and movies as, but from a much different point-of-view. It is important for libraries to collect zines, and all alternative press materials, to ensure balanced and diverse collections, as well as securing primary source material for scholars today and in the future.\nOriginality/value: - This paper provides concrete examples of how two libraries are handling collections of zines.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The cost of seagull management	[ "Leadership", "General management", "Morale", "Productivity rate", "Performance management", "Targets" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In the course of my work with organizations large and small, I have witnessed a peculiar commonality among the most successful enterprises. These companies step confidently beyond the success strategies of conventional business wisdom - brand strength, strategic leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and the like - to leverage the single greatest resource inside every company: its people.\nMassive impact: The seagull manager is an increasingly common phenomenon hovering in today's workplace. As companies flatten in response to the competitive changes created by new technology, industry regulation, and expanding global trade, they gut their management layers. The remaining managers are left with more autonomy, greater responsibility, and more people to manage. That means they have less time and less accountability for focusing on the primary purpose of their job - managing people. While there have probably always been seagull managers hovering inside the workplace, the recent flattening of organizations is breeding them like wildfire.It is easy to spot a seagull manager when you are on the receiving end of their airborne dumps, but the manager doing the squawking is often unaware of the negative impact of this behavior. And they are not the only ones. In the vast majority of organizations, senior leadership is unschooled in the profoundly negative impact the seagull managers hovering about their organization are having on its bottom line. The very individuals with the authority to alter the course of an organization's culture lack the facts that would impel them to do so.Here are some of the hard truths we have to face every day in the world of work:32 percent of employees spend at least 20 hours per month complaining about their boss.Employees whose manager often uses seagull-type behaviors are 30 percent more likely to develop coronary heart disease than employees of a manager who rarely uses these behaviors.More than two-thirds of North Americans are actively considering leaving their current job, with their employers suffering annual losses in excess of $360 billion from this employee dissatisfaction.Approximately 50 percent of Americans hate their jobs, and job satisfaction has sunk to the lowest level in 20 years.Some facts remind us that it is not easy being the one in charge:20 percent of people would be willing to take their boss's job.35 percent of employees have a tough time communicating with their boss.64 percent of managers admit that they need to work on their management skills. When asked where they are supposed to focus, managers overwhelmingly say, \"Bringing in the numbers\"; yet, they are most often fired for poor people skills.After more than 20 years satirizing management culture through his wildly successful Dilbert comic strip, Scott Adams agreed to roll up his sleeves and manage a restaurant he had co-owned for years from a safe distance. His foray into the rough-and-tumble world of management was a humbling one, and he was honest about his shortcomings in the real world, \"I'm quite sure I've succumbed to ... flying in every so often and dumping on everything.\" There is a seagull manager born every minute!\nAre you a seagull manager?: If this exploration has achieved its purpose, you have asked yourself that question at some point along the way. But the real question is not are you a seagull manager but when are you a seagull manager? It would be wonderfully simple - albeit frightening - if we could each be categorized as the \"right\" or \"wrong\" kind of manager. We cannot just target \"problem\" managers, when the reality is that we are all the problem. That is right. Every single one of us is a seagull manager sometimes, in some situations, and with some people. The real challenge lies in understanding where your seagull tendencies get the better of you, so that you can fly higher and eradicate the negative influences of seagull behavior.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to separate the leadership skills that get success from those that are inconsequential or harmful.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - More than 150,000 managers were studied through the online assessment of their skill in more than 30 competency areas against self-reported, and company-reported job performance.\nFindings: - People may join companies, but they will leave bosses. No one influences an employee's morale and productivity more than his or her supervisor. It is that simple. Yet, as common as this knowledge may seem, it clearly has not been enough to change the way that managers and organizations treat people.\nOriginality/value: - The paper looks at the issue of seagull managers - and discusses the notion that every single manager is a seagull manager sometimes, in some situations, and with some people. The real challenge lies in understanding where seagull tendencies predominate, so that managers can fly higher and eradicate the negative influences of seagull behavior.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Intellectual property rights and knowledge sharing across countries	[ "Game theory", "Intellectual property", "Knowledge sharing", "Public interest" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the global economy, knowledge-based development includes the ability of a nation not only to generate, transfer and apply knowledge, but also to \"tap foreign knowledge as well as adapt knowledge for specific needs\" (Dahlman and Andersson, 2000). For sustained (knowledge) development to take place, countries need to establish mechanisms that facilitate the circulation of data, information and knowledge across developing and developed nations. The concept of multinational knowledge sharing is closely related to knowledge-based development and to the understanding of the \"public good\" or even the \"global public good\" (Stiglitz, 1999) characteristics of knowledge assets.The public good properties of non-excludability and non-rivalry of knowledge goods posit that the sharing of knowledge does not require excluding access to preserve its integrity and value. As a form of public good with increasing returns to scale (Romer, 1986), the value of knowledge increases when it is shared. Naturally, the literature has identified a tension between the need for access to knowledge goods and the rights of the knowledge creator to earn a return on his/her work. This tension between the public and private value of knowledge has long been debated by multiple authors (Epstein, 2005; Lessig, 2005).Following this tension, this paper sets out to address the strategic interaction among countries with regard to multinational access and sharing of knowledge. The objective is to better characterize the factors affecting knowledge sharing and intellectual property rights (IPRs) protection across countries.1.1. Public and private goods, IPRs and knowledge creation\n2. The harmonization of international IPRs: The Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) was negotiated in 1994 requiring developing countries that are (prospective) members of WTO to adopt the pre-TRIPS IPR standard of the developed countries as a minimum standard. Since then, many studies have analyzed the impact of TRIPS on both the developed and developing countries based on two approaches - first from the historical/empirical perspective, including the application of statistical/econometric techniques, and second from a theoretical perspective, primarily game theory. This section, and the next, briefly review selected studies as well as the basic concepts of game theory.2.1. The pre-TRIPS and post-TRIPS monetary flows across countries\n3. Literature review: 3.1. Game theory - an introduction\n4. A game theoretical model: This study follows the line of reasoning of La Croix and Konan (2006) that \"stronger IPRs are more likely to stimulate growth in middle-income developing countries than in low-income developing countries.\" Because there are more differentials among countries than just the rich countries (the North) and the poor countries (the South), a simple two-player game is not adequate to address the strategic interaction among heterogeneous countries given the different economic and political characteristics of countries. The most appropriate framework is probably a game of n-heterogeneous players.Nevertheless, for illustration purposes, the paper focuses on the two-player interaction of a three-player (or multiple-player) game among one high-income (H-I) developed country and two developing countries. One of the developing countries is a middle-income (M-I) country while the other one a low-income (L-I) country. The H-I country, such as U.S. or any OECD country, has high innovation capability, while the M-I country, such as Brazil, China, India, Malaysia, Mexico, and Thailand, has low innovation capability but high imitation capability and the L-I country, such as Zimbabwe, has low or zero capabilities in both imitation and innovation.4.1. The strategies of countries\n5. Policy implications and solutions: From the model and scenarios described in Section 4, the authors concluded that a stronger global IPR regime benefits the H-I country the most and hurts the L-I country the most. The M-I country may benefit from a stronger IPR standard if the country has the capability to switch from technology imitation to technology innovation and, at the same time, may also receive a sufficient amount of knowledge/technology transfers from the H-I country. Otherwise, the M-I country will suffer as well. Therefore, it is critical that the H-I country sufficiently compensate the countries participating in TRIPS in terms of the short-term implementation costs and the royalty payments. In addition, in the real world, royalty is not just a one-time payment. Hence, if time is introduced into the model, the compensation should be the sum of the present values of all the present and future royalties.An alternative way to subsidize the developing countries is for the H-I country to produce some of the knowledge as a public good, such as the open source software. The royalty payment will decrease for the H-I countries, but this public good will benefit developing countries, in particular the L-I country that has a low endowment or GDP to pay for the royalties.When the developing countries adopt a stronger IPR regime, the increase in inward knowledge/technology should focus on or at least include the augmentation of knowledge that the local economy needs to improve its education and knowledge base and its information infrastructure. Otherwise, the knowledge inflow will not benefit the developing countries. Hence, another way to help the developing countries is to encourage the cooperation between L-I countries and those H-I countries or M-I countries that have passed the transition stage into the knowledge economy.Although the newly developed East Asian Countries may have stolen a lot of knowledge/technology in the past several decades by choosing low IPR standards, their government policies are equally important factors that enabled them to quickly close their knowledge/innovation gaps via the inflows of FDIs (World Bank, 1998). Specifically, the government of Taiwan focused on small and medium enterprises growth and favored FDIs inflows while slowly developing exports. South Korea favored the growth of large organizations through domestic innovation and new technologies exports, while keeping incoming FDIs to a minimum. Hong Kong followed a liberal strategy that favored free-trade through low taxes, and stable environments for investors. Its greatest appeal has also been the ability to play the role of a commercial trading post to China towards the rest of the world. Similar to Hong Kong, Singapore also focused on free-trade policies, attracted foreign investments through low-cost highly-educated labor, and invested in a strong physical and digital infrastructure.These illustrations underscore the necessity of an integrated policy approach to innovation growth that goes well beyond the implementation of stronger IPR standards. Hopefully such knowledge or experiences can be passed on from the H-I or M-I countries to the L-I countries, through international cooperation.5.1. Other solutions\n6. Conclusions: As knowledge can be non-exclusive to access, it suffers from the free rider problem and thus the under-provision of knowledge. A stronger, but not too strong IPR protection may increase the incentive of the inventors, thus the production of knowledge and economic growth of a nation. However, depending on stages of the economic growth and the knowledge/technology infrastructure of the nation, each country has a different level of optimal IPR standards, which lead to strategic interaction among countries.There is no IPR regime that can be a \"one-size-fits-all\" solution. A stronger uniform global IPR regime, such as TRIPS, can increase the knowledge creation in the high-income and middle-income developed countries, as well as the knowledge transfers into some middle-income developing countries. However, the low-income developing countries suffer the most from such a strong IPR protection given that they have low capability in both knowledge innovation and imitation.As long as the gains of the high-income and middle-income countries outweigh the losses of all the (mid-income and) low-income countries, TRIPS is still an efficient international agreement. However, the benefits from TRIPS should be re-distributed in a manner that takes international fairness into consideration. Given the financial resources, the High-Income countries should establish mechanisms to compensate the developing countries, including the payments for TRIPS implementation, the increased royalty payments, and the knowledge/technology transfers (as public goods) that fits L-I countries local needs and improve their knowledge/information infrastructure.Because H-I countries have more financial resources than L-I countries, it may be easier to implement TRIPS than the open access model. This solution may not be the optimal solution, but it is probably be the most feasible one given the current development of TRIPS. How to extend the strong IPR standards under TRIPS to include the efficient production or provision of knowledge as a global public good to all the countries remains an important area for future research.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to integrate the empirical and game theoretical approaches to address the strategic interactions among countries in choosing their optimal levels of intellectual property rights (IPRs), and to identify how these countries can reach an efficient and equitable equilibrium.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Because countries' decisions on which IPR standards and protections to implement are interrelated, the authors apply game theory to characterize the scenarios before and after the 1994 Agreement on Trade-related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) involving developed and developing countries.\nFindings: - The model shows that the pre-TRIPS equilibrium is comprised of high-income (H-I) developed countries which choose a strong IPR protection while the middle-income (M-I) and low-income (L-I) developing countries choose a weak IPR standard. For countries to move from such an equilibrium to the uniformly strong IPR regime under TRIPS, it is necessary for the H-I countries to compensate L-I and M-I countries that do not have the sufficient conditions to attract knowledge/technology transfer. This compensation covers IPR protection implementation costs and increased royalties for patents.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The model proposed in this study is not complex. In reality, the payoff functions can have more variables and parameters, which, however, may also complicate the model and lower its generalizability.\nOriginality/value: - The study explains that it is difficult for countries to reach an efficient and equitable equilibrium without the subsidies and side-payments from the developed countries to the developing countries. It builds an important bridge between the game theoretical approach and the empirical studies of TRIPS, which can be further enriched and tested. It acknowledges that it is more likely for stronger IPR standards (as in TRIPS) to be implemented than an open source approach.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Poverty and deprivation of immigrants vs. natives in Italy	[ "Poverty", "Deprivation", "Immigration", "Fuzzy measures" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Migration is often a pathway toward better opportunities and, under certain conditions, is also central to survival (Skeldon, 2003). Nevertheless, migratory movements inevitably affect the economic and social structure of the destination country and can lead directly to the problem of social inclusion of immigrants (Miller, 2008). Indeed, immigrants often end up in the most disadvantaged strata of the population: if some of them can actually improve their economic and social conditions, many others find themselves on the fringes of society and have to struggle to get out of them. Both cultural and social fields can be affected by this trap (Piore, 1979), as for example in the case of the difficulties faced by Muslim immigrants in many Western countries (Kepel, 1994). This pattern also involves Italy even if has it been a migrant sending country for nearly one century and only in recent years it has become a migrant receiving country like other European countries and the USA. According to official statistics (Istat, 2011a) a considerable share of foreign people who live in Italy is in a social vulnerable state. In recent years, a lot of empirical research has been conducted to study the social inclusion of immigrants in Italy. One of the most important contribution is certainly the one promoted by the ISMU organization (Cesareo and Blangiardo, 2009). This study measured the level of integration achieved by immigrants, highlighting the main critical aspects, on the basis of a sample of 12,000 units. This kind of research, does offer important information for improving integration policy planning, but at the same time has some limitations related to the methodology adopted. First of all, with the goal of assessing the state of integration, they are based on an arbitrary (subjective) definition of the concept of integration. For example, in EU countries, only, the idea of integration differed between France, Britain and Germany (Ambrosini, 2005; Castles, 1995), at least until the 1980s. Second, most of the research on this topic investigated only the immigrant population component with no comparison with the natives. Therefore, even if it is true that \"traditional\" research allows the causes that slow down the integration to be highlighted (language skills deficits, discrimination in the access to services, problems in recognizing important rights such as citizenship - Berti and Valzania, 2010), it is also true that it is not able to analyze comparatively marginal situations of populations of a given country or area. Another Italian experience was developed by CNEL (2012), based on aggregate data at area level drawn from official sources and also in this case, a direct comparison between immigrants and Italians, is not available. An interesting analysis is the paper of Matha et al. (2011), but its focus is on the wealth gap. Apart from Italy, several contributions analyzed differences of poverty and/or deprivation and/or social exclusion in Europe between immigrants and natives. Among others, for example, Haisken-DeNew and Sinning (2010) analyzed social deprivation of immigrants in Germany; Bask (2005) studied the welfare problems and social exclusion among immigrants in Sweden; Pi Alperin (2008) compared multidimensional deprivation characteristics in Luxembourg; Platt (2007) investigated on poverty and ethnicity in the UK; De Bustillo and Anton (2011) explored the relationship between immigration and poverty in Spain. Therefore, one of the main original contribution of this paper is to provide a comparative analysis on poverty and deprivation between Italians and immigrants. As CNEL (2008) itself stressed (see IV and V reports, 2008, pp. 22-23) this comparative perspective has so far remained absent in Italy.\nReference framework: Europe 2020 is the EU strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth for the next decade. Five headline targets have been agreed for the whole EU and one of these is to reduce the number of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion by at least 20 million units (Eurostat, 2010). One of the key challenges supported by the European platform against poverty and social exclusion is to overcome discrimination and increase the integration of immigrants and other vulnerable groups of the society. Moreover, the EU strategy has to be translated into national targets so that each Member State has to check its own progress toward these goals.\nConcepts and data: The analysis is based on two data sources:\nMethodological framework: Nowadays, many official statistical agencies (e.g. Eurostat) and international institutions (United Nations, World Bank) recognize the multidimensional nature of poverty. The price to pay, in order to obtain a more complete and realistic vision of poverty is the increased complexity at both the conceptual and the analytical level. Such a complexity determines the need for adequate tools of analysis and the availability of statistical data that also have to be adequate, complete and reliable. The methodological approach used in this paper is based on the assumption that poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon and moreover that poverty is a matter of degree (a fuzzy concept) rather than an attribute that is simply present or absent for individuals in the population, as the traditional poverty approach assumes.\nResults and discussion: The list of 29 selected deprivation items and of seven deprivation dimensions derived from confirmatory factor analysis are presented in Table II.\nConclusion: During the past two decades, Italy has experienced a large influx of immigrants from SMP countries. Consequently, empirical researches has been concentrated on the integration issue of such newcomers with the limit of just studying immigrants. Since the meaning itself of integration is usually referred to an \"assimilation\" process of immigrants into the host society, especially in Italy, thus the comparison of the level of immigrants' integration with that of the Italians is not feasible. Indeed, Italians should be already integrated (especially when we refer to social integration given by fluency, social relationships, meeting people, etc.). That is why, in this paper, we interpret the issue of integration in terms of deprivation that is a different matter if we adopt an approach according to which those who are less deprived are much more integrated in a society. In this case, we reverse the argument, that is we do not appear to be unduly concerned about the understanding of the most positive performances for integration but we try to analyze the result with an indirect approach.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Italy has become a migrant receiving country and it has to face with the problem of social inclusion of immigrants. The purpose of this paper is to measure the gap on poverty and deprivation between immigrants and natives since manifest conditions of both of them are an important signal, although not exclusively, of social exclusion.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Poverty analysis typically relies on a single monetary variable such as income and it is characterized by a simple dichotomization of the population into poor and non-poor. In this paper the authors stress the importance of using a multidimensional and fuzzy approach in order to study disparities between immigrants and natives. The authors cover several of the multifaceted aspects of resources necessary to maintain adequate living standards in a developed country. With the fuzzy methodology, the authors also overcome any limitation of the conventional approach based on the simple dichotomization of the phenomenon.\nFindings: The empirical analysis is based on data from two official surveys. The authors find that between Italian and immigrant households there are significant differences in poverty and deprivation levels, with a strong disadvantage for the latter. The authors argue that any serious attempt to reduce poverty and deprivation must now include comprehensive reforms in the nation's immigration policies if they are to be taken seriously.\nOriginality/value: The paper makes an original contribution to the understanding of inequality between immigrants and natives, by studying a complex phenomena such as poverty and deprivation in a multidimensional perspective using a fuzzy approach.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Environmental scanning, supply chain integration, responsiveness, and operational performance: An integrative framework from an organizational information processing theory perspective	[ "China", "Operational performance", "Supply chain integration", "Environmental scanning", "Supply chain responsiveness" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The demise of the car company Rover, according to the post mortem case study analysis by Oliver et al. (2008), was caused primarily by a disconnect between the management team and the market. This disconnect was created by a failure to adequately scan the environment and resulted in poor product portfolio choices, missed opportunities to capture innovation and inefficient production processes that increased product cost. Environmental scanning (ES) is defined as \"scanning for information about events and relationships in a company's outside environment, the knowledge of which would assist top management in its task of charting the company's future course of action\" (Aguilar, 1967, p. 1). Through ES, senior executives gather signals about competitors' strategies, technological innovations, governmental regulations, customer needs and supplier conditions (Daft et al., 1988; McGee and Sawyerr, 2003) to ensure business strategy fit (Cousins et al., 2011; Garg et al., 2003; Hambrick, 1981). As a key strategic management concept (e.g. Aguilar, 1967; Hambrick, 1981) ES is regarded as a prerequisite for developing strategic plans (Beal, 2000; Elenkov, 1997; Hambrick, 1981) in dynamic and complex business environments (Hambrick, 1982).\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 Key concepts and literature review\n3. Conceptual framework and research hypotheses: To supplement the OIPT and better explain the roles of SCI and SCR in transforming ES signals into operational performance, this study introduces the SIAP model proposed by Thomas et al. (1993) to the supply chain literature. The model was initially developed to understand how managers and organizations deal with potentially significant information. It is argued that organizations adapt to the environment through three processes: scanning, interpreting and responding (Milliken, 1990). Similarly, strategic sense-making activities performed by executives often involve reciprocal interaction of information seeking, meaning ascription and action (Gioia and Chittipeddi, 1991). Thomas et al. (1993) further argue each sense-making process could affect performance.\n4. Research methodology: 4.1 Sample and data collection\n5. Data analysis and results: 5.1 Measurement model\n6. Discussion and implications: 6.1 Theoretical implications\n7. Directions for future research: The study has a number of limitations that present opportunities for future research. First, our conceptualization of ES from a SIAP perspective focuses on gathering information about business environments from supply chain partners. The ES literature suggests that effective scanning of both the external environment and the internal circumstances of a firm is important to performance improvement (Garg et al., 2003). Thus, future research should examine the aspects of both the firm's external environment and its internal circumstances and their differential impacts on SCM and firm performance.\n8. Conclusions: Our study extends the SCM literature in several important ways. The first is through importing the SIAP model, which forms a bridge to the strategy literature and brings a new perspective to the supply chain literature. The use of the SIAP model enables a more precise application of the OIPT in the supply chain context. To the best of our knowledge, the use of the SIAP model herein is the first in an empirical study focused on comprehensively explaining the performance effects of ES through the development of two SCM practices - SCR and integration. The demonstration that the SIAP model serves as an integrative framework for refining understanding of the ES-SCI-SCR-performance leads to the implication that other scanning and SCM practices could be studied in a more comprehensive manner. The second implication is that this study positions OIPT in conjunction with the SIAP model as a new way to refine disparate knowledge on ES, SCI, SCR and performance. The SIAP model can also be extended to account for the environment and other explanatory variables. From a practical perspective our empirical findings, especially the indirect effect of ES through SCI and SCR, provide useful insights for supply chain managers and their top executives.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: It remains unclear how environmental scanning (ES) can generate firm performance through supply chain management (SCM) practices. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of ES on operational performance through supply chain integration (SCI) and supply chain responsiveness (SCR).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The scanning-interpretation-action-performance (SIAP) model and organization information processing theory (OIPT) are used to explain the ES-SCI-SCR-performance (S-I-A-P) relationships, which were tested by structural equation modeling of survey data of 329 manufacturing firms in China.\nFindings: The results indicate that ES has a significant positive effect on SCI and SCR. SCI is significantly and positively related to SCR. SCR partially mediates the relationship between ES and operational performance, and fully mediates the relationship between SCI and operational performance.\nPractical implications: Supply chain managers should collaborate with senior executives to obtain signals from ES activities, as input for building SCI and SCR and use SCI as a joint interpretation mechanism of ES signals for developing SCR to reap operational advantages in the rapidly changing business environment.\nOriginality/value: Strategic management academics and practitioners have explicitly emphasized the importance of ES in developing strategic plans but are unsure about the role of SCM in creating operational advantages through ES. Using the SIAP model, this study theorizes and demonstrates how SCI and SCR transform signals from ES into operational performance. In doing so, a more precise application of OIPT is explicated in the supply chain context.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Integrating sustainability learning outcomes into a university curriculum: A case study of institutional dynamics	[ "General education", "Sustainability education", "Sustainability-across-the-curriculum", "Learning outcomes", "Liberal education" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Society in the twenty-first century faces many daunting challenges from myriad directions, including, but not limited to, peak oil, undiminished global population growth, intensifying income disparity, new political instabilities, terrorism, global scale weather catastrophes, growing global food insecurity, new technology impacts and evolving diseases. (Martine and Alves, 2015; Raskin et al., 1996; Rockstrom et al., 2009). Higher education, and public higher education in particular, has an important and vital role to play in helping society move through these challenging times and emerge on the other side of the century in a more hopeful and positive place (Cortese, 2003; Dmochowski et al., 2016; Rowe, 2007; Shephard, 2008; Stephens et al., 2008; Svanstrom et al., 2008). Educating the next generation of leaders under the lens of sustainability paves the way for balancing economic growth, social development and ecological vitality (UNESCO Section of Education for Peace and Human Rights, Division for the Promotion of Quality Education, Education Sector, 2006; Wixom et al., 1996). Certainly, training students to be good at what they do, whether it be engineering, food science, the arts or history, is a way that a university's role can be fulfilled, in part, but is there something more? Is there a component of public university education that is openly utilitarian in its aspiration?\nBackground to the case: Sustainability in higher education\nA framework to interpret institutional dynamics: University-wide curricular change is a daunting and complex process at most institutions. For a requirement involving 10,000+ students, a whole host of processes, procedures and policies apply, with impacts on students' programs of studies, registration/auditing, tuition revenue flows, faculty workload, curricular administration, etc. To help organize this complexity as it applied to UVM's experience in implementing a sustainability general education requirement, we offer a timeline of events (Table II) and a process framework to interpret institutional dynamics (Figure 1) and values adopted by the committees working to implement curricular change (Table I). Our timeline and framework elucidate how the sustainability requirement moved from approval to success with the continuous involvement of committees working with various stakeholders (i.e. all parties with an interest in the sustainability curriculum, regardless of authority) through shared governance.\nCase study of institutional dynamics at the University of Vermont: Approval process - developing stakeholder relationships\nDiscussion: From our experience developing, implementing and assessing UVM's university-wide general education sustainability requirement, we offer some broad-spectrum recommendations that we highlight as key to our success to other higher education institutions seeking to embed sustainability across a university curriculum. Sensitivity to institutional processes and keeping a set of values foremost in deciding when and how to proceed were essential in the UVM case.\nConclusions: This paper highlights the values and institutional steps toward implementation of a university-wide learning outcomes-based sustainability requirement at UVM. The process involved a suite of \"nuts and bolts,\" including developing SLO, planning for implementation, vetting the process along the way, collecting and presenting data, developing capacity models, designing faculty proposal guidelines and integrating assessment into the sustainability requirement (Table II). All that said, we advocate that our readers develop a values framework (Table I) and understood institutional dynamics (Figure 1) when instituting new sustainability requirements at other institutions, as the values intrinsic to our process was a seminal component to our success.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Higher education institutions increasingly have gained momentum in integrating sustainability into university curricula. The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the approval, implementation and management process of the new university-wide, general education requirement in sustainability at the University of Vermont (UVM). The intent is to provide a case study to inform other institutions seeking to create similar university-wide sustainability requirements.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors applied a process framework focused on institutional dynamics and values to analyze UVM's success in instituting a sustainability requirement across the curriculum. These two frameworks can provide a more general application of this case study to other institutional contexts.\nFindings: The case study suggests that in the context of a diverse disciplinary and administrative environment at a university, the strategic unfolding, approval and implementation of UVM's university-wide, general education sustainability requirement can provide a general model for other universities seeking to embed sustainability across the curriculum.\nOriginality/value: It is uncommon for research universities with multiple professional schools to offer a university-wide requirement in sustainability. This case study analyzes the creation of a sustainability requirement at UVM by using a process framework to organize the complex, multi-stakeholder activities and events that eventually resulted in a successful curricular change. Thus, it is potentially instructive for institutions seeking to integrate a learning outcomes-based sustainability requirement into a university curriculum because it is generalizable to other institutions and pushes forward our understanding of institutional change.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
An analysis of antecedents and consequences of trust in a corporate brand	[ "Trust", "Mobile communication systems", "Marketing", "Buyer‐seller relationships", "Competences" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In recent years, marketing researchers and practitioners have become increasingly interested in the concept of trust. However, despite the increasing quantity of research, the findings and knowledge about this phenomenon are limited when compared with other important concepts like attitude, customer satisfaction or loyalty. In the marketing literature, there are only a few empirical studies focused principally on trust that allow conclusions about the generalisability of the individual findings. Furthermore, results about the determinants and antecedents of trust in the marketing context are often contradictory. Consequently, marketing researchers have not adopted a common understanding of the concept, with the result that research on trust in marketing is parallel rather than coordinated or integrated.Compared to the long research tradition in other disciplines like psychology, sociology, philosophy, education or even organisational research, marketing research is still at the early stages of understanding this complex phenomenon. As a consequence, more empirical applications in the marketing context are needed to gain more insight and to fill the theoretical and empirical gaps in the marketing research into trust.In particular, the existing research has two important limitations:1. Various studies found in the literature focus on either antecedents or marketing-related consequences of trust (e.g. Moorman et al., 1993; Michell et al., 1998; Garbarino and Johnson, 1999; Aydin and Ozer, 2005), but only a few integrate both these aspects in one model (e.g. Anderson and Weitz, 1992; Ganesan and Hess, 1997). Very few look at consequences that are directly related to marketing success, such as the purchase intention of consumers (e.g. Doney and Cannon, 1997; Kennedy et al., 2001; Sirdeshmukh et al., 2002). Consequently, real consumer behaviour is not fully captured, as consumers are supposedly confronted simultaneously with the decisions both to trust and to act. Moreover, from a managerial point of view, practitioners want to know antecedents and success-related outcomes of trust, in order to make a marketing decision. As these may vary according to the product and context analysed (e.g. Sirdeshmukh et al., 2002), more studies that integrate both perspectives are needed.2. There is wide evidence in the literature that trust develops within a customer relationship (e.g. Dwyer et al., 1987; Gundlach and Murphy, 1993). Therefore, marketing research into trust mainly focuses on analyses in buyer-seller relationships (e.g. Selnes, 1998; Doney and Cannon, 1997; Ganesan, 1994). However, there have scarcely been any studies analysing trust for non-customers, i.e. consumers who buy competing brands or who do not use the product category at all so far. Such an analysis seems relevant from both a managerial and an academic perspective.From a managerial point of view, a key task of marketing managers is to reduce the consumer's uncertainty to encourage them to buy their products (Rabe, 2005). In general, trust is an effective means of reducing a consumer's uncertainty (Morgan and Hunt, 1994). It follows that trust may have a positive influence for all consumers. As companies want not only to keep current customers but also to gain new customers, we need to analyse whether the development of consumer trust is a marketing strategy that goes beyond relationship-management.From an academic perspective, a systematic comparison of trust between existing customers on the one hand and those buying from a competitor or not at all on the other, may lead trust research in marketing in a new direction that is not focused solely on buyer-seller relationships but which instead broadens the perspective. This has particular interest in the case of consumer mass markets where communication is in general one-sided and trust in the supplier is mainly built through (corporate) branding.Against this background, the following research has two objectives:1. a comprehensive framework that incorporates both the antecedents of trust and its outcomes in relation to marketing success is developed and tested empirically; and2. the issue of whether there are differences in the development and consequences of trust among existing customers as opposed to consumers who either do not buy the product at all or who buy it from a competitor.These research issues will be addressed in an empirical study. This paper is designed as follows. The article begins with a definition of trust and a conceptual framework that incorporates both antecedents and consequences of the phenomenon; then, hypotheses and a structural model are proposed, followed by a description of the research methodology and the presentation of the results; finally, the paper discusses the research and managerial issues arising from the results. The article concludes with implications for future research.\nConceptual framework: Definition of trust\nMethod: Measurement\nTesting the hypotheses: To test the hypothesised relationships in the model outlined in Figure 1, a structural equation model was estimated with LISREL VIII, using maximum likelihood method (for the procedure in general, see Hair et al., 2004). The overall fit measures suggest that the data provide a good fit for the hypothesised causal model (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988; Baumgartner and Homburg, 1996). The goodness-of-fit index (GFI=0.93), adjusted goodness-of-fit index (AGFI=0.90), root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA=0.055), standardised root mean square residual (SRMR=0.061) and comparative fit index (CFI=0.98) are within the acceptable range. Therefore, the model exhibits a reasonable fit to the data.Turning to the causal relationships themselves, the empirical findings suggest that the hypotheses framed out are corroborated by the data.H1 suggests a positive relationship between credibility and trust in a corporate brand. This link is supported by the data (g1=0.30, t=4.95). In the same way, competence of a supplier has an impact on the trust in a supplier (H2: g2=0.69, t=7.71). However, it seems to be much more influential than credibility. The squared multiple correlation of trust (SMC=0.72) indicates significant explanatory power of the two antecedents.H3-H5 examine the marketing-related consequences of trust in a supplier. In the same way as proposed in H3, trust has a significant and positive effect on the purchase intention of an existing service (g3=0.30, t=4.58). This result indicates that trust is in fact a major antecedent of customer loyalty. However, it has to be kept in mind that the SMC (0.09) of the construct is quite low indicating that there are other factors influencing current purchase intentions.The hypothesised positive effect of trust on the purchase intention of a new service (H4) is also confirmed as can be seen from a standardised coefficient of g4=0.12 (t=2.21; SMC=0.39). As proposed in H5, trust positively and significantly affects the WOM behaviour of consumers (g5=0.13, t=3.15; SMC=0.82). Together, the results for these hypotheses support the positive effects of trust on marketing success. However, the influence on trust seems to be lower for the purchase intention for new services and the WOM behaviour than it is for the purchase intention for existing services.The results also yield major influences within the success variables themselves. As hypothesised in H6, the intention to buy an existing service has a major impact on the decision to buy a new service provided by the same company (g6=0.58, t=10.62). H7 examines whether the purchase intention of an existing service influences the word-of-mouth-behaviour of consumers. Support for this hypothesis is in evidence (g7=0.80, t=9.15). Although weak, the intention to buy a new service from the same supplier has a significant effect on the WOM behaviour (H8: g8=0.09, t=1.94).Having analysed the relationships between the consequences of trust that are directly related to marketing success, the total effects of trust on these constructs can be calculated. As mentioned above, trust has a total effect of gTE1=0.30 on the purchase intention for an existing service. However, referring to the WOM behaviour and the intention to buy a new service, trust has a total effect of respectively gTE2=0.40 and gTE3=0.29. In summary, as Table II shows, trust has a considerable impact on all of the marketing-relevant target variables analysed in the study.A multiple group structural equation model (Joreskog and Sorbom, 1996; Bollen, 1989) was estimated to compare the subsamples of current customers and non-customers. For this purpose, first a model was estimated where all parameters were made to be equal across both subsamples (restricted model). Then a model was estimated where all parameters were made equal except for a specific one (general model). This was done for all nine relationship parameters. To evaluate the significance of the influence of the moderator variable, the kh2 statistic was used. As the two models are nested models, the kh2 value will always be lower for the restricted model than for the general model. However, the important question is whether the improvement in kh2, when moving from the restricted to the general model, is significant.From Table III we see that there are significant differences for six of the nine relationships analysed. In detail, credibility does have a much stronger influence on trust for customers than for non-customers. Turning to the consequences of trust, the results indicate that trust in general does have a greater impact on the behavioural intentions of customers. The impact of trust on the current purchase intention is very strong compared to non-customers. This strong relationship indicates that trust is in fact an important factor in customer relationships. Nevertheless, the results also indicate that trust has a positive effect on the behavioural intentions of customers from other providers.In terms of purchasing innovations and of recommending the provider to other customers, trust in fact has no significant influence for non-customers. Conversely, for existing customers trust seems to be an important factor. Finally, there is a difference according to the strength of relationship between the purchase intention of current services and the WOM behaviour in general. Not surprisingly, this relationship is much stronger for customers.\nDiscussion: Research issues\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The paper aims to present a comprehensive framework for understanding consumer trust in a corporate brand, incorporating both the antecedents and consequences of trust. The paper also seeks to account explicitly for the differences in antecedents and consequences of trust found among customers and among non-customers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were obtained from 308 face-to-face interviews conducted in Germany. Structural equation modelling was used in order to test the proposed hypotheses.\nFindings: - The results indicate that competence and credibility have a high explanatory power as antecedents of trust. Trust has a considerable impact on supplier selection for existing and new products, as well as on the word-of-mouth (WOM) behaviour of consumers. There are strong differences between customers and non-customers in terms of the antecedents and consequences of trust in a corporate brand.\nResearch limitations/implications: - In order to generalise the findings, the model needs to be tested with other samples and research objects. Marketing research into trust should focus on competence and credibility as important antecedents of trust. The findings propose that trust has positive effects on purchase intention and WOM behaviour. Marketing research should pay more attention to the role of trust in gaining new customers.\nPractical implications: - Because of the positive influence on marketing success, managers should focus on trust-building activities that centre on competence and credibility primarily with current customers. However, trust also seems to be a good device to gain customers from competitors.\nOriginality/value: - The contributions of the paper are, firstly, a more complete framework of trust that analyses both antecedents and consequences of trust simultaneously. Secondly, the study allows a direct comparison of the difference in antecedents and consequences of trust between customers on the one hand and non-customers on the other.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Online customer engagement: Creating social environments through brand community constellations	[ "Participation", "Social identity", "Brand community", "Customer brand-relationship", "Personal identification", "Social environment" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Societies and economies have changed dramatically since the early twentieth century, and the concept of community has changed accordingly. With the introduction of interactive digital media, consumption communities came into existence, in which customers base their social identities on their consumptive role. In a broad sense, customers relate their identity to the brands they consume or use (Hwang and Kandampully, 2012), and in turn, providers can be positioned in terms of their brand identity and the appeal of their corresponding brand communities (McAlexander et al., 2002). The internet provides a platform for rapid developments in both business-to-consumer and consumer-to-consumer interactions across consumption communities (Wirtz et al., 2013), and rapid advances in associated technology have led to the emergence of new, global brand communities, with or without the brand owners' involvement. According to Manchanda et al. (2011), approximately 50 of the top 100 global brands have established customer-centered social networks, with the assumption that consumers who join their online community will become more engaged, which should improve the economic outcomes for those firms. According to Forrester Research, European marketers are expected to increase their spending on digital customer-centered social networks, from 1.4 billion in 2012 to 3.2 billion in 2017, for a 17.6 percent compound annual growth rate (Forrester Research, 2013). In an empirical study, Ang (2011) highlights the positive outcomes derived from brand communities: brand community members are 65 percent more likely to purchase a product than non-community members, and Facebook users are 30 percent more likely to view an advertisement that has been linked or commented on by their Facebook peers. In turn, businesses and researchers require considerable knowledge, insights, and expertise in this area (Gabrielli and Baghi, 2014; Heere et al., 2011).\nLiterature review and hypotheses development: In marketing thought, the brand performs two main functions, utilitarian and symbolic. With its utilitarian function, the brand reassures consumers about the performance of the focal product or serivce. Through its symbolic function, the brand connects with consumers and allows them to express their self-concepts, identity, and associations with both the brand and linked groups of people (Keller, 1993, 2009). Branding literature also suggests that chosen brands represent attributes that serve to define, retrieve, and assign meaning to a certain social role. Thus consumers do not try to be associated with a single brand but rather seek associations with brands in consumption constellations (Englis and Solomon, 1996). According to symbolic consumption theory, each consumer has at least three social roles - aspirational, avoidance, and occupied - that drive the structure of her or his consumption constellation. Brand constellations represent collections of complementary products, brands, consumption activities, and other image-rich descriptions that consumers use to construct, signify, or perform a social role, including but not limited to personality traits, demographics, and psychographic descriptions (Lowrey et al., 2001). Consumer behavior literature similarly notes the importance of self-concept as a key determinant of individual behavior (Rosenberg, 1979; Tian and Belk, 2005). A self-concept refers to the thoughts and beliefs that a person has when referring to him-or herself (Rosenberg, 1979). This construct also comprises three levels: actual self, ideal self, and social self. This multidimensionality arguably offers another way to structure brand constellations, in accordance with the self-concept level that the consumer prefers to emphasize in a particular context. Finally, sociology and psychology literature highlight similar concepts and frameworks to explain individual behaviors. For example, the ego identity, derived from social relations, roles, and memberships, defines who one is and can explain how individuals behave in society in general based on their need for identity signaling, activation or salience (Oyserman et al., 2012; see also Berger and Heath, 2007; Forehand et al., 2011). Sociologists also differentiate between the self-identity and social identities, because a person can have only one self-identity but several social identities (Stets and Burke, 2000). Social identities categorize the self into more inclusive social units, in line with the notion that a person can identify with various and multiple groups simultaneously. We summarize prior literature related to community constellations in Table I.\nHypotheses development: We predict two key factors help explain customers' participation in brand communities: personal/emotional (Algesheimer et al., 2005; Bagozzi and Dholakia, 2006; Casalo et al., 2007) and technical (Dholakia et al., 2009). The frequency with which people engage in shared activities in a brand community (Bagozzi and Dholakia, 2006) reflects the characteristics of the other members of those communities. Social identification is a primary driver of community participation (Bagozzi and Dholakia, 2006), such that it helps refine their shared consciousness (Muniz and O'Guinn, 2001) and enables self-categorization for community members, mediated by social intentions (Bagozzi and Dholakia, 2006). Brand community members engage with the community by helping others, participating in proposed activities, and behaving altruistically (Algesheimer et al., 2005). Casalo et al. (2007) suggest four personal aspects that influence individual participation in online brand communities: propensity to trust, satisfaction with previous experiences, familiarity with the community, and communication level in the virtual community.\nMethod: Sample and measurements\nFindings: Measurement analysis: reliability and validity\nDiscussion: The objectives of this study were twofold. First, we sought to determine the conditions in which people create their social environment, by investigating the drivers of their connections to a focal online brand community and to additional brand communities. Second, we aimed to learn more about the composition of multi-community networks, or what we define as the social environment, by focussing on the density and centrality of the brand communities to which our respondents are connected. The study data indicated that customer-community identification is a key driver of membership in a core brand community (Algesheimer et al., 2005; Casalo et al., 2007). We also found that social influence and participation in the core brand community played central roles, with regard to connections with other brand communities. These results emphasize the social motives of membership in the core brand community and a perception of brand communities as the fabric of relationships (McAlexander et al., 2002). Community-related attitudes and behaviors - namely, community trust and commitment - cannot predict proactive behaviors, such as recommendations of the brand or connections to other related communities. Active participation seems to have strong effects on both single-and multiple-community connections.\nContributions and implications: The results of this study provide several clear and significant contributions to the theoretical understanding of brand communities. First, we detail online brand community members' motivation to participate in a focal brand community and empirically examine the importance of the identification factor for active participation, trust, and commitment to a focal brand community. Second, this research adds insights into the creation of a social environment within constellations of communities (i.e. multitude of online brand communities). Limited prior research has investigated the social environment and its mechanisms in brand communities. Therefore, this study contributes to the present body of knowledge and highlights the importance of facilitating customer networks as brand communities, as well as nurturing their relationships with the firm.\nLimitations and further research: This empirical investigation, similar to any other study, has some limitations. This study was based on a few brand communities in Belgium, France, and USA, and we obtained responses from selected members in each brand community. The results therefore may have limited generalizability. Although the social identity concept contributes to explaining members' behaviors within the community, firms should consider both common identity and bond identity. The distinction between these two forms of identity may reveal clearer effects on members' behaviors, beyond community boundaries. This extension also can provide detailed information about why different people join multiple online brand communities. Such information is critical for managers, to ensure that brand community members receive multiple benefits and feel motivated to remain engaged with the community, with strong brand loyalty. Gaining greater understanding of the drivers and motivations of customers to associate with multiple communities, in so-called constellations, represents valuable information for firms: it can help them establish firm-to-firm relationships. Satisfying customers through multiple communities may encourage members to stay with the community longer.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The emergence and success of online brand communities in the marketplace have attracted considerable interest; this study seeks to determine the conditions in which people create social environments by investigating the drivers of connections to a focal online brand community and other brand communities. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the composition of multi-community networks, focussing on the density and centrality of brand communities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: On the basis of insights from prior literature, the proposed model examines customers' social relationships with multiple brand communities. A survey of 290 participants spans eight brand communities. The modeling process used structural equation modeling; the analysis of the social relationship among brand communities relied on an ego network approach.\nFindings: Two drivers prompt connections to other online brand communities. First, personal identification with a core brand community enhances connections to other communities. Second, some core brand members choose a functionality-driven approach in creating social environments.\nPractical implications: For marketers, this study highlights the importance of positioning the brand community as part of a social environment. To strengthen customer-brand relationships, marketers should focus on community members' multiple memberships.\nOriginality/value: This paper extends understanding of online brand community members' motivations to participate in a focal brand community. It also explains the creation of a social environment, through a careful consideration of participation in different brand communities and their relationships.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Design of a multimedia traffic classifier for Snort	[ "Data security", "Signal detection", "Computer networks" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Intrusion detection systems (IDS) have become valuable tools for ensuring system and network security. IDS scan ongoing traffic in search of patterns and signatures that might indicate malicious or unauthorized activity (Kemmerer and Vigna, 2002; Bace, 2000). One of the issues currently facing network-based IDS is the high computational cost of doing real-time analysis when a large amount of traffic is passing through a connection. In such cases, IDS usually have no choice but to skip packets (Bace, 2000). The increase in multimedia traffic over communication networks, whether in the form of downloading or streaming large audio and video files, or due to the convergence of voice, data and video over IP, seems to compound the problem even further. We believe that the increase in multimedia traffic may actually help alleviate the problem, if the IDS is aware of the main protocols and file formats used to carry multimedia data and uses that knowledge to focus its efforts on other types of traffic.This paper focuses on the implementation aspects of a novel method to improve the performance of IDS based on multimedia traffic classification (Baillargeon, 2005), initially described in (Marques and Baillargeon, 2005). Under the proposed approach, the IDS has additional knowledge about common multimedia file formats and related protocols, and uses this knowledge to perform a more detailed analysis of packets carrying that type of data. If the data complies with the standard format, the corresponding stream is flagged as trusted and the remaining packets are ignored by the IDS, which can now focus on other traffic, therefore resulting in computational savings. Otherwise, an anomaly is detected and reported for further action by the system administrator.The proposed method has been motivated by the following:* The amount and usage of multimedia contents has grown significantly in recent years and will continue to increase as broadband internet access among home users and mobile computing technologies become mainstream.* Multimedia traffic accounts for a significant percentage of the total internet traffic, both in terms of streaming and downloading (Guo et al., 2005; van der Merwe et al., 2002).* Multimedia traffic is usually perceived as benign, with relatively few reports of multimedia-related security exploits so far (see Section 5). As multimedia formats and algorithms become more complex, however, there is a greater chance that their implementation may leave some security hole behind.* Increasing network bandwidth capacities create a greater workload for IDS, which can become saturated and unable to perform its duties (Bace, 2000).\n2 Adding multimedia knowledge to IDS: Intrusion Detection Systems are software or hardware systems that automate the process of monitoring the events occurring in a computer system or network, analyzing them for signs of security problems (Bace and Mell, 2001).With the increase in the amount and severity of network-based attacks over the past few years, IDS have become an important and widely used additional tool in the network security infrastructure of many organizations. Several tutorials, surveys and taxonomies for IDS have been published recently, such as (Axelsson, 2000; Sherif and Dearmond, 2002; McHugh, 2001).The most important features of IDS are the ability to detect as many intrusions as possible and to do so with a low rate of false alerts. While IDS reduce the likelihood of an intrusion they cannot eliminate or prevent it entirely (Sequeira, 2003). In fact, as pointed out by Kemmerer and Vigna (2002), \"IDS do not detect intrusions at all - they only identify evidence of intrusions, either while they're in progress or after the fact.\"Network traffic which contains multimedia content is not generally considered to be an issue which impacts the performance or detection rate of IDS any differently than any other type of content. During the exhaustive process of comparing hundreds or thousands of rules against the contents of a packet, IDS typically do not apply any rules that represent multimedia-specific knowledge.Currently, IDS are capable of blocking multimedia content based on port number (in the case of streaming audio/video), string matching of content type (e.g. content: \"User-Agent 3,4 Quicktime\") and file extension. None of these techniques verify the validity of the content; they simply assume that if data appears to be (from external identifiers, such as MIME) multimedia, then it is.This scenario may soon change as a result of new, multimedia-specific, exploits that have recently surfaced. When the PNG exploit was first discovered, it was noted that existing IDS were not capable of detecting vulnerable files because they did not have sufficient knowledge of the transfer protocols or file formats which were being transmitted (CoreLabs, 2005). Exploits have also been observed with streaming formats, where incomplete protocol implementations can leave a system vulnerable to attack (US-CERT, 2005).The work reported in this paper uses additional header information to classify multimedia, examining the contents of an incoming data stream and looking for known multimedia characteristics, such as JPEG or MPEG markers. It leverages Snort's architecture by encapsulating the multimedia-specific knowledge into a preprocessor for Snort.\n3 Snort: Snort (Snort, 2005) is a flexible, open-source, multi-platform intrusion detection solution. Snort was chosen as the base utility upon which a multimedia classifier was built. Snort's ability to easily add preprocessing functionality and its open source platform were the primary factors behind its choice.Snort's \"plug-in\" functionality for preprocessor modules, which are written in C, can add functionality past the base ruleset to include things like anomaly detection and session reconstruction (Beale, 2004). Any preprocessor in Snort can be turned on or off simply by adding a line to a configuration file for the program.Snort works by matching traffic patterns to its rules, stored in a ruleset. The process of intrusion detection within Snort begins with the capture of packets from an ethernet port with a tool such as Ethereal (2005). The captured packets are sent through the packet decoder, which determines which protocol is in use for a given packet and matches the data against allowable behavior for patterns of that protocol. Then the packet is processed by a series of preprocessors which receive packets in the order which they are initialized in the Snort configuration file. After the packet has gone through all of the preprocessors in sequence, it is given to the detection engine for comparison against the ruleset. If any anomaly (e.g. malformed headers, overly long packets, and unusual or incorrect TCP options) is detected, an alert is generated (Figure 1).\n4 The multimedia traffic classifier: 4.1 Design\n5 Multimedia-specific exploits: Multimedia exploits are relatively rare, given the number of overall vulnerabilities which have been released for all file types. However, in recent years the number of these exploits has increased and may continue to increase as more multimedia formats continue to be introduced and software utilities for multimedia continues to be released (Microsoft, 2004, 2005a,b; Mozilla Foundation, 2005).The proposed multimedia classifier makes decisions after having examined only relevant bytes within the files' headers. There are three main reasons for this:1. The computational overhead introduced by the multimedia preprocessor is kept to a minimum.2. All relevant multimedia-specific exploits described later in this Section can be successfully detected within the header bytes.3. The damage that would be caused by one or more modified bytes past the header is most often very limited and potentially noticeable by the end-user, as shown by Figure 6, which shows the possible effects of a JPEG file in which the contents (beyond the header bytes) have been modified.Moreover, inspecting multimedia transfers for malicious content manipulation is outside the scope of intrusion detection and is best dealt with using digital watermarking and other authentication techniques.The following subsections will describe a few multimedia specific exploits in greater detail.5.1 JPEG\n6 Experiments and results: Our approach was tested by monitoring FTP transfers of multimedia and non-multimedia files using Snort. Experiments were performed on many platforms to ensure interoperability and flexibility for future work. All experiments had the same common goal: to measure processor usage and evaluate the impact of adding the proposed specialized preprocessor on the overall performance of the IDS. Statistics and measurements were reported by Snort when the program was terminated.6.1 Downloading\n7 Conclusions: We have described the design and operation of a Snort preprocessor that adds specialized multimedia knowledge to the IDS packet analysis capabilities. The fundamental idea behind the proposed method is that the addition of multimedia-specific knowledge can greatly improve the efficiency of IDS, both in terms of detection rate and resource utilization. Empowering the IDS with multimedia-specific knowledge results in two significant gains:1. Trusted multimedia contents can be identified and allowed to bypass the detection engine, thereby allowing the IDS to focus on other traffic.2. The IDS is able to detect multimedia-specific exploits which would otherwise go unnoticed.Although the addition of multimedia knowledge will likely increase the overall effectiveness of IDS, there is a tradeoff between the extra CPU time needed to perform additional analysis on multimedia traffic and the CPU savings that ensue as a resulting of exempting subsequent packets belonging to the same, trusted, and multimedia stream. Fine-tuning of the system to find the proper balance of analysis is required and has to be done empirically.The proposed solution has been tested with several combinations of multimedia and non-multimedia traffic, both downloading and streaming. Results of our experiments confirm that significant processing savings can be obtained, given that there is minimally a small amount of multimedia traffic on a network.The proposed framework is modular and extensible, allowing a broad coverage of different file formats and streaming protocols as well as an adjustable degree of specialized knowledge upon which the IDS decision is made. Even though multimedia-specific attacks and exploits are still relatively rare, the proposed solution allows for easy encoding of rules that help detection and prevention against reported attacks as soon as they become known, equipping it with a \"future proofing\" capability.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose is to enhance the capabilities of a general-purpose IDS solution with additional knowledge of multimedia file formats and protocols, to better handle multimedia-specific security exploits.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The authors have designed a multimedia traffic classifier, implemented as an optional preprocessor for Snort. The solution has been successfully tested with downloading and streaming traffic.\nFindings: - Test results confirm that the additional specialized knowledge encoded in the preprocessor results in two significant gains: trusted multimedia contents can be identified and allowed to bypass the detection engine, with substantial computational savings; the IDS is now able to detect multimedia-specific exploits which would otherwise go unnoticed.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Not all multimedia-related scenarios have been covered by the described implementation yet. The proposed solution is being extended to other file types and protocols, fine-tuned, as well as tested more extensively.\nPractical implications: - Snort users interested in this work will be able to add the multimedia-specific functionality - and enjoy the resulting benefits - with minimal effort.\nOriginality/value: - The research reported in this paper is - to the authors' knowledge - the first effort to add multimedia-specific knowledge to the operation of an IDS. In addition to being innovative, the proposed method is relevant for more than one reason, since it enhances the IDS capabilities while at the same time alleviating the computational cost of performing detailed traffic analysis in high-speed networks.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Effects of quality claims on willingness to pay for organic food: Evidence from experimental auctions in Croatia	[ "Croatia", "Experimental auctions", "Credence attributes", "Claims", "Organic labelling" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Worldwide, the amount of land devoted to organic production increased from 11 million hectares in 1999 to 37.2 million hectares in 2012 (International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movement (IFOAM), 2013). In the new EU member Croatia (member state of the EU since July 2013) certified organic food production is substantially lower than in higher income EU countries, even though Croatia implemented all EU regulations concerning organic food production and labeling, including a national label for organic food products. Certified organic farming area in Croatia currently is only 32.036 hectares (2.46 percent of total agriculture land), with 890 producers involved (IFOAM, 2013).\nData and methodology: For estimating the WTP for organic food products under different claims and to avoid hypothetical bias we used a non-hypothetical experimental auction called BDM (Becker-DeGroot-Marschak) mechanism. The BDM mechanism is incentive compatible: a rational participant has an economic incentive to truthfully reveal the maximal WTP. Participants bid for real food products (in our case organic and conventional tomatoes and apples) in several bidding rounds and are endowed with real cash (each participant of the auction was endowed with an amount of EUR5.00 for participating in the auction) at a location where they usually go shopping.\nData collection and sample: The BDM mechanism was explained to participants and then practiced in a test BDM mechanism for chewing gums with three bidding rounds. After the test BDM mechanism for chewing gums, we conducted the BDM mechanisms with organic and conventional apples and tomatoes again in three bidding rounds. Before the start of the auction participants have had a chance to see and touch the offered products in opened packaging. See Table I for a summary of the BDM mechanism procedure details. In the first round we showed the participants four products (organic and conventional apples and tomatoes) without telling them which products are organic and asked participants to place their bids. Tomatoes as well as apples were in the same packaging of 1 kg. In the second round we showed participants, which of the four are the organic apples and tomatoes, and asked them to place their bids again. In the third round we read one out of three claims about organic food products to the participants: about the environmental benefits, taste or health of organically produced food (see Table I for translated statements). After the third bidding round we randomly draw a price (jar contains 52 tickets marked with prices ranging from EUR0.00 to EUR5.00 in EUR0.10 cents increments) and if the participant's offered bid was equal or higher than the randomly drawn price, for the randomly drawn product and binding round, the bidder purchased the offered product (apples or tomatoes) at a price equal to the randomly drawn price. The participant had to purchase the product if his/her offered bid was equal or higher than randomly drawn price. If the participants offered bid was above the randomly drawn price he missed the opportunity to purchase the offered product. After the BDM mechanism, participants answered the questionnaire to collect some socio-economic background information.\nResults: Table II shows the socio-demographic characteristics of respondents. The average age of respondents in the survey was 36. The high share of students among our respondents explains the low average age. The percentage of woman and men in this survey are almost equal, with 51.2 percent being woman. Almost half of the participants (49.2 percent) in this survey had a University degree, 42.6 percent finished with high school and 4.6 percent finished with elementary school. The majority of households (45.7 percent) had an income above EUR15,000 per year, 30.2 percent had an income between EUR10,000 and EUR15,000 and only 15.8 percent below EUR10,000. The sample can be characterized as young, well-educated and with high income. This is the typical consumer group of organic products. The sample is not representative for the whole population, though.\nDiscussion and conclusion: In our survey we have conducted a BDM mechanism in four typical Croatian shopping environments to reveal the influence of claims on consumers' preferences for organic apples and tomatoes. Participants in our survey were younger, had a higher income and were better educated than the average Croatian consumer. While not representative, this is the typical target group for organic food. We found that the large majority of respondents (96.4 percent) knew organic food and 35.2 percent of respondents are buying organic food once a week, while 18.6 percent are buying organic food every day. Our sample of the population can therefore be seen as active participants in the organic food market.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Claims about environmental impact, health effects and taste of food products are restricted in the EU. The purpose of this paper is to quantify how much such claims would change the willingness to pay (WTP) for organic products in Croatia.\nDesign/methodology/approach: For estimating the WTP under different claims the authors used an experimental auction. Participants (258) bid for real food products (organic and conventional tomatoes and apples) and are endowed with cash at a location where they usually go shopping.\nFindings: For the sample the authors find that consumers are willing to pay on average a premium of 42 percent for organic apples and 59 percent for organic tomatoes. On top of that, WTP increases between 16-20 percent for environmental claims and 12 percent for health claims. Taste-related claims are not significant.\nPractical implications: Sellers and producers of organic food can benefit from adding claims to organic labels. To protect consumers from manipulation, regulators are well advised to be cautions when allowing claims about credence attributes of food.\nOriginality/value: The authors quantify the influence of claims about organic products on the WTP by using experimental auctions which are particularly suitable to investigate effects which cannot be observed on the market.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The potential of the frontline manager	[ "Team working", "Organizational performance", "Productivity rate", "Waste" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nThe rationale: Tomorrow is marked with uncertainty in most businesses. The economic situation is volatile, trading patterns are in frequent change, and the workforce shows little sign of stability.With these things in mind, when one looks at any organisation today there is often a feeling of impermanence. Things cannot now be taken for granted and a quest for early gratification seems to receive a higher priority than the fruits of longer planning.Therefore it is not unexpected that people tend to cling to what they know - the status quo - and to stay with things as they are. In that setting, traditional roles remain in place despite happenings on the wider front.A case is made here to suggest that the role of the frontline manager is pivotal if one is seeking to cope effectively and profitably with the demands of tomorrow.\nIntroductory: When the designation became \"frontline manager\" it signalled a significant change from the historically embedded \"supervisor\", which lacked substance, to a position of membership in the management team, but in many cases little has changed and the wider vision has yet to emerge.Every organisation has them - the first level in charge positions. Their titles are many - charge hand, gang boss, section head, foreman/woman, team leader, first-line manager, frontline manager, and others more directly related to particular lines of work.They're the ones who keep things moving and getting things done. Without them jobs would not be completed and customer/client relationships might be more distant.But one still tends to see the position more as a maintainer of the work processes, perhaps not realising that this is the pivot point on which each organisation depends for achieving its objectives. Serious breakdown here can be costly in many ways - or, alternatively, the position holds the potential for very positive outcomes which can influence organisational productivity. Yet this seldom seems to surface, and training programmes are largely unchanged.\nThe changing scene: Their core responsibility is the supervision and control of the workflow input and output and the related functions at that level, but recent events have created new situations, the effects of which are still unpredictable. One has only to consider the impacts of new and changing economic crises, of globalisation, of political uncertainties, and nearer home of changing social conditions. Loyalty is yesterday's word and many tend to see each appointment as a stepping stone until something better comes along. Organisational planning is more short-term and serious uncertainty is common. And the recognition of the effects of an ageing workforce raises the likelihood of later retirement policies.The staffing intake of one large organisation illustrates the changing scene - they recruited, across a wide spectrum:people of other cultures, perhaps not yet fully integrated;Generation Y - young, impatient, qualified (partly or wholly), self-centred and already looking for opportunity elsewhere;older people seeking job security because they are not prepared for long retirement;school leavers, still looking, some studying;part-timers or temporaries;the drifting population; andthe passive \"just give me a job and tell me what to do\".From such root-stock the frontline manager is urged to build cohesive teams?So, what could be expected from the frontline manager today? Although it will quickly be apparent that although many of these responsibilities are implied by the \"in-charge\" nature of the position, it will be obvious that some have not been spelt out to the individuals concerned. And where jobs have not been defined there can be no accountability.\nThe identification of the role: The frontline manager is, by definition:a member of the management team, and should be appropriately aware of the organisational activities and the part played by that unit;in charge/leader of a group of people employed to meet and maintain specific work objectives;responsible for what these people do and for the direct effects of their activities;concerned with the environment in which this happens and with the importance of maintaining good public relations with all who are associated with this work;appropriately responsible in this environment for seeking improvement and benefit in the work process, removing all hazards and risks to safety, seeking improvements and conditions which would create better value at less cost (and encouraging everyone to focus constantly on this, and to recognise that input), keeping everyone appropriately informed, continuous liaison with other related frontline and other managers;(an expected addition) as new incidents and opportunities arise it seems inevitable that frontline managers will increasingly be invited or seconded to take their part in aspects of project management; and(to add the usual protective clause) for such other duties that from time to time may be required.But that's not all. These define the daily priorities. There are wider responsibilities in being part of the management team.As a member of management there are three related roles to be met and maintained (see Figure 1) - and these three roles are concurrent and essential.The in-charge role\nStimulate to innovate: To gain this input and involvement the approach must be on their wavelength and relevant to their experience. People invariably talk about their work and the workplace - they feel an ownership of it, and they will usually respond willingly and co-operatively when asked as a group a question such as: \"What could be done to make your jobs easier and the unit more effective?\".They know, better than anyone, the detail of the workflow and its apparent imperfections - they're being asked for their ideas, and they will reply positively for it is to their own benefit - and savings will be made. (When the initiative is passed to the group and recommendations are sought a natural team soon emerges - a leader is accepted and others fill the roles in which they feel comfortable, and this informal team acts without inhibition.)If a suggestions scheme is in place, a proposal which will generate significant savings may qualify for an award - based perhaps on a percentage of net savings in the first year following implementation.Another approach might be: \"You know the detail of your jobs and associated processes. If you personally were asked to meet from your pocket all the expenditure incurred in that job, how might things then be done differently, cheaper and better (and time and space cost money)?\". Significant changes might be expected.That's the first and perhaps the most effective way of increasing productivity - through the willing co-operation and input from those who actually do the work. No doubt the gains and the benefits will be substantial.But this was geared specifically to people and their own jobs while at the same time practices and procedures are in place as a critical part of the workflow on a wider front. And where there is a workflow system, there will invariably be waste. Waste has been defined as \"any activity, human or otherwise, which uses or absorbs resources but creates no value\". And waste, like rust, will ultimately destroy.Organisations internationally which have ruthlessly applied this analysis to all their activities and inactivities (e.g. storage), using a how, which, why, when, what, where and who critique, are reporting savings totalling many thousands of dollars.Measurement is an essential component of management and as more processes are put under this spotlight the savings mount. And frontline managers have a leading part to play.\nBut - what about leadership here?: This must be implicit throughout. The frontline manager has conferred authority to perform assigned tasks but will fail if authority is the driver for the position. Where work depends on the input of individual effort willingness to contribute ensures continuity, and command, except in emergency, is not accepted.Followership is the outcome of leadership, and is voluntary. It cannot be mandated and may be defined as a response to influence and arises from an understanding both of people and the situation.Leadership is situational. It emerges as the response to a need and is a rallying call to stimulate others to join and co-operate in action to meet the objective revealed. This perception will generate and sustain commitment, provided that the leader presents a significant challenge of a practical outcome which will fuel enthusiasm.Change and emergency situations are inevitable and the leader must anticipate their likelihood and take action to ensure that mainstream processes are protected and that staff are suitably prepared.It should also be noted that the quality and the capacity for leadership is not reserved for those who hold positions of conferred authority. In an emergency talent to show leadership can emerge quite unexpectedly, and discerning organisations should be alert to identify and grasp this talent and to foster it.Yesterday's organisation chart with its control and command downward emphasis may have been appropriate for its time - the circular wheel design of today shows quite clearly the inclusion of the whole and denotes unity and purpose.\nA pause to reflect: These may seem to be radical proposals which might cause disruption if suddenly introduced into the workplace - but it must be recognised that, based on the experience of organisations which have gone down this path, there is opportunity here to gain much from a critical review of all operational processes with scrutiny by those closest to them and who already may see some defects in them.A trial project with one or two frontline managers able to think outside the square should demonstrate the potential benefits. And market pressures are unrelenting. Focus on the realities.It goes without saying that the principles discussed here apply equally to both the private and public sectors for the high costs of undetected waste are continuing in both - for in neither, with very few exceptions, is there regularly any designated accountability for the accumulating costs of waste.\nA postscript: This article was shown to several frontline managers. Some comments were as follows:I had never seen this concept of my job - it has certainly given me new horizons to explore.I gave my team one of those two questions and was quite amazed at the realistic ideas they produced - we're still working on them.And later, from a CEO:... and we've always taken for granted just the supervisory role of the line boss!\nThe missing segment: Proposals for raising organisational productivity are featured in innumerable management books and articles and will have benefited many, but may never have come to the attention of one significant sector of the community - i.e. those who run small businesses.The figures are interesting. In UK, Australia and New Zealand workplaces the greater preponderance (90+ per cent) of firms have less than 20 employees (some 30 per cent of the total workforce) - and no doubt there are similar figures elsewhere.Yet regardless of the size of the business most of the points made here will apply to all - perhaps especially to the main focus - that people in any business are often those who know best not only its weaknesses but also the solutions for resolving them and for adding value.There are many associations of small businesses, and their counterparts - perhaps it is a matter of how to bridge the gap?Yet the thought lingers - who teaches value?\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The paper seeks to create an awareness that by adopting the designation of frontline manager the position should now be demonstrating a more significant contribution from merely supervising work to a wider concern for organisational effectiveness and productivity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper considers ways by which benefit and gains might be achieved by greater voluntary input from the workforce, thereby achieving better cost-cutting results.\nFindings: - The main finding is the realisation of the latent value of natural teams if their involvement is encouraged and recognised.\nOriginality/value: - The latent value of natural teams exists and can be encouraged.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
An exploratory study of negative option marketing: good, bad or ugly?	[ "Financial services", "Banks", "Marketing strategy", "Consumer behaviour", "Customer satisfaction", "United States of America" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Voice on the phone - C.J. Nickle Company would like to thank you for your catalog order today. As a token of our appreciation, we would like to send you, free of charge, Northern Living Magazine.Consumer - Great! I really like Northern Living.Voice on the phone - OK then. You will receive three months of Northern Living, absolutely free. At the end of the three months, we will bill the C. J. Nickle Company credit card you used today for your year's subscription. Or, after three months you can call 1-800-xxx-xxxx and cancel your subscription to Northern Living and keep the three months of issues absolutely free.Welcome to the world of negative option marketing (NOM)! In the past, silence meant no sale, however, under NOM, silence means sale and consumers must act to prevent the sale from taking place (Lamont, 1995). Organizations can legally make a consumer's failure to act an acceptance of the product (Sovern, 1999). Whereas previously a person had to affirmatively indicate that he/she wanted the product or service (positive/affirmative option), today many organizations are using NOM to sell magazines, natural gas, cellular phone service, health club memberships, lawn care contracts, and other goods and services (Sharma, 2001). Proponents of the strategy say that it results in increased retention rates, convenience to customers, and lower costs. On the other hand, detractors of the practice say that it creates customer confusion, is inconvenient, and is unfair (Sharma, 2001).Though there is little publicly-available empirical evidence on the impact negative options have on consumers, what is available clearly shows that it makes a significant positive difference for the firm. For example, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) studied how consumers responded to \"unbundled\" services offered by telephone companies. The FCC found that consumers who had to indicate affirmatively that they wished to purchase the optional maintenance plan subscribed about 44 percent of the time. Consumers who could subscribe by doing nothing - that is, through a negative option -subscribed 80.5 percent of the time - a difference of about 36 percent of the consumers (Phillips, 1993).Similar results have shown up in the cable television industry. In Canada, cable television companies found that when new channels were offered in positive option ways, only 25 percent of customers subscribed, but when made available through negative options, 60 to 70 percent of the subscribers did not reject the offer (Austen, 1995; Walker, 1995). In other words, for many cable customers, the key factor in the purchasing decision was not the cost or content of the programming, but rather whether they have to act. In another context, merchandisers have acknowledged that consumers buy more readily when items are sold through negative options (Clayton, 1991). These few examples illustrate the wide use of NOM.NOM has also been referred to as advance consent marketing, automatic renewals, continuous-service agreements, unsolicited marketing, inertia selling, \"free trial\" offers, or \"book-of-the-month\" type plans.Broadly speaking, a \"negative option\" is any type of sales term or condition that imposes on consumers the obligation of rejecting goods or services that sellers offer for sale. A negative option allows a seller to interpret the failure of a consumer to reject goods or services as the acceptance of a sales offer, when, under traditional contract law, an affirmative response accepting the offer would be necessary (US Federal Trade Commission, 1998).In the past, the term opt-out marketing has also been used as a synonym for NOM. But recently, the term \"opt-out\" has been associated mainly with privacy issues, such as consumers allowing (via acquiescence) their personal and/or financial information to be shared between firms (Hatch, 2005; Sovern, 1999).The current research does not focus on consumer privacy or its loss, rather the loss of consumer choice or control, hence the topic is confined to NOM. A review of the current research on the topic of NOM suggests that there is very little information available, and none from the consumer's perspective, yet many firms appear to be utilizing this strategy. Why? Does the consumer have a positive or negative attitude toward these offers? Does the consumer's satisfaction with the offer influence the attitude toward the organization making the offer?In the following pages we will review the limited literature on NOM. We then apply some theoretical constructs to the process to gain an understanding of the consumer's perspective on NOM. The research uses an experimental survey design in which customers of a bank were exposed to one of four treatments - three negative option treatments and one positive option treatment. The consumers' attitudes toward the offer and the firm making the offer are explored. We conclude the paper with a discussion of the implications for managers regarding the use of negative option strategies. Although strictly exploratory research, to our knowledge this is the first research to examine possible theoretical underpinnings of negative option marketing as well as consumer attitudes toward the negative option offer.\nBackground: Negative option marketing\nResearch overview: One service provider that has the ability to use negative option strategies, and that operates from an existing contractual agreement is a bank. Once a customer agrees to the stipulations of a demand deposit account (checking), banks can make a number of negative option offers. Because of this situation, we chose to research NOM in a banking environment.In researching NOM, we investigated four basic research questions and one practical question.RQ1. What are some consumer perceptions that might impact the consumer's satisfaction with the negative option offer?RQ2. Does the consumer's satisfaction with the negative option offer impact his/her satisfaction with the bank making the offer?RQ3. Does the consumer's satisfaction with the negative option offer impact consumer behaviors such as intentions to purchase?RQ4. Is the impact of satisfaction with the negative option offer mediated by the consumer's desirability to maintain control of the purchase situation?And from a practical point of view: how does purchase intent differ between positive and negative option offers?Model development\nMethod: Operationalizing the model concepts\nResults: Mean index scores were computed for all model concepts. Table I illustrates the means of the variables and the correlation coefficients. Using a one-sample t-test, all means were found to be significantly different from the middle scale value of 2.50, thus indicating respondents were not neutral regarding attitudes toward any of the variables. The lowest mean score was satisfaction with the offer (mean=2.89), while the second highest score was for satisfaction with the bank (mean=3.73).Table II illustrates the means based on the version of the survey. It is interesting to note that only the means for opportunistic behavior were significantly different between the four groups, based on an Anova. The p value for opportunistic behavior was 0.018 (F=4.11). Value (F=0.90, p=0.442), Equity (F=0.77, p=0.511), satisfaction with the offer (F=1.05, p=0.370) and even desirability of control (F=0.43, p=0.733) had means that were statistically equal for the four sample groups.A series of hierarchical regressions were used to test the model. Table III illustrates the six regression equations and their results. The adjusted R2 for each model indicated that all models have good explanatory power. The correlation of variables showed all correlations greater than 0.50, p<0.01. The effect size for the regressions were greater than 0.5. Alpha was set at 0.05. According the Hair et al. (1995), considering effect size, alpha and sample size, the statistical power of the regressions should well exceed the recommended level of 80 percent (Hair et al., 1995, p.11).When the mediator was added (Models 2, 4, and 6) the adjusted R2 does not appear to improve significantly. According to Baron and Kenny (1986), a variable is a mediator if the path between the independent variable and dependent variable, which was found to be significant, is no longer significant when the mediator is added to the equation. This was not the case. An additional test was conducted to determine if there were any indirect mediation effects on the path of the independent variables.Each independent variable was subjected to Sobel's Critical Ratio, which tests the indirect effect of independent variables on the dependent variable by way of the mediator (Sobel, 1982). If the effect of the independent variables differs significantly from zero then indirect mediation is assumed (Preacher and Leonardelli, 2003). Table IV illustrates the results of Sobel's test for the overall sample as well as the positive option and negative option sub-samples. Holding a p value of 0.05, Table IV illustrates that, indeed there is an indirect mediating effect for desirability of control for all paths of independent variables in the overall sample. When sub-samples are analyzed it would appear that desirability of control does not indirectly mediate the path for perceived value or perceived opportunistic behavior for the positive option sub-sample. Whereas, the test statistic indicated that desirability of control indirectly mediates all three independent variables for the negative option sub-sample.There are a number of issues tangential to testing the model. First, does the satisfaction with the offer affect the customer's satisfaction toward the bank making the offer? Recall from Table I that the lowest mean score was Satisfactionoffer, (2.89 on a five-point scale, significantly different from a neutral score of 2.50). Interestingly, one of the highest means was satisfaction with the bank making the offer (Satisfactionbank mean=3.73). A one-way ANOVA with Satisfactionbank as the dependent variable indicated that Satisfactionoffer posted a significant F statistic (3.95, p<0.001). Interestingly, the F statistic changes depending on the sub-sample. For the positive option sub-sample, the F was 0.974 (p=0.479) and for the negative option sub-sample, the F was 3.74 (p=0.000).A second issue concerns the impact of Satisfactionoffer on the customer's intent to purchase the service. A univariate regression, with intent to purchase as the dependent variable and Satisfactionoffer as the independent variable was significant (F=2.79, p<0.01, R2=0.212). The results when based on sub-samples remain significant (positive option: F=2.23, p=0.039; negative option; F=2.17, p=0.014). Therefore, it appears that even though the level of satisfaction with the negative option offer was relatively low, it positively influenced the intent to purchase the service regardless of version.A third issue is the economic impact of the offer for the bank making the offer. Respondents were given four choices:1. very interested in buying the service;2. somewhat interested in buying the service;3. not interested at all in buying the service; and4. don't know if interested or not in buying the service.The scenario involving one month free service followed by debiting the customer's DDA (version 4) had the largest positive response (very interested to somewhat interested in buying the service - 61.5 percent). The other versions varied from 36.6 percent for very to somewhat interested for version 3 (three months free), to 48.9 percent for very to somewhat interested for version 1 (positive option). Although intentions to purchase are not the same as purchase behavior, thus making a financial projection inappropriate, it would appear that the negative option offer with a one month free period yielded a higher percentage of purchase intention than even the positive option offer.\nDiscussion: The current research examines NOM where a purchase is imposed on the consumer unless he/she acts in a timely fashion to prevent the sale. This seems to be a very popular strategy among financial services providers. Despite the frequency of this marketing strategy there has been no research to gain insights on the strategy from the consumer's perspective. The current investigation is the first to examine the effectiveness of the strategy and attempt to apply consumer behavior theory to the strategy.At the beginning of the article, we posed four basic research questions. RQ1 asked what consumer perceptions might impact the consumer's satisfaction with a negative option offer. The data indicated that overall, 72 percent of the variance explained in satisfaction with a negative option offer was attributed to consumer perceptions of value, equity, and opportunistic behaviors with each independent variable posting a significant unstandardized coefficient. RQ2 and RQ3 asked if the consumer's satisfaction with the negative option impacts satisfaction with the organization making the offer and intentions to purchase. The research indicated that satisfaction with the negative option offer significantly impacted satisfaction with the organization making the offer but did not significantly impact satisfaction with the organization making the offer for the positive option offer. Intentions to purchase were significantly impacted by satisfaction with the offer, regardless of the option of the offer. RQ4 addresses the mediating effect of desirability of control on satisfaction with the negative option offer. Additional mediational testing indicated that there was indirect mediation on the paths from independent variables to the dependent variable except for the paths from perceived value and opportunistic behavior for the positive option sub-sample.From a practical perspective, the results demonstrate that one of the negative option offers (one month free ride period) yielded a higher percentage of respondents intending to purchase than a positive option offer. It would appear that a negative option offer may be more effective than a positive option offer. One caveat - the results show that respondents felt there was a significantly higher degree of opportunistic behavior on the part of the bank with the negative option offers than with the positive option offers.Limitations\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this exploratory research is to determine the consumer's perceptions of negative option marketing (NOM) offers regarding the value and equity of the offer and perceived opportunistic behavior inherent in the offer. In addition, the paper seeks to examine how a negative option offer versus a positive option offer influences consumer intentions to acquire a financial service.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Using the customer database of a full-service American bank, a survey was sent to demand deposit account holders. A survey then determined perceptions of the offer, perceptions of the bank making the offer, and intentions to purchase.\nFindings: - Between the negative and positive option scenario sub-samples, there were no differences in perceptions of value or equity, except in perceptions of opportunistic behavior - the negative option offers yielded significantly higher perceptions of opportunistic behavior. Perceptions of value, equity, and satisfaction with the offer were the same across all offers. Satisfaction with the offer significantly influenced satisfaction with the firm making the offer.\nResearch limitations/implications: - A negative option operates in a contractual situation. The current research examined only one contractual situation. For findings to be generalized, the research needs to be replicated in other contractual contexts.\nPractical implications: - Even though the negative option offers were perceived as more opportunistic than the positive option offer, one of the negative option offers yielded a higher intention to purchase than the positive option. Care must be exercised in using NOM to minimize perceptions of opportunistic behavior.\nOriginality/value: - There is limited literature on negative option marketing. No one has studied the customer perceptions of the strategy, in spite of its popularity.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Portrait of a transformational leader: the legacy of Dr Martin Luther King Jr	[ "Leadership", "Transformational leadership", "Organizational change" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Few individuals have made such a significant contribution to the advancement of modern society as Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Born into a family of Baptist ministers in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1929, Martin Luther King also became a Baptist minister and rose to national prominence through the organisation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and as leader of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States from the mid-1950s until his death by assassination in 1968. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1964, his leadership was fundamental to that movement's success in ending the legal segregation of African Americans in the southern states, and other parts, of the United States. Inspired by Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence, King promoted non-violent tactics for social change such as the massive March on Washington in 1963, although he never witnessed his dream of a United States in which all Americans would have racial and economic justice. King's vision of racial justice and love, provided hope and opportunity to African Americans beset by daily hardship and injustice and the impetus to initiate far-reaching social and political change. His ability to transform the struggle for racial equality into a vision with understandable, concrete and actionable goals sustained and empowered the civil rights movement. Furthermore his strong convictions and moral courage in challenging the status quo were matched by a value system of rejecting material trappings and conventional symbols of success.As the founder of a movement of non-violent resistance that challenged the status quo and transformed the lives of Americans in the 1960s, King is widely acknowledged as a leader who initiated social and political change through a vision of racial justice and love. The purpose of this paper is to revisit the remarkable example of transformational leadership that King provided and deconstruct the constituent components of his leadership to arrive at a better understanding of the qualities and characteristics, and effectiveness, of transformational leadership. In doing so, we aim to examine the legacy of King through his continuing influence on writing and thinking on transformational leadership. While King has been widely lauded as a transformational leader, few, if any studies have examined whether King possessed all four characteristics of transformational leadership. From the literature, four characteristics of transformational leadership emerge, namely: idealised influence; inspirational motivation; intellectual stimulation and individualised consideration (Burns, 1978; Zaleznik, 1977; Posner and Kouzes, 1988; Bass, 1990; Seltzer et al., 1989; Keegan and Den Hartog, 2004). We undertake our analysis in reference to archival sources of personal correspondence of, and statements written by, Martin Luther King. The excerpts utilised in this paper were collected by the first author during a visit in early 2004 to the private archives of the King Center for Non-Violent Change in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.The paper begins with a brief overview of the literature on transformational leadership. This is followed by an examination of the identified four characteristics of transformational leadership and the extent to which King exemplified these qualities as indicated by reference to excerpts from personal writings of the civil rights leader. The excerpts drawn primarily from personal correspondence also reveal something of the private side of King which co-existed alongside his high profile public persona. These also need to be read in relation to the quotations from modern business writings which show how King was a transformational leader ahead of his time. The paper concludes with a discussion of how a revisiting and deconstruction of the transformative change initiated by King aids our understanding the characteristics of, and the way we think about, transformational leadership.\nTransformational leadership: a review of the literature: The concept of transformational leadership has altered our notions and understanding of leadership and its effects on individuals and organisations. While in the past, leadership models and research focused upon leader characteristics and behaviours (Keegan and Den Hartog, 2004), such approaches have been displaced by a more subtle dynamic view of social change where leaders are not expected to know every answer and bear full responsibility for problem-solving (Heifetz, 2004). Such views modify our perceptions of modern leaders from authoritarian decision-makers to instrumental facilitators. Indeed, research into transformational leadership shows that this leadership style converts followers into leaders and results in the motivational and moral elevation of both followers and leaders (Burns, 1978; Pawar, 2003).The appeal of transformational leadership lies in the ability of the leader to inspire followers to transcend their own interests and work towards the benefit of all (Nadler and Tushman, 1990). For this reason, Bass (1990) suggests that transformational leadership is closer to the prototype of leadership that people have in mind when they describe their ideal leader. He identifies four characteristics of the transformational leader: \"Inspirational Motivation\", where leaders enthuse followers, build confidence and empower them to face difficult challenges; \"Intellectual Stimulation\", which encourages the challenging of norms and assumptions as well as divergent thinking and development of innovative strategies; \"Individual Consideration\", which identifies and caters for the developmental needs of followers through coaching, mentoring and growth opportunities; \"Idealised Influence\", which encompasses the ethical and moral standing of leaders and engenders both trust and loyalty between leaders and followers.The successful management of change requires transformational leaders to display appropriate behaviours and accomplish certain tasks. Tichy and Devanna (1990) argue that transformational leaders bring about change through a three-stage process: recognising the need for change; creating a new vision and institutionalising change. For his part, Nye (2006) argues that transformation requires leaders to perform several tasks:* correctly intuit the direction and pace of events;* devise appropriate and feasible strategies;* win the support of diverse audiences at home and abroad; and* find the right mix of hard and soft power to implement the policies.In relation to the final task, hard power relates to mobilisation of resources and assets in forcefully trying to bring about change, while soft power involves the creation of alliances, mergers and coalitions to achieve a valued goal.Transformational change is regarded as a frame-breaking process which results in radical changes to the organisation/society (Zhu et al., 2005). Two types of organisational change are apparent from the literature:1. developmental and motivational changes in followers; and2. institutional and organisational change (Pawar, 2003).Through employing developmental processes, transformational leaders empower followers helping them become more autonomous and competent individuals who reach self-actualisation and higher levels of morality in the pursuit of valued outcomes (Popper and Mayseless, 2002; Burns, 1978). Likewise, Schriesheim et al. (2006) argue that transformational leadership is associated with higher levels of subordinate motivation, effort, satisfaction and performance.In terms of institutional and organisational change, Eisenbach et al. (1999) argue that transformational leaders can bring about large scale organisational transformation through creating an organisational system or organisational culture that is neither too rigid nor too chaotic. Tierney (1999) found that the quality of work relations that employees experience through transformational leadership can create a positive psychological climate for organisational change. However, as Pawar (2003) points out, there has been little systematic research on the relationship between organisational level outcomes and transformational leadership.Figure 1 examines the inter-relationship between the characteristics of transformational leaders, the tasks performed and the resulting outcomes.The rest of the paper focuses primarily on the four characteristics of transformational leaders and how Dr Martin Luther King Jr embodied these characteristics. The legacy of Dr King is examined through quotations from modern business leaders and recent research articles.\nCharacteristics of Martin Luther King as a transformational leader: Inspirational motivation\nConclusions: That Dr Martin Luther King was a great leader is without question. The more salient issue revolves around the qualities that King possessed that made him a transformational leader. Such a characterization ascribes a set of personal traits to King: that he enthused followers, built confidence, and empowered them to face difficult challenges; that he encouraged divergent thinking and innovative strategies and solutions; that he catered for the developmental needs of his followers and that he had a high moral standing and engendered trust and loyalty amongst followers.As a transformational leader, King not only inspired legions of followers with his powerful rhetoric, but challenged the status quo and proposed a vision of a better, more inclusive, tolerant future for all citizens. By framing his vision of a \"beloved community\" in the social values and experiences of the people, King provided both hope and meaning to his followers. The importance of inspiring followers and carefully framing messages is clearly understood by modern business leaders. They understand that the message must inspire followers and the delivery of the message must be inspirational. Marx and Frost (1998) recognise the importance of choosing an appropriate media in delivering a message. Consequently, leaders need to be able to deliver big ideas, simply and with passion.Transformational leaders need to demonstrate a capacity to recognise the need for change and devise innovative strategies to enable that change to occur. Through questioning norms and assumptions and encouraging divergent thinking, transformational leaders stimulate increased autonomy and independence amongst followers. Through his speeches, King educated his followers towards the overall vision, but also the challenges and struggles facing them. His self-doubts and internal conflicts served to solidify his decision-making and add weight to the importance of his message.The relationships transformational leaders develop with their followers are critical to successfully bringing about change. By understanding the struggles, needs and capabilities of followers, transformational leaders can develop strategies for progress. To effectively bring about change, leaders need to be representative and there should be social proximity between leaders and followers. For his part, King's closeness to local communities and institutions provided him with a unique insight into the experiences of local people which enabled him to develop a macro picture for national societal change.The transformational leader often acts as a role model to followers through espousing high moral and ethical values and displaying personal commitment and self-sacrifice to achieving stated goals. By becoming champions for change, transformational leaders can show followers the way forward and make them believe that change is both possible and worthwhile. That King served as a role model to many is clearly acknowledged and he demonstrated an extraordinary high level of personal commitment and self-sacrifice towards achieving civil rights for all.In conclusion, the example of the leadership of Dr Martin Luther King provides valuable insights into the challenges faced by transformational leaders in implementing change in society. Further research is needed to examine in more depth the relationships between characteristics, tasks and outcomes as depicted in the research model. In particular, evidence is needed showing how transformational leaders grow and develop from a particular social and economic context. One conclusion is however inescapable, namely that transformational leaders retain enormous power to realize substantial ground-breaking change for the benefit of individuals, organisations and society.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to explore the leadership of Dr Martin Luther King Jr in relation to four characteristics of transformational leadership\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper draws upon excerpts from archival sources of personal correspondence and statements by Dr Martin Luther King Jr stored at the King Center, Atlanta, Georgia.\nFindings: - The research finds that Dr King personified the four characteristics of transformational leadership. It also illustrates King's leadership legacy through modern works on leadership.\nOriginality/value: - The analysis presented assists our understanding of the qualities of and the way we think about, transformational leaders. It emphasises the importance of building follower confidence; challenging taken-for-granted assumptions; developing follower needs and upholding high moral values.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Becoming a graduate: the warranting of an emergent identity	[ "Higher education", "Graduate employability", "Modalities of emergent identity", "Warranting" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the UK, as in most advanced industrial nations, and in many transitional economies, higher education is viewed as an essential element in achieving economic competitiveness in an increasingly global, knowledge-based economy (Scott, 1998). Because, in a market economy, no graduate can be guaranteed employment there is general consensus amongst policy makers and a general expectation amongst entrants to and participants in higher education, that such education can and should promote graduate employability (The International Graduate Insight Group Ltd, 2011). Increasingly over the past two decades, various agencies and institutions of higher education have engaged in initiatives intended to promote graduate employability (CVCP/DfEE/HEQE, 1998). The translation of such broad policy into action at the level of such agencies and institutions of higher education has mainly taken the form of the skills and attributes approach (O'Reilly et al., 1999; Fallows and Steven, 2000; Bennett et al., 2000; Holmes, 2001). Various research projects have been undertaken to identify such skills and attributes; various initiatives have been undertaken, at national and institutional levels, to attempt to ensure that students \"acquire\" the requisite skills and develop the desired attributes. The skills and attributes approach dominates both the current practice and the research agenda. Indeed, the definition of employability adopted by the UK's Higher Education Academy's Enhancing Student Employability Co-ordination Team (ESECT) emphasised the notions of skills and attributes:\nThe employability agenda: The economic argument for the importance of higher education is now largely accepted by governments of advanced economies. Within an increasingly competitive globalised economy, the basis of any nation's strategies for sustainable prosperity is seen to rely ever more upon human capital and thus the forms of work that its economically active citizens are able to undertake (Reich, 1992). Recognition of this, and a concern for equity in opportunity for social and economic advancement within the population, has informed recent UK Government policy on higher education, which itself is framed within a commitment to fiscal prudence (National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education, 1997; Department for Education and Skills, 2003; Department for Business Innovation and Skills, 2011). The notion of employability has increasingly been adopted as one of the main outcomes for individuals undergoing higher education, and as a key purpose for providers of higher education (National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education, 1997; Department for Education and Skills, 2003; Department for Business Innovation and Skills, 2009).\nSkills and attributes: a problematic approach: The clear evidence that relatively large numbers of graduates experience such difficulties gaining \"suitable\" employment should signal that there are problems with dominant understanding of employability in terms of skills and attributes. How should we seek to explain such difficulties? If the skills and attributes approach is to have any validity and utility, it should surely provide an explanation as to how individuals gain, or fail to gain, such suitable employment. The explanatory logic is of the form that an individual's success or otherwise in gaining employment is mainly determined by the extent to which they have acquired and possess relevant skills and attributes. So, given that very many graduates experience early failure in their post-graduation search for employment, the only explanation available to the skills and attributes approach is that such graduates have not acquired and do not possess such skills and attributes.\nIdentity and career: a relational approach: A number of social science perspectives seem to hold promise for generating insights into such transition from higher education into post-graduation employment. These include phenomenological sociology (e.g. Schutz, 1972), symbolic interactionism (e.g. Mead, 1934; Blumer, 1969), and social constructionism (Berger and Luckmann, 1966; Shotter, 1993; Burr, 1995; Gergen, 1999). Without seeking to conflate these perspectives into a single approach, we can generally say, in relation to our interests here, that they all tend to focus on the processes by which individual persons experience, make sense of, and engage with their particular social settings. Drawing upon these approaches affords insights into how identities are negotiated and constructed, and patterns of careers which may themselves be viewed as identity projects. The articles seeks to develop and present a model that, it is argued, provides a framework for exploring the possible outcomes emergent from interactions between self-presentation by any individual and the ascriptions by significant others. The framework enables examination of \"movement\" between these possible outcomes, viewing careers as trajectories of \"modalities of emergent identity\". Whilst any individual person will have a unique career experience, the framework presented, it will be argued, provides an analytical tool for examining the varied career experiences in an ordered fashion. Although primarily theoretically based, the paper will show the application of the model to the cases of three graduates as they engaged in their early post-graduation employment careers.\nIdentity and career: a relational approach: Recent scholarship in careers has revived interest in the kind of issues explored by earlier scholars, particularly drawing upon the legacy of the Chicago School of Sociology (Barley, 1989). The term \"career\", as used by key figures such as Everett Hughes (e.g. 1937), extends beyond the narrow application to career in employment, as \"a succession of related jobs, arranged in a hierarchy of prestige, through which persons move in an ordered (more or less) predictable sequence\" (Wilensky, 1961, p. 523). Rather, the term \"career\" was used as a sensitising concept (Blumer, 1954, p. 7), directing attention to \"any social strand of any person's course through life\" (Goffman, 1961, p. 127). This broader usage has been applied in relation to a range of different kinds of persons' lives, including marihuana users (Becker, 1953), patients in mental hospitals scientists (Goffman, 1961), scientists (Marcson, 1960), hospital patients (Roth, 1963), building janitors (Gold, 1964), and university students (Stebbins, 1970). Career was viewed as \"Janus-like\" (Barley, 1989, p. 49), having both objective and subjective \"faces\". As Goffman (1961) put it:\nBecoming employed as a graduate: illustrative cases: Although this paper is primarily concerned to present a conceptual and theoretical approach that may be adopted for researching graduate entry to employment, we present below the cases of three individuals that illustrate the utility of the approach. These based on biographical, or life story, narratives obtained through semi-structured interviews, as part of a developing set of such interviews. The three cases presented here have been selected to illustrate varying trajectories through \"modalities of graduate identity\". In the first case, we shall see how the graduate, \"Ahmed\", had considerable difficulty gaining what he would regard as \"suitable\" employment. In contrast, \"Susan\" was initially successful in gaining entry to a fairly traditional graduate management development scheme for major employer, but later began to question whether that was what she wanted. In the third case, \"Margaret\" took on a non-graduate job but sought additional challenges in that post, \"growing\" it into what she would regard as a job that \"impresses friends and acquaintances\", one in which she feels she has \"proven herself\". Each individual has undergone different experiences, and these are presented albeit in somewhat summary form. Yet the model of emergent identity presented above clearly enables those different biographies to be understood in terms of trajectories through \"modalities of graduate identity\".\nTrajectories and transitions: As indicated above, a key feature of this framework of modalities of emergent identity is the central, \"zone X\", representing the modality of \"under-determined identity\", a liminal position. This is to position where the person tentatively claims or disclaims a particular identity and/ or where significant others tentatively make their identity ascriptions of that person. At stake in this zone is the question of what \"zone\" would next be entered, to what modality of emergent identity the trajectory takes.\nWarranting identity claims: The utility of the model presented in terms of providing analytical purchase on the character of identity trajectories, particularly in respect of the crucial (literally) crossing area depicted as \"zone X\", may be further enhanced by considering the process by which movement between modalities is effected. Such moments of liminality, of hazard (Goffman, 1961) for the person claiming a particular identity, require the identity claimant to present themselves to significant others in a manner that, for the claim to succeed, matches what those significant others would accept in order to affirm the claim. Affirmation of the claim would constitute a key element in the construction of a certain social order, as would its disaffirmation, a certain moral order in which the individual is positioned (including possible positioning as an \"outsider\", alien, even non-person). But as the social order is constantly being constructed in the routines of everyday life, such identity claim and (dis)affirmation is itself for the most part routinely accomplished. In order to understand this process, we may usefully draw upon the concepts of warranting and accounting.\nImplications: The main thrust of the argument has been that the approach presented here provides useful insights into the process by which an individual \"becomes a graduate\", a process that extends beyond the formal period of study merely up to formal graduation. The currently dominant approach provides no conceptual or theoretical understanding of such a process beyond that of acquiring and possessing certain skills and attributes. Moreover, there is no consensus on what are those purported skills and attributes and, even if a definitive list were to be developed, the approach would still fail to address the differences in employment outcomes based on factors such as ethnicity, social class, etc. The skills and attribute approach would appear to be a \"degenerative research programme\" (Lakatos, 1970). In contrast, the approach presented here, in terms of modalities of emergent identity, affords novel ways to examine post-graduation trajectories into and within initial employment by graduates, what Lakatos would term a \"progressive research programme\".\nConclusion: The argument in this paper has been that the transition from higher education into post-graduation employment is poorly addressed, for research and for practice, within the currently dominant skills and attributes approach. Rather, it has been argued, that transition may be fruitfully considered from a relational-constructionist perspective, using an interactionist conceptualisation of \"emergent identity\". The claim-affirmation model presented here enables us to consider the various modalities of emergent identity, which affords fruitful lines of enquiry concerning the biographical paths taken by individuals as they move from being students to become graduates in employment, or failing to become employed graduates. Three illustrative cases presented show how the varied post-graduation career trajectories may be considered in terms of trajectories through modalities of emergent identity. The notion of warranting, of identity claims and identity ascriptions, enables us to reframing has implications for research and for practice, within an arena that is of major importance at public policy level, for higher education institutions, and particularly for the large number of individuals who experience difficulties in making successful transitions into employment they and others would deem \"suitable\" for graduates.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: With expansion of higher education in most developed and developing economies, graduates constitute a large section of the workforce. However, even prior to the economic problems of the past few years, the transition from higher education into graduate employment has not been and is not straightforward. The purpose of this paper is to draw upon relational, social constructionist perspectives to examine such transition and early careers in terms of \"emergent identity\" trajectories. The \"graduate identity\" is considered in terms of the interaction between identity claim by the individual and the identity ascriptions by others.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A model is presented, providing for five \"modalities\" of such emergent identity, whereby any particular individual may pass in varied trajectories. This is illustrated by three case examples of graduates, based on biographical interview data. The exploration is continued in terms of discussion of the discursive warranting of identity claims and ascriptions, enabling a reconsideration of the discourse of skills and attributes. Implications for research and practice are considered.\nFindings: The paper argues that the approach presented provides a cogent approach for conceptualising and for engaging in empirical investigation of the early career trajectories of individuals entering post-graduation employment. Such individuals may \"formally\" be graduates, but face the task of \"becoming\" graduates, i.e. gaining acceptance by significant others that they are \"worthy\" of being employed in \"graduate jobs\". That task involves identity claim making, warranting their claim on the identity of a graduate.\nResearch limitations/implications: The model and approach presented provide a framework for analysis of early-career trajectories of graduates, in a way that the dominant skills and attributes approach cannot. It contributes to other empirical studies based on qualitative, biographical research, by providing conceptual tools for the analysis of such studies.\nPractical implications: The paper provides a practical approach to help undergraduates and new graduates to enhance their prospects for gaining employment they consider desirable and appropriate. It enables staff who seek to support students to gain appropriate employment to develop practical strategies, unencumbered by flawed notion of \"skills\" and \"attributes\".\nSocial implications: Post-graduation employment continues to be a major policy issue for government, and a matter of considerable concern for students themselves and for their families. The approach presented promises considerable opportunity for addressing the critical issues faced.\nOriginality/value: The paper elaborates the graduate identity approach, and provides empirical support for the claims made.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The motivational drivers of fast fashion avoidance	[ "Fast fashion", "Brand avoidance", "Fast fashion avoidance", "Negative beliefs", "Korea", "Young consumers", "Fashion", "Clothing", "Dress" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Fast fashion has become the most well-recognized business model in the fashion industry due to its impressive performance in the global market during recent years. Since the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century, numerous inventions and innovations have shaped the development of the fashion industry within a complex system and scope. Fast fashion brands such as ZARA and H&M are among those at the very peak of this development through their supply chain management, merchandising techniques, and retail technology, which encompass almost every aspect of the fashion business. Based on these competitive advantages, fast fashion brands have achieved steep growth in most continents. For example, Inditex (the mother company of the famous ZARA), which opened its first store in a small town in Spain in 1975, is now present in 77 countries, with 5,044 stores that boasted annual sales of 12,527 million euros in 2010 (Inditex Group, 2011).Consumption was praised as the engine of the capitalistic economy throughout the twentieth century. Materialistic values are so widely dispersed that many believe that the more consumables one possesses, the better one's life is (Chaplin and John, 2007). An emphasis on speed, quantity, and size drives the consumption culture and industries, to the point where they have inevitably begun to encounter problems; these problems are often threats to human well-being. Examples include environmental problems such as global warming, ozone depletion, water and air pollution, species endangerment, and farmland erosion. In addition, ethical issues in the globalized economy, such as fair trade, child labor and sweatshop problems, and social inequality, have become concerns to ordinary people. Specifically, some consumers who have realized their roles in consumption and its corresponding effects on society have begun to organize and participate in social movements relating to anti-consumption, including voluntary simplicity and downshifting, and \"green\" consumption movements (Zavestoski, 2002).Fashion epitomizes materialistic consumption. It serves as an efficient tool for showing off the wearer's wealth and status in terms of material possessions. Consumers often consider fashion products to be connected with their identity, as items of clothing are always visible and serve as a form of \"second skin.\" Industry experts and researchers have traditionally suggested that ethical or environmental considerations are the least considered of the factors that influence consumers' purchase decisions regarding fashion items, and that their decisions are, therefore, made independently of ethical concerns (Joergens, 2006; Niinimaki, 2010). However, certain changes have been observed in recent years, suggesting that fashion consumers have begun to value ethical factors in their fashion purchase decisions, including those relating to the environment. These newly conscious consumers have begun to question the unethical practices of brands that have enjoyed enormous success. In addition, fast fashion products are generally only durable enough to last one or two seasons; the short lives of these products means that they end up as waste, which is harmful to the environment. Thus, many consumers are now criticizing fast fashion for producing large amounts of these low-quality products that stimulate unnecessarily excessive consumption.This study aims to deepen the understanding of the driving forces of fast fashion avoidance. Zavestoski (2002) emphasizes the importance of taking a new approach to explain anti-consumption attitudes, stating that this approach should focus on the role of resistance, anti-taste, or rejection. Fast fashion avoidance is a unique concept that must be differentiated from the lower preference of fast fashion, or the higher preference of slow fashion. Fast fashion avoidance encompasses active forms of the attitudes and behaviors against fast fashion and its consumption.This study reviews the existing arguments on fast fashion and the avoidance thereof, and adopts a previous brand avoidance model as a conceptual framework for explaining multi-dimensional negative beliefs toward fast fashion brands. As a driving motivation of fast fashion avoidance, negative beliefs against fast fashion brands are collected through references to previous literature, and online blog analyses. In addition, consumers' perceptions regarding the lack of alternatives in the current fashion market are expected to play a moderating role in the causal relationship between eight negative beliefs, which will be outlined below, and fast fashion avoidance. Empirical data are collected from two different sources. First, the articles in an online blog were content analyzed to test the applicability of Lee et al.'s (2009) conceptual propositions to the fast fashion context. The findings from the blog analysis were used to develop a modified avoidance model for fast fashion, along with a measurement instrument. A survey was then conducted among Korean fashion consumers to test the proposed model of fast fashion avoidance, and the moderating effect arising from a lack of alternatives.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Fast fashion brands\n3. Methodology: In this section, the results of a blog analysis are utilized to ensure the applicability of a brand avoidance model, followed by sections on measurement, data collection, and sampling method.3.1 Blog analysis\n4. Results: 4.1 The structure of negative beliefs regarding fast fashion\n5. Discussion and implications: The aim of this research was to test the fit of the fast fashion avoidance model selected, and identify the negative beliefs influencing fast fashion avoidance. Female Korean subjects in their 20s and 30s, who are the main targets of global fast fashion retailers, served as the sample for the study. Lee et al.'s (2009) brand avoidance model and a content analysis of online blogs lead to the identification of eight negative beliefs regarding fast fashion: poor performance, overly trendy styles, big store discomfort, lack of personal help, deindividuation, inauthenticity, irresponsibility, and foreignness. These lower-order negative belief factors were matched to the higher-order factors of unmet expectations, symbolic incongruence, and ideological incompatibility, on the basis of Lee et al.'s (2009) study. This demonstrates that the general conceptual structure of brand avoidance can be applied to the fast fashion avoidance model. The academic implication of this research includes a confirmation of the conceptual structure of fast fashion avoidance based on a theoretical and empirical foundation. Furthermore, the research verified the existence of symbolic incongruence as an influential factor, along with unmet expectations and ideological dissatisfaction, meaning that the conceptual structure set forth by Lee et al. (2009) is more relevant than that of Krishnamurthy and Kucuk (2009) in identifying fast fashion avoidance. The results will be discussed in more detail in terms of a comparison with the relevant literature with respect to Korean consumers.Among the negative beliefs suggested, poor performance, deindividuation, foreignness and inauthenticity were identified as having significant effects on the behavioral intention of fast fashion avoidance. Specifically, poor performance and deindividuation have a positive effect, and inauthenticity has a negative effect on behavioral intention. On the other hand, a lack of alternatives has an interaction effect, along with big store discomfort and foreignness.The significant effect of poor performance on fast fashion avoidance was consistent with previous research (Kim, 2007), which has suggested that poor quality of apparel, in terms of factors such as stitching, fit, wearability, and ease of care, is regarded as a deterrent to fast fashion. Kim's (2007) research showed that there was no significant difference in the perceived product quality among preference and non-preference groups of fast fashion. However, those who preferred fast fashion purchased it despite its recognized poor quality, while those who did not purchase it cited poor quality as the reason. This corresponded with the assertion that the functional attributes of apparel (stitching, fabric, fit, etc.) are negative factors that cause dissatisfaction, while expressive aspects (design, color, etc.) contribute to satisfaction (Hong, 1999).The insignificant effect on fast fashion avoidance based on lack of personal help reflected the assertion that the required service level from salespersons depends on the retail format and the age of consumers (Jeon and Lee, 2008; Lee and Hur, 2008). Young consumers, who are the main target of fast fashion retailers, are assumed to expect less service from salespersons than older ones when shopping in these types of stores. On the other hand, big store discomfort, one of the most unique features of global fast fashion retailers, has no direct effect on fast fashion avoidance. However, it did show a significant interaction effect with lack of alternatives. This seems to reflect the dual effect of the \"mega shop,\" in that while large stores are roomy and often luxurious spaces, they also involve hassles such as long lines for cashiers, disorganized displays, and more time and effort needed to look around. In particular, for those who were dissatisfied with the alternatives available in fast fashion, the negative side of big stores was magnified. In order to maintain existing consumers (those who shop in fast fashion stores) and attract new ones (including those who are concerned about big store discomfort), space in stores must be allocated with the flow of human traffic in mind, as well as offering well-organized product displays and an increased numbers of cashiers.Deindividuation has a positive effect on fast fashion avoidance, which means that if Korean consumers believe fast fashion brands provided deindividualized styles, their behavioral intention of fast fashion avoidance is likely to increase. Korean consumers seem to value fashion products which are unique enough to express their personality and individual taste. The negative belief regarding inauthenticity shows an opposite effect on avoidance. A higher belief in inauthenticity leads to a lower level of fast fashion avoidance. Although consumers know that fast fashion brands copy high fashion products at lower costs, they seem to be unconcerned about this inauthenticity. Taking these results together, it appears that Korean consumers are likely to accept the inauthenticity of fast fashion brands, and even consider the practice as a positive one, while criticizing the inability to deliver uniqueness.No significant effect was found regarding irresponsibility, which means that environmental and ethical concerns do not necessarily influence individual purchase behavior for clothing among young Korean consumers (Joergens, 2006; Niinimaki, 2010). Nevertheless, foreignness had a significant effect on fast fashion avoidance, meaning that local fashion and culture were believed to be hurt by foreign brand consumption. This is related to the result that the less favorable the imported brands, the lower the consumer purchase intention will be (Ryu and Lee, 2004). Furthermore, the interaction effect on fast fashion avoidance was significant between foreignness and lack of alternatives, which indicates that foreignness causes more problems when fewer options are available. Thus, the future development of domestic brands in parallel to global fast fashion retailers will be challenging for global fast fashion retailers.In the analysis results, the moderating direction of lack of alternatives was opposite to the expectation. The lack of alternatives did not act as a barrier but as an accelerator. When consumers perceived a high lack of alternatives, foreignness, and big store discomfort became stronger determinants for fast fashion avoidance. The findings from young Korean consumers could be interpreted as showing that as fast fashion expanded market share and overpowered local small fashion stores, the foreignness and big stores of fast fashion brands stimulated the negative behavioral intention of local consumers.Fast fashion retailers have successfully expanded their market share in many global cities by depending on the distinctive business model, which is characterized by trendy products, low prices, large assortments and, accordingly, huge-sized luxurious stores. In Korea, many domestic fashion retailers are copying the fast fashion business model with the belief that it is an ever-lasting recipe for success. However, fast fashion business has its weaknesses and many consumers have already expressed their avoidance intentions toward fast fashion. Thus, it is very important to understand consumers' negative beliefs and avoidance behaviors toward the fast fashion brands, so as to design a post-fast-fashion business model that can satisfy emerging consumer needs. As Korea is one of the leading fashion markets, full of consumers with sophisticated tastes, the findings in Korea can be useful information for fashion marketers all over the world.It is acknowledged that this research has limitations, since the results are based on onetime survey research. More dynamic measurement is recommended, along with research into the diffusion of global fast fashion in the Korean market. Furthermore, since convenient sampling has limitations, more diversified consumer segments need to be included in analyses. Based on the current results, future research is suggested. As fast retailing has its own lifecycle, like any other form of retail, each of the local markets and the different stages of the lifecycle need to be tested and compared in a cross-market analysis. Furthermore, while this research considered fast fashion avoidance in the context of brand avoidance, further exploration is necessary to compare it with related concepts such as anti-consumption, ethical consumption, ecological consumption, voluntary simplicity, and slow fashion.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This study aims to investigate the conceptual structure of fast fashion avoidance among young consumers in Korea. The effects of negative beliefs on the behavioural intention regarding fast fashion avoidance are empirically examined.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A conceptual model of fast fashion avoidance is proposed and tested based on the literature and blog analyses. Web-based online survey data are analyzed by second-order factor analysis and hierarchical regression.\nFindings: - The second-order structure of eight negative beliefs is statistically supported. Among these negative beliefs, poor performance and deindividuation have positive effects on fast fashion avoidance. While inauthenticity has a negative effect, big store discomfort and foreignness have an interaction effect with regards to the lack of alternatives.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The results are based on convenient sampling of young female adults. However, it is tested in Korea, of which global fast fashion retailing is in its growing stage.\nOriginality/value: - This study represents a new attempt to apply the concept of brand avoidance to an explanation of fast fashion avoidance, and test it using empirically-collected survey data.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The competition and market structure in the Saudi Arabia banking	[ "Saudi Arabia", "Banking", "Market system", "Monopolies", "Competitive strategy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: A sound and efficient financial system is the most important prerequisite for savings and investment decisions and thus economic growth. Economists have long recognised that financial markets in general, and banks in particular, play a vital role in the efficient functioning and development of any economy. In developing countries, the development of the banking and financial system may reflect the extent of importance given by the country to this vital sector, which can be largely relied upon to achieve the desired growth in the national economy. The performance of financial institutions is crucial for the well-being of the whole economy and has attracted the attention of many researchers. Odedokun (1998) estimated with cross-sectional data over the 1970s and 1980s for 90 developing countries including Saudi Arabia and the main finding is that: financial intermediation exerts positive effects on economic growth in developing countries.In the early 1970s, many foreign banks had entered the Saudi Arabia banking system, attracted by the opportunities brought about by the boom in the economy resulting from the increased oil revenues, especially from 1973 onwards. The strong presence of foreign banks, of which there were ten by the mid-1970s, encouraged the Saudi authorities to introduce a policy encouraging foreign banks to be converted into publicly traded companies with the participation of Saudi nationals. The legislation introduced in 1975 aimed to preserve the rights and interests of foreign banks' positions as partners in the newly incorporated banks. In order to maintain the performance and stability of the banking sector, foreign banks were allowed to hold up to 50 per cent ownership and include the name of their origins in the bank title (for example, the Saudi British Bank and the Saudi American Bank). They could also maintain management responsibilities and were allowed to enjoy treatment equal to that of national banks (Saudi Arabia Monetary Agency (SAMA) 1998).Therefore, the significant changes in the Saudi Arabia banking industry raise the important policy concerns that banks in highly concentrated markets should gain market power due to being able to charge higher than competitive prices for their products, thus inflicting welfare costs that could more than offset any presumed benefit associated with mergers. Other concerns regarding the higher concentration ratio (CR) include such problems as the limited effectiveness of monetary and credit policy, increased probability of systemic risk, and reduction in lending to small and medium corporations.The paper is trying to assess the market structure and the competitive condition of the Saudi Arabia banking industry. It also tries to answer the question: should concentration in the Saudi Arabia banking industry cause a big concern? Therefore, the two aims of this paper are to investigate the market structure of Saudi Arabia banking industry using the most frequently applied measures of concentration k-bank concentration ratio (CRk) and Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI). The second aim is to evaluate the competitive conditions of the Saudi Arabia banking industry using the \"H-statistic\" by Panzar and Rosse during the years 1993-2006.The organization of the paper is as follows. Section 2 presents the background and the growth of the banking sector in Saudi Arabia. Section 3 presents the literature review while Section 4 describes the methodology and data. Section 5 shows the results and Section 6 summarizes the paper with the concluding remark.\n2 Banking sector development in Saudi Arabia: Early banking activities in Saudi Arabia were limited to the presence of a handful of foreign-based trading houses, such as the branch of Algemene Bank Nederland, and of various money changers (Al-Jarrah, 2002). Their main business was to provide financial services for locals and pilgrims. The more formal and organised form of banking system emerged after the exploration of oil in 1939 and, as soon as World War II ended, the Saudi market attracted leading foreign banks to open branches. Hence, the French Banque de l'Indochine and Arab Bank Limited opened their branches in Jeddah in 1948; while in 1950, three international banks opened their braches, namely the British Bank of the Middle East, the National Bank of Pakistan and Bank Misr (of Egypt).Moreover, Saudi Arabia did not have a national currency until 1952, a year that witnessed the establishment of the SAMA (Al-Jarrah, 2002). However, over the years 1950 and 1956, SAMA introduced a paper money in the form of pilgrim receipts, which was covered by foreign currencies and precious metals. The introduction of the Saudi national currency, called the riyal, came in 1960.During the 1980s, various other national banks were established, including Al-Rajhi Banking and Investment Corporation (the largest money exchanger licensed as a full commercial bank), Saudi Investment Bank (authorised as a full commercial bank with foreign ownership reduced to 25 per cent and the remaining shares sold to the public), and the United Saudi Bank (formed after the take-over of three foreign banks). These banks contributed to the restructuring of the Saudi banking sector. Meanwhile, SAMA encouraged banks to strengthen their capital positions so as to improve the soundness of the system (Al-Sahlawi, 1997; Al-Jarrah, 2002).The second half of the 1990s witnessed a merger between the United Saudi Commercial Bank and the Saudi Cairo Bank, to form the United Saudi Bank. The United Bank also merged with the Saudi American Bank in 1998. Moreover, Saudi banks continued to embrace operational development by investing in new technologies such as electronic funds transfer systems and by setting up widespread point-of-sale terminals.From mid-1975, no new foreign bank entities have been allowed to enter the Saudi banking system. However, in the move towards Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) financial sector integration, many of the GCC banks opened branches and others have been lately granted licenses to open branches on Saudi soil.2.1 Growth of Saudi Arabia banking sector\n3 Literature review: 3.1 Measuring market structure\n4 Methodology and data: 4.1 The Panzar and Rosse approach\n5 The results: 5.1 Market structure\n6 Concluding remarks: This paper investigates the market structure of Saudi Arabia banking industry using the most frequently applied measures of concentration k-bank concentration ratio (CRk) and HHI and evaluates the monopoly power of banks during the years of 1993-2006 using the \"H-statistic\" by Panzar and Rosse. The results show that Saudi Arabia had moderately concentrated market and moving to less concentrated position. Both the concentration indices indicate that the country is moving toward a better position in terms of the market concentration.The Panzar and Rosse \"H-statistic\" suggests that banks in Saudi Arabia operate under monopolistic competition. The estimated value of H-statistic is equivalent to 0.23 during the sample period. The test for the market structure of perfect competition or monopoly is rejected leading us to conclude that banks earned their revenues in the condition of monopolistic competition.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is twofold: to investigate the market structure of Saudi Arabia banking industry; and to evaluate the monopoly power of banks during the years 1993-2006.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper is examining the market structure using the most frequently applied measures of concentration k-bank concentration ratio (CRk) and Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) and it is evaluating the monopoly power of banks using the \"H-statistic\" by Panzar and Rosse.\nFindings: - The results show that Saudi Arabia has a moderately concentrated market and is moving to a less concentrated position. Both the concentration indices indicate that the country is moving toward a better position in terms of the market concentration. The Panzar and Rosse \"H-statistic\" suggests that banks in Saudi Arabia operate under monopolistic competition.\nResearch limitations/implications: - These findings may be a temporary effect, evident during the sampled period only. To draw firmer conclusions a longer sample period is needed.\nOriginality/value: - Studies of banking market structure in the developed economies' banking are commonplace, however, very few studies are conducted for Saudi Arabia's banking industry.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Children, housing and health	[ "Children (age groups)", "Personal health", "Housing", "Public health", "Homelessness" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Many factors affect health inequality, and it has been estimated more than 70 per cent of all medical and health care is for preventable conditions, frequently where determinants are known (Harrison, 2001). It is improvements in health determinants - not medical health care - that ultimately make the most difference in addressing health inequality (Cornell, 1996; Harrison, 2001; McKeown, 1976; Naidoo and Wills, 2000). Health is not evenly distributed and there are inequalities linked to social class, gender, race and geography (Townsend et al., 1988).Housing is a key health determinant both as an internal and external living environment. Internal housing health and safety factors are well documented and there is increasing recognition that the wider housing environment location represents access to employment, training, facilities, decent food, social cohesion and so on. A lower income leads to less - if any - choice in housing and this is aggravated by stress, lack of social support and sometimes health-damaging behaviours (Blackburn, 1991), which can damage physical and mental health (Naidoo and Wills, 2000).The health and housing relationship is compounded for children, who are still too frequently housed in unsatisfactory living conditions that can give rise to physical and emotional ill health that - once suffered - can be magnified into adulthood. The complex relationship of children, housing and health is documented, but not commonly drawn together into the impact of poor living environments in general on health, which was recognised by Acheson's \"inquiry into inequalities in health\" (Acheson, 1998) as representing a key aspect of inequality.This paper consolidates and reviews current literature that relates children's health to their housing and living environments, and the housing and health relationship is summarised in Table I. It considers children on polarised social housing estates and homeless children in temporary bed and breakfast (B&B) accommodation, before turning to strategies that can help address poor housing and living environments to promote health for children.Children and housing as a health determinant\nChildren and polarised social housing estates: The legacy of tower block type municipal housing from the 1960s and 1970s (see Plate 1) has engendered previously unforeseen problems such as children causing disruption and noise which often resulted in the blocks becoming hard to let \"as respectable and ambitious families tried to avoid exposing their children to conditions they could not control\" (Power, 1999, p. 285) . Thus, social and economic exclusion is frequently closely related to their unique architectural features and polarised low-income (welfare dependant) communities such as female headed households. Communities - housing large numbers of families with children - have had a high need for services such as good transport links and medical centres, which often went unmet in the past (Power, 1993; 1999).Coleman, A. (1990) argued that much criminally related behaviour on such estates was a response to the architecture, or due to \"design disadvantagement rating\". (Power, 1993; 1999) pointed to wider socio-economic issues in communities as key to estate decline and polarisation. Both agree that the characteristics of such estates encourage cyclical repetition of social problems for parent(s) and child, such as vandalism and crime reinforcing insecurity, low self-esteem and underachievement.Coleman's research developed earlier work in respect of the need for (psychic and actual) \"surveillance\" and \"supervision\" to help maintain social stability. Where this was lacking, children would learn from peers rather than adults, so gain little sense of respect or acceptable behavioural norms due to the potential for anonymity, escape from detection and lack of routine adult eyes placing boundaries on behaviour. Coleman, A. (1990) argued that such estates could fuel social instability and encourage an increased likelihood of graffiti, littering, family breakdown and criminal behaviour.What are the solutions?\nChildren and homelessness: temporary B&B accommodation: The extent of housing inequality is frequently manifested in children as poor health as some 100,000 children are currently homeless. In March 2002 there were approximately 4,000 homeless families housed in B&B hotels for more than six weeks. The government set a target in 2002 that by March 2004 no homeless family with children would be housed in B&B hotels except in an emergency, which should last no longer that six weeks (Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, 2004b).However, many homeless households are placed in temporary B&B accommodation because of a lack of alternative housing options due to insufficient housing supply, lack of other suitable accommodation, low incomes, inadequate allied services and an increase in women headed households (Styron et al., 2000). In March 2004, the number of homeless families with dependent children in temporary accommodation was 64,340 (Department for Work and Pensions, 2004). For children the situation is particularly acute as increasing numbers of homeless households suffer mental illness, drug/alcohol abuse, child and adult victimisation, inadequate social support and parenting difficulties.Many children are suffering serious and prolonged illness exacerbated by poor housing conditions. It is widely acknowledged that B&B accommodation is inappropriate for childrens\" health and well-being as this aggravates gastroenteritis, skin disorders, chest infections and so on, due to inadequate amenities, poor and unsafe conditions (Ballinger, 2002; Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, 2002). In B&B accommodation, the situation is aggravated by unsatisfactory physical living conditions (Arblaster and Hawtin, 1993; Ballinger, 2002; Conway, 1988; Lowry, 1991); overcrowding (which can diminish proper child development and aggravate relationship problems) (Ballinger, 2002; Cumella et al., 1998; Styron et al., 2000; Vostanis et al., 1998); and problems in accessing allied social, support, educational and health care services and loss of earlier services and networks (Ballinger, 2002; Bogard et al., 1999; Cumella et al., 1998; Vostanis et al., 1998).Homeless families are likely to suffer stress and anxiety, even trauma, before approaching a local authority for re-housing. Their situation is frequently compounded by lack of access to wider services - which cannot replace more sustainable social networks - but can help plug some gaps. As a result, for children health and social care needs may not be sufficiently met, compounding their difficulties. Most homeless households in London include dependant children, pregnant women, domestic violence and relationship breakdown which accounted for some three quarters of homeless applications (Greater London Authority, 2002).For children, homelessness has a negative impact on well-being. Physical ill health arising from poor housing is well documented, and there is a growing body of evidence concerned with emotional/mental ill health attributable to poor housing (see Table I). Research suggests that the experience can lead to delayed communication, disruption to education and contribute to behavioural and mental health problems (Ballinger, 2002; Bogard et al., 1999; Brown and Harris, 1978; Cumella et al., 1998; Conway, 1988; Shelter, 2004; Styron et al., 2000; Vostanis et al., 1998).It is clear that homeless children (and their mothers, with whom they most commonly live) suffer unique health issues arising from poor conditions and temporary status, and it is of little surprise that there is a need for coordinated services - including additional psychiatric help (Styron et al., 2000) - which is not currently met. There have been calls for services to homeless households to be tailored toward actual need (see for example Ballinger, 2002) in partnerships that align housing and health more closely based on statutory - not voluntary - government guidance (Shelter, 2004).What are the solutions?\nReintegrating children's housing and health: a role for government: Access into decent housing\nConclusions: Benefits to health should focus around the availability of housing, quality and environmental safety to promote public health and reduce inequalities. In addition to physical housing provision and availability, it is important to reducing homelessness, promote community development, enhance social networks, ensure mixed housing environments, energy efficiency, home safety and removal of hazards.Of course children and their housing and family income do not sit in isolation, and efforts are being made at national and local level to address need where it is most acute. A variety of policies and organisations are seeking to address this income levels, such as organisations are trying to address in partnerships, which are seen to offer integrated solutions to joined up problems of poverty, poor housing and poor health.Some of the most deprived municipal tower block estates are now being regenerated and offering children the chance of a more inclusive, sustainable healthy living environment that removes some of the architectural and polarised community issues identified. Far too many homeless children still live in B&B accommodation, which is wholly unsatisfactory. Efforts are being made to reduce numbers being temporarily housed there, by local authorities are frustrated in their efforts by lack of alternatives, although steps have been made in this direction. Partnership working has become paramount, to address housing conditions and area regeneration, but also to maximise income to low-income families and meet other social needs.Generally, the picture is more positive, but action remains slow Childrens' needs must be given a far higher priority in housing in the future to promote physical and emotional well-being.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To consolidate and review current literature that relates children's health to their housing and living environments.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A range of published sources which review the relationship between children, housing and health. The sources consolidate research that applies specifically to children and their domestic situation. The paper also reviews literature around municipal tower block estates and the unique health/architecture relationship before turning to children living in temporary bed and breakfast accommodation. An overview of current public health policy that seeks to reintegrate housing and well-being is undertaken.\nFindings: - Decent housing lies at the heart of health for all. Generally, the picture is more positive, but action remains slow. Children's needs must be given a higher priority in housing in future to promote physical and emotional well-being.\nResearch limitations/implications: - It is not an exhaustive list and the sources are mainly UK publications.\nPractical implications: - The UK approach to children, housing and health may be of interest to a number of overseas countries in Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia.\nOriginality/value: - This paper fulfils an identified information/resources need and offers readers such as students, academics and practitioners an overview of the UK approach.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Should all service firms follow the recessionary advertising prescription?	[ "Advertising", "Recession", "Cyclical comovement" ]	[ { "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.\n1. Introduction: In the most recent recession, advertising and marketing spending, as well as media jobs, are declining dramatically. From the start of the recession in December 2007 through June 2009, employment in advertising fell by 9 per cent, as advertising agencies cut 17,000 jobs (Parekh, 2009). This is not a new phenomenon, as there is widespread consensus in the literature that advertising budgets are among the first to be cut during economic downturns (Deleersnyder et al., 2009; Frankenberger and Graham 2003). In contrast to practitioners' actions during economic downturns, academics and advertising executives recommend that firms should increase - or at least maintain - advertising spending during downturns. The \"prescription\" relies on the notion that countercyclical or at least inelastic advertising effort during downturns leads to superior performance when the market recovers (Deleersnyder et al., 2009; Frankenberger and Graham, 2003; O'Toole, 1991). The dichotomy between business practice and academic research is likely due to the lack of solid empirical support for this \"prescription\". Indeed, though managers modify their marketing strategies during economic downturns, they do not have systematic procedures to:\n2. Background: 2.1 Summary\n3. Data: To proxy general economic activity, GDP is used (Stock and Watson 1999). To proxy firms' long-term performance, we use firms' share price, as it is forward looking and risk adjusted, and is increasingly used by marketing academics to measure the impact of marketing activities (Srivastava et al., 1998). Yearly GDP data for the period between 1979 and 2010 are obtained from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The advertising data come from COMPUSTAT, while stock-market data come from CRSP. Firm-level annual advertising data for the time period between 1979 and 2010 were first collected from COMPUSTAT using North American Industry Classification System codes for service firms[1]. We eliminated firms which did not have data for sufficient time periods (T < 10) or had gaps in reporting data. For each remaining firm, we identified the permanent number to correctly join the COMPUSTAT data to stock-price data from CRSP. The resulting data set consists of 85 firms, whose data are available for varying (continuous) periods of time, from a minimum of 10 years to a maximum of 31 years. The firms in the data set include search- and experience-based services such as AT&T, AirTran, Wendy's and Papa John's.\n4. Methodology: This research consists of three steps. In the first step, the cyclical component is extracted from the GDP and advertising time series using the Hodrick-Prescott (HP) filter (Hodrick and Prescott 1997). The second step consists of quantifying the extent to which advertising expenditures mirror the business cycle. The third step involves identifying the nature of the relationship between advertising's cyclical dependence and stock market performance.\n5. Results: Results can be found in Table I. When we pool all 85 service firms regardless of their product classification, we find that the negative relationship between the cyclicality of a firm's advertising spending and its stock price performance is not significant (b = -0.011, p > 0.10). However, this pooled result obscures the differences in service industries. Indeed, splitting the data into financial (credence) (n = 59) and non-financial (experience) firms (n = 26) reveals interesting differences. For non-financial firms (food, telecommunication and travel services), we find that the more procyclical a firm's advertising spending, the worse its long-term financial performance (b = -0.33; p < 0.05); meanwhile, for financial firms, we find that there is a significant relationship between the cyclicality of a firm's advertising spending and its long-term financial performance (b = 0.44; p < 0.05).\n6. Discussion: The results of the model testing identify a number of interesting findings regarding the effect of advertising's cyclical comovement on firm share price. Specifically, our results tend to contradict previous findings that increased advertising spending has a significant effect on a firm's performance during and after a recession. We find that when a vast array of service firms is modeled simultaneously, there are no significant correlations between advertising spending and stock price. Our hypothesis is that prior research has neglected the very complex nature of services. Thus, it was our intent to delve deeper into the characteristics of service firms to discover the differences inherent in the customer evaluation spectrum's effects on advertising. What we found was quite compelling evidence that the effects of advertising for service firms are specific to the firms' place on the evaluation spectrum, namely, experience-based services appear to follow the \"prescription\" that increases in advertising spending during a recession lead to increased stock share prices. However, when credence firms were investigated individually, our results show that not only do they not receive a benefit from increased spending during a recession, their stock prices are significantly lower once the downturn in the economy is stabilizes. These findings are viewed here as a significant improvement over previous attempts to identify the cyclical nature of advertising during a recession in general and service firms in particular.\n7. Implications: The question now becomes: \"What does this all mean for service firms trying to decide whether or not to increase or decrease advertising expenditures during a recession?\" The answer is: \"It depends\". The results of this research indicate that the traditional thinking remains true for experience services. Specifically, firms whose service product is relatively simple to evaluate after a customer has experienced it should, at the very least, maintain their current levels of advertising spending. In most cases, when budgets allow, this spending should actually be increased. Experience firms, such as entertainment venues, restaurants, hotels and so forth, should expect to come out of a recession with a much better stock valuation if they increase their advertising while the economy is in a downturn. Therefore, our findings tend to echo the sentiments of practitioners who have for years claimed that firms who advertise heavily during economic downturns tend to come out of these periods in better economic shape than their competitors.\n8. Limitations: As with all research, there are certain limitations of this study that must be addressed. Some of the firms have a fairly short time series (ten years), which does allow us to capture a wide spectrum of recessionary advertising strategies within those firms. Our research also utilizes a pool of 85 large, publicly held service firms in a variety of industries. This is by no means a complete investigation of the entire US service sector. Thus, there may, in fact, be other firms (especially small and/or privately held firms) that do not follow the results that we have identified here. Likewise, the very fact that most scholars and pundits tend to blame the financial sector for the current recession may have influenced our results for the financial firms we have indentified. Furthermore, the data under investigation relate primarily to credence and experience service firms. The implications for firms that produce search-related products may differ from the results identified here. Despite these limitations we feel confident that this is the most robust research of service advertising's effect on stock valuation during a recession to date.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate whether different types of service firms, experience-based or credence-based, benefit equally from the prescription to increase advertising during recessions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research consists of three steps: using the Hodrick-Prescott (HP) filter to extract the cyclical component of the time series, estimating the level of cyclical comovement and estimating the relationship between comovement and stock price.\nFindings: The results suggest that experience-based service firms benefit financially from adopting the advertising \"prescription\" that encourages firms to increase advertising during recessions. Credence-based firms, however, experience negative financial returns when they implement the advertising \"prescription\".\nResearch limitations/implications: The limitations are data from US firms and a smaller sample size. The use of the HP filter may be considered a limitation, as other filtering methods may be utilized. The results suggest that academics' and practitioners' advertising \"prescription\" is not a one-size-fits-all strategy for service firms.\nPractical implications: Managers must be aware that the type of service their firm provides influences whether increasing or decreasing advertising spending during a recession has a positive or negative impact on financial performance. Credence-based firms, such as those in the banking and insurance industries should avoid increasing advertising spending during recessions, as it may lead to negative financial performance. Experience-based firms, such as those in the entertainment and travel industries, benefit financially from increased advertising during recessions.\nOriginality/value: This research is first to investigate the differential impact of recessionary advertising on service firms.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Organisational justice and employee perceptions on hospital management	[ "Hospital management", "Employee attitudes", "Employee relations" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Organisational justice has been an object of extensive discussion on the agenda in organisational research during the past ten years. Justice has shown to be associated with several outcomes such as job satisfaction, job motivation, work commitment (Cropanzano et al., 2001; Moorman, 1991), work performance (Lind et al., 1990; Phillips et al., 2001), and physical and mental health (Tepper, 2001; Kivimaki et al., 2003) of employees. As justice judgments seem to influence so many important factors in organisational behaviour and well being, it is crucial to study what concrete issues people perceive as unfair in organisational life.Despite a wealth of theoretical analyses focusing on organisational justice, there are few approaches that describe the content of justice with other than quantitative approaches (Mikula et al., 1990; Miller, 2001; Taylor, 2001). This study aimed to test whether employees' unprompted written comments in a large hospital survey were associated with organisational justice as measured in the same survey with a structured questionnaire. Another objective was to analyse if the producers of comments manifested their individual experimental interpretations without connections to broader organisational contexts. With these bases, we wanted inductively to elaborate on what justice really means for real-world employees. Our plan was to approach the qualitative data without any \"a priori\" theoretical justice model by means of providing a descriptive analysis of perceptions emerging from the employees' written comments (Strauss, 1987; Strauss and Corbin, 1990; Miles and Huberman, 1994).In this paper, we first introduce the theoretical construct and the content of organisational justice. In the empirical part, we describe what kind of subjective perceptions the employees of the study organisations produced, and then how these perceptions were connected to organisational justice as measured and compared with structured questionnaire scales. Finally, we integrate our findings to current theoretical justice models.\nThe concept of organisational justice: Organisational justice can be interpreted as a virtue allowing for mutual consideration and involving both relationships with others and outcomes that affect others' physical, psychological and social welfare (Cropanzano et al., 2001; Meara, 2001). In previous organisational justice research, the construct has often been divided into at least three aspects: distributive justice, procedural justice and interactional justice (Leventhal, 1980; Folger and Cropanzano, 1998; Cropanzano et al., 2001; Masterson et al., 2000). In this paper, we concentrate on procedural and interactional justice.The fairness of procedural aspects by which outcomes are allocated and implemented has attracted special interest in justice research. The domain called procedural justice emphasises the voice perspective (i.e. opportunity to be heard and taken into consideration) and the process control perspective (opportunity to influence information used in decision-making). (Thibaut and Walker, 1975; Leventhal, 1980; Lind and Tyler, 1988; Folger and Cropanzano, 1998; Masterson et al., 2000; Cohen-Charash and Spector, 2001; Cropanzano et al., 2001; Elovainio et al., 2001; Tepper, 2001). Procedural justice has been interpreted to be most appropriate for reflecting the way employees make judgments concerning the fairness of practices at organisational level. Accordingly, it has particularly been assumed to relate to organisational commitment (Cohen-Charash and Spector, 2001; Cropanzano et al., 2001).Interactional justice (also called relational justice, Elovainio et al., 2001) is often distinguished from procedural justice. It refers to perceptions concerning the way authorities treat their subordinates, and how these subordinates respond to these perceptions (Bies and Moag, 1986; Masterson et al., 2000; Cohen-Charash and Spector, 2001). This response contains interactional as well as emotional aspects that are crystallised in social accounts of politeness, honesty and respect (Bies and Moag, 1986). In reflecting interpersonal attributes, interactional justice is interpreted as dealing with cognitive, affective and behavioural aspects towards the immediate superior (Cohen-Charash and Spector, 2001), whereas procedural justice attributes more to organisation as a whole (Masterson et al., 2000; Cropanzano et al., 2001).\nMethods and results: Research data\nQuantitative study: The dimensions in the integrative frames may represent different elements on the correlates of organisational justice. For this reason, we wanted to test the extent to which qualitative categories in the integrative frames were associated with the responses to the procedural and interactional justice scales in the structured questionnaire (Moorman, 1991).First, we used two-tailed analysis of variance to test whether the authors of the comments differed in terms of background factors and organisational justice perceptions from those who did not write comments. Background factors included psychological distress as assessed by the 12-item version of General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12, a=0.89, response scale from 0=not at all to 3=much more than usual, Goldberg et al., 1997), job satisfaction as indicated by Job Diagnostic Survey (Hackman and Oldham, 1975, 14 items with seven-point response scale (from 1=extremely dissatisfied to 7=extremely satisfied, a=0.86/0.86)), and health status as inquired by self-rated five-point health scale (from 1=poor to 5=excellent) indicating poor health by health ratings less than good (Idler and Angel, 1990). These background factors were chosen because we wanted to analyse whether personal features, such as poor health, have an effect on justice evaluations (Taylor, 2001).To test organisational justice, we used the evaluation scale developed by Moorman (1991), consisting of seven items' procedural justice factor (a=0.90) and six items' interactional justice factor (a=0.92). Responses were obtained on a five-point scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree).To eliminate confounding due to potential differences in reporting organisational justice between the producers and non-producers of comments, we assigned the comments to all members of the work units in which the comment producers worked and excluded all producers of comments from the data. Differences between units with producers of comments and other work units were tested using two-tailed analysis of variance.As shown in Table II, the producers of messages were over three years older than non-producers, they worked more likely in central than in regional hospitals, and they more often belonged to nursing (registered nurse, practical nurse or comparable), supporting services (technical, nutrition or cleaning) or doctors' occupations than non-producers of comments. Further, they more frequently appraised their health status as unsatisfactory than those not producing comments, and experienced more mental distress than other employees (also Tepper, 2001). Finally, persons who wrote comments were more likely to be unsatisfied with their work than other employees.The first columns in Tables III and IV present the differences in organisational justice for the producers and non-producers of comments. For each descriptive category, we compared levels of procedural and interactional justice variables between comment producers and other employees.In this analysis, the first and largest integrative frame, \"Attitude towards personnel\", seemed to be substantially more related to interactional justice than procedural justice. However, there were three categories that were significantly associated with procedural justice as well. The second frame, \"Personnel policy procedures\", was also associated with both procedural and interactional justice scales. Categories signalling insecurity, such as \"acting as substitute\" and \"lack of employment security\", were more associated with interactional than procedural justice scale. \"Insufficient staffing\" category differed significantly in both scales indicating the multidimensional nature of this factor. These results support conclusions that employees often think of organisations as representing the people behind the proceduresThe third integrative frame, \"Qualitative attributes of management\", emphasised perceptions dealing with trust and interpersonal aspects of management, and was notably reinforced within the interactional justice scale. All categories in this frame differed significantly from the non-producers of textual material. Nevertheless, all categories except \"bullying superior\" did the same within the procedural justice scale.The same phenomenon can be interpreted to prevail within the integrative frame \"Decision-making practices\". Also here the difference between procedures and treatment is volatile as becomes apparent in both scales. Voicelessness, according to the textual comments, reflects the unfairness and lack of trust experienced in both interpersonal interactions and procedural factors of powerlessness.The fifth frame, \"Implementation of changes in the organisation\", was substantially limited to describing the procedural aspects only. The categories considered in this frame were powerlessness and voicelessness, yet without any interpersonal or interactional associations indicating that policies connected to organisational changes were somehow depersonalised and elusive.To eliminate confounding due to potential differences in reporting organisational justice between producers and non-producers of comments, additional analyses were conducted. We assigned the values of the descriptive categories of comment producers for all employees working in the same unit, and then excluded the comment producers from the data. The second columns in Tables III and IV show that the results of comparison between employees in units with comment producers and units without comment producers mainly replicated the results of the first analysis, namely that in connection with management there was more experienced injustice in wards producing textual comments. In other words, the judgment of justice seemed to be socially and collectively shared and experienced, indicating that the textual comments did not exclusively reflect individual ways of perceiving management.\nDiscussion: Prior studies on organisational justice have largely been conducted as experimental experiments, scenario experiments or correlational field studies (Leventhal, 1980; Mikula et al., 1990; Lupfer et al., 2000; Miller, 2001; Van den Bos, 2001). This study aimed at filling the gap between the different methods by identifying the factors experienced as managerial problems in the real working life context and then testing these experiences on organisational justice.The five integrative frames emerging from employees' subjective, unprompted judgments describe the pain spots in organisations. Problems in safeguarding employees' equal treatment and well-being, lack of professional respect, unsatisfactory qualities and incompetence in administration, and limited participation in decision-making were the most important factors associated with perceived unfair management practice connecting the qualitative data and the quantitative justice-related data.The categories mentioned above fit well into the theories of justice in giving answers why justice is important. They demonstrate psychological needs that are fundamental to our well being, and violation of which are experienced as injustice (Cropanzano et al., 2001). The needs termed as control, belonging, self-esteem, and meaningful existence (Williams, 1997) guide our cognitive and emotional processes in reverberating the quality of belonging to an organisation. These dimensions may also indicate something highly important for the people - their status and value within the organisation (Tyler et al., 1996; Lupfer et al., 2000; Miller, 2001).The researchers of justice have broadly concentrated on the distinction between various types of justice judgments, and consequently, many links between these types have been ignored (Lind, 2001). In a sense, procedural and interactional justice both is an aspect of a broader social context (Phillips et al., 2001). According to our findings, the interface between procedural and interactional justice may be described as volatile (Mikula et al., 1990; Greenberg, 1993) since both types of justice were connected to social and non-social aspects. Our findings suggest that people making fairness processing do not clearly separate procedural and interpersonal factors, but they use any information available to judge the righteousness of the chain of events. We also discovered that in employees' comments organisational processes were often personalised, and conversely, a superior was often viewed as a representative of the organisational process. These findings indicate that the phenomenology of justice is multifaceted and related to cognitive, individual processing. Further, our findings are in congruence with the results of Mikula et al. (1990) and Bies and Moag (1986), supporting the idea that interactional factors are salient in organisational justice judgments. These factors are often difficult to elicit without diversity of methods.The results comparing commentator-units to other units demonstrated that our findings are not bound to any special characteristic of the producer of comments, instead, the comments may represent working units more broadly. After excluding the commentator from the data, the work unit analysis replicated the findings described above: justice perceptions differed in the expected direction between the units of the commentators and other units in that justice perceptions seemed to be socially and collectively constructed and mutually experienced (Degoey, 2000). Accordingly, the producers of comments did obviously not display any special personality traits (e.g. low self-esteem, hostility) but they were acting as mouthpieces for the others. Our results were different from Taylor (2001) in statements regarding cognitive biases of individuals' assessments of justice. Especially, our findings were not parallel with the \"martyr bias\" (Taylor, 2001), occurring when a person has a tendency to overemphasise perceived justice experiences. Overall, the units producing managerial comments were showing symptoms that should be regarded as great managerial challenges.Strengths of the study\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose to clarify what kind of managerial challenges employees experience regarding organisational justice in hospitals.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This exploratory study of 8,971 employees working in 14 hospitals and examines the concept of organisational justice in management with qualitative and quantitative methods.\nFindings: - An inductive content analysis of the comments revealed five integrative frames describing challenges in hospital management at respondents' workplaces. These frames should be regarded as major managerial challenges in hospitals. These findings illustrate important antecedents of organisational justice and suggest that work units tend to share the same perceptions of justice. They also reveal that individually produced comments reflect collective experiences in organisational justice. Further, the results indicate that problems in management and policies are often experienced in a complex way, and people making justice judgements do not separate procedural and interactional factors.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Although the commentators producing qualitative data represented many organisational hierarchy levels, the results should not be generalised to apply to horizontal, informal social relationships.\nPractical implications: - This paper gives useful information regarding challenges in human resources management in hospitals.\nOriginality/value: - The paper suggests that people making fairness judgements do not make a distinction between procedural and interpersonal factors. Instead, they use any information available to judge the righteousness of the management events. This paper serves to guide hospital managers towards a better understanding of the importance of organisational justice and its collective nature.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The relationship between innovation and total quality management and the innovation effects on organizational performance	[ "Innovation", "Organizational performance", "Total quality management", "Continuous improvement" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Innovation plays a very important role in providing unique products and services, creating more value for organizations and defining barriers to entry for new competitors. For this reason, innovation has sparked the interest of many researchers to identify its push factors, and one of the issues that has been considered is whether the practices of total quality management (TQM) may emerge as one of the requirements to the definition of innovation strategies. Opposite ideas can be found in the literature, and that is why there is no consensus about whether innovation creates conditions for the implementation of TQM practices or, otherwise, does TQM help to create an environment and a culture of innovation support.\n2. Theoretical framework: 2.1 The relevance of the research\n3. Empirical research: 3.1 Conceptual model and definition of research hypotheses\n4. Conclusions: 4.1 Main findings of the research\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between innovation and total quality management (TQM), and also to identify the effects of innovation on organizational performance. This research proposes a conceptual model that intends to study several research hypotheses.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data were obtained through an online questionnaire, sent to small- and medium-sized Portuguese companies, having being conducted the study based on responses received from 287 valid questionnaires, and using a multivariate statistical analysis for statistical development.\nFindings: The findings indicate that companies that adopt strategies of process innovation get improvements in their performance, both operationally and financially, while product innovation only provides improvements in the financial performance of organizations. It was also found that TQM practices encourage the definition of innovation strategies of products and processes. On the other hand, it was found that only companies that adopt innovation strategies of their processes promote the adoption of TQM practices, and there is a statistically significant relationship between product innovation and the implementation of TQM practices.\nOriginality/value: This research analyzed the dimensions studied in different aspects. It considered product innovation and process innovation, and with respect to performance, this dimension was analyzed through two different perspectives, namely, financial performance and operational performance. This research also provides a particular contribution to the literature with the analysis of the interdependencies between innovation and TQM in small- and medium-sized Portuguese companies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The use of educational game design and play in higher education to influence sustainable behaviour	[ "Environmental sustainability", "Education for sustainable development", "Pro-environmental behaviour", "Educational games", "Student-led experiential learning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Education is key in trying to achieve a more sustainable society (Foster, 2001). The year 2014 witnessed the end of the United Nations Decade for Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014), which was established to try to stimulate the integration of the principles, values and practices of sustainable development within all aspects of education and learning (UNESCO, 2014). Throughout this decade, there has been increasing emphasis on, and mainstreaming of, education for sustainable development (ESD hereafter) in higher education (HE). In the UK, this is reflected in developments such as the publication of guidance on ESD by the national Quality Assurance Agency (QAA, 2014); by a strong ESD enhancement theme in the work of the national Higher Education Academy; and increased participation and interest from HE institutions in sustainability awards and league tables such as the Green Gown awards and People and Planet Green League (EUAC, 2015; People and Planet, 2015). Contemporary with this, research on the attitudes of university students has shown that 80 per cent of students believe sustainable development should be actively promoted and incorporated by UK universities, with over two-thirds of students believing that this is something that should be incorporated into their university courses (Drayson et al., 2013).\n2. Creation, development and running of the Gummy Bear Supply Chain game: Sustainability-related educational games were developed at the University of Hull, UK, in partnership with the One Hull of a Rainforest initiative (OHOAR, 2011). This initiative was founded by primary school teachers in the Hull area, with a view to inspiring young children to take an active interest in sustainability and ethical consumerism. Several faculties of the University of Hull participated in the initiative by developing educational games that could be incorporated into the schools' curriculum. These were designed to engage school pupils in environmental sustainability and to make them more aware of their own environmental behaviours. In all, 66 children attended from 22 primary schools.\n3. University student-led production of educational games to influence sustainability behaviours: The apparent success of the GBSC game in changing behaviours and encouraging sustainability amongst the teachers and pupils inspired the idea of getting university students studying an environmental science module involved in the process through \"learning-by-design\". HE students may have the academic background in environmental science and sustainability that they can use to engage in academic debate and to influence their own behaviours, but there are few avenues in which they can use their knowledge to make a difference through educating others, particularly the next generation. Furthermore, in our experience, developing a game for such an age group challenged us as educators in terms of our basic understanding of sustainability and how to convey the messages through the game and activity.\n4. Feedback on the games from local schools around Staffordshire: To select which games would be studied, all six available games were played and reviewed by visiting pupils and their teachers in terms of usability and accessibility for the target age group during two separate engagement days in November and December 2013 at the Keele University Sustainability Hub. One school group of 20 pupils tried the Sustainability Snap!, Recycling Game and Energy Role Play Game. The other school group of 40 pupils tried the remaining games. User engagement was observed by Sustainability Hub Staff during the activity and informal, verbal qualitative feedback from children and teachers was recorded at the end of each day by the same staff. Four of the six games were chosen by staff at the Sustainability Hub to be used with three different visiting mixed-gender schools with groups of approximately 20 pupils aged between 10 and 13 years. These were the recycling throwing game, Eco-house game, Sustainability Snap! and the Carbon Points game (Table III). The games were selected according to suitability for the level and group sizes of the visiting pupils. The games were run during three energy and sustainability-themed visit days among a range of other interactive activities. All of the games played were found to be accessible to their intended audiences.\n5. University student feedback on their experience of the creation, development and running of educational games to influence sustainability behaviours: The views of the university students were collected through detailed feedback questionnaires. The questionnaire was designed to evaluate the assessment based on students' opinion of the effectiveness of the game creation assessment in terms of changing their attitudes, behaviours and skills and whether they found it a useful exercise. Out of the 57 students enrolled on the module, 32 took part in the research and responded to questions. When asked if they would like to see this type of game creation assessment run again in the following year and would like to see more of this type of game creation assessment, 81 per cent and 75 per cent agreed, respectively. When students were asked what they enjoyed most about the environmental game creation assessment, students responded positively with 50 per cent of the respondents enjoying an aspect of the creativity involved in the game creation assessment and with 38 per cent enjoying the process of developing and playing the games. All the students felt that the game creation assessment related to the module by some degree either a little (13 per cent), moderately (41 per cent), quite a lot (44 per cent) or a great deal (3 per cent). The majority of students also felt that they were adequately prepared for the task within the module either moderately (19 per cent) or quite a lot (69 per cent), although a couple of students specifically referred to the fact that they had not done anything similar before.\n6. Evaluation of game creation exercise: The game creation assessment proved useful as a way to highlight how learning can be progressively instilled within students, as it focuses on students as the main protagonists in learning rather than the usual dependency on knowledge being imparted by a teacher in a uni-directional way. Hence, the exercise draws widely from Kolb's (1984) idea of experiential learning, whereby focus is upon the individual playing the most important role in their education - in this case by playing the GBSC game and then by developing their own games. By being involved in the whole life cycle of the process (playing the GBSC, developing their own games and facilitating the playing of their games with an audience - either peers or school children) and with the backdrop of a solid academic knowledge base (i.e. delivered through the module and lectures), students also touch on all bases of the four dialectics of the learning cycle and nine learning styles outlined by Kolb et al. (2014). The four dialectics include concrete experience (CE), reflective observation (RO), abstract conceptualisation (AC) and active experimentation. Whilst the dialectics can be in tension (i.e. RO and AE), allowances were made to include opportunities for both (connecting their experiences and ideas to come up with a game to meet the learning objectives vs the process/act of actually creating their game) (Figure 6).\n7. Conclusions and recommendations: This paper has utilised two case studies of ESD with school pupils and HE students to demonstrate that gamification can foster integrative values and cognitions that are particularly appropriate for ESD and the transformational learning necessary for behavioural change.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss a novel life cycle approach to education for sustainable development (ESD) where the students become \"design thinkers\".\nDesign/methodology/approach: A case study on the creation, development and utilisation of educational games by university students is presented. The paper discusses the case study in the context of Kolb's experiential learning and dynamic matching model, Perry's stages of intellectual development and Beech and Macintosh's processual learning model. The data used were from questionnaire feedback from the pupils who played the games and students who designed the games. Further qualitative feedback was collected from local schools involved in playing the games created by the students.\nFindings: Overall, the students responded positively to the assessment and would like to see more of this type of assessment. They enjoyed the creativity involved and the process of developing the games. For the majority of the skill sets measured, most students found that their skills improved slightly. Many students felt that they had learnt a lot about effectively communicating science. The school children involved in playing the student-created games found them accessible with variable degrees of effectiveness as engaging learning tools dependent on the game.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes a new approach to ESD which incorporates learner-centred arrangements within a full life cycle of game creation, delivery, playing and back to creation. The games can be used as a tool for enhancing knowledge and influencing behaviours in school children whilst enhancing ESD capacity in schools. The assessment also helps forge important links between the academic and local communities to enhance sustainable development.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Antecedents and consequences of virtual customer co-creation behaviours	[ "Participation", "Involvement", "Cross-cultural", "Customer citizenship behaviour", "E-WOM quality", "Online co-creation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The view of customers as co-creators of value is a central idea in the service-dominant logic of marketing, which challenges the view of consumers as passive buyers to see them as actors in the production of personalised offers (Payne et al., 2009; Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004; Vargo and Lusch, 2004). The increased digitalization of the economy and the adoption of omnichannel strategies by firms (Verhoef et al., 2015) empower consumers and enable mass and multifaceted co-creation (Zhang et al., 2017; Zwass, 2010). Customer co-creation behaviours are easier to perform online than offline and are particularly stimulated through the use of social network sites (SNS) (Wu et al., 2017). Consequently, firms are investing considerable resources in developing online engagement platforms that allow high levels of interactivity with customers and create brand equity, for example, the interactive NikeID platform which allows customers to co-design their shoes (Ramaswamy and Ozcan, 2016). This has motivated a growing research interest to understand online consumer behaviour and the reasons why people interact with each other and with brands in SNS (Hong-Youl et al., 2016; Ortiz et al., 2017).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Co-creation behaviours: CPB and CCB\n3. Research model and hypotheses: The central constructs of our research model (Figure 1) are the two types of voluntary co-creation behaviours - CPB and CCB - as defined by Groth (2005) and operationalised by Yi and Gong's (2013). Our model is rooted in the logic of the conceptual model of value co-creation in the context of service-dominant logic developed by Payne et al. (2009). This is a comprehensive model that understands value co-creation as the integration of four components: encounters, customer processes, supplier processes and additional sources of brand knowledge. Encounters are \"processes where both parties are interacting and mutually co-creating experiences\" (Payne et al., 2009, p. 383), which we operationalise in our model as CPB and CCB. Our model simultaneously investigates the antecedents and consequences of these two behaviours as discussed in the following sections.\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Context of the study\n5. Results: 5.1 Testing of the research hypotheses and the cultural moderator effect\n6. Discussion: This study aimed to understand co-creation in the virtual environment of fashion retailers by testing a model of the antecedents and consequences of two types of co-creation behaviour - CPB and CCB - in two different countries, Spain and the UK. The results provide support for all the hypotheses in the UK, while in Spain the first hypothesis cannot be accepted.\n7. Conclusion: The main aim of this study was to analyse the antecedents and consequences of two types of co-creation behaviour that require a distinct degree of effort from the customer: CPB and CCB in the online environment of retailers in two different countries. Following the logic of Payne et al. (2009), our research model has contemplated three antecedents of each of co-creation behaviour: category involvement as an exponent of individual characteristics that affect customer processes, and two variables that are specific of the online context - perceived ease-of-use of the online co-creation platform and e-WOM quality - that refer to the supplier's value-creating processes and to additional sources of value co-creation, respectively.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to compare the antecedents and consequences of two distinct types of virtual co-creation behaviours that require different degree of effort from the customer, i.e. customer participation (CPB), and customer citizenship (CCB) behaviour, in a cross-cultural study.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A survey was conducted among members of online panels in the UK and Spain, reaching a sample of 800 online individuals who participate in online co-creation processes with fashion retailers. This design allows us to test the cross-cultural effects. Multi-group structural equations modelling was used to analyse the data.\nFindings: Virtual co-creation behaviours are driven by perceived ease-of-use of the co-creation platform, electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) quality and fashion involvement; however, the effects are different on CPB, affected by perceived ease-of-use more strongly, and on CCB, driven by e-WOM quality and fashion involvement more strongly. Higher level of co-creation increases satisfaction with co-creation, which mediates the effect on engagement and intention of future co-creation. The cross-cultural design reveals that most relationships hold in both countries, with the exception of the influence of fashion involvement on CPB, while some differences in the size of the effects appear between countries.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to increasing our knowledge on online co-creation in several ways. First, the authors investigate, in the online environment, two co-creation behaviours, CPB and CCB, and compare their antecedents. This paper provides a cross-cultural validation of the relationships between CPB and CCB's antecedents and consequences, identifying the different effects due to culture.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Interactive innovative tool for early diagnosis of global pre-crisis processes (based on measurement and assessment of the virtual intellectual capital)	[ "Global economy", "Global pre-crisis processes", "IC clusters (world, Russian and Armenian)", "Innovative tool for early diagnosis", "Measuring and assessing the VIC", "Virtual intellectual capital" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: With the increase in the complexity and scales of the governed entities of megaeconomy, and the emergence of new technological processes and services, the volume of information and knowledge essential for forecasting, analyzing, planning, measuring, assessing and making regulatory or corrective decisions continuously increases. International organizations and financial institutions present short-term forecasts of the world economic progression, while not regularly providing reliable reasoning of the causes and effects of the crises. Some of their proposals are subjective and are provided to managers, government officials, business managers, business owners and other stakeholders as a whole in a non-comprehensive way, which causes distrust and does not facilitate the mobilization of all possible resources.\nLiterature review: The notion \"national intellectual capital\" (NIC) was first defined at the end of the twentieth and at the beginning of the twenty-first centuries in a number of scientific research workds, including \"National Intellectual Capital Index: A United Nations initiative for the Arab region\" by Bontis (2004). The research resulted in developing a methodology to measure the NIC, and the concept of the NIC index. The NIC components were studied by Pasher and Shachar (2005), Weziak, (2007), Hervas-Oliverand and Dalmau-Porta (2007), Lin and Edvinsson (2008), Lin and Lin (2008), and Stam and Andriessen (2009). By 2004 only two countries, Sweden and Israel, have studied the development of their IC. Lin and Edvinsson (2013) present the features of the NIC during financial crisis based on the case of Israel. Only a few research works on studying human and social capitals of the EEU member countries are devoted to Russia (Algieri, 2006; Lukinykh, 2006; Semionov, 2007) and Armenia (Vahanyan et al., 2016).\nMethodology: A new VNIC model (see Figure 1) as a virtual IC cluster is proposed. The VNIC model presents three general components: virtual representations of the world universities, the innovation center networks and the TNCs in global networks. A corresponding system of effective indicators has been developed, which allows measuring, assessing and identifying the patterns of the progression. Using the proposed method, based on the VIC graphs, the global crises in 2008-2016 were forecasted, identified and interpreted; they are displayed on the trajectories of the VIC indicators of TNCs with points of \"breakdown\" or \"decrease.\" The proposed IIT for the early diagnosis of crises allows identifying factors that disrupt the stability of the progression of global and national economies in the context of social-market relations.\nResults: The authors consider that mega clusters can increase the productivity with which universities, innovation center networks and TNCs can compete, nationally and globally. The recent research shows that significantly more innovation takes place with stronger cluster networks.\nDiscussion: Even short-term forecasts of the World Bank and other international organizations and experts are not always objective. A new approach and a more reliable tool for short-term forecasting at global and national levels are required.\nConcluding remarks: The comparative analysis of the obtained indicators with the forecasts of the World Bank and other international organizations confirm the hypothesis: ArcaLer (the QI of the VIC) is an innovative, vivid, secure and reliable tool for early diagnosis of global economic crises and mismatch in global social-economic processes (Vahanyan et al., 2015).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present the great importance and impact of the virtual intellectual capital (VIC) in the frameworks of digital economics, e-governance and business, e-trading and commerce, virtual organizations and enterprises, and information communication technologies development (based on the comparative case studies of the world, Russian and Armenian economics). These conditions increase the importance of the measurement and assessment of the VIC.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research findings are obtained through the method of comparative analysis of the complex models of the VIC. The features are studied through measuring and assessing the VIC parameters of virtual representations on the internet. The data are complemented through virtual cluster analysis, a multidimensional statistical procedure that collects data containing information on facility selection. Three cluster groups are used in the study: the clusters of the TNCs and their virtual representations; the clusters of the network of the leading innovation centers and their virtual representations; and the clusters of the leading universities and their virtual representations.\nFindings: The paper establishes the research findings of the growth forecasts of the IC clusters in the world, Russian and Armenian economic processes. This is extremely important to ensuring sustainable growth of the country's competitiveness, economy and general welfare. The paper proposes a new model of the virtual national or transnational intellectual capital (VNTIC). The VNTIC model presents three general components: virtual representations of universities, innovation center networks and transnational corporations in global networks. The research findings show that the interactive innovative tools (IIT) can be used for early diagnosis of the world economic and financial processes.\nOriginality/value: The authors developed for the first time the IIT for measuring and assessing the three intellectual capital components. The paper presents a new approach and a more reliable tool for short-term forecasting at global and national levels based on QI ranking of the VIC clusters of the commercial enterprises, universities and networks of innovation centers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Structuring social and environmental management control and accountability: Behind the hotel doors	[ "Strategy", "Environmental", "Social", "Management control", "Accountability", "Structuration" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Social and environmental responsibility has become an expanding concern and practice amongst corporations internationally (Scherer and Palazzo, 2011). Related research into corporate social and environmental management strategy (SEMS) and associated control have predominantly focussed on the mining, manufacturing and chemical industries, given their potential for significant pollution and degradation of the environment. However within the service sector, the hospitality industry is attracting greater attention and in particular the international hotel industry has exhibited varying degrees of social and environmental strategy and reporting (O'Brien and Parker, 1999; Chung and Parker, 2008; Claver-Cortes et al., 2007; De Grosbois, 2012). However, little is known about SEMS implementation and control processes within the globally important hospitality industry. Indeed, the accounting and management research literatures are almost silent even on general management control systems in this industry, notable exceptions being studies such as Collier and Gregory (1995a, b), Sharma (2002), Ahrens and Chapman (2004), Lamminmaki (2008) and Cruz et al. (2011). Yet the hospitality industry constitutes one of the largest global industry categories, also being arguably the largest global service industry, with unique structural and operational features and having significant community and environmental engagement and impact (O'Brien and Parker, 1999; Guilding, 2003; Chung and Parker, 2008, 2010).\n2. A structuration theory perspective: This study's research design and analysis has been informed by Giddens' (1976, 1979, 1981, 1984, 1987) structuration theory whose application has a lengthy tradition in accounting research (Englund and Gerdin, 2008) particularly drawing on his concept of social structures acting as both a medium and outcome of human action. Its application to the accounting and management fields can be traced back to the early 1980s (Roberts and Scapens,1985; MacIntosh and Scapens, 1990, 1991; Scapens and Macintosh, 1996; Yuthas and Dillard, 1998; Whittington, 1992; Pozzebon, 2004). Structuration theory sees people as engaged in purposeful action through which they create an environment and accompanying social structures that reciprocally become drivers and conditioners of their behaviour and actions. As Roberts (2014) argues, knowledgable agents (such as staff in the hotel subject to this study) are not wholly shaped by macrohistorical forces, but rather may reproduce organisational interpretive schemes and structures through their interactions. Thus they can draw upon and reproduce structures in specific settings (Englund et al., 2011). Thus actors both create and become shaped by emergent social structures, and through this process, these structures are continually reproduced as well as transformed over time, for example as virtual structures formed by their memories and mutual tacit understandings (Conrad, 2014; Englund et al., 2011). This duality of institutional structure produces continuity in practices across time and space (Giddens, 1976, 1979, 1981, 1982; Manson et al., 2001; Dillard et al., 2004; Seal et al., 2004; Kilfoyle and Richardson, 2011). Structures then, are resources and rules that both facilitate (and constrain) how actors behave in social settings. Material and human resources facilitate or inhibit action, while rules attribute meaning and legitimise organisational actions. Resources can be allocative (material resources facilitating the exercise of power over the environment) or authoritative (intangible knowledge and authority exercised by actors over other actors). Rules and resources are mutually interactive and interdependent (Dillard et al., 2004; Conrad, 2005; Uddin and Tsamenyi, 2005; Jayasinghe and Thomas, 2009). Giddens anticipates actors' reflective self-monitoring of their actions routinely exercised through vehicles such as their own knowledge sets, their interpretive schemes, performance measurement and accountability systems (Granlund, 2003; Moore, 2011). Their strategic context both empowers and constrains the degree to which they can change that context. This is characteristic of the reciprocal relationship between human agency and social/organisational structure (Gurd, 2008; Kilfoyle and Richardson, 2011).\n3. Hotel social and environmental strategy and management control: Social and environmental responsibilities are important for the international hospitality industry, particularly given impacts of tourism upon national and regional economies, environment and sociocultural structures (Bohdanowicz and Zientara, 2008). Environmental guidelines have been promulgated by the International Hotel and Environment Initiative, the International Hotel and restaurant Association, the American Hotel and Lodging Association and the United Nations Environment Program (Kirk, 1998; Bohdanowicz, 2005, 2006). Nonetheless rates of implementation across small-, medium- and large-sized hotels and between developed and developing countries remains highly variable (Kasim, 2009; Chan, 2011). Major hotel organisations identified as the leaders in instituting environmentally and socially sustainable strategies include Accor, Fairmont Hotels, Hilton, Kimpton Hotels, Marriott, Taj Hotels Group and the Intercontinental Hotels Group (Houdre, 2008). The array of hotel SEMSs fall into several groups: energy management, waste management, water conservation, food and materials purchasing and social responsibility (Iwanowski and Rushmore, 1994; O'Brien and Parker, 1999; Bohdanowicz, 2005; Bohdanowicz 2006; Erdogan and Barris, 2007).\n4. Field-based case study method: This study has employed a field-based case study methodology focussing upon an in depth exploration of a single organisational unit case: a leading Singapore hotel that is part of a prominent global hotel chain and situated in a strategically central and important location in the South East Asian tourism region. It involves collection and analysis of a range of documentary and web-based data from this organisation supplemented by interviews with key organisational managers within the hotel in order to understand and theoretically interpret contexts and practices (Ferreira and Merchant, 1992; Hartley, 2004).\n5. Evidence-based findings: This section presents the empirical findings and their structuration theory-based interpretation from the hotel case study. The evidence presented and discussed is drawn from publicly available government, business and non-profit association published sources and websites, internal hotel documents (both from Singaporean location and global headquarters), and interviews with hotel management and employees.\n6. Reflections and implications: In the Singapore hotel, legitimation of SEMSs has been reinforced by global corporate level inspired inculcation of shared social and environmental values and objectives cascaded down through the hotel chain and reinforced through its programme of certifications and awards. This has effectively constituted the exercise of SEMC particularly via staff and management signification and legitimation structuring. Yet at the same time, a dialectic of control has been observable through the bottom-up expression of employee values and their clear personal commitments to practically advancing a social and environmental agenda in their hotel. This was evident in both the organisation's local culture, its symbolism and through staff actions and initiatives. They emerged as knowledgeable and articulate in explaining and advancing their interpretive schemes and related SEMSs. Hence social and environmental strategy and control are philosophically framed and controlled top-down, but implemented and also controlled bottom-up.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the construction of social and environmental strategies and the related implementation of management control by a key organisation located in a pivotal Asian location in the global hospitality industry. In doing so, it sets out to elucidate the forms and processes of strategic social and environmental control as well their relationship to the traditional financial control system.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study employs field-based case study of a single case operating in both regional and global context. Drawing upon documentary, survey and interview sources, the study employs structuration theory to inform its design and analysis.\nFindings: The findings reveal the interaction of top-down global corporate framing and bottom-up local-level staff initiatives that combine to develop a locally focussed and differentiated social and environmental programme and expedite an associated management control and accountability system. The study also reveals the dominance of the traditional financial control system over the social and environmental management control system and the simultaneously enabling and constraining nature of that relationship.\nPractical implications: Signification and legitimation structures can be employed in building social and environmental values and programmes which then lay the foundations for related discourse and action at multiple levels of the organisation. This also has the potential to facilitate modes of staff commitment expressed through bottom-up initiatives and control, subject to but also facilitated by the dominating influence of the organisation's financial control system.\nSocial implications: This study reveals the importance of national and regional governmental, cultural and social context as both potential enablers and beneficiaries of organisational, social and environmental strategy and control innovation and implementation.\nOriginality/value: The paper offers an intra-organisational perspective on social and environmental strategising and control processes and motivations that elucidates forms of action, control and accountability and the relationship between social/environmental control and financial control agendas. It further reveals the interaction between globally developed strategic and control frameworks and locally initiated bottom-up strategic initiatives and control.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Quality improvement oriented training and education programme and its financial accounting system	[ "Total quality management", "Training", "Education", "Quality improvement", "Accounting", "Milk" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Total quality management (TQM) is one of the philosophies that brought out revolutionary changes in organisations over the last two decades (Gunasekaran et al., 1998). Fundamentally, TQM calls for involvement of all employees and functions towards attaining continuous quality improvement (Cowling and Newman, 1995). In order to achieve this major goal, a number of approaches are envisaged in TQM field. One among them is, imparting training and education to the employees (Brown, 1994; Galloway and Ho, 1996). TQM models suggested by leading quality gurus (Logothetis, 1997; Davies, 2001; Pun and Chin, 1999) lay an emphasis on training and education to achieve continuous quality improvement. As the TQM consultants also advised companies to promote training and educational programmes, money and time have been invested in this direction in practical arena (Sels, 2002). Yet, an overview on TQM programmes being organized in companies reveal that well structured and programmed Quality Improvement Oriented Training and Education Programmes (Q_TEPS) still eludes the practical scenario. The absence of any instrument to measure the performance of Q_TEPS in companies is one of the reasons attributed to this state. The managements of companies in particular, desire to read the performance status of any training programme using balance sheet (Tennant et al., 2002). In order to fulfil these needs, we were motivated to carryout the research project reported in this paper. There were two purposes for carrying out this research project. One was to check the feasibility of designing Q_TEPS and a system to evaluate their performance from the financial point of view. The second purpose was to examine their implementation feasibility in a real time environment. In order to fulfil these purposes, the Q_TEPS for a milk products manufacturing unit located at Kollam District of Kerala State of India were designed and their performance was financially viewed using a financial accounting system. The details of this research project are presented in this paper.\nLiterature review: Right from quality gurus' era to today's quality awards and ISO 9001 dominated era, the importance of training in exercising continuous quality improvement is strongly emphasized (Niehoff and Whitney-Bammerlin, 1995; Brown, 1994; Quazi and Jacobs, 2004). Researchers have also established the importance of training and education in achieving continual improvement (Govindarajulu and Daily, 2004). Yet the number of articles that have reported the research and practices of Q_TEPS are comparatively less (Mathews et al., 2001). Also, it is claimed that not many companies have been examining the impact of training programmes in TQM projects (Genna, 1998). It is in this context, that the literature review on Q_TEPS reported in the following subsections assumes special significance. Before detailing the contributions, we appraise here the rationale behind selecting Q_TEPS articles. Except Ishikawa and Deming (Logothetis, 1997), many researchers and practitioners have mixed the usage of the terms \"training\" and \"education\". Meanwhile Goetsch and Davis (1997) have confirmed that the meanings of training and education in TQM almost coincide with each other. Hence we reviewed the articles that deal with training or education both separately or jointly in order to report the state of the art of Q_TEPS.Benefits of Q_TEPS\nMethodology: The methodology adopted is shown in Figure 1. As shown the literature was studied to gather knowledge on training and education. The literature was then refined to extract Q_TEPS requirements. The milk products manufacturing unit (hereafter referred to as \"company\") was visited and the products and the manufacturing processes were studied parallely. At this juncture, both the theoretical and practical knowledge gathered were used to identify the Q_TEPS requirements of the company. In order to meet these Q_TEPS requirements, the detailed design of Q_TEPS for the company was carried out. A literature search was made to identify a suitable performance model of Q_TEPS. At one point of time, it was decided to use a financial accounting system used by Devadasan et al. (1999) for portraying quality circle programme through financial accounting statements. Then, the financial values pertaining to the tangible activities of Q_TEPS in the company were computed. In addition to this, the intangible activities of Q_TEPS were identified and the conversion models were used to convert them into financial values. Following this, the income and expenditure account and balance sheet of Q_TEPS for the company were developed. A questionnaire-based feedback method was used to derive the opinions among the practising community on the Q_TEPS and its financial accounting system.\nManufacturing of milk products: The milk products produced by the company are toned milk, ghee, curd and buttermilk. The processes employed for manufacturing these milk products and their sequence are shown in Figure 2. As shown the milk received from different agencies is chilled to 4degC to avoid spoilage. In order to prevent the growth of bacteria, it is pasteurised. This process involved the heating of chilled milk to 80degC and cooling it to a temperature of 8degC. During the pasteurisation process, the cream is separated from the milk at about 40degC in the cream separator. The cream thus separated is used for manufacturing ghee and skimmed milk. Curd is prepared in a jacketed tank by collecting milk directly from the pasteurizer at 37degC. The milk entering the pasteurizer is heated to 90degC and then cooled to 37degC using normal water. Culture is then added and it turns into curd, left overnight. The buttermilk is prepared by diluting the curd with pasteurized water, thus maintaining a total solid content of 4.5 per cent and by adding salt, ginger juice, chilly juice, curry leaves, etc. The quality threats of milk production and processes are:* spoilage of the products at different stages; and* packaging with incorrect weight and leaks in packets.\nDesign of Q_TEPS: Before beginning the design, the literature dealing with general training and Q_TEPS were studied to enlist the topics (Frances and Bee, 2000; Logothetis, 1997). Those topics are shown in Table I. As shown, as many as 18 topics of Q_TEPS were identified. Following this process, the inputs and outputs of the 18 Q_TEPS were drawn. These are shown in Table II. In order to deal with 18 Q_TEPS topics, the specific and detailed training programmes were designed. The detailed design pertaining to the topics \"Quality planning for process control\", \"Cost of poor quality-how to estimate it\" and \"Corrective action for nonconformities\" carried out in the company are presented in Tables III-V, respectively, as samples. The details of the design pertaining to \"Quality planning for process control\" is briefly described here. As shown in Table III, this Q_TEP topic is made specific to the company by assigning the title \"Quality planning for process control for handling loss minimisation\". The programme schedule is drawn to include lectures and interactive sessions. The capacity and the designation of the participants are mentioned. The maximum capacity of this programme is 53 operators and 7 supervisors. The expected output is also declared which will direct both the participants and the organisers of Q_TEPS focus towards covering the Q_TEP topic. The detailed design of all the 18 Q_TEPS topics for the company were carried out theoretically and then refined after consulting the key knowledgeable personnel employed in the company. Thus the practical compatibility of Q_TEPS designed for the company was ensured. However, their successful implementation would depend upon their performance resulting in enhanced financial values. This implied that financial evaluation of Q_TEPS is instrumental in preventing the derailment of the management's main agenda.\nFinancial accounting of Q_TEPS: The task of financial evaluation of Q_TEPS begins with identifying of a suitable model. If a completely new financial evaluation model for Q_TEPS is developed, it will take a considerably longer time to penetrate the organisational environment. In this context, attention is drawn towards the system used by financial accounting professionals (Porter and Norton, 1999). This conventional financial accounting system is being used in companies for a prolonged period of time and is found to successfully account the organisational performance through the language of money. If the same system is exploited, the receptivity and utility of the financial accounting system of Q_TEPS in TQM projects will be ensured. Such a system should evolve financial accounting statements namely \"Income & Expenditure account\" and \"Balance Sheet\" concerning Q_TEPS in TQM projects. As the practicing professionals are accustomed to assessing the financial performance of the companies using the traditional financial accounting system, the income and expenditure account and balance sheet concerning Q_TEPS in TQM projects would be useful for decision making.Expenditure and income of Q_TEPS\nFinancial conversion of Q_TEPS activities: As mentioned in the previous section, a majority of the Q_TEPS activities, particularly, expenditure, gains, assets accumulation, and increasing liabilities take place in intangible forms. In order to financially account these activities, it is important that they are appropriately converted into financial values. To achieve this purpose, four approaches were considered. These approaches are briefly described here.Individual sales price of product\nInferences from financial accounting statements: The income and expenditure account and balance sheet will enable decision makers to make some important interpretations. Some of the inferences drawn from Tables XVI and XVII are mentioned below:* it is expected that the implementation of Q_TEPS in the company would result in a value addition of INR 28,82,739 annually, which includes both tangible and intangible values;* it is expected that the tangible training expenditure to be incurred for implementing Q_TEPS at the company will be INR 2,01,570 and the intangible training expenditure will be INR 3,15,684;* it is expected that the implementation of Q_TEPS at the company will result in maximum income of INR 12,33,700, through reduction of handling loss; and* it is expected that the implementation of Q_TEPS at the company will result in a minimum income of INR 13,952 through awareness.\nConclusion: Right from the days of TQM era, the need of training and educational programmes have been emphasized. Researchers working in this direction have evolved different frameworks for the same. This points at the difficulty in formulating a common Q_TEPS framework. At this juncture, it is worthwhile to note that many researchers have claimed that the training and educational programmes would result not only in profits but also in other human related gains like multi-skill development and generation of enthusiasm towards the work among the employees (Hamazah and Zairi, 1996). Besides, researchers have observed \"training and education\" as the one of the critical success factors of models used in the recently emerging areas like knowledge management and environmental management (Hung et al., 2005; Wong, 2005; Wee and Quazi, 2005). Likewise, the Six-Sigma programme which is fast spreading across the globe, is encapsulated with well designed training programmes (Raisinghani et al., 2005). It was in this context that, the research project reported in this paper was carried out in a company manufacturing milk products. Two contributions were the major hallmarks of this research project. The first contribution was the detailed design of Q_TEPS for the company, which can be used as a reference model by TQM professionals. The second was the design of a financial accounting system of Q_TEPS accompanied by financial conversion models. This will enable the TQM professionals to convert the result of Q_TEPS in financial values and to project their performance through the language of money. It appears that no research on implementing Q_TEPS in milk products manufacturing scenario has been reported so far. Hence, the above contributions of this research project can be said to be unique in the field of TQM. The general requirements of Q_TEPS were coupled with the continuous quality improvement of milk products manufacturing. The tangible and intangible values indicated in the financial accounting statements create an impression that the Q_TEPS implementation in the company would lead to considerable increase in value addition.This company is a government run organisation, and hence it was not immediately possible to even test implement the Q_TEPS designed during this research project. Hence, we decided to carryout a hypothesis testing as done by Peng et al. (2005). For this purpose, it was decided to collect the feedback using questionnaires from the competent personnel. These personnel were offering their expertise and sharing ideas, data and information during the design of Q_TEPS and their financial accounting system in the company. The summary of the responses received against the questions on Q_TEPS are indicated in Table XVIII. As can be seen, the first question aimed at testing the level of understanding of Q_TEPS. As the values were found to be 8.8 in a scale of range 0-10, the reliability of the results assessed was considered to be reasonable. The second question tested the first hypothesis (H1) that the proposed Q_TEPS would be useful in improving quality. As the average value was found to be 8.4 in the scale of 0-10, the H1 was accepted. The third question aimed at checking the second hypothesis (H2), that the investment on Q_TEPS would justify the gain. As the value was 8 in a scale of range 0-10, the H2 was accepted. Further, the respondents were asked to write down their opinions. The opinions written by them are shown in Table XIX. Similar exercise was carried out to establish the validity of financial accounting system of Q_TEPS. The corresponding summary of responses is shown in Table XX. As indicated, the first question tested the H1 that the values depicted in financial accounting statements of Q_TEPS were reasonable. As the average value was found to be 8.25 in the scale of range 0-10, the H1 was accepted. The second question aimed at checking the H2, that the inferences drawn from the financial accounting statements of Q_TEPS were realistic. As the average value was found to be 8 in the scale of range 0-10, the H2 was accepted. Further, the respondents were asked to write their overall opinion about the financial accounting system of Q_TEPS. Their responses are presented in Table XXI. As indicated, the financial values of Q_TEPS activities that have been developed using this system were found reasonable by the responders. Thus the validity of Q_TEPS and its financial accounting system at the company was established. Finally it is concluded that the overall response obtained from the company executives is very positive and the proposed Q_TEPS and its financial accounting system can be implemented successfully.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To design a quality improvement oriented training and education programme (Q_TEPS) for a company manufacturing milk products and to explore its performance using a financial accounting system.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A company manufacturing milk products was visited and the processes were studied. The literature on Q_TEPS was referred to design Q_TEPS unique to the milk product manufacturing company. The feasibility of implementing Q_TEPS in the company was checked by interviewing the executives. A financial accounting system was used to evolve the income and expenditure account and the balance sheet pertaining to Q_TEPS in the company. The feedback collected using questionnaires was used to establish the validity of Q_TEPS and their financial accounting system in the company.\nFindings: - The implementation of Q_TEPS in the milk manufacturing company would enable the company to reap a considerable number of tangible and intangible benefits.\nResearch limitations/implications: - It being a government run company, test implementing Q_TEPS was not possible. The income and expenditure account and balance sheet were developed by projecting the performance of Q_TEPS in the company. However, this exercise was done with the consultation of the executives in the company and hence the values projected in the above statements may not deviate considerably from the real time performance of Q_TEPS.\nPractical implications: - The feedback on Q_TEPS and their financial accounting system led to an impression that they can be implemented in practice. However, in order to enable this, the business procedures must be made simple, flexible and friendly to experiment such research programmes in the future.\nOriginality/value: - The literature review indicates that no work has been done on implementing Q_TEPS in a milk product producing company. Also, it is discernable that the performance of Q_TEPS has not been viewed using financial values. The contribution of this paper would lead to the attainment of these research and practical imperatives.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Willingness to pay for organic cotton: Consumer responsiveness to a corporate social responsibility initiative	[ "Consumer behaviour", "Corporate social responsibility", "Organic cotton", "Organic production", "LISREL" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Organic cotton is cotton that has been produced using methods that are free from most synthetic chemical inputs, such as pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilisers (Myers and Stolton, 1999), in contrast to conventional cotton, which is mainly characterised by massive utilisation of synthetic chemicals. Throughout recent years, there has been an upsurge in organic cotton products, which have experienced considerable growth in the apparel sector.\n2. Research framework: Consumers' attitudes towards CSR are determined by their beliefs that the product fulfils certain functions and that it satisfies some of their needs (Kalafatis et al., 1999). In terms of perceived value theory, CSR can be viewed as an attribute that provides functional, emotional and social value to customers (Green and Peloza, 2011). This particular aspect of consumers' attitudes in this study was investigated and measured through items selected from the cited studies and then modified to fit the context of our research.\n3. Research methodology: Starting from these premises, this study proposes a theoretical model that analyses the relationships between latent constructs. The theoretical framework is summarised in Figure 1, showing the proposed causal relationships between attitude of consumer towards CSR, consumer responsiveness to considering CSR as an enhancer of company performance (CSRP), consumer responsiveness to considering CSR as an enhancer of company performance in the apparel industry (CSRAI) and WTP for organic cotton clothing.\n4. Results: After constructing the questionnaire, 30 participants were involved in a pilot test. The survey was conducted in the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, in the northeast of Italy, between January and March 2013. About 400 questionnaires were distributed and 364 responses were collected (286 face-to-face interviews were also conducted by the same interviewer and 78 self-report questionnaires were completed on the spot, in light of the opportunity to collect them simultaneously). All questionnaires were successfully completed and deemed suitable for the data analysis. All respondents were shoppers at a sports department store, because our aim was to depict consumers' in-store experience, given that emotional state may affect a shopper's behaviour after the decision to shop has been made. Of the 364 respondents, 209 were women. All relevant age groups were represented. In terms of education, 52 per cent of the respondents had successfully completed high school and 30 per cent held a university degree. More than half of the respondents (51 per cent) had an understanding of CSR and 98 per cent of them were willing to purchase sustainable products. The great majority (76 per cent) stated that CSR should be taken into consideration in order to increase an industry's profits.\n5. Conclusions: According to the results of the data analysis obtained via CFA, the four constructs have good reliability. The analysis conducted with LISREL made it possible to test the hypothesis proposed in the model via several fit measures, which suggested a good model fit, according to the thresholds proposed in literature. One of the key advantages of using an SEM is that it offers the possibility of estimating causal effects among the latent constructs (Bollen and Liang, 1989). Analysing the estimates of the causal relationships, the findings strongly support hypotheses H1-H3, H5 and H6 and may contribute to a better understanding of consumer behaviour in relation to organic cotton apparel. One of the direct implications of our study is that companies in the apparel industry should try to improve their social and environmental performance, and communicate their efforts to the public, if they want to enlarge their presence in the organic cotton apparel market and elicit the desired consumer response of boosting their WTP a premium price. Another crucial implication is that companies can adopt a CSR programme and \"over-comply\" with environmental regulation for several reasons, two of which seem particularly strong. One main reason is to move ahead of a foreseeable trend in which both legislation and consumers' preferences become stricter. This can be interpreted as risk management. The other main reason is to use environmental reputation to gain market share from less environmentally friendly competitors (Heal, 2005). As a result, a company may generate interest in environmental sustainability; the pure market effects emerge from a company that has done just what it was supposed to do. Market forces, in fact, include win/win opportunities to increase revenues with environmentally responsible consumers, such as consumers willing to pay a higher price as a premium for environment friendly products, cost reductions from improving the efficiency of resource use, labour market advantages with employees who have green preferences and opportunities to reduce the cost of capital from green investors (Arora and Gangopadhyay, 1995; Lutz et al., 2000). For a firm to understand how to promote behavioural change, it needs to understand how people respond, sometimes imperfectly, to non-price factors. According with Cerin (2006), firms are usually reluctant to adopt a green technology because of its higher-than-average costs. However, small groups of environmentally minded consumers, who are willing to pay higher prices for green products, can provide a market niche for green firms with a small market share, eventually forcing overall adoption of the greener technology in an industry. Reinders and Bartels (2016) argue that organic brands have become increasingly important as an offering through which retailers can differentiate themselves. In this sense, organic farming and organic cotton apparel are relatively new phenomena and very few people around the world are aware of their beneficial impacts on the environment and human health. Besides, organic cotton is relatively expensive in comparison to conventionally produced cotton and hence WTP for the two types of cotton apparel differs among individuals. In order to encourage organic farming and the production of organic cotton clothes, a market for organic cotton depends on knowing what factors influence consumers' awareness and their WTP for organic products. Once such factors are ascertained, farmers will be better equipped to market their organic products. These results will provide key information for the organic cotton apparel industry that will help to promote organic cotton products. Even if sustainability is a prominent issue that is increasingly affecting product development in the clothing sector, ultimately it has a relevant impact upon consumer behaviour in terms of selection, purchase, maintenance and disposal of apparel. Increasing awareness of both environmental and social sustainability impacts in recent decades has led to escalating concern, in business and in society in general, about the effect of current levels of consumption. As demonstrated by Low and Davenport (2006), sustainable consumption, as a significant aspect in the behaviour of ethical consumers, has the potential to change the world. Key methods of sustainable consumption are the selection of sustainable products, boycotts of unsustainable products (particularly with regard to social sustainability) and anti-consumption (Harrison et al., 2005).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Consumers seem to be increasingly concerned about the environmental and social consequences of their purchases. For this reason, companies are involved in corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies for their supply chain to responsibly manage the consumption of the environmental resources and to support sustainability. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of the Italian organic apparel consumer by investigating the importance of consumers' attitudes towards CSR in agricultural products processing industries and their willingness to pay (WTP) for organic cotton clothing.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Questionnaire data were gathered in Italy on a Likert scale. Questions focussed on WTP for organic cotton, with the aim to test consumer responsiveness to a CSR initiative in Italy. A structural equation model is proposed to shed some light into this relatively unexplored area.\nFindings: One of the direct implications of the authors' study is that companies in apparel industry should try to improve their social and environmental performance to elicit the desired consumer responses.\nOriginality/value: This implies important managerial implications for new marketing strategies. If consumers' perception of CSR practices drives their behavioural intention, firms will be motivated to be involved and to invest in socially responsible practices.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Do personal resources mediate the effect of perceived organizational support on emotional exhaustion and job outcomes?	[ "Internal marketing", "Hotel management", "Human resource management", "Cameroon", "Emotional exhaustion", "Extra-role customer service", "Hotel employees", "Organizational support", "Personal resources", "Turnover intentions" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Many hospitality managers recognize that investment in high-performance work practices such as training, empowerment, rewards, selective staffing and teamwork motivates employees to fulfill the requirements of frontline service jobs successfully, and it results in reduced turnover intentions. Such high-performance work practices also predict organizational support that refers to the extent to which employees perceive that the organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being (Eisenberger et al., 1986). The existence of a work environment where the organization provides support to employees may foster their personal resources, which, in turn, lead to both positive psychological and organizational outcomes (Michel et al., 2013).\nTheoretical background and hypotheses: Background\nMethod: Sample and procedure\nResults: Measurement properties\nDiscussion: Summary and evaluation of findings\nConclusion: This paper attempts to examine personal resources as a mediator of the effect of perceived organizational support on emotional exhaustion, extra-role performance and turnover intentions. Unlike other similar studies, this paper treats positive affectivity, intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy as the indicators of personal resources. By doing so, it is possible to test the joint effects of personal resources on emotional exhaustion and the aforementioned job outcomes. Data were collected from frontline hotel employees with a time lag of one month in Cameroon to gauge these relationships.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine personal resources as a mediator of the effect of perceived organizational support on emotional exhaustion, extra-role customer service and turnover intentions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using data collected from frontline hotel employees with a one-month time lag in Cameroon, the relationships were assessed via structural equation modeling. Positive affectivity, intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy were treated as the indicators of personal resources.\nFindings: The results suggest that positive affectivity, intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy are significant indicators representing personal resources. As hypothesized, personal resources fully mediate the effect of perceived organizational support on emotional exhaustion, extra-role customer service and turnover intentions. Specifically, frontline employees who receive sufficient support from the organization are high in positive affectivity, intrinsically motivated and self-efficacious at elevated levels. Such employees, in turn, experience low levels of emotional exhaustion and turnover intentions and display high levels of extra-role customer service behaviors.\nOriginality/value: The current paper contributes to the hospitality management literature by investigating personal resources as a mediator of the impact of perceived organizational support on emotional exhaustion and the aforementioned job outcomes.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Factors influencing labor productivity on construction sites: A state-of-the-art literature review and a survey	[ "Employee productivity", "Human resource management", "Productivity", "Construction management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The productivity of a major industry like construction is of significant importance for the economic growth of a nation. According to the European Construction Industry Federation, the construction industry constitutes 9.7 percent of the gross domestic product in the European Union with a total construction value of 1,186 billion in 2010, providing 6.6 percent of Europe's total employment. This means that construction productivity must grow and should be the Holy Grail of construction research and development.\nResearch method: A two stage methodology was adopted for this research, these are the following.\nLiterature review of factors affecting site productivity: Factors related to pre-construction activities\nThe survey: The previous section provided a state-of-the-art review of the development of CLP in the academic field. It has established a platform to obtain the perceptions of 36 contracting firms on factors that can influence the rate of productivity on construction sites. In total, 46 factors were identified and then classified under five primary categories: pre-construction activities; activities during construction; management-related factors; organizational; and motivational and social factors.\nConclusion: The subject of productivity and its relationship to project success has long been investigated and reported in academic journals. This paper reports on past and recent literature available on productivity in the construction industry. It sought to investigate the state of the art in productivity research and to survey the factors that can impair productivity on site. Although there has been advancement in developing techniques and tools to measuring productivity, concerns have been raised by several articles for the need to invest in technology and innovation to improve the rate on productivity on construction sites. Given the large number of computer software and systems available, this must be disheartening. Moreover, further research is needed to establish the relationship between productivity and the modern concepts of optimizing performance, such as supply chain, lean construction, value engineering and BIM. These concepts are, after all, directed toward eliminating waste, minimizing the transaction cost as well as the enhancement and transfer of shared knowledge and expertise among all parties.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Productivity is a worldwide problem and efforts have been made over the last three decades or so to explore ways to increase the rate of productivity on construction sites. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the state of the art in productivity research and to present the findings of a survey into the factors that can impair productivity on site.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A literature review is structured under five general headings: pre-construction activities; activities during construction; managerial and leadership issues; motivational factors; and organizational factors. In total, 46 determinants were extracted from the above headings and were assessed by 36 main contractors.\nFindings: The literature review revealed that while there has been an advancement in developing techniques and tools to improving productivity on site, more need to be done to invest in technology and innovation. The interview survey indicated that factors associated with pre-construction activities, namely, the \"experience of the selected site and project managers,\" \"design errors,\" \"buildability of the design,\" \"project planning,\" \"communication,\" \" leadership style\" and \"procurement method\" as the most critical factors influencing site productivity. Other highly ranked factors are \"mismanagement of material\" and \"the work environment.\"\nResearch limitations/implications: The survey is based on main contractors and thus not generalized to cover other sectors of the building team such as designers and engineers.\nPractical implications: Outcome of this research can be used to provide professionals and contractors guidance for focussing, acting upon and controlling the most significant factors perceived to influence the construction labor productivity (CLP) on site.\nOriginality/value: First, reviewed the state of the art and trends in construction productivity research. Second, primary survey with industry experts to rank the relative importance of factors that can influence CLP on site.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The Mexican consumer, reluctant or receptive to new foods?	[ "Marketing research", "Market segmentation", "Degree of food neo-phobia", "Agricultural and food industry", "Mexican consumers", "New foods", "Food technology", "Neo-philic", "Neo-phobic" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Changes in demographic patterns, mainly in the number of women who are working outside of the home, combined with an increased use of sophisticated technology, in conjunction with the saturation of markets and globalization, have drastically influenced the world of food (Brandle, 2007). This situation has prompted the food industry to acknowledge the need to innovate and develop new products, that meet the needs and desires of consumers. New foods, which can be classified as functional foods, genetically modified foods, ready to eat meals, ethnic foods and organic foods (Stewart-Knox and Mitchell, 2003). However, the successful launch of new products is relatively difficult, with failure rates of around 40-90 percent (Gourville, 2006; Gresham et al., 2006; Grunert and Valli, 2001; Stewart-Knox and Mitchell, 2003).\nReview of the literature: FNS was developed by Pliner and Hobden (1992), it integrates ten items that allow for the measurement of consumers predisposition to taste new foods. Through its application, we can meet the needs of a global network of consumer trends, and to segment in neo-phobics, individuals reluctant to try new foods, and neo-philics, people who are relatively more receptive (Barrena and Sanchez, 2012b; Camarena Gomez and Sanjuan, 2008, 2010; Dutra de Barcellos et al., 2009; Huotilainen, 2005; Lahteenmaki and Arvola, 2001).\nMethodology: To determine the relative degree of rejection or reluctance of Mexicans to try new foods, the FNS approach was utilized. Information gathering was accomplished by way of questionnaires that were filled out by consumers who were contacted randomly in public and recreational spaces. Respondents were aged 18 years or older, and completed the task without receiving any financial compensation. Stratified random sampling was used, taking into consideration both the age and the sex of the subjects, establishing a sampling error of 4 percent with a confidence level of 95 percent. The surveys were conducted between October and November 2012 for a total of 636 respondents, however 38 were rejected due to inconsistencies, leaving a total of 598 valid surveys. Surveys were conducted in the cities of Caborca (246), Hermosillo (225) and Ciudad Obregon (165) in the State of Sonora that is located in the northwestern part of Mexico. The selection of the cities was due to their demographic and geographical characteristics, in order to have a more inclusive representation, we focussed on various urban settings within the region (cities with small, medium and large populations, that are located near another culture, and that included a wide variety of economic activities). For example, Caborca is a city which has a population of 81,309 inhabitants, it is situated in the northwestern part of the state, in what is known as the Altar Desert, and is bordered to the north by the USA. The main economic activities are agriculture, commerce and mining. Hermosillo, the state capital, is positioned in the center of the state and is located 95 kilometers north of the Gulf of California. Its population is 784,342 inhabitants, and the prevalent economic activities are industry, agriculture, livestock and trade. Finally, Ciudad Obregon is located in the southern part of the state, in what is known as the Yaqui Valley, and is located 50 kilometers north of the Gulf of California, it has 298,625 inhabitants with its main economic activities being agriculture and trade (Figure 1).\nFNS: The FNS was developed by Pliner and Hobden (1992). It is comprised of ten items that when combined together allow for the assessing of the degree of acceptance or rejection that individuals manifest in response to new foods. Its assessment is accomplished by using a Likert scale of five to seven points. For analysis, it was necessary to invert the values of the five items by designating them with an (I), in order to obtain values that are consistent (in the list below).\nResults: The obtained sample contains 598 valid questionnaires, which were answered by 53.9 percent women. In total, 31.1 percent of the sample is comprised of consumers between the ages of 18 and 22 years of age, while 21.8 percent of them are between 23 and 27 years, while 18.1 percent are in the age range of 28-37 years old. These segments are followed by respondents who are between 38 and 42 years (7.8 percent), while to a lesser extent the subjects are represented the higher age groups (between 53 and 57 years 2.9 percent, 58-63 years, 2.6 percent and over 64 years, 5.1 percent). In total, 55.1 percent of the participants were single consumers and 2.0 percent were single parents. Followed by subjects who were married with children (21.0 percent) and those who were married without children (14.6 percent). In total, 3.3 percent are cohabiting, while the proportion of subjects who were divorced, with children is 1.7 percent and without children (1.1 percent), which is significantly lower, as well as those living as widows or widowers (1.3 percent). Whether children live in a family home or not, particularly with younger aged children, can lead to different patterns of food consumption, that are less varied, as compared to homes where only adults live. Regarding the level of education, most of the respondents held a bachelor's degree (28.9 percent), followed by those with a technical degree (18.5 percent), a high school diploma (13.6 percent) and those who had completed primary education (13.0 percent). Those with a secondary education accounted for 11.2 percent of the sample and those who have completed a master's degree 11.6 percent. To a lesser extent subjects had a doctoral degree (1.7 percent) or those who have not completed any schooling at all (1.5 percent). With regard to income level, (35.5 percent) receive between $5,000 and $10,000 pesos per month, 19.7 percent are in the range of over $20,000 pesos a month, while 18.6 percent have incomes of between $10,000 and $15,000 pesos a month. Those who earn lower incomes (less than $5,000 pesos a month) make up 16.0 percent of the sample and the segment of the sample earning between $15,000 and $20,000 pesos a month (10.2 percent) (Table I).\nConclusions and managerial implications: Studies on phobia toward new foods have been completed in various countries and regions (Barrena and Sanchez, 2012a, b, 2013; Salgado and Camarena, 2012; Camarena Gomez et al., 2011; Camarena Gomez and Sanjuan, 2008, 2010; Olabi et al., 2009; Dutra de Barcellos et al., 2009; Chen, 2007; Verbeke and Poquiviqui, 2005; Flight et al., 2003). In Mexico, however, the exploration and understanding of consumer attitudes in reference to foods that are unusual in their diets, is just getting started. This study represents one of the first contributions in this area of investigation that specifically targets the Mexican consumer.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to measure the relative degree of rejection or reluctance to try new foods of the Mexican consumers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To measure the degree of acceptance or rejection that individuals have for foods that are unusual in their diets, a phobia scale was used to new foods developed by Pliner and Hobden (1992) Food Neophobia Scale (FNS). The authors also distinguished between individuals' predisposition to taste new foods, \"neo-phobic\" (lower bias) and \"neo-philic\" (predisposition). Additionally social and demographic variables such as age, gender, monthly income level and marital status to discuss relations with the FNS scale were incorporated.\nFindings: The results have shown that Mexican consumers show relatively low levels of phobia toward new foods, but there may be differences in accordance with the characteristics of the environment, the proximity of another culture or urbanization level have a significant influence on consumer attitudes.\nOriginality/value: In Mexico the development of new foods has increased, in a recent study 83 percent of respondents indicated they are interested in buying new foods on the market. Studies of novel foods phobia have been made in various international contexts, in Mexico, however, the exploration and understanding of consumer attitudes toward foods that are unusual in their diets is incipient. This study represents one of the first contributions in this regard and more so to focus specifically on the Mexican consumer.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Critical success factors for implementation of risk assessment and management practices within the Tanzanian construction industry	[ "Construction industry", "Critical success factors", "Risk management", "Risk assessment", "Tanzania" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: While risk assessment and management practices (RAMP) have been studied in other countries, the majority of these studies have largely focused on the identification of critical success factors (CSFs) for construction projects (Ahadzie et al., 2008; Toor and Ogunlana, 2009; Famakin et al., 2012; Tabish and Jha, 2011; Yang et al., 2009; Zwikael, 2009), and project success (White and Fortune, 2002; Salaheldin, 2009). Furthermore, the majority of these studies have focused on developed countries with a paucity of studies within the developing countries. The majority of these are drawn from the Asian region (Santoso et al., 2003, p. 43). There is a growing need for specific RAMP studies especially within sub-Saharan Africa (SAA), including Tanzania. The rationale for the specific Tanzanian study is that, what might be considered by a firm to be a risk and therefore manageable in a Commonwealth country could clearly be different to a firm operating, say, for example, in the USA where the industry is structured differently/has different legal constraints.\n3. Literature review: 3.1 Conceptualisation of CSFs\n4. Research methods: The research method for this study is explained under research design, population and sample size, sampling procedure and data collection techniques. The specific objectives are to: identify the CSFs for risk assessment and management processes among the construction stakeholders in Tanzania; and examine the perception of construction stakeholders (professionals) on their importance.\n5. Results and discussion: 5.1 Reliability analysis\n6. Implications of the findings: Relative to the factors affecting the deployment of the RAMP which in turn affect the construction projects, the study has a number of managerial implications for the researchers, policy makers and practitioners (top management) within the Tanzanian constructional related organisations. The following four can be singled out as having major implications.\n7. Conclusions: There is a growing awareness of the need for implementation and adoption of RAMP within both developed, and developing countries. While a number of studies have been conducted on the CSFs for \"construction projects\" and \"project performance\", no study has been made of the CSFs to RAMP among the construction organisations in Tanzania.\n8. Recommendation for further research: As observed by Chileshe and Yirenki-Fianko (2012), using the case of Ghana as an example, when it comes to developing countries, they are no clear-cut solutions to the use of RAMP. However, the following recommendations which will be of benefit to consultants, contractors, clients, practitioners and the general public for the usage of an effective RAMP in Tanzanian constructional related organisations are suggested:\n9. Limitations of the study: While the study makes several contributions to risk management theory and practice, several limitations of the research need to be acknowledged. The limitations of the study relate to the sample data, snap shot nature of studies, and assumptions undertaken. First, this study did not distinguish between local organisations (i.e. contractors) and those that tended to collaborate with the foreign contractors as skills levels among the employees tended to differ, with Tanzanian contractors working with foreign contractors been the more experienced (Egmond, 2012). Furthermore, from the contractor's perspective, this study did not distinguish between the different classes of contractors. In Tanzania there are seven classes for building, civil, electrical and mechanical contractors that is, from class one to seven based on the capacity of such contractors to execute works. Therefore the CSFs identified in this study are generic.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Despite the extensive research on critical success factors (CSFs), there is a paucity of studies that examine CSFs for the deployment of risk assessment and management processes in developing countries, particularly, Africa. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the perception of construction professionals on CSFs appertaining to the deployment of risk assessment and management practices (RAMP) in Tanzania with the aim of filling the knowledge gap.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The primary data were collected from 67 construction professionals working with clients (private and public), consultants, and contractor organisations (foreign and local) within the Tanzanian construction. Response data was subjected to descriptive and inferential statistics with one-way analysis of variance to examine the differences in the perception of the identified CSFs.\nFindings: The descriptive and empirical analysis demonstrated a disparity of the ranking of the ten CSFs among the groups; however, the differences were not significant. Based on the overall sample, the results of the mean score ranking indicate that \"awareness of risk management processes\"; \"team work and communications\"; and \"management style\" were the three highly ranked CSFs whereas \"co-operative culture\"; \"customer requirement\"; and \"positive human dynamics\" were considered to be the least important.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study did not differentiate the perceptions of the CSFs according to the ownership (local or foreign), and the sample consisted of organisations in one industry operating in Tanzania. Consequently, the findings may not generalise to other industries or to organisations operating in other countries.\nPractical implications: For RAMP to be implemented effectively, Tanzanian constructional-related organisations should consider the identified CSFs as a vehicle for improving project success through reduction of risk uncertainty. Furthermore, regardless of the type of organisation, \"management style\", \"team work and communication\" are necessary for the successful deployment of RAMP.\nOriginality/value: This study makes a contribution to the body of knowledge on the subject within a previously unexplored context. The study provides insights on the drivers and enablers (CSFs) of risk assessment implementation across the Tanzania construction sector.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Can mass media be an obstacle to rationing decisions? A case report from Portugal	[ "Mass media", "Healthcare rationing", "Resource allocation", "Priority setting", "Innovative medicines", "Portugal" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The inadequacy of resources in healthcare, as elsewhere, is the base of economy and scarcity is the mother of allocation (Rawls, 1999). Whenever health resources (human, physical, financial, or even organs) are not enough for the needs and choices, and consequently rationing (or prioritization) decisions have to be made. The same goes the other way around: increasing the supply of some healthcare resource would implicate the redirection of important resources and allocation decisions would still be necessary. Rationing or prioritization in health translates into choices between alternative programs/treatments and/or between patients or groups of patients who are to receive care. These two concepts are not exactly the same. Rationing has a negative and emotional connotation because it has the effect of denying an individual's access to a certain treatment. Rationing healthcare implies deciding whether or not to give a medical treatment to an individual. Prioritization refers to giving preference to one patient ahead of another in the access to a given treatment, which does not, necessarily mean that the other patients will never receive the same treatment. Given the context of this manuscript we will focus on both issues. Healthcare rationing is not a new issue. Some degree of rationing in health is inevitable for the overall well-being of society. Attempting to meet all healthcare needs of everyone would likely overwhelm our capacity to supply basic elements of other social goods such as public safety or education. Healthcare services have always been and always will need to be rationed. The question is no more whether healthcare should be rationed but how rationing should occur. Difficult choices have been made in a discretionary or implicit way. Under implicit rationing, the criteria to be used to ration health resources are implied, indirect, or not clearly expressed (Mechanic, 1997) becoming much easier to develop and apply. Implicit rationing is a well-accepted method by decision makers as the decisions made and the outcomes achieved by those decisions are less visible to the public and/or the recipients of the services (Schmidt, 2004), and there is a lower perception or impression that services are being withheld or denied. Without explicit criteria, it becomes easier to depersonalize the negative results of the decisions. Also, because implicit rationing is less visible, it may be strongly influenced by political pressures (Lauridsen et al., 2007). However, more and better informed citizens and the willingness of providers themselves to share with politicians the responsibility of these implicit decisions underline the need to define explicit rationing criteria. Within the explicit rationing model, the criteria to be used for inclusion and/or exclusion of individuals or services are well-defined and well-known. The results of explicit rationing are fairer and more transparent. This transparency creates less conflict for providers and puts less strain on physician-patient relationships, because both parties are fully aware of the criteria, and they have been preestablished and are external to and independent from the individual interaction of patient and provider. One problem associated with the implementation of the explicit rationing method is the difficulty in defining the exclusion and/or inclusion criteria. Which criteria - whether economic (treatment outcomes - better prognosis, treatment costs, cost-effectiveness ratios, and number of people treated), clinical (severity of the disease) or person based (age, gender, health-related lifestyles, and social responsibility), should support arguments for the explicit rationing decisions? is a widely debated question that remains largely unanswered. At the same time, the need to engage the public in open discussion about the definition of the rationing criteria has been gaining traction. Public participation, deliberative democracy, and citizens' engagements are just some examples of notions that are now part of the science and health policy lexicons. Involving the population in healthcare allocating decision mainly in universal health systems facilitates transparency and accountability to those who are not only the ones who finance the system through taxes but also who will ultimately be affected by those rationing decisions. Besides, decisions on how to allocate scarce health resources are embedded in moral choices that unavoidably include moral judgment. Numerous studies have shown that individuals are more willing to accept collective decisions against their interest if they result from a fair process (Daniels and Sabin, 1997; Anand, 2001). Notwithstanding, it is one thing to consult the general public about the criteria that should guide rationing decisions, but it is quite another to have the public at large set the political agenda. The mass media, in general, and more recently the advent of social media are changing the dynamics of the relationship between scientists, health professionals, politicians, and the general public. Special interest groups now use these tools to gather and disseminate information about key issues, and to exert pressure on various bodies to advance their agendas.\n2. Mass media and health policy decision-making: Over the last decades, the role of the mass media in the political process has changed fundamentally from a rather passive conveyor of messages to a political actor in its own right (Page, 1996). This growing dominance of the media has led to the emergence of a new type of democracy, called media democracy (Meyer, 2002). Nowadays, the press and mass media have even gained the status of the \"fourth state\" due to their capacity for advocacy and their intrinsic ability to frame political issues. The media have a clear impact in setting new issues on the political agenda and in \"amplifying\" existing ones (Wolsfeld and Sheafer, 2006). Healthcare rationing or priority setting present the perfect combination of factors - its' negative connotation, the controversy it involves, and the emotions that it arouses by conditioning the right to health - to invite the interest of the media. The prevalence of a discretionary method of rationing is even more permeable to the influence of the media. Because implicit rationing is less visible, it may be strongly influenced by political pressures.\n3. The mass media and therapeutic innovation reimbursement: In Portugal, the issue of healthcare rationing has become increasingly important especially since the external bailout program to which the country was subjected in 2011 on the aftermath of global crisis of 2008. With regard to health system, the objectives of the three-year plan were focused above all in reducing health care costs and rationalizing the use of health resources. These reforms adopted a typology of rationing which mixes explicit measures taken at the macro level with implicit practices at the micro level, the latter remaining under the responsibility of healthcare providers. Notwithstanding the imposition of rationing measures, policy makers in Portugal have never sought to define explicit healthcare rationing criteria leaving room for subjective judgments of some groups such as the mass media. In fact, only recently and at the expense precisely of media coverage has the problem of rationing come into the Portuguese lexicon associated to the financing of expensive medicines for the treatment of hepatitis C and the rare disease of type I spinal muscular atrophy. This raises, however, many ethical concerns not the least of them the power achieved by the mass media to override sate prioritization decisions without addressing the consequences for society as a whole. Actually, the lack of clear, objective, and transparent clarification of the criteria that should guide decision-making about who to treat and/or which treatments to fund is an opportunity for subjective considerations and a field conducive to media exploitation. During the last four years, the Portuguese mass media shaped public opinion at least on two occasions, forcing political actors to respond to public preferences regarding the financing of innovative and very expensive medicines. The first episode took place on February 4, 2015 when a patient with hepatitis C addressed the Minister of Health in the Parliament, shouting: \"Don't let me die!\" (Guerreiro, 2018). At the time, the first two direct acting antiviral drugs for the treatment of hepatitis C, Sovaldi (sofosbuvir) and Harvoni (sofosbuvir + ledispavir), had recently appeared in the market and promised an efficacy of 98 percent in curing the disease. These medicines were not, however, available in Portugal because the price initially asked by the laboratory was found to be disproportionate, especially because the NHS is progressively and jointly financed by more than 95 percent of the taxes of all Portuguese taxpayers. The shout of the patient, however, installed a controversy in the country. Due to mass media's preference for controversial coverage a great deal of pressure was put on the government: they had to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry under great pressure while being systematically accused of being utilitarian and heartless. Decision makers faced a dilemma: a disruptive new medicine which promised to cure an otherwise fatal disease and would be used to treat a few patients at an unusually high cost against the responsibility to safeguarding that all other treatments could still be financed and would not be called into question. Due to scarcity, whenever a specific and very expensive drug is selected, the health benefits of a small group of patients are maximized while contributing to an unfair allocation of resources to the rest of patients by depleting available resources. This would result in a conflict and raise serious ethical concerns regarding distributive justice. During the period we have been describing, the tension promoted by the mass media coverage brought into light very extreme and clear-cut positions, making it hard for moderate views to be heard. The Portuguese state reached a historical agreement with the pharmaceutical industry and in the very same month the drugs were approved and purchased (Guerreiro, 2018). This was largely due to the pressure, we believe, exerted by the mass media.\n4. Discussion and conclusions: The recent Portuguese experiences with the two innovative drugs for hepatitis C and for type I spinal muscular atrophy are interesting case studies and raise important questions about the rationing and priority setting in the healthcare context in general and in the research context, in particular. The priority setting tensions that emerge from this reality are unquestionably complex. On what basis should we decide to fund the innovative drug for spinal medulla atrophy versus other high-impact diseases such as the circulatory system diseases (especially cerebrovascular diseases, also called strokes and ischemic heart disease) or malignant tumors, two of the leading causes of death in Portugal? What about rare but equally devastating conditions that may not generate the same level of public sympathy? On the other hand, questions arise about opportunity costs associated with those financing decisions? Which services/patients have been left unfunded/unattended to care for Matilde and above all to placate public opinion? The degree to which evidence, expertise, and budgetary capabilities should be the determining factors in these decisions and the appropriate role of public pressure, advocacy, and interest groups are increasing and constant challenges subject to considerable debate (Dresser, 1999; Resnik, 2001).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Continuous introduction of advanced health technologies coupled with limited resources force governments to adopt rationing measures in all types of health systems. The mass media can influence the application of these measures by rising people and patients' expectations and demands for new forms of healing. This article intends to find evidence of this influence by reporting two recent cases which occurred in Portugal involving two innovative drugs, one for the treatment of hepatitis C and another for type I spinal muscular atrophy. The new drugs were not publicly funded despite promising excellent overall health outcomes because of their high cost and exaggerated burden on national health system (NHS).\nDesign/methodology/approach: A qualitative research was used to collect information conveyed by the conventional media and social networks.\nFindings: After a strong dissemination through conventional and social media of the nonapproved treatments, the drugs swiftly garnered support among the public and triggered remarkable and relentless advocacy efforts. The findings of this paper suggest that society opinions and, by extension, the decision of policy-makers are very susceptible to the influence of the mass media.\nPractical implications: New ways of sharing information are changing health research and public health.\nSocial implications: These stories raise complex tensions and important questions about resource-allocation decisions involving scientific research or innovative medicine. Societal preferences seem very vulnerable to information conveyed by the mass media.\nOriginality/value: This study is the first attempt to awaken attention to the influence that Portuguese mass media may exercise on future healthcare rationing decisions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Inflation and bond-stock characteristics of international security returns	[ "Stock markets", "Inflation", "Interest rates" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nI. Introduction: The Fisher (1930) effect shows that the expected nominal interest rate is the sum of the expected real interest rate and the expected inflation rate. Empirical evidence indicates that bond yields are positively related to expected inflation while stock returns move inversely with inflation1. Many studies find negative relationships between stock returns and inflation for most of industrialized and Pacific-Basin countries2. Thus, bonds behave in accordance to the Fisher effect but stocks do not.There are several explanations for the negative relationship between inflation and stock returns. Under inflation, taxable earnings are overstated because depreciation is stated based on historical costs. Therefore, as Feldstein (1980) argues, firms pay more taxes to the government, and inflation affects firm's earnings and stock returns negatively. Friedman (1977) and Levi and Makin (1979) explain that inflation creates additional uncertainty to business, which lowers stock returns. Fama (1981) introduces the proxy effect to show that the negative relation between expected inflation and stock returns results from the combination of the negative relation between expected inflation and economic activity and the positive relation between stock returns and expected economic activity. Geske and Roll (1983) and Kaul (1987, 1990) show the monetary proxy effect that the negative relation between expected inflation and stock returns is the combination of the positive relation between money supply and expected inflation and the negative relation between money supply and expected output introduced by a counter-cyclical monetary policy. Boudoukh et al. (1994) extend the proxy effect to show that the relation between stock returns and expected output growth is non-positive (positive) if industries are non-cyclical (cyclical). Therefore, stock returns of non-cyclical (cyclical) industries are positively (negatively) related to expected inflation. Using a two-factor model of stock returns, Kim and Ravi (2005) show that inflation sensitivities of stock returns are related to their sensitivities to the stock and bond market returns.In this study, we use the Kim and Ravi (2005) framework to explain the cross-sectional variation in the relation between international security returns and expected inflation based on their sensitivities to world stock and bond factors. We find that the inflation sensitivity of securities is negatively related to their stock market sensitivity and positively related to their bond market sensitivity.In the next section, we derive a testable hypothesis using the Fisher equation and a two-factor market model. Section III explains the sample data and variables used in the study. The hypothesis is tested with stock returns from 23 countries and the results of the test are reported in Section IV. Section V reports the results of the test with international equity mutual funds. Section VI concludes the paper.\nII. Expected inflation and bond-stock characteristics: The Fisher effect is originally shown as the one-to-one relation between the expected inflation rate and the expected nominal interest rate when the expected real interest rate is constant: Equation 1 where:\nIII. Data: Monthly inflation rates for the world are computed based on the monthly Consumer Price Index for industrial countries available in the IMF International Financial Statistics. The world bond market yield is computed as the average of government bond yields of 16 countries that have complete data for the study period (1988-2002)3. Expected inflation may be measured in several ways. In this study, expected inflation rates are obtained from one-month-ahead forecasts of the time-series regression of the current inflation rate on past inflation rates with 24-month lags.Monthly stock market index values for 23 countries, which have complete data for the study period (the list of countries is shown in Appendix 1), and the world stock market index for the study period are collected from IMF International Financial Statistics. Monthly returns are relative changes in the index values.Monthly returns on mutual funds with an investment objective of \"International Equity\" are obtained from Morningstar OnDisc (May 2000 edition). There are 83 mutual funds that have complete data for the January 1988 through April 2000 (148 months). The list of mutual funds is shown in Appendix 2.\nIV. Empirical tests with international security returns from 23 countries: Table I shows summary statistics for the variables used in regressions such as the world market return, the world government bond yield, and actual and expected inflation. Actual and expected inflation are less highly correlated with a correlation coefficient of 0.29. The correlation coefficient between world stock and bond factors is close to zero (0.02). Therefore, there will be no multicollinearity problem when both factors are included in the regression of (3).The inflation sensitivity coefficient (lj), the stock sensitivity (bj), and the bond sensitivity (gj) are estimated according to equations (2) and (3) for each country and are reported in Table II. Finland has the lowest lj value (-14.78) while Denmark has the highest lj (3.25). The inflation sensitivity and bond sensitivity are highly correlated (0.92) but the inflation sensitivity and stock sensitivity are negatively related as expected (-0.42) as shown in Table III. The stock and bond sensitivities are negatively related but at a lower level (-0.25). The mean lj is negative (-1.43) in consistent with findings of previous studies. A total of 52 percent of the sample countries have positive lj coefficients.Table IV reports the results of the OLS and GLM regression tests of the hypothesis of (7). First, the OLS regression coefficient for bj is negative and significant at the five percent level. The coefficient for gj is positive and significant at the one percent level. Thus, these results support the hypothesis that the inflation sensitivity of a security is negatively related to its stock market return sensitivity and positively related to its bond return sensitivity.To mitigate the potential heteroscedasticity problem, the GLM regression is performed using the predicted value of the dependent variable as the weight. The results are very similar: the coefficient for bj is negative but significant at the one percent level, and the coefficient for gj is positive and significant at the one percent level. The R2 value increases from 0.88 to 0.92 when the GLM regression is used.If stocks are more sensitive to the stock market, the inflation sensitivity coefficient becomes lower and if stocks are more sensitive to the bond market, the inflation sensitivity coefficient becomes higher. Thus, these results support the hypothesis that international securities behaving more like stocks have lower inflation sensitivities and securities behaving more like bonds have higher inflation sensitivities.This result appears to be consistent with the results of Kim and Ravi (2005) study with US securities. However, the coefficient for stock sensitivity with international securities is much stronger than that with US securities (-4.69 vs. -1.79). Also, the coefficient for bond sensitivity with international securities is much stronger than that with US securities (1.64 vs 0.32).\nV. Empirical tests with 83 international equity mutual funds: Table V shows the summary statistics of the inflation (lj), stock (bj), and bond (gj) sensitivities for 83 international equity mutual funds. The average inflation sensitivity is negative (-0.65) and 29 percent of the sample has positive coefficients. The inflation sensitivity is positively correlated with the bond sensitivity (0.82) while it is negatively related with stock sensitivity (-0.38). The stock sensitivity is negatively correlated with the bond sensitivity (-0.23).The OLS regression of equation (7) shows that the coefficient for bj is negative and significant at the one percent level (see Table VI). The coefficient for gj is positive and significant at the one percent level. The R2 value is 0.71. The GLM regression shows very similar results but the R2 value increases to 0.84. These results also confirms the hypothesis that the higher the bj value, the lower the lj value, and the higher the gj value, the higher the ljvalue.This finding is consistent with that with international stock indexes. However, the size of coefficient (b^) for the stock market sensitivity and the coefficient (c^) for the bond market sensitivity with international mutual funds are smaller than international stocks but are closer to those for US domestic stocks.\nVI. Conclusions: This study investigates the cross-sectional variation in the sensitivity of returns to inflation for international securities. We hypothesize that the inflation sensitivity of a security is negatively related to its stock characteristic (sensitivity to a stock factor) and positively related to its bond characteristic (sensitivity to a bond factor). The results of the tests with international stock returns of 23 countries and 83 international equity mutual funds support the hypothesis. Therefore, the sensitivities of securities' returns to bond and stock market returns may be used to assess their sensitivities to inflation.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this research is to explain the cross-sectional variation in the relation between international security returns and expected inflation based on their sensitivities to world stock and bond factors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper shows regress inflation sensitivities of returns on country indexes and international mutual funds on their sensitivities to world stock and bond indexes.\nFindings: - This paper shows the inflation sensitivity of a security is positively (negatively) related to its sensitivity to the world bond index (world stock index).\nResearch limitations/implications: - The paper shows that while the model is applicable to individual securities as well as portfolios, it is tested using portfolios only.\nOriginality/value: - The paper shows the results allow one to assess the inflation sensitivity of a security using its sensitivity to the bond and the stock market. The more bond-like a security is, the higher its sensitivity to inflation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Managing information in education: a view from South Africa	[ "Education", "Information management", "Strategy", "Information systems", "Information technology" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The origins of the study reported here can be traced back to a two-day meeting in Cape Town, in 2013, of expert academics, managers and administrators. The meeting discussed the impact of information technologies on education and the need to manage information technology-related investments in a more thoughtful and effective way. Four questions guided these initial discussions:\nBibliography: Scope\nConclusion: This has been a successful study to the extent that a considerable volume of literature was found, read and analysed, confirming that there is little existing research that specifically deals with managing information in education. Analysis of the available literature and reflection on the way that education works led to the development of a reference model that offers clarity where confusion often reigns.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: A three-year study of information technology and information systems management in South Africa has delivered (amongst other things) a bibliography and a new reference model. The paper aims to discuss this issue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The new reference model indicates the key informational components of the education \"system\" that education management must acknowledge, understand and deal with. This paper presents an overview of these two principal outcomes from that research, leading to a view as to how education can be improved through better information management.\nFindings: There is some available reported work that addresses management, or information, or education, but relatively little that brings the essence of these three domains together. The derived reference model effectively addresses a number of set objectives, hence providing a basis for improved understanding of how information can be more effectively managed in education.\nOriginality/value: The new reference model comprises an arrangement of ideas that allows education managers to focus on a more strategic approach to their management challenges. It also provides foundations for further research. Although the study was undertaken in South Africa, it has relevance to all countries and regions where education needs improved management.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The implementation of the balanced scorecard in a school district : Lessons learned from an action research study	[ "Portugal", "Schools", "Balanced scorecard", "Strategic management", "Performance measurement", "Public schools" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Non-higher education public schools in Portugal nowadays face enormous management challenges. For example, the reorganization of the school network has led to the concentration of schools with different educational levels, in larger units, with a consequent increase in management complexity (Ferreira, 2009). The central administration has also been making increasing demands of accountability to schools, either through the participation of the external community in school governing bodies or through internal and external evaluation activities, so as to increase the quality of educational services and the much desired autonomy (Coelho et al., 2008). Other mutations in the general environment, including budget constraints, technological developments, the knowledge society, have been exerting increasing pressure for governments to make school management more professional.The balanced scorecard (BSC), one of the management tools most commonly used by the business sector (Rigby and Bilodeau, 2007), has been proposed to assist school governing bodies in focusing on what is strategically most relevant to their activity (Beard, 2009; Dorweiler and Yakhou, 2005; Karathanos and Karathanos, 2005). However, its application to public education institutions has been the subject of few studies. Moreover, most existing studies refer to the application of BSC to higher education institutions, either through case studies (Chen et al., 2006; Lawrence and Sharma, 2002; McDevitt et al., 2008; Papenhausen and Einstein, 2006; Philbin, 2011; Tapinos et al., 2005; Umashankar and Dutta, 2007) or proposals of adapted methodologies (Asan and Tanyas, 2007; Franceschine and Turina, in press; Juhl and Christensen, 2008; Zangoueinezhad and Moshabaki, 2011). Exceptions to this include the conceptual study of Storey (2002) and, in Portugal, the work of Rodrigues (2005). The lack of studies in Portugal is even more surprising when empirical evidence collected by the General Inspectorate of Education (IGE, 2009, 2011a, b) clearly indicates that non-higher education public schools suffer from several weaknesses at the strategic management level.This paper describes an action-research to understand the benefits, obstacles and challenges in implementing the BSC in a non-higher education public school district. It is hoped that this study can contribute to enrich a scarce body of literature, as well as to develop strategies aimed at a more effective implementation of the BSC. The next section presents the theoretical background on strategic management and on the BSC in public education institutions. Section 3 discusses the methodological options of the research and provides a brief background of the school district that formed the basis of this study. Section 4 describes how the BSC was implemented in the school district, and the benefits, obstacles and challenges that emerged from the study. The final section discusses the results and suggests possible avenues for future research.\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 Strategic management in education\n3. Methodology: This study uses a qualitative approach because it aims an understanding of reality resulting from the implementation of a strategic management methodology, viewed from the perspective of its protagonists. This choice resulted also from the lack of studies in this area and, consequently, of knowledge on strategic management models in the majority of non-higher education public schools in Portugal. It is, thus, a study of descriptive and exploratory nature (Bogdan and Biklen, 2006).To meet the research objectives, an action research strategy was chosen since this study seeks to reform practices, improve quality and understand reality (Easterby-Smith et al., 2008), and, because it intends \"the resolution of important social or organizational issues together with those who experience these issues directly\" (Coughlan and Coghlan, 2002, pp. 222-3).This study unfolded according to the process described by Checkland and Holwell (1998) (see Figure 1). A literature review was conducted and the research objectives were defined as: first, once access was granted and once commitment from top management was obtained, a BSC team was formed which would be responsible for formulating, implementing and monitoring the strategic plan through the BSC methodology; second, the strategic plan was developed in a participative manner and is composed of two documents, according to Article 9 of Decree No. 75/2008: the educative project and the annual plan of activities. Following the advice of Niven (2008), the director of the school district joined the BSC team, committing himself, and adding credibility to the work. Next, the framework of ideas (F) and the methodology (M) to be used were defined, which were, respectively, strategic management and the BSC, the latter incorporating ideas of the first; third, once F and M were declared, the first author took part the change process as researcher and member of the BSC team; fourth, a reflective analysis of the action led to adjustments in the composition of the BSC team and in the BSC methodology; fifth, for example, the middle-level leaders, who were not part of the initial team, were requested to take a more active participation in the development of the plan of activities. Changes were also made to the original action plan as a result of constraints encountered during implementation. Sixth, the final steps of the research were to exit the problem situation, and finally, to reflect and record the learning in relation to strategic management, the BSC and the area of research.Data were collected through the techniques of semi-structured interviews, participant observation, document analysis and checklists. The interviews followed a protocol, which was previously tested, involving 18 members of the educational community (15 teachers, some of which had top and middle-level leadership responsibilities; two parents and one staff member). The interviews were recorded with the prior permission of the interviewee and later transcribed. The first author participated in the work developed by the BSC team and made direct observations of the dialogues, relationships and behaviours of the members of the educational community, noting them in field notes. Checklists were prepared so as to verify facts in internal documents, such as files of the different structures, the strategic plan itself and previous educative projects and plan of activities. Document analysis focused on the minutes produced by the different structures.After collection, data was analysed using the content analysis technique as suggested by Krippendorff (2004). The first stage consisted of an initial reading of data with the aim of identifying categories and subcategories, guided by the research objectives, in the form of phrases/words. The data were then distributed across categories and subcategories. Repeated readings were carried out, continuously improving the categorization system, until a final set of categories and subcategories was obtained. This was followed by calculation of frequencies per categories and subcategories and, finally, a triangulation between data collection techniques through double entry tables.3.1 The AEX School District\n4. The action research in the AEX School District: 4.1 The implementation of the BSC\n5. Final remarks: This paper reports on the results of an action research to understand the benefits, obstacles and challenges of implementing the BSC in a School District. To complete the action research cycle (see Figure 1) it is pertinent to discuss the learning made in relation to strategic management, the BSC and the area of research.As far as the first is concerned, the analysis of results suggests that the BSC can overcome some weaknesses of Portuguese schools, in the area of strategic management (see section 2.1.), and that were already described in the literature (e.g. Estevao et al., 1996; Costa, 2004) and the IGE (2009, 2011a, b). The evidence collected in the AEX School District corroborates the benefits of the BSC in first, promoting the articulation between the objectives included in the educative project and the activities included in the annual plan of activities; second, persuading the educational community of the need to define indicators and targets; third, providing a framework to continually assess the performance of the school district; and fourth, promoting the participation of the educational community in elaborating strategic documents of the school district, as well as a better knowledge of these documents. It should be noted that the strategic vision is the starting point in building the BSC and, therefore, schools must necessarily define their vision to be able to take advantage of this.Regarding the BSC, it can be inferred that its implementation had mixed results. If, on the one hand, the BSC team successfully managed to mobilize the educational community for the elaboration of the strategic documents and the research was brought to a successful conclusion, on the other hand, BSC ceased to be used. After the new educative project and the annual plan of activities were approved, the BSC was not deployed to each of the school district's structures nor was its strategy monitored, assessed and revised. In fact, some months after the annual plan of activities was approved, a new school district director was elected who decided to abandon the BSC methodology. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education decided to reorganize the school network again, having the director taken, a few days after his election as school district director, the position of president of the CAP's new school district. New strategic documents were then developed, but only a few elements produced by the BSC team remained, namely the mission, vision, values and strategic objectives. The strategy map, the four perspectives, and the BSC were not included in the documents.In view of the above, what factors were decisive for abandoning the use of the BSC? The successive changes experienced by the school district, triggered by external factors (in this case the Ministry of Education), appear to have been an important reason. The many restructurings that occurred throughout the history of the school district, which led to successive changes in the composition of school boards and strategic documents, may have contributed to the development of a sense of disbelief and frustration in the educational community. Indeed, the results of initiatives like the BSC are quickly outdated and the work spent on them is not valued by educational authorities. Other important reasons appear to be associated with cultural and political factors. Given the recent (and controversial) reforms in the teacher evaluation system, the evidence collected suggests that there is still in the AEX School District a significant number of teachers who see with suspicion any initiatives that assess and expose their contribution to the improvement of quality of education. The relationship of the BSC with performance assessment and accountability is obvious, which may also have led the new leadership to abandon the initiative. Finally, the difficulty expressed by the educational community in understanding the managerial terms and the technical component of the BSC, as well as the difficulties in providing further training, may also have contributed to the decision. It should be noted that in relation to this aspect, the terms \"indicators\" and \"objectives\" were confused with each other in the new version of the guiding documents, which further denotes the need for additional training.Another lesson learned in relation to the BSC is that its implementation in the AEX School District was constrained by the limits of the current levels of autonomy granted to non-higher education public schools. More specifically, the development of the educative project and the annual plan of activities had to take into account a vast wealth of scattered legislation (sometimes with little coordination between them), the strategic priorities of the Ministry of Education, the scarce resources available, and that the motivation strategies of the educational community had to be governed by the Statute of Teaching Career and the teacher evaluation system. Although these constraints do not hinder the implementation of the BSC, they raise considerable challenges to the management of public schools. All these factors together with the change in the order of the four perspectives differentiate the implementation of the BSC in the public sector of non-higher education from other sectors.Regarding the area of research, this study has demonstrated the paucity of empirical literature to investigate the implementation of the BSC in non-higher education public schools. This paper reports one of the first action research studies with the aim of understanding the benefits, obstacles and challenges in implementing the BSC in those schools. Overall, some results are consistent with other empirical studies in higher education institutions (e.g. McDevitt et al., 2008; Umashankar and Dutta, 2007) and other conceptual studies about non-higher education schools (e.g. Storey, 2002); other results, including the benefit of increased systematization, the obstacle of the requirement of previous knowledge, and the challenge of motivating people seem to reflect contextual specificities. Although the use of the BSC was not pursued further in the AEX School District, it is expected that this study can contribute to the discussion of the implementation of the BSC in non-higher education public schools in Portugal. The management boards of these schools can use the results of this study to inform the development of strategies aimed at making the implementation of the BSC more effective.A limitation of this study is the impossibility of making generalizations from a single intervention. The fact that the AEX School District did not continue to use the BSC also prevented the assessment of medium- and long-term impacts. Nevertheless, it is hoped that this work will encourage other authors to continue the investigation in ways that were not possible in this study, such as extending the implementation to other school districts, researching the articulation between the BSC and teacher/staff performance assessment systems and the analysis of the impacts of implementing the BSC.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the benefits, obstacles and challenges in implementing the balanced scorecard (BSC) in non-higher education public schools, more specifically, in a Portuguese school district.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - An action research approach was used to develop a BSC, help to implement changes and reflect about the outcomes.\nFindings: - The paper presents the BSC for the school district and discusses five benefits, two obstacles and three challenges that emerged from the study. While some findings are in line with those found in other levels of education, others seem to be context-specific.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The results refer to a single intervention in Portugal and the methodology used precludes any generalization attempts.\nPractical implications: - The findings are particularly relevant to the Portuguese context, providing evidence that the BSC can overcome some weaknesses of schools in the area of strategic management, as identified by the literature. They also raise implications for the wider field of the BSC's use in non-higher education public schools, suggesting reasons why things may go wrong. The results may be of value to practitioners wishing to make the implementation of the BSC more effective.\nOriginality/value: - This paper contributes to the scarce body of literature on the application of the BSC to non-profit organizations by providing an understanding of its possible benefits, obstacles and challenges in non-higher education public schools. It shows how the BSC methodology can be adapted to fit the specific requirements of a school district. This is one of the first papers to discuss an application of the BSC to non-higher education public schools.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Competing interests: the challenge to collaboration in the public sector	[ "Storytelling", "Partnership", "Public sector organizations", "Private sector organizations" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nCollaboration and challenges in the public sector: Success through collaboration is far from inevitable. The underlying assumption is that once the benefits of collaboration are apparent to relationship participants, there is \"smooth sailing\" for collaborating organizations (Levitt, 1986). However there is a growing body of literature that emphasizes considerable likelihood of the co-occurrence of collaborative and competitive processes in relationships and the significant implications of this (Wilkinson and Young, 2002; Brandenburger and Nalebuff, 1997). This is reflected in many of the collaborative models emerging between public sector organizations (Kruk, 1999). For example, changes in service delivery models in health and community services have radically altered the nature of relationships between groups of public and private sector institutions. One such service delivery model is the \"service delivery contract\" - where the provision of public services (such a food, health and employment services) are set to tender. These contracts/tenders have been described as a \"diabolical conjunction of fiscal consolidation and microeconomic reform\" (Thompson, 2000, p. 1). The complexities attendant in the tender process has \"forced\" many small and medium sized, previously independent service providers to amalgamate into formal collaborative arrangements to participate in this new market structure. The experiences reported by participants within these emerging organizations are diverse and include descriptions of \"benign competition\", \"dependencies\" and the \"idiosyncratic\" nature of the relationship (Thompson, 2000, p. 1).Potential conflicts within these arrangements are two-tiered. Developing good relationships within collaborations between the tendering and contracting body is often problematic (Gadde and Persson, 2004). Additionally, there is a considerable body of marketing channel literature that documents the problems inherent in agency relationships that are put in place to link participating organizations and enable the delivery of service by tender specification (Sharma et al., 2006). Collaborative possibilities are limited by the opportunism that is likely to emerge when ties between actors are asymmetric power-dependence structures, such as those in agency arrangements (Bergen et al., 1992; Eisenhardt, 1989). But perhaps more importantly, the greater degree of control that characterizes these systems can place limitations on the capability for effective interpersonal relationship management (Sydow and Windeler, 1998) and increased centralized co-ordination can limit relational responsiveness and innovativeness (Wilkinson and Young, 2002).The purpose of this paper is to explore the forms of collaboration that do and do not emerge in service delivery contract networks created by tender. Particular focus is given to the challenges that emerge within loosely coupled relationships (such as exist between sites in the service delivery organization). From unstructured interviews of selected members of such a network, stories of collaboration are presented to illustrate the types of collaboration present and their drivers, as well as the competing interests which impede collaboration. The network and methods of data capture are described first. A framework for the analysis of these reflections emerges from lexicographic analysis, i.e. computer-based semantic analysis of the interview transcripts. This is used to summarize the interviews and identify underlying dimensions. A selection of the stories told within the interviews is then presented and their relevance to exploring collaboration and competing interests considered. The paper concludes with a summary of key findings, discussion of the value of and synergies arising from this mixture of methods and suggestions for future research.\nInsights from interviews and their stories: Case details\nStories of collaboration and challenge: Structure-centered factors in collaboration and challenges\nDiscussion and conclusions: Many of the challenges of collaboration are driven by the uncertainty that comes from today's complex and rapidly evolving business environment (Brandenburger and Nalebuff, 1997). This uncertainty takes many forms including technological change (Malone et al., 1996), organizational change (Katsirikou and Skiadas, 2001; Olsen and Haslett, 2002) and planning incapability (Chelariu et al., 2002). These forms are reflected in the content analysis of the depth interviews as well as in the informants' stories. For example, the dialogue generating the theme, \"Work\", deals with challenges pertaining to technology and work systems. The story that related never-ending paperwork and computers and printers than never work is an example of this. In the \"Time\" theme, learning and adapting to technological systems are highlighted as being of particular concern. The informants' stories of collaboration describe a work environment that requires constant improvisation to deal with the mechanics of doing what should be routine parts of the job for example the solutions consultant whose password had not worked for two weeks.In this case study, there are a number of different competing interests, including the needs of the clients vs the governmentally imposed goals and performance metrics of the organization. The consultants are often caught in the middle of this as they identify with clients, recognizing their needs and those of the organization. Furthermore, this set of conflicts occurs in a time-poor environment that is not well supported by the technological infrastructure that is necessary to do the job well. An environment of continuing crisis management is not conducive to the development of collaboration, beyond what is required to manage the crisis. This leads to some collaboration within the organization by consultants but with discretionary, external collaboration placed firmly in the hands of site managers. Figure 2 highlights the highly connected nature of these issues. Each issue is embedded in a number of others and hence it will be difficult or impossible for this organization to solve one in isolation. Rather, slow, across-the-board changes to the organization structure and reinforcing initiatives to develop complementary organizational culture are indicated.The combination of story analysis and lexicographic analysis has been particularly effective in highlighting these issues. Summary of the semantic content provides an overview of the interview content and an effective framework in which to describe stories of collaboration and competing interest. The stories themselves colorfully describe the collaboration and the contrasting of stories better capture the competing interests. It is the stories that provide real managerial insights. The specifics of good and poor collaborative practice - formal and informal - emerge for management to utilize in creating more functional systems.Future research will look at this case using other lenses of analysis. More in depth content analysis (utilized here only as a summarizing and framing devise) will look more deeply at the semantics of the interviews and interrelationships between themes. More detailed analysis of stories with greater attention to given to the stories' context, subtext, roles of narrator and others in the story will be undertaken (as discussed by Hopkinson, 2003). Additional data already collected via an internet survey of the entire network will allow network mapping using social network analysis techniques, will enable greater focus on the network properties of the network and their effects on collaboration and the embedding of insights of exploring this part of the network to be considered in the larger context. These insights, combined with interview analyses and integration of findings from various data sources - archival and observation in particular - will enable a case study of ever-increasing richness to emerge. The insights from such a case can assist participants in the increasing number of networked organizations to assess the nature of their collaboration, its drivers, its challenges and ways in which to better manage it.Opens in a new window.Figure 1\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Managers working within organizations that are part of public-private collaborations comment on their \"diabolical\" nature and seek guidance as to their administration. Set in an organization involved in a public-private \"service delivery contract\", the purpose of this paper is to report research into the collaboration and challenges experienced within the organization. It also seeks to consider to the significance of narrative and story-telling in understanding these complexities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were collected using depth interviews and observation. The emerging discourse was analyzed using a machine-based, lexigraphic tool to provide a framework for interpretive story analysis. The significance and value of each approach are illustrated as are the effective synergies between them.\nFindings: - The paper identifies a number of different competing interests, including the needs of the clients vs the governmentally imposed goals and performance metrics of the organization. The limitations of this network form are highlighted; through contrasting of manager and consultant stories it becomes plain that collaborative networking only occurs at the management levels.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The role of the story-teller and the story context emerge as significant. Further research that pays greater attention to the stories' context, subtext, roles of narrator and others in the story is recommended.\nOriginality/value: - The paper demonstrates the value of extending machine-based analysis with more interpretive approaches. The significance of story analysis in understanding the embeddedness of narrative is highlighted as the range of synergies that can arise from multiple analytical techniques.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Brand personality as a direct cause of brand extension success: does self-monitoring matter?	[ "Brand personality", "Affect", "Brand extension", "Perceptual fit", "Self-monitoring" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Launching products into new product categories offers substantive opportunity for organisations to grow, but this \"newness\" makes the products less likely to succeed (Keller, 2008). To reduce the chance of failure, organisations launch these new products as brand extensions (Keller, 2008; Sung et al., 2012; van Dijk et al., 2014). Organisations attach brand names, logos and images of successful brands to the brand extension hoping that familiar branding enables consumers, with little knowledge of the new product, to access the rich integration of salient associations they have to the parent brand (Aaker and Joachimsthaler, 2000; Keaveney et al., 2012; Shen et al., 2011). These associations are what drives the brand equity of the successful brand causing consumers to demand it more than other brands and/or to pay more for it. If the parent-brand associations are successfully transferred to the brand extension, then consumers are more likely to trial the new product: making it cheaper to launch and enabling it to command a higher price (Albrecht et al., 2013; DelVecchio and Smith, 2005; Keller, 2008; Moorthy, 2012). Therefore, marketers who achieve transfer of positive brand associations to brand extensions will be more successful in new product categories (Shen et al., 2011; Sung et al., 2012; Volckner and Sattler, 2006).\nRelevant literature and theoretical framework: Consumers assess fit between the parent brand and the brand extension by cognitively assessing the similarity of the brand extension to the parent brand. Many studies have examined the fit assessment mechanism (Czellar, 2003). Early studies evaluated perceptual fit by assessing the perceived similarities in product category and product features (Aaker and Keller, 1990), similarity in brand specific associations (Broniarczyk and Alba, 1994) and similarity in brand concepts (Park et al., 1991). Subsequently, this evolved to evaluating perceptual fit based on similarity of personality dimensions (Lau and Phau, 2007), image fit (Bhat and Reddy, 2001) and similarity of outcomes derived from the brand extension (Martin et al., 2005). These studies confirm that consumers assess perceptual fit on both concrete and abstract attributes (Aaker and Keller, 1992; Batra et al., 2010; Broniarczyk and Alba, 1994; Estes et al., 2012; Martin et al., 2005; Park et al., 1991), depending on what attributes are important and can be transferred to the brand extension. Several studies have argued that abstract associations are simpler to extend than concrete associations because they are less specific to the product category of the parent brand and therefore more suited to extensions into new categories (Aaker and Keller, 1990; Batra et al., 2010). In an early study, Park et al. (1986) argued that consumers rely on abstract criteria to assess the fit for symbolic brands because the brands deliver abstract value propositions. Therefore, it is not surprising that (symbolic) parent brands with strong abstract associations (such as brand personality) would seek to communicate fit on those attributes (Bhat and Reddy, 2001).\nMethod: A focus group of eight consumers identified brands that help to project the user's status and image, and help the user to express their identity in both the car and watch categories. This process resulted in the selection of BMW and Volkswagen (VW) Beetle as symbolic brands in the car category and Omega and Swatch as symbolic brands in the watch category. A pre-test, during which 194 participants scored each brand for symbolism versus functionality on Bhat and Reddy's (1998) symbolism measure, further confirmed this. The results of a paired t-test, shown in Table I, confirm that all four brands had significantly higher mean scores for symbolism than for functionality.\nResults: The research model includes relationships that mediate the core relationship and relationships that moderate the mediated relationship. The following multiple regression equations were used to assess these relationships separately for each of the brands included in the study (Baron and Kenny, 1986; James and Brett, 1984; Muller et al., 2005).\nDiscussion: As expected, the results of this study confirm that greater perceived brand personality fit between the brand extension and the parent brand causes increased perceived image fit, and consumers to feel more affect towards the brand extension. Testing these relationships in a causal experiment adds confirmation to the existing literature and extends our understanding of the effect of brand personality fit by confirming that brand personality fit has a direct (partially mediated) positive causal relationship with affect for three of the four symbolic brands. Therefore, brand personality fit influences the performance of brand extensions (Bhat and Reddy, 2001; Nan, 2006). These results are important for symbolic brands because brand personality is an important determinant of what the brand symbolises, and therefore consumers assess brand personality fit more closely to ensure that brand extensions continue to represent their desired identity (Bosmans and Baumgartner, 2005).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Focusing on symbolic brands, this paper aims to re-test whether perceived aEUR~fit' between the personality of the parent brand, and the brand extension causes consumers to the feel increased affect towards the brand extension. The contention is that high brand personality fit causes consumers to like the brand extension more because, like the parent brand, consumers can use the brand extension to maintain and project a desirable self-identity. This relationship is obscured because consumers process brand personality fit as part of the overall brand image fit; therefore, the potential mediating role of brand image is tested. Consumers differ in their self-monitoring disposition as well, which may explain differences in response to perceived personality fit. Therefore, the potential moderating role of self-monitoring is tested.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using an experimental design, respondents viewed an advertisement for a brand extension that showed either congruent, moderately incongruent or incongruent personality fit with the parent brand. This was completed for four symbolic brands: two watch brands and two motor vehicle brands.\nFindings: The results indicate that brand personality fit between the brand extension and the parent brand is causally related to affect felt towards the brand extension, but that this relationship is fully mediated by image fit for the BMW brand and partially mediated for Volkswagen Beetle, Omega and Swatch. For BMW and Swatch, the relationship between the independent variable personality fit and the mediator variable image fit is positively moderated by the self-monitoring disposition of the consumer.\nResearch limitations/implications: The implication is that, while marketers can communicate a wide range of attributes when advertising brand extensions, marketers of symbolic brands should clearly demonstrate brand personality fit as an important component of brand image fit. This is even more important for consumers with a high self-monitoring disposition.\nOriginality/value: The study conclusively tests the importance of personality fit for symbolic brands, the mediating role of brand image and the interaction effect of self-monitoring on personality fit. These findings contribute to the research literature and help marketers to manage the level of personality fit that should be emphasized in their marketing communications.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The meanings of social entrepreneurship today	[ "Entrepreneurialism", "Privatization", "Leadership" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An important avenue toward responsible and sustainable business is \"social entrepreneurship,\" although its appearance has been more marked in practice than in academic research. Indeed, there is but a nascent body of academic literature published on the subject, with a smattering of studies across disciplines. In this paper we draw on that literature, as well as popular discussions and contemporary case studies, to explore the development of the concept of social entrepreneurship and its motivations, its promises and its implications. At the outset, we stress the diversity of economic, political, and social phenomena associated in one way or another with the term \"social entrepreneurship\" while also emphasizing the broad appeal of the term.\nThe renaissance of social entrepreneurship: historical and socio-political perspectives: Central to any discussion of social entrepreneurship are the questions of who should and who can take responsibility for the needs of civil society. Indeed, ideologically based questions emerge regarding the continuance and health of a civil society that is necessarily distinct from either the political or economic sectors. Answers to these questions have varied throughout modern history according to the prevailing, predominantly economic, theories upon which national governance has been based.In the years immediately following the second world war and until the early 1970s, the governments of most western democratic countries followed the Keynesian model of social democracy, with fixed currency exchange rates to guard against inflation, nearly full employment, and a solid welfare system in place for those who needed it. Social services such as health and education were provided by the state. The economic and social stability enjoyed at that time ensured hegemonic acceptance of the model. That hegemony met with serious challenge at the time of the major oil shortage in 1974 when rising inflation undermined the logic of fixing exchange rates.From the early 1980s many of those countries that had maintained their welfare state systems for over 20 years shifted to a new economic paradigm of laissez-faire or free market neo-liberalism. This model, in contrast to its predecessor, is characterized by deregulated markets and privately owned enterprises, with minimal involvement of the state in the economic sector. Part of the process of moving over to neo-liberalism required the \"corporatization\" and eventual privatization of previously state-owned assets. Very often, those assets were in the key economic areas of transport, energy, and communications. Marketization and varying degrees of privatization were also extended to the sectors of health and education and, in some cases, to corrections and disaster relief. As the role of the state was withdrawn, income tax rates were typically lowered as individuals were encouraged to take responsibility for their own welfare. The shift towards deregulated economies in countries throughout the world was encouraged by those who pursued the concept of a global economy. Once policy deregulation began to include capital and securities markets, from 1987, financial trading grew exponentially, as investors sought to capitalize on shifts in national currency values, leading to economic instability in several less industrialized countries. The growth in financial trading was facilitated by the development of new communication technologies (Castells, 2000).By the late 1990s it had become apparent that the neo-liberal model was not ensuring the welfare of all people. Indeed, the growing gap between rich and poor individuals (and countries) had become clear. Large corporations, because of their ability to choose where to invest capital, could wield economic power to an extent that made regulation difficult (Gray, 1998; Grossman, 1998; Karliner, 1997). The extension of market principles into government and civil society (by virtue of individual rather than collective responsibility) has led to a blurring of the boundaries between these sectors beyond even what had been experienced in the form of public-private partnerships before the 1990s.Although laissez-faire approaches to economic governance have featured in other periods of our history, it is arguable that once the Keynesian model with its system of social welfare had been experienced, people were no longer prepared to accept governments that abdicated responsibility for those who could not fend for themselves. It was the rejection of the neo-liberal model and its negative consequences that led to the rise of a compromise, commonly referred to as \"the third way\" (Giddens, 1998). Embraced by Britain's current New Labour government, New Zealand's current Labour government, the former US government of Bill Clinton, amongst others, the third way reinstates government responsibility for social services such as health and education but also embraces a free market for business and supports unbridled free trade as the goal of both national and global economies - including the specialization of national economies in areas where they can presumably best compete with low prices on the world market. The third way looks for the rebuilding of a strong civil society through community effort in partnership with government, but without resource to an entitlement based approach to social welfare (Mendes, 2000). The third way model, however, has not gained universal acceptance, and the US for example, has back pedaled from it under the administration of George W. Bush. Some of the resistance to third way economics is reflected in resistance to social entrepreneurship, as we discuss at the end of the chapter.Governments today can no longer afford to provide social welfare to the extent that it was provided under the Keynesian model. Because they have sold the previously state-owned assets that not only were fundamental to the countries' infrastructure but also provided revenue streams, they have less income to redistribute. This is true as well in some countries of northern and western Europe, even though their commitments to the welfare state have not been eroded as much as those in the US, the UK, and Australia. In many cases, revenue from income tax was also reduced. Raising taxes again would increase revenue but would be likely to be politically unpopular. To exacerbate the problem, technological advances in health care have increased human life expectancy rates, and have created a demand that is expensive to meet. These fundamental problems have contributed to the rise of a range of societal trends, organizational structures, and individual initiatives, all of which come under the generic umbrella term of \"social entrepreneurship\". We explore the range of uses of this term in the following section.\nModels of social entrepreneurship: Introduction\nThe social entrepreneurs: value-driven and charismatic leadership: Introduction\nDiscussion: Depending upon the way in which we choose to view it, the strengths or weaknesses of the concept of social entrepreneurship lie in the fact that most of its applications are in the form of a hybrid between private, non-profit and public sectors. As described, one such hybrid is found in non-profit organizations with an entrepreneurial offshoot that generates revenue for the organization's social objectives. With greater emphasis on the private, for-profit sector, a hybrid model is emerging whereby businesses lend money and expertise to non-profits. Increasingly, this latter model is linked to public pressure for businesses to demonstrate a measure of social responsibility. Taking the model a step further, Porter (2003) argued that the most realistic and desirable way for any business to be socially responsible is through what he calls \"strategic philanthropy\": selected giving in areas tied directly to the company's interests and in arenas that the company can justly claim to have knowledge and a direct stake. His use of the term clearly suggests an indirect financial return on the philanthropic investment. Indeed, Porter stated that the exercise of traditional philanthropy does not make good business sense as it does not provide a tangible return. In a more refined consideration of types of philanthropy today, Reis and Clobesy (2001) support the notion of strategic philanthropy yet emphasize that highly motivated and visionary business leaders can bring together networks of organizations in new community ventures.Like the term \"strategic philanthropy\", \"social entrepreneurship\" is an articulation (Hall, 1986; Slack, 1996), a combination of two concepts that do not naturally fit together and yet which seeks acceptance as common sense. It is the lack of a natural fit that renders the term open to resistance and challenge. Challenges, implicit or explicit, range from different interpretations of how the terms might justifiably be joined to denial that they should be used together at all. Johnson (2003) suggests that the lack of examples of social entrepreneurship to be found in Canada, in comparison with Britain and the US, \"reflects a discomfort with the terminology of social entrepreneurship\" (p. 5). The reason for the discomfort, she further suggests, is that many Canadians reject the move towards the market as a means of income redistribution and still regard the state as their \"provider of choice\" for social services.Language is a key component in the shift towards rationalization of the concept of social entrepreneurship. This is because discourse acceptance precedes or runs in parallel with material acceptance. Thus we see the emergence of terms that were previously restricted to the business sector, such as \"social venture capital\", \"social return on investment\", \"invest\" rather than \"donate\" (Canadian Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, 2001); \"revenue streams\", and \"client groups\" (Johnson, 2003) applied to the social and public sectors.If the colonization of the social and public sectors by the language of business is accepted, the breakdown of barriers between the sectors becomes normalized. However, the terms cited are in contrast to the distinction made by Thompson (2002) between entrepreneurs who create social or artistic capital rather than financial capital, with social capital referring to that which is valuable to communities (p. 413). The concept of social capital, without a financial element, also emerges in David Bornstein's (Bornstein, 2004) descriptions of social entrepreneurs, with examples that include the Crimean War nurse, Florence Nightingale.In its least problematic formulation, social entrepreneurship seeks to marry rational economic calculation and socially inspired vision (Shockley et al., 2002). At a time when money for social initiatives is short, this could offer a way forward for non-profits in an increasingly competitive environment. It can also be seen as a way for business to balance profit with public responsibility (Reis and Clobesy, 2001).On the other hand, opposition could arise from the close association of the term \"entrepreneur\" with the creative-destructive aspects of capitalism (Schumpeter, 1934). Those who are concerned about the negative aspects of business will be resistant to the blurring of the boundaries between public, private and civil society suggested by social entrepreneurship with the potential for increased influence of business beyond the private sector (Reis and Clobesy, 2001). The non-profit sector has long been associated with the creation and maintenance of a strong civil society. Marketization of that sector, then, calls that association into question (Eikenberry and Kluver, 2004) with concerns for the viability of an independent civil society. Furthermore, if business has the power to choose which non-profits are to benefit materially through socially entrepreneurial partnerships, what happens to those that are not chosen and therefore are marginalized?We suggest that a parallel can be drawn between the concept of social entrepreneurship and that of sustainability because sustainability is equally open to broad interpretation. Like social entrepreneurship, sustainability can favor either the social and environmental or the economic sectors, depending upon which model is adopted. The model of weak sustainability preferences the economic and so parallels the model of social entrepreneurship that seeks direct or indirect financial reward for the business entrepreneur. Strong sustainability favors the social and environmental over economic development, upholding the social values of a truly civil society based social entrepreneurialism. Interpretations are derived from the beliefs and experiences of individuals. Social entrepreneurs and their work should ultimately be judged by the quality of the social outcomes, and that assessment should be made independently of the private interests of those entrepreneurs.With concepts and movements such as social entrepreneurship, environmental sustainability, and social responsibility, it is crucial that we pay close attention to the persuasive uses of the terms as well as to their practical implication. All of them are contested, value-laden labels that can be used to reference a wide variety of interests, motives, activities, and outcomes.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Aims to explore the historical development and current usages of the concept of social entrepreneurship.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper first examines the socio-political conditions leading to business repositioning in the traditionally governmental role of catering to the financial needs of civil society. It then reviews several models of social entrepreneurship and the leaders who have emerged as social entrepreneurs within those frameworks.\nFindings: - In discussion the paper questions some of the motives of social entrepreneurs and warns against uncritical acceptance of a blurring of the boundaries between sectors of society.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This is a theoretical paper. Follow-up research will examine in detail case studies of social entrepreneurship.\nOriginality/value: - Social entrepreneurship is a new and rapidly rising field of practice that is, as yet, under-researched. This paper synthesizes the limited yet diverse current literature on social entrepreneurship. It also offers a critical perspective that needs to be taken into account before the practice is accepted as a common-sense salve to social difficulties.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
NDCS top team taught the merits of online training: Evidence-based reporting of two pilot projects carries the day	[ "Decision-making", "Awards", "Computer-based learning", "Charities" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The National Deaf Children's Society introduced e-learning when a lack of resources made it difficult to support all staff using a traditional training approach.\nPositive results from pilot no. 1: The directors agreed that a small pilot could be run and NDCS became a CLC member.\nPilot no. 2 demonstrates value for money: The executive board now agreed to a larger pilot program for more than 100 employees of the children, young people and families directorate. Sabina Talib, NDCS project officer, was given responsibility for the larger pilot. She developed a number of support documents, including an A-Z course list and a communication plan that included the launch of the i-learn brand.\nBespoke courses to supplement generic content: The executive board agreed to approve all staff access to i-learn on the basis of these results. Board members also asked for work to proceed on two bespoke courses to supplement the generic CLC content. They are considering the possibility of introducing the project to volunteers and casual workers.\nTop tips for getting executive-board acceptance: Her top tips to getting buy-in for e-learning from the board are:\nNote: David Pollitt, Human Resource Management International Digest editor, wrote this article.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Explains that the National Deaf Children's Society introduced e-learning when a lack of resources made it difficult to support all staff using a traditional training approach.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Considers how executive-board members, many of whom had little or no experience of online learning, were won over to the cause.\nFindings: Details how two pilot programs were organized and how their results helped to convince board members to introduce online learning throughout the organization.\nPractical implications: Furnishes top tips for getting board members to support e-learning.\nSocial implications: Highlights how charities, which generally lack the resources for major training initiatives, can benefit from the introduction of online learning.\nOriginality/value: Provides the inside story of how a small, dedicated team helped to win the support of board members who were initially lukewarm to e-learning, and won a Charity Learning Award prize into the bargain.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]

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