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Why hedge? Rationales for corporate hedging and value implications
|
[
"Corporate finances",
"Risk management",
"Foreign exchange"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Nonfinancial firms increasingly employ risk management to shield their performance against financial risks, such as foreign exchange and interest rate risk, as several surveys indicate (e.g. Berkman et al., 1997; Bodnar et al., 1998). Corporate risk management can be implemented in many ways, such as derivatives, foreign currency debt, operative hedging, etc. (Levi, 1996). While risk management at the firm level appears to lower the exposure of firms to exchange rate risk (Allayannis and Ofek, 2001), neo-classical finance theory seems to purport that corporate hedging cannot increase firm value, as explained below. Recent research, however, shows that in the presence of realistic capital market imperfections, i.e. agency costs, costs of external financing, direct and indirect bankruptcy costs, as well as taxes, corporate hedging will enhance shareholder value.This paper provides a comprehensive and accessible overview of the existing positive rationales for corporate risk management in general and hedging in particular[1]. Specifically, it is discussed how corporate risk management can reduce agency conflicts such as underinvestment, asset substitution, or dysfunctional managerial behavior resulting from underdiversification or non-effective incentive structures. Moreover, external financing costs can be reduced through corporate hedging by aligning the availability of and need for investment funds. Finally, corporate hedging can lower the probability of future financial distress, thus enabling a firm to decrease its expected tax burden. Subsequent to the discussion of these rationales, a brief account of the empirical evidence is provided. There exists some empirical support for these theories, such as firms with high leverage being more likely to hedge. At the same time, there is also evidence that runs counter to theoretical predictions, such as larger and more profitable firms having a higher propensity to engage in hedging. Similarly, only some studies are able to find that firm value, as measured by Tobin's Q, is higher for firms that hedge.The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 establishes the case for corporate hedging, while Section 3 introduces and explains the existing positive rationales for corporate risk management. Section 4 reviews the empirical evidence on these rationales, and, finally, the last section summarizes and concludes.\n2. The case for value creation through corporate risk management: While it can be observed that corporations are frequently devoting intellectual and financial resources to financial risk management, it is by no means a trivial task to make a case for corporate risk management at the firm level. In particular, if parity relationships between prices of inputs, interest rates, and exchange rates hold, a change of one of these variables, potentially initiated through an external shock, will be rapidly offset by a related change in the other variables, thus reestablishing equilibrium. Furthermore, it could be argued that corporate hedging has no impact on firm value, as investors can achieve risk reduction at least as efficiently themselves through diversification or hedging. The hedging of risks that investors cannot diversify in financial markets (systematic risk) may also not increase shareholder value, as investors receive an appropriate return for holding securities of inherently risky businesses. Therefore, corporate hedging of market risks simply shifts firms along a line that reflects the risk/reward tradeoff in the market (Dufey and Srinivasulu, 1983).However, on close inspection, it appears important to differentiate between the nature of the risks nonfinancial firms face, in particular between business risk and financial risk. Business risk is at the core of a firm's operations and arises from uncertainties with respect to product quality, input costs, technological factors, changes in customer demand, etc. This risk is difficult and often impossible to hedge and indeed should not be hedged as nonfinancial firms typically have a competitive advantage in managing their business and the associated risks, while they generally do not have a competitive edge in managing financial risks, such as unexpected changes in exchange rates, interest rates, or commodity prices. As a result, it is economically sensible for nonfinancial firms to hedge their exposure to financial risks by \"selling\" them into the broader markets. Due to capital market imperfections - such as agency costs, costs of external financing, bankruptcy costs, and taxes - corporate hedging by nonfinancial corporations can increase their firm value, as discussed in the following section.\n3. Rationales for corporate risk management: 3.1 Mitigating the underinvestment problem\n4. Empirical evidence on corporate hedging rationales: The presented rationales for corporate risk management have been subject to ample empirical investigation, including studies by Nance et al. (1993), Dolde (1995), Tufano (1996), Geczy et al. (1997), Haushalter (2000), and Graham and Rogers (2002). In particular, most empirical studies test for the underinvestment and the asset substitution rationales by studying firms' growth opportunities, as firms with many growth opportunities should have a high probability of underinvestment or asset substitution. As a result, it can be hypothesized that these firms should be more inclined to hedge than firms with less growth opportunities. In general, empirical evidence often supports this hypothesis (e.g. Fok et al., 1997; Graham and Rogers, 2002).Moreover, agency conflicts between managers and shareholders are often studied by reviewing managerial incentive structures, such as stock or stock option programs. While managers in possession of stock option programs should have incentives to avoid hedging, as corporate risk management decreases firm value volatility and thus the value of their options, managerial stock programs should motivate managers to hedge. Empirical support for these hypotheses is mixed (e.g. Haushalter, 2000; Graham and Rogers, 2002). Evidence from the North American gold mining industry indicates that firms whose managers hold more options (stock) manage less (more) gold price risk, suggesting that managerial risk aversion may affect corporate risk management policy (Tufano, 1996).The coordinating investment and financing rationale is frequently tested along the same lines as the underinvestment or the asset substitution hypotheses, as it also crucially depends on available growth opportunities (firms with no growth opportunities never run the risk that their internal cash flow is insufficient to finance all positive investment projects). Moreover, it can be studied whether firms that employ corporate risk management have a lower sensitivity of investment to pre-hedging cash flows (Allayannis and Mozumdar, 2000). There exists some empirical evidence for this rationale.In order to test the bankruptcy and financial distress rationale, empirical studies mainly focus on firms' leverage and profitability, as firms with high leverage and low profitability are more likely to encounter financial distress in the future and should thus have stronger incentives to hedge. While financial leverage is often statistically significant, empirical results on the profitability of hedging firms are typically insignificant. Nonetheless, empirical studies lend some support for this argument (e.g. Haushalter, 2000; Graham and Rogers, 2002).Empirical studies find little support for the tax argument, which is often tested by observing the availability of tax-loss carry-forwards or by calculating potential tax savings from corporate risk management (e.g. Gay and Nam, 1998; Graham and Rogers, 2002). Possible reasons are that the incentive to hedge for tax purposes is small compared to other incentives.An alternative to testing whether firms for which theory suggests that they have large incentives to hedge employ corporate risk management more frequently than firms with low incentives is to directly test for the impact of corporate hedging on firm value, often measured by Tobin's Q. The empirical evidence provides some support for an increase in shareholder wealth through corporate risk management, for instance, by approximately 4 percent for a large sample of US firms with exchange rate exposure (Allayannis and Weston, 2001) and 12-16 percent for a sample of firms belonging to the US airline industry (Carter et al., 2003). Moreover, there is some evidence that the value impact of corporate risk management might depend on corporate governance structures, i.e. there seems to be a positive value impact only in countries with strong corporate governance (Allayannis et al., 2004). Bartram et al. (2006) study a global sample of 6,896 non-financial firms from 47 countries. Controlling for endogeneity using several different techniques, they find strong evidence that the use of financial derivatives reduces firm risk as well as some evidence that derivative use is related to higher firm value as measured by Tobin's Q. In contrast, other studies either find insignificant value effects, or even that corporate hedging decreases firm value (Nguyen and Faff, 2003).Nevertheless, these tests are potentially plagued by challenges of correctly specifying the empirical tests. To illustrate, it might be the case that the supportive evidence in previous studies is driven by the fact that derivatives' usage proxies for other firm attributes which are known to affect shareholder wealth (Lookman, 2003). Again, there is additional evidence from more detailed data available for commodity-based industries. In particular, a recent study investigates the hedging activities of 119 US oil and gas producers from 1998 to 2001 and evaluates their effect on firm value, based on detailed information on the extent of hedging and on the valuation of oil and gas reserves (Jin and Jorion, 2006). While hedging reduces the firms' stock price sensitivity to oil and gas prices, hedging does not seem to affect the market value of firms in this industry.Related work suggests an effect of corporate risk management on firm value not due to capital market imperfections, if revenues are concave in product prices or if costs are convex in factor prices (Mackay and Moeller, 2006). The corresponding empirical evidence, based on 34 oil refiners, suggests that hedging concave revenues and leaving concave costs exposed each represent between 2 percent and 3 percent of firm value. Similarly, there is some evidence that firms in the gold mining industry have consistently realized economically significant cash flow gains from their derivatives transactions without an offsetting adjustment in firms' systematic risk, suggesting that derivatives transactions have positive NPV for these firms (Adam and Fernando, 2006). The evidence of studies directly analyzing the value impact of corporate hedging is thus fairly mixed and inconclusive to date as well, suggesting the need for further empirical, and possibly theoretical, analysis on this issue.\n5. Summary and conclusion: In the presence of capital market imperfections, which consist of agency costs, transaction costs, such as bankruptcy and financial distress costs, and taxes, corporate risk management constitutes a means to enhance shareholder value. In particular, hedging at the firm level may reduce agency conflicts between shareholders and bondholders, such as the incentive to invest below optimal levels or the incentive to increase the riskiness of the assets. Also, agency conflicts between shareholders and managers due to different risk preferences can be alleviated via corporate risk management.Moreover, corporate hedging may increase firm value by reducing various transaction costs. By reducing cash flow volatility, firms face a lower probability of default and thus have to bear lower expected costs of bankruptcy and financial distress. A lower probability of default enables firms at the same time to increase their leverage and therefore to benefit from greater tax shields. Risk management at the firm level can also help to align the availability of internal cash flows and the need for funds for corporate investment. As a result, the costs of external financing or the opportunity costs of forgoing profitable investment projects when internal funds are not sufficient to finance all profitable growth opportunities are reduced.Finally, corporate risk management can reduce fluctuations in pre-tax income and thus lower the tax burden of firms if corporate income is subject to a convex tax schedule. The convexity of tax schedules result from progressively increasing marginal tax rates or limitations of various special tax preference items.While there is some empirical support for these rationales of hedging at the firm level, the evidence is overall somewhat mixed. Consequently, future research might explore issues such as considering derivatives usage being just one part of a broader financial strategy of the firm. In particular, recent evidence suggests that the use of derivatives influences debt levels and maturity, dividend policy, holdings of liquid assets, and the degree of operating hedging, and that financial derivatives only have a small impact on the risk profile of firms, while corporations rely more heavily on pass-through, operational hedging, and foreign currency debt to manage financial risk. At the same time, it appears to be important to consider and control for endogeneity problems when assessing the impact of corporate hedging on firm value.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: - In the presence of capital market imperfections, risk management at the enterprise level is apt to increase the firm's value to shareholders by reducing costs associated with agency conflicts, external financing, financial distress, and taxes. The purpose of this paper is to provide an accessible and comprehensive account of these rationales for corporate risk management and to give a short overview of the empirical support found in the literature.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper outlines the main theories suggesting that corporate risk management can enhance shareholder value and briefly reviews the empirical evidence on these theories.\nFindings: - When there are imperfections in capital markets, corporate hedging can enhance shareholder value through its impact on agency costs, costly external financing, direct and indirect costs of bankruptcy, as well as taxes. More specifically, corporate hedging can alleviate underinvestment and asset substitution problems by reducing the volatility of cash flows, and it can accommodate the risk aversion of undiversified managers and increase the effectiveness of managerial incentive structures through eliminating unsystematic risk. Lower volatility of cash flows also leads to lower bankruptcy costs. Moreover, corporate hedging can also align the availability of internal resources with the need for investment funds, helping firms to avoid costly external financing. Finally, corporate risk management can reduce the corporate tax burden in the presence of convex tax schedules. While there is empirical support for these rationales of hedging at the firm level, the evidence is only modestly supportive, suggesting alternative explanations.\nOriginality/value: - The discussed theories and the empirical evidence are described in an accessible way, in part by using numerical examples.\n",
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Does the historical and institutional re-construction of Ghana support the transfer of HRM practices?
|
[
"Ghana",
"Exploratory study",
"Colonial legacies",
"HRM practice transfer",
"Social institutionalism"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Human resource management (HRM) practice transfer within the context of less developed or developing host-countries in Sub-Saharan Africa is under-researched, despite the increasing significance of HRM practice transfer as an important strategy for multinational enterprises (MNEs) and their subsidiaries across the region (Rui et al., 2016). The principal source of a firm's competitiveness is its knowledge stock and how efficiently it can be transferred across various units of the firm (Williams and Lee, 2016; Bjorkman et al., 2008). Williams and Lee(2016) suggest that firms represent a social community where HRM knowledge can be stored and diffused via its external market. This paper investigates whether the historical and institutional re-construction of Ghana supports the transfer of HRM practices and if so, what local conditions within the host-country support such transfer? The paper draws from an exploratory qualitative study design by assimilating history, culture and institutions to form the underpinning social context to highlight the receptiveness of a less developed host-country to new management forms and HRM practices from external sources (Dalton and Bingham, 2017; Dibben et al., 2017). Theoretically, there is an established body of HRM and international management literature through the lens of cultural dimensions theory (Minkov and Hofstede, 2012; House et al., 2004) and an institutionalists perspective (Scott, 2001; DiMaggio and Powell, 1983) on how host and home-countries' cultural and institutional differences influence HRM practice transfer between MNEs and their subsidiaries (Ayentimi et al., 2018a; Bjorkman et al., 2008). Within the global space, it is generally clear that Africa is contextually distinctive from other regions because of the embeddedness of cultural diversity, colonialism and decolonialism denoting the wider social and cultural distance (Ayentimi et al., 2018b; Decker, 2013a, 2013b). Notwithstanding, such a distinctive perspective from other regions, there is a further degree of distinctiveness, particularly between Ghana and her neighbours, where an indirect rule system of governance was entrenched in the British colonial administration system, whereas the policy of assimilation was grounded in the French colonies (Ayittey, 2006). The advancement of management in Africa in general has been determined by the colonial legacies strengthened by the involvement of the European or colonial authority which led to the refinement of the business structure and management processes in the region (Dibben et al., 2017; Amankwah-Amoah, 2016; Decker, 2013a, 2013b). It is also interesting to note that the:\n2. Social institutionalist perspective: Social institutions have a systematic influence on organizational strategies and practice arrangements. Indeed, the basic underlining principle of the institutional logic argues that the national pattern is reflected in the organizational processes and structures. The SIP emerged in the HRM literature as an attempt to link post-colonial studies and comparative HRM practices to construct an exhaustive understanding of factors that denote the effect of a host-country contextual distinctiveness as against the continued colonial institutional legacies (inheritance) in HRM (Dalton and Bingham, 2017; Dibben et al., 2017). The SIP assimilates institutions, history and culture to form the underpinning social context in understanding HRM practices in countries that witnessed colonialization. The SIP argues that colonialization to some extent has moulded the social meanings (social values and belief systems) attributed to HRM principles in many nation-states (Dibben et al., 2017). The re-construction of traditional African institutional structures and processes occasioned by colonial invasion (Amankwah-Amoah, 2016; Harvey, 2002) may potentially shape the approachability of new organizational forms and HRM practices from external sources into host-countries (Dalton and Bingham, 2017; Dibben et al., 2017). While Scott (2001) contends that institutions comprise the socio-cultural, economic, political and legal systems that govern the behaviour of firms and individuals in a nation state, Whitley (2008) conceptualizes the national business system of a nation-state as a set of interconnecting institutions and structures in diverse domains upon which economic activities are organized. It has been argued that MNEs may have to deal with multiple institutional and cultural constraints which may limit the choices of firms in the replication of headquarters' HRM practices. The desire for MNEs to achieve consistency and harmonization may support HRM convergence across their subsidiaries (Patel et al., 2018). However, the need for MNEs to conform to host-country institutional pressures, as well as gain local legitimacy, may influence the extent to which some HRM practices are transferred into the host-country (Poutsma et al., 2006). Therefore, the receptiveness of the host-country becomes an important determinant in HRM practice transfer, particularly in less developed host-countries where there exists institutional and cultural distance between the host- and home-countries of MNEs.\n3. Human resource management practice transfer across subsidiaries: The HRM literature argues that organizational practices in different host-countries reflects in the differences in their national business systems (Iseke and Schneider, 2012). Savaneviciene and Kersiene (2015) suggest that MNEs are likely to be confronted with a wide range of institutional, cultural and competitive pressures during the processes of HRM practice transfer because of the institutional and cultural dissimilarities between MNEs' host and home countries. Institutionalists assert that firms are under isomorphic pressure to behave similarly to host-country practices to gain recognition and local legitimacy (Patel et al., 2018; Bjorkman et al., 2008). The institutional and cultural pressure might be stronger for firms operating in host-countries that exhibit wider institutional and cultural distance resulting in a significant increase in liability of foreignness (Gorostidi-Martinez and Zhao, 2017). Institutionalists' studies within the HRM practice transfer literature have focused on institutional persistence and homogeneity occasioned by institutional and cultural pressure/isomorphism and legitimacy (Kostova et al., 2008). The dissimilarities in the historical, institutional and cultural orientation of host-countries influence their national development trajectories and reflects how economic activities are conducted (Wailes et al., 2016; McDonnell et al., 2015). The culturalist perspective (Minkov and Hofstede, 2012) corresponds with Scott's (2001) concept of new institutionalism literature, which draws attention to fundamental differences in HRM practices among firms from different national cultural and institutional orientations (Vaiman and Brewster, 2015; Edwards et al., 2013). These distinctions in legal, political and socio-economic conditions constitute the national institutional structure of a country (Gooderham and Nordhaug, 2010; Farndale et al., 2008). The broader HRM literature claims that specific host-countries are likely to be linked to specific sets of organizational level HRM practices, thus mirroring the different cultural and institutional set-ups and historical development trajectories (Vaiman and Brewster, 2015; Edwards et al., 2013; Iseke and Schneider, 2012). For example, Festing (2012) highlights that German employment practices are generally associated with German traditional values, which are grounded on job protection, employer-employee partnership and continuing employee training and development orientation.\n4. Study context: The choice of Ghana with its resilient colonial institutional legacies and cultural diversity contributes to the importance of the study. Ghana, with Accra as its capital city, is located in West Africa; officially known as the Republic of Ghana. After prior Danish and Dutch occupation, in 1874, the southern regions were officially declared a British colony (Kimble, 1963). After British absolute control of the Gold Coast in 1902, little effort was made to involve Africans in the political and administrative processes of the colony (Scarborough, 2001). However, the British later introduced an indirect governance system. The indirect system of governance allowed the British to rule their colonies through indigenous traditional rulers and chiefs. The chiefs and traditional rulers were given some partial administrative authority and control over their own people (Ayentimi et al., 2018a, 2018b; Debrah, 2013). The indirect rule system was driven by the lack of British personnel in Africa and the indirect rule system was cost-effective compared to bringing in expatriate administrators to a remote and inhospitable region. This system gave the traditional rulers the opportunity to recruit labourers for the colonial administration. This subsequently led to the establishment of a formal labour department and the appointment of Labour Officers in the Gold Coast (Obeng-Fosu, 2007; Debrah, 2013). Moreover, the British colonial administration and the arrival of European missionaries and traders introduced Western approaches to people management in many Ghanaian organizations during the pre-colonial and post-colonial era (Van Wasbeek, 2004; Akinnusi, 1991). Administrative systems and personnel functions were not properly structured and formalized before the importation of modern organizational systems to Africa by the British and European missionaries (Debrah, 2013; Akinnusi, 1991). These new HR systems were based on bureaucratic principles associated with British colonial administration. The emergence of colonialization and the growing commercialization of the traditional Ghanaian economy saw the need for the recruitment of local employees to work as clerks, interpreters, labourers and messengers for the British and European traders, which subsequently gave rise to the development of the professional personnel management function (Decker, 2010; Debrah, 2013).\n5. Methodology: 5.1 Study design\n6. Findings: The HCN institutional conditions or characteristics that facilitate and provide opportunities for HRM practice diffusion emerged from the analysis through the identification of key historical and institutional themes, patterns and issues. These themes, patterns and issues that were generated from the analysis of the transcripts indicated that the following conditions were identified as being supportive to the transfer of HRM practices to subsidiaries in Ghana:\n7. Discussion and managerial implications: The evidence in this paper directly points to several implications for research and professional practice. Our paper suggests that the historical developmental and economic decline that Ghana experienced necessitated the liberalization and the \"openness\" or receptiveness of the country to FDI with its spillover effects - new technology, new production techniques, revenue, employment creation, new organizational forms (new work systems) and contemporary HR practices (Osabutey and Debrah, 2012). The colonial history and the political and economic interest of Ghana to mimic best policies and practices (HR practices) from its colonial masters and other advanced economies provided strong institutional support. This became an important institutional driver for the diffusion of best HR practices. The continuous mimicking of best political and economic systems from MNEs' home-countries provides the institutional support and institutional receptiveness within the host-country for MNE subsidiaries to diffuse similar HR practices to their Ghanaian subsidiaries.\n8. Conclusion and limitations: Our paper contributes to the evolving literature on HRM practice transfer from the perspective of a less developed host-country's context. As MNEs operate in different host-countries institutional arrangements in such countries are likely to shape their HR practice configurations, as they seek to balance consistency and gain social and legal legitimacy. The research underscores the importance of historical and institutional malleability in less developed economies for MNEs' transfer of HRM practices. Institutional pressures may exist, but these may be malleable to MNEs - particularly where the host-country is reliant on FDI and MNEs are from dominant economies. We highlight a number of limitations of our paper. First, this study was conducted at one point in time, and as such, we cannot comment on changes through time. Second, firm-level studies that relied on sole informants are vulnerable to key informant bias. Nonetheless, sole key informant approach has been extensively used in comparative and international HRM research.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: This study aims to investigate whether the historical and institutional re-construction of Ghana support the transfer of human resource management (HRM) practices and if so, what local conditions support such transfer?\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper draws from an exploratory qualitative study design by assimilating history, culture and institutions (social institutionalist perspective) to explore host-country factors and conditions supporting the transfer of HRM practices in a developing country context.\nFindings: The study finds the colonial history, and the political and economic interests of Ghana to mimic best HRM policies and practices from its colonial masters and other advanced economies provided strong institutional support for the transfer of HRM practices.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper complements the understanding of HRM practice transfer literature by highlighting the significance of host-country historical and institutional re-construction support in developing economies as key drivers for the diffusion of HRM practices.\nPractical implications: By incorporating institutions, history and culture to form the underpinning social context, it offers a new perspective into how historical, cultural and colonial institutional legacies as entrenched social instruments facilitate HRM practice transfer in Sub-Saharan Africa.\nOriginality/value: The integration of institutions, history and culture (social institutionalist perspective) provide a wider understanding of factors that denote the effect of Ghanaian contextual distinctiveness as against the continued colonial institutional legacies (inheritance) supporting the transfer of HRM practices. This is the first study to consider how local institutions, culture and history of Ghana support the transfer of HRM practices to subsidiaries.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
A comparative analysis of transatlantic design interventions for therapeutically enhanced learning environments - Texas vs West Midlands
|
[
"United Kingdom",
"United States of America",
"School buildings",
"Glare",
"Lower sound frequencies",
"Sensory perceptual problems",
"US public schools"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nBackground: Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are a spectrum of developmental disorders of neurological origin that occur in a large variety of forms from mild to severe. ASD is currently defined by behavioural criteria, which includes impairments in social interaction, impairments in verbal and nonverbal communication, and restricted interests and activities. Other impairments including lack of facial recognition and poor social skills have also been identified together with limited and repetitive gross motor skills and lower intellectual/cognitive skills (Autism Society of America, 2008; Scott et al., 2000). Individuals and adults on the autistic spectrum are amongst the most vulnerable group in our society. This is largely due to the overwhelming effects of sensory stimuli within the built environment wherein they live and interact. Sensory processing problems have been identified as the main culprit underlying stereotypical, self-stimulatory and ritualistic behaviour exhibited by affected individuals, which in turn may have profound effects on their learning (Autism Society of America, 2008; Scott et al., 2000\nThe theoretical framework of the study: The literature concerning the sensory environment in school building shows that there are multiplicities of interrelated and a conflicting trio of spatial, visual and acoustic stimuli which have to be considered (Shabha, 2006; Gaines, 2008; Bright et al., 1997, Bright and Cook, 1999; Cook et al., 1997, Cook, 1998, Wright et al., 1999, Edwards, 2002). There seems to be a lack of knowledge about what constitutes a therapeutic and sensory teaching environment. Most research on school design is descriptive and qualitative (Powell, 1999; Allen, 2000). The focus has been mainly on assessing the impact of a single environmental factor or parameter on a restricted aspect of the learning process. Teaching settings such as pupil\nMethodology: A multi-pronged approach was adopted in both studies in compiling factual and perceptual information about teachers and carers responses to varying sensory stimuli. The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship among a few sensory environmental parameters and individual\nFindings: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the association between visual and acoustic/auditory learning environments and the behaviour of students with ASD.\nConclusions: This research aims to assess the relationship among a few sensory environmental parameters and individual\nOutcomes, practical benefits and implications: This study represents a leap forward by providing a comprehensive measuring framework by which some sensory environmental attributes can be assessed objectively and their impacts on individual behaviour can be thoroughly assessed; meanwhile other likely risk of harm can be minimised or mitigated.\nAreas for future research: In the light of the findings, there is a need to develop a cross-disciplinary approach to the impact of the auditory environment on individual behaviour and to assess how low pitch sound and intensity of light affect behaviour. Another area for further research might include new intelligent materials to mitigate the changeable flow and fluctuating impacts of acoustical and visual stimuli. Further considerations will be given to explore and develop new performance specifications for adaptive materials. This might enable manufacturers of building materials to optimise their method of production and specifications to effectively meet the needs of individuals with sensory/perceptual impairment.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the findings of the empirical studies that were conducted in both the UK and the USA on the impact of a few sensory environmental stimuli, mainly visual and acoustical stimuli, on individual\nDesign/methodology/approach: An analysis of teaching layouts and the sequence of activities in selected school buildings was conducted. Opinions of focus groups including teachers and carers working with individuals with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD), were initially explored to assess the extent of the sensory problems associated with the existing teaching settings and to highlight any operational design limitations and constraints. A questionnaire was formulated based on the feedback gleaned from the focus groups. Relevant perceptual information about behavioural reactions to varying sensory stimuli was compiled. Key sensory triggers were identified. Visual information of selected schools including photos and visual diagrams of ASD workstations were compiled, annotated and analysed for further examination.\nFindings: Several sensory parameters were observed in the teaching environment including bright colours and light, pattern, glare, echoing, sudden and impact sound, high and low pitch sound and background noise levels. Some variations between the two studies exist regarding particular sensory triggers and their importance as perceived by respondents. These can be directly attributed to differences in school design layout, internal finishing and workstation configuration. Other extraneous factors including the size of the study sample, location of schools and climatic factors are also implicated; however, significantly consistent adverse effects on individuals' behaviour have been identified in both studies.\nOriginality/value: This paper highlights issues for open discussion amongst decision makers and built environment professionals to enhance the quality of life of the affected groups. This is particularly important given the extent of the sensory processing problems of individuals with ASD in both the UK and the USA. The findings will be relevant at strategic, tactical and operational levels including, inter alia, federal government agencies and decision-making bodies. Professionals involved in the process of planning, design and management of school buildings in both the UK and our sister country the US may benefit. The operational efficiency of education facilities may be maximised through control of the design and construction of school buildings. By further reducing the undesirable consequences of sensory triggers in educational facilities, the quality of life of the affected individuals may be improved.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Conceptualizing moral literacy
|
[
"Ethics",
"Imagination",
"Communities",
"Social values"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Christine Pelton, a biology teacher at Piper High School near Kansas City, discovered that almost twenty percent of her students had plagiarized their semester projects (CNN Student News). Two Hartford Union High School students were charged last October with making a bomb threat causing the high school to be evacuated and classes cancelled (Benson, 2006). Roy Espiritu and Cameron Johnston died from drowning when the car Espiritu was driving skidded out of control and crashed through a sea wall into Elliott Bay. Seventeen year old Espiritu had just left a party where he was seen drinking (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 2006).\nEthics sensitivity: Ethics sensitivity is a key element of moral literacy. It involves at least three major components:1. the ability to determine whether or not a situation involves ethical issues;2. awareness of the moral intensity of the ethical situation; and3. the ability to identify the moral virtues or values underlying an ethical situation. These abilities are complex and require training and practice to master.The ability to determine whether or not a situation involves ethical issues is crucial to moral literacy. Students can be taught the various ethical frameworks, can be given a case study that is identified as involving an ethics violation and be asked to sort through the process of moral reasoning about the case, but still be unable by themselves to identify whether or not a situation involves an ethical issue. Without this ability, students will not only misidentify ethical situations, perhaps thinking they involve only personal choices - she feels comfortable doing that, but I do not - they will also be unable to evaluate another's claim that a situation does or does not involve an ethical issue. Curriculum that does not include ethics sensitivity, then, is missing an important element of moral literacy.Ethics sensitivity is not an inborn talent and given the fact that not all the communities of which we are a part will live up to the highest ethical standards, one's sensitivity can become blunted. For example, practices that have become common-place, such as downloading music from the internet, can become so routine that some youngsters do not even question its acceptability. Cheating to get good grades is, unfortunately, another instance of the dulling of ethics sensitivity for many current students. One way to begin to offer students training in recognizing when a situation involves ethical issues is to work with them to identify virtues, the character traits seen as emblematic of ethical individuals. Indeed virtue ethics is one major approach to ethical theory and I will discuss further in the next section[1].While ethicists debate whether or not any virtues are universally embraced, for the purposes of developing moral literacy, providing students with the opportunity to identify virtues common to their community is an excellent beginning approach. Students very quickly come up with a list of shared virtues, typically honesty, compassion, fairness, and courage. They can then see how traits group around a common or related virtue, for example, a broader virtue like trustworthiness can be shown to be linked to being honest, being reliable, keeping promises, not betraying confidences, and so on. While students will not necessarily agree on all virtues, they do begin to see that they agree on many of the character traits they see as a component of a moral person. For more advanced curriculum, students can be asked to think about and study the character traits that are expected in various professions, examining those that are common to all and those that are more emphasized in some professions than others (e.g. physical courage for police officers), as well as those expected of citizens of the USA[2].An understanding of the virtues provides students with a good lens to examine particular situations and determine whether or not they involve ethical issues. For example, having agreed that honesty and fairness are characteristics of a moral person, it is easier to see that a case of downloading music involves ethical issues. Would an honest person take something that does not belong to her? Is it fair to enjoy the music that groups have created without compensating them and providing them the resources needed to continue making music? Students may not yet have the ability to work through these questions and develop a full analysis of the situation, but they are better able to \"ethics spot\" - to identify issues in need of further analysis.Training in ethics sensitivity should also be designed to help students develop their ability to judge the moral intensity of an ethical situation. Moral intensity is often linked to the seriousness of the harm and/or the urgency of a response or action. For example, if in a moment of anger, we unjustifiably yell at a friend, we have acted unethically and should do what we can to ameliorate the situation. But imagine now that we do so in a context and in such a way that their reputation is seriously damaged. Here the moral intensity of the situation is higher than in the former instance in that we have caused far greater harm to the individual.Sensitivity to the moral intensity of a situation is a crucial skill in that there are often competing ethical demands. So, for example, a student has promised to tutor a classmate to help him prepare for a big quiz the next day, but just when he is about to leave for the meeting, he gets a call from his best friend who really needs to talk because she has just found out that her parents are getting a divorce. He is caught in the dilemma having to decide whether or not it would be more acceptable to break his promise to the classmate, who is likely then not to do as well on the quiz, or to help out his friend who really needs him. While these situations can be very complex, attentiveness to the moral intensity of the choices is a key element in making a responsible decision.Providing students with the ability to weigh the moral intensity of ethical issues also provides them with a much needed skill they will need in their professional careers. For example, codes of ethics for engineers include two basic rules which are frequently in tension, namely, \"Hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public\" and \"Act for each employer or client as faithful agents or trustees.\" It is often the moral intensity of the situation that determines the ethical response. Consider the situation in which an engineer discovers a problem with a waste management plant and the employer asks that the engineer allow the company to deal with the situation and not report the problem in order to avoid damaging publicity or unwarranted fears by the public. If the moral intensity is low, namely, that the problem is minor and is unlikely to cause harm to the public should it not be dealt with properly, then attending to the wishes of the client is likely to be the ethically correct response. But if the engineer judges the moral intensity to be high, namely that the problem is serious and could result in harm to the public, then the engineer may have to violate the wishes of the employer to respond ethically in the situation.The moral intensity of a situation is a complex variable and has to do with a variety of factors. It is linked to the magnitude of harm that could result from an ethical violation or conversely the amount of benefit that could result, as well as the likelihood of those results, but it also has to do with how central the underlying virtues or principles are to the community or to the individual involved with the decision. The latter component of moral intensity is particularly salient when communities hold significantly different beliefs or values. So, for example, in a Buddhist community, the decision to kill animals for food or other uses has a different moral intensity then this action typically has in a Protestant community.Training in ethics sensitivity therefore can not only enable individuals to better determine the ethically responsible choice in complex situations, it will also serve to help them understand the basis of ethical disagreements between individuals or groups. Such conflicts often involve either a disagreement about the values relevant to the issue and/or a difference of opinion regarding the moral intensity of the problem. Take the case of clashes between environmentalists and loggers. Environmentalists and loggers may, for example, disagree about the ethical status of endangered species. The environmentalists may claim that those species have rights or that humans have a duty to preserve rare species, and the loggers may deny such claims. But another possibility is that the loggers may agree with the environmentalists that the species in question have rights or inherent ethical value, but disagree instead concerning the moral intensity of the situation. The loggers may point to the harm done to humans and argue that it is more pressing than that being done to the endangered species.Training in ethics sensitivity leads to professionals and citizens who are better able to adjudicate between ethical controversies and who are better able to understand the reasons why individuals or groups disagree. This is a key ability in many instances, including cross-cultural contexts in which individuals or groups may hold different values or have different judgments about the moral intensity of situations. Given that our global economy is resulting in many more of us interacting with individuals from different cultures, the development of this ability should be an important component of any robust education. Possessing this ability can enable an individual to help disputing groups see that the disagreements between them are actually smaller than they believed them to be, but it helps, in all cases, to enable disputing groups appreciate the sources of their disagreements.As I have demonstrated in this section, the first component of moral literacy, ethics sensitivity, involves three skills, all of which can be enhanced through including ethics curriculum in the K-12 setting (see Figure 2).While ethics sensitivity is not sufficient for the full development of moral literacy, it is a necessary and essential component. If our students cannot determine whether or not a situation involves an ethical issue or weigh the moral intensity of the issue, they will not be able to react responsibly. However, educators cannot stop here; the next step is the development of ethical reasoning skills, the second component of moral literacy.\nEthical reasoning skills: Ethical reasoning skills also involve at least three different abilities. They involve:1. an understanding of the various ethical frameworks;2. the ability to identify and assess the validity of facts relevant to the ethical situation, as well as assessing any inferences from such facts; and3. the ability to identify and assess the values that an individual or group holds to be relevant to the ethical issue under consideration (see Figure 3).Ethical frameworks\nMoral imagination: The final component of moral literacy is the cultivation of children's and teens' moral imagination. In his book by this title, Mark Johnson (1993) referred to moral imagination as the \"ability to imaginatively discern various possibilities for acting in a given situation and to envision the potential help and harm that are likely to result from a given situation\". The moral imagination refers to the blend of affective and rational processes that contribute to the imagination. Imaginative processes are not simply rational - either deductive or inductive - but neither are they irrational. Rather, they blend reason and emotion through attending to what is taken for granted, what is left out of a situation, how possibilities could be otherwise envisioned.The moral imagination is difficult to teach, but is central to an individual becoming an ethical agent. Simply because one can identify that a situation involves an ethical issue and be able to employ ethical reasoning skills to provide an analysis of what would be a good or bad action in the context, does not mean that they experience the action as ethical or feel any personal investment in the situation or in trying to respond ethically. Moral agency requires a rich and affective commitment to being ethical. The moral imagination is a key component of this commitment to being ethical.The moral imagination includes a wealth of abilities. It includes empathy for the feelings and desires of others, efforts to imagine ourselves in the situation of another, imagination aimed at \"thinking outside of the box\" and considering creative alternatives, the ability to develop an aesthetic attunement to the complexities of the situation, a robust appreciation of the humanity of others, the ability to develop trust and be able to act in ways that are and are perceived as helpful, an appreciation of the suffering and joys of others even when they are quite different from our own, a sensitivity to nonverbal cues that help us better understand others and the situations they are in, and a personal \"ownership\" and habituation of ethical behavior that includes a felt sense of responsibility for our actions, the desire to cultivate virtuous habits, as well as what Bell Hooks (1990, p. 27) referred to as a \"yearning\" for justice.While moral imagination is not easy to teach and cannot be taught in any formulaic fashion, there are many techniques that help cultivate the moral imagination. The most common pedagogical technique is the use of narratives and stories. Part of the reason we ask our children to read books like The Diary of Anne Frank, To Kill a Mockingbird, or Cry the Beloved Country is not only to teach them about a particular historical period, but because in imaginatively putting themselves in another's position through the process of reading, children experience the harm that can result from prejudice, get a sense of what it feels like to be treated unjustly, and so on. They experience all aspects of the moral imagination.The moral imagination is fundamental to appreciating that we are ethical agents. The lived experience of being an ethical agent involves not just a rational acceptance of the belief that we are responsible for the consequences of our behavior, but owning and experiencing that responsibility.\nAn integrated approach to moral literacy: It should be clear from this analysis that moral literacy is a complex ability that we develop and improve over a lifetime. To bring together into one framework all the components of moral literacy I have mentioned in this short paper, consider the following enlarged diagram of an integrated approach to moral literacy (see Figure 4).This diagram illustrates all the components that are a part of this important literacy and offers a \"worksheet\" for approaching an ethical decision. While there is no correct place to begin this process or move through the steps, providing our students with such a model helps them see all that goes into making a choice of how to act in any one of the complex ethical situations with which I opened this essay. Using this diagram, teachers can assist students in working through case studies of the types of situations they are likely to face in their life. Students will learn that responding to ethical situations requires a complex set of skills, and will come to appreciate the need to take time to work through their decisions about ethical issues when this is possible, but also to \"practice\" this skill for those instances when we have to make a decision quickly. Education of this sort provides students the opportunity to develop the skills they need to be ethical professionals and responsible citizens of a just society.Moral literacy involves a multifaceted set of skills that can and should be enhanced through education. Just like reading and math literacy, while we certainly hope that moral literacy is developed and reinforced in out-of-school contexts, a critical component of our children's education should be to ensure that they have the opportunity to strengthen these skills and refine these abilities as they grow and mature.I am delighted to partner with the scholars who are part of this special issue of Journal of Educational Administration to offer insights on how we can best integrate moral literacy within the contexts of our educational settings. And I am pleased to be part of a project designed to inspire the moral imagination of a new generation of teachers. Thanks to the insights and hard work of scholars like these, I can imagine that the next time the US Department of Education publishes a report on how we might best strengthen education for the twenty-first century they will include another literacy, moral literacy, as an essential component of any effort to innovate education and answer the challenge of a changing world.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this research is to provide an overview of the fundamental elements of moral literacy. Moral literacy involves three basic components: ethics sensitivity; ethical reasoning skills; and moral imagination. It is the contention of the author that though math and reading literacy is highly valued by the American educational system, moral literacy is extremely undervalued and under-developed.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In this study the author uses her vast knowledge of moral literacy to break the subject matter into specific and defined sub-categories. She then explains each sub-category explicitly using real-life examples to assist the reader in understanding the gravity and meaning behind each separate facet of moral literacy.\nFindings: - Moral literacy is a skill that must be crafted and honed by students, and with the aid of teachers who are well-versed in moral subject matter. It is a complex and multifaceted skill set that is interconnected and must therefore be learned completely in order to be used properly. Teaching students about moral literacy is truly necessary if schools wish to produce productive and responsible citizens.\nOriginality/value: - The study furthers our understanding of moral literacy and how it can play an absolutely vital role in our educational system. The paper not only explains what moral literacy is on a theoretical level, but it puts that theory into specific examples so that the reader can more clearly understand the benefits of acting in a morally literate fashion.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Critical multimodal literacy with moving-image texts
|
[
"Critical literacy",
"English and media"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the information age of the twenty-first century, it has become increasingly commonplace for people to receive information from \"highly constructed visual images, complex sound arrangements, and multiple media formats\" (Share, 2009, p. 1). As a result, multimodality, while having always been inherent in communicative practices (O'Halloran, 2011), has only in more recent years gained recognition. Jewitt (2011) discussed multimodality as the multiplicity of semiotic resources available for communication and representation. Arola et al. (2014, p. 4) explained multimodality as encompassing the visual, aural, linguistic, gestural and spatial modes. They also emphasized that \"although each mode plays a role in the overall message, it is the combination of modes--the multimodality--that creates the full piece of communication\" (italics in the original). The interrelations of modes is characterized by some as intersemiotic complementarity, a \"synergy in [the modes'] combined meanings\" (Royce, 2007a, p. 374).\nCritical and multimodal literacy: The intersection of \"critical\" and \"multimodal\" as exemplifying the understanding that when selected for purposes of meaning-making, semiotic resources are not only socio-culturally situated but also ideologically motivated (Machin and Mayr, 2012) has been a concern in the field of discourse analysis, for example, in multimodal critical discourse studies (Machin, 2013) and critical multimodal discourse analysis (Djonov and Zhao, 2013). In the field of literacy education, the simultaneous emphasis on multimodal and critical perspectives is only recently gaining traction. Explorations of multimodal literacy have been a relatively recent endeavor, although critical literacy has had a longer history in classrooms. Even though the practice of critical literacy has been conceptualized differently(e.g. Crookes, 2013; Janks et al., 2013; Lewison et al., 2008), the focus of critical literacy scholars, invariably, is with power relations, whether in texts or concerning social relations, and ways to reveal and resist hegemonic and marginalizing practices. This is also the focus of critical media literacy (CML) scholars (e.g. Garcia et al., 2013; Locke and Cleary, 2011), although their objects of analysis are media texts.\nMethods: The study was a qualitative teacher-inquiry (Cochran-Smith and Lytle, 2009; Kincheloe, 2012; Merriam, 2009) conducted in a university freshman general English course taught by the researcher, who is a faculty member at the university, located in northern Taiwan. The study was conducted in the fall semester of this year-long course, with classes meeting for two hours every week for 18 weeks. There were 19 females and 7 males in this course. Permission and consent for the research and writing of this paper were obtained from the students.\nFindings and discussion: Research has generally been more concerned with how students navigate the multimodal terrain in their own works to communicate particular messages rather than how students interpret others' multimodal constructions. In this study that addresses how language learners made sense of multiple semiotic resources in a moving-image text, it was found that overall, the students demonstrated both a structural perspective and an ideological perspective towards the text, even though some were more detailed in their discussion than others. The students also organized their writing differently. For example, some discussed the meaning of the visual mode or the aural mode separately while others discussed these two modes together, as these two modes overlapped in their meaning in this particular text. Regardless, the students were all able to \"notice\" and further \"interpret\" (Serafini, 2015) not only the words but also the images and the sounds in this moving-image text in terms of not only their symbolic meaning (e.g. as signifying the state of affairs before and after the CNN Freedom Project) but also their purpose (e.g. to promote the program as worthy of viewership).\nConclusion and pedagogical implications: The findings of this study call attention to what Kress (2000, p. 337) observed almost two decades ago:\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine language learners' critical multimodal literacy practices with a moving-image text, focusing on text comprehension and interpretation rather than text production. It takes a critical perspective towards multimodality and proposes the simultaneous emphasis on critical and multimodal literacies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This qualitative teacher-inquiry adopts critical multimodal literacy as the framework for understanding learners' literacy practices. The course implementation highlights images, sounds and words as encompassing the five modes of visual, aural, linguistic, gestural and spatial (Arola et al., 2014) in emphasizing the multimodal in critical multimodal literacy, and the purposeful organization of the images, sounds and words as reflecting the critical in critical multimodal literacy. The analysis also adopts Serafini's (2010) concentric perceptual, structural and ideological perspectives as the tenets of critical multimodal literacy.\nFindings: The findings show that focusing on images, sounds, words and their purposeful organization enabled the students to critically examine a moving-image text through considerations for the multiple modes and arriving at the structural and ideological interpretive perspectives.\nOriginality/value: This study fills a gap in the literature, as very little research has been done to investigate the ways in which language learners engage with, that is, comprehend and interpret, moving-image multimodal texts. In addition, it presents a critical multimodal literacy framework based on Serafini's (2010) tripartite perspectives and offers pedagogical suggestions for incorporating critical multimodal literacy in language classrooms.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Show you care: initiating co-creation in service recovery
|
[
"Service recovery",
"Justice theory",
"Co-recovery",
"Customer co-creation",
"Employee initiation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Existing studies provide considerable insight into a number of specific aspects of value co-creation. Service-dominant logic suggests that customer co-creation and value construction can occur at any point in a service process, and have a major impact on the customer's co-creation of value and the service experience (Bendapudi and Leone, 2003; Claycomb et al., 2001; Payne et al., 2008; Vargo and Lusch, 2004).\nMethod: Research design\nResults: Manipulation check\nDiscussion: In this study we explored the concept of co-recovery, which emphasizes the process of collaboration between the service employee and the customer in a service recovery situation. We explored the underlying mechanism of such a process and its impact on customer post-recovery evaluations and behavioural intentions. From the results of our experiment, we found that when a service employee initiates a co-recovery, customers perceive higher justice, greater satisfaction and a higher tendency to repurchase in the future. But if the customer initiates such a co-recovery, little improvement on these outcomes is found compared to a recovery entirely managed by the company. The main message derived from our study is that service company/employees taking initiatives in the service recovery process leads to positive customer perceptions regarding co-creating with the service company, and therefore enjoy a more favourable experience with the recovery.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the underlying mechanism of customer co-creation in service recovery (co-recovery), and investigates the impact of initiation on customer post-recovery evaluations and behavioural intentions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Researchers used a 3 (no co-recovery vs employee-initiated co-recovery vs customer-initiated co-recovery)x2 (male vs female)x2 (western vs eastern customers) between-subject experiential study in a hotel setting.\nFindings: When a service employee initiates a co-recovery, customers perceive higher justice, greater satisfaction and a higher tendency to repurchase in the future. But if the customer initiates such a co-recovery, little improvement on these outcomes is found compared to a recovery entirely managed by the company. The effect was moderated by culture: western customers were more sensitive to initiation in the co-recovery process than eastern customers.\nResearch limitations/implications: Written scenarios using a hotel setting and a technical error were used, and may reduce the applicability of the findings to real life or other service categories or types of error. Subjects used may not be representative of other population groups. Further studies using real life situations, human error and a more diverse population group are recommended.\nPractical implications: A positive co-recovery can be achieved by service employees taking initiatives when a problem occurs.\nOriginality/value: This study extends previous research on co-recovery by investigating the effect of initiation by service employees on customers' perception of co-creation. Service companies can improve customers' post-recovery evaluations by inviting them to co-create a feasible solution, and potentially reduce the company's compensation costs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
An empirical analysis on outsourcing decision: the case of e-banking services
|
[
"Partial least squares",
"E-banking services",
"IT outsourcing decision",
"Outsourcing decision",
"Technology, organization, and environment (TOE) model"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Outsourcing has become a strategic imperative as organizations seek to reduce costs and specialize in a limited number of core areas. Developments such as globalization, more demanding consumers, corporate restructurings, and advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been important drivers of information technology outsourcing (ITO) (Gerbl et al., 2015). Notwithstanding ITO benefits, unsuccessful ITO experiences in which service providers failed to deliver the expected savings are widely reported; meanwhile, outsourcing still counts a high failure rate of one in four (Ishizaka and Blakiston, 2012; Landis et al., 2005). According to a Deloitte Consulting study (Landis et al., 2005), 64 percent of respondents in a survey stated that they had brought outsourced services back in-house and 44 percent did not realize cost savings. A more recent and extensive Deloitte survey of 300 business executives also found the need for improved outsourcing practices. Only 34 percent were satisfied with the providers' innovation and 61 percent expressed that they had to \"escalate\" problems to senior management within the first year (Robinson et al., 2008). Regardless of the significant failure rate, it is expected that the ITO trend is developing worldwide at a remarkable speed (Qi and Chau, 2012). However, in Iran's marketplace where IT situation is generally considered quite diverse from those of the western countries, the adoption rate is still unexpectedly low. This raises the question: what are the main hindrances as well as drivers that impact upon the level of IT service outsourcing from the perspective of key decision makers in Iranian organizations?\n2. ITO decision theories: TCE has been one of the most frequently appropriated theoretical frameworks for the study of ITO (Liang et al., 2016; Schermann et al., 2014). TCE is a theory specifically addressing make-or-buy decisions and has therefore been viewed as a strong theoretical base for analyzing ITO decisions (Lacity, Willcocks and Khan, 2011). From among the first publications in the field of ITO using the TCE theory, it can be referred to Barthelemy and Geyer's (2005) study that used TCE and examined some of the determinants of the outsourcing vs quasi-outsourcing decision. Using 160 primary data collected in France and Germany, they proposed that the decision was strongly influenced by both internal (i.e. asset-specificity, size, and internal organization of IT) and external (i.e. institutional environment) determinants.\n3. Related work: There have already been some researchers in the field of ITO decision making. Buck-lew (1992) proposed that managers should use technical, project management, business, and organization factors to decide which IS functions should be outsourced. Ketler and Walstrom (1993) proposed a model for evaluating outsourcing decisions including personal, economic, risk vs control, characteristics of outsourced data/segment, organizational characteristics, and vender and contract issues. McFarlan and Nolan (1995) proposed a \"strategic grid\" framework to evaluate when the IS functions need to be outsourced. Lacity et al. (1996) argued that deciding the outsourcing of IS activities just by strategic or commodities is fallacious and senior executives might mistakenly classify all IS activities as commodities. Therefore, they presented a 2x2 decision matrix guiding the selection of outsourcing candidates based on the business, economic, and technical factors.\n4. Hypothesis and research model: A review of literature on IS/IT innovation adoption comes up with an overwhelming list of potential salient factors which are subsumed under these three perspectives. Hence, we have decided to highlight those factors that have been suggested by prior research as highly important and clearly related to the ITO decision. In light of the arguments above, it seems essential to grasp an accurate understanding of the key factors to ensure the successful outsourcing initiatives. However, it was not feasible to take all potential factors affecting such decision into account, selection of the theoretical construct in our model was determined through a widespread literature review as well as logical explanations. Hence, this study examines the effect of diverse factors on the decision to adopt outsourcing.\n5. Research method: An empirical survey concerning the Iranian banking industry was developed to test the research model and hypotheses. Six types of e-banking services were selected: internet banking, telephone banking, mobile banking, automated teller machine, unstructured supplementary service data (USSD), and point of sale. At the time of the study, these channels were the most likely ways to provide services to customers. Regarding Gewald and Dibbern (2009), empirical evidence on outsourcing decision making has shown that the manager responsible for the entire service is often the final decision maker. Then, for each of the services, the responsible manager was chosen as a respondent.\n6. Analysis and results: We used the PLS technique of structural equation modeling (SEM) for data analysis. SmartPLS 2.0, which was created by Ringle et al. (2005) has been used as data analysis tool. SmartPLS supports two level of assessments: the measurement model (i.e. item reliability, convergent and discriminant validities); and the structural model assessment (path coefficients and R2 values in the model).\n7. Discussions: The objective of this study was to empirically investigate the factors influencing the ITO adoption level. In this study, we proposed a conceptual model based on a well-known framework, namely, TOE in which the ITO adoption level is influenced by three main attributes including technological, organizational, as well as environmental. By reviewing the preceding research, it was found out that four factors linked to technological attributes, namely perceived complexity (PCP), perceived cost (PCO), service observability to the client (SOB), and nature (peripheral vs core) of the service (SER). In the organizational context, we deployed cultural fit between client and supplier (CUL), client IT capabilities (ITC), perceived loss of organizational knowledge (PKL), and prior outsourcing experience (EXP), As the final dimension, we examined the impact of external pressure (PRS), market volatility (VOL), and suppliers' power (SUP) as environmental attributes. In the following section, we will elaborate more on factors that have been considered in the proposed model.\n8. Implications, limitations, and future research directions: This research provides implications for practitioners in the ITO field. The context of banking industry in Iran is notably differed from other contexts. Iran, the only Muslim country where the entire financial industry is obliged to be consistent with the principles of Sharia law, accounts for more than 40 percent of the world's total Islamic banking assets (ILIA Corporation, 2017). Specific Sharia banking regulations and restrictions differed Iranian banks from even Islamic banks in other countries. Such specifications prohibited international banking service providers to contribute in the Iran market or make it hard and costly doing significant banking systems' customizations to be adopted by Iranian banking industry. Furthermore, US and UN sanctions against Iran in the last decades banned international banking service providers to have share in the Iranian banking market. In this context, the local banking software developers and service providers have emerged to respond Islamic banking market needs. Meanwhile, the majority of respondent banks in this research established their wholly owned banking service provider firms to rely on their own facilities rather than outsourcing their banking services to local or international market service providers. It can be implied that it is preferred for banks to exploit outsourcing benefits such as time and cost savings, access to specialized resources, focus on core competences through outsourcing services to captive service providers. Furthermore, banks can assure data security and privacy issues through outsourcing to captive vendors comparing to market vendors in which the bank has more control over organization, structure, systems, processes, human resource, and so forth. The security and privacy issues still stands as one of the most ITO hindrances in the Iranian context where even in spite of complete contracts with confidentiality items and strict SLAs are hardly achievable. Then, outsourcing services to captive service providers makes sense in such contexts. For this reasons, the majority of Iranian banks have established their own captive specialized banking service providers to delegate their e-banking service design, implement, support, and improvements to them. Besides, it could be asserted that offshore and even near-shore outsourcing is not of considerable interest in Iranian banking industry. Furthermore, regarding data issues, outsourcing in the form of ASP and SaaS is not favored too by Iranian banks except for a few young and small banks which have not required resources to develop services in-house or through their owned subsidiaries.\n9. Conclusion: This study strived to investigate the factors that affect the ITO adoption level in the context of technology-organization-environment framework and empirically tested the attributes influencing such decisions in the context of e-banking services. The main factors that were identified as playing a significant role in e-banking services outsourcing decision were: perceived complexity, perceived cost, service observability to the client, cultural fit between client and supplier, perceived loss of organizational knowledge, prior outsourcing experience, external pressure, market volatility, and suppliers' power. In contrast, this study did not find enough evidence that nature of the service and client IT capabilities were a significant determinant of e-banking services outsourcing decision. These findings have important implications and great value to the research and practice community. From the research perspective, our study proposed a TOE grounded research model to examine the influence of suggested factors on the e-banking services' outsourcing decision. The study is among the first kind of ITO decision research which empirically investigated the effect of service observability, cultural fit, perceived loss of organizational knowledge, external pressure, market volatility, and suppliers' power amongst other factors on ITO decision. From the practitioners' perspective, owing to the great importance of adoption-related factors for outsourcing e-banking services within banks, the related decision makers must completely evaluate the aforementioned attributes in their affiliated banks before any attempt in line with the ITO decision. The research specifically proposed that the effect of environmental factors (i.e. external pressure, market volatility, and suppliers' power) should be considered in banks' outsourcing decision. Concurrently, IT service providers can boost their understanding of why banks choose to outsource some services, while seemingly others facing similar market conditions do not. The results of survey data analysis implied that service providers should focus on other factors rather than cost reduction, such as outsourced service knowledge transfer, cultural fit with the client, and service observability to make outsourcing relationship more favorable for the client. Then, service providers can formulate better strategies for outsourcing relationships. On the other hand, however, IT service providers may need to improve their interaction with banking clients, in an effort to create a healthy and win-win relationship.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: A multitude of factors influence the information technology outsourcing (ITO) decision. Organizations must systematically evaluate these factors prior to making the ITO decision. The purpose of this paper is to provide an in-depth analysis toward understanding the critical factors in affecting ITO decision in the context of e-banking services.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The effect of technological, organizational, and environmental attributes on e-banking services outsourcing decision were investigated in this paper. The study was carried out using the quantitative research methodology based on a survey of 23 banks. The partial least squares technique was utilized as the method of data analysis.\nFindings: The results of the data analysis illustrated that nine out of 11 assumed factors (i.e. perceived complexity, perceived cost, service observability to the client, cultural fit between client and supplier, perceived loss of organizational knowledge, prior outsourcing experience, external pressure, market volatility, and suppliers' power) influence the outsourcing decision of e-banking services. The findings also confirmed that the nature of the service and client IT capabilities did not exert any influence on the outsourcing decision.\nOriginality/value: The study is among the first kind of ITO decision research which empirically investigates the effect of service observability, cultural fit, perceived loss of organizational knowledge, external pressure, market volatility, and suppliers' power amongst other factors on the ITO decision. The findings from this study provide insights for the banks and service providers to better understand the factors affecting the outsourcing decisions of e-banking services in contexts of less developed countries. Implications based on a specific situation of the Iranian banking sector is also proposed.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Increasing diversity through goal-setting in corporate social responsibility reporting
|
[
"Diversification",
"Organizations",
"Goal-setting",
"Corporate social responsibility reporting"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In 1991, Cox described three types of organizations, monolithic, pluralistic, and multicultural. Monolithic organizations predominantly employ and are managed by white males, with women and racial/ethnic minorities working in stereotypical, role-congruent positions. Pluralist organizations incorporate greater overall diversity but still lack structural and role integration. Multicultural organizations value and demonstrate role and hierarchal diversity. More than two decades after Cox's publication, the US employment data illustrates movement toward pluralism but failure to achieve true structural integration; low representational diversity is evident at higher organizational levels (see Table I).\nCSR: Organizations share values and norms, such as diversity beliefs, systematizing what is important in their organizational culture (Chatman and Cha, 2003) through artifacts which are visible or stated in logos, images, and/or reports (Keyton, 2014; Schein, 1990). Organizational cultural beliefs on diversity can be found in company websites, Diversity and Inclusion (D&I), Global Reporting Initative, Global Sustainability reports, among other places. Formal CSRs represents one organizational approach to transparent communication.\nGoal-setting theory: Goals reflect, \"future valued outcomes\" which act as performance benchmarks (Locke and Latham, 2006, p. 265). People experience pleasure exceeding a goal and dissatisfaction in not achieving a goal (Latham and Locke, 2006). According to goal-setting theory, a goal affects achievement and performance. Research identifies that specific and challenging goals lead to increased profits (Northcraft et al., 1994; Tasa et al., 2013; Zetik and Stuhlmacher, 2002), regulates behavior, focus, and choices (DeShon et al., 2004; Latham and Locke, 2006) and establishes a person's benchmark for determining outcome satisfaction (Latham, 2004). Recent studies even illustrate directionally strong, but contextually negative, behaviors from the intense cognitive and behavioral focus on the goal (Barsky, 2008; Koh et al., 2011; Ordonez et al., 2009; Welsh and Ordonez, 2013). Goals move people.\nMethod: Sample\nResults: Commitment\nDiscussion: Theoretical\nConclusion: Workplace diversity represents a critical human resource issue because all people deserve a fair opportunity to contribute and perform. Reviewing the Fortune 100 companies stated goals, feedback and measuring commitment provides an opportunity to assess goal-setting theory principles in action; comparing real goals and outcomes. Analytical results support using goal-setting principles to increase workplace heterogeneity. The transparency and commitment provided by CSRs illustrated greater increases in diversity than the general organizational population. Specific goals and relevant feedback promulgated greater increases in minority and female leadership representation, respectively. Goal-setting theory represents an organizational theory warranting greater exploration in efforts to remediate workplace inequality and hasten the migration to multicultural workplace environments.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effect of goal-setting theory in remediating workplace demographic representation inequality.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study evaluates the effect of goal-setting theory in Fortune 100 companies' corporate social reporting (CSR) on year-over-prior change in diversity representation using t-tests and independent, repeated measures ANOVA.\nFindings: Reporting companies significantly outperformed the population in minority and female leadership increases. Companies using specific goals and relevant feedback facilitated better outcomes for minority and female leaders, respectively.\nResearch limitations/implications: Dichotomous coding was employed. Qualitative coding over multiple years is suggested for future research. CSR reporting is voluntary, unaudited, and inconsistent. Comparing outcomes for organizations with mandatory reporting or diversity quotas would provide interesting future comparatives. Despite the limitations, this research demonstrates the benefits of goal-setting theory on social outcomes.\nPractical implications: Companies transparently publishing goals, feedback, and metrics lead the way to multicultural environments. Additionally, investors use social responsibility in investment decision making. The Securities and Exchange Commission should incorporate non-financial requirements into existent reporting subject to audit, consistent presentation, and public availability. Organizations should disclose diversity goals and outcomes whether the company aspires to genuinely promote greater representation or avoid greater regulation. Reporting transparency and articulation of specific, measureable goals and feedback are encouraged for non-financial metrics.\nOriginality/value: Significant research investigates why inequality exists in organizations yet little addresses how to reduce the problem. Pioneer studies in applying goal-setting to diversity show promise. Research exploring the dark side of goal-setting is rapidly emerging. This research pursues the \"light side\" of goal-setting to evaluate use on social business issues, specifically, increasing diverse representation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Destination image and choice intention of university student travellers to Mauritius
|
[
"Information media",
"Mauritius",
"Australia",
"Graduates",
"Travel",
"Tourism"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Tourism managers claim that image is a crucial part of a consumer's destination selection process (Baloglu and McCleary, 1999; Stepchenkova and Morrison, 2006). A positive image of a destination supports tourists' decision-making process; arouses \"awareness\" and \"evoked\" sets and acts as a distinguishing feature among competing destinations (Currie and Wesley, 2008; Pikkemaat, 2004; Sonmez and Sirakaya, 2002). However, most of the studies seem to concentrate on only a few countries as well as states and regions in the USA, neglecting most emerging tourist destinations in developing countries (Sonmez and Sirakaya, 2002). To facilitate the creation of an image that is matchless in the competitive tourism industry, it is important to recognise what tourists think about the destination and how this influences the marketing of small developing nations as tourist destinations. Further, there is a need to look at how travellers evaluate images of destinations that they have not visited (Chon, 1990; Pearce, 1988; Prebensen, 2007). A report by Richards and Wilson (2003, p. 6) for the International Student Travel Confederation and the Association for Tourism and Leisure Education asserts that \"youth and student travel is increasingly being recognized as an important segment of the global travel market\". This study, therefore, investigates the relationships between information sources, perceived destination image and destination choice intention for Australians university students who have never been to the small island tourist destination of Mauritius.\nDestination image: Destination image is defined to comprise of the image characteristics of a destination that subsequently influence tourists' decision to visit particular vacation destinations (Tapachai and Waryszak, 2000). Gunn's (1972) image formation theory has been used by researchers to investigate the course of image formation and measurement as a basis for their conceptual framework (O'Leary and Deegan, 2005). It has three main constructs that entails a constant building and modification of images that are conceived at various levels, namely:1. organic;2. induced; and3. modified induced.These information sources are also known as stimulus factors (Baloglu and McCleary, 1999) or image forming vehicles (Gartner, 1993).Destination images fall on a continuum that begins with organic images which are developed over a long period of time (Gunn, 1972). They are those that arise from supposedly unbiased sources, or as Jenkins (1999) suggest \"naive non-tourist information about the destination\" such as books, television documentaries and news, newspapers, radio, periodicals, dramas, novels and the experiences of friends and family (Jenkins, 1999, p. 1).Organic images are substituted by induced images which are formed by exposure to a destination's marketing programme whose role is to build on or modify the extant organic images (O'Leary and Deegan, 2005). Thus, induced images are those that arise from the destination area itself and are derived from marketing and promotional material, for example, brochures and magazines designed to attract tourists (Jenkins, 1999). Even though little can be done to manipulate organic images, marketers can induce an image through investment in promotion. As such, it is clear that organic sources do not have a vested interest while induced sources is the main means to communicate marketing messages to a target audience (Stepchenkova and Morrison, 2006). Therefore, without actual visitation, destination images can only be formed through induced agents (Gartner, 1989). These interactions with tourists are important in setting their expectations prior to their experience of the tourist destination (Govers et al., 2007; Tapachai and Waryszak, 2000).The final stage of the continuum is the development of a composite image that results from the actual experience of visiting the destination with images held previously (Prebensen, 2007). Although organic and induced images will be formed prior to travel to a destination, induced images may be changed by actual vacation experience, thus producing a \"modified induced\" image (O'Leary and Deegan, 2005).Perceived destination image provides a theoretical foundation for the assessment of potential tourists' image of Mauritius prior to visitation. As suggested in the theory of reasoned action and the theory of planned behaviour, behavioural intentions represents the degree of conscious effort that a person exert in order to perform a behavior (Ajzen, 1991; Fishbein, 1967; Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975) and could be termed as an individual's likely or planned future behaviour. It symbolizes the latter's expectations about a particular behaviour in a given circumstance and can be operationalized as the likelihood to act (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975). In this study, behavioural intention is defined as a respondents' anticipation of a future trip to Mauritius for vacation purposes. As such the following hypotheses are postulated:H1. Perceptions derived from information sources (organic and induced) will have a direct and positive influence on perceived destination image.H2. Perceived destination image will have a direct and positive influence on destination choice intention.H3. Perceptions derived from information sources (organic and induced) will have a direct and positive influence on destination choice intention.\nMethodology: Sample and data collection\nResults: Demographic profile\nConcluding comments: From a theoretical standpoint, Gunn's (1972, 1988) information sources empirically demonstrated that the elements that influence destination images are multi-dimensional as suggested by other researchers (Tapachai and Waryszak, 2000; Fakeye and Crompton, 1991). Further, the formation of destination images and destination choice intention is dependent on the different roles played by the factors in the process. This study confirmed previous theory suggesting that information sources are an important antecedent of perceived destination image and destination choice intention.Because of the positive contribution of organic and induced information sources, Mauritius should find ways to make tourists use multiple information sources. Consistent with prior studies, organic sources of information are found to be essential and important to tourists (Govers et al., 2007; Beerli and Martin, 2004). As for induced sources, the internet (highest mean score) serves an important tool for potential tourists to form images of a holiday destination. The scope and integration of the internet in people's everyday lives is expanding. This might be of interest to tourism policy makers and marketing agents and a cue to marketers to place greater emphasis on promotional strategies that utilize this form of information dissemination.To attract potential tourists to Mauritius, more emphasis should be placed on the campaigns on components which consumers perceived as \"attractive\" and these include cheap travel, good value for money, political stability, economic development and family-oriented destination. Destination marketers and tourism policy makers can reinforce this image to consequently meet expectations of the consumers. The key to commercial success lies in understanding potential tourists, their lifestyles and attitudes and in creating the product-service combinations that match their expectations and needs. As the success of any vacation destination depends on the tourist's willingness and intention to visit the destination, any effort made to provide accurate information concerning the destination should be tailored to suit the needs and expectations of those tourists.In summary, this has provided a better understanding for constructs of information sources, perceived destination image and destination choice intention from the tourists' perspective and how these concepts can be used to effectively market and visualise the uniqueness of a vacation destination like Mauritius. It must be noted that replicating this study across other countries or cultures could bring varying results. Future studies could explore using a qualitative approach, which could provide deeper and richer understanding of individuals.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine the influences of information sources, namely organic sources and induced sources, on perceived destination image and destination choice intention of university student travellers to Mauritius.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were collected using a convenience sample in a large university in Western Australia. A self-administered questionnaire was designed using established scales. In total, 388 usable responses were collected and analyzed using a variety of statistical techniques.\nFindings: - The perceived attractiveness of Mauritius as a vacation destination is based on the fact that tourists picture the island as one which offers good value for money and cheap travel. Both information sources are found to have an influence on perceived destination image and destination choice intention. Perceived destination image is found to predict destination choice intention.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The sample is limited to potential tourists in Western Australia. Larger or national sample can be used for future studies. Qualitative methods could be explored in future.\nPractical implications: - It is recommended that destination marketers should use multiple sources of information to target tourists. In particular, the internet seems to be the highest incidence of information source.\nOriginality/value: - The paper has redressed some deficits in the literature. Prior studies have not examined Mauritius as a tourist destination. Neither have Australians been studied as potential tourists. It has also tested the conceptual determinants of perceived destination image and destination choice intention and has proved that destination image is a multidimensional concept.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The diversity of monographs: changing landscape of book evaluation in Poland
|
[
"Poland",
"Co-authorship",
"Book evaluation",
"Monograph",
"Publication patterns",
"Scholarly books"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: It is well documented that scholarly books are the key type of publication used in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) (Gimenez-Toledo and Roman-Roman, 2009; Williams et al., 2009). However, scholarly books can also be an important channel of scholarly communication for researchers in the hard sciences (Bonaccorsi et al., 2017; Storer, 1967; Tang, 2008).\n2. Different types of scholarly book publications in Poland: 2.1 Assessment of publications in Poland\n3. Methods: 3.1 Data source\n4. Results: 4.1 Part A: number of evaluation items vs number of monographs\n5. Discussion and conclusion: The results show that the characteristic patterns of monographs in the humanities, social sciences and hard sciences are different in terms of authorship, language and length. The highest number of monographs was published in the social sciences, and the lowest number of monographs was published in the hard sciences. In total, however, the number of monographs in all fields was similar. The majority of the monographs were published in Polish. Comparing these results with Flemish book publications (including chapters and edited volumes) in SSH, one can find substantial differences because the majority of Flemish books were published in English (Verleysen and Engels, 2014b). Nonetheless, some similarities can be found. For the 2009-2016 period in Poland, the share of single-authored monographs was 79.3 percent for the humanities, 68.3 percent for the social sciences and 57.3 percent for the hard sciences. Contrasting these shares with the Flemish situation in the humanities and social sciences from 2001-2011, one can observe that the share for the humanities in Flanders is similar (73 percent) but significantly different than that for the social sciences (34 percent) (Verleysen and Ossenblok, 2017).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine the characteristic patterns of monographs in the humanities, social sciences and hard sciences published by Polish scholars. The study provides a comprehensive overview of the Polish book evaluation system to explain how monographs are assessed and illustrate how changes in the definitions of the types of scholarly book publications influence publication patterns.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper analyses bibliographic records of 42,307 monographs published by Polish scholars in the humanities and science fields from 2009 to 2016. Through a bibliometric analysis, the paper investigates the characteristic patterns of the monographs, including authorship, publication language and length, across three fields.\nFindings: The present study demonstrates that changes in the definitions of scholarly book publications in Poland have significantly influenced the characteristic patterns of monographs. The analysis of the characteristic patterns across three fields reveals that the monographs are different in terms of all characteristics. In the entire period, 85.3 percent monographs were written in Polish, 10.1 percent in English, 1.4 percent in German, 1.1 percent in Russian and 2.1 percent in 39 other languages. The most significant changes are observed in authorship patterns.\nOriginality/value: This work offers empirical findings on the characteristic patterns of monographs in the humanities, social sciences and hard sciences from a non-English speaking country. It discusses a unique model of book assessment and shows certain consequences of various overly formalized procedures of evaluation. Thus, the study identifies the major challenges and implications of using highly formalized procedures for book evaluation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Progressing recovery-oriented care in psychiatric inpatient units: Occupational therapy's role in supporting a stronger peer workforce
|
[
"Recovery",
"Mental illness",
"Peer Workforce",
"Psychiatric hospitalisation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Since the first published literature over 20 years ago, the recovery paradigm has evolved and grown. Recovery-orientated practice is now seen as one of the core tenets of good mental health service delivery (Slade et al., 2014). At the core of the recovery paradigm is the preservation of an individual's hope and right to self-determination. Recovery-orientated practice is creating real change in health providers' attitudes (Slade et al., 2014). Despite this, there remain areas of mental health care where progress in recovery-oriented reforms has been harder to achieve.\nRecovery in mental health: The ideas behind recovery practices emerged out of the service user, or survivor, movement and, thus, outside the traditional mental health arena. The service user movement emphasises that mental illness must be understood from the perspective of those directly affected and draws on the recovery values of hope and use of knowledge gained from lived experience to help each other (Deegan, 1992). As such, it seems logical that those with a lived experience are the most appropriate people to facilitate culture change towards a recovery-orientated approach. Recovery refers to wellness as a work-in-progress rather than one side of a binary structure of exclusive states of health, which is the absence or presence of illness. In the UK, recovery outcomes are described as:\nThe inpatient context: Inpatient mental health units are undoubtedly one of the most challenging environments in which to introduce recovery-oriented practice. The processes of managing a busy acute mental health ward can involve the use of compulsory hospitalisation and result in a perceived, and at times real, lack of choices about medication, freedom to leave the ward and even simply meal choices can cause frustrations for the service user (Walsh & Boyle, 2009). While there are positive examples, overall a negative picture of the inpatient unit is portrayed with boredom on the units, poor communication with staff, lack of information and perceived valuing of hospital routines over service user needs being evident (Hyde et al., 2014; Walsh & Boyle, 2009). In addition, they may have little knowledge about what is available in the community, as there is little encouragement for service users to re-engage with neighbours and others in the community with similar interests (Cleary et al., 2013; Walsh & Boyle, 2009).\nPeer workers on an inpatient unit: Davidson et al. (2012) report that increasing/introducing a peer workforce in a mental health setting is complicated but can support significant cultural change. The introduction of peer workers into the acute inpatient psychiatric setting can be a powerful tool in moving these settings closer to true recovery-orientated systems. By working closely with peer workers, occupational therapists may find allies in establishing inpatient units that are health promoting venues that uphold the tenets of recovery-oriented practice. Occupational therapists have long promoted the development of the recovery approach for people with a mental illness (Lloyd et al., 2004) and have advocated for the active participation of service users.\nOccupational therapy and peer workers: Occupational therapists working on inpatient units usually are in sole positions and have a role where they may be responsible for the group programme (Duffy & Nolan, 2005; Lloyd & Williams, 2010). In addition, a part of their role may include assessing people's activities of daily living and making recommendations about discharge (Lloyd & Williams, 2010). Nowadays, with the advent of peer workers on inpatient units, there is an opportunity for occupational therapists to rethink their role and to work out ways of working closely with peer workers.\nConclusion: While there have been considerable advances made in inpatient psychiatric care, it is recognised that it remains a challenging environment in which to introduce recovery-oriented practice. However, peer workers are an essential component of comprehensive mental healthcare. Recovery-oriented practices are about evolving a culture of values and principles that support environments and behaviours where service users feel a sense of control, choice and hope in their future. Occupational therapists working on inpatient units are ideally positioned to play a key role in driving the push for recovery-oriented practice. This article contributes to the developing debate on recovery-oriented practices in the inpatient environment by suggesting that the employment of peer workers is both a positive step towards creating recovery-oriented inpatient services in mental healthcare on inpatient psychiatric units and presents an opportunity for the profession of Occupational Therapy to help facilitate culture change in establishing peer workers as a mainstay of inpatient care.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Initiated by the service user movement, recovery-oriented practices are one of the keystones of modern mental health care. Over the past two decades, substantial gains have been made with introducing recovery-oriented practice in many areas of mental health practice, but there remain areas where progress is delayed, notably, the psychiatric inpatient environment. The peer support workforce can play a pivotal role in progressing recovery-oriented practices. The purpose of this paper is to provide a pragmatic consideration of how occupational therapists can influence mental health systems to work proactively with a peer workforce.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors reviewed current literature and considered practical approaches to building a peer workforce in collaboration with occupational therapists.\nFindings: It is suggested that the peer support workforce should be consciously enhanced in the inpatient setting to support culture change as a matter of priority. Occupational therapists working on inpatient units should play a key role in promoting and supporting the growth in the peer support workforce. Doing so will enrich the Occupational Therapy profession as well as improving service user outcomes.\nOriginality/value: This paper seeks to provide a pragmatic consideration of how occupational therapists can influence mental health systems to work proactively with a peer workforce.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Maintainability analysis in shaving blades industry: a case study
|
[
"TQM",
"Maintainability",
"TPM",
"Availability",
"Equipment effectiveness",
"Repair distributions",
"Repair rate",
"Shaving blades industry"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Due to modern cost-cutting practices in mass-production systems, many companies focus their cost reduction efforts on processing and maintenance operations. High maintenance costs are normally associated with poor decision making and inconsistent planning when determining the maintainability requirements of an operating system in the early phases of a system's life cycle. This last aspect may be easily accounted for up to 75 percent of the total system life cycle cost (Blanchard and Fabrycky, 2006). The underlying relationship between overall equipment effectiveness and compromised process capability may add to this cost indirectly (Garza-Reyes et al., 2010).\nProduction process in the shavers industry: The disposable razor products may be traced to as back as the Bronze Age (Spielvogel, 2005). While there is an oligopoly that dictates the high-tech evolution of the field to five-blade razors, the production details rarely surface in scholarly publications. Additional product features such as the assortment of a moisturizing strip to facilitate the shaving process as well as the acceleration of the soothing due to skin stress indicates that this product is bound constantly to greater sophistication. The multi-billion shavers industry is also about to face a disruptive innovation wave with respect to the direction regarding the safety, convenience and cost of shaving. Thus, it is intriguing to consider a much familiar product by showcasing a maintainability study on a production process that fabricates several razor units per day. It should be remarked that since the field we bring forth in this work is unique and rather remote from other industrial applications, the demonstration we present herein may facilitate engineers to adopt it and hence to have immediate impact on improving maintainability and availability in the shavers industry. For the obvious purpose of ensuring confidentiality of the description of the host machinery, we avoid providing actual system details and instead they will be referred to in the study with coded names.\nOperation management of the system: The shaving blades production system operates 24 hours per workday, five days per week and pauses on weekends. Data for a period of 11 months are collected from the technical department of the company. The data are records of failures per shift kept by the maintenance personnel staff during each shift. During this period, the production system operated in three shifts per day, for a total of 209 working days or 300,960 minutes. The records included the failures that had occurred per shift, the corrective action taken to repair the failure, the downtime, and the exact time of failure. The time to repair (TTR) of failed equipment is defined as the time that elapses from the moment the equipment goes down and stops until the moment it goes up and starts operating again. The TTRs are recorded in minutes. The repair capability can restore the machine to an operative state. Thus, the availability is considered as an alternative measure of the machine performance, and mathematically is defined as follows (Ebeling, 1997):(1)\nTrend and serial correlation test for the repair data: The repair data needs to be tested for independent and identically distributed (iid) nature of the TTRs of each machine. This can be verified after the collection, sorting, and classification of the repair data. Verification of the assumption that the repairs are iid is critical. If the assumption that the data are independent is not valid, classical statistical techniques for reliability analysis may not be appropriate (Law and Kelton, 1991). When the repair data are found to be indeed independent, it means that the data are free of trends and that each repair is independent of the preceding or succeeding repair. Identically distributed data mean that all the data in the sample are obtained from the same probability distribution (Vagenas et al., 1997).\nMaintainability analysis: The maintainability is the probability that a failed system (or machine) will be restored to operational effectiveness within a given period of time t when the repair action is performed in accordance with the prescribed procedures. If Tr is the continuous random variable representing the TTR for a system which possesses a probability density function of r(t), then according to Ben-Daya et al. (2009) the maintainability is as follows:(2)\nConclusions: The main research findings can be summarized as follows:\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide results for a complete maintainability analysis utilizing data sets from a production system in a shaving blades division of a large high-tech razor manufacturer. Through the illustrated case study, the authors demonstrate how to spot improvement points for enhancing availability by carrying out an equipment effectiveness analysis.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Descriptive statistics of the repair data and the best fitness index parameters were computed. Repair data were collected from departmental logs, and a preliminary screening analysis was conducted to validate their usefulness for the indicated period of 11 months. Next, the maintainability and repair rate modes for all the machines of the production system were calculated. Maintainability and availability estimations for different time periods that took in account the overall system were obtained by trying out and selecting an optimum statistical model after considering of several popular distributions.\nFindings: Out of the five considered machines in the system, two particular units received about half of the repairs (M2 and M3). The time to repair follows a loglogistic distribution and subsequently the mean time to repair is estimated at 25 minutes at the machine level. Repair time performance is approximated at 55 minutes if the availability of the system is to attain a 90 percent maintainability.\nOriginality/value: This study is anticipated to serve as an illuminating effort in conducting a complete maintainability analysis in the much advertised field of shavers, for which on the contrary so little has been published on operational availability and equipment effectiveness. The case study augments the available pool of sources where executing maintainability studies is highlighted usually under the direction of combined total quality management and total productive maintenance programs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Searching for boundary conditions for successful brand extensions
|
[
"Brand extensions",
"Consumers",
"New products"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this article.\n1. Introduction: Introducing a new product is a risky business. Studies report that new products fail at the rate of between 40 percent and 90 percent, depending on the category (Gouville, 2007). One way to reduce this risk to introduce them under the name of already established brands. Brand extension is an attractive approach for firms because it helps to spread advertising costs, reduce the risk of new product introduction, and promote trial among consumers (Aaker, 1991; Aaker and Keller, 1990; Keller, 2007). Furthermore, successful extensions strengthen parent brand by reinforcing the positive brand images in the mind of the consumers (Aaker, 1991; Park et al., 1986; Tauber, 1988). Although brand extensions are very popular today and have been the core of strategic growth for a variety of firms, the success achieved by brand extensions has been rather mixed (Keller, 2007).During the past 30 years, research on brand extension has been focused on identifying key conditions for successful brand extensions. One of the main findings is that similarity or some kind of logical fit between parent brand and extension category is necessary for successful extensions. The similarity or fit ensures consumers to be able to transfer the positive affect created by parent brand to extensions (Aaker and Keller, 1990; Bottomley and Holden, 2001; Broniarczyk and Alba, 1994; Keller and Lehmann, 2006; Klink and Smith, 2001; Volckner and Sattler, 2006, 2007).However, an increasing body of research calls the generalizability of the \"Fit\" hypothesis into question. Several studies have found evidences for an alternative hypothesis that could suggest more favorable evaluations on less similar extensions than on similar extensions. More specifically, it has been found that extensions with moderate level of misfit to parent brand were evaluated more favorably than extensions with a fit or extreme misfit (Meyers-Levy et al., 1994; Maoz and Tybout, 2002). This inverted U-shaped relationship between individual's affective response and different levels of misfit has been observed in various domains of human behaviors such as people's interpersonal preferences (Synder and Fromkin, 1980), preferences for musical composition (Vitz, 1966), infant's preferences for objects (Rheingold, 1985) and preferences for new products (Meyers-Levy and Tybout, 1989; Peracchio and Tybout, 1996).The \"Fit\" hypothesis and the alternative inverted U-shaped hypothesis seem to provide seemingly contradictory predictions on the successful condition for brand extensions. The objective of this study is to find an explanation for the contradictory predictions. More specifically, this study suggests and tests a more generalized framework that can integrate the two predictions. The integration is sought by considering two factors, a situational factor (i.e. involvement) and a consumer personality factor (i.e. innovativeness), as moderating factors for the effect of extension similarity. By doing so, we aim to find boundary conditions for successful brand extensions.\n2. Background: 2.1 Alternative perspectives on similarity effect in brand extensions\n3. Method: 3.1 Experimental design and subjects\n4. Results: 4.1 Manipulation check\n5. Discussions and managerial implications: Past research on brand extensions has been searching for conditions for successful brand extensions. The fit hypothesis suggests that similarity or some kind of logical fit between a parent brand and an extension is a necessary for successful extensions. Recently, however, several studies have identified an alternative prediction that specifies an inverted-U shaped relationship between extension similarity and evaluation on the extensions. In an attempt to synthesize the seemingly contradicting past findings, this study identifies a situational factor (i.e. situational involvement) and a consumer personality factor (i.e. consumer innovativeness) as moderating factors that identify conditions for each response pattern to occur. The resulting framework helps us to find boundary conditions for successful brand extensions.A significant three-way interaction effect among extension similarity, situational involvement and consumer innovativeness was observed on affective responses to extensions. More specifically, an inverted U-shaped response pattern between extension similarity and extension evaluation was observed among subjects with high innovative nature under highly involved situation. However, consistent with the fit hypothesis, a linear downward sloping response pattern was observed in all other conditions (i.e. high innovative/low involvement, low innovative/high involvement, and low innovative/low involvement conditions). These findings suggest that, in general, congruent or similar brand extensions are evaluated more favorably than dissimilar extensions. However, dissimilar extensions can be evaluated more favorably under certain conditions. For any dissimilar brand extension to be evaluated favorably, it must meet three conditions. First, consumers must be highly involved in brand extension situation in order to be motivated to engage in deep processing of product information. Second, they should be receptive to innovative (or incongruent) ideas and have ability to resolve incongruent information. Third, level of dissimilarity between parent brand and extension category should not be too extreme. It should be in a moderate range, so that target consumers should be able to resolve the dissimilarity. When these conditions are met, consumers will show favorable responses to dissimilar extensions because of rewarding feelings resulted from successful resolution of the incongruence in addition to favorable affect transferred from the parent brand.The findings of this study provide useful implications to marketers who are considering brand extensions. Marketers may need different strategies depending on the degree of extension similarity and the characteristics of their target customers. When marketers are considering a brand extension to a similar product category, generally it will be a safe way of extending its brand. However, if their targets include innovators or early adopters in the extended product category, it would be better to introduce its extension in a quiet way. If the extension is introduced with high level of advertising and publicity, the target group would be highly involved in evaluating the extension and may find the extension less attractive.When marketers are considering a brand extension to somewhat moderately dissimilar product categories, they must be careful in choosing their target customers. When choosing the target consumers, they have to utilise segmentation techniques to identify consumers who are more innovative by nature. Once the target is identified, then they have to increase the involvement level of their target by utilizing various communication activities. Extensions to very dissimilar product categories are generally not recommended. However, if they are serious about this kind of extensions, it is recommended to be done in a sequential way. By successfully extending to a moderately dissimilar category first, marketers can make the very dissimilar extension to be perceived less dissimilar. After this, if they can follow the same extension approach used for the moderately dissimilar extensions, they can increase the chance of making successful extensions.The findings of this study should be interpreted with following limitations in mind. Since university students were used in this study, it should be cautioned to generalize the result of this study to other populations. Although the nature and effect of involvement and innovativeness may be similar between student and other consumer groups, future study should be conducted using different groups of consumers for generalization of the research findings. Another limitation of this study is that only one product category is used as a parent product category and that only one parent brand is examined. Thus, the results of this study should also be replicated in other product categories using more brands in future studies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Past research on brand extensions has been searching for conditions for successful brand extensions. Two contradictory response patterns between fit levels and extension evaluation have been observed in past studies. This study attempts to synthesize these seemingly contradicting past findings by considering a situational factor (i.e. situational involvement) and a consumer personality factor (i.e. consumer innovativeness) as moderating factors for the effect of extension similarity on evaluation of brand extensions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - An experimental design with three factors (i.e. extension similarity, consumer innovativeness, and situational involvement) is used to test the hypotheses.\nFindings: - It was found that, under the high involvement condition, innovative subjects show a pattern suggested by the inverted U-shaped hypothesis in their extension evaluations. Subjects in other conditions, on the other hand, show a pattern suggested by the fit hypothesis.\nPractical implications: - The findings of the study provide useful implications to marketers who are considering brand extensions. Marketers may need different strategies depending on the degree of extension similarity and the characteristics of their target customers.\nOriginality/value: - By identifying boundary conditions for successful brand extension, the findings of the study contribute to increase understanding in the brand extension literature.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
With or without CU: A comparative study of efficiency of European and Russian corporate universities
|
[
"Organizational development",
"Efficiency",
"Human capital",
"Intellectual capital",
"Corporate university"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The first corporate universities emerged in the early 1980s (Blass, 2005). Despite their growing popularity, there is a limited amount of research on these types of educational institutes that are based within companies. Most of these papers, such as those by Allen (2002), Blass (2005), and Baporikar (2014), focus on the issue of building corporate universities in an effective way, or on analyzing the history and the role of such institutes. It has been demonstrated that this type of learning contributes to the future of education and to the development of traditional universities. With regard to practical issues, corporate universities are supposed to establish specific standards for the learning process within a company. Moreover, campus facilities of corporate universities can be used to earn additional money by offering educational services for clients outside those companies, usually rivals from the same industry. Thus, having a corporate university can be considered a marker of industry leaders.\nCorporate universities as strategic investments in human resources: the academic discussion: As one of the most recent organizational innovations within companies, the corporate university does not yet have standard definition. Each case can be regarded as unique and requires in-depth individual study. Nevertheless, some common features in the phenomenon of corporate universities can be taken for comparative analysis, and for this purpose, a definition of corporate universities might be useful. Allen (2002) defined the corporate university as \"an educational entity\"; however, it is also a strategic investment that is intended to improve corporate culture, enable both individual and organizational learning, and also enrich corporate knowledge and wisdom. There is also a business definition by El-Tannir (2002, p. 77), referring to \"a function or department in the company that develops the skills for employees, and integrates them into strategic orientation of the corporation with strong emphasis on leadership and improved work-related performance.\"\nCorporate universities as value drivers: methodological approach and data: The academic literature considers corporate universities to be a substantial driver of company performance (Molodchik et al., 2014; Shakina and Barajas, 2015; Patrucco et al., 2017). In answering the research question of whether corporate universities create competitive advantages and attractiveness for investors, we identify a model elaborated on a value-based production function (see Formula (1)). This model is estimated empirically using two data sets of European and Russian listed companies: a causal marginal effect of corporate universities is expected, moderated by external factors. The factors selected for the identification of our model are derived from the first step of analysis, based on the qualitative exploration of Russian and European cases of corporate universities, along with discrepancies between the higher education systems of these markets.\nCorporate vs traditional universities: empirical results for Russia and Europe: In this study, the researchers have designed and estimated a model in which corporate universities within two rather different markets serve to provide an intensive strategy in human resources. A comparative analysis of Russia and Europe is performed, in order to demonstrate that a divergence in institutional and economic conditions might bring significantly different or even opposite effects in terms of risky and resource-consuming investment which may be associated with corporate universities.\nConclusion: In this study, the question of the efficiency of the corporate university has been addressed. Efficiency has been defined as better performance in relation to rival companies. Different indicators of performance have been employed in order to analyze short-term and long-term corporate performance. Employing a value paradigm jointly with a resource-based framework, the researchers used EVA and MVA as indicators of short-term and long-term performance, respectively. This study investigated whether corporate universities constitute a part of companies' structural and human capital, and can thus create sustainable competitive advantages which in turn positively affect companies' performance.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to address the issue of efficiency of corporate universities. An efficiency is defined in relative terms: as having relatively better performance in comparison to other companies. Different indicators of performance were employed in order to analyze short-term and long-term efficiency. A comparative analysis of European companies and emerging Russian companies is performed in order to understand if there are country differences in the efficiency of corporate universities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To avoid potential omitted variable bias, fixed effect within estimator is employed. This estimator enables controlling for a firm-specific time-constant effect which conditions company's performance and is responsible for other individual traits. The rest of the characteristics are controlled with a proxy, which are traditional for corporate finance studies.\nFindings: There are contradictory results for the efficiency of a corporate university; for the European companies, a corporate university brings positive effect for the short-term performance, nevertheless, as the authors have found that it destructs value in long term. A company with a corporate university has 70 percent less market value added than an average company. There is a negative short-term synergy while the long-term synergy is positive. The results for the Russian sample are very consistent: corporate universities have negative or neutral effect on the performance.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to the literature about strategic management and human resources management. It addresses the issue on efficiency of corporate universities in companies considering this as one of the key strategic investment in human resource policy. It appears that the corporate university is not a panacea for all companies to develop their human development policy.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The culture of orphaned texts: Academic books in a performance-based evaluation system
|
[
"Czech Republic",
"Research evaluation",
"Classification",
"Book publication",
"Social sciences and humanities (SSH)",
"Vanity publishing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Judging from statistics maintained by the state, the year 2008 was a successful one in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in the Czech Republic. The number of books registered that year as scientific output in those disciplines doubled when compared with the year 2007. In absolute numbers, SSH researchers working for Czech institutions listed 1484 books in 2008, while in 2007 it was 749. This sudden \"jump\" was partly an effect of research institutions registering books published earlier, something that also explains the two sudden increases in 1998 and 2001. But while the earlier two increases were followed by decreases, the one in 2008 resulted in a permanent rise in production. If we look at the figures based on the year of publication (rather than the year of registration in the system) we find a visible but more gradual trend of growing numbers of books being produced in Czech SSH (Figure 1).\n2. Methodology: Given our disciplinary background in social anthropology and sociology, this study primarily applies an ethnographic approach. In this respect we join the growing, if modest, number of scholars who believe that ethnography can uniquely contribute to our analytical grasp of evaluation cultures (De Rijcke et al., 2016; Muller and De Rijcke, 2017; Strathern, 2000a). In social anthropology specifically, ethnography is the central research strategy \"using the self - as much of it as possible - as the instrument of knowing\" (Ortner, 2007, p. 40). While this often means long-term participant observation in places and contexts unfamiliar to the ethnographer, in order to study science evaluation in our academic milieu it meant that we had to consciously develop sensitivities to our own professional surroundings, which we, like everyone else, usually take for granted (for a recent debate on the use of indicators in academia that are based on such sensitivities, see Fochler and De Rijcke et al., 2016).\n3. A brief history of research evaluation in the Czech Republic: Like in many other European countries the issue of research assessment gained traction in the 1990s in the Czech Republic. Interestingly, it was not first developed within the frame of New Public Management but as part of professional accountability. It was seen by part of the research community as a way to de-politicise Czech science (which was governed before 1989 by various Communist Party mechanisms) and direct it towards western standards. The first attempts at research assessment were initiated by academic researchers, particularly in the natural sciences, and took place in the Czech Academy of Sciences (Linkova and Stockelova, 2012). It was only much later, in 2004, that research assessment was elevated to the national level and implemented across research institutions in the country.\n4. What is a book (worth)?: For scholars a \"book\" is mostly an intuitive category that denotes an objectified achievement of intellectual labour. In the SSH, monographs have been the staple fruit of scholarly effort since their inception (Hicks, 2004, pp. 6-8). While in some disciplines, most notably economics, this type of publication gradually lost prominence, giving way to articles as the number one medium of scientific communication, in others, such as social anthropology or history, the monograph still is an important genre of communication and an obligatory landmark of a successful career (van den Akker, 2016, p. 25). The criteria for what constitutes a quality monograph seem also rather specific to each discipline. For the accounting objectives of the above-described evaluation methodology it was nevertheless necessary to define what a scientific book is, regardless of any disciplinary differences.\n5. You reap what you sow: Following this detailed description of how scholarly books have been defined and awarded points in the Czech evaluation system since its inception up to recent times, we will now proceed to analyse what consequences the evaluation system had for the way in which scholarly books were produced in the Czech Republic in that period. After that, we will turn our attention to the actual conduct of the panel peer review and specific reasons why it proved largely inefficient in tackling even the most vivid negative consequences of the evaluation methodology.\n6. Conclusion: In this paper, we traced the development of the Czech research evaluation system, which was introduced in 2004, and the consequences it has had for book publication strategies and patterns in Czech SSH. The \"evaluation\" of books has in fact taken the form of an administrative assessment that cheques that defined formal criteria have been met - at first basic and later more elaborate (though not necessarily more reasonable) criteria, in response to publication practices that emerged in the academic community for the purpose of harvesting \"cheap\" RIV points. Although this process produced \"numbers\" and was thus ostensibly objective, this administrative assessment process was a somewhat arbitrary exercise - both in terms of how the RIV points for different outputs and different disciplines were assigned and calculated in the methodology and how the exercise was carried out in practice. As such, the process in many respects violated the basic tenets of accountability of an evaluation procedure (cf. Hicks et al., 2015). Since 2013, the component of peer review was added, which, however, was not a proper peer-review process but rather an administrative exercise carried out by selected members of the academic community.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the body of knowledge on how research evaluation in different national and organisational contexts affects, often in unintended ways, research and publication practices. In particular, it looks at the development of book publication in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in the Czech Republic since 2004, when a performance-based system of evaluation was introduced, up to the present.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper builds upon ethnographic research complemented by the analysis of Czech science policy documents, data available in the governmental database \"Information Register of R&D results\" and formal and informal interviews with expert evaluators and other stakeholders in the research system. It further draws on the authors' own experience as scholars, who have also over the years participated in a number of evaluation procedures as peers and experts.\nFindings: The number of books published by researchers in SSH based at Czech institutions has risen considerably in reaction to the pressure for productivity that is inscribed into the evaluation methodology and has resulted in the rise of in-house publishing by researchers' own research institution, \"fake internationalisation\" using foreign low-quality presses as the publication venue, and the development of a culture of orphaned books that have no readers.\nPractical implications: In the Czech Republic robust and internationally harmonised bibliometric data regarding books would definitely help to create a form of research evaluation that would stimulate meaningful scholarly book production. At the same time, better-resourced and better-designed peer review evaluation is needed.\nOriginality/value: This is the first attempt to analyse in detail the conditions and consequences the Czech performance-based research evaluation system has for SSH book publication. The paper demonstrates that often discussed harming of SSH and book-writing in particular by performance-based IF-centred research evaluation does not necessarily manifest in declining numbers of publications. On the contrary, the number of books published may increase at the cost of producing more texts of questionable scholarly quality.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Exploring added value through the service process: a comparative multiple case study
|
[
"Performance measurement",
"Evaluation",
"Service operations",
"Benchmarking",
"Customer services quality",
"Added value",
"Service process",
"Kitchen fitments"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The world economy has become mostly service-based, and consumers spend more on services than on tangible goods (Carrillat et al., 2007). The role of the customer has changed from that of a mere customer to the multi-faceted role of a consumer (Carrillat et al., 2007; Calabrese, 2011). According to Vargo et al. (2008), service systems co-create value and are dependent on each other's resources and resource integration. Participants bring along their own special capabilities to the service process, and value is generated when the combinations of these capabilities are exchanged. Above all, the service system approach emphasises customers' central role as the final estimators of value (Carrillat et al., 2007; Vargo et al., 2008).\n2. Literature review: 2.1. Service process\n3. Research design: This research is an explorative multiple case study in which the empirical data were collected by using the mystery shopping method. The results of the study are based on seven service processes of seven different kitchen fitment stores. The selected stores are all of the same size and are all located in Southern Finland. First, the results of the analysis are based on the evaluation of how the service process of the market leader differs from the other actors' processes, whether the service process explains the success of the market leader and the success factors of the service process. This also supports the effort to achieve wider understanding of the service process of kitchen fitments, including its success factors and bottlenecks. Second, the results evaluate how the mystery shopping method works as a measurement tool to measure and evaluate the service process.\n4. Results of the study: 4.1. How does the service process of the market leader differ from the other actors' processes?\n5. Discussion: In this study, the mystery shopping method was utilised in order to clarify how the service process of the market leader differs from the competitors' service processes, what are the success factors of a service process, and whether the mystery shopping method can be used as a measurement tool. The findings are in line with the earlier studies, indicating that mystery shopping is an appropriate method when measuring a service process rather than the outcomes of the service encounter (van der Wiele et al., 2005; Wilson, 1998, 2001). It has been presented (van der Wiele et al., 2005; Wilson, 1998, 2001) that mystery shopping is a technique used to measure performance against pre-set quality standards. In the study, the three-step selling process (see Section 3), as well as the six criteria of good perceived service quality (Gronroos, 1988; see Section 2.2) were used as pre-set quality standards. This was considered as an appropriate approach focusing on the different steps of the selling process and the most important criteria simultaneously.\n6. Conclusions: The study focused on the service processes of kitchen fitment stores and analysed the differences between the stores. Until now, this research area has not been investigated. However, it is essential to explore whether the differences in the service processes can explain the success of the trademark or the added value for both the customers and the company that owns the trademark. In the study, comparisons were made between the market leader and other companies. Because the set of products of the different trademarks are quite similar, and the market leader has the highest prices, it can be assumed that their service process may explain their success in the markets.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to evaluate how the service process of the market leader differs from the other actors' processes and whether the service process explains the success of the market leader; second, to identify the success factors of the service process; and third, to test and analyse how the mystery shopping method works as a measurement tool to evaluate the service processes, including the quality of such processes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The case study focuses on the service processes of kitchen fitments. The paper is an explorative multiple case study. The results of the study are based on seven service processes of seven different kitchen fitment stores in Finland. The mystery shopping method has been utilised in an empirical data collection process.\nFindings: The study revealed the most important factors in the service process that differentiate the market leader from the other operators. The results indicated that there are three main aspects highlighted in the market leader's service process. The results also reveal that mystery shopping is a workable tool for analysing service processes.\nPractical implications: The study identifies the key factors that affect the success of the service process of kitchen fitments companies. By developing these factors, companies can increase service quality. The results also reveal that the mystery shopping method can be a workable tool to evaluate service processes.\nOriginality/value: The study reveals the most important factors in the service process that differentiate the market leader from the other operators. It can be stated that these factors also explain their success. Thus, the results of the study are applicable at least in companies which operate in the kitchen fitments industry. Furthermore, the results can be utilised to some extent in companies which are developing their service processes.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Impact evaluation using Difference-in-Differences
|
[
"Impact evaluation",
"Policy evaluation",
"Management",
"Causal effects",
"Difference-in-Differences",
"Parallel trends assumption"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Difference-in-Differences (DiD) is one of the most frequently used methods in impact evaluation studies. Based on a combination of before-after and treatment-control group comparisons, the method has an intuitive appeal and has been widely used in economics, public policy, health research, management and other fields. After the introductory section, this paper outlines the method, discusses its main assumptions, then provides further details and discusses potential pitfalls. Examples of typical DiD evaluations are referred to throughout the text, and a separate section discusses a few papers from the broader management literature. Conclusions are also presented.\n2. The Difference-in-Differences method: The DiD method combines insights from cross-sectional treatment-control comparisons and before-after studies for a more robust identification. First consider an evaluation that seeks to estimate the effect of a (non-randomly implemented) policy (\"treatment\") by comparing outcomes in the treatment group to a control group, with data from after the policy implementation. Assume there is a difference in outcomes. In the Massachusetts health reform example, perhaps health is better in the treatment group. This difference may be due to the policy, but also because there are key characteristics that differ between the groups and that are determinants of the outcomes studied, e.g. income in the health reform example: Massachusetts is relatively rich, and wealthier people on average have better health. A remedy for this situation is to evaluate the impact of the policy after controlling for the factors that differ between the two groups. This is only possible for observable characteristics, however. Perhaps important socioeconomic and other characteristics that determine outcomes are not in the dataset, or even fundamentally unobservable. And even if it would be possible to collect additional data for certain important characteristics, the knowledge about which are all the relevant variables is imperfect. Controlling for all treatment-control group differences is thus difficult.\n3. Parallel trends and other assumptions: Estimation of DiD models hinges upon several assumptions, which are discussed in detail by Lechner (2011). The following paragraphs are mainly dedicated to the \"parallel trends\" assumption, the discussion of which is a requirement for any DiD paper (\"no pre-treatment effects\" and \"common support\" are also discussed below). Another important assumption is the Stable Unit Treatment Value Assumption, which implies that there should be no spillover effects between the treatment and control groups, as the treatment effect would then not be identified (Duflo, Glennerster, & Kremer, 2008). Furthermore, the control variables Xist and Zst should be exogenous, unaffected by the treatment. Otherwise, b will be biased. A typical approach is to use covariates that predate the intervention itself, although this does not fully rule out endogeneity concerns, as there may be anticipation effects. In some DiD studies and data sets, the controls may be available for each time period (as suggested by the t-index on Xist and Zst), which is fine as long as they are not affected by the treatment. Implied by the assumptions is that there should be no compositional changes over time. An example would be if individuals with poor health move to Massachusetts (from a control state to the treatment state). The health reform impact would then likely be underestimated.\n4. Further details and considerations for the use of Difference-in-Differences: 4.1 Using control variables for a more robust identification\n5. Examples of Difference-in-Differences studies in the broader management literature: The DiD method is increasingly applied in management studies. A growing number of scholars use the method in areas such as innovation (Aggarwal & Hsu, 2014; Flammer & Kacperczyk, 2016; Singh & Agrawal, 2011), board of directors composition (Berger, Kick, & Schaeck, 2014), lean production (Distelhorst, Hainmueller, & Locke, 2016), organizational goals management (Holm, 2018), CEO remuneration (Conyon, Hass, Peck, Sadler, & Zhang, 2019), regulatory certification (Bruno, Cornaggia, & Cornaggia, 2016), social media (Kumar, Bezawada, Rishika, Janakiraman, & Kannan (2016), employee monitoring (Pierce, Snow, & McAfee, 2015) and environmental policy (He & Zhang, 2018).\n6. Discussion and conclusion: The paper presents an overview of the DiD method, summarized here in terms of some practical recommendations. Researchers wishing to apply the method should carefully plan their research design and think about what the source of (preferably exogenous) variation is, and how it can identify causal effects. The control group should be comparable to the treatment group and have the same data availability. Matching and other methods can refine the control group selection. Enough time periods should be available to credibly motivate the parallel trends assumption and, in case not fulfilled, it is likely that DiD is not an appropriate method. The robustness of the analysis can be enhanced by using exogenous control variables, either directly in the regression and/or through a matching procedure. Standard errors should be robust and clustered in order to account for heteroscedasticity, within-group correlation and serial correlation. Details may differ, however, including what the relevant cluster is, which depends on the study at hand, and researchers are encouraged to delve further into this topic (Bertrand et al., 2004; Cameron & Miller, 2015). Yet other methods, such as DiDiD and synthetic controls were discussed, while a discussion of e.g. time-varying treatment effects and another quasi-experimental technique, regression discontinuity, were left out. Several methodological DiD papers were cited above, the reading of which is encouraged, perhaps together with texts covering other non-experimental methods.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to present the Difference-in-Differences (DiD) method in an accessible language to a broad research audience from a variety of management-related fields.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper describes the DiD method, starting with an intuitive explanation, goes through the main assumptions and the regression specification and covers the use of several robustness methods. Recurrent examples from the literature are used to illustrate the different concepts.\nFindings: By providing an overview of the method, the authors cover the main issues involved when conducting DiD studies, including the fundamentals as well as some recent developments.\nOriginality/value: The paper can hopefully be of value to a broad range of management scholars interested in applying impact evaluation methods.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Contested terrains within the neo-liberal project: The re-organisation of services for children in Europe: gender, citizenship and the forging of New Public Management within professional child care social work practice in Europe
|
[
"Gender",
"Citizenship",
"Child care",
"Social workers",
"Europe"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nPreamble: This paper explores the relationship between gender, New Public Management (NPM), citizenship and professional and user group identities and relationships within child care social work practice. The paper utilises findings from a major comparative survey undertaken in Denmark and the UK as part of Doctoral research. In addition the paper draws upon more recent empirical research carried out by the author in Sweden. Paradigms imported from the private sector have led to the adoption of NPM, fiscal austerity and the reorganisation of child care social work throughout Europe. This paper illustrates the connectivites between NPM, gender, citizenship and the \"contested terrains\" within which professional and user group relationships and identities are being \"forged\" (Barry et al., 2003). The paper's findings may be used to contribute to existing theoretical and empirical knowledge within the field of professional child care social work and practice. The paper offers a unique insight into the operationalisation of NPM and gender within child care professional social work practice in different European welfare settings.\nIntroduction: Neo-liberalism, NPM and gender within child care social work in Europe\nForging NPM, national settings and the reorganisation of child welfare services in Europe: As social services modernize in many EU Member States, often in partnership with the private sector and non-profit organisations, all involved need clarification on how European law affects this evolving situation. Recent communications from the European Commission suggest a growing awareness of the speed at which transformations are occurring.... social services of general interest have specific characteristics ... These characteristics include the services being personalized and their aims directly connected with access to fundamental social rights and to the achievement of social cohesion. To reach those aims, social services of general interest are based on solidarity ... They also need to be developed as closely as possible to the users (EC, 2006).The European Commissions communique above is premised upon the notion that welfare services are instrumental to fundamental social rights and social cohesion. The exploration of forms of governance by local authorities and nation states requires a well-grounded conception of public spheres. The analysis of the relationship between gender, new managerialism, identities and ethics within diverging organisational and legal settings is theorized within a framework which views power as being differentiated by gendered institutional barriers and labour processes (Fraser, 1992, 1997; Johnson, 2001; Meehan, 1995; Young, 1996, 2000). Locating this within a broader conceptual framework the reconceptualisation of public and private spheres within feminist theory has promoted gender equality as a normative ideal, which the European Commission regards as being achieved when:The different behaviour, aspirations and needs of women and men are equally valued and favoured and do not give rise to different consequences that reinforce inequalities (EC, 2005).Welfare regimes in Europe differ in their articulations of notions of gender and citizenship which in turn operationalise processes of the inclusion and exclusion of women as citizens, workers and parents (Hobson et al., 2002). In the UK, Germany and the Netherlands the strong breadwinner model still predominates (Lewis, 1992), whilst France, Belgium and other continental countries have a tradition of women working full time (Duane-Righard, 2000). Scandinavian countries adopt a dual breadwinner or dual earner model (Korpi, 2000). In Denmark this is enhanced within the public sector by the process of dual socialization, the notion that the state is as responsible as the parent for the upbringing of the child. As the case study evidence below reveals, this model becomes intrinsically important to the analyses of social work practice, and the experience of social work professionals in the UK and Denmark. Significantly, in Denmark continuity planning for looked-after children is contextualized within decision-making strategies founded upon notions of dual-socialization. This strategy is given legal sanction within child care law, by virtue of a series of rights given to parents and children within decision-making processes (Betaenkning 1212, 1990). Social work Professionals work within a system of governance, at local and national level, based upon a conceptualization of citizenship characterized by dual socialization. Adequate levels of resources within a broad spectrum of placement provision for looked-after children (Ellison and Dorthe-Hestbaek, 1998; Mehlbye, 1993) bring coherence to social work practice enabling the development of more effective broad based preventative and therapeutic strategies. Danish social work professionals interviewed in this research articulated professional identities and ethics congruent with social work theory and methodological approaches:For me working within a team is important. I had a case recently where a mother was worried that her whole family would \"drowned\" unless her sons' relationship was made well again. I was worried about this but I can't decide what the problems are here, we cannot say for a family what their problems are, it is for them to tell us, that is where we begin as professionals. (A Danish Pedagogue)In contrast, contested terrains within the UK were found to be predicated on broader contradictions within the public sphere. The gendered nature of social justice and citizenship in the UK and the focus on parental responsibility usually defined as the responsibility of the mother in the UK (Lister, 2006; Baines, 2004). When combined with resource constraints this created a context within which social work professionals felt frustrated and unable to express their professional and personal identity and ethics (Ellison, 2004).It's always a very difficult question when you've got siblings because obviously your heart tells you that children should remain in contact at least with their brothers and s isters, if nothing else. The boys were eventually adopted, I felt ashamed about this it's just that there are no placements so there are no choices really we are tied. My heart went out to the mother I felt I had failed her but it was the system that failed her not me. It's not the way in should be. I wasn't trained for this (English Social Worker).The way in which citizens and welfare professionals have responded to the challenge of a redefined welfare state and the way in which different member states have defended previous notions of citizenship, gender and that which constitutes the social are central to the understanding of \"contested terrains\" within public welfare in Europe. Illustrating this, Lorenz (2001) has argued that \"activism\" within the social work profession in Europe has been characterized by the resistance to being incorporated into new social policy agendas. The new practical and political effects of the neo-liberal agenda are also being modified by challenges from welfare cultures and resistance by welfare professionals and user groups (Lorenz, 2001; Andersen and Guillemard, 2006). Here, the relationship between state and citizen is involves interrelated and complex variables. A broader understanding of this relationship acknowledges issues of social rights of citizens (Turner, 1993; Barbalet, 1988; Lorenz, 2001). As Rummery (2006) points out:The way in which citizens gain access to resources to meet their needs, the way in which they participate (or do not) in the governance of welfare partnerships, and the way in which relations between individuals, communities and the state are affected by welfare partnerships are crucial questions not just for the governance of welfare, but need addressing in order to understand the role of citizenship in the welfare state (Rummery, 2006, p. 223).\nNPM, continuities and discontinuities in the UK: Continuity as a concept is centrally embedded in social work theory across European States and is recognized as an important prerequisite for successful casework (Ellison, 2003; Fanshel, 1990; Lewis and Karen, 1990; Trisilliotis, 1991) Attempts to defend continuity as integral to care work are articulated at different levels. In this sense social work professionals act to abridge public and private need for continuity and in a broad sense modify the practical and political effect of neo-liberal agendas. In Britain, an element of this agenda is embodied in New Labours' emergent social investment state involving policies, which simultaneously invest in children and regulate them and their parents/mothers. Placing children at the heart of social policy is to be applauded; their location within the context of social investment has invoked disquiet as Ruth Lister argues: ... the construction of children as \"becomings\" rather than \"beings\"; the paid-work-focused and future-oriented model of citizenship; the relative neglect of groups of children who are not seen to represent such a good investment; and the eclipse of parents', and in particular, mothers' welfare' (Lister, 2006, p. 8).As has been argued, in Britain childcare policy operationalises notions of citizenship based upon a future orientated labour market participation. Operating within this context social work professionals are at once faced with a public and private domain permeated with principles of gendered social justice. Here continuity for the children as \"beings\" is lost within the quest to ensure that children are neatly fitted into the future orientated model of citizenship, the mothers' welfare is seen as secondary to this (Lister, 2006). Correspondingly the transition from NPM in the 1990s with its focus on efficiency, organisational change, and fragmentation to Progressive Management characterized by effectiveness, joined up partnership working and regulation was given continuity by New Labours' mission to: ... transform nation and people to fit them for a globalised world requiring workforce flexibility, business deregulation and the modernization of the welfare state (Newman, 2003 p. 26).The restructuring of the child welfare services in the UK has been the process of redefining the workforce and user groups (Farnsworth, 2006; Du Gay, 1996). Care planning processes have been subjected to disciplinary technologies, which characterize NPM. These technologies are designed to inculcate new values, attitudes, self-understandings and priorities among professionals (Clarke and Newman, 1997; Du Gay, 1996). Parton (1998) has argued that social work in England emphasizes blame instead of trust, efficiency instead of values and control over discretion. Assuming the role of good parent the state then stets out to beaurocratise social work practice. Fragmented care planning emerges when changes in placements or social workers are imposed by administrative requirements (Ellison, 2004). Continuity within care planning is undermined by the absence of consistent one to one relationships between individual social workers and children and their families. The recent fusion of the market and the public sector reform in England has led to the introduction of the notion of \"The Corporate Parent\". Here, it may be argued that the stigmatization of the birth parents of looked-after children is complete and child welfare social workers are being encouraged to move on from beaurocratic parenting to market driven corporate parenting.Arguably, the implications of NPM for practice are most usefully explored through the lenses of service users and professionals. The case shown below was very typical of the cases studied during this research particularly in relation to mothers feeling disempowered by the procedural and legal nature of care planning within England.\nEnglish case study: Background\nConclusion: This paper has sought to explore the relationship between Gender, NPM, citizenship and professional and user group relationships and identities within child care social work practice. Welfare regimes in Europe differ in their articulations of notions of gender and citizenship, which in turn operationalise processes of the inclusion and exclusion of women as citizens, workers and parents (Hobson et al., 2002). This has led to the loss of continuity in relation to past welfare provision and implied notions of social rights. This change of regime and loss of continuity has given rise to forms of blockages and resistances to the imposition of forms of NPM within different welfare contexts. Here, the relationships between professionals and user groups is found to be as much a question of citizenship models and the embedding of notions of gender equality within state-societal relationships as it is of the professional commitment of social workers as individuals. Indeed the illustrations used in this paper point to the constraining effects of NPM within professional child care social work practice. The concept of continuity unifies principles of childcare social work practice in Europe. Here holistic approaches rely upon the operationalisation of principles of partnership within social work practice. As the extracts illustrate NPM within these distinct settings is perceived and experienced by user's and social work professionals as being an impediment to the achievement of these principles. For the mother in England technical devices and instruments used within the care planning process left her feeling disempowered within a fragmented and meaningless process. For her there was \"no time\" and no one was really \"listening\". In Sweden, social work professionals are concerned by the imposition of NPM for many of the same reasons as the mother describes in England. Here, social work theory and methodological approaches recognize the intrinsic value of approaches which give people time to talk. In Denmark, the value of decentralized forms of governance is revealed as the Director of Social Services in a local municipality uses innovatory forms of provision to filter reductions in available funding. This paper has found that assumptions about gendered relations and the way in which children should be socialized are intrinsic to decision-making processes within care planning for looked-after children and their families. In Britain gendered notions of citizenship (Lister, 2006) mitigate against holistic approaches within child care social work practice. Here, mothers are marginal to child welfare interventions as children are conceptualized in terms of their future worth as social investments rather than as current social beings. In contrast, in Denmark and Sweden principles of dual socialisation strengthen the rights of user groups and particularly women and enable the operationalisation of more effective forms of partnership within care planning processes. Finally, this paper has identified the need to do further comparative research on the implications of NPM on child and family centred practice within Europe. Whilst acknowledging the unique and complex nature of cases it is argued that fundamental processes underpinning care planning are compromised by market incursions into this and other spheres of social work practice. Framed through the lenses of constructions of citizenship and rights, new forms of analysis are required within these emerging organizational, governmental and legal frameworks. The identification and dynamics of blockages and resistances articulated by welfare professionals and user groups can prove to be one valuable form. Analytical clarity requires that the exploration of these processes is grounded in an investigative methodology which is multilayered and interdisciplinary. The import of this research is to inform professional social work practice and to encourage the legitimate framing and activation of public policies, which promote equality, empowerment and social rights within European welfare regimes.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper sets out to explore the relationship between gender, New Public Management (NPM), citizenship and professional and user group identities and relationships within child care social work practice.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper utilises findings from a major comparative survey undertaken in Denmark and the UK as part of Doctoral research. In addition the paper draws upon more recent empirical research carried out by the author in Sweden.\nFindings: - Paradigms imported from the private sector have led to the adoption of NPM, fiscal austerity and the reorganisation of childcare social work throughout Europe. This paper illustrates the connectivities between NPM, gender, citizenship and the contested terrains within which professional and user group relationships and identities are being forged. The paper offers a unique insight into the operationalisation of NPM and gender within childcare professional social work practice in different European settings.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The paper's findings may be used to contribute to existing theoretical and empirical knowledge within the field of professional childcare social work and practice.\nOriginality/value: - The paper offers a unique insight into the operationalisation of gender equality as a normative ideal premised on the development of organisational and legal settings which embrace an awareness of the duality of public and private spheres and the impact of different European welfare settings on the articulations of notions of gender and citizenship, which in turn operationalise processes of inclusion and exclusion of women as citizens, workers and parents.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Open access: help or hindrance to resource sharing?
|
[
"Academic libraries",
"Interlending",
"Interlibrary loan",
"Open access",
"Resource sharing",
"Discovery"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The growing acceptance of the open access movement has created an increasingly large body of free, online information that library users may have difficulty navigating. Students, in particular, may not be fully aware of open access and the corpus of knowledge available to them. As a result, users still request open access materials through interlibrary loan (ILL) despite their ability to access these materials directly.\nLiterature review: It is a commonly held belief that ILL is and will continue to be adversely affected by the growth of open access. Studies conducted in Japan and Belgium do show a reduction in the number of ILL requests and place at least partial blame on open access (Koyama et al., 2011; Corthouts et al., 2011), but Schopfel (2014) recently stated there is \"little empirical evidence for this causal relation\". McGrath (2014) also notes the many situations in which ILL will still be necessary despite any negative impact of open access. The experience at IUPUI University Library has so far run counter to the argument of open access as a hindrance to resource sharing. Open access has not reduced the number of article requests to date, and users actually request open access materials through ILL. The author could locate only one study which shares the view that open access is \"an extraordinarily useful source for librarians to perform document delivery service\" (Hu and Jiang, 2014).\nOverview of IUPUI and university library: IUPUI\nOverview of resource sharing operations: IUPUI University Library's RSDS department provides ILL and document delivery services to the faculty, staff and students of all IUPUI schools except the law, medicine and dentistry schools, which have their own libraries. University Library also has an agreement with Martin University, a local university without its own library, to provide ILL services to its affiliates. RSDS consists of half an FTE librarian, three FTE staff (two of which have responsibility for resource sharing services) and two to three FTE student employees. IUPUI University Library is an OCLC supplier, participates in RapidILL and uses the OCLC ILLiad ILL management system.\nOpen access ILL workflow: The RSDS department utilizes the OCLC ILLiad ILL management software, which supports the creation of custom routing rules, queues and emails that assist staff in automating workflows. Two custom queues:\nData overview: Since the publication of the author's 2011 study, open access requests have increase by 24-34 per cent each year. Figure 4 shows the number of borrowing requests filled with open access materials during fiscal years 2010 through 2013. Despite these substantial increases, open access requests only account for 7 per cent of total borrowing copy requests (1,557 of 23,531).\nOpen access document types and resources: The 1,557 open access requests received during fiscal years 2012 and 2013 represent a variety of material types (See Table II).\nConclusion: The discovery problems surrounding information retrieval do not align with users' need for convenience and ease of access and may result in a greater reliance on ILL to locate information. An example can be taken from IUPUI University Library's own document delivery service. RSDS offers document delivery of articles and book chapters from the library's print collection for all users. However, users do not limit their requests to items from the print collection. From July 2011 through June 2013, RSDS filled 7,626 document delivery requests of which 61 per cent were available through the library's electronic holdings. Users clearly find it easier to request through ILL rather than completing the search process themselves, even though this means a delay in access.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine interlibrary loan (ILL) requests for open access materials submitted during fiscal years 2012 and 2013 and to consider the implications of open access for resource sharing.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Borrowing requests for open access materials were quantitatively analyzed and compared to total borrowing requests and open access borrowing requests from the previous two fiscal years.\nFindings: During the period studied, borrowing requests for open access materials increased, while overall requests held steady. The difficulty users have in navigating the online information environment makes it unlikely that ILL requests will decrease significantly due to the growing amount of open access material available.\nOriginality/value: The literature discussing the relationship between open access and ILL has expanded in recent years, but largely focuses on the negative impact of open access on resource sharing. This paper presents an update on previous research and provides contradictory evidence that the number of borrowing requests for open access documents continues to grow. Open access should be embraced as a help to resource sharing. This article is of great value to ILL practitioners looking for effective ways of identifying open access ILL requests.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The role and impact of firm's strategic orientations on launch performance: significance of relationship orientation
|
[
"Market orientation",
"Launch performance",
"Market-based assets",
"New product launch",
"Product advantage",
"Relationship orientation",
"Product orientation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: New product launch (NPL) refers to bringing a product to market for the first time (Beard and Easingwood, 1996; Crawford and Di Benedetto, 2011). NPL is often considered the most critical, expensive and riskiest phase of the new product development process (Chiesa and Frattini, 2011; Di Benedetto, 1999), representing a specific view on a new product introduction to market compared to the broader concept of commercialization (cf. Aarikka-Stenroos et al., 2014). Although firms commit enormous time, financial and managerial resources, the average failure rate of NPLs remains as high as 40 per cent in new consumer and industrial products (Hultink et al., 2000), and more than 60 per cent in high-tech industries (Goldenberg et al., 2001). Thus, there is substantial academic and managerial interest in discovering the key antecedents for successful NPLs.\nFirm's strategic orientations in relation to new product launches: A firm's strategic orientations refer to the:\nConceptual model and hypotheses: The conceptual model summarizes the key constructs and their hypothesized relationships (Figure 1). The proposed model examines the role and impact of the three alternative strategic orientations held by a firm regarding launch performance as well as that of two mediators, namely, product advantage and market-based assets, to explain how the orientations of firms can influence launch performance.\nMethodology: Sample and data collection\nResults: This study examines the role and impact of three firm's strategic orientations regarding launch performance and explores the mediating mechanisms between the orientations and launch performance (Figure 1). The structural model results from the PLS analysis are presented in Table II, which summarizes the standardized path coefficients, their t-values and the explained variance R2.\nDiscussion: Implications for theory\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study examines the role and relative impact of market orientation, product orientation and relationship orientation on new product launch performance, investigating product advantage and market-based assets as alternative mediating mechanisms, which link these strategic orientations to launch performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Survey data from the pharmaceutical industry are used to test hypotheses in the research model using partial least squares modeling.\nFindings: Findings show that while each examined strategic orientation relates positively to launch performance, their performance effects and related mechanisms vary significantly. Results demonstrate a firm's relationship orientation is the strongest predictor of launch performance, and accumulated market-based assets represent an alternative relational mediator besides product advantage linking firms' orientations and launch performance.\nResearch limitations/implications: The empirical study is based on cross-sectional data collected in one specific industry sector. The authors encourage researchers to confirm the key findings in different industry and other contextual settings.\nPractical implications: New product launch can be effectively managed as a relational activity. Firms benefit from paying explicit attention to strategic orientations and relationships. Especially, top management should foster a relationship-oriented organizational culture, develop relational competences and fully use the firm's accumulated market-based assets for increased launch performance.\nOriginality/value: The study extends knowledge on the role of strategic orientations in launch performance by highlighting the significance of relationship orientations and providing novel knowledge on the key mediating mechanisms between strategic orientations and launch performance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
British Library document supply - a fork in the road
|
[
"Document delivery",
"National libraries",
"Continuous improvement",
"United Kingdom"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In 2011 the BLDSC[1] will celebrate 50 years of document supply; it is ironic that as we approach this juncture we currently stand at a crossroad in terms of how the document supply business will operate in the coming years. The challenges facing us are numerous and multi faceted, and already we can see market changes as a result; for example, the announcement of the collaboration between CISTI and Infotrieve[2], TU Delft coming out of commercial supply[3], and changes in copyright legislation in Germany[4].As the National Library of the UK, the British Library (BL) has a worldwide reputation of having comprehensive collections, high-quality services, knowledgeable staff and a risk-averse approach. The tendency towards electronic content and digital by default is spawning new business models such as Open Access, Publisher Pay to View and access to \"other\" sources via Google. The modern approach taken by researchers nowadays is usually via internet search engines as opposed to consulting library catalogues.The BLDSC is not immune to the changes in the marketplace, Charles Darwin once said, \"it is neither the strongest nor the most intelligent species that survive, it is the species most adaptable to change\". Therefore as we consider the further demographic, regulatory and technological changes around the corner, we must accept that change is inevitable and do our best to exploit it.The British Library's Document Supply service was traditionally built around a framework put in place in the 1970s to support the supply of content to librarians and researchers in UK non-commercial markets. This later evolved into a broader service offering in order to accommodate researchers within the commercial sector, for example in pharmaceuticals.\nBack to the future I: In 2006 the BL considered how change should be managed and formed the Document Supply Futures (DSF) group. The challenge BLDSC faced was a significant decline[5] (see Figure 1) year on year in demand (and income) whilst maintaining a fairly static cost base (fixed costs and staffing costs). An added complication was the delicate balance of serving two very different markets - i.e. higher education and the commercial sector - both with differing requirements.The challenge for the DSF group therefore was to:* \"right size\" the operation to suit demand;* deliver efficiency improvements and reduce operational costs; and* offer new services which complemented the current document supply operation and fitted with BLDSC core competences.To underpin the first two items the BL embarked on a continuous improvement programme using the principles of lean and Six Sigma[6]. The fundamental approach taken was:* The aim should be to delight customers putting them at the very core of our operation; their voices should be captured and fed back to service owners in order to stimulate improvement.* We should have a holistic approach to eradicating waste and eliminating activity that did not add value within our processes and workflows.* Every BL employee has a role to play and should be involved in making change and improvement. This is continuous improvement, or kaizen.In order to match resource deployment with demand (\"right size\"), a resource planning model was devised, based on realistic outputs. The model provided staffing requirements to match the predicted demands. Following extensive consultation with the trade unions and staff, a plan was implemented whereby staff would move between the various storage areas to suit the demand profile. Any surplus staff transferred into other operational areas or assisted colleagues in other areas of the Library such as cataloguing, administration or even finance.Additionally the formation of kaizen (continuous improvement) teams comprising representatives from all areas of BLDSC empowered to make change was implemented. Training programmes were designed with which to provide the knowledge and expertise required to fix problems permanently.The results from this activity were nothing short of amazing:* A lessening of the demand downturn due to a culmination of improvement activities.* Rapid delivery - the average time reduced from three hours to one hour and standard service delivery reduced from an average of 45 hours to 30 hours. Productivity (number of requests fulfilled per person per day) improved in the first year by 10 per cent and a further 5 per cent in the second year.* Work in progress (backlogs remaining at the end of the working day) reduced three-fold.* An improvement in BLDSC staff morale as recorded by the 2008 colleague opinion survey. This was attributed to having engaged with colleagues and empowered them to make change.Comparing 2006/2007 to 2008/2009, Figure 2 demonstrates that overall staff numbers have reduced as a result of natural wastage, but also the number of staff in Document Supply has reduced as a result of a reduction in demand and productivity improvements. Displaced staff then subsequently moved into other operations services (as indicated) or into other corporate activities.The BL Executive Team was so impressed by the approach and subsequent benefits that the Operations & Services team was charged with rolling out the continuous improvement process across the whole organisation.\nNew services: New services adopted to run alongside the document supply service and integrate within the structure are outlined below.UK Research Reserve (UKRR)\nBack to the future II: The challenges BLDSC faces around the long term sustainability of the operation are:* The current global economic environment, in which demand for document supply has fallen even more steeply.* A highly competitive market place where competitors are sometimes faster then BLDSC in developing cost effective operating models focussing on more lucrative content.* Increasing availability of e-content on a large scale through institutional services and open access. The impact of \"big deals\" whereby organisations broker direct agreements with publishers has affected the BLDSC demand profile to the point where it can be seen as the supplier of last resort for the more hard to find content.* Above-inflation price increases for the content required to support the service.* Changing customer expectations for the range of services, use of technology, open access and the user experience they want or expect.* Recessionary pressures and budget cuts affecting R&D functions in our commercial and academic customers.* Commercial customers requiring a \"total\" service provision that covers all their information supply and content holding requirements.This is not all necessarily bad news. The economic conditions mean that some customers are cancelling some full-text subscriptions and returning to \"just in time\" document supply to meet their needs. As other traditional document supply competitors exit the market, the BLDSC position as a specialist provider and back-up library will become increasingly important. There is an opportunity to re-position the service based on:* Trust and commitment - BLDSC are committed to document supply. Recent developments have suggested that others may not be around as long.* Uniqueness of the collection - you can get things from the BL that you would find it hard to get anywhere else.* BLDSC is not just about document supply - in recent years there has been significant investment in new services that provide a more complete service to customers.* BLDSC is committed to continuous improvement and legislative compliance - recent enhancement such as unencrypted services, the rationalisation of ordering facilities, the introduction of new DRM services and future developments such as IRMDS will remove obstacles to placing an order with the BL.Short-term enhancements\nSummary: The British Library as a national institution provides the assurance of being a solid, reliable and trusted partner in all aspects of librarianship, including document supply. By refining and implementing the strategy described, BLDSC will be in a perfect position to take this revised service proposition to market based on:* focussing carefully on selected market segments;* providing a suite of services for the above based on customers requirements and core competences;* leveraging new technology to optimise the delivery and improve the user experience;* having a passion for delivering in a way that delights customers;* a process that delivers from lean and efficient back office functions; and* being managed by motivated, knowledgeable and caring staff.This approach will underpin the emergence of a totally new BLDSC business model and will hopefully steer a course for the next 50 years.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper seeks to provide an overview of recent developments within the British Library's document supply service and offer an insight into future plans.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper takes the form of a general review.\nFindings: - The British Library Document Supply Centre (BLDSC) has made tremendous gains in optimising the service in its current guise. As with similar organisations, challenges are presenting themselves that require a completely new look at the way the business model is designed. Although the long-term plan is not completely formed, this paper aims to give an insight into current thinking.\nOriginality/value: - The paper spells out the improvement strategy that the BL has adopted for document supply in the light of the worldwide decline.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Creating a fractal-based quality management infrastructure
|
[
"Management",
"Quality improvement",
"Health and safety",
"Safety",
"Health care",
"Safety measures"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Today\nWhy the fractal works: The fractal model offers a simple and efficient coordination structure to manage learning in complex health care quality systems. We anticipate that in most health care organizations there are poorly defined or no connections at the unit/clinic, department, hospital or group practice, and health system levels for safety and QI efforts. In many hospitals, formal channels for quality assurance and improvement are limited to one isolated administrative department, and common organizational goals for quality are ill defined or unstated. In such cases, coordination mechanisms for quality management and organizational learning across all levels of the organization are largely unplanned and ad hoc. To understand the labyrinth of informal connections would require a blueprint only known by the coordinating architects. In such complex systems, communicating information, sharing resources, aligning quality goals, and ensuring accountability to realize goals is often haphazard across levels, and individuals may not understand their roles in the larger system. Such an ad hoc system likely lacks both formal and informal coordination mechanisms, which are administrative tools for achieving productive work and work flow among units toward common quality goals. Martinez and Jarillo (Martinez and Jarillo, 1989) summarized the work of key coordination theorists, including March and Simon, Galbraith, Ouchi, and Thompson, in the first two columns of Table I. Major kinds of coordination mechanisms include formal and informal mechanisms, and the more complex a system is, the larger the number of coordination strategies relied upon (Martinez and Jarillo, 1989).\nCreating fractals for QI: Fundamentally, the fractal model requires an organizational investment in clinicians, managers, and other quality and safety-related professionals, as well as involvement of the patient perspective. One constant factor in the patient safety movement is a clinician\nBuilding capacity for QI and organizational learning: As a system transitions to a fractal model, patient safety and quality leaders at every level must develop or expand their skills. At the unit level, nurse and physician quality leaders should learn fundamental patient safety concepts and tools, such as how to improve safety culture and teamwork, identify safety hazards, provide patient-centered care, implement evidence-based practices, manage projects, lead change, critique data quality, and implement interventions to reduce safety risks. This may also apply for small departments. For larger departments, the designated quality leaders should receive the same fundamental patient safety concepts and training, plus advanced training in implementation, such as (Lean Sigma \"Black Belt\"), and in teamwork, leadership, and evaluation methodology, largely through a master\nEstablishing goals and measures of QI: Each level of the organization needs goals and measures to judge goal attainment. While system-wide goals cascade down through an organization, each level should also set goals and measures that are both intrinsically valued by staff at that level and aligned with the overall organizational mission and objectives. The lower levels (clinical areas or units) often have the largest number of goals because they have to meet system-wide, hospital, department, and unit goals. Paradoxically, the lowest organizational levels typically have the fewest resources to improve. The fractal model hopes to address this paradox by linking local units to resources at other levels of the organization.\nConnecting the fractals, establishing system-wide accountability: There must be accountability to improve patient safety and quality. For this, leaders from each level of the fractal system meet regularly with entities at the next lower level to share learning, ensure they have sufficient resources and skills, periodically review process and outcome measures, problem solve, and act as quality stewards, promoting awareness of and responsiveness to the goals set. For example, health system quality leaders meet with hospital chief executive officers (CEOs) to review performance, hospital CEOs meet with department leaders, and department leaders meet with unit leaders.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe how a fractal-based quality management infrastructure could benefit quality improvement (QI) and patient safety efforts in health care.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The premise for this infrastructure comes from the QI work with health care professionals and organizations. The authors used the fractal structure system in a health system initiative, a statewide collaborative, and several countrywide efforts to improve quality of care. It is responsive to coordination theory and this infrastructure is responsive to coordination theory and repeats specific characteristics at every level of an organization, with vertical and horizontal connections among these levels to establish system-wide interdependence.\nFindings: The fractal system infrastructure helped a health system achieve 96 percent compliance on national core measures, and helped intensive care units across the USA, Spain, and England to reduce central line-associated bloodstream infections.\nPractical implications: The fractal system approach organizes workers around common goals, links all hospital levels and, supports peer learning and accountability, grounds solutions in local wisdom, and effectively uses available resources.\nSocial implications: The fractal structure helps health care organizations meet their social and ethical obligations as learning organizations to provide the highest possible quality of care and safety for patients using their services.\nOriginality/value: The concept of deliberately creating an infrastructure to manage QI and patient safety work and support organizational learning is new to health care. This paper clearly describes how to create a fractal infrastructure that can scale up or down to a department, hospital, health system, state, or country.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Semantic matching of job seeker to vacancy: a bidirectional approach
|
[
"Recommender systems",
"Job description",
"Bidirectional matching",
"Job seeker modelling",
"Semantic matching",
"Vacancy recommendation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The present day industries require a different set of skills from the labor force as compared to the previous ones due to prevalence of automation. As automation is changing the landscape of skill requirements in industries, studies to analyze the requirements of industries, to provide labor market skills set demand, and ultimately to find the jobseeker-vacancy \"best (optimal) match\" is of paramount importance. So far, job seekers look for job vacancy advertisements and study the details of job requirements to decide whether they are suitable for their level of expertise which they have stipulated on their resume. Though vacancies are publicly available, due to an overwhelming volume and veracity of data, job seekers are not able to easily find relevant vacancy for their skill set or are unable to analyze the requirements to estimate its relevance. On the other hand, vacancies are not often prepared with desired skill set required by employers (i.e. job provider). It is also becoming customary that recruiters look for online profiles of potential employees from professional networking sites, e.g. Linkedin(r) and/or via recommendations from networks, such as partners and alliances (Sacchetti, 2013; Rafi and Shaikh, 2013; Hernandez, 2015; Godliman, 2009).\n2. Related works: Taking into account the challenges of semantic matching such as computational time, lack of available labeled data and difficulty in feature selection (Christen, 2012), a combination of algorithms needs to be employed for clustering of the textual data, measuring the similarity, matching and searching.\n3. Methodological framework of the recommender system: The bidirectional jobseeker-to-vacancy matching system being studied in this research is part of the framework shown in Figure 1 that addresses the semantic matching of vacancies with job seeker data. The user interface layer is the component that interacts with the user (i.e. jobseeker or recruitment professional or employer). The logic layer is composed of a number of algorithms to fetch vacancy and jobseeker information from the internet and other sources, analyze and model them. The logic layer not only collects, integrates and models the data, but it also mediates the interaction between the data layer and the user interface layer. The data layer on the other hand stores the data and the model for use by the logic layer during interaction with the user.\n4. Use case in Industry 4.0 jobs: In this section the applicability of the proposed system is examined in the use-case of job transitions in Industry 4.0. The core idea is to identify the potentials for utilizing bidirectional matching for detection of new trends in the job market through temporal analyzing of job vacancies, and ultimately to provide input for job designers toward improving the quality of job description and keeping them in accord with latest changes. One of the progressive initiatives which imposes changes in the job market, especially in industrialized countries, is Industry 4.0[2]. Industry 4.0 refers to the current trend in production systems which aim to enhance the automatization and the data exchange degree to the depth which enables and accelerates self-organization functions in production and associated business processes (Industrie 4.0 Working Group, 2013; Bartodziej, 2016).\n5. Evaluation: In order to evaluate the proposed bidirectional matching method, we utilized job seeker profiles bolstered by data from social networking sites and vacancy data in the area of IoT. Data of individuals from professional network that contains professional details of persons (i.e. attributes) and information produced due to interaction of these individuals on topics (i.e. relations) is collected from online open access sources. After cleaning noisy data and eliminating individuals that have no data in either attributes, relations or both, we obtained 65 records of persons with data about themselves and professional connections as well as 110 vacancies. From 65 job seekers with relevant skills for the jobs in 110 vacancy positions, to test the system, evaluation is done using accuracy measure as shown in Equation (1) because it is an evaluation metric that gives a single measure of quality (Manning et al., 2008). The accuracy measure which is the ratio of correct matches to total number of records evaluates the effectiveness, such that CM is the number of records that are actually correct matches to the job under consideration, CNM is the number of individuals that have relevant skills but not matched, NCM is the number of individuals that do not have relevant skills but matched and NCNM is the number of individuals that do not have relevant skills and are not matched. Then:(1)\n6. Conclusion and outlook: The paper discusses the general framework of online occupational recommender system that utilizes bidirectional matching, occupational analysis method, to improve the accuracy of job matching to job seekers and enrich the quality of recommendations to job seekers and recruiters as well as job designers. It also explored the importance of occupational standards and social networking data in the jobseeker-to-vacancy matching in online recruitment systems and presents an Industry 4.0 use case scenario to showcase the trends in job demands and jobseeker interests with promising insights.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework of an automatic bidirectional matching system that measures the degree of semantic similarity of job-seeker qualifications and skills, against the vacancy provided by employers or job-agents.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper presents a framework of bidirectional jobseeker-to-vacancy matching system. Using occupational data from various sources such as the WageIndicator web survey, International Standard Classification of Occupations, European Skills, Competences, Qualifications, and Occupations as well as vacancy data from various open access internet sources and job seekers information from social networking sites, the authors apply machine learning techniques for bidirectional matching of job vacancies and occupational standards to enhance the contents of job vacancies and job seekers profiles. The authors also apply bidirectional matching of job seeker profiles and vacancies, i.e., semantic matching vacancies to job seekers and vice versa in the individual level. Moreover, data from occupational standards and social networks were utilized to enhance the relevance (i.e. degree of similarity) of job vacancies and job seekers, respectively.\nFindings: The paper provides empirical insights of increase in job vacancy advertisements on the selected jobs - Internet of Things - with respect to other job vacancies, and identifies the evolution of job profiles and its effect on job vacancies announcements in the era of Industry 4.0. In addition, the paper shows the gap between job seeker interests and available jobs in the selected job area.\nResearch limitations/implications: Due to limited data about jobseekers, the research results may not guarantee high quality of recommendation and maturity of matching results. Therefore, further research is required to test if the proposed system works for other domains as well as more diverse data sets.\nOriginality/value: The paper demonstrates how online jobseeker-to-vacancy matching can be improved by use of semantic technology and the integration of occupational standards, web survey data, and social networking data into user profile collection and matching.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Anticipated embarrassment due to social presence withholds consumers from purchasing products that feature a lucky charm
|
[
"China",
"Consumer behaviour",
"Cognition",
"Cross-cultural studies",
"Social groups",
"Personal selling"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Superstitious beliefs pervade society (Vyse, 2014). Many buildings in China do not have a fourth floor, as the number 4 is considered unlucky in Chinese culture; similarly, Western culture considers the number 13 as bringing bad luck and avoids this number in hotel floor numberings. Chinese residents deflect bad luck by putting up mirrors in front of their home (Simmons and Schindler, 2003). Westerners knock on wood or cross their fingers for good luck (Keinan, 2002, Damisch et al., 2010). Superstitious beliefs also impact marketplace behaviours. When people in China select a house to live in or buy, the traditional Chinese belief of Feng Shui often plays an important role in the decision-making process and Feng Shui is a multibillion dollar business in Hong Kong (Wu et al., 2012).\nTheoretical background and hypothesis development: Consumer superstitious beliefs and lucky charms\nStudy one: The main objective of Study 1 was to provide initial evidence for the negative effect of social presence on consumer preference for selecting a product featuring a lucky charm. We manipulate social presence using trained confederates and observe choices between identical products that either carry or do not carry a lucky charm. The study uses real products that the decision makers may keep for themselves.\nStudy two: Study 2 has two objectives:\nStudy three: The objectives of Study 3 are to (i) rule out the alternative explanation that being perceived as having a poor aesthetic taste or judgement of quality underlies the effect of social presence on purchase decisions of a product featuring a lucky charm; (ii) see if the findings from our previous studies can be replicated. We manipulate social presence using an actual observer and record both the participant's product selection and purchase intention.\nGeneral discussion: The present research examined how social presence influences consumers' purchase selection of products featuring a lucky charm. We find that anticipated embarrassment due to social presence negatively influences consumers' purchase decisions. Our findings contribute to the literature on how superstition and lucky beliefs influence consumption behaviour in social settings and have important managerial implications.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Several studies have shown that superstitious beliefs, such as beliefs in \"lucky\" product attributes, influence consumer purchase behaviour. Still, little is known about how social influence, in particular mere social presence, impacts consumer superstition-related purchase decisions. Drawing on impression management theory, this paper aims to investigate the effect of social presence on consumer purchase decisions of products featuring lucky charms including the role of anticipated embarrassment as a mediator of the social presence effect.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In three studies, participants select products that feature or do not feature a lucky charm. They make these selections under varying conditions of social presence, as induced by the shopping setting in the scenario or through the use of confederates or fellow participants observing them make a real product selection. Participants are students from Australia and China.\nFindings: The studies show that social presence makes consumers less likely to select products that feature a lucky charm. This suppressing effect is mediated by the consumers' anticipated embarrassment.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study investigates the effect of social presence but does not investigate different parameters of social presence such as the number of people present and their familiarity. The study investigates effects for purchase settings but does not include effects of usage and neither does it look into differences across product types or lucky charm types.\nPractical implications: Marketers should be careful to not make lucky charms too publicly salient. Online settings are more suitable than mortar-and-brick settings for selling products featuring a lucky charm.\nOriginality/value: The present research is the first to investigate consumer purchase behaviour for a product featuring a lucky charm. It is also the first to investigate the impact of social influence on superstition-based decision-making.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Governing knowledge sharing behaviour in post-Soviet Kazakhstan
|
[
"Affective commitment",
"Knowledge sharing behaviour",
"Knowledge governance"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: It is commonly recognized that effective knowledge management is the key to sustained competitive advantage (Alavi and Leidner, 1999). In addition, knowledge sharing, as an important component of knowledge management, is a critical tool for knowledge creation, organizational learning and performance achievement (Bartol and Srivastava, 2002). However, this behaviour does not happen on its own, as it is dependent on the willingness of individuals to identify the knowledge they possess and to share it when required (Nonaka, 1994). In addition, particular unique features of knowledge (such as its largely personal and tacit nature) may impose some kind of barriers for this process (Kogut and Zander, 1993; Szulanski, 1996). In response to these challenges, scholars have made efforts to develop a range of governance mechanisms to promote knowledge sharing behaviour (KSB). Generally speaking, knowledge governance is an organizational mechanism through which knowledge-related practices may be encouraged (Foss and Mahoney, 2010). In particular, knowledge governance is the deployment of specific governance mechanisms (decision rights, routines, rewards, modes of communication, etc. that can be combined in multiple ways across governance structure) that can influence the processes of exchange, transfer and sharing of knowledge within organizations (Grandori, 1997; Pemsel et al., 2014).\nPost-soviet Kazakhstani context: After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Kazakhstan entered a transitional period, which can be characterized as a range of radical socio-economic reforms. Recently, Kazakhstan has made considerable progress in transforming its planned economy to a market economy. Despite these economic changes, contemporary Kazakhstani organizations face many challenges in implementing good governance practices. In particular, such features of post-Soviet Kazakhstani organizational culture as rigid vertical structures, the dominance of a \"no-trust\" environment, a tendency to suspicion, large power distance, short-term orientation (Minbaeva and Muratbekova-Touron, 2013) and \"knowledge sharing hostility\" (Michailova and Husted, 2003) can be considered as obstacles to knowledge management. Furthermore, managers in emerging economies often experience strong employee resistance to acquiring and sharing knowledge within the firm (Hsu, 2006). Accordingly, there is a unique opportunity to examine how individuals share their knowledge with others within the post-Soviet Kazakhstani context. Consequently, identifying effective KGMs will help companies to create a facilitative work environment.\nLiterature review: Knowledge governance mechanisms\nResearch methodology: In this study, a survey method was used to test the research model. Survey data were collected using a single respondent approach, which is based on the notion that quality of information from key informants is sufficiently rich for building theories that address complex organizational phenomena (Heide and John, 1990).\nData analysis and results: The hypothesized model shown in Figure 2 was tested using structural equation modelling (SEM) approach, which was supported by AMOS 18.0. SEM is a multivariate approach that is designed specifically for analyzing causal models. In our study, SEM was used to develop both the measurement model and the structural model. The measurement model was assessed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to examine whether the constructs have satisfactory reliability and validity. The structural model was also utilized to examine the strength and direction of the relationship between the theoretical constructs.\nDiscussion of the findings: This study has examined the impact of KGMs on affective commitment through the data collected from employees of different sectors in Kazakhstan. The research findings showed that formal and informal KGMs do significantly influence KSB (H1). Furthermore, this study shows that formal and informal KGMs promote employees loyalty, i.e. affective commitment (H3). In addition, it should be noted that affective commitment has a positive influence on KSB (H2). The findings support the mediating effects of affective commitment in the relationship between formal and informal KGMs and KSB (H4). In summary, the proposed model goes beyond previous work by providing alternative models of KGMs that might affect affective commitment. Thus, the proposed theoretical model is a useful tool for practitioners to facilitate KSB among employees.\nLimitations: This research has several limitations that should be mentioned. First, the scope of the research is limited to the Kazakhstani context. Future research could use longitudinal data to determine whether KGMs have a long-term impact on affective commitment. All surveys were based on a single respondent approach with a lack of multilevel or contextual organizational elements. Another potential limitation is the reliance on self-reported questionnaire data, might cause common method bias. Future studies may reduce the possibility of common method bias by collecting data from different sources.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to expand the understanding of knowledge governance approaches by examining governance mechanisms that can be used to enhance affective commitment. Then, this paper aims to investigate the mediating effects of affective commitment on the relationship between knowledge governance mechanisms (KGMs) and knowledge sharing.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Self-administered questionnaires were used to gather data from 391 employees working in a wide range of organizations operating in Kazakhstan. Regression analysis and structure equation models (SPSS and AMOS) were used to assess the research model.\nFindings: The empirical results indicated that formal and informal KGMs have a significant impact on knowledge sharing. Moreover, the results revealed that affective commitment mediates the relationship between KGMs and knowledge sharing.\nPractical implications: The proposed KGM is a response to practical necessity to promote the affective commitment by combinations of organizational antecedents.\nOriginality/value: It is the first attempt in post-Soviet Kazakhstan to systematically analyze the effect of knowledge governance on affective commitment. In addition, this paper offers a conceptual framework where affective commitment plays the mediating role in successful knowledge sharing.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Gastronomic clusters in an Ecuadorian tourist destination: the case of the province of Manabi
|
[
"Gastronomic tourism",
"Tourist segmentation",
"Motivation",
"Satisfaction",
"Assessment of attributes",
"Manabí",
"Ecuador"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The satisfaction of the tourist can be conditioned, to a greater or lesser extent, by the enjoyment of the culinary pleasures they have sampled. Local cuisine may, therefore, be considered an accessory matter and one of no importance, associated with purely physiological drivers based on the human need to consume food, or they can become a fundamental element of motivation for the choice of destination and tourist experience (Basil and Basil, 2009; Lopez-Guzman et al., 2017). In the latter case, the local gastronomy is considered a relevant factor in understanding the history of the place, its customs, the social relationships or the celebrations of the local community itself.For studying the relationship between tourism and gastronomy, it is necessary to distinguish tourist segments on the basis of the tourists' perceptions and motivations regarding the local gastronomy (Hjalager, 2004; Pesonen et al., 2011). A new segment of gastronomic tourists is currently being developed: the haute cuisine chefs. These exclusive travellers look to discover, among other things, new preparation methods, new combinations of flavours and textures, unique ethnic products and special condiments. Based on these discoveries, these tourists can provide differentiation and exclusivity in renowned restaurants. This new way of coming closer to the gastronomy of a destination becomes a source of innovative development in the kitchens of the most renowned restaurants (Baldwin, 2017).Gastronomic tourism suggests an important economic contribution, especially in developing countries (Mgonje et al., 2016), and it is, therefore, becoming an important driving force for progress in many destinations, allowing for the additional value of local gastronomy and native products enjoyed in the same place where they were generated. Different studies have, therefore, analysed gastronomic tourism on the basis of three different points of view: first, from the consumer's point of view, managing to discover the opinion of tourists; second, from the producer's point of view, with the aim of discovering the proposals that different offerors are providing in a specific destination; and third, from the point of view of the economic development and well-being that this form of tourism provides to the destination (Andersson et al., 2017). This line of research focuses on specifying how gastronomy may be an attractive element for the destination, and additionally, an element for the promotion of agricultural products from this geographic area. Research carried out on this basis has obtained two important findings that prove this ascendancy (Fields, 2002; Hall et al., 2003): (1) usually tourists, who place great importance on the gastronomy of a destination, have greater purchasing power, and as a result, expenditure; and (2) gastronomic tourists are very demanding regarding gastronomy quality and authenticity in the place visited.This research contributes to the academic literature regarding tourist experiences in relation to local gastronomy. This study also suggests innovation in the use of segmentation models for culinary tourism, widely considered in Europe (Nicoletti et al., 2019), but applied in this case to developing countries in Latin America. The study, therefore, begins with segmentation in terms of the greater or lesser interest of tourists in gastronomy on their trip, and on the basis of this, the motivations and culinary experiences during their visit to the province of Manabi (Ecuador) are analysed. In addition, this Ecuadorian province also boasts an important cultural heritage, among which the traditional weaving of the Ecuadorian toquilla straw hat stands out (included in 2012 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO). Naturally, all tourists consume food at a destination, but the ways of approaching this gastronomy may represent interests and motivations that differ greatly among visitors (Hjalager, 2004; Pesonen et al., 2011).The pre-Colombian, colonial and republican history of the province of Manabi is a testament to its processes of cultural enrichment, which have led to great gastronomic diversity. This culinary proposal is well represented in the offerings of restaurants and their emblematic settings, such as the Parque del Marisco (Seafood Park) located on the scenic promenade of the city of Manta. The gastronomic variety of the province provides a combination of staple foods such as maize, peanuts, cocoa, cassava, beans, plantains or chayote.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Tourist segmentation and gastronomy\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Survey design\n4. Results: 4.1 Gastronomic clusters\n5. Discussion: Tourist segmentation, in terms of gastronomic interest, has previously been analysed (Bjork and Kauppinen-Raisanen, 2016; Kivela and Crotts, 2005; McKercher et al., 2008; Thompson and Prideaux, 2009). These studies, as well as the current study, are based on the existence of different tourist attitudes and motivations towards local gastronomy. The existence of tourist segments with a high gastronomic interests and others with a reduced interest is also indicated. In our study, the segment with a high gastronomic interest has been called experiencers, following the model of Bjork and Kauppinen-Raisanen (2016). Prior research has also referred to this experimental segment as gastronomy tourists (Hjalager, 2004) or definite culinary tourists (McKercher, 2008). Regarding the tourist segment with a low interest in local gastronomy, this research has called them survivors, following the model of Bjork and Kauppinen-Raisanen (2016). Other research has called this group recreational visitors (Hjalager, 2004), non-culinary tourists (McKercher et al., 2008) or not interested (Thompson and Prideaux, 2009).This research provides evidence that the gastronomic motivations of visitors are heterogeneous, being conditioned by their higher or lower gastronomic interest. A grouping of culinary motivations into three dimensions has, therefore, been conducted: cultural experience, excitement and interpersonal relationships. Previous studies have analysed motivations towards local gastronomy, grouping them into different dimensions (Bjork and Kauppinen-Raisanen, 2016; Kim et al., 2009, 2013; Sims, 2010). Andersson et al. (2017), for example, grouped them into: sensory, cultural and social. Meanwhile, Baldoni Hendijani (2016) identified the following: heritage, serving, food environment, variety, availability, sensory and ingredients.This research corroborates the results obtained in the studies of Bjork and Kauppinen-Raisanen (2016) and Lopez-Guzman et al. (2017) that gastronomy is an important component for increasing tourist satisfaction. On the basis of this idea, Haven-Tang and Jones (2005) affirm that tourist destinations should consider gastronomy as the main component for allowing tourists to obtain a unique experience when visiting.\n6. Conclusions: Tourist destinations are currently counting on strengthening and developing their gastronomy because they can respond to the tourist's wish to discover the cultural uniqueness of the place visited through the enjoyment of culinary pleasures. There are tourists who consider the destination's gastronomy and even the cuisine of a specific local restaurant, one of the main motivations for choosing a destination. This research has been developed based on this idea and considers tourism and gastronomy in the province of Manabi (Ecuador), which also enjoys a cultural heritage recognised by UNESCO - the traditional weaving of the Ecuadorian toquilla straw hat. This study builds on the emerging research conducted on the relationship between tourism and gastronomy in Latin America, where culinary tourism is becoming a source of sustainable economic and social development.Research has shown that tourists have different attitudes and levels of interest in local gastronomy. By addressing interest in gastronomy, three types of tourists have been detected. These have been called survivors, enjoyers and experiencers, following the model of Bjork and Kauppinen-Raisanen (2016). Regarding these segments, local gastronomy represents a relevant role in the segment with the most gastronomic interest. Interest in gastronomy is also a conditioning factor for culinary motivations and visitor satisfaction. By analysing the gastronomic motivations of visitors, evidence has been found for the presence of three different motivational dimensions: excitement, interpersonal relationships and cultural experience.One of the most important contributions of this study is its verification that culinary motivations condition satisfaction with local gastronomy. The results of this research indicate that the dimensions of cultural excitement and interpersonal relationship are those that contribute most to gastronomic satisfaction. Tourists declared high satisfaction with their gastronomic experience in Manabi, with this being statistically different in terms of interest in local gastronomy. Similarly, high gastronomic interest turns into different perceptions regarding the attributes of local cuisine. In this respect, the most valued attributes were \"smell and taste,\" \"visual appeal\"and \"fresh ingredients.\"This study not only sought to advance the theoretical knowledge concerning gastronomic tourism but also to provide practical implications to help efficient management in this sector. The characterisation of the different tourist segments identified and the assessments that these dictate regarding the destination's gastronomy allow tourist managers to develop and offer tourist products adapted to the wishes and needs of tourists. So that local gastronomy can become another tool for tourist competition, it is necessary to adopt measures that allow for more agile access to public and private financing, to improve and modernise dining establishments in the province of Manabi. This will allow for differentiation based on exclusive service and higher quality. Such changes will allow visitors who come to enjoy the gastronomy of Manabi to not only enjoy it during their visit but also afterwards, in their place of origin, as they will want to continue tasting the products and preparations, which will eventually become another source of promotion.The implications of the research have been carefully considered. The need to combine gastronomic innovation with the culinary tradition of the area should be highlighted. In order to do this, the use of local and community products is essential. At the same time, this increases the fair and inclusive economic development of the tourist phenomenon in the local community itself. In this process, it is necessary to perform an intense work of research by the agents and managers implied with the purpose of saving, visualising and valuing foodstuffs, recipes, tricks and secrets of traditional Manabi cuisine. All of this provides a special innovation and new flavours in dishes of the restaurants of Manabi. Additionally, with the knowledge the study provides, specific content could be designed in some training and professional itineraries regarding tourism in the province of Manabi, allowing for the students to have a better understanding of what tourists want from their gastronomy. All of this will allow for graduates from the different specific workshops and courses to have better skills to join the labour market or entrepreneurial and self-employment experiences that allow for the equitable use on behalf of local society in relation to its rich gastronomic heritage.The main restriction of the study is the limited time period in which the fieldwork was carried out (June and July 2018), and the study should, therefore, be extended to the remaining months of the year to address other situations connected to different seasonal features. Another limitation of the research is based on the partiality of the study, as it only considers tourist demand. In future studies, it would, therefore, be interesting to expand the current study to other stakeholder groups, such as the local community or entities that provide the tourists with offers in the province of Manabi.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Gastronomy is currently becoming a predominant factor for understanding and taking part in the cultural heritage of a destination. The enjoyment of culinary pleasures has become a primary motivating factor when choosing a travel destination. Gastronomy is, therefore, a fundamental part of the satisfaction that the traveller experiences when visiting a location.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data collection for the research was based on the completion of fieldwork with a sample of tourists who visited the Ecuadorian province of Manabi. Based on this understanding and completed fieldwork, the study analyses the gastronomic experiences of tourists visiting the province of Manabi (Ecuador).\nFindings: study shows the existence of three types of tourists, based on their higher or lower interest in the local gastronomy when travelling: survivors, enjoyers and experiencers. The results also reveal that there are different levels of satisfaction regarding local gastronomy in terms of interest and the previous cultural motivation of the tourist.\nPractical implications: The characterisation of the different tourist segments identified and the assessments that these dictate regarding the destination's gastronomy allow tourist managers to develop and offer tourist products adapted to the wishes and needs of tourists.\nOriginality/value: Research involves the innovation in the use of segmentation models for culinary tourism widely considered in Europe but applied in this case to developing countries in Latin America.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
When and why does the name of the brand still matter? Developing the temporal dimension of brand name equity theory
|
[
"Brand equity",
"Branding",
"Brand names",
"Temporality"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This paper develops theory concerned with changes that occur over time to the functions and importance of the brand name element of a branded entity. This is a key contribution because, while the temporal dimension is acknowledged as important within consumer based brand equity, it is under researched and inadequately theoretically conceptualised.\nLiterature review: A number of streams of literature are of particular relevance and are now reviewed. Given that the focus of the paper is on the temporal dimension of brand name equity, literature concerned with the importance of time as a variable in the consideration of brand equity is examined. This underlines limited deliberation of the temporal dimension within theoretical discussion about branding. Second, as the paper is centred on the brand name element, literature that looks at the sources of equity for a branded entity is reviewed, with a particular focus on the relevance of the brand name element as a key equity source for the branded entity. The final section looks at literature that has attempted to bring together the brand name element, brand equity and the temporal dimension. This is analysed to draw out the research gap within the literature.\nMethod: Given the requirement for theory building in an under-researched area, it was determined that this could best be achieved through the use of an exploratory and qualitative approach (Doz, 2011). There was a need for rich and deep individual data, with a study that was focused on gaining insight about a specific issue (Hogg and Banister, 2001). This centred on the meaning, structure and essence given to the phenomenon of the brand name element within the lived experience of particular individuals. An issue of this nature suggested that an interpretivist and phenomenological perspective should be used (Carson et al., 2009).\nFindings: There was general confirmation from all of the participants that the brand name element of their particular established branded product was indeed of ongoing significant importance. This is an important finding as it is supportive of study validity through demonstration of consistency with the previous study.\nDiscussion: In this section the implications of these findings for the development of theory and for management are discussed. In addition, further research plans are presented.\nSummary of contribution and conclusion: This paper makes an important contribution through the development of theory on how the functions and importance of the brand name element, in its relation to the overall branded entity, change over time.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to fill a current gap in the literature, through the development of theory concerned with changes that occur over time to the functions and importance of the brand name element of a branded entity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An initial theoretical conceptualisation was developed from the existing literature. Study participants whose behaviour was found not to conform to this initial conceptualisation were included in subsequent research to obtain greater understanding. The study method used was a series of interviews, with the obtained qualitative data analysed using template analysis. This resulted in the development of a revised theoretical conceptualisation.\nFindings: Various functions of the brand name element, identified as connotation, denotation, linking and branded entity constancy, are ongoing important providers of brand equity to some consumers for established branded entities. This challenges a position obtained from existing literature that the brand name element of an established branded entity becomes of minimal importance over time.\nOriginality/value: Value-generating functions of the brand name element that persist over time were identified, leading to the development of a theoretical conceptualisation of the change in the importance of brand name equity over time.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
An integrated model of price, satisfaction and loyalty: an empirical analysis in the service sector
|
[
"Prices",
"Fair value",
"Customer satisfaction",
"Customer loyalty"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this article.\nIntroduction: In today's highly competitive global markets, managers seek to improve organizational effectiveness by identifying organizational metrics which contribute to long-term success (Deshpande and Farley, 1999). However, not all of these strategies have proved successful, and one reason for this may be insufficient marketing support (Lin et al., 2006). The marketing concept stipulates that in order to achieve sustained success, organizations should identify and satisfy customer needs and wants more effectively than their competitors (Drucker, 1954; McCarthy, 1960; Day, 1994). Additionally, customer satisfaction is closely linked to many relationship marketing dimensions and other marketing instruments, such as customer loyalty, relational benefits or confidence, and price or distribution, respectively. However, factors such as price fairness or price acceptance have not received the degree of empirical attention paid to other antecedents and consequences of satisfaction mentioned above. If the central role of pricing in consumer behavior as well as cost effectiveness is considered as one of the criteria that customers rank as being particularly important when selecting a product or service, the fact that the price has received little attention when analyzing customer satisfaction is astonishing (Huber et al., 2001). Consequently, in order to understand the relationship between satisfaction, loyalty and price, an empirical study should be conducted.In addition, service marketing is different to goods marketing, and is usually more complex to manage. In service industries, the distinctive features of services (intangibility, inseparability, perishability and heterogeneity) require understanding and satisfying customer needs and expectations, creating, communicating and delivering customer value, and keeping promises (Aksoy et al., 2003). This is particularly true in the case of air travel. Air travel is intangible due to the fact that customers have limited access to any benefits until the start of a journey. Inseparability means that airline services cannot be separated from their providers. Perishability is significant in that an unoccupied airline seat cannot be stored for later sale or use during peak periods. Heterogenity is also prevalent as the standards of airlines vary greatly, as do the multitude of variables that influence the demand for airline products. In this sense, while price is an important determinant in purchasing and post-purchasing processes, the central role of price is especially well recognized as an important variable in services with complex pricing structures rather than tangible products (Matzler et al., 2006).While product, distribution, and promotion involve the outlay of resources, price is the one element of the marketing mix that directly influences an inflow of resources. For this reason, a critical activity for service managers is to set and manage prices. To manage pricing decisions effectively, marketing managers should attempt to understand how consumers respond to price changes. For these reasons, the central goal of this research is to empirically extend previous research regarding the relationship between price fairness, customer satisfaction, loyalty and price acceptance. As a consequence, this study describes the theoretical relationships between the concepts mentioned above. This research analyzes these dimensions in a concrete consumer sample to better understand the relationships between them. In order to do this, a previous analysis of the features of price fairness, customer satisfaction, loyalty and price acceptance is needed. To be more precise, the objective of this study is to integrate the lines of research on prices, satisfaction and loyalty in services through a path model that is proposed and tested. Therefore, this research is capable of filling the empirical gap between satisfaction and price.\nLiterature review: Perceptions of price fairness\nMethodology: The research process involved the following steps. First, a literature review was undertaken to identify perceived price fairness, customer satisfaction, loyalty and price acceptance dimensions within the service sector. Second, the population and sampling procedure was established. Third, a questionnaire was constructed. Finally, the methods of data collection and analyses were determined.Sample data\nResults: This section provides results of the analysis on the variables described. This will be followed by subsequent analyses of the relationship between perceived price fairness, customer satisfaction, loyalty and price acceptance. In addition to descriptive statistics, multivariate analysis techniques were used in the data with the objective of contrasting the relationship proposed and verifying the possible results, in agreement with the hypothesized relationships.Before going deeper into the relationships above mentioned, the fit of the scales in relation to the data was analyzed. The reliability of the measures was examined through a confirmatory factor analysis and the calculation of Cronbach's alpha coefficients. According to Anderson and Gerbing (1988), confirmatory measurement models should be evaluated and re-specified before measurement and structural equation models are examined simultaneously. Thus, before testing the measurement model overall, each construct in the model was analyzed separately. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that each indicator loaded significantly on its designated factor. In addition, the chi-square/degrees of freedom ratio was well below March and Hocevar's (1985) criterion. Reliability was measured through an examination of Cronbach's alpha coefficients, which, for scale acceptability, Nunnally (1978) suggested should be over 0.7. Cronbach's alpha coefficients were found which ranged from 0.88 (price acceptance) to 0.92 (customer satisfaction), and which exceed the threshold value, conforming to Nunnally's (1978) criterion.Using the criterion set forth by Hair et al. (1999), an examination was carried out to establish whether the average variance extracted and the composite reliability for the measures was greater than 0.5 and 0.7, respectively. The average variance extracted and composite reliabilities in all cases exceed the respective threshold values (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988), which provide evidence of convergent validity (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988). Similarly, evidence of discriminant validity was found through Fornell and Larcker's (1981) test, which recommends comparing the average variance extracted with the variance shared between the construct and other constructs in the model. This was confirmed for all pairs of constructs. In addition, as mentioned previously, the survey instrument was pretested to improve content validity. To sum up, the data showed satisfactory empirical support for our conceptualization of the constructs of perceived price fairness, customer satisfaction, loyalty and price acceptance (see Table I).Given the nature of the hypothesized relationships, the proposed relationships were tested simultaneously using structural equation modeling (SEM). This technique allows the existing causal relationships between price fairness, customer satisfaction, loyalty and price acceptance to be assessed. The measurement scales used for each concept are the result of the evaluation process described. In particular, the model paths were estimated using EQS 6.1 following the recommendations of Gerbing and Anderson (1988), Bentler (1995) and Byrne (1994). The standardized path coefficients of the structural model as estimated by EQS are given in Figure 2. In addition, the specified model was compared with a revised model, following the recommendations of Gerbing and Anderson (1988), through chi-square differences and the chi-square/degrees of freedom ratio, along with comparative assessments of parsimony. These evaluations revealed that the specified model was a better fit than the revised model across all indexes examined. Consequently, the initial specified model was examined to gauge overall validity.There are several tests to ascertain whether an SEM model fits the observed data. The chi-square statistic provides a measurement of how well the model fits the data. Therefore, chi-square was used to test the relationship proposed. In addition to the chi-square test and its associated p-values, the comparative fit index (CFI), the normed fit index (NFI), the non-normed fit index (NNFI), and the root mean square residuals (RMR), are used as tests of model fit. The overall fit of the measurement model are kh2=1872.2 (p=0.00), CFI=0.954, NFI=0.941, NNFI=0.950, and RMR=0.052. Bentler (1995) indicates that CFI, NFI and NNFI values of above 0.9 suggest adequate fit. In addition, RMRs were lower than 0.08 (Hair et al., 1999). As illustrated in Figure 2, the global goodness-of-fit statistics indicate that the structural model represents the data structure well. Standardized parameter estimates for the model are shown in Figure 2.H1 states that perceived price fairness is positively associated with customer satisfaction. The results lend support to the claim that perceived fairness of a given price is linked to customer satisfaction because the estimated parameter between both constructs is both positive and significant. Thus, the result supports the acceptance of H1 and is consistent with previous studies (e.g. Bei and Chiao, 2001). H2 and H3 respectively argue that customer satisfaction and perceived price fairness are positively associated with customer loyalty. The structural equation modeling provides support for these hypotheses, in that each is estimated to be significantly associated with loyalty. Therefore, this supports the hypotheses that a fair price increases customer satisfaction and loyalty. Evidence in support of H2 and H3 is found in the significant links with loyalty (see Figure 2). Therefore, H2 and H3 are fully supported and the result is consistent with previous studies (e.g. Kalyanaram and Little, 1994). H4 and H5 are related to the links between customer satisfaction and loyalty and price acceptance. These hypotheses respectively state that higher levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty are associated with higher levels of price acceptance. Therefore, this supports the hypotheses that a satisfied and loyal customer is willing to pay more for the service. The results support both H4 and H5, and show significant links between customer satisfaction, loyalty and price acceptance, leading to the acceptance of these hypotheses. The result is also consistent with previous studies (e.g. Huber et al., 2001). To summarize, all the hypothesized relationships were supported.\nConclusion: This article examines the relationship between price fairness, customer satisfaction, loyalty and price acceptance. The study finds a positive relationship between these variables. These findings confirm the results of previous studies, such as Kalyanaram and Little (1994), Anderson (1996) and Huber et al. (2001). The present study utilizes a model that permits the examination of consumer behaviour procedures, regarding satisfaction, loyalty and price acceptance, resulting from individuals' perceptions of price fairness that underlie their transactions with airlines. In this case, sensitivity to the total amount of profit extracted from a single customer through a set of transactions with a single firm drives aggregate fairness judgments and may have implications for relationship marketing and customer lifetime value (Bolton et al., 2003). When repeat purchases of a service by a customer over time constitute a set of transactions, fairness constraints in the aggregate should have important implications for loyalty pricing.This study makes a contribution towards filling the void in the marketing literature on satisfaction and loyalty by including the role of perceived price fairness and price acceptance. Price is an important element for consumers when purchasing; it therefore has a large influence on consumers' satisfaction judgments (Herrmann et al., 2007). The results indicate that price acceptance is directly influenced by satisfaction judgments and loyalty. In addition, price fairness influences price acceptance indirectly through customer satisfaction and loyalty.Theoretical and managerial implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of customer satisfaction both directly and indirectly (through loyalty) on price acceptance. In addition, price fairness is considered as an antecedent of customer satisfaction and loyalty.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Based on a theoretical discussion regarding the relationship among price fairness, customer satisfaction, loyalty, and price acceptance, empirical research was conducted to test the proposed relationships. Multiple-item indicators from previous studies were employed to measure the constructs.\nFindings: - The results from the study provide empirical support, suggesting that perceived price fairness influences customer satisfaction and loyalty. The analysis also suggests that customer satisfaction and loyalty are two important antecedents of price acceptance.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The study ponders the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty and price acceptance, while other factors that have an influence on price acceptance are not considered.\nPractical implications: - The research results suggest that perceived price fairness in service industries can be viewed as a threshold factor in order to maintain satisfied and loyal customers. Additionally, managers should consider that price acceptance depends on the level of satisfaction and loyalty.\nOriginality/value: - The present study provides useful information on the relationship among price fairness, customer satisfaction, loyalty, and price acceptance in service industries.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The role of customer clubs in recent telecom relationships
|
[
"Trade associations",
"Customer relations",
"Sweden",
"Telecommunications"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Customer clubs are assumed to create loyalty from the company perspective (Reichheld and Sasser, 1990). However, they seem to have attained a position of their own in many companies, and to have an institution-like function (Butscher, 2002). Such a position supports the alienation between the customer club and other parts of the business. As a consequence, many club programs still offer their customers the same kinds of benefits as they did when the club was launched, even if the competitive situation has changed considerably and having a customer club has become almost a standard feature. The fact that many customers are members of several clubs, even in the same industry, is seen as a sign of diffuse customer perceptions of the loyalty concept. The changing competitive situation for most companies, in turn, means that the reasons for joining a club have changed considerably: we thus define the customer club as it was perceived by most customers in Gustafsson et al. (2004): \"A membership related to the specific company including benefits that are mostly apparent in customers' relationships as repayment formed in different ways and initiated by the company\".Club membership has been found to be influential in terms of value perception (Bolton and Drew, 1991; Bolton et al., 2000) and satisfaction (Stauss et al., 2001) in customer relationships. The function of the clubs from the customer perspective has been rarely researched, however. Customer use of services usually accumulates in the levels of membership. In many industries and particularly in telecommunications, this accumulation process is accordingly based on the frequency concept as far as the management of the customer club is concerned. Behavioural models of the frequency concept, again, have traditionally been connected with the static perspective and a price focus (Nicosia, 1966; Howard and Sheth, 1969). Some researchers have been convinced of the clear connection between frequency and loyalty (Headley and Miller, 1993), however, which is in direct contrast with early consumer-behaviour models. It was not until recently that the price focus again was highlighted in models of loyalty (Sharma and Patterson, 1999; Johnson and Gustafsson, 2000; Gustafsson et al., 2003): a distinction is drawn between affective, meaning emotional attachment to a company, and calculative commitment, based on the monetary evaluation of the advantages of being a customer. Old models included the elements of price, frequency and advertising in detached purchase situations, and only satisfaction was considered connected to loyalty. The unclear connection between the concepts of frequency and commitment in the literature form the research problem of this study. We wish to reconsider these concepts in telecom relationships in the context of customer-club membership because we believe that this will reveal something about customer commitment to companies operating customer clubs.There is a gap in the literature on relationships regarding the role of customer clubs in terms of commitment to the relationship, given a clear definition of the frequency concept. The literature has traditionally concentrated on the affective aspect of commitment (Gronroos, 1989; Edvardsson, 1992; Morgan and Hunt, 1994; Gummesson, 1995). Early behavioural models may have something to offer in enhancing our understanding of the calculative role in the relationship perspective, which has been neglected in the literature on relationship marketing. The assumption in this research is that the customer-club function seen from the administrators' perspective is stuck in the older view of loyalty, i.e. frequency of usage is a good measure of actual loyalty (Grisaffe et al., 1997). On the other hand, customer clubs are assumed to affect the stability of the relationships according to the affective view of commitment. Therefore, we find it purposeful to reconsider the frequency concept in customer clubs.The purpose of this study is to enhance understanding of the club's role in the customer relationships of a telecommunications company by reconsidering the concepts of frequency and commitment in a telecom-customer club. We have taken a customer view by interviewing members of the club about their behaviour related to their membership, which we consider against the company's view of what constitutes a loyal customer.Before presenting the findings, we offer a theoretical framework that focuses on loyalty and the effect of two concepts on it: frequency and commitment. The relationship perspective is dominant in our study, and the idea behind the frequency and commitment focus is to highlight the theoretical difference between the contexts of early consumer models and today's relationship view. We give details about our methodology and analysis procedure, and then present our findings. We discuss the results and the limitations of the study, and conclude by offering suggestions for future research.\nThe loyalty concept and customer clubs from a relationship perspective: The frequency concept appears in the club administration of the telecom company in the following way. The company chooses the customers who are offered membership of the club, volume of usage determining qualification for membership. Volume incorporates telephone use, mobile use and internet use. Moreover, the frequency of the club-account usage influences whether the customer is categorised as an active or a passive club member. Club-account use (club behaviour) consists of accrued telecom currency and shopping services. It was this categorisation that made us reflect on the harmonisation between the loyalty effect of the club as expressed by the company and their view on the usefulness of the frequency concept for this purpose. In other words, in terms of the administration of the club, it seemed that the company relied on the ultimate connection between frequency and loyalty, which conflicts with the planned effect of the customer club as set out in behaviour models (Nicosia, 1966; Howard and Sheth, 1969).Routinised-response behaviour in telecommunications\nThe method: The sample\nFindings: From the active segment of 19 customers, six were categorised as relationship customers, while 13 were classified as product customers. The passive segment again consisted of 22 product customers and three relationship customers. This indicated that the analysis process had been successful in distinguishing between the two customer types.We found an umbrella concept for the club regarding loyalty in telecom relationships: a keeping function (Day, 1999), which divided the customer club in two ways. Both roles, the affective and the calculative, seem to have implications for loyalty. The affective role makes the customer stay with the company: some customers would actually have left if the club had not existed. The calculative role, on the other hand, has a more inferred loyalty function, and customers perceived the club as one of the quality dimensions of the company, along with others such as price and customer support.One consequence of our methodological approach was that some customer expressions were excluded from the keeping function because they did not meet the criteria of the affective or the calculative roles. We categorised the expressions that were not connected to loyalty in a function of their own as the attracting function.The keeping and attracting functions\nDiscussion: We conducted a qualitative study on the role of customer clubs in the telecommunications industry. The limitations of our study include the small sample size, and it represents only one kind of industry and one company. Generalisations are therefore difficult to make. We are aware of the arguments for and against our sample choice. We chose to use the sample the telecom company had selected and grouped for its own organisational purposes.We started with an unidentified customer base including customer-club members of a telecom company, as depicted in Figure 3. Supported by a theoretical framework that assumed the importance of the frequency concept as defined in early consumer-behaviour models (Nicosia, 1966; Howard and Sheth, 1969), we considered the marketing function of the club from a new perspective, that of actual behaviour as opposed to the consumer-behaviour models referred to above. The club members' interest in the club formed the focus for the re-categorisation of the customer base into relationship and product customers. The methodological approach again influenced the finding regarding the functions and the roles of the club in the relationships: in other words, it enabled the club's functions and roles to be defined in terms of loyalty.\nThe main contributions of the study: The functions and roles of the club in terms of telecom relationships\nFuture research: The identification of two customer-club functions, keeping and attracting, highlights the need to study more thoroughly their role in the stability of customer relationships. The present study identified a customer interest in the clubs that suggested a non-linear connection to loyalty. Customers perceive the effect of the club on loyalty differently, ranging from a clear interest of a directive nature to a more supplementary influence on relationship stability - the affective and calculative aspects. For future research our first suggestion is to quantify these roles in terms of loyalty. This would give more precise information about the proportions of customers who perceive the keeping function, and would enable customer clubs in different industries to be compared more effectively.Our second suggestion for future research concerns the attracting function of customer clubs. How exactly does this function affect the relationships? By applying a loyalty model that includes the effect of commitment and image, it might be possible to position it more precisely. The dimensions may be mainly integrated into the image part of the loyalty model, and thereby have an influence despite the detached role suggested in the qualitative study. The reason for such an assumption is the unclear image perception among the customers. The focus in this study was directly on the customer club and its image compared to other clubs of other companies, and the influence of the company image may show to some extent. In conclusion, this study revealed the existence of two functions and different roles of customer clubs in terms of loyalty. Future research could investigate their exact content and positions by developing a quantitative loyalty model.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to enhance understanding of the club's role in the customer relationships of a telecommunications company by re-considering the concepts of frequency and commitment in a telecom-customer club.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - We interviewed telecom customers that were members of a Swedish telecom company's customer club. The approach was to understand the customer evaluation of the customer club. We conducted 44 in-depth interviews with members of the loyalty club.\nFindings: - We found an umbrella concept for the club regarding loyalty: a keeping function, which divided the customer club in two ways: the affective role makes the customer stay with the company and the calculative role with a more inferred loyalty function. The expressions that were not connected to loyalty is the attracting function.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The limitations of our qualitative study include the small sample size, and it represents only one kind of industry and one company.\nOriginality/value: - The first contribution of this study is the new perspective of customer clubs in the telecommunications industry on customer relationships. The implication is that customers do not always consider all parts of the club when they stay loyal, and not always think about it when they plan future behaviour.The second contribution is the result regarding re-consideration of the frequency concept. Bearing in mind the delimitations, the calculative role dominated the affective role. Thirty-three of the 44 members said that their club was of minor importance in terms of relationship continuation. The calculative role is, accordingly, dominant.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Self-efficacy and self-awareness: moral insights to increased leader effectiveness
|
[
"Ethics",
"Self-awareness",
"Leadership",
"Self-development",
"Emotional intelligence",
"Self-efficacy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In Aleichem's enchanting tale, Fiddler on the Roof, the milkman, Tevye, explains that for each person in the village of Anatevka it is vital to understand who he is and without that knowledge, \"our lives would be as shaky [...] As a fiddler on the roof\" (Stein and Bock, 2004, Prologue). In today's chaotic and constantly evolving world (Cameron, 2003), effective leaders must also know who they are (Covey, 2004) and how to achieve their desired goals (DePree, 2004). As leaders strive to achieve excellence, they recognize that developing self-efficacy and self-awareness can empower them to unlock the potential of their organizations and those with whom they work (Chatterjee, 1998).\nReview of the literature: Although management scholars differ in the nuances of their definitions, we identify integrated definitions of key constructs as they relate to the leader's responsibilities. Effective leadership requires profound personal insight (Lussier, 2013, pp. 66-71), and leaders owe a complex set of moral duties to themselves and others (Caldwell, 2012).\nMoral duties of leaders: Cameron (2003), Pfeffer (1998), and Kouzes and Posner (2012) are representative of the highly regarded scholars who emphasize that leaders owe moral duties to stakeholders to create long-term wealth and assist employees to achieve their highest potential. DePree (2004, p. 11) described leaders as \"servants and debtors\" in honoring duties. Paine (2002) emphasized that leaders achieved superior performance only when they merge normative social and instrumental financial imperatives in creating value-based and principle-centered organizations.\nIdentity and moral leadership: Identity encompasses that which is central, distinctive, and enduring, and one's moral choices reflect the way in which (s)he views the self (Caldwell, 2012). For millennia, moral philosophers have encouraged man to pursue the highest good within themselves (Kant and Walker, 2009). Implicit in this pursuit of one's highest potential is the obligation to constantly review one's standards and the extent to which one meets them (Stets and Burke, 2014). Those who fail to formally examine and reflect upon their personal values, establish personal standards, and compare those standards with their actions are subject to the common error of self-deception and the erosion of both their own moral identities and the trust in which they are regarded by others (Arbinger Institute, 2010; Burke and Stets, 2009).\nSelf-efficacy and the self-concept: Self-efficacy refers to one's belief that (s)he can perform well within the parameters of a specific situation (Bandura, 1995). Fast et al. (2014, p. 1017) defined managerial self-efficacy as \"the perceived capacity to be effective and influential within the organizational domain in which one is a manager.\" Self-efficacy is a cognitive and affective belief in one's personal competence and an assessment of one's ability to confidently act (Pajares, 2002). Judge and Bono (2001) found that self-efficacy was significantly related to successful task performance. One's self-beliefs allow a person to \"apply self-control over who they are, and what they want to be\" (Jayawardena and Gregar, 2013, p. 377). Self-efficacy has a direct positive impact on \"the initiation, intensity, and persistence of behavior\" (Paglis, 2010, p. 771)\nSelf-awareness and emotional intelligence: Goleman (1995) declared that self-awareness is the keystone of emotional intelligence. Without self-awareness, leaders are unable to demonstrate empathy with others (Richards, 2004). Self-awareness requires \"a deep understanding of one's emotions, as well as one's strengths and limitations and one's values and motives\" (Goleman et al., 2002, p. 40). Emotional intelligence combines self-awareness with crafting an authentic personal response that demonstrates that one is able to understand others, their needs, and the context of a situation (Goleman, 1995). The degree to which leaders are self-aware enables them to select the most effective responses for working with others (Albrecht, 2009).\nPresenting the propositions: As Schmidt and Hunter (2000) explained, a leader's capability associated with their self-perception lies not only in the ability to solve problems but to continuously learn. This commitment to learning and a focus on application and execution increase a leader's self-efficacy and are recognized as distinguishing differences between successful and unsuccessful leaders (Rynes et al., 2007). Leaders increase self-efficacy by constantly learning about key elements of their roles - both within their organizations and with customers and competitors outside their organization (Schein, 2010). By looking beyond \"conventional wisdom\" that is often the cause of organizational dysfunction (Pfeffer, 1998, Ch. 1), leaders develop confidence by increasing their emphasis on evidence-based solutions founded on empirically sound information (Rynes, et al., 2007; Pfeffer and Sutton, 2000). Focusing on evidence-based execution is a critical requirement for successful leaders and organizations (Franken et al., 2009). In a business world where poor decision-making can be disastrous, today's leader should adopt an approach to making decisions by \"translating principles based on best evidence into organizational practice\" (Rousseau, 2006, p. 256). Consistent with this discussion of evidence as related to self-efficacy, we offer our first proposition:\nInsights for application: Self-efficacy and self-awareness are constructs that define one's identity, promote self-development, and enhance \"environmental mastery, connection to ideals, and mind and heart-based actions\" that are critical to effective leadership (Karp, 2012, p. 128). Effective leaders earn trust by demonstrating personal integrity, high levels of competence, and a commitment to the welfare of others (Dirks and Ferrin, 2002). Enhancing self-awareness and increasing self-efficacy enable leaders to create trust-based relationships and increase their impact in a world desperately seeking leaders (Bennis and Nanus, 2007).\nContributions of the paper: The importance of leaders examining themselves and assessing their obligation to optimize personal effectiveness are important leadership factors in a world where leaders struggle to be perceived as trustworthy (Maritz Research, 2010). This paper makes five insights for application in examining the moral duties associated with self-efficacy and self-awareness:\nConclusion: Like Fiddler on the Roof's Tevye, leaders who have a clear understanding of who they are will be prepared to deal with the inevitable vicissitudes of life and feel a sense of stability and confidence despite the turmoil that may surround them. Although the focus of leadership and the success of organizations have tended to be based upon cost effectiveness, profitability, and competitive advantage, we join with a growing group of scholars who suggest that normative values in organizations can lead to greater profits than focusing simply on achieving instrumental or financial goals (Collins, 2001; Collins and Porras, 2004; Paine, 2002; Cameron and Spreitzer, 2013).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the relationships between self-efficacy and self-awareness and the moral obligations of leaders in understanding and developing these personal qualities. As leaders strive for excellence, self-efficacy and self-awareness can empower them to unlock their own potential and the potential of their organizations and those with whom they work.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper integrates research of self-efficacy and self-awareness as they pertain to ethical leadership and presents six propositions that increase leadership effectiveness, create value for the organization, and develop leaders considered my trusted by others.\nFindings: The authors argue that greater understanding of self-efficacy and self-awareness is important for individual growth and can enable ethical leaders to empower themselves, their colleagues, and the organization in which they work.\nResearch limitations/implications: This research presents six propositions concerning self-efficacy and self-awareness and their influence on effective leadership that can be tested in future research. The ethically based nature of self-efficacy and self-awareness merits additional academic research and practitioner application.\nPractical implications: This paper provides valuable insights to scholars and practitioners by proposing six propositions that will allow leaders to increase their effectiveness and add value to the organization.\nSocial implications: Ethical leaders add value by continuously improving themselves. Ethical leaders owe it to others and themselves to be more effective through a greater understanding of self-efficacy and self-awareness.\nOriginality/value: Self-efficacy and self-awareness are moral duties associated with the identities of leaders and important for leaders in understanding their own capabilities and identities. Greater knowledge of self-efficacy and self-awareness can enable ethical leaders to be more effective and create value.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Cultural dimensions and moral reasoning: a comparative study
|
[
"National cultures",
"Business ethics",
"Cultural sociology",
"Professional ethics"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Research investigations about determinants of moral reasoning based on Kohlbergian cognitive theory (Kohlberg, 1969, 1981) are numerous in Western society (Trevino et al., 2014) and have provided significant insights into ethical decision-making theory in Western organizations. The construct of moral reasoning in the Kohlbergian context can be defined primarily as an individual's assessment of the issues of right and wrong in a social situation as embodied in judgments about justice, individual responsibility, and outward behavior (Kohlberg and Candee, 1984). Kohlberg's (1969) theory of moral development is based on six sequential stages of cognitive reasoning that an individual advances through in developing higher order moral judgment. The Defining Issues Test (DIT) measurement of moral reasoning is based on neo-Kohlbergian ideas advanced by James Rest et al. (1999), but Rest and Narvaez (1979) advanced the notion that the developmental level used by an individual in moral reasoning is context dependent. In different situational contexts an individual may use a higher or lower level, or schema (vs Kohlberg's stages), of moral reasoning to judge the ethical issues in a particular situation.\nPurpose of the research: The purpose of this research is to examine how specific cultural dimensions affect people from two very different cultures - Thailand and the USA - in regard to moral reasoning. Cultures for this study were chosen in a systematic, theory-guided fashion (Vijver and Leung, 1997) in such a way that they not only represent significantly different cultural values and dimensions demonstrated in numerous studies (Hofstede, 1980, 2001; Hofstede and Bond, 1988; Hofstede and Minkov, 2013), but also because Thailand and the USA have a vital trade relationship. Thailand, one of the most developed of the ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations Economic Community has a long history of trade and tourism engagement with the USA and other Western countries. Culturally, however, there exist significant differences between Thailand, the USA and other Western countries. Further, these cultural differences may influence some of the problems in Thailand that are affecting continued trade growth between Thailand and the West. Public sector corruption, human trafficking, and other human rights abuses are problems in Thailand that have effectively marginalized the Thai economy from some direct USA and other Western investment and trade. Though not devastating to date economically, Western tourism to Thailand has also suffered.\nResearch objectives and questions: The research objective is to develop insights about how culture affects citizens in Thailand and the USA in their ethical judgments. The measurement of cultural dimensions is the VSM 2013 (Hofstede and Minkov, 2013). The measurement of moral reasoning is the revised version of the DIT, the DIT2 (Rest et al., 1999). Both of these instruments have been translated into the Thai language for the first time through this research endeavor. Research questions that will be answered sequentially are as follows:\nTheoretical development: The following sections describe the theories that support this research. Moral reasoning based on Kohlberg's and Rest's research includes a discussion of the measurement tool developed by James Rest and his associates, the DIT. Next a brief discussion of each of Hofstede's cultural dimensions is presented (Hofstede, 2001; Hofstede et al., 2010). Finally, a discussion of other cross-cultural studies focussed on moral reasoning is presented.\nResearch methods and procedures: The revised version of the DIT2 was used to identify levels of moral reasoning (Rest et al., 1999). The VSM 2013 was used for measuring aggregate scores on multiple cultural dimensions. Convenience samples were used in the research. The respondents were all either from a public university in Thailand or the USA. The lead researcher's IRB exempted the study and all respondents participated voluntarily. While matched samples were targeted, and a certain level of success was realized with regard to the undergraduate students as far as age and gender dispersions, the graduate sample was more difficult to match as discussed below. The average age was 20 for the Thai undergraduates; 19 for the US undergraduates. There were 53 male Thai undergraduates and 58 females; and 31 male and 154 female US undergraduates (some completed surveys did not include a response selection for gender). Majors in the Thai and US samples were not considered relevant because: first, majors change; second, workplace issues and organizational influences in full-time career positions are not yet manifest; and third, cultural influences were the target of the research, not career-specific workplace issues.\nData analysis: Respondents in the sample groups were organized by educational level and therefore grouped generally by age. For the Thai graduates, the average age was 34. For the US graduates the average age was 31. The average age of the Thai undergraduates was 20, and for the US undergraduates the average age was 19. Moral reasoning scores, demographic variables and psychological constructs were calculated from DIT2 responses, and six cultural dimensions were calculated from VSM 2013 responses. Moral reasoning scores will be discussed first, followed by cultural dimensions.\nCultural dimension VSM 2013 scores: The following is a discussion of the cultural dimension scores as measured by the VSM 2013 followed by a discussion of the regression analysis to determine the variables that correlate with post-conventional principled (N2) moral reasoning. The regression analysis included several variables measured by the DIT2 in addition to the six cultural dimensions measured by the VSM 2013. These additional variables include age, gender, political liberalism (a measure of liberalism or conservatism), religious orthodoxy (a proxy measure for adherence to the strictures of religious dogma), and humanitarian liberalism (a measure of the consistency with which humanitarian decisions are selected in response to DIT questions). Table V shows a summary of the six cultural dimension scores measured by the VSM 2013 for each sample group. The variables that showed statistically significant correlations with post-conventional principled moral reasoning (N2) will be discussed in the following sections.\nDiscussion and recommendations: Consistently strong maintaining norms scores among Thai respondents compared to US scores supports previous research (Hofstede, 2001) that emphasized a pronounced tendency for citizens of Thailand to support collective social mores, norms and laws more strongly than citizens in many individualist Western countries (see discussion of LTO below). The research shows that there are several factors that correlate with this dominance of maintaining norms reasoning. A strong LTO supports status quo thinking according to Hofstede et al. (2010), and would therefore reciprocally reduce an individual's engagement in post-conventional principled reasoning. Correlation analysis indeed found that higher LTO index scores were significantly negatively related to post-conventional principled reasoning in the Thai samples. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the Thai LTO supports strong reasoning at the maintaining norms level and less at the post-conventional principled reasoning level.\nLimitations: This study has several limitations. While the researchers attempted to select closely matched samples among Thai and US respondents, one limitation was that the number of respondents in each of the graduate career categories (public administration and business administration) were limited in number and therefore not distinguishable statistically by career category, and were combined into single \"business administrator\" or \"public administrator\" categories. A second limitation was that the combined DIT2-VSM survey instrument was lengthy and the time needed for completion was longer than many respondents were willing to devote. There were a significant number of incomplete protocols that had to be discarded, thus reducing the sample sizes. The number of graduate, full-time workers surveyed is inadequate to generalize the results on the relationship between their ethical attitudes (public administrators and business administrators) and Hofstede and Minkov's six cultural dimensions beyond inferences based on the findings.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Moral reasoning research in Western cultures is grounded primarily in Kohlbergian cognitive moral theory. Enumerable investigations about the psychological determinants and cultural dimensions of moral reasoning have provided significant insights about Western decision making and contributed to Western organizational behavioral theory. However, inquiry about these same constructs and how they may interact with moral reasoning in non-Western Southeast Asian trading partner countries has not provided comparable insights. The purpose of this paper is to remedy that by comparing predominant cultural dimensions to levels of moral reasoning in student and graduate populations in Thailand and the USA.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The Defining Issues Test (DIT) measurement of moral reasoning (Rest et al., 1999) and the Values Survey Module (VSM) 2013 (Hofstede and Minkov, 2013) were translated for the first time into Thai, pilot tested, and used to gather cultural and moral reasoning data in Thailand. The same English version instruments were used to gather comparable data among similarly matched US samples. Comparisons are presented in this paper, and differences in approaches to moral decision making are discussed.\nFindings: Findings indicate that there are both significant psychological and cultural differences between the two nations that affect moral reasoning. Predominant status quo moral reasoning predominates in Thailand, while a polarity between self-interest moral reasoning and higher level abstract idealistic moral reasoning predominates in the USA. Potential cultural influences on these moral reasoning tendencies are discussed.\nResearch limitations/implications: While findings can be generalized to the sample populations of Thai and US undergraduate students and graduate students who are in the workplace, the considerable time required to complete the two survey instruments precluded inclusion of higher level, veteran managers and public policy administrators in the study. Alternative survey methods need to be developed for investigating these subjects in order to make the combined findings more robust and widely generalizable.\nPractical implications: Careful attention to cultural and linguistic variables provided for thorough and effective first-time translations of the DIT and the VSM 2013 from English into the Thai language. These two instruments are now available to other researchers who wish to investigate cultural dimensions and moral reasoning through other research designs. The Thai-version DIT can be obtained from the copyright holder, Center for the Study of Ethical Development (http://ethicaldevelopment.ua.edu/). The Thai-version of the VSM can be obtained through the Geert Hofstede website (www.geerthofstede.nl/).\nSocial implications: These findings can help researchers in Western and non-Western countries to better understand the foundations upon which moral reasoning in the two countries is grounded, and can provide insights about how individuals in quite different cultures perceive ethical dilemmas in the workplace and public arena and attempt to solve them. The findings also serve as another entry point for business managers and public policy administrators to not only better understand organizational behavior as regards ethical decision making, but general decision making as well.\nOriginality/value: This is the first research study comparing cultural dimensions identified by Geert Hofstede and Michael Minkov as measured by the VSM 2013 to moral reasoning as measured by the DIT.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
From government to e-government: a transition model
|
[
"Government",
"Communication technologies",
"Transition management",
"Strategic alignment"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Since the development of the world wide web, considerable attention has been focused on the adaptation of web-based technologies to the business environment, notably in the business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) sectors. More recently, new sectors have been gaining attention, including those that involve government, such as government-to-business (G2B) and government-to-citizen (G2C). It is perhaps not surprising that governments (whether, local, regional, national or even supranational) have been slower to clamber onto the web-enabled bandwagon: governments are traditionally more conservative entities, slower to change, and slower to adopt new initiatives, than operators in the commercial field (cf. Marche and McNiven, 2003). Indeed, it is reasonable to query whether governments really want to make the transition to e-government. Nevertheless, a considerable e-government movement is now building, with a number of national governments taking extensive measures to engage in radical transformation of their portfolios. Some commentators (e.g. Criado and Ramilo, 2003) go so far as to describe this move as being little short of a revolution in the public sector, though such statements are as notable for their hyperbole and rhetorical intentions as for their representation of reality.In this paper, we outline and illustrate a transition model for the government to e-government process. The intention is that this model will serve as a guide for governments to better understand their own motivation towards the concept of e-government and to avoid potential problems during this transition. The model will also allow us to identify several unique cases of e-government. The paper first documents the rise of e-government from earlier initiatives that involved the reinvention of government, through what has come to be termed \"new public management\", as well as contemporary studies of how e-government is practised in a variety of communities worldwide. We then introduce three models of e-government maturity (Accenture, 2003; Chen, 2002; Hodgkinson, 2002) as well as the strategic alignment model of Henderson and Venkatraman (1993). From these various sources, as well as the literature reviewed previously, we develop an integrative model to explain the government to e-government transition process. This model is then illustrated with a number of country examples of how e-government is practised worldwide. Finally, we discuss the practical and theoretical implications of the model and conclude the paper.\n2. Background and literature review: While studies of e-government are restricted to the web era, and indeed primarily to the last few years, there is a longer-standing literature on new public management (Bevir et al., 2003) and the reinvention of government that in many ways lays the groundwork for the e-government initiatives that were to follow. Osbourne and Gaebler (1992), for instance, proposed that citizens should be regarded and treated as customers, suggesting that the delivery of government services should be redesigned with a customer focus. This view is challenged by Mintzberg (1996), who usefully distinguishes customers from clients, citizens and subjects. He points out that you don't have to call someone a customer in order to treat them well or ensure that services are designed with them in mind. Customers buy products, clients buy services, but citizens have rights \"that go far beyond those of customers or even clients\" (Mintzberg, 1996, p. 77). Furthermore, citizens not only have rights, but also duties, as subjects: to pay taxes, to be drafted in armies and to respect laws (or suffer the consequences). To suggest that citizens are equivalent to and should be treated as customers not only grossly oversimplifies the nature of the relationship between government and citizen, but it perverts it (see also Ciborra, 2003). This does not mean that there is no need to reinvent government, but it does limit the extent to which the nomenclature of B2C relationships parallels that of G2C relationships.This literature review is organised into four sub-sections. First we consider the traditional form of government before identifying the opportunities that e-government has the potential to bring. Next, we discuss a number of barriers associated with the initiation of the e-government implementation process. Finally we describe what good e-government is likely to look like - for both the citizen and the government itself. This incorporates notions of government transformation, as well as a citizen-centric e-government policy. This sets the scene for section 3 of the paper, where we consider the strategic transformation process that leads to e-government.2.1 Traditional government\n3. Strategic transformation to e-government: 3.1 E-government maturity models\n4. Integrative model for the government to e-government transition: 4.1 E-government alignment model\n5. Discussion: In proposing an alignment-based maturity model of e-government, we have deliberately established the connection between more traditional forms of strategic planning and the process of e-government evolution. Nevertheless, this model breaks new ground by going beyond single-dimensional stage models through the integration of an alignment orientation - from both government and IT perspectives. The model thus helps to answer why a government is where it is and how it may progress further, but with predictions that differ from those offered by more simplistic models. The model is designed to be both descriptive and indicative. It can be used as a diagnostic tool to establish the current e-government position of a country or jurisdiction. It can also be used, at a macro level, as a guide to future e-government developments. It is essential to point out, however, that such \"black box\" models are in their very nature stereotypical. In the more systems-oriented e-governments (i.e. where there is little or no centrally coordinated strategic planning), it will often be the case that one government department exhibits characteristics that are (far) in advance of those exhibited in other departments. Such complexities defy the logic of a model, when applied at the country level. The model should therefore be applied with caution.Examples of such inter-departmental variations in e-government achievement are abundant. For example, in Pakistan the web site of the excise and taxation department of the Punjabi state government (see www.punjab.gov.pk/e-t/index.htm) stresses the need for transparent government with an explanation of the formulae used in calculating taxes. What is also apparent is that this web site (as with all others on the punjab.gov.pk domain) appears to be available only in English, suggesting that it is targeted primarily at the business community, as well as international investors. Similarly, in Malawi, there is an apparently transparent description of the pensions policy (in English, but not Chichewa) and in Tanzania there is some remarkably frank discussion of the \"corruption\" that was part of the country's government history (in both English and Kiswahili). We suggest that the dissemination of information via the web can exert a significant anti-corruption effect. These departmental-level initiatives and changes can act as catalysts for a broader change process across the government as a whole, and it is this kind of change that pushes a government towards transformation and fully fledged e-government.Notwithstanding these advances, it is notable that many governments appear to get bogged down in the e-government development process. In the Philippines, for instance, e-government is used as a catch phrase to provide resources for basic office automation, but not e-government itself. In other words, government strategy and IT systems are not aligned, most likely due to a planning gap on the IT strategy side. Another hurdle that e-governments have to overcome relates to the need to drive up citizen usage, thereby creating critical mass. Statistical measures of usage rates (not just hit rates) are notoriously hard to obtain, making it hard to assess just how well e-governments are doing in reaching out to their citizens online. Indeed, they are also open to abuse, as evidenced in December 2003 in Hong Kong, when the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) arrested a number of current and former executives of ESDLife on charges of arranging for 70 suspected bogus patrons to make more than 100,000 bookings for sports facilities, none of which were actually used, at a cost of over HK$700,000 (Independent Commission Against Corruption, 2003, 2004).Persuading citizens to use e-government services is unlikely to be an easy task: considerable resistance to change can be expected, and governments may find that they have to make life inconvenient for those who insist on ignoring online options. For example, they may close down some over-the-counter service providers (thus saving costs), forcing citizens either to go online or to travel further to one of a smaller number of such providers. This raises ethical concerns, particularly for the less mobile, less well educated, computer-illiterate sections of the population who may not have easy access to online resources. Educational programmes will be necessary, as well as the provision of publicly accessible internet facilities at zero cost to the citizen.Associated with the issue of education is that of language. E-government portals that are not available in the national language (or languages used by significant minority groups) are not going to be used by a critical mass of citizens: one can only assume that much, or even the vast majority, of the population may be unable to comprehend the information and services provided. Indeed, there is also evidence that e-government is for the educated minority in developing countries. This would be a truly unfortunate situation, since it is often the less educated that have most to gain from online initiatives that empower them to make decisions based on what is in their best interests, and would stand in stark contrast to the presumably universal principle of government: serving all citizens. Hong Kong's decision to provide all information in a bilingual format (English and Chinese are co-official languages in Hong Kong, even though 95 per cent of the population is ethnically Chinese) is illustrative of the extent to which governments will have to go in order to overcome the rhetoric-reality gap. If there are significant minorities that do not read the language of the majority, then provision needs to be made in order that e-government does not become exclusive and divisive.Where the strategic orientation of e-government is concerned, there are useful parallels to be made with e-commerce. It is certainly tempting for governments to focus on front-end application development before strategy, since this is perceived to deliver benefits to citizens. However, such systems-focused approaches are also short sighted. There is a considerable risk that when e-government strategy finally does emerge, it will be found to be incompatible with the developed systems, which then either have to be re-engineered or abandoned altogether. There is a pragmatic need here to distinguish between the provision of relatively static information (e.g. the price of grains in developing countries) that requires minimal resources to develop and disseminate, and the development of complex e-government systems (e.g. online payment systems that are integrated across government departments) that are considerably more costly and resource-intensive. In the latter situation, considerable strategic planning is required if effective cross-departmental integration is to be achieved. Where the development of strategy is concerned, governments with a shorter (or less complex) history of administration may have inbuilt advantages as they are likely to have fewer administrative procedures to be re-engineered. Governments that have taken several hundred years to formalise their bureaucracies, or indeed ex-colonies that have been bequeathed such bureaucratic systems, may find that extensive reengineering and unravelling of processes is required. In short, the transition to e-government is neither straightforward nor easy. Considerable strategic planning is believed to be essential if a fully fledged e-government is to be achieved.\n6. Conclusions: The transition from government to e-government appears to be inevitable for many governments around the world. Just as the influence of e-commerce in the global economy has swelled over the last decade, so e-government can also be expected to develop. This development is also in line with the focus on \"new public management\" (Bevir et al., 2003; Gendron et al., 1999; Hood, 1991), which tries promote an agenda of citizen-centric and accountable government, and views the citizen in part as a customer, though Ciborra (2003), amongst others, is highly critical of much of this rhetoric. There are fundamental differences between e-commerce and e-government which demand attention, notably the often monopolistic status of government, the fact that governments have the moral and legal responsibility to serve all of their citizens, and the need for governments to have a high level of legitimacy. There are also similarities, such as the need to drive down costs, the need to provide quality services to citizens (customers), and the expectations that citizens (customers) have for a user-friendly 24/7 service.In this paper, we have developed and illustrated an alignment-based maturity model of the government to e-government transition process. This incorporates a number of preferred and less preferred transition strategies. We suggest that future research should assess the extent to which this model is validated by e-government reality, in particular the way in which e-government develops from initial rhetorical intentions through strategic planning, systems development, integration and finally transformation. It may well be that a post-transformation stage will emerge, since strategic planners are unlikely to be content with any current position: it is in their blood to be generative, to conjure up new services, new dynamics, new forms of transformation, new ways of involving citizen participation. Such innovations may well change government as we know it today, though this may be little more than wishful thinking in the case of the more authoritarian governments that do not tolerate political opposition. Nevertheless, we expect that the increased dissemination of information that is inevitably associated with e-government can only have a positive impact (from the citizen's perspective) on the way governments are run and are held accountable. The more guidelines, rules, practices and lines of accountability that are made publicly available, the more transparent government will be.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - To develop a model that can explain the \"government to e-government\" transition process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Reviews the literature on and practice of e-government, as well as the related literature of strategic alignment and maturity models for technology adoption. Offers evidence for the model's validity through case-type material from the web sites of e-governments worldwide.\nFindings: - Six transition paths can be identified, four of which are more likely to result in effective e-government transition.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Further work is needed to test the validity of the model. This could involve historical and longitudinal studies of the government to e-government transition process in different governments around the world.\nPractical implications: - The transition model should be of value to e-government strategic planners who are seeking possible transition paths towards the effective development of e-government.\nOriginality/value: - The paper tackles the little investigated topic of the transition process through which governments must go as they shift from traditional government to e-government.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Urban tourism: the growing role of VFR and immigration
|
[
"Tourism",
"Immigration",
"City",
"Urban",
"VFR"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Urban centers are now home to the majority of the global population. The forecast is for this trend to continue as increasing immigration drives urban population growth (International Organization for Migration, 2015; World Health Organization, 2016). With diversifying populations, the culture, infrastructure, trade and travel flows of cities are evolving and expanding (Dwyer et al., 2014). Simply put, the world is becoming more urban, with greater diversity in populations living in the same areas, creating burgeoning and increasingly cosmopolitan metropolises whose residents have expanding ties and networks across the globe.\nUrban tourism: Cities are central to much tourism activity. They are convenient and multi-layered destinations for travelers, and are in turn impacted by visitors in terms of economic, social and cultural development (Edwards et al., 2008). Edwards et al. (2008) suggest the term urban should refer to \"busy, interactive built environment[s] purposely developed to meet the needs of many stakeholders\" (p. 1035). Urban centers are distinct from rural areas in population, with greater volume and often more diverse residents, who for varying needs and desires live in comparatively close proximity (Page and Hall, 2003). Cities are typically more accessible to visitors than rural areas with better transportation and tourism infrastructure. Further, because of their diversity, cities are hubs that offer a greater variety of reasons for tourists to visit, including business and culture, and as gateways to other regional destinations (Edwards et al., 2008; Page and Hall, 2003).\nImmigration to urban areas: Different countries and regions receive various groups of immigrants for different reasons including existing family connections, historical ties and a common language, immigration policies relating to labor and asylum, and political and economic links between countries (Bell et al., 2010; Rigg et al., 2014; Skeldon, 2013). Historically, urban centers have attracted most of the immigrant population, and this is driving city populations upwards (Edwards et al., 2008; OECD, 2016; Seaton and Palmer, 1997). Globally there are around 3.9 billion people living in cities presently, with 6.3 billion forecast by 2050 (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2014). Immigrants are naturally drawn to cities as hubs of transportation, existing diaspora and employment opportunities (International Organization for Migration, 2015). In major global gateway cities, such as London, Toronto or New York, upwards of a third of the populations are immigrants, with urban centers in Asia and Africa generally showing lower, but ever increasing numbers (International Organization for Migration, 2015; Skeldon, 2013).\nVFR travel: A large number of trips worldwide are initiated by the desire to visit friends and relatives (Backer, 2007, 2010; Seaton, 1994). However, VFR has received comparatively little attention despite its substantial volume and importance to many travelers and communities. This is arguably due to the political nature of much destination marketing discourse (Backer, 2007, 2011; Lee et al., 2005; Morrison and O'Leary, 1995; Poel et al., 2006; Scheyvens, 2007; Seaton and Palmer, 1997; Seaton and Tagg, 1995). The term VFR typically refers to one of four common visitor categories: respondents to visitor surveys are asked for their self-reported trip purpose and ascribed to either VFR, pleasure, business, or other (Seaton, 1994). This conceptualization has been increasingly challenged, however, (Moscardo et al., 2000; Munoz et al., 2017), as trip purpose alone excludes visitors who state alternate reasons (e.g. pleasure and business) but stay with a friend or relative, spend time with a resident they know, or even visit other destinations on route to a friend or relative that would otherwise not be considered.\nVFR and immigration: VFR and immigration are closely connected (Williams and Hall, 2000), with implications for both communities and individuals. Cities with a large foreign population are likely to see flows of visitors from countries that were sources of immigration. As demand develops, and travel flows between the two communities are established, opportunities for further cultural connections, increased trade, and additional types of tourism open up (Dwyer et al., 2014). For immigrants who host, the VFR experience can inspire interaction with the new community in a leisure context, but importantly the experience is shared with someone who likely has familiar cultural understandings and mutual history. This has implications for immigrant hosts and their relationships with their visitors and new community.\nVFR and urban communities: Urban residents have often been viewed as the demand side of tourism (Ashworth and Page, 2011), but they are also an important component of supply for their own communities. Cities are natural VFR destinations because they often have large and diverse populations (e.g. Statistics Canada, 2015). There is overlap between VFR and the nature of urban populations. As a growing number of people live and work in multiple cities on a rotating basis (International Organization for Migration, 2015; OECD, 2016) and populations are made up of new or temporary residents who, to varying extents, treat their new communities as destinations to explore (Edwards et al., 2008; Griffin, 2016), the dichotomous view of resident and visitor becomes ever more blurred. Cities are therefore a \"complex mix of 'intersecting mobilities'\" (Maitland and Newman, 2009, p. 14), and the distinction between visitor and local is, in many cases, uninformed (Cohen and Cohen, 2012). Arbitrary definitions shape binary understandings of tourist and resident. A tourist is technically someone who stays for less than a year (Govers et al., 2008), and an immigrant someone who stays for a year or more (Skeldon, 2013). Although useful for measurement, many individuals will struggle to categorize themselves this simply; for example, international students, temporary workers, those seconded to a satellite office for a period of months, or who visit places on a regular but seldom frequency (Skeldon, 2013). Rigid distinctions between home and away, \"extraordinary and ordinary, pleasure and boredom, liminality and rules, exotic others and significant others\" (Larsen, 2008, p. 21) limit an appreciation for the lived realities of many. Many transitory and newcomer residents will attract and cause mobility to their cities, whether for short leisure-based trips, or more permanent migration. Mobile residents, of which urban areas are home to, create reason and demand for others to visit.\nVFR and urban destinations in the future: The following section draws together some key predictions that have implications for the rising importance of VFR-related travel for urban communities.\nImplications for practitioners: There are important implications for urban tourism practitioners. Initially, urban DMOs need to view tourism within the context of their communities. Even if the promotion of traditional leisure and convention tourism is the priority, viewing these travel patterns in isolation from other mobility flows is short-sighted. Urban DMOs should engage and work with other agencies that promote the destination reputation and image to other groups, whether this be trade missions, universities seeking international students, or other government agencies with international connections. The role of DMOs is shifting from marketing to communication (Heeley, 2015) and developing long-term awareness among all forms of mobility is vital. As an ever increasing proportion of residents are newcomers, the services, information and experiences they seek will overlap those traditionally provided for tourists. Traditional tourism marketing and services therefore have a substantial role to play in helping attract and integrate new residents. Conversely, engaging new residents has implications for tourism promotion and activity. A community with happy and engaged residents develops culture and a spirit of hospitality making it an appealing place to visit. Helping newcomers feel settled should be of primary interest to many agencies, but should also be important for urban DMOs regarding the image and reputation of their community.\nConclusion: This discussion offers some insights into the future of urban tourism. Simply put, cities are receiving more immigrants, from more places, for varying amounts of time, who are first exploring the city as newcomers, and hosting friends and relatives. When immigrants settle, their collective activity, behavior, and influence in turn affect the culture and tourism offerings made available for other visitors and residents alike. Their neighborhoods, restaurants and festivals, for example, often become tourist attractions. VFR is important for cities; first, it brings more people to the destination. Second, it spreads authentic WOM marketing. Third, it encourages residents to become familiar, engaged with or refresh their attachment and awareness of their community as a place to explore and spend leisure, co-creating experiences and culture that affect the experiences of other tourists. Finally, the long-term impacts of hosting for immigrants are likely to make them feel more comfortable and settled. Adopting binary distinctions between residential and tourism development risks blunting culture and residents' voice. The future of urban tourism will see the blurring of resident-visitor continue, and immigrant hybrid culture will offer distinct culture and narratives for cities. Urban DMOs need to better identify and feature cultural assets resulting from immigrant populations, but need to remain true to the authentic voice of the local communities; and understanding and engaging VFR and the relationship between residents and visitors will help.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to offer some insights into the future of urban tourism with particular consideration given to immigration and visiting friends and relatives (VFR) travel. The discussion highlights the fact that cities are increasingly home to immigrants and transitory residents who host visitors, blurring resident-visitor distinctions, with implications for cultural and economic development, and tourism practitioners. These trends are highlighted, and discussions relating to the future are offered.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This discussion is based on a literature review and a conceptual approach.\nFindings: The number of immigrants to cities keeps growing. These immigrants are shaping their new communities and changing local culture. They contribute to increased tourism through generating VFR travel and creating new tourist attractions.\nResearch limitations/implications: The implications of VFR and immigration on urban tourism are most visible in large urban centers that are major points of entry into a country and international magnets. They are not, however, limited to big cities.\nPractical implications: There are potential implications for municipal governments and destination marketers to consider how cultural development and the touristic promotion of the city overlap with areas and direction for possible partnerships with community groups.\nSocial implications: This paper promotes the idea that for immigrants, to experience their communities through hosting VFR has positive social implications in terms of integration and cultural development.\nOriginality/value: This paper discusses a topic rarely addressed the impact of VFR and immigration on shaping urban tourism.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
What can people risk attitude tell us about people preference for multimedia quality?
|
[
"Gender",
"Evaluation",
"Personality",
"End user",
"Case study",
"Mobile systems",
"Consumer behaviour/choice/demand/empowerment/reviews/consumerism",
"E-science"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: As mobile device penetration increases, mobile phones are becoming almost a ubiquitous presence in people's life. However, the high cost of mobile data transmission over wireless networks (Albert, 2012) and capped billing plans (Bode, 2012) are some of the problems mobile internet users face. Additionally, although some of the mobile network operators (MNOs) have previously offered flat-rate billing plans, this has proved unsustainable, and the results have led to mobile data plans that are mostly capped (Bode, 2012). This pricing model is likely to continue to persist as mobile data traffic increases dramatically (Traverso et al., 2012; Trestian et al., 2012; LTE, 2012). With that in mind, not even the deployment of high-speed networks such as long-term evolution will make uncapped plans sustainable (LTE, 2012).\nConsumer behaviour: The behavioural economics area is a branch of economics that integrates psychology with neo-classical economics. It identifies ways in which people's behaviour is different from the standard model based on which people act to maximise their pay off. Behavioural economics is concerned mostly with the bounds of rationality and what effects the emotional, cognitive, and social factors have on human decisions directly and on the market indirectly. Among the dispositions that drive economic decisions is the human attitude towards risk. Risk is an integral part of decision making (Nielsen et al., 2013). It is considered \"the pivotal element in consumer behaviour\" (Taylor, 1974) and a central element to economics and finances (Bucciol and Zarri, 2012). It is most often associated with uncertainty (e.g. missing information - making decisions about an unfamiliar brand, however \"full information\" contexts do not imply missing uncertainty; Bruke, 2010).\nModelling user risk attitude: As the user risk attitude can predict economic behaviour (Dohmen et al. 2011), and has been previously used to model the willingness to pay (Brachinger et al., 1997; Weber, 1999; Markowitz 1959), this research proposes a novel user risk attitude model that takes into account the user self-assessment regarding his/her attitude towards risk, as well as age and gender.\nExperimental study: The aim of the experimental study was to validate the proposed user risk attitude model in the context of delivering personalised multimedia content. Based on this model, the user can be either risk seeker or risk averse. In this context, the risk adverse people would prefer a lower multimedia quality and to pay a lower cost, while the risk seekers would prefer to pay for the quality.\nEvaluation results: A scenario-based experimental study was used to validate the proposed user risk attitude model. The subjects were given six hypothetical scenarios. The last five scenarios involved different billing plans that exist on the market and the subjects were asked to select the preferred multimedia version in different circumstances. Three bundle/capped-based billing plans were selected, as this type of billing plan is currently predominant on the market. Among the bundle-based billing plans, we selected three of them with the aim of covering the two cases in which the user can find himself once the amount of data contained in the bundle is exceeded (pay for the exceeding quantity or the bandwidth is limited) and also to reflect the difference in price changes that exist on the market. These were billing plans in use at the time when the study was performed.\nConclusions: This research presented a user risk attitude model that takes into account the user's self-assessed risk attitude, the gender, and the age. This model was tested to determine if risk averse people would prefer a lower multimedia quality version when monetary cost is involved compared to the case when no cost is involved, and if risk seekers prefer to pay for their preferred multimedia quality. The model was tested through six scenarios. During these scenarios, the subjects had to select among different multimedia quality options based on different scenarios considering billing plans that exist on the market. The results of the evaluation show that for the proposed user risk model, risk seekers preferred to pay for multimedia quality, whereas risk adverse users preferred to switch to a lower multimedia quality when monetary cost is involved. However, when the mobile data billing plan had the bandwidth limited, rather than a higher price to be paid when the bundle quantity was exceeded, the risk averse people's preference for a lower quality still holds, but it does not show that most of the risk seekers prefer to pay for the multimedia quality. Therefore, according to the tests, the classified risk adverse people selected a lower quality of the multimedia when monetary cost was involved and the risk seekers preferred to pay for it.\nDiscussions: Mobile data users, content providers (application service providers, over-the-top providers), (MNOs) and internet service providers (ISPs) could benefit from the results of this research. For mobile data users, the outcome of this research could be beneficial, as they can obtain personalised content based on their needs: the risk averse will get multimedia content that involves low delivery cost and the risk seekers high quality.\nFuture work: There are few factors associated with personality which are used in personalisation (Lekakos and Giaglis, 2006), and the outcome of this research adds to the state of art. For example, the outcome of this research can be used to propose mechanisms for adapting multimedia delivery by integrating user risk attitude, to improve both the user experience (by taking into account their preferences), but also optimising the bandwidth that represents a problem on mobile networks (Trestian et al., 2012). Alternatively, the mechanism could be adaptable leaving the user the possibility to influence the adaptation (Molnar et al., 2009).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Multimedia content that is accessible through mobile devices has a larger size than other types of content (e.g. text, images). This may lead to higher prices for accessing the content via mobile devices, as mobile operators are capping mobile data billing plans in an effort to increase their revenues and prevent congestion. This poses problems for the users that are not willing/do not afford to pay the required price but still want to use multimedia content through the mobile networks. A price reduction for the user, as well as minimising bandwidth consumption can be obtained as a trade-off in multimedia quality. However, as previous research shows, not all people are willing to trade-off quality for a lower price; therefore, there is no straightforward approach to this problem. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to present a model of user willingness to pay for multimedia content quality as a function of the user risk attitude with the aim to provide personalised content depending on the user willingness to trade-off price for multimedia content quality.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A user model was proposed based on a literature review and an existing data set. A stereotypical approach was used where users are divided in two groups: risk averse and risk seekers. An experimental study involving six scenarios was used to validate the findings.\nFindings: The results of the evaluation show that for the proposed user risk model, risk seekers preferred to pay for multimedia quality, whereas risk adverse users preferred to switch to a lower multimedia quality when monetary cost is involved. However, when the mobile data billing plan had the bandwidth limited, rather than a higher price to be paid when the bundle quantity was exceeded, the risk averse people's preference for a lower quality still holds, but it does not show that most of the risk seekers prefer to pay for the multimedia quality.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper adds to the state of the art by providing a novel way to model the user preferences for multimedia quality based on their attitude towards risk, age, and gender.\nPractical implications: Mobile data users, content providers (application service providers, over-the-top providers), mobile network operators (MNOs) and internet service providers (ISPs) could benefit from the results of this research. For mobile data users, the outcome of this research could be beneficial, as they can obtain personalised content based on their needs. From the content providers' point of view, providing personalised content can lead to more satisfied users. It could also reduce the bandwidth consumption and the traffic to the server and/or proxy. Reducing the bandwidth consumption could lead to the possibility to acquire more customers and hence increase the revenues.\nOriginality/value: This is among the first studies to assess how the user preference towards multimedia quality if affected by the user attitude towards risk.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The impact of STEAM integration on preservice teachers' disposition and knowledge
|
[
"STEAM integration",
"Preservice teachers",
"Teachers' disposition",
"Teachers' knowledge",
"Mathematics education"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In today's digital era, rapid development of new technology has a profound impact on the ways we teach and children learn. The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) (2017) calls for major changes in education by rethinking education, adapting to a constantly changing technological landscape and preparing students to enter an increasingly global economy. To make changes, educators need to collaborate with colleagues to improve practice, discover and share resources and ideas, and solve problems (ISTE, 2017). However, teachers' decisions in using technology in the classroom are often influenced by their own knowledge and level of confidence (Wu and An, 2015). To equip classroom teachers with solid knowledge and skills and strong confidence in using technology, it is important for teacher educators to \"empower connected learners in a connected world\" (ISTE, 2017). One of the central approaches to empower teachers is to prepare them to integrate science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in their teaching in pre-K-12 education (An, 2017; Burton, 2019; Bybee, 2010; Carnevale et al., 2011; Tsupros et al., 2009). This integration develops creativity and innovation, communication and collaboration, research and information fluency, critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, digital citizenship and technology operators and concept (ISTE, 2007). However, as generalists, elementary preservice teachers often enter teacher education programs with less confidence and interest in teaching STEM subjects (Weiss et al., 2001). Research has suggested that preservice teachers should have an opportunity with earlier and more interdisciplinary teaching experiences in order to better develop their interdisciplinary pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) earlier in their careers (An, 2017; An and Tillman, 2018; Doering et al., 2009).This study intended to provide such an opportunity to preservice teachers with a project-based learning (PBL) approach and an inquiry-based pedagogy to engage them in learning STEM knowledge and skills of integration with adding the arts component to STEM as science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) for K-8 children, and developing their own STEAM tasks. Integrating arts into STEM can make lesson outcomes more successful and interesting, and it can also promote powerful and inspired creative thinking in the teaching and learning process (Sousa and Pilecki, 2013). However, in current research, little is known about how STEAM integration in teacher education program influences preservice teachers' disposition and knowledge.The purpose of this project was to explore how STEAM integration in mathematics methods courses influenced K-8 preservice teachers' disposition and knowledge of STEAM integration. This study aimed at investigating the following research questions:Is there any significant differences in K-8 preservice teachers' disposition toward math teaching and STEAM integration between the pre- and postquestionnaires?What is the relationship between preservice teachers' disposition and knowledge of STEAM integration?What are the characteristics of the experience in learning from STEAM integration by preservice teachers?What are the common interesting topics used by preservice teachers for STEAM integration at K-2, 3-5 and 6-8 levels?How have the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) connected with the Common Core State Standards for Mathematical (CCSSM) standards through STEAM tasks by preservice teachers?How have the NGSS Science and Engineering Practices (SEP) standards connected with the CCSSMP standards through STEAM tasks by preservice teachers?\nTheoretical framework: Importance of STEAM education\nMethods: Research design\nResults: The results of data analysis on the responses from the pre- and post-questionnaires, and on the STEAM tasks show that there was significant differences in pre-service teachers' attitude, confidence, and STEAM integration. There was also a positive correlation between attitude and STEAM integration, and between confidence and STEAM integration. The pre-service teachers were able to design a variety of innovative STEAM tasks in real world applications. They were also able to smoothly connect the NGSS and CCSSM standards at different grade levels in their STEAM tasks. As the results, they learned a lot in teaching and learning with STEAM integration.Difference in attitude, confidence, belief and knowledge of STEAM integration\nDiscussion and conclusion: The results in this study show that the STEAM integration in the mathematics methods courses engaged preservice teachers in the four steps of the inquiry process of connection, collaboration, communication and application for the STEAM integration using the PBL approach. The preservice teachers not only enhanced their disposition in attitude and confidence but also enhanced their belief and knowledge of STEAM integration.Effects on productive dispositions of STEAM integration\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study intended to provide such an opportunity to preservice teachers with a project-based learning (PBL) approach and an inquiry-based pedagogy to engage them in learning science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) knowledge and skills of integration with adding an art component to STEM as science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) for K-8 children, and developing their own STEAM tasks. The purpose of this project was to explore how STEAM integration in mathematics methods courses influenced K-8 preservice teachers' disposition and knowledge of STEAM integration.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This project used a mixed-research design in data collection and analysis to examine the effects of using the STEAM integration on preservice teachers' knowledge and disposition. The preservice teachers in two EDEL 462 classes in Spring 2019 participated in STEAM learning and development in the inquiry process of four steps of STEAM integration. Data collection includes the pre- and postquestionnaires on teachers' knowledge and disposition.\nFindings: The results in this study show that the STEAM integration in the mathematics methods courses engaged preservice teachers in four steps of the inquiry process of connection, collaboration, communication and evaluation for STEAM integration using PBL approach. The preservice teachers not only enhanced their disposition in attitude and confidence but also enhanced their knowledge of STEAM integration.\nResearch limitations/implications: The following conclusions can be drawn from the present study that integrating STEAM components in mathematics methods fosters preservice teachers' creativity, connection, communication, application and teamwork skills, and importantly, it enhances K-8 preservice teachers' productive dispositions and knowledge in STEAM integration.\nPractical implications: The results of this study indicate that using math methods courses to engage preservice teachers in learning STEAM integration and designing authentic STEAM tasks in four steps enhanced preservice teachers' attitude and confidence that significantly related to their knowledge of STEAM integration.\nOriginality/value: These findings have significant implications for the understanding of how to prepare future teachers in STEAM integration in higher education.\n",
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] |
Knowledge transfer between actors in the innovation system: a study of higher education institutions (HEIS) and SMES
|
[
"Innovation",
"Knowledge transfer",
"Higher education institutions",
"Small- to medium-sized enterprises",
"External organisations"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Despite innovation being recognised as an outcome of the interaction of many heterogeneous system actors for more than two decades, most studies have focussed on processes that map tangible innovation outcomes rather than the activities and relationships among institutions or individuals who make and implement decisions within an innovation system (Malerba and Nelson, 2011; Woodside and Biemans, 2005). Moreover, in studying higher education institutions (HEIs), most studies focus on internal relationships and interactions among actors within the HEI or higher education system. Less attention is given to interactions among HEIs and other actors in the innovation system, especially the smaller ones that have less resources and power. This is despite evidence that smaller firms produce more disruptive innovations (Christensen, 1997), and that participating in inter-organisational networks can help them overcome size-related disadvantages and provide them with access to a wider pool of resources and knowledge (Mackinnon et al., 2004). With few exceptions, there is a paucity of empirical studies on knowledge access among a major group of actors in the innovation system - SMEs (Hughes et al., 2009; Huggins and Johnston, 2009). This lack of research is surprising given the amount of attention innovation receives in the business and policy arena (Cutler, 2008).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Networks, innovation and knowledge\n3. Conceptual framework: Based on the preceding discussion, Figure 1 describes the conceptual framework that depicts the inter-relationships among SME types (by size), types of HEI knowledge access pathways (relational versus generic), other organisational partners and firm innovativeness.\n4. Research method: The study involved both quantitative and qualitative approaches: a survey of 1,226 SMEs and a mini-case study to follow-up on issues arising from the survey analysis.\n5. Discussion of results: 5.1 Descriptive statistics: extent and nature of innovation - size differences\n7. Conclusions: This study set out to understand how and why SMEs access knowledge from external actors in general and from HEIs in particular and the extent to which these knowledge access pathways affect the SMEs' innovativeness.\n8. Limitations: There are a number of limitations associated with this research, some of which have been mentioned above; however, these do not detract from the nature of the results.\n9. Research implications: Although the ability to effectively access valuable knowledge across organisational boundaries is important for innovation, this research finds that SMEs rely more on \"generic\" HEIs-to-industry knowledge access pathways and, moreover, on partners other than HEIs. Hence, our study finds that despite significant financial and other resources devoted to developing stronger links and networks between HEIs and SMEs (with the aim of moving SMEs up the value chain to higher growth), knowledge-based pathway (e.g. through R&D spillovers leading to more rapid commercialisation of HEI-developed IP) and improvements in long-term growth and sustainability, current policies do not seem to be working in the Australian context (Roos, 2012; Roos et al., 2005). To make the innovation system work more effectively, better policy and resources could be devoted to helping HEIs \"get closer\" to SMEs (Hughes et al., 2009). HEIs should take the lead and proactively market to, and cultivate linkages with, owner/managers of SMEs.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand how and why small to medium enterprises (SMEs) access knowledge from external actors in general and from higher education institutions (HEIs) in particular and what is the extent to which these knowledge access pathways affect SME innovativeness.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper involved both quantitative and qualitative approaches: a survey of 1,226 SMEs and a mini case study to follow-up on issues arising from the survey analysis. Survey data were analysed using both non-parametric and multivariate Poisson regression analysis. The case study was based on a medium-sized manufacturing firm in South Australia.\nFindings: While there are significant differences between the micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, the evidence suggests that SMEs generally use \"generic\" university-industry knowledge transfer pathways (e.g. published research results) rather than university-industry links with high \"relational\" involvement. More significantly, the results indicate that SMEs are more likely to rely on organisations other than universities and related R&D enterprises for knowledge acquisition like clients/customers or suppliers. While collaboration is most likely to occur within the same state/territory, or Australia, many SMEs also collaborate internationally, usually as part of normal supplier-customer relationships, reinforcing knowledge acquisition from organisationally proximate partners. These findings are also supported by the case study.\nResearch limitations/implications: This research was limited to surveying SMEs in one geographic (metropolitan) region in Australia. It also does not account for the different patterns of HEI-SME interactions in different industry sectors. There is also only one case study.\nOriginality/value: First, the research adds to the few field studies that have investigated accessing knowledge for innovation among SMEs. Specifically, the research contributes to an understanding of the heterogeneous roles that different actors play in facilitating knowledge access for improving innovative SMEs outcomes. Second, the research does not treat all SMEs similarly in terms of size effects but instead accounts for differing SME sizes and how this affects their selection of knowledge access pathways. Third, the research contributes to a small number of studies that attempt to understand how HEIs and SMEs can work better together in the context of a regional innovation system, especially one that is relatively less competitive to the larger economy.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Emerging human capital analytics for investment processes
|
[
"Human capital",
"Financial markets",
"Intangible assets",
"Financial institutions",
"Australia",
"Hong Kong"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Pressures for clearer intangibles analysis in the investment community: Changes in the pressures on the finance industry to move beyond the trend to commoditization in their products and services have generated a need for superior intangibles analysis. High profile corporate collapses, such as Enron in the USA and HIH in Australia, have generated pressure on professional observers of the financial markets to provide clearer lead indicators of financial performance of listed firms. In addition, the Australian regulatory regime encourages a relatively high proportion of superannuation monies to be invested either directly or indirectly into the share market, creating both opportunities and threats for retail investors.At the same time, many human capital metrics, such as might be derived from the Kaplan and Norton (1996) style of The Balanced Scorecard or Strategy Maps (Kaplan and Norton, 2004) cannot be systematically adopted by analysts and fund managers without breaching regulatory boundaries, since those metrics rely on an in-depth understanding of an organisation which could only be gained by access to privileged and confidential company data. The Australian Stock Exchange, for instance, works very closely to the principle of transparency, so share price sensitive information of any kind, including human capital information, needs to be communicated promptly listed companies to the exchange. It is on this principle that the four tools in this paper are all based on the analysis of publicly available information.Professional observers of the capital markets such as securities analysts, are rewarded on their relative ability to predict the future financial performance of listed companies, based on data which is released to the exchange and on data provided by regular analyst briefings. Key themes of contemporary financial markets are transparency, accountability and performance. While not directly stated, underlying these themes is the principle of sustainability of the human capital systems of the publicly listed firm. The question \"Will the company survive given the configuration of their human capital intangibles?\" is important for investors. A more fundamental question is \"Will those systems permit the company to prosper?\"Based on the lead authors' field research, as well as the ongoing research of both authors over many years, it becomes clear that the fundamental question of the sustainability of a listed firm can be analysed via a clear and systematic analysis of the intangibles of a firm. In particular, analysis of the human capital of a listed firm, as manifested in the configuration of its management systems, can give rise to a clearer and more transparent picture of the firm allowing for a higher level of analysis of accountability and potential future financial performance.1.1 Relevant themes from the sustainability debate\n2 Developing and describing human capital analysis tools: The theoretical underpinnings for the following set of four tools have come from organization studies, human resource management, organizational behavior and change management literature. In a practical sense, the tools were refined by the lead author after observing trading patterns on the trading floors of several broking houses and investment banks during a field research project from November 2004 to February 2005. The major research site was Merrill Lynch in Sydney, Australia and additional information was gathered Hong Kong.The research involved the lead author engaging in action research with proprietary and house traders, observing their trading decision making processes, and discussing the process and outcomes of those outcomes with the traders in real time. Discussions and observations were diarised in the form of a daily journal, describing some key trading decisions and the traders' reflections on those decisions. Diarised observations include summaries of discussions which were responses to the traders' requests for tools and techniques to bridge their acknowledged knowledge gaps in analysis of intangibles, particularly human capital, using qualitative data. Specifically, the second and fourth tools described below were finalized in response to these knowledge gaps.Using the principles of action research, the information on selected ASX companies gathered from publicly available sources, using these tools (the human capital systems wheel, the human capital rating and the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats - SWOT tool) were fed back to the market professionals, some of whom had requested for this analysis to be done on a particular stock. The traders indicated they benefited from: timeliness of human capital information, which they saw as essential, providing a better balance of real time and \"right time\" financial and non-financial information, providing opportunities for sensing and responding to human capital events before their implications are widely known and understood. In terms of clearer non-financial measures, staff in research sales, sales, traders and analysts benefited from a framework which enhances sales dialogue and investment recommendations. They found value in human capital for predictive analysis. Employees from the derivatives (secondary markets) areas benefited from using implications of these tools to take opportunities to add value to their own clients.Human capital information was seen to be value adding and was used with some variation depending on the role of the trader. Derivatives traders indicated they used human capital information to price risk more accurately, as a screen or filter of management quality and for its predictive component, in terms of future direction of the stock. Portfolio and systems traders indicated the value of creating a basket of stocks based on the human capital rating of listed stocks (based on Royal and O'Donnell, 2004). Sales traders and research sales highlighted that by embedding human capital information in the process they would begin to overcome the commoditisation of financial information when speaking with clients on dealing desks. The SWOT tool provided a summary of key management quality points for clients of the investment bank.The lead author observed from her field research that there is a tendency for some traders to rely on intuition when intangibles are analysed and, as human capital is seen as an intuitive process, decisions on human capital were sometimes mistimed. Traders also appeared to be unfamiliar with qualitative/academic sources such as case studies, which provide sources of information on management issues. Her conclusions were that these should be used alongside more formal announcements.The four key tools to analyse intangibles, particularly human capital, can be summarized and described within four steps. These tools can form part of an approach to collaborative knowledge transfer process for both professional and non-professional investors.2.1 Tool 1: mapping human capital using a drivers of the value of human capital\n3 How technology can assist analysts to use the four tools: Previous work by Royal et al. (2003a, b) challenged the largely quantitative financial basis of investment decisions and recommendations. These researchers also highlight the need for existing investment analysis practice and processes to be supported by more qualitative research in the form of a complementary research tool based on human capital analysis. This in turn, could be guided by an appropriate expert system, such as the Human Capital Analyser.Figure 4 shows graphically some of the implications of this research from a technological perspective. A human capital systems analytical tool flexible enough to be integrated with the major current information systems that are used by investment analysts should be web-enabled (Daneshgar et al., 2004).As the complexity of the analysis of intangibles increases, so too does the complexity of codification at the least complex level of codification. Human capital analysis products could include a web-based alert system for fund managers, a knowledge interface and a data base of sources of human capital data on listed companies. At the second, or medium level of complexity of codification, web-based training of finance industry participants could be created. In the Australian context, this kind of training would need to form part of the regulatory training requirements for the industry, as postulated by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Royal and O'Donnell, 2002b). At the third and most complex level of complexity of codification, products focusing on one to one customized advice could be developed. These kinds of products would make human capital insights available to the financial markets on a bespoke, customized basis.\n4 Conclusions: Human capital is valuable information and is currently being used unsystematically by equity markets in their decision processes. A human capital lens offers a systematic way of examining the potential future performance of stocks and can be used as a form of risk management. Human capital analysis provides opportunities for observers to potentially recognise insights ahead of time. The secret to investors' performance, irrespective of their role in the market, lies within each individual's ability to read all the information, quantitative and qualitative, and act upon it.Intuition on intangibles in broking houses can be made less tacit, and more explicit, via tools and techniques which unpack key themes for instance key management systems and their alignment to corporate strategy. There is a potential to move from \"star traders\" to \"star systems\" which will strengthen the performance of many, rather than a few professional and non-professional investors. There are potential benefits for equity market players who systematically factor in human capital.This paper provides stresses the importance of human capital analysis for investment recommendations. Together, these four steps provide a clear picture of the value in analyzing intangibles in general and human capital in particular. The tools enhance the ability of financial markets professionals to identify current patterns within the human capital system of a listed organisation, as one key variable affecting future firm performance. In essence, these tools help to bridge the gap between tangible and intangible analysis.The use of these tools of human capital analysis potentially creates a more transparent process for all stakeholders in the investment process. For retail investors, they may be able to see more clearly the value of good management to the value of their investments. For institutional investors, human capital analysis provides an opportunity to take tacit knowledge on the intrinsic value of management and to be able to analyse it within more rigorous frameworks and make it more explicit to themselves and their clients. For the boards of listed companies, human capital analysis provides clear guidelines on the kinds of good management practices which are appropriate for long-term, sustainable growth, and will be valued more highly by the markets. Just as the philosophy of quality management transformed the manufacturing sector in the 1980s (Wilcox, 1996) through its relentless search for objective, systemic problem solving methods, so too is human capital analysis likely to transform the finance sector in the coming decade.Even with these tools, designed for use of publicly available information, caution should be used by professional and non-professional investors to ensure they are fully briefed before undertaking investments.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to respond to the increasing pressure on financial markets to more systematically value the intangible assets in listed firms.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Using qualitative research techniques on the trading floor of Merrill Lynch Investment Bank in Sydney and Hong Kong, four tools for human capital analysis have been developed by the authors.\nFindings: - These tools provide mechanisms for securities analysts to more systematically analyse the intangible aspects of publicly listed firms on global stock exchanges.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Given the complex regulatory requirements on securities analysts in many developed economies, these tools are predicated on analysts using publicly available information.\nOriginality/value: - Specifically, the tools use a systems approach and can assist securities analysts to be more systematic in their analysis of management quality of publicly listed companies, as it is manifested in a firm's management systems.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Increasing satisfaction among female workers in the UAE public sector: How quality of work life holds the key
|
[
"Job satisfaction",
"Work-life balance",
"Turnover intention",
"Public sector",
"United Arab Emirates"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: According to Heather Schuck, people must be \"satisfied by life\" before they can \"feel truly satisfied by work\". The importance that many firms are now placing on work-life balance suggests that the words of this US author and marketer are resonating across the business world.\nFurthering the notion of employee well-being: Certain analysts propose quality of work life (QoWL) as a more encompassing concept of well-being. Different definitions prevail but all similarly encapsulate the notion of an employee's physical and emotional health in relation to all aspects of their working environment.\nWomen and economic prosperity in the UAE: The notion of QoWL seems especially pertinent among women today in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In this Gulf state, females account for around half of the Emiratis who make up over 11 percent of the entire population. No surprise then that they are regarded as critical to economic prosperity. Consequently, the government is committed to making sure that education and employment opportunities are available to them.\nHow quality of work life can be enhanced: Improving the financial packages on offer appears to be an ideal opening gambit. However, any notion that this alone would prove enough is a seriously flawed one. Pressing the right buttons demands much greater imagination than that. Females in this Gulf state seek to be challenged in the workplace and have scope to develop their capabilities. In this regard, this provision of more flexible options in the workplace is a major plus. Emotional stability is likewise highly valued.\nComment: The review is based on: \"Quality of work life of Emirati women and its influence on job satisfaction and turnover intention: evidence from the UAE\", by Jabeen et al. (2018), published in Journal of Organizational Change Management. Female employees in UAE play a key role in public sector firms and are critical to wider economic development. By focusing on certain aspects to help improve QoWL, organizations can increase job satisfaction among Emirati women and reduce the high turnover rates which currently prevail.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the papers in context.\nFindings: Female employees in the United Arab Emirates play a key role in public sector firms and are critical to wider economic development. By focusing on certain aspects to help improve quality of work life, organizations can increase job satisfaction among Emirati women and reduce the high turnover rates which currently prevail.\nOriginality/value: The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Multi-factor menu analysis using data envelopment analysis
|
[
"Data analysis",
"Restaurants",
"Procurement",
"Modelling",
"Service industries"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The menu drives purchasing and production decisions in all restaurant operations, from procurement to preparation to the sales price of the finished product. Consider an example of a fish entree: The raw product may be purchased fresh or frozen, whole or filleted and may be prepared grilled, baked, or fried. The selling price of the final product reflects the product and preparation costs of the menu item. Menu analysis models enable restaurateurs to systematically evaluate individual menu items by comparing each menu item to other menu items based on pre-selected criteria. Historically, menu analysis models have included food cost, contribution margin and popularity or product mix. Other cost factors, including energy, commodities, and especially labor, should also be assessed. Since labor contributes 30 percent or more to the costs of production, the industry very much needs a model that includes labor (Raab et al., 2007).Noting that menus are fundamental to revenue management, numerous researchers have suggested models on which to base more efficient operations, improve guest satisfaction, and increase profit. As Reynolds et al. (2005) noted, however, menu engineering remains more art than science. No single extant model provides utility across segments, and current models are neither robust nor holistic. Miller's (1980, 1987) matrix model, which was designed to focus on food cost and product mix in quick-service operations, enjoys the widest currency. Kasavana and Smith (1982) applied Boston Consulting Group Portfolio Analysis in devising a menu-engineering matrix approach to menu analysis for mid-scale and fine-dining restaurants. Pavesic (1983) modified these matrix models by using food cost and weighted averages of gross profit and popularity.These menu management and analysis models share the common and irremediable shortcoming of variable interdependency, in which the central intersection between vectors in a matrix is dictated by the means for the associated variables. Equally problematic, it is mathematically impossible to represent all menu items in the same matrix quadrant.The purpose of this study is, then, to develop a multi-dimensional, holistic model that:* avoids variable interdependency problems; and* integrates multiple factors that characterize menu items more accurately.Using data gathered during a three-month period from three same-brand units of a full-service chain restaurant firm, we applied data-envelopment analysis (DEA), a non-parametric-approach that accounts for both controllable (discretionary) and uncontrollable (non-discretionary) variables, producing a single relative-to-best index based on efficiency scores. DEA also permits assessment of contingent efficiency that is free of the previously mentioned matrix approach limitations and measures the performance of each menu item while accounting for their differing characteristics. Moreover, we have advanced beyond past research on the use of menu analysis and engineering to maximize profit by integrating the valuation of labor-attribute production costs into the analysis.\nBackground: A variety of menu analysis models have been developed to provide foodservice operations, regardless of size and resources, with the ability to evaluate menus in terms of cost of sales and menu item popularity. Miller (1980, 1987) was the first to develop a four-quadrant matrix model that focused on food cost and product mix to analyze menu item profitability without consideration of production costs. Kasavana and Smith (1982) used the Boston Consulting Group Portfolio Analysis as the basis for the Menu Engineering matrix approach to menu analysis. They incorporated contribution margin, which they defined as the difference between the sales price of an item and the cost of food product consumed to produce that item (more commonly referred to today as \"gross profit\"), while regarding high gross profit and low food cost as mutually exclusive.Pavesic (1983) modified the matrix models devised by Miller and by Kasavana and Smith (1982) using food cost and weighted average contribution margin in a model termed the Cost/Margin model. In that model, the weighted contribution margin includes both popularity and contribution margin. Pavesic (1983) did not treat food cost percentage and gross profit as mutually exclusive components, instead using weighted gross profit/contribution margin to replace individual gross profit as used in Menu Engineering by Kasavana and Smith (1982). In doing so, Pavesic (1983) included popularity as an indirect third variable.While these menu-engineering models offer some utility, they share many deficiencies. Menu analysis models based on contribution margin analysis cannot reveal the true profitability of a menu item if other operating costs are not considered (Raab et al., 2007). First and most seriously, the models fail to address labor cost, arguably the greatest expense category in restaurant operations. According to Horton (2001), this model limitation is due primarily to the faulty assumption that labor is a differential cost. Differential costs are difficult to obtain accurately and inexpensively. Additionally, matrix models assume that all non-material direct costs are equally related to all menu items (Morrison, 1996). Furthermore, labor costs are not easily assigned to individual menu items. Nevertheless, as Reynolds and Biel (2007) have argued, any functional assessment of restaurant performance, including measures of menu-related revenue effects, must include labor costs. Raab and Mayer (2007) have adapted the menu-engineering model with activity-based costing methodologies in an attempt to trace all costs to individual menu items. Acknowledging the importance of labor or other costs, Pavesic's (1983) Cost/Margin model did include an option to add a \"supplemental cost\" component to food cost. Theoretically this cost could be used for labor, although this has not been reported as a common practice. The best solution is clearly to create a model that accounts for labor cost explicitly.The increasingly common position that labor must be accounted for in menu analysis has led to several menu analysis models that attempt to account for this important cost. For example, Hayes and Huffman (1985) developed an individual profit-and-loss statement for all menu components in an attempt to allocate all costs including labor and fixed costs to individual menu items. Arguing that such a holistic approach was cumbersome because of the complexity involved in assembling such data, Bayou and Bennett (1992) proposed that fixed costs such as rent, utilities, and insurance should be excluded from the evaluation of menu items. LeBruto et al. (1995) disagreed, proposing to use categorical data to measure labor costs by subdividing the quadrants of an engineering matrix into eight parts to reflect high- and low-labor-cost items.Bayou and Bennett (1992) developed a profitability analysis model to evaluate the financial strength of menu items in an attempt to allocate variable costs such as labor. Horton (2001) used a similar approach, segmenting menu items prior to analysis and evaluation into categories of comparable items. He modified the Kasavana and Smith (1982) model to include pure variable labor costs defined as labor costs that could be calculated in the direct production of a menu item. He did not, however, specify how to separate the labor costs pertaining to a given menu item from other costs.Attempting to create a more objective menu-engineering approach, Cohen et al. (1998) introduced a multidimensional strategy that considered food cost, price, labor cost, popularity, and contribution margin to evaluate aggregate menu effectiveness. Unfortunately, they did not specify how these variables, including labor, would be calculated and did not consider other factors of production.Recently, Raab and Mayer (2007) have explored the possibility of incorporating activity-based costing with menu engineering as a more sophisticated vehicle with which to allocate overhead costs to individual menu items with optimistic results. The challenge of activity-based costing systems is that costs must be constantly measured and often estimated on the basis of regular updates.Another problem with such a matrix approach is variable interdependency. As the gross profit for a single menu item increases, for example, the mean gross profit used as the normalizing factor changes. This fluidity in the convergence of primary vectors, while useful for mapping purposes, makes it impossible to quantify objectively different pricing, promotion, or positioning strategies.We suggest replacing the matrix approach with data envelopment analysis (DEA). DEA was developed in 1978 as a method for evaluating the efficiency or performance of government and non-profit operations. In contrast to parametric statistical approaches, DEA is an extreme-point method that compares each producer to the best producer (www.emp.pdx.edu/dea/homedea.html). While DEA includes ratio analysis similar to that of the matrix approach, it produces a single relative-to-best index for each item, allowing for comparison against the best-performing rather than average menu items. The use of DEA in hospitality and other service sectors is on the rise (see, for example, Donthu and Yoo, 1998; Hu and Cai, 2004; Morey and Dittman, 1995; Reynolds, 1998, 2004; Sigala et al., 2005). Moreover - as Reynolds (2003) demonstrated - DEA has a proven range of applications in hospitality management, particularly in the areas of restaurant operational assessment and enhancement. DEA can be used, moreover, to integrate a wide range of input and output variables, including controllable and uncontrollable inputs.These two shortcomings of the matrix analysis approach, the exclusion of labor and variable interdependency, could be remedied by adequately valuating the labor costs associated with each menu item and then performing DEA. Furthermore, such a model should include those variables that earlier studies have demonstrated are critical, such as gross profit, food cost, and menu-item popularity (Bayou and Bennett, 1992; Cohen et al., 1998; Hayes and Huffman, 1985; Horton, 2001; Kasavana and Smith, 1982; LeBruto et al., 1995; Miller, 1980, 1987; Pavesic, 1983, 1985).The objective of the present study is to devise, as a first step toward developing a comprehensive menu analysis model, a model that incorporates labor using labor attributes expressed in categorical terms. This study will not focus on the popularity aspect of the analysis. The matrix approach historically has been the most effective method of menu item comparison, but it accommodates only a limited number of variables. A new process - DEA - is needed to construct a more complex menu analysis model that will allow incorporation of multiple input and output variables for the menu item evaluation process.\nMethodology: In order to create a holistic multi-factor menu analysis tool (hereafter referred to as Multi-Factor Menu Analysis - MFMA), several steps were required.Labor factor development\nResults: Labor factor development\nDiscussion and management implications: This study's first objective was to develop a menu analysis model that not only included the relevant attributes of existing menu analysis models but also incorporated a labor component. The second objective was to integrate a non-parametric analytical approach, one that did not suffer from the shortcomings of previous matrix models, especially variable interdependency. The results demonstrate that categorical classifications of labor costs could be captured and incorporated into a menu analysis model.Such categorical valuation of labor attributes meets many of the challenges noted by others regarding actual cost allocation by item (e.g. Horton, 2001). Although considerable subjectivity remains in the approach applied here, it deserves further empirical attention. While the ideal data set for menu analysis would include the exact labor cost for any given item, the variability based on production quantity, service delivery approaches, etc. practicality precludes such valuation. Nonetheless, the method reported here demonstrates considerable utility. Ultimately, a method with which to simultaneously include quantitative and qualitative variables is needed to fully assess menu efficiency and profitability. Although the findings are limited to the data set studied, by developing labor attributes curtailed to a specific restaurant, DEA can be an effective tool in menu evaluation. Additionally, the factors need not be limited to focusing on profitability; a DEA model could simultaneously examine the cost of arriving at the popularity of a menu item.In this context, the paper's primary contribution is this novel application of DEA to evaluate the efficiency of each menu item based on gross profit, popularity, and categorically measured labor factors. The comparative analyses represent an additional contribution. While the study is limited in assessing the actual effects of the model recommendations via a simulation, it provides empirical support for a menu-analysis model that integrates more variables and employs DEA.For academics, this research should lead to still more elaborate menu engineering approaches that integrate non-parametric statistical applications with multiple exogenous and endogenous variables. For practitioners, the findings reported here underscore the need to look beyond traditional menu analysis techniques and the focus on food cost alone. Specifically, foodservice managers must consider all related components of each menu items, including but not limited to difficulty in preparation, duration of preparation time, number of employees required, and costs associated with inventory management. Managers must also look at labor more as a variable cost, one that is correlated closely with the menu design. Finally, these results communicate that just as managers must embrace new approaches to human resource, technology, and financial management, they must understand the need for more robust menu engineering approaches.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to develop a multi-dimensional, holistic model that: avoids the variable interdependency found in earlier tools; and integrates multiple factors that characterize menu item costs more accurately by considering more than gross profit.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Using data gathered during a three-month period from three same-brand units of a full-service chain restaurant firm, the paper applies data-envelopment analysis (DEA), a non-parametric approach that accounts for both controllable (discretionary) and uncontrollable (non-discretionary) variables, producing a single relative-to-best index based on an efficiency rating calculated on a 0 to 1 scale.\nFindings: - The findings suggest that the DEA-equipped model, which is not constrained by the limitations of traditional matrix approaches, supports a more robust approach by incorporating more cost determinants than traditional menu engineering approaches.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The paper consists of only a single restaurant concept and the evaluation results are purely theoretical. Future research should include the application of the menu analysis recommendations to an actual menu to determine the effectiveness of the model on actual operation profitability.\nPractical implications: - The research suggests that DEA is an effective tool in the evaluation of a restaurant menu by evaluating individual menu items based on attributes of labor and profitability factors.\nOriginality/value: - The paper shows that by combining DEA with traditional menu analysis methodologies, a more efficient menu analysis tool may be utilized to evaluate menu items without the arbitrary allocation of non-food costs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
What industry wants: employers' preferences for training
|
[
"Human resource development",
"Skills training",
"Apprenticeships",
"Hospitality services",
"Retailing",
"Australia"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Service industries predominate in western economies and yet there remains a perception that they and the jobs that they create are somehow inferior to jobs that produce goods rather than services. Training for most jobs in the service industries suffers from a similar perception, with qualifications in the most part fairly recently established, and formal provision of qualifications more likely to be provided by the private training sector rather than public providers. Perceptions of poor quality training are accepted as not entirely unfounded, and hence a series of three research projects, collectively known as the \"New Deal\", was commissioned in 2008-2009 by Service Skills Australia, the Industry Skills Council for the service industries, with the aim of gathering research evidence to inform the development of initiatives to improve the quality of service skills training. This paper reports on part of the research undertaken for the second of the three projects. This project was intended to provide suggestions for better developing vocational education and training (VET) practitioners for the service industries, in the belief that better development for these teachers and trainers was one factor that would lead to higher quality training. The aim of this paper is to report on and critique what industry representatives said about training and trainers for the industry, and to derive suggestions for improvements.\nBackground and literature review: In Australia, the service industries are by far the biggest employers of labour. In 2008, retail, including floristry and wholesale, employed 1.5 million people (Service Skills Australia, 2009a) and hospitality, including tourism and travel, 1.2 million (Service Skills Australia, 2009b). The retail and hospitality industries are expanding rapidly in western countries. In the UK, for example, restaurant trade increased by 71 per cent in the decade to 1998 (Pratten, 2003). Internationally around 10 per cent of all workers are employed in tourism and hospitality alone (Baum, 2002).Despite their massive size, work in these two industries is often undervalued by the public and by scholars alike (Poulston, 2008; Hart et al., 2007). Perceptions of low skills are, of course, often socially constructed (Baum, 2002). However, the work certainly has its real disadvantages; for example hospitality workers are sometimes subject to split shifts and cramped working conditions (Pratten, 2003). Pay also tends to be low (Pratten, 2003), although jobs are very diverse and include managerial and professional work (Baum, 2002). In the tight labour market of the past decade it has been increasingly difficult to attract staff to many jobs in the industries (Poulston, 2008). Labour turnover is high (Booth and Hamer, 2007) partly because the workforce tends to be young and, especially in hospitality, transient. In the UK, and Ireland in particular, for example, hospitality has attracted huge numbers of workers from the EU \"A8 accession countries\" such as Poland (Wickham et al., 2009) which brings additional training needs such as language training as well as a workforce that does not intend to stay in the industry. Students both in secondary (Smith and Wilson, 2002; Smith and Patton, 2007) and tertiary education (Greenbank et al., 2009) form a large proportion of the industries' workforces.Apart from training for chefs and other food-related trades such as butchers and bakers, qualifications are not yet a prerequisite for employment in either industry (Huddlestone and Hirst, 2004), and managers in particular are under-qualified (Hart et al., 2007). The retail and hospitality industries are \"low consumers\" of external training, particularly that offered by public training providers (Dougherty, 2003). This could partly be related to the typical size of retail and hospitality employers, which tend to be small (Service Skills Australia, 2009a, b); on-the-job training is generally agreed to be the most common type of training in small and medium enterprises (e.g. Jameson, 2000). Employers sometimes tend to express dissatisfaction with training provided by external providers (Pratten, 2003). There are some difficulties with on-the-job training, however, in the service industries; as Poulston (2008) puts it, \"performing a task publicly with insufficient skill jeopardises service quality, and can demean and embarrass employees\".Customer service is paramount in these industries; Maxwell et al. (2004, p. 159) point out that for hospitality \"the customer reigns supreme\", and Huddlestone and Hirst (2004, p. 6), for retail, state \"customer service is becoming the most essential employee skill\". In a study of training in the Hilton chain, Maxwell et al. (2004, p. 269) note that a service culture is deeply imbued in organisational structures and practices, and cannot be added on simply by training individual staff.Training for the service industries in Australia is carried out predominantly within the framework of the national Vocational Education and Training (VET) system. National qualifications are built into industry Training Packages which contain job-related units of competency developed in consultation with industry and training providers. Qualifications are delivered by Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) which consist of both public providers, mainly TAFE (Technical and Further Education) Institutes, and around 4000 private providers (Smith and Keating, 2003). Apprenticeships and their newer siblings, traineeships, account for about 25 per cent of VET activity and consist of a combination of employment and training, sometimes involving part-time attendance at an RTO but in the case of traineeships often involving on-site training only and visits from an RTO trainer (Smith et al., 2009b). In hospitality, chefs, and, in retail, butchers and bakers are generally apprenticed jobs. Traineeships are common in retail and in fast food establishments, although their use is increasingly becoming strategic rather than mass (Smith et al., 2009).Challenges associated with researching the topic area included the diverse nature of the VET workforce in general (Smith and Keating, 2003), the highly distributed nature of the segment of that workforce providing training for and within service industries, the relatively recent provenance of nationally recognised training (qualification-based) in some of the service industries, the fragmented nature of several of the service industries themselves (e.g. the fitness and beauty industries), and the known quality issues and issues of competition among training providers particularly in the private training sector, which, it was expected, would lead to some reluctance to participate in the research study.\nResearch method: Four focus groups (two in retail including floristry and wholesale, and two in hospitality including travel and tourism) were held in three States in Australia during May 2009, with senior industry representatives, who were accessed primarily through Service Skills Australia recommendation. In hospitality, two people unable to attend were contacted separately through telephone interviews. Participants were predominantly employers, although in some cases they were from employer associations. The employers continued two Group Training Organisations (GTOs), which are government-supported companies that employ apprentices and trainees, \"leasing\" them to employers. In the case of hospitality, there were several representatives from training providers rather than employers, which is a limitation of the data, although at least one of these had only very recently ceased to work in the industry. Tables I and II detail the participants.Focus groups lasted for 1.5-2 hours and interviews for 30-45 minutes. Questioning areas included the nature of the industry, the nature of the workforce in the industry, the major features of training in the industry, the nature of trainers who deliver training in and for the industry, the expectations that participants had of trainers delivering training for their industry, gaps between expectations and the reality, and any differences between those delivering at training providers and those working within enterprises. Participants were also asked to locate, on a five-point scale that opposed industry skills and knowledge with education skills and knowledge, the position where they believed that teachers and trainers for their industries should occupy.Also, telephone interviews were undertaken with the research officers from People1st and Skillsmart, the UK skills councils for hospitality and retail respectively. These interviews, lasting between 30-45 minutes, were designed to benchmark with another country's system the differences or similarities in the issues the industries were facing with regard to training needs and training provision, and to find out whether the relevant UK players had introduced any strategies to address challenges. Desk research was also carried out on the two skills councils' web sites and in relation to VET teaching and teachers more generally in the UK.While the sample of industry representatives accessed was small and was directed by the Skills Council, the findings reported were congruent with the literature as discussed earlier and with other research carried out by the research team (e.g. Smith et al., 2009). Internally, the data indicated strong similarities between the Australian and UK situations. Hence, it is felt that the data are reliable.\nFindings: This section reports on the data gathered during the focus groups and interviews.The nature of the industries\nDiscussion and conclusion: Industry participants and the UK informants painted a picture of complex industries where many businesses were small and medium enterprises, and therefore incurred all the normal disadvantages of smaller business with regard to training. In addition to this, long opening hours and peaks and troughs in trade meant that the workforce was inherently fragmented and unstable, relying heavily on casual staff. Moreover, the industries were expanding rapidly. There was a lack of tradition of training in the industries compared with other industries, with relatively new qualifications for most jobs, and managers in the industries were underqualified, meaning it was difficult for them to drive high standards in training. Given these circumstances it is perhaps surprising not that training for the service industries exhibits many challenges, but that it does the job as well as it does. This observation was supported by hospitality employers who acknowledged the difficulties faced particularly by TAFE teachers, and were very ready to make excuses on their behalf.There seemed to be three major areas where improvement in VET training and trainers would be welcomed. These were:1. industry engagement;2. pedagogical (including assessment and RPL) skills; and more generally;3. the need for teachers and trainers to impart the \"service ethics\" to their students.The latter was an attitude rather than a technical skill. The following initiatives from the UK could be useful framing improvements in these three areas:* Structured return to industry schemes with a definite curriculum for the learning of the \"returning\" teachers, which addresses the industry-related attributes of an ideal teacher or trainer outlined above.* The acknowledgement of the likely continued predominance for workplace delivery in some service skills areas, and hence the need to find non-traditional ways of building teacher expertise in the recognition that there will never be large bodies of teachers who deliver on-site at RTOs.* Realignment of national VET teacher/trainer qualifications and requirements to allow for a lower-level training \"passport\" for people training only in their specialist area and a higher-level qualification (i.e. above the current Certificate IV in Training and Assessment) for those who have a full-time teaching or training role. The latter qualification should include the pedagogy-related \"ideal attributes\" outlined above.* Greater benchmarking among training providers in relation to assessment standards.* Involvement of Skills Councils in developing courses to address deficiencies in customer service skills that are not addressed by relevant national qualifications and to ensure the appropriate delivery of such courses and their embedding in workplace practice (i.e. supporting courses for training providers and for managers).Beyond the areas for improvement that are listed above there seems to be an underlying problematic issue. Employers in both countries seem to suggest that deeper levels of service skills are required and that current VET training and trainers do not sufficiently develop these skills in learners. And yet in both countries employers and employer associations are heavily involved in the development of Training Packages and NVQs respectively, and so it might be expected that qualifications would reflect industry requirements. There are several explanations for this seeming disparity. It could be that actually employers need their workers to have technical skills, but they would also like them to have better attitudes, and that in their comments they focus on deficiencies rather than strengths. Or it could be that employers are unable to communicate what they mean by service skills to those developing these qualification regimes, or that those people ignore what employers are telling them. It is also possible that teachers lack the skills to develop service skills in learners. More fundamentally it may the case that such skills cannot be taught in isolation from an organisational culture, because, as Maxwell et al. (2004) point out, a service culture is so deeply embedded within organisational culture. It is also possible that some learners cannot learn them, or are not interested in learning them. In the study of Polish hospitality workers in Ireland (Wickham et al., 2009, p. 92), a worker referred to two groups of workers - those who \"think business\" and those who \"simply want to do their job and go home\". Given this dichotomy it may be that it is unrealistic to expect that the VET system can develop deep service skills in the full range of workers. However, greater engagement by teachers and trainers in industry would be likely to improve their ability to engender such skills.An issue that was under-discussed by participants was the presence of large proportions of student-workers in many service industries. As discussed in the \"background\" section, retail and fast food in particular rely heavily on students to staff their outlets, and yet, although other research has shown that such companies are well aware of the importance of students in their human resource and training regimes (Smith and Patton, 2007), it is interesting that the participants in the study reported in this paper did not raise this issue, despite their mentioning the need for trainers to take account of individual differences among learners and contexts. This omission may reflect an unconscious assumption that all teachers and trainers would be aware of the predominance of students in the workforce of many service industry companies; if so, this could be a dangerous assumption that needs to be corrected in the relevant qualifications and other development activities for teachers and trainers for the service industries.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse what retail and hospitality industry employers want from training and trainers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research project was undertaken for Service Skills Australia, the Australian Industry Skills Council that oversees formal training for a range of service industries in Australia. The paper utilises data from focus groups and telephone interviews with representatives of the retail and hospitality industries, and telephone interviews with staff of the relevant UK Sector Skills Councils, to provide international benchmarking for the issues raised.\nFindings: - Results showed that, while industry representatives stated that they prioritised industry skills and knowledge above education skills and knowledge, a complex mixture of the two was required, which was generally felt to be lacking. Curriculum for training was also perceived to be deficient, despite Training packages having been developed in consultation with industry. A comparison with the UK interviews with senior staff at the UK Skills Councils for the two industries showed similar issues and suggested some possible ways forward for Australia.\nOriginality/value: - The paper provides three major areas where improvement in VET training and trainers would be welcome and gives useful initiatives for improvement in those areas.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
An experience-based learning framework: Activities for the initial development of sustainability competencies
|
[
"Experiential learning",
"Sustainability competencies",
"Systems thinking",
"Higher education for sustainability",
"Mental mapping",
"Walking methods"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Climate change, desertification, poverty and pandemics are among the typical sustainability problems which feature high degrees of complexity and damage potential and do not have obvious solutions (Kates et al., 2001; Lang et al., 2012). The goal of Higher Education for Sustainable Development (HESD) is to enable students not only to understand these problems but also to contribute to solution efforts (Barth, 2015; Wiek and Kay, 2015). To achieve this goal, contributions in HESD argue for educational settings that allow students to actively engage with real-world sustainability problems (Rowe, 2007; Brundiers et al., 2010; Scholz et al., 2006; Domask, 2007). The exposure to real-world problems enables students to develop systems thinking, normative, anticipatory, strategic and collaborative competencies necessary for engaging in problem-solving efforts and for professional careers (Remington-Doucette et al., 2013; Allen et al., 2014; Singer-Brodowski, 2015; Wiek et al., 2011a, 2011b).\n2. Experiential activities for the initial development of sustainability competencies: Since the early 2000s, sustainability education aims to structure activities that foster the step-by-step development of key competencies in sustainability over the course of an educational program (Brundiers et al., 2010). Yet, little attention has been paid to how instructors can facilitate the initial development of such competencies in students from different disciplinary, social and cultural backgrounds, e.g. in international education.\n3. The experience-based learning framework: The experience-based learning framework engages students in a step-by-step learning experience. Instructors facilitate and help the students during most activities with a series of inputs and guidelines. Yet, students self-organize, sometimes individually, other times in small teams. Figure 3 shows that the framework has the shape of a spiral of repeated engagements that interweaves theoretical and methodological inputs, mapping and walking activities, as well as reflections and discussions (Bruner, 1960). Table I summarizes the activities in the framework focusing on the deliverables and outputs produced in the different steps of mapping and walking activities.\n4. Application of the framework in The Global Classroom: The experience-based learning framework was developed in \"The Global Classroom: Liberal Arts Education in the 21st Century\", a project between Leuphana University of Luneburg in Germany and ASU in the USA funded by Stiftung Mercator (Wiek et al., 2013). The Curriculum Reform Manifesto inspired the learning objectives of the project (Elkana, 2012). Revolving around the question \"Sustainable Cities: A contradiction in terms?\", The Global Classroom offered over 70 students a research-based, interdisciplinary, team-based and international learning experience in sustainability (Wiek et al., 2013). In this project, two cohorts of about 35 students each, one half in the USA and the other half in Germany, made use of the experience-based learning framework. The first cohort used the framework in Spring 2013, the second cohort in Spring 2014.\n5. Discussion: After the development and first implementation of the experience-based learning framework in The Global Classroom, it is important to reflect on the opportunity and challenges that emerge when trying to provide a summative assessment of the framework with respect to learning objectives and when trying to adapt it to different educational contexts.\n6. Conclusions: In the context of the Global Classroom, the authors have created and implemented an experience-based learning framework that facilitates the first encounter of students with sustainability. The framework complements existing educational approaches in higher education for sustainability. Other programs and institutions may be able to use the experience-based learning framework as a complementary tool for the introduction of sustainability to students from different social, cultural and disciplinary backgrounds in international and intercultural settings. This article has presented how experiential, student-centered and bottom-up approaches can support the initial development of systems thinking, normative and collaborative competencies. The critical review of the implementation of the framework in the Global Classroom points out that the experience-based learning framework would benefit from a summative assessment as well as from further implementation in different educational settings. The step-wise organization of the framework presented in this article can inform and support further attempts to transfer experience-based learning activities in different educational contexts as well as in real-world transdisciplinary projects.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to present an experience-based learning framework that provides a bottom-up, student-centered entrance point for the development of systems thinking, normative and collaborative competencies in sustainability.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The framework combines mental mapping with exploratory walking. It interweaves mapping and walking activities with methodological and theoretical inputs as well as with reflections and discussions. The framework aligns experiential activities, i.e. mental mapping and walking, with learning objectives, i.e. novice-level sustainability competencies. The authors applied the framework for student activities in Phoenix/Tempe and Hamburg/Luneburg as part of The Global Classroom, a project between Arizona State University in the USA and Leuphana University of Luneburg in Germany.\nFindings: The application of the experience-based learning framework demonstrates how students started developing systems thinking (e.g. understanding urban systems as functional entities and across different domains), normative (e.g. using different sustainability principles) and collaborative (e.g. learning across disciplinary, social and cultural differences) competencies in sustainability.\nOriginality/value: The experience-based learning framework contributes to the development of curricular activities for the initial development of sustainability competencies in introductory-level courses. It enables students from different disciplinary, social and cultural backgrounds, e.g. in international education, to collaboratively start developing such competencies. The framework can be adapted to different educational contexts.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
What it takes to succeed in information technology consulting: Exploring the gender typing of critical attributes
|
[
"Communication technologies",
"Gender",
"Performance levels",
"Skills"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Women continue to be markedly underrepresented in information technology, particularly in the higher paid job categories (Ahuja, 2002; Brown, 2004; Council of Economic Advisers, 2000; Hazzan and Levy, 2006; Hogan, 2001; Solomon, 2000). Beyond interest in attracting women and girls to IT as a career option, the retention of women who are in the IT field is also of concern because women are more likely to leave IT professions (Cappelli, 2000; Panteli et al., 1999; Stephan and Levin, 2001). This under-representation of women in IT is often attributed to the perceived masculinity of IT occupations (Cockburn, 1985; Hacker, 1990; Murray, 1993; Millar and Jagger, 2001; Miller et al., 2000; Wajcman, 1991). Although both the IT field as a whole and many of its core skill sets are stereotypically viewed as masculine, there has been relatively little research on gender typing in IT (e.g. Trauth, 2002; Trauth et al., 2004; Woodfield, 2002). This lack stands in sharp contrast to the literature in human resources and organizational behavior, where there has been an abundance of research on how the gender typing of performance dimensions, skill sets, and organizational roles - particularly with respect to the profession of manager - affect organizational life (Atwater et al., 2004; Brenner et al., 1989; A. Eagly and Karau, 2002; Kidder and Parks, 2001; Schein, 1994).In both the research and practitioner literatures in IT, the importance of technical skills and \"soft\" behavioral skills to career success are commonly addressed issues (e.g. Basselier et al., 2001; Bassellier et al., 2003; Gallivan et al., 2004; Lee et al., 1995; Litecky et al., 2004; Todd et al., 1995; Trauth et al., 2003; Vitello, 1997; Watson et al., 1990). For instance, Basselier et al. (2001, 2003) elicited a generic list of IT competencies based on an extensive review of the IT literature to examine its importance to IT related outcomes, such as IT leadership. Lee et al. (1995) and Trauth et al. (1993) conducted surveys to capture the changing needs of the critical skills and knowledge required by IS professionals in general. Watson et al. (1990) examined skills required of new MIS hires. Todd et al. (1995) and Gallivan et al. (2004) conducted content analysis on job advertisements to elicit the critical IS skills demanded by employers. Much of the research in this area addresses the relative importance of various skills and how they are incorporated in the hiring or performance processes. However, to our knowledge IS research has not examined the gendered nature of \"top\" performer attributes. Hunter (1993, 1994) and his colleague (Hunter and Beck, 1996a; Hunter and Beck, 1996b) studied the characteristics of an excellent system analyst, but did not examine gender typing. Moreover, Hunter's work, although in-depth and thorough, looked at only one job type (analyst), and did not examine changes across job level.Because technical skills are stereotyped as masculine (Margolis et al., 2003; Margolis et al., 1998), whereas behavioral skills such as communicating are stereotyped as feminine (see Cejka and Eagly, 1999), it is likely that perceptions of the importance of various performance/skill dimensions are also crucial in understanding how men and women employees are perceived and evaluated. In this study, we focus on information technology consulting as a field where it is widely acknowledged that both technical and social skills are crucial to success. We utilize an exploratory qualitative approach to characterize IT consultants' prototype of a \"top performer.\" The prototype is characterized in light of the critical attributes such as skills and personal traits required to be a \"top\" consultant. The primary question of this study is the extent to which the identified attributes are primarily stereotypically masculine or feminine in nature, as well as variations in entry-level consultants' and their superiors' prototypes.The rest of the paper is organized as follows. First, the theoretical background for the study is discussed. Second, the method used to conduct this study is explained. Third, the results of this study are presented. The study concludes with a discussion, implications, and future research section.\nBackground: Theoretical perspective on gender\nResearch methodology: A content analysis approach, suitable for an exploratory study, was employed to elicit critical attributes used to characterize a top IT consultant and to verify the premise of gender typing of IT. Content analysis uses a set of techniques to make inferences from text, here collected via interviews and focus group sessions (Weber, 1990). This is a widely used methodology to code responses to open-ended questions (Weber, 1990) from surveys, interviews, and focus group sessions. A phrase, an analysis level that has been used before in exploratory studies including IS (e.g. Todd et al., 1995), was used as a unit of analysis. More specifically, the content analysis technique known as \"Category Counts\" was applied to analyze the frequency of phrases that have been classified into attribute categories. Category counts are a simple yet useful tool that can help reveal aspects of text that would not be apparent otherwise (Weber, 1990). More specifically, in this study frequency counts not only uncover commonalities and differences between message sources (between stakeholder groups and between genders) but they can also help reveal how \"top\" performance profiles vary from one job type to another. In order to test whether any difference in the proportion of frequency counts in certain categories (such as masculine vs. feminine, male vs. female, between job types, between stakeholders) is due to chance or not, certain statistical tests such as Chi-Square and Z-test were performed. The use of these statistical tests to compare proportions of phrases between categories has been used in other studies (e.g. Bloodstein and Grossman, 1981; Campbell and Johnson, 2001; Kennison, 1999; Stitt-Gohdes et al., 2002).We have used an interpretive approach, which employs a mix of both the qualitative and quantitative techniques for data collection, coding and analysis. The quantitative analysis is used to summarize and refine the interpretation of qualitatively collected data. This section describes the sample, explains the procedure used to collect data, outlines the data classification schema developed to code the responses, and lists the statistical measures used to analyze the data.Sample\nResults: RQ1. What attributes are perceived as characterizing top performers in IT consulting, and do they change significantly with rank?\nDiscussion: This study employs an exploratory qualitative approach to characterize IT consultants' prototype of a \"top performer\". The primary focus was to evaluate the extent to which the attributes identified by participants are primarily stereotypically masculine or feminine in nature, as well as variations in entry-level consultants' and their superiors' prototypes. Because of the lack of prior research on this topic, the results of this study provide a good starting point for developing a body of knowledge in this area. The findings of this study are discussed in below.\"Top consultant\" prototype\nImplications, limitations, and future research: The IT and IS literatures have for many years discussed the necessary skill sets for systems analysts and IT professionals in general; however, none to our knowledge have focused on \"top\" performers. This study represents an exploratory first step toward characterizing the prototype of a top performer in IT consulting. The current study focuses on IT consulting, an area where the importance of both technical and behavioral skills are recognized. Compared to previous research, we take a more psychological approach, asking what it means to excel in a field by examining respondents' \"mental picture\" of a top performer. Moreover, we suggest that beyond enumeration of skill sets, it is imperative to examine what the implications of these critical attributes may be in terms of how employees may match up, or not, to this prototype.As an exploratory study, we chose a qualitative approach that did not impose any pre-existing framework on respondents but that still allowed for some basic numerical comparisons. The relatively small sample size limits the possible controls, but the findings are still suggestive and indicate that this topic warrants further investigation. In particular, it is noteworthy that, when thinking of what it takes to be a top performer at their own level, respondents were approximately as likely to cite stereotypically \"masculine\" and \"feminine\" attributes. However, other stakeholders' perceptions strongly favored attributes that, consciously or not, are more typically associated with men. This was particularly true for female participants. This gender disparity in perceptions could partially explain the under-representation of women in IT. In other words, women, who are socialized into believing that the feminine skills that they possess are less valued in IT careers, are more likely to self-regulate their behavior and voluntarily opt out of IT careers. Moreover, the results of this study suggests some intriguing possibilities for future research; do different stakeholder groups emphasize different attributes in their conceptions of \"top\" IT professional performer? What impact does this incongruity among stakeholder perceptions regarding prototypes of successful IT performers have on individuals' performance evaluations and eventually on attitudinal factors such as role stressors, satisfaction, and turnover?Over the past few decades there has been a dramatic rise in the proportion of female managers. There have been numerous articles in the popular business press arguing that \"women's ways of leading\" are actually superior to men's, particular in the supposedly more team-based model of today's organization (Krotz, 2006). Nevertheless, a \"good manager\" is still perceived as predominantly masculine (Powell et al., 2002). This stereotype continues to affect how individual women's performances are evaluated, and contributes to the limited number of women in high-level positions (Agars, 2004). Correspondingly, in IT and IS the past two decades have seen calls suggesting that women's supposed special skills will become more valuable, leading to a golden age for women (see Hazzan and Levy, 2006; King, 2004; Vaas, 2000; Woodfield, 2002). Nevertheless, the present research suggests, that even for IT consulting, although ability to communicate with users, mentoring, and other \"soft skills\" are valued, the dominant stereotype of successful performance in this field tends to favor men. This perceived advantage, albeit socially constructed, could attribute to the occupation segregation within IT, i.e. more women in lower paying jobs and fewer women in high paying jobs. Future research needs to empirically examine whether or not during performance evaluations this stereotypic masculine perception favors men more so than women.It is also important to acknowledge that the recognition and assessment of skills in the workplace is a complex process. Gender researchers suggest that sex roles and job roles interact; this interaction is commonly referred to as a spillover effect, implying that \"gender-based expectations of behaviors can spill-over into the workplace, regardless of the actual job role\" (Eagly et al., 1995). As a result, job roles are partially determined by task requirements, but also by the social construction of gender (Kidder and Parks, 2001). This suggests that identical behaviors may be interpreted quite differently depending on the particular social context and on the sex of the individual employee. For example, Woodfield (2002) suggests that excellent communication skills on the part of female IS personnel may be devalued; despite the lip service paid to the desirability of \"hybrids\" who combine excellent social and technical skills, she suggests that what was most valued in the two organizations she studied were the skills generally associated with technical men. Analogously, organizational researchers have found that a critical performance attribute such as being a good \"organizational citizen\" may mean quite different things for male and female employees (Kidder and Parks, 2001). This spillover effect often occurs when an occupation is predominately male or female (Gutek, 1985). Future research needs to examine how gender role and IT job role interactions impact the evaluations of \"top\" performer attributes uncovered in this study.The list of \"top\" performer attributes uncovered in this study suggests that the IT/IS curriculum needs to be more comprehensive. Currently, the curriculum explicitly emphasizes technical, analytical and problem solving skills by offering programming and system design and analysis courses. However, it is expected that students will cultivate other skills such as leadership and the ability to build relationships through their other college experiences and own initiative. Unfortunately, this is true for some but not all students. Therefore, in order for graduates to succeed in their IT careers, the IT/IS curriculum needs to explicitly incorporate activities within the IT/IS context that can help students develop their \"soft\" skills, such as by guiding and evaluating individual leadership skills in a project management course or by assessing the ability to build credible relationships with peers and clients during group projects in a system development course. This study also provides recruiters with a list of critical attributes that they could use for the recruitment and development of \"top performers\".One of the limitations of this study is that it did not directly assess clients' perspective on \"top\" performers, rather it was indirectly captured. Although the direct assessment of clients who are typically outside of organizational boundaries is challenging, future research could compare the results of this study by directly capturing clients' perceptions. One other limitation of this work is that this study was conducted only at one large international consulting firm based in the USA. Although this kind of sampling occurrence is common in this type of research, it limits the generalizability of these findings. Some research has shown that the social construction of gender varies from nation to nation (Aday et al., 2006; Trauth, 2002; Trauth et al., 2003; Trauth et al., 2006). Therefore, future study should focus on gender typing of these attributes in light of national culture.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This article aims to investigate prototypes of excellent performance in IT consulting and to examine the gender typing of the critical attributes used in prototyping.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Exploratory qualitative data were collected from focus group sessions and interviews of employees of a large international IT consulting firm. Responses were coded according to the gender typing of elicited attributes and content analysis was used to examine responses across stakeholders and levels.\nFindings: - The picture that emerged of a \"top performer\" covered a variety of skills and attributes, and overall was somewhat masculine-typed. An employee's own characterization of excellent performance in his/her own job level was not necessarily congruent with other stakeholders' perceptions.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Data were collected from only one US-based company and client perceptions were not directly assessed. Future research is needed to establish how prototypes impact performance evaluations and employee outcomes.\nPractical implications: - List of top performer attributes suggests ways in which IS/IT curricula could be improved, and also will be useful for recruitment and development of top performers.\nOriginality/value: - This paper goes beyond identifying necessary skill sets to examine what \"excellence\" means to various stakeholders. It suggests it may be critical to understand how employees match up, or not, to this prototype.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The mediating effect of job stress in the relationship between work-related dimensions and career commitment
|
[
"Careers",
"Stress",
"Role clarity",
"Job stress",
"Career commitment",
"Promotional opportunity",
"Work routinization"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Job stress, which has been recognized as an important occupational health problem, may be encountered in every key element in a particular job (Cooper, 2005). The literature provides evidence that work-related dimensions such as work routinization, the lack of role clarity, the quality of social environment in the workplace, and unclear promotion prospects have generated unprecedented levels of job stress in organizations (Cooper, 2005; Schabracq and Cooper, 2000; Noblet and Rodwell, 2008; Yang et al., 2008). The literature also provides evidence that one of the negative consequences of prolonged exposure to job stress is the lack of career commitment (Van der Heijden et al., 2009).\nTheoretical background and hypotheses: Job stress and sources of job stress\nMethod: Measures\nResults and discussion: Table II shows means, standard deviations, and zero-order correlations among the variables. When considering correlations between four independent variables (in Table II), the correlation between role clarity and social support is comparatively high (0.446) compared to all the other combinations of correlations between four independent variables. Yet, variance inflation factor that ranged from 1.17 to 1.25 suggested collinearity is not an issue in the data (see Hair et al., 2006).\nConclusions and implications: The paper presented findings of a study that investigated the relationship between four work-related dimensions, job stress, and career commitment. Whilst it is recognized that today's workplace environment stands out as an important source of stress and employee commitment may be shifting from the organization to one's career, it is very rare to find studies that investigated the effect of job stress in the relationship between work-related dimensions and career commitment. The study tested a job specific model of stress depicting general relationships of sources and consequences of job stress rather than examining relationships existing in specific or unique job contexts.\nLimitations and future research: This study was designed as a cross-sectional study employing quantitative methodology. Although one can envisage a wide range of sources of stress within the work environment, the current study was confined to investigate four work-related dimensions. Further, the study was designed to investigate the mediating effect of work environment factors on job stress and in turn on career commitment. Building on the previous research, the current study took into account direct relationships between work dimensions and job stress. However, some variables, such as promotional opportunity could also be analysed as moderators coupling with appropriate independent variables. Future research could incorporate such variables. Finally, current study was not confined to a particular industry. Therefore, one could argue that a particular workplace factor may not consistently relate to stress in all workplaces. Hence, future research could confine their samples to a particular industry or profession. Further, future studies could explore white collar employees' stress coping styles as well as interventions introduced by organisations to reduce job stress.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine associations between career commitment, job stress, and work-related dimensions of work routinization, role clarity, social support, and promotional opportunity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In all, 408 employees holding supervisor or above level job positions in Sri Lanka responded to the survey. For the data analysis, structural equation modelling with maximum likelihood estimation was performed.\nFindings: Job stress fully mediates the relationship between role clarity and career commitment while partially mediates the relationships between work routinization, social support, and the lack of promotional opportunity and career commitment.\nOriginality/value: An investigation into relationships between work-related dimensions and career commitment holds a number of implications in the current business environment where employee commitment may be shifting from the organization to one's career.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Benchmarking to improve a strategy and marketing in pharmaceuticals
|
[
"Strategy",
"Benchmarking",
"Ukraine",
"Marketing process",
"Pharmaceutical company"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Pharmaceutical industries have a significant place in the economies of many countries, particularly in Ukraine where it is an important national market segment. The Ukrainian pharmaceutical market is the second market in order of size among CIS countries. The total market volume of the Ukrainian pharmaceutical market in 2009 amounted to $2.6 billion. The average annual growth rate in 2004-2007 was 21 percent. As one of the largest markets in Europe, there exist greater tendencies for large financial turnovers. Although Ukraine represents a potentially major and lucrative pharmaceutical market, most domestic manufacturers are very small and focus on the production of older drugs. Every organization will sooner or later face the issue of self-determination and further development. Modern managers of pharmaceutical companies have to address new tasks, satisfy constantly mounting needs of external and internal customers, estimate and foresee the strategies of competitors, define the strategy of company's development, manage business processes and respond promptly to a dynamic environment.\nMarket review: Despite rapid growth and large size, a weighted average price of one pack of medicine is not high in CIS countries. According to the results of nine months of 2007 it was only $1.6.\nMethodology: Among the approaches which can help a company to improve its performance, benchmarking is currently considered as one of the most effective (Maire et al., 2005). The aim of benchmarking is to compare the performance of the companies against each other, to identify which companies operate the most efficiently and to rank the remaining companies against the efficient ones (Goncharuk, 2009). In essence, benchmarking can be reduced to finding the best practices and learning them.\nTechnique and data collection: Our study was conducted in several stages (Figure 1).\nAnalysis and modeling: Determination of best practice in strategic idea, vision and mission of the companies\nPractical results and recommendations: Implemented benchmarking of a strategic idea, mission, vision and models of marketing business processes, as well as marketing analysis of market share and sales dynamics of such pharmaceutical companies as AstraZeneca, Teva and BCPP, made it possible to develop recommendations for amending the strategic idea, mission, vision and models of marketing business processes in order to improve the financial indicators of BCPP.\nConclusions: The study showed how benchmarking can be used to find best practices and improve strategy and marketing processes at pharmaceutical companies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The paper is devoted to benchmark strategic ideas, organizational culture, marketing business processes and key marketing performance measures of the pharmaceutical companies that operate on Ukrainian pharma market in order to determine the best practices and possibilities of their use for the purpose of improving performance outcomes of companies participating in the research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The AllFusion Process Modeler 7 software was used for processes modeling. The Balanced Scorecard Designer software was used to create balanced scorecard. The classifier of processes at pharmaceutical companies designed by American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC) was used when determining marketing processes and building process maps. A marketing analysis (value market share, share of voice, secondary sales dynamics and companies' market share growth dynamics) was carried out in order to estimate the efficiency of marketing process.\nFindings: The study showed that three pharmaceutical companies have different strategic aims, mission and vision. For the global companies, a strategic aim is \"Market takeover\", while the local company tries just to retain its position on the market due to some historically prevailing conditions. The study showed that local company's management does not consider marketing as a driving force of the development and sales growth; that is why company lacks marketing culture and marketing department as such is substituted with sales and distribution department. The authors find the needs of structural changes in order to develop, yield profit and avoid acquisition by local pharmaceutical company using the better practice of the global companies.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research is limited by a little number of companies (three) and one country market (Ukraine).\nPractical implications: The study includes practical recommendations focused on the improvement of financial indicators and profitability of the local pharmaceutical company with a use of benchmarking tools. They can be useful for the other local companies that try to compete with global pharmaceutical companies on the local markets.\nOriginality/value: This paper adopts the various benchmarking tools to improve a strategy and marketing processes for pharmaceutical companies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Catholic school administrators and the inclusion of non-Catholic students
|
[
"Schools",
"Educational administration",
"Students",
"Religion",
"Canada"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The academic literature on the inclusion of non-Catholic students in Catholic schools related to Catholic school administrators is thin. Indeed, there is only one small 25-pages booklet which specifically deals with that topic (Hawker, 1987). Ostensibly, the topic seems to be of little significance to the Catholic school community. However, further examination indicates the contrary.The increasing number of non-Catholic students in Catholic schools has become a phenomenon of concern for Catholic educators in the UK (Francis, 1986), the USA, Canada (Canadian Catholic School Trustees' Association, 2005), and Australia (Catholic News, 2005; Harkness, 2003). Questions concerning the sustainability of the Catholic school ethos with an increasing number on non-Catholic students has presented concerns with, amongst other things, religious relativism affecting both Catholic teachers and students as well as raising the difficulties of creating and maintaining a Catholic school faith community (Donlevy, 2007a, b, 2003a).Mulligan (1999, p. 182) states that the presence of non-Catholic students in Catholic schools, \"is a concern common to Catholic educators in the Canadian provinces of Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta.\" He quotes the Chaplain of a Toronto Catholic high school with a non-Catholic student population of 32 percent, \"It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to maintain, let alone deepen, the Catholic character of the school with such a large non-Catholic population\" (p. 182). Eight years later, he reaffirmed his concern (Mulligan, 2007).As the inclusion of non-Catholic students is a concern for Catholic education, it seems reasonable that research should be focused upon that issue. Towards that purpose, this paper presents the understandings and administrative actions of six Catholic school principals in relation to the administrative expectations of admission, the significance of the initial interview for admission, the on-going relationship with the non-Catholic student, and points of contention regarding denominational conformity.This paper is in four parts: Part I - the invitation to non-Catholic students by the Catholic Church; Part II - the context, method, methodology, and the modes of emergence of the findings; Part III - the findings and analysis; and Part IV - the significance of the findings and the conclusion.\nPart I - the invitation to non-Catholic students: Part I provides a brief summary of the relevant Catholic Church documents and academic literature which deal with inclusion.The church and inclusion\nPart II - context, methodology, method, and emergence: Part II provides the context, methodology, method, and modes of emergence for the findings in this study.Context\nPart III - findings and analysis: Part III describes the findings under the four themes stated above and their sub-categories.Theme 1: administrative expectations\nPart IV - the significance of the findings and the conclusion: The significance of the findings\nConclusion: This paper offered that the Catholic school administrators interviewed for this study perceived four major themes with respect to the inclusion of non-Catholic students in their schools:1. the school administrators' expectations;2. the significance of the preliminary interview;3. the ongoing relationship of the non-Catholic student to the Catholic school; and4. points of confrontation with the Catholic school administration.Categories under each major theme suggested that the participants were concerned with the schools' Catholic identity, the behavioral conformity of non-Catholic students to the schools' Catholic ethos, and support from non-Catholic students' parents when that conformity was lacking. Moreover, the importance of the non-Catholic family's commitment to its own faith was considered important to the success of the on-going relationship of the non-Catholic student and the Catholic school.In matters of breach of that conformity by a non-Catholic student, the participants, although not unanimous, generally understood that a pastoral approach was best employed in seeking remediation of the non-Catholic student's non-conforming behaviour. That remediation could include, in some cases, the involvement of a non-Catholic religious minister. Issues of non-conformity in the areas of refusal to participate in religious matters, disrespect for the Catholic Faith, sexual promiscuity, and abortion, although present with non-Catholic students, was treated differently by administrators when those matters involved Catholic students arguably because, where applicable, the arguments with respect to such behaviour could differ between the Catholic Faith and non-Catholic Faiths. There was a fundamental disagreement amongst the participants' regarding their Catholic school administrator's jurisdiction on matters of the moral behaviour of students after school hours.Lastly, further research is suggested in the areas of the impact of race and the inclusion non-Christian students into Catholic schools.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to present the understandings and administrative actions of six Catholic high school principals in relation to their administrative expectations of the admission of non-Catholic students.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper involves interviews with six Catholic school principals from one Catholic school division in a Western Canadian province. The methodology chosen for this paper is grounded theory. Specific analytical processes are employed: open-, axial-, and selective-codings.\nFindings: - The findings present four major themes with respect to the inclusion of non-Catholic students in their schools: the school administrators' expectations; the significance of the preliminary interview; the ongoing relationship of the non-Catholic student to the Catholic school; and points of confrontation with the Catholic school administration.\nPractical implications: - The paper provides some guidance with respect to the application and entrance procedures which non-Catholic students should undergo before admission. It also points to the importance of providing information about the school's spiritual mission to non-Catholic parents before their child is admitted to the school community.\nOriginality/value: - The paper's originality lies in the findings offered in an area of education, which is not yet well researched.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Superdrug prescribes e-recruitment to improve talent management: Retailer cuts its cost per hire by 87 percent
|
[
"Recruitment",
"Retailing",
"Communication technologies"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Health and beauty retailer Superdrug has streamlined its recruitment process, increased its capacity quickly and efficiently to process large numbers of applications - and reduced its cost per hire by 87 percent.\nMoving recruitment online: The decision was made to automate recruitment by moving the entire process online. Hire Strategies, a retail consulting company engaged to help with sourcing the most suitable online recruitment solution for Superdrug, recommended Jobpartners' ActiveRecruiter. Regional, head office and distribution human resource (HR) teams are now using this across the UK to fill vacancies for store managers, assistant store managers, pharmacists, head-office and distribution-management roles.\"The system eases the pressure of dealing with high volumes of applications, and is very easy to use,\" commented Fiona McLean. \"The application process gathers the essential selection information and the candidate management ensures effective and timely communication with applicants.\"\nMaking applications easy: Potential job applicants go to the Superdrug web site to view the openings available and to apply for specific vacancies. Candidates are provided with a user profile and can update their profiles, search for jobs and create email alerts for positions matching their criteria. They can also monitor the progress of their application online.The system makes the first match between the job requirements and the competencies and experience of the candidate. It then retains a pool of applicants on file, which ensures Superdrug has a readily available supply of CVs for open positions. Each registered applicant is automatically asked to update his or her CV in order to remain active on the system.Internal applicants are encouraged to visit the web site to view the list of vacancies. Around 85 percent of retail vacancies - store specialists, assistant store managers and store managers -are from internal applicants.\"This means we are definitely 'growing our own',\" Fiona McLean commented. \"Through the success of our training and induction programs we are equipping our sales assistants with the skills to progress through to management roles within the organization.\"Superdrug will soon use the ActiveRecruiter candidate gateway to ensure that all vacancies on the web site are also automatically posted to the company's intranet. This will enable employees to see a complete list of vacancies and apply directly, which will help to encourage internal mobility further.Superdrug has recently begun to sell 3 phones in its stores and successfully sourced telephone specialists through ActiveRecruiter. These specialists needed to be fun, friendly and passionate people to work in-store, selling the 3 phones to a predominantly female market. Superdrug also used job-boards - such as Handbag.com - aimed at the target candidates, and placed a national advertisement on Totaljobs. Candidates using the job-boards could apply online via Superdrug's careers web site. The result was a high number of capable applicants.\nFast, effective recruitment and great cost savings: \"Before implementing ActiveRecruiter, we were always a bit nervous about placing recruitment advertisements online as the company couldn't handle huge numbers of CVs,\" explained Fiona McLean. \"We can now advertise on job-boards with confidence as we know we can deal with applications efficiently. Faster response times, together with greater consistency in handling CVs, are helping us to meet our objective of improving the Superdrug employer brand and attract, hire and retain talented people.\"Superdrug has reduced its cost per hire by 87 percent, and the company now recruits 54 percent of all its store and head-office management and pharmacist vacancies through its web site. Superdrug also uses recruitment agencies to find candidates and has provided its suppliers with a unique log-on to the web site. This ensures that the agencies are notified of new vacancies, and that candidates who are put forward can be tracked through the process and can be given specific feedback.\nOnline recruitment among in-store sales teams: Superdrug now plans to test online recruitment among its in-store sales teams. Store managers recruit for sales staff at a local level so the trial will provide them with access to ActiveRecruiter with the aim of making recruitment easier to manage.Superdrug hopes to use mobile phones as part of application process. This will mean that candidates can text a mobile phone number advertised on in-store posters as the first stage of their application. They will then complete a mini application form on their phone, which will automatically be sent back to be processed.As well as providing a greater choice of application methods, the text service will be immediate and therefore in keeping with the Superdrug values of being bold and fast in recruitment. Candidates will be able to continue to keep in contact with the web site by text, if they choose. However, as the process will be fully integrated with the Superdrug e-recruitment solution, the applicant will still be able to chose to update his or her details using the web site.\nNote: David Pollitt, Human Resource Management International Digest editor, wrote this article.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The paper aims to recount how UK health and beauty retailer Superdrug automated its recruitment by moving the entire process online.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper describes the weaknesses of the paper and e-mail based recruitment system the company used to employ, and the advantages resulting from the new system.\nFindings: - The paper describes how the recruitment process has become quicker, more efficient, and 87 percent cheaper.\nPractical implications: - The paper emphasizes the importance of good recruitment systems in helping to ensure that a company has a good employer brand.\nOriginality/value: - The paper offers companies a way to deal with the large numbers of CVs they may receive as a result of placing a recruitment advertisement online.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Entreprise social media boosts trust between colleagues in Nigerian organisations
|
[
"Trust",
"Social media",
"Knowledge",
"Explicit",
"Tacit"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: A study of the effect of using enterprise social media (ESM) in Nigerian workplaces showed it helped to increase levels of trust between colleagues. The researchers, from the Department of Media and Communications at Bournemouth University, suggested HR departments should recognize that young Nigerians are used to social media, and they would expect to use it at work to enhance their learning. They argued that Nigerian HR departments should consider providing wikis and blogs to help develop levels of trust among employees, which could in turn lead to greater knowledge transfer.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.\nFindings: The study found that enterprise social media use was significantly correlated with developing higher levels of trust. However, the expectation that this would lead to greater knowledge transfer - whether explicit or tacit - was surprisingly not confirmed.\nPractical implications: The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.\nOriginality/value: The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Modeling credit risk in credit unions using survival analysis
|
[
"Survival analysis",
"Credit risk",
"Credit unions"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Consumer loans provide a substantial amount of revenue for financial institutions and especially credit unions. The demand for consumer loans has grown tremendously since the 1980s, from 184 billion dollars to 1,305 billion dollars in May 2016, despite the 75 billion dollar-drop in consumer loans from January 2009 to February 2010 (FRED Economic data, Federal Reserve of St Louis, 2016). In May 2016, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve (2016) stated that \"consumer credit increased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6-1/4 percent.\" The demand for consumer loans is steadily growing and will continue to comprise a large proportion of financial institutions' and credit unions' balance sheets. It is important for financial institutions to target borrowers that will have a higher payment duration over the life of the loan. These types of loans can be problematic due to the difficulty of reliably assessing the risk associated with lending to this type of borrower. The existence of information asymmetry is a critical issue. Developing an accurate means of assessing each borrower's risk of default can provide a way to reduce this information asymmetry.\n2. Literature review: There have been several studies focusing on marketing for credit unions. Srivastava et al. (1984) propose a customer-oriented marketing approach to determine the market structures, using the financial/banking industry as an example. They examine the spending patterns of financial services clients by discussing the situations where customers are underserved by the current services offered. Lee (2002) analyzes financial service clients' preferences toward human interaction and self-service technology. Ralston and Wright (2003) study the measures credit unions need to take to achieve increased loan accessibility and reduced probabilities of loan default. They find this can be attained by identifying the high-risk borrowers, adjusting loan conditions, and tracking loan repayments after the loan is approved. Barboza and Roth (2009) use the order probit model to find the factors that impact overall customer satisfaction ratings. Byrne and McCarthy (2014) add to the perceived value and service quality literature relating to credit unions by analyzing the impacts of the technical and relational value propositions preferences of credit union members. Yee-kwong Chan (1997) states that transaction and financing convenience, such as higher credit limits, can encourage inactive credit card holders to increase their card usage. In the context of retail banks, Levesque and McDougall (1996) find that among the key determinants of customer satisfaction are service features such as competitive interest rates. Our study contributes to the bank marketing literature by providing a model that can be used for bank managers to assess borrower credit risk through survival analysis, hence allowing such banks to offer competitive interest rates.\n3. Data and methodology: This paper employs a unique proprietary data set. Furthermore, to our knowledge, no other paper available has researched credit scoring in the credit union setting. As stated in the introduction, this setting is unique because of the credit unions' inability to sell loans after they are created. This makes credit decisions more important for credit unions as they are exposed to credit risk for the duration of the loan. The loans are a mix of personal and auto loans. While we do not believe the mix of loans is an issue, we further investigate this issue later.\n4. Marketing and managerial implications: The results from this study reveal a new means of assessing credit risk to consumer loans issued by credit unions by using the survival analysis. This can be used to help determine the optimal loan amount that should be issued to a borrower to achieve a longer survival time of payment on the loan. Emphasis on these factors can help tailor an effective marketing strategy to increase successful loans issued and decrease adverse selection. This model may be incorporated into an internal marketing strategy for credit union branches. Knowing how long a loan will survive will have implications on accounting and forecasting loan losses into the future. Integrating this knowledge into an internal marketing strategy can improve loan retention. When a credit union has information about when a customer is likely to default, it can be proactive and conduct a timely intervention before the customer defaults. Preventative actions such as financial counseling, following up with the customer (i.e. a friendly call to check their financial situation), and improved customer relations will have a more beneficial impact when they can be targeted at the customers who need them the most. Internal marketing concepts can bring effective results for credit union branches with limited resources (Tansuhaj et al., 1991).\n5. Conclusion: Our objective in this paper is to determine the relevant factors that can be incorporated into a reliable credit scoring model. Information gleaned by the use of this model can then be used by marketers to improve customer outreach and loan retention. We test the potential factors pulled from a borrower's credit report and credit application and also look at economic factors that may impact the probability and timing of a borrower to default on a loan. The results from our empirical tests suggest that certain factors such as months employed impact the probability of a borrower to default. Furthermore, we find several individual factors to be important in successfully predicting the timing of default. We can determine the relative impact of these factors found in a customer's credit report. Considering these factors individually is a significantly better predictor than considering credit score alone.\n6. Limitations and future research: Our study utilizes consumer loan data from a Louisiana-based credit union. Therefore, the results are limited. Conducting a survival analysis using multiple datasets from a larger sample of US credit unions will provide a more generalizable result. Survival analysis can also be utilized in studies examining the credit risk on loans issued by other types of financial institutions, peer-to-peer lenders (such as Lending Club, Prosper, and Sofi), and microfinance.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate proprietary data from customers of a Southern Louisiana credit union. It analyzes the factors that contribute to an accelerated failure time (AFT) using information from customers' credit applications as well as information provided in their credit report.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper investigates the factors that affect credit risk using survival analysis by employing two primary models - the AFT model and the Cox proportional hazard (PH) model. While several studies employ the Cox PH model, few use the AFT model. However, this paper concludes that the AFT model has superior predictive qualities.\nFindings: This paper finds that the factors specific to borrowers and local factors play an important role in the duration of a loan.\nPractical implications: This paper offers an easily interpretable model for determining the duration of a potential borrower. The marketing department of credit unions can then use this information to predict when a customer will default, thus allowing the credit union to intervene in a timely manner to prevent defaults. Further, the credit union can use this information to seek out customers who are less likely to default.\nOriginality/value: This study is different from the previous research due to its focus on credit unions, which have distinct characteristics. Compared to similar lending institutions, the charter of the credit union does not allow management to sell off loans to other investors.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Understanding nascent women entrepreneurs: an exploratory investigation into their entrepreneurial intentions
|
[
"Women",
"Entrepreneurial intention",
"Fear of failure",
"Opportunity recognition",
"Entrepreneurial knowledge",
"Role model"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM; 2018), entrepreneurship is an increasingly indispensable driver of economic development and effective solution to multiple social challenges. Increasing numbers of female entrepreneurs are devoting themselves to new venture creation (Rey-Marti et al., 2015), and an increasing body of research explores the determining factors for women entrepreneurs' motivation and behavior (Sullivan and Meek, 2012; Jennings and Brush, 2013). Because of women's social roles, female entrepreneurship is more challenging than that of men (Zisser et al., 2019). The investigation into female entrepreneurship began with Schwartz (1976), although there is still little understanding about what enhances or inhibits female individuals' intention to start their own business (Ferri et al., 2018).\nLiterature and hypothesis development: Women and entrepreneurial intentions\nEntrepreneurial knowledge: Entrepreneurial knowledge, the critical human capital for business founders to prevail in market competitions, includes business skills, social norms of interacting stakeholders, awareness of how to access resources and understanding relevant laws and administrative procedures for launching a new venture (Unger et al., 2011). According to Oystein Widding (2005), entrepreneurial knowledge is a cognitive asset that contributes to entrepreneurial intentions. A growing number of scholars highlight the crucial role of entrepreneurial education in supporting young people's career decisions (Gedeon, 2017; Kourilsky and Walstad, 1998). Many scholars around the globe have viewed educational programs on entrepreneurship as a major stimulant to entrepreneurial intentions among students (Fayolle et al., 2006; Gedeon, 2017). By offering entrepreneurship-relevant programs, higher education institutes can equip students with the knowledge and inspiration for new venture processes and thus support their entrepreneurial intentions (Turker and Sonmez Selcuk, 2009).\nMethodology: According to Bosma (2013), the GEM was first reported in 1999 and become the primary source of valuable data to understand attitudes toward entrepreneurship, business activities and potential entrepreneurs for their businesses. In this sense, numerous papers using GEM data have been published in social science citation index or SSCI-listed journals since 2004 (Bosma, 2013). Regarding women's entrepreneurial behavior, GEM is a sufficient source of worldwide data that enables researchers to uncover gender-related issues across different cultural contexts (GEM, 2006).\nParticipants: To explore the effects of role model, opportunity recognition, entrepreneurial knowledge and fear of failure on women's entrepreneurial intentions, we acquired survey data from the GEM of 2015 and focused on the females between 18-64 years old from 60 countries. After data cleaning, a valid sample of 9,716 female participants was established for further analysis. Over 1,190 females are from the UK, 1,019 females are from Spain, and over 661 females are from Sweden.\nResults: Data analysis was conducted with SPSS 17.0 using frequencies and binary logistic regression following Hosmer et al. (1989). Linear regression is not well-suited for this study because it does not include dependent variables that are dichotomous and categorical (Burns and Burns, 2008). Before analyzing the data and running binary logistic regression to validate our hypotheses, examining correlation was performed and the results are shown in Table 1.\nConclusions and discussion: Our findings show that role model, opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial knowledge support women's entrepreneurial intentions. Specifically, women who had more exposure to entrepreneurial role models tended to develop aspiration for an entrepreneurial career. This is consistent with previous studies (Austin and Nauta, 2016; BarNir et al., 2011), which reported that having entrepreneurial role models supports women who are passionate about entrepreneurship and eager to realize their ideas for making the world a better place. The role congruity theory suggests that female leadership roles are often hindered by prejudice among cultures where leadership is predominantly a male prerogative (Eagly and Karau, 2002). Our findings indicate that potential women entrepreneurs are more likely to engage in entrepreneurial initiatives with the presence of other female role models in the venture careers.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Women entrepreneurs are having increasingly profound impacts on the global economic landscape, although little is known about what supports or restricts women's entrepreneurial attempts. The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceptual (i.e. presence of role models and fear of failure) and cognitive (i.e. opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial knowledge) mechanisms that influence a women's choice of an entrepreneurial career.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A transnational sample of 9,716 women participating in global entrepreneurship monitor (GEM) survey was examined using logistical regression analysis.\nFindings: The results indicate that role models, opportunity discovery and entrepreneurial knowledge have a significant and positive influence on female respondents' entrepreneurial intentions. Interestingly, fear of failure is not related to their entrepreneurial intention, which challenges the prevailing assumption that the worries about new venture outcomes are the primary suppressor of women's entrepreneurship.\nOriginality/value: This study sheds new light on the intention of becoming women entrepreneurs, which has multiple implications for originality/value. This study sheds new light on the intention of becoming women entrepreneurs, which has many implications for policymakers. Moreover, theoretical contributions and directions for future research are discussed.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Predicting workplace transfer of learning: A study of adult learners enrolled in a continuing professional education training program
|
[
"Motivation",
"Workplace training",
"Workplace learning",
"Training transfer",
"Continuing professional education",
"Learning transfer"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Organizations are continually challenged to meet the demands of local, state, national and global economies and must possess a highly skilled, knowledgeable and adaptable workforce (Renta-Davids et al., 2014). Because organizations continually invest in training, a gap exists between what is learned and the skills or knowledge transferred to the workplace. This gap is referred to as the transfer problem (Baldwin and Ford, 1988). Over the past 30 years, research has explored constructs of training and investigated the failure to transfer training (Baldwin and Ford, 1988; Burke and Hutchins, 2007; Ford and Weissbein, 1997). The transfer problem still persists and varies, yielding deficient results in the learning investments made by organizations and trainees (Burke and Hutchins, 2007).\nProblem statement: Empirical research shows, despite all the evidence, the knowledge, skills and attitudes (KSAs) gained through training are not fully used on the job, suggesting the training transfer problem persists in the workplace (Baldwin and Ford, 1988, Burke and Hutchins, 2007; Ford and Weissbein, 1997; Renta-Davids et al., 2014). Hoffman pointed out that there was a crisis of relevance in transfer research. The issue of learning transfer, especially among adult learners enrolled in CPE programs, remains unresolved, hence the need for this study. Although the knowledge on the transfer problem has expanded and incorporated more complex concepts, Burke and Hutchins (2007) noted gaps still linger and suggested researchers must continue to address the transfer problem. More recent, Baldwin et al. (2017) highlighted the increasing interest in training transfer research in the field of human resource development. \"It is clear that transfer has become widely recognized as an important arena for research and practice\" (Baldwin et al., 2017, p. 78). Thus, the findings from this study should guide adult learning training designers and implementers in the design and successful implementation of CPE training programs aimed at transferring the learned KSAs to the workplace. The findings of this study should be significant to researchers with interest in the important issue of learning transfer among adult learners enrolled in face-to-face, blended and online CPE programs.\nReview of relevant literature: Training transfer in continuing professional education programs\nMethod: Demographics of the study respondents\nResults: Data in Table II provide an overview of the outcome variable transfer of learning and the predictor variables job oriented, learning oriented, training efficiency and relevance (which measure training design), work autonomy or empowerment, work variability or flexibility and work complexity. Also provided are the alpha coefficients and the questionnaire items that loaded on the seven variables during the factor analysis.\nDiscussion: The primary purpose of this study was to predict workplace transfer of learning among adult learners enrolled in a CPE training program. The study examined the predictive capacity of trainee characteristics, training design as measured by training efficiency and relevance, and work environment on transfer of learning among the study participants using the Transfer of Learning Questionnaire developed by Renta-Davids et al. (2014). The findings of the study show three factors, training efficiency and relevancy, trainee's motivation for participating in continuing professional training and development and the workplace environment, related to transfer of learning. Results from multiple regression coefficients showed significant positive relationships between transfer of learning and the constructs training efficiency and relevance, learning motivation for trainees to participate in training, job-improvement motivation, work variability or flexibility and work complexity. The results of the study demonstrate that when these constructs increase, so does transfer of learning.\nImplications for learning and development of adult learners in the workplace: As research continues to lessen the gap between theory and practice on the transfer problem, training investments continue to yield deficient results (Burke and Hutchins, 2007). With each completed review of existing literature related to the factors that influence training transfer, researchers continually identify additional or re-name existing elements to capture and alleviate the transfer problem. Russ-Eft (2002) suggested researchers and practitioners should move beyond identifying elements to manage or change them. Regardless of the gaps in transfer of learning literature, findings of this research revealed training design should actively engage learners in problem solving and error-based learning and have perceived content validity. In addition, the training conditions and stimulus variability should move beyond simply mimicking work context. Instead, these elements should provide a direct connection between the trainee characteristics and tasks performed in the workplace. The findings have important practical implications for training practitioners. For example, Eva et al. (2016) observed that there was an urgent need to shift researchers' attention from justifying necessity of training transfer to ways of measurement system to ensure training transfer practices. The alliance between training stages and practices is mandatory in ensuring shared accountability and culpability of the training programs, evaluation tools and associated practitioners. Thus, the strategies used in the training design and delivery should align the training content with the goals of the organization, job requirements and supervisory support for the transfer of learning. By providing engaging training programming (training efficiency) directly linked to a real-work context (training relevance), trainees may feel motivated to learn the training material and apply the KSAs acquired through training as shown by the results of this study. Trainees motivated to learn, as noted by Noe (1986), are more likely to perform better because of the increased transfer of learning. Trainees who perform better may discover an intrinsic or extrinsic value in the training content. Finally, supervisor and peer support or social support has been identified as a key factor in improving the transfer of training (Renta-Davids et al., 2014). The supervisor's support may positively or negatively affect the trainee attitude to transfer learning. Additionally, trainees should work to create support networks among themselves and continue to build on their working relationships after training has ended (Zumrah and Boyle, 2015). This relates to work flexibility or variability, work autonomy and work complexity which provide a rationale for lifelong learning. As a complex and multifaceted issue, the success or failure of the transfer of training compels researchers to continue investigation for many years to come, hence the importance of adult learning and continuing professional training and development. As the results of this study show, training efficiency and relevance was a suppressor variable for work complexity. This findings confirms the importance of providing continuing professional development not only for professional growth and development but also for assisting adult learners' employers to work with the diversity, generational and technological complex changes in the work place. It is important that we have more studies focusing on how to measure transfer of training. Hoffman noted that there was a crisis of relevance in transfer research. The issue of learning transfer, especially among adult learners enrolled in CPE programs, still requires more research. Baldwin et al. (2017) highlighted the increasing interest in training transfer research in the field of human resource development. This is of great importance to HRD researchers and practitioners.\nStudy limitations: There are limitations associated with this study. First, because the majority of participants were females (80.1 per cent), this could be one of the limitations to this study. Research has identified, because of the broad expectations based on gender and different family and occupational roles, men and women differ in their social network communication, participation in continuing professional education, work burnout, personality traits, gender-related occupational preferences, learning preference, approach to information sharing and methods of handling workplace conflict. The second limitation relates to the study design. The researchers did not have a control group because of practicality issues. This being a cross-sectional online survey study, we did not control for all extraneous variables like in the case of a true randomized control study. However, this limitation is associated with any quasi-experimental study in social sciences. This study relies on information obtained from a self-report training transfer instrument completed by the study participants. The accuracy of the obtained data is dependent on the honesty of the participants and their commitment in providing correct responses. For future research, we recommend a randomized control study with the control group and the treatment group with learning transfer as the outcome variable.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The primary purpose of this study was to predict transfer of learning to workplace among adult learners enrolled in a continuing professional education (CPE) training program, specifically training courses offered through face-to-face, blended and online instruction formats. The study examined the predictive capacity of trainee characteristics, training design and work environment on transfer of learning among the study respondents.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A cross-sectional online survey design was used to collect data from the study respondents, three months after CPE training. Two hundred ninety-seven trainees participated in this study. Data from 46 participants were incomplete and therefore excluded in the preliminary analysis, resulting in 251 valid responses and participants for the data analysis, 43 males (17.1 per cent), 201 females (80.1 per cent) and 7 (2.8 per cent) who did not indicate their gender. To answer the study's research questions, factor analysis and multiple hierarchical regressions were performed.\nFindings: The results of the study revealed training efficiency and relevance were critical in the transfer of learning among the study participants. The findings of the study showed combined training efficiency and training relevance enabled training participants to acquire knowledge and skills for application in the workplace and had significantly positive influence in transfer of learning. The work environment, measured by work variability (or flexibility) and work complexity, and the trainee motivation to participate, measured by learning-conducive workplace features, had a positive influence in transfer of learning.\nResearch limitations/implications: Because the majority of participants were females (80.1 per cent), this could be one of the limitations to this study. Research has identified that, because of the broad expectations based on sex and different family and occupational roles, men and women differ in their social network communication, participation in CPE, personality traits, gender-related occupational preferences, learning preference and methods of handling workplace conflict. The second limitation is related to the study design. The researchers did not have a control group because of practicality issues. This being a cross-sectional online survey study, all extraneous variables were not controlled such as in the case of a true randomized control study. This study is relying on the information obtained from a self-report training transfer instrument completed by the study participants. The accuracy of the obtained data is dependent on the honesty of the participants and their commitment in providing correct responses.\nOriginality/value: This study provides empirical evidence pertaining to the transfer of learning among adult learners engaged in a continuing professional development training program. The study examines factors related to training design, training delivery, trainee motivation and the workplace environment and how these factors determine transfer of learning among trainee respondents who participated in the study. The findings of the study have practical implications for the design and successful delivery of continuing professional training among adult learners. The study could be replicated at a national level and in international settings.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Impacts of residential construction defects on customer satisfaction
|
[
"Customer satisfaction",
"Residential",
"Survey",
"Defect",
"Claim",
"Pathology"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The capture and incorporation of customer requirements in building projects is a long process that starts even before the conceptual design phase of a building. Information used for these tasks often comes from specific requirements provided by future users of the building or obtained from post-occupancy studies developed by companies to learn about how specific design features have performed in their previous projects (Alves et al., 2009). To support the proper use of customer requirements and values in the design of production systems and their outputs, Koskela (2000) proposes a production theory that integrates aspects necessary to manage production systems: transformation (T), flow (F), and value generation (V). To generate a value and deliver it to the customers, production units must incorporate customer requirements in their processes and manage them to assure that products are delivered as expected. The transformation aspect of the TVF theory calls for the proper management of tasks to efficiently transform inputs (e.g. information, materials) into outputs (e.g. products, services). Additionally, the flow aspect calls for the management of the interdependencies among activities to assure a continuous flow of handoffs among them. Finally, the value aspect addresses the capture and incorporation of customer requirements along the flow of activities.\n2. Defects in residential buildings: Defects in residential buildings are a significant problem for the construction industry worldwide (Rotimi et al., 2015). The occurrence of defects generates rework and extra costs with repairs, which are the most evident drawbacks of this problem, but they might also impact the customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction can be broadly defined in terms of how well a company meets what the customer expects from a product. In this sense, the customer has requirements and expectations that s/he expects to be fulfilled when a product is acquired and used.\n3. Methodology: The study has been developed in partnership with a medium size construction company from the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The company (Company A) was established in 1981, it is ISO 9001 certified since 2009, and it is one of the largest developers and builders of residential buildings and house condominiums in the Ribeirao Preto area.\n4. Findings and discussion: 4.1 CSS Part 1, Part 2 and initial analysis\n5. Conclusions: Customer satisfaction in residential projects is complex and related to a large number of features, as identified in the literature. This paper presented the results of a survey including direct questions about the occurrence of defects and the impact that these defects had on the customer satisfaction in multi-family residential projects.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of defects on the satisfaction of residential construction customers. Three working hypotheses were tested: first, defects in residential construction impact the customer satisfaction; second, different defects have different impacts on customer satisfaction; and third, interviewing customers about defects in their residential units is not a reliable method to collect data.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research investigated correlations between data on defects and customer satisfaction surveys carried out by a construction company on its projects. Data were cross-checked to determine what kinds of defects have the worse impact on customer satisfaction.\nFindings: The occurrence of defects does not necessarily jeopardize customer satisfaction, although it appears to be a concern to the customers who responded to the survey. When the occurrence of defects did interfere with customer satisfaction, it was found that the worse impacts resulted from the occurrence of multiple defects in a single unit, the inability of the construction company to communicate with the customer after a claim was filed, and the occurrence of functional defects. Results suggest that interviewing customers about the defect occurrence in their units is not a reliable method to collect data for research purposes.\nPractical implications: Results can be used to help companies better define continuous improvement activities and avoid the occurrence of defects that cause the worse impacts to customer satisfaction.\nOriginality/value: Data availability is a challenge for studies on defects. This study had direct access to data from a construction company, which made the presented analyses possible.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Trends and causes of socioeconomic inequalities in maternal healthcare in Ghana, 2003-2014
|
[
"Ghana",
"Delivery",
"Decomposition",
"Maternal health",
"Antenatal care",
"Socioeconomic inequalities"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: A target of the Millennium Development Goals (2001-2015) adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2000 aimed to improve maternal health, committing to reduce the global maternal mortality rate by three-quarters between 1990 and 2015. Achieving equity and universal coverage of maternal healthcare delivery remains crucial to efforts toward poverty reduction, gender equality and women's empowerment. To this end, the successor to the MDGs, the sustainable development goals, re-emphasizes the commitment to reducing maternal mortality through universal coverage of maternal healthcare delivery. Access and utilization of healthcare services during pregnancy and childbirth are crucial to safe motherhood. The use of prenatal health services enables the early detection and management of pregnancy-related complications and provides opportunities for health promotion (Joshi et al., 2014). The provision of timely and quality maternal healthcare services has been found to be essential to the health of mothers and new-borns (Noonan et al., 2013).\n2. Literature review: The measurement of socioeconomic inequalities in health has received substantial interest in literature, with improvements in the methodologies for estimating inequalities for different health indicators. Health economists as well as epidemiologists have applied the CI extensively to assess the nature and degree of socioeconomic-related inequalities in health outcomes. The CI is derived from the Gini coefficient from income inequality measurement. However, unlike the Gini coefficient, the CI is a bivariate rank dependent index; in that the index summarizes the relationship between cumulative health and socioeconomic rank (Heckley et al., 2016). For bounded variables such as the binary health outcomes, the bounds of the CI have received extensive review and debate in literature (see Wagstaff, 2005, 2009, 2011a, b; Erreygers, 2009a, b; Erreygers and Van Ourti, 2011a, b; Kjellsson and Gerdtham, 2013). Particularly, Wagstaff (2005) and Erreygers (2009a) have shown that the minimum and maximum values of the CI depend on the mean health.\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Measuring socioeconomic inequalities in maternal healthcare\n4. Data, variables and summary statistics: 4.1 Data\n5. Results and discussions: 5.1 Trends in socioeconomic inequalities in maternal healthcare in Ghana\n6. Conclusions and policy recommendations: In this paper, we examined the trends and causes of socioeconomic inequalities in maternal healthcare utilization in Ghana between 2003 and 2014. The paper uses data from the GDHSs. Our sample is drawn from women between 15 and 49 years with at least one birth in the five years preceding the survey. The period under study witnessed substantial reforms in healthcare delivery in Ghana, with the introduction of a health insurance scheme in 2004 and a free maternal healthcare policy in 2008. First, we estimate the nature and degree of socioeconomic inequalities in maternal healthcare utilization by applying extension to the CI. We proceed to apply a recently developed generalized decomposition technique based on RIF regressions to assess the causes of socioeconomic inequalities in maternal healthcare.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess the trends of socioeconomic-related inequalities in maternal healthcare utilization in Ghana between 2003 and 2014 and examine the causes of inequalities in maternal healthcare utilization in Ghana.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data are drawn from three rounds of the Ghana Demographic and Health Survey collected in 2003, 2008 and 2014, respectively. The authors employ two alternative measures of socioeconomic inequalities in health - the Wagstaff and Erreygers indices - to examine the trends of socioeconomic inequalities in maternal healthcare utilization. The authors proceed to decompose the causes of inequalities in maternal healthcare by applying a recently developed generalized decomposition technique based on recentered influence function regressions.\nFindings: The study finds substantial pro-rich inequalities in maternal healthcare utilization in Ghana. The degree of inequalities has been decreasing since 2003. The elimination of user fees for maternal healthcare has contributed to achieving equity and inclusion in utilization. The decomposition analysis reveals significant contributions of individual, household and locational characteristics to inequalities in maternal healthcare. The authors find that educational attainment, urban residence and challenges with physical access to healthcare facilities increase the socioeconomic gap in maternal healthcare utilization.\nOriginality/value: There is a need to target vulnerable women who are unlikely to utilize maternal healthcare services. In addition to the elimination of user fees, there is a need to reduce inequalities in the distribution and quality of maternal health services to achieve universal coverage in Ghana.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
How and when does the brand orientation-market orientation nexus matter?
|
[
"Market orientation",
"Brand orientation",
"Competitive intensity",
"Moderated mediation",
"Brand management",
"Brand management capability"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: A brand is now widely acknowledged as a crucial point of differentiation for industrial products (Viardot, 2017). Within the industrial branding literature, scholars highlight the importance of developing superior brand images (Davis et al., 2008; Zhang et al., 2016). Increasingly, in industrial and business markets, a strong and positive brand image can be used as a basis for differentiation and the creation of a competitive advantage (Viardot, 2017).\n2. Theoretical background and hypotheses: 2.1 Examining the roles of brand orientation, market orientation and brand management capability via the resource-based view\n3. Research design: 3.1 Sample and data collection\n4. Results: 4.1 Measure reliability and validity\n5. Discussion and implications: While previous research provides evidence supporting the joint importance of brand orientation and market orientation in facilitating brand success (Reijonen et al., 2012), there is currently limited understanding of how, and when, their combination actually contributes to brand performance. Our study addresses this issue by unpacking the interactive performance effects of brand orientation and market orientation, and examining the specific roles they assume, along with brand management capability, in the brand building process. We also examined the specific environmental condition under which market orientation is critical in translating a firm's underlying brand focus (i.e. brand orientation) into superior customer-linking branding actions (i.e. brand management capability). Accordingly, our study offers important implications for brand management theory and practice.\n6. Limitations and recommendations for future research: The findings of this study should be interpreted in light of specific limitations. First, while we followed the approach of prior research and captured brand performance in market terms (e.g. sales growth, market share), future research may benefit from assessing brand performance using a combination of market and non-market performance measures (such as brand image). Recent research suggests these measures provide a more accurate assessment of the effectiveness of a firm's brand-related activities (Iyer et al., 2018). Second, the role of controlling mechanisms has yet to be considered within the context of our study. Previous research within the branding literature suggests that consistency is key to developing strong brands (Lee et al., 2017). Thus, additional insights into the nexus between controlling mechanisms, branding consistency and environmental dynamism may contribute to advancing brand management theory and practice.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: While extant research highlights the importance of both market orientation and brand orientation in brand success, it is still unclear how they actually combine to contribute to brand performance. Grounded in the theoretical perspectives of the resource-based view and dynamic capabilities, this study unpacks how, and when, brand orientation and market orientation link systematically to influence brand performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In testing the research hypotheses involving mediation and moderation effects, survey data were gathered from a sample of business firms in the manufacturing sector and analyzed through regression analysis.\nFindings: The results suggest brand orientation manifests through market orientation to influence brand performance via the intervening mechanism of brand management capability. The results also suggest at high levels of competitive intensity, the systematic combination of market orientation and brand orientation is critical in facilitating brand management capability enhancement and subsequent brand performance.\nOriginality/value: This study extends current literature by providing a more detailed account of how brand orientation and market orientation systematically combine to yield superior brand performance via the mediating role of brand management capability. This study also provides further insights into how, in response to different levels of competitive intensity, the systematic combination of brand orientation and market orientation is managed to facilitate brand management capability enhancement and subsequent brand performance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Analyzing trajectories of information security awareness
|
[
"Information security management",
"Information security awareness",
"Actor network theory",
"Due process",
"Data security",
"Information management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Management of information security within the organization involves a series of actions that have both organizational and technical implications. For instance, developing an information security management system following the ISO/IEC 27001 (ISO, 2005) standard, includes actions that affect organizational structure, introduce policies and processes, change responsibilities and practices, and introduce certain functional and technical specifications. One of the main practices of any information security management system is information security awareness. Combining various approaches, security awareness can be described as a continuous effort of raising wide audiences' attention toward information security and its importance, in order to stimulate security-oriented behaviors (Peltier, 2005; European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA), 2008).Recent surveys (CSI, 2009; Ernst & Young, 2008; BERR, 2008) underline the significance of awareness activities indicating that a great part of security losses are caused by non-malicious, merely careless behavior of insiders, and that security awareness plays a critical role in formulating a strategic view of information security. The 2010 Ernst & Young survey (Ernst & Young, 2010) concludes that \"many current security training and awareness programs are not working as well as they could be.\" In the 2009 Computer Crime and Security Survey (CSI, 2009), the longest running continuous survey in the information security field, the 43.4 percent of responders stated that less than 1 percent of their security budget was allocated to awareness training. It is reasonable to consider that effective awareness training is usually less expensive than armory of security technology that most enterprises use to employ defense-in-depth. Nevertheless, 55 percent of respondents stated that the investment made in awareness training was inadequate. The same phenomenon appeared in the 2008 CSI Computer Crime and Security Survey (CSI, 2008). There we read \"[...] by and large there being relatively little money pushed into information security awareness efforts. It is difficult to say why these numbers are lower than some of the discussions around the importance of security awareness training might suggest\" (CSI, 2008, p. 9).In order to increase our understanding of this phenomenon we need to answer the following questions: what problems do organizations face and what processes do they go through as they are trying to establish an information security awareness initiative? How is such an initiative been accepted and incorporated with the other organizational processes? These questions do not have one answer, they have many: organizations have different goals, strategies, organizational cultures and structures. Consequently, to answer these questions we need:(1) to study the information security awareness activities within a specific cultural and contextual setting; and(2) to develop a proper framework that will help us to analyze these activities and their interactions with the various organizational processes and events.To accomplish the first need the idiographic (case study) research method has been adopted as the preferred mode of inquiry. By idiographic research, as proposed by Franz and Robey (1984), the researcher examines in-depth a single entity or a particular event in an attempt to understand a phenomenon in its context. Benbasat et al. (1987) clarified the traditional phases of knowledge as exploration, hypothesis generation and hypothesis testing. They also mentioned that the case research strategy as used for exploration and hypothesis generation is a legitimate way of adding to the body of knowledge in the information systems field. Yin (1994), also, recommends that when the existing knowledge on the phenomenon to be examined is poor, the exploratory case study can contribute to the early stage of theory-building process. In our case, the use of this method was mainly chosen because it was felt that it would yield the kind of in-depth and detailed information required, and because it would facilitate an analysis of more variables than any other approach, such as surveys within the allowed time frame.The main criticism that is made regarding case studies is that they are problematic with respect to generalizability. As their application is restricted to a single organization, generalizations cannot be made easily, if at all. However, since the objective of this research is to learn more about activities and events associated with the management of security awareness initiatives in an organization, generalizability is not of concern. Our understanding is achieved by using an interpretive research strategy and, as Walsham (1993, p. 15) stated \"the validity of an extrapolation from an individual case or cases depends not on the representativeness of such cases in a statistical sense, but on the plausibility and cogency of the logical reasoning used in describing the results the cases, and in drawing conclusion from them.\" From that perspective, validity does not come from a large number of cases, but the choice of a singular case study can as easily be justified (Lee, 1989). In fact, given limited time and resources, interpretive approach gives more weight to an in-depth case study with a thick description, rather than multiple case studies, which are less detailed.To accomplish the second need we need to define a language for understanding and employ a theoretical framework which will guide the design and collection of data, shape the analysis of the case study and ultimately the conclusions from it. Walsham (1993) maintains that in the interpretive tradition there are no correct or incorrect theories but they should be judged according to how \"interesting\" they are. Thus, interpretive researchers can only claim that theories presented are interesting for them and expect to be interesting for those involved in the same areas.It is argued that in our case a deeper understanding can be gained by using actor network theory (ANT). Needless to say, other theories could be used for alternative theoretical framework, e.g. diffusion theory. The main argument of this research is that ANT was chosen to identify and examine the various actors and interactions associated with the design and implementation of information security awareness activities in an organization. By removing the limitations imposed by categories and compartmentalization of human activities, ANT extends the analysis scope to include a greater range of entities and influences affecting information security awareness implementation. By considering the actors participating in the design and implementation of an information security awareness initiative as components of an actor-network, ANT is shown to support a broader understanding of the context for information security awareness implementation as well as contributing institutional, political and technical linkages.The paper is structured in seven sections. Current section has presented the research area and question addressed. Section 2 presents the theoretical approaches that have been applied in information security awareness literature. Sections 3 and 4 describe the proposed theoretical and methodological framework, respectively. Section 5 presents the empirical study and the application of the proposed framework. Finally, an examination of ANT principles completion is provided while the last section presents our conclusions and issues for further research.\n2. Approaches to information security awareness: Most information security awareness frameworks suggest or implement awareness methods and techniques, such as methods to convey security messages, artificial intelligence tools, computer games, etc., without justifying their choices and specifying their theoretical foundations (Tsohou et al., 2008; Puhakainen, 2006). Moreover, those research approaches that are theoretically grounded and examine the security awareness challenges and problems draw exclusively from psychological and behavioral theories. Psychological and behavioral theories, however, cannot adequately address social and organizational aspects of security awareness, and thus cannot provide an insight of the way this process evolves within an organizational context and capture the events that lead to a specific outcome.Thomson and von Solms (1998) draw on social psychology theories and utilize psychological principles to make a security awareness program more effective. They describe an attitude system according to which a user's attitude is affected by behavior intentions, behavior cognitions and affective responses. Based on this, authors focus on three methods that can affect a person's attitude through persuasion: first, directly changing her behavior; second, using a change in behavior to influence a person's attitude; and finally, changing a person's attitude through persuasion and suggest a set of psychological principles and techniques for changing a person's attitude. Siponen (2000) provides a conceptual foundation for security awareness drawing from the theories of reasoned action, planned behavior, intrinsic motivation and the technology acceptance model. Based on these, Siponen (2000) suggests practical approaches and principles with respect to motivation: logic, emotions, morals and ethics, well-being, feeling of security and rationality. Qing et al. (2007) utilize the elaboration likelihood model as a framework for understanding the effectiveness of persuasive communications. They study the effectiveness of security messages and the effects of the different messages in relation to the change in recipients' behavior. Puhakainen (2006) studies behavioral changes and IS users' compliance with IS security policies and instructions through the lens of attitudinal and instructional theories. D'Archy et al. (2009) examine awareness of security countermeasures from a general deterrence theory perspective and investigate how awareness of security policies, security awareness, training and education programs and computer monitoring are associated with information systems' misuse intention.Although research approaches to security awareness lack a managerial and social perspective, recently, Spears and Barki (2010) in their work examine user participation in information systems security risk management and its influence in the context of regulatory compliance. According to their study users' participation in security risk management contributes to greater organizational awareness of information systems security. Here, in our work, we are concerned with the critical issue of the interaction between awareness and information security management in the organizational context.\n3. ANT and the due process model: Under the interpretive paradigm we study information security awareness process not as an objective claim that can be represented using standardized tools and techniques, but instead, we regard security awareness as socially constructed. Hence, in order to perceive and analyze security awareness process we argue that social theories, such as technology diffusion theory, social constructivist theory, structuration theory, etc. can be employed. From the range of available social theories used in information systems, we employ ANT because it provides a unique lens for the study of technology as an equivalent actor in the process evolvement instead of a static artifact.3.1 ANT in information systems research\n4. Research methodology: To study information security awareness in conjunction with its organizational context we have used qualitative methods (Creswell, 1998) and our epistemology draws on the interpretive paradigm (Walsham, 1995; Dhillon and Backhouse, 2001; Siponen and Willison, 2007). The empirical validation of the framework we propose has been based on a case study, since idiographic research would provide us with an in-depth understanding of awareness process in its context.Our theoretical framework lies on ANT; hence the role of a researcher is to examine and record the network's elements, investigate the way that aligned networks (black boxes) are created and explore the stability and irreversibility of the network. However, the researcher must adopt three main principles, according to Callon (1986), during this investigation: first, agnosticism, the researcher must be neutral to the nature of the actors of the network in the sense that the actors are treated the same way irrespectively of their human or non-human nature; second generalized symmetry, actors are studied under a common perspective and human and non-human actors have equal roles. A generic and common vocabulary is used to express their views; and finally, free association, the researcher must abandon any previous discrimination among the technical and social perspectives of the phenomenon under examination. We employed ANT according to the three principles, since we interacted with all human and non-human actors, we used a common vocabulary for all actors referring to them as actors in the singular third male person, irrespectively of their human or technical nature, and we included social and technical perspective. In addition (Hanseth and Monteiro, 1997; Monteiro, 2000) four elements are essential for describing non-human actors and their inscriptions: first, the scenarios inscribed in them, which are expected to be followed by users; second, the way of inscription; third, the actor that makes the inscription; and finally, the strength of the inscription. We have examined all four elements for every artifact included or attempted to be included in the actor-network.\n5. Analyzing security awareness through a series of trajectories: 5.1 Case background\n6. Implications: 6.1 Implications for theory\n7. Conclusions and further research: In this paper we have illustrated the need to adopt an organizational and managerial perspective on information security awareness as a process interwoven with the information systems security management function of an organization. We have provided the theoretical grounding for both understanding and managing security awareness initiatives and we have applied it in a study of an awareness initiative in a large public organization. ANT gives us the theoretical and methodological means to approach information security awareness as a network of allies and associations that is growing and is formulated dynamically, and also gives us the means to interpret the reasons why certain actors are aligned and others are rejected. Also, taking into account the OPPs and the focal actor shifts, ANT provides us with an examination of the strategic decision-making events which can enhance the management of the process.Although this theoretical framework provides us with an analysis that highlights events and issues for explaining the awareness evolvement in an organization, supplementary contextual and structural analysis is suggested to provide explanations of events that derive from macro-level actors. The issues highlighted through the ANT analysis should be taken into consideration for understanding the evolvement of an awareness process. Some of them, however, may require further investigation with the use of additional theoretical approaches in order to be justified. For example, the due process highlights the disconnecting of an actor, but does not justify the reasons for that event. To further analyze these issues we may apply supplementary contextual analysis or structural analysis in order to explain the macro-level involved or the contextual elements that affect the process. As noticed in the literature, ANT is not able to examine and analyze contextual and structural elements of the networks under examination (Walsham, 1997; Jones and Karsten, 2008). ANT analysis by default focusses on the negotiations that take place in the micro-analysis without taking into account the broader context (Brooks and Atkinson, 2004). The initiators of the theory (Law, 1992; Callon and Latour, 1981) also state that it is important to take into account various levels of analysis (macro-analysis, micro-analysis). Therefore, in order to be able to provide explanations for important events highlighted by ANT it is important to proceed to additional contextual and structural analysis. Our future research entails the expanding of the theoretical framework in order to investigate both micro-analysis and macro-analysis, by applying structuration theory and contextual analysis.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Recent global security surveys indicate that security training and awareness programs are not working as well as they could be and that investments made by organizations are inadequate. The purpose of the paper is to increase understanding of this phenomenon and illuminate the problems that organizations face when trying to establish an information security awareness program.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Following an interpretive approach the authors apply a case study method and employ actor network theory (ANT) and the due process for analyzing findings.\nFindings: - The paper contributes to both understanding and managing security awareness programs in organizations, by providing a framework that enables the analysis of awareness activities and interactions with the various organizational processes and events.\nPractical implications: - The application of ANT still remains a challenge for researchers since no practical method or guide exists. In this paper the application of ANT through the due process model extension is enhanced and practically presented. This exploration highlights the fact that information security awareness initiatives involve different stakeholders, with often conflicting interests. Practitioners must acquire, additionally to technical skills, communication, negotiation and management skills in order to address the related organizational and managerial issues. Moreover, the results of this inquiry reveal that the role of artifacts used within the awareness process is not neutral but can actively affect it.\nOriginality/value: - This study is one of the first to examine information security awareness as a managerial and socio-technical process within an organizational context.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
E-learning - offering opportunity: The case of ALSTOM
|
[
"Internet",
"Learning",
"Distance learning",
"Health and safety",
"Training"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Distance learning has long been an established method of achieving knowledge and gaining professional qualifications and is now accepted as being a viable alternative to face-to-face teaching in a classroom. However, now, the increased reliability, speed and memory of modern computers, coupled with easy access to the world wide web, has made the infamous \"e-learning\" program a much sought-after alternative to the more conventional paper-based distance learning course. But can it really deliver all that it promises?\nSolving logistical challenges: One of the most important benefits provided by e-learning is its ability to offer supported \"Martini\" learning - any time, any place, any where. E-learning offers learners the ability to take part in a tutor-led program without needing to commit to being at a particular location, at a particular time, each week.ALSTOM, the global specialist in energy and transport infrastructure, opted for e-learning as the delivery mechanism for the health and safety training program they wanted to introduce for this very reason.The initial ALSTOM pilot group involved a relatively small number of students from 16 different countries, so it would not have been financially or logistically feasible to develop and implement a face-to-face program, while a pure distance-learning program could not offer the collaborative learning that ALSTOM desired. E-learning provided the ideal solution.\nInternationalization: Multinational organizations, by their very nature, are staggered across several countries and perhaps even continents. E-learning makes it possible to run a cohort which is truly global. In today's world, gaining an international perspective is vital and e-learning enables individuals working for the same company, but who are spread throughout numerous locations, to build improved working relationships with colleagues they may never actually get to meet, resulting (hopefully) in a better flow of communication between offices enduring long after the end of the course.Thankfully, many professional bodies are now also realizing the importance of international qualifications and are developing international equivalents of popular UK qualifications. This enables employees in different countries to study the same core information, ensuring common knowledge and understanding irrespective of location.\nBespoke knowledge: The e-learning environment enables not only the actual course material to be personalized to that group of learner's particular needs, but also the environment itself.Following the successful introduction of the International Certificate programme, ALSTOM asked RRC to create a bespoke health and safety e-learning program tailored specifically to the needs of their staff.Not only were the materials bespoke to ALSTOM's needs, but also the e-learning environment enabled RRC to provide links to ALSTOM's own document database, ensuring that learners could access everything they needed from one location. Assignments were also tailored to assess knowledge of ALSTOM's own operating procedures.In addition to the standard elements of e-learning courses, corporate groups like ALSTOM are also able to benefit from private dedicated classrooms, allowing them to discuss sensitive information relating to the company without the fear that it will be read by competitors. This is particularly important in the area of health and safety where companies may be reluctant to divulge their own day-to-day practices for fear of repercussions. As it is generally accepted that nearly 70 percent of what an employee needs to know is learned outside of formal training, such communities allow learners to share the practical know-how which is difficult to capture in discrete learning objects and which would otherwise remain untapped.\nProgress tracking: Another fundamental benefit of e-learning is the ease with which tutors and managers can track the participation and success of the program. Tutors on the ALSTOM programs were able to track the progress of participants at a glance, viewing how many pages of online course material each learner had accessed, how long they had spent online and how well they did in each of their assessments.\nThe future is bright: In short, e-learning has the potential to make learning exciting, engaging and compelling and means it no longer needs to be a passive experience, with the trainer simply telling the learner what he or she needs to know. Instead, learning can be based on debate and discussion, and constantly referenced back to the learner's own working situation, enabling them to understand fully what they are studying.This said, a corporate client cannot expect to be able to devolve all responsibility for the training to an external provider, however competent. They must be prepared not only to market it internally to ensure that all participants are aware of what is expected of them, but also to be seen to \"back\" the project by taking an interest in the group's progress. Given the excellent tracking facilities available on most e-learning courses, this should not be an arduous task, but will make all the difference to the success of the program.Equally, e-learning should not be the mode of choice for all learners on all courses. Some learners prefer to work on their own at their own pace and do not miss the lesser interaction provided on a distance learning course. Forcing such people to train via e-learning can have disastrous effects. If there are several people on a course who are failing to interact with the group, hostility may arise with those contributing feeling that the others are benefiting from their thoughts and ideas without bothering to contribute anything themselves. It must also be remembered that if it is to be time-efficient, learners must have a reasonable knowledge of the internet so that they can intuitively work their way round the system. Also if they do not have access to the internet at home, they may actually be able to devote less time to study than they would otherwise.As ever in the world of training, despite the obvious benefits offered by e-learning, consideration must be given to the individual needs of specific learners to ensure that the mode of delivery is chosen for the benefits it can offer rather than its position as the latest training trend.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - To share the experiences of RRC in developing and delivering e-learning programmes to individual learners and corporate clients.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - RRC have been delivering e-learning courses for several years now and this experience has enabled them to discover by trial and error what works and what does not. Reviewing the experiences of both individual learners and corporate managers has allowed us to assess the circumstances in which maximum benefit can be gained from choosing e-learning as a delivery mechanism for professional training.\nFindings: - E-learning can be a highly-effective delivery mechanism for training courses, but only under the right circumstances. These include where: there are a limited number of students spread over a large geographical area; the qualification is international in nature; a corporate client requires confidential discussion among learners; and managers not directly involved in the training want to track (and record) effectively the progress of individual learners. However, despite these benefits, it is not suitable for all learners in all situations, and consideration must be given to the individual needs of specific learners to ensure that the mode of delivery is chosen for the benefits it can offer rather than its position as the latest training trend.\nOriginality/value: - E-learning is often seen as the \"next big thing\" and as such, is sometimes recommended to all learners on all programmes, irrespective of whether this makes educational sense. RRC's experiences in delivering such programmes will help those requiring training to think more carefully about the mode of delivery chosen.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Construction management research at the interface of design and explanatory science
|
[
"Technological rules",
"Research",
"Design science",
"Knowledge generation",
"Design"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management (ECAM) publishes studies on innovative developments in the practice of construction management. This practice is concerned with development, design, and construction of solution concepts, methods, and systems. These concepts, methods, and systems can be both created and studied. This underlies the dual nature of construction management research. Two kinds of scientific research in construction management can be distinguished: descriptive and prescriptive. Descriptive research aims at understanding different aspects of construction management. Prescriptive research aims at improving these aspects. Descriptive research is a knowledge-producing activity mainly associated with the explanatory sciences, such as natural science but also social science (Voordijk, 2009). Prescriptive research is a knowledge-using activity corresponding to design science, the science that develops knowledge that professionals can use to design solutions for their field problems (Van Aken, 2004b).These two kinds of research have created a discussion among construction management researchers over what constitutes legitimate scientific research in this field. Certain researchers favour empirical methods and rigorous statistical analyses following natural science (Chau et al., 1998; Runeson, 1997). Others are in favour of research that produces knowledge that can be used in designing solutions to complex and relevant field problems in the practice of construction management (Griffiths, 2004). Such discussions are common in fields that encompass both knowledge-producing and knowledge-using activities (Seymour et al., 1997; Seymour and Rooke, 1995; Runeson, 1997; Chau et al., 1998).The objective of this study is to characterize construction management research at the interface of explanatory science and design science. First, the dual nature of construction management research is analyzed more deeply by relating this field or research to two modes of knowledge as distinguished by Gibbons et al. (1994). Next, the theoretical background needed to understand this dual nature is discussed. Subsequently, construction management research at the interface of explanatory science and design science is characterized. Studies published recently on this interface in high quality construction management journals are discussed. Finally, conclusions are drawn.\nThe objective of construction management research: In their seminal work, The New Production of Knowledge, Gibbons et al. (1994) argue there is a fundamental shift in the ways in which knowledge is being produced, affecting not only what knowledge is produced but also how it is produced (Starkey and Madan, 2001). Gibbons et al. (1994) trace the development of this new form of knowledge (what they call Mode 2 knowledge (M2K)) in physics, chemistry and biology. Mode 1 knowledge (M1K) traditionally is conceived as the scientific approach to knowledge production and is what universities have historically been concerned with: disciplinary and more concerned with theory than practice, with how the world works considered at a theoretical level. M2K is less concerned with discipline base and is crucially concerned with knowledge as it works in practice in the context of application. This knowledge aims at relevance to practice. Generally spoken, M1K is academic and mono-disciplinary, while M2K is multidisciplinary and aims at solving complex and relevant field problems.Within the emerging context of M2K, distinctions between public and private knowledge production are becoming blurred (Gann, 2001). High-level knowledge advance does not only take place at the university, but occurs increasingly in centers outside the conventional academic setting: in company research laboratories and R&D departments, consultancy firms, government-sponsored research institutes, and independent think-tanks. On one hand, industry has become a significant participant in scientific research, and training, on the other hand universities have become involved in consultancy (Gann, 2001). Consequently, quality of outputs has become more varied and more difficult to measure. In practice-oriented fields, the provision of expert advice may not entail the kind of rigorous, hypothesis-led, methods of empirical science, and may not lead to published outputs, in recognized academic journals (Griffiths, 2004). But it may well involve the clarification of basic concepts, the testing out of methods, and the application of accepted principles to new contexts, such that it does constitute valid new knowledge production. The boundary between research and consultancy becomes, therefore, not an easy one to draw. There has also been an erosion of the division between creators and users, as knowledge creation has become more closely woven into the activities of particular communities of practice.Research in construction management is also closely interwoven with the activities of a particular community of practice, namely the construction industry. In construction management research M1K is used to develop M2K. The results of explanatory-oriented sciences from M1K are a necessary part of construction management research: a significant part of this research aims at explaining, predicting, and describing phenomena that are relevant to building processes or systems, the production of M1K. The focus is on the development and justification of theories that explain or predict phenomena related to the development, design, and construction of solution concepts. Based on these results, construction management researchers produce M2K that can be used in designing solutions to complex and relevant field problems in construction management practice (see also Van Aken, 2004b). In producing such knowledge, the standard methodologies used in the M1K, which are disciplinary and allow general abstractions that disregard specific relevant conditions, need to be translated to the specific context of the construction management practice.Part of construction management research is conducted through the M1K explanatory sciences. The objective of construction management research, however, is broader than the M1K explanatory sciences because of its design mode of knowledge production. The theoretical background of construction management research as M1K explanatory science and M2K design science for the output of this field or research is analyzed in the next section.\nTheoretical background: In this section, the theoretical background of the dual nature of construction management research is analyzed by relating this field of research to natural science and design science.Natural science and construction management\nResearch at the interface of explanatory science and design science: This section explores the implications of construction management research at the interface of explanatory science and design science. The concept of causality underpinning the explanatory sciences is the study of variance among variables. Thus the sciences tend to focus on testing propositions derived from general theories. Design science draws on \"design causality\" to produce knowledge that is both actionable and open to validation. The notion of design causality appears to be less transparent and straightforward than the concept of causality underpinning explanatory science. The typical research product in a design science is not a causal model (as in the explanatory sciences) but a technological rule (Bunge, 1967). A technological rule is defined by Bunge (1967, p. 132) as \"an instruction to perform a finite number of acts in a given order and with a given aim\". These rules can be \"employed to control, transform or create things or processes\" (Bunge, 1976, p. 154). According to Van Aken (2004a, p. 228) a technological rule is \"a chunk of general knowledge linking an intervention or artifact with an expected outcome or performance in a certain field of application\". \"General\" in this definition means that it is not a specific solution for a specific situation, but a general solution for a type of problem. A technological rule follows the logic of \"if you want to achieve Y in situation Z, then perform action X\". The core of the rule is that X is a general solution concept for a type of field problem (Van Aken, 2004a).A technological rule can be seen as a design proposition (Romme, 2003), linking a certain intervention to a certain outcome, while an untested technological rule can be seen as a preliminary design proposition. Such a proposition shares important similarities with a hypothesis, resulting from the explanatory sciences, explaining the behavior of one or more dependent variables in terms of the behavior of an independent one. However, in order to be a design proposition, a proposition should satisfy three conditions (see also Romme, 2003):1. The dependent construct must describe something of value to construction management, like financial performance or some operational performance indicator.2. Independent constructs must describe something that can be changed or implemented order to influence the dependent variable.3. Design propositions must have been tested in construction practice.The form of technological rules - as the core of design knowledge - is very similar to knowledge claims in the sciences.Justification of a technological rule and approval is obtained through testing it in the specific context of the construction management practice. Van Aken (2004a) recommends that this testing should involve both alpha and beta testing, notions adopted from software development. Alpha testing involves the initial development of a design proposition, and is done by the researchers themselves through a series of cases. Another research method besides cross-case analyses that may be effectively employed for the development of technological rules is simulation modeling. Simulation modeling allows people to build and test models describing the current and desired system (Romme, 2003). Subsequently, beta testing is a kind of replication research done by third parties to get more objective evidence as well as to counteract any blind spots or flaws in the design propositions not acknowledged by the researchers. The nature of alpha and beta testing of technological rules is highly similar to the replication logic recommended for comparative case studies (Eisenhardt, 1989; Numagami, 1998; Yin, 2003).If a technological rule as design proposition is \"field-tested\" this means it is tested in its intended field of application. If it is \"grounded\" this means that the reason why the technological rule gives the desired result or performance is known. Research at the design-science interface of construction management should focus on technological rules developed through testing in practical contexts as well as grounding in the sciences. This type of construction management research combines the design science and the explanatory science mode of knowledge production, while it also respects some of the methodological differences between the two modes.\nThe development of technological rules in construction management: Technological rules are developed by reflection and induction and subsequently tested and refined by adding more cases: first, by the researchers themselves through a series of cases, and subsequently by third parties to obtain more objective evidence (Van Aken, 2004a). In our study, we use two steps to identify relevant articles:1. Develop technological rules.2. Obtain approval through testing them in the specific context of the construction management practice.Rough article selection on development of technological rules\nConcluding remarks: Technological rules - as the core output of the design mode of knowledge production - are very similar to knowledge claims in the sciences. This similarity is an important condition for construction management research at the interface of explanatory science and design science, to the extent that technological rules provide a shared focal point. Empirical findings are translated into technological rules for further development and testing (Romme, 2003). This type of construction management research combines the design science and the explanatory science mode of knowledge production, while it also respects some of the methodological differences between the two modes.If a technological rule is \"field-tested\" this means it is tested in its intended field of application, part of the design mode of knowledge production. If it is \"grounded\" this means that the reason why a technological rule gives the desired result or performance is known. Knowledge is added to the explanatory sciences. Developing and testing technological rules reduce the relevance gap between science and the world of practice. In other words, technological rules are the common ground on which research in construction management practice and research can meet aimed to improve existing or future management of building processes - the ultimate aim of construction management research.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to characterize construction management research at the interface of explanatory science and design science.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The dual nature of construction management research is analyzed by relating this field of research to natural science, design science and its interface. Research at the interface of explanatory science and design science is characterized by identifying studies published on this interface in high quality construction management journals.\nFindings: - Research at this interface should focus on technological rules developed through testing in practical contexts as in design science as well as grounding in the explanatory sciences. The nature of testing technological rules is highly similar to the replication logic recommended for comparative case studies.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Developing and testing technological rules combines the design science and the explanatory science mode of knowledge production in construction management research, while it also respects some of the methodological differences between the two modes.\nOriginality/value: - Developing and testing technological rules is the common ground on which research in construction management practice and research can meet and reduce the relevance gap between science and the world of practice.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Stock market liberalization: implications on cost of capital in emerging Islamic countries
|
[
"Stock market liberalization",
"Cost of capital",
"Emerging Islamic countries",
"Capital asset pricing model",
"Information asymmetry channel models"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: 1.1 Context and background\n2. Theoretical background and literature review: Relying on capital asset pricing model (CAPM) and information asymmetry channel models, the proponents of liberalization claim that SML decreases the cost of capital via its implications on both domestic market risk premium and pricing of information asymmetry[3].\n3. Sample, variables and model specification: 3.1 Sample and variables\n4. Results and discussion: 4.1 Descriptive statistics\n5. Conclusion: This study aims at analyzing the possible effects of SML on cost of capital, as one of the crucial economic policy for stock market development and economic growth, in the stock markets of EIC. We applied RE estimator on our static regression model with dividend yield provided by Standard and Poor's IFCG index for each emerging market, as the dependent variable to represent cost of capital with three control variables which are exchange rate, interest rate and crude oil price, respectively. First proposed by Edison and Warnock (2001), then became widely preferred in measuring SML, the preferred proxy by this study is calculated based on the two indices which are computed by SP/IFC. The results of the regression models suggest that SML significantly reduces cost of capital in the stock markets of EIC. This finding is consistent with the literature including Bekaert and Harvey (2000a), Henry (2000a), Kim and Singal (2000), Huang (2008) and Hillier and Loncan (2019). Furthermore, the literature generally defines the stock markets of EIC as such; poor-quality of information flow, high trading costs, disintermediation and less competition. Therefore, we strongly suggest that the CCM is a better fit to explain the results, suggesting that SML reduces the cost of capital as it raises competition level by increasing the number of uninformed investors more than the number of informed investors in the opaque domestic capital markets. Due to the following reasons, the implication of SML on cost of capital is highly concerned by the economic policymakers, corporations and investors. First, a reduction in the cost of capital would highly likely attract more companies to be a part of exchange in order to benefit from low-cost fund raising opportunities, leading to bigger market size. Second, it renders the projects profitable which were not before, and thus increases aggregate investment rate. These developments certainly affect the decision-making behavior of the stakeholders in the worlds of both finance and economy. Finally, we consider that our analysis could be expanded by further scoping down from country level to industry level. Thus, the similarities and differences among industries with regard to the effect of SML would be analyzed. Furthermore, by narrowing down the scope from industry to company level, the effect of SML can be examined on the Shariah-compliant companies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Most of the major Islamic countries' stock exchanges have not been able to perform at the same pace with the major emerging countries' stock exchanges since the mid of 1990s. The purpose of this paper is to examine the implications of stock market liberalization on cost of capital as one of the crucial driver to stock market development and physical investment growth in emerging Islamic countries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study employs static panel data techniques on the sample of seven emerging Islamic countries over the years 1989-2008.\nFindings: The findings of this study suggest that stock market liberalization significantly reduces cost of capital in the stock markets of sample Islamic countries, which carries policy-oriented implications. Reduction in the cost of capital increases the number of exchange-traded companies, profitability of projects and aggregate investment level; therefore, the study findings are highly concerned by the economic policymakers, corporations and investors alike.\nResearch limitations/implications: In the literature, different proxies are employed to measure stock market liberalization and cost of capital as well. Due to data limitations, this study could not employ different proxies for both, especially for stock market liberalization, for robustness purpose. That limitation further restricted the coverage of Islamic stock markets and time period. Therefore, generalization of the study results for overall Islamic stock markets can be slightly drawn.\nOriginality/value: The paper provides further understanding regarding the effects of SML on cost of capital, thereby indirectly on the stock market development, in the context of EIC.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
FRBRoo-based approach to heterogeneous metadata integration
|
[
"FRBRoo",
"Metadata integration",
"Ontology",
"Digital libraries",
"Museums"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Heterogeneous metadata integration is an important issue for digital libraries to harmonize the difference between distinctive metadata formats and elements to aggregate metadata from various sources. Many national digital library projects also face these issues, and the Taiwan E-Learning and Digital Archives Program (hereafter TELDAP), which consists of many projects conducted by memory institutions (including archives, libraries, museums and herbaria), is no exception. Like other national digital library projects, TELDAP has built up a Dublin Core (hereafter DC) based union catalog (hereafter TELDAP-UC) as a central repository to aggregate cultural heritage materials from these institutions that have heterogeneous metadata formats, such as EAD, MARC21, CDWA and HISPID. Crosswalks using the DC 1:1 principle are a practical approach for integrating metadata in DC and other formats. However, rich relations between museum artifacts and library works, e.g. relations between original items and digital reproductions, and between a set and its individual items, are easily ignored. Semantic relations embedded in metadata elements are lost when they are cross-walked (St. Pierre and LaPlant, 1998; Woodley, 2008), such as from CDWA to MARC or from CDWA to DC. Therefore, to achieve heterogeneous metadata integration for TELDAP there is a need to harmonize the different documentation requirements and include semantic contextual information rooted in distinctive professional communities. This article explicates the use of FRBRoo as ontological mapping to achieve heterogeneous metadata integration for TELDAP, and is organized as follows: section 1 and section 2 provide an introduction, and background on metadata integration. Section 3 describes the proposed approach for metadata integration, and section 4 explores two use cases. Section 5 exploits three question answering (hereafter QA)-based queries to examine the feasibility of the proposed approach. Section 6 is a discussion of selection and addition of mapping paths, the one-to-one principle, alignment of heterogeneous metadata, and ontology-based representation and query. Finally, concluding remarks are drawn for future research in section 7.\n2. Background: Originally, museums, archives and libraries were memory institutions which collected and preserved cultural heritage information for education of the public. Despite this shared purpose, today each has its own discipline with its own training and literature. Although this division clearly made sense one hundred years ago, recently, scholars have questioned the continuing relevance of this split (Charnes, 1997). In terms of documentation needs, museums, archives and libraries have spent a lot of effort to develop various metadata formats for describing different types of materials, such as CDWA for museum artifacts, EAD for archival records and MARC for literary works. These metadata formats can be extended as a workable basis for metadata integration within these specific communities.\n3. Method: This paper adopted an ontology-based approach to integrating heterogeneous metadata formats and their elements. FRBRoo was selected as an ontological method to re-contextualize the semantics of elements, as well as the implicit relationships between museum artifacts and between museum artifacts and library literary works. FRBRoo thus plays a role as an interlingua to harmonize heterogeneous metadata formats and elements. This study not only used FRBRoo as the basis on which to accomplish semantic mapping between metadata elements and classes and properties of FRBRoo, it also employed FRBRoo as a core ontology shared by museums and libraries to explicate the semantic relationships between metadata elements for metadata integration.\n4. Use cases: The above two projects selected from TELDAP were utilized to illustrate how FRBRoo can elaborate semantic crosswalk between metadata formats and ontology (i.e. FRBRoo) and make the semantic relationships embedded in the metadata elements explicit. Furthermore, how to transform human-understandable ontology into machine-readable format by means of TopBraid Composer is also addressed.\n5. Evaluation: Three QA-based queries were used to examine the feasibility of the proposed approach. QA is the automatic answering of a question expressed in natural language. By means of these QA-based query examples, the capability of FRBRoo as an ontology to integrate heterogeneous metadata and perform semantic query is illustrated. TopBraid Composer and SPARQL query language for RDF were utilized to elaborate how RDF query is conducted for semantic query on the shared FRBRoo.\n6. Discussion: This section addresses the implications of selection and addition of mapping paths for MDL, the one-to-one principle for ontology-based crosswalk, and heterogeneous metadata integration and semantic query with FRBRoo.\n7. Conclusion: To our knowledge, this is the first study illustrating how FRBRoo can play a role as interlingua (i.e. a shared ontology) to integrate heterogeneous metadata from museums and libraries. This study distinguishes itself from current format-based approaches to heterogeneous metadata integration in that FRBRoo can play an ontological role in making the semantic relationships embedded in metadata elements explicit. Then, it can transform human-understandable metadata elements into machine-readable and understandable representation through RDF expression and semantic query. This study also provides evidence for the feasibility of a shift from format-based heterogeneous metadata integration to Semantic Web oriented metadata integration. Furthermore, this study illustrates how FRBRoo can align distinct documentation, while keeping it parallel rather than changing one approach and its metadata to fit the other.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper seeks to adopt FRBRoo as an ontological approach to integrate heterogeneous metadata, and transform human-understandable format into machine-understandable format for semantic query.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Two cases of use with museum artefacts and literary works were exploited to illustrate how FRBRoo can be used to re-contextualize the semantics of elements and the semantic relationships embedded in those elements. The shared ontology was then RDFized and examples were explored to examine the feasibility of the proposed approach.\nFindings: FRBRoo can play a role as inter lingua aligning museum and library metadata to achieve heterogeneous metadata integration and semantic query without changing either of the original approaches to fit the other.\nResearch limitations/implications: Exploration of more diverse use cases is required to further align the different approaches of museums and libraries using FRBRoo and make revisions.\nPractical implications: Solid evidence is provided for the use of FRBRoo in heterogeneous metadata integration and semantic query.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study to elaborate how FRBRoo can play a role as a shared ontology to integrate the heterogeneous metadata generated by museums and libraries. This paper also shows how the proposed approach is distinct from the Dublin Core format crosswalk in re-contextualizing semantic meanings and their relationships, and further provides four new sub-types for mapping description language.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A holistic model for inter-plant knowledge transfer within an international manufacturing network
|
[
"Knowledge driven organizations",
"Knowledge management",
"Knowledge transfer",
"Engineering",
"International manufacturing network"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Knowledge is considered to be the most strategically significant resource of a firm (Grant, 1996, p. 375; Alavi and Leidner, 2001). In fact, a company is a collection of unique, heterogeneous, scarce, embedded, inimitable, valuable, tangible and intangible resources, including knowledge, that are used to respond to market opportunities (Johnston and Paladino, 2007). For the growth of multinational corporations (MNCs) that operate several plants spread over the world, known as international manufacturing network (IMN), the need for multidirectional knowledge flow, i.e. from the headquarters to subsidiaries, among the subsidiaries, and from the subsidiaries to the headquarters, is vital. Individual plants in such networks can learn from each other and benefit from new knowledge developed by other plants which consequently leads to inter-plant cooperation, increased innovativeness (Tsai, 2001), increased internal learning capability (Argote and Ingram, 2000; Cheng et al., 2015), replication of best practice, and successful development projects (Colotla et al., 2003). The aforementioned arguments highlight the significance of knowledge transfer (KT) as a basis for continuous learning in an IMN. Furthermore, learning ability is one of the four unique capabilities that a network of production plant can provide (Shi and Gregory, 1998; Colotla et al., 2003; Cheng et al., 2015).\n2. Frame of reference: 2.1 Knowledge\n3. Research methodology: This study undertakes a multiple case study approach that enables an in-depth study of a contemporary phenomenon in its real-world context (Yin, 2013), as this paper intends to do by investigating a few KT projects in industrial context. The unit of analysis was KT projects conducted in each case company (Table I).\n4. Findings: The findings are derived from five KT project cases at three MNCs. The projects revolved around transferring both technical and cultural KT from Swedish headquarters or plants to other plants in the IMN of each MNC. Hereby, the findings of each case are presented which are later analysed and discussed.\n5. Analysis: 5.1 The need for a holistic knowledge transfer framework\n6. Discussion: 6.1 The academic and industrial need\n7. Conclusions: Even with the mature literature on KT and KM, numerous challenges arise among the practitioners during KT projects. Transfer of knowledge among the plants within an IMN is significant for MNCs to be able to produce quality products in their subsidiaries. The multiple aspects of KT still crave more attention. More research is needed in this area, particularly to help practitioners who must ultimately manage KT projects in a multi-plant manufacturing network.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to provide a holistic view to support the choice of appropriate strategy for conducting a knowledge transfer (KT) project in an international manufacturing network (IMN) environment. It proposes a model that includes multiple aspects of a KT project along with guidelines on each aspect.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To achieve the research goals, multiple case study method was adopted. Data have been collected by conducting semi-structured interviews regarding five KT projects in three multinational corporations. Data were triangulated by means of comparisons to complementary data acquired through observations and archival documents.\nFindings: The results of this paper detail the key issues of five KT projects. Furthermore, the paper proposes an aggregated model comprising the main aspects and strategies for a KT project within an IMN.\nResearch limitations/implications: Despite the abundant research on KT area, not many research projects provide holistic views on KT process. The focus has rather been sectional and concentrated on each specific aspect within the KT.\nPractical implications: The paper guides practitioners to identify multiple aspects in KT that will eventually increase the odds for successfully performing such projects.\nOriginality/value: The proposed learning network model improves the performance of KT projects by providing a holistic view including several factors that the organization should emphasize to succeed with inter-plant KT.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Creative spaces in interdisciplinary accounting research
|
[
"Media",
"Creative",
"Popular culture",
"Interdisciplinary accounting",
"Peer review process",
"Virtual world"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nThe interdisciplinary accounting space: The interdisciplinary accounting space is a very precious and valued domain. It has been cultivated over the years by both seminal theoretical contributions and innovative entrepreneurial endeavours. Hopwood's (1983) recognition of the importance of understanding accounting in its social and organizational context laid the intellectual groundwork for moving beyond traditional research domains. Accounting journals, such as this one and its associated conference, have provided the invaluable means of disseminating the subsequent flow of scholarship and consolidating the research field.\nThe media space: Media images - whether through television, newspapers, radio or, more recently, the social media - play a critical role in shaping the contemporary world (Appadurai, 1996; Fairclough, 1995; Manovich, 2001). Dominant narratives and counter-narratives about social, corporate and political issues play out through the media (Hellman and Wagnsson, 2013; Vaara and Tienari, 2002). In liberal democracies, the media has often been ascribed the role of the \"fourth estate\" (alongside government, the courts and the church) - a possibly self-serving label that captures the media's ability to hold the powerful to account (Fisk, 2008; Rushbridger, 2010; Schultz, 1998).\nThe virtual space: The internet has opened up a space of infinite possibilities, a virtual world of knowledge, ideas, thoughts and trivia. For accounting scholars, this new space has been recognized as an increasingly important means of disseminating corporate information (Cho et al., 2009), and offering counter accounts to such official communications (Gallhofer et al., 2006). The possibilities for this space for informing our understanding of the concept of accountability has also been suggested (MacKenzie et al., 2013; Lowe et al., 2012).\nThe popular culture space: In 1994, a special issue of the journal Accounting, Organizations and Society was devoted to the theme of accounting and everyday life. Anthony Hopwood's editorial for this special issue, while short in length, was significant in substance. It called for a \"tethering of accounting to the realm of the everyday\" and encouraged accounting scholars to embrace everyday rituals as a context for their research work (Hopwood, 1994, p. 301). While acknowledging that everyday routines might seem \"distant from the techniques of the accounting craft\" (Hopwood, 1994, p. 299), Hopwood urged readers to recognize the value of such a wider cultural context for our understanding of the ways in which accounting shapes, and in turn is shaped, by the everyday. The 20 years that have passed since this call have witnessed a small, but growing, body of work devoted to the domain of accounting and everyday life. For example, everyday pursuits such as sporting activities have provided an alternate arena for accounting research, with important contributions in both the fields of football (Cooper and Johnston, 2012) and rugby (Andon and Free, 2012). Representations of the accountant in everyday life have enhanced our understanding of the accounting stereotype (Parker and Warren, 2009). The everyday rituals of cinema going (Jeacle, 2009) and popular music (Jacobs and Evans, 2012) have offered new spaces for scholarly inquiry.\nConcluding thoughts: We began this paper by celebrating the defining feature of interdisciplinary accounting research: its continual engagement with new realms of knowledge and disciplinary spaces. It is this openness and pluralism that has established a rich vein of research in recent decades and which has allowed the margins of the interdisciplinary accounting domain to expand and consolidate. Moreover, we believe that creativity lies at the heart of interdisciplinary accounting scholarship, and that it's most precious attribute is as a space in which new and innovative ways of understanding accounting can flourish. We conclude this paper by identifying a possible threat to this creativity, and hence to the future development of the interdisciplinary accounting field, in the shape of the peer review process.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to consider the role of interdisciplinary accounting research and suggest ways of broadening its creative scope to embrace significant contemporary phenomenon.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper is conceptual in nature and therefore draws only on secondary sources.\nFindings: The paper suggests that one of the defining features of interdisciplinary accounting research is that it should be a creative space in which novel ideas emerge and new agendas flourish. The authors identify three such creative spaces of scholarly inquiry: the media space, the virtual space and the popular culture space.\nOriginality/value: The paper identifies three new creative spaces in which interdisciplinary accounting research may continue to flourish. It also identifies a possible threat to creativity within future interdisciplinary accounting research.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Educational administrators' conceptions of whiteness, anti-racism and social justice
|
[
"Race",
"Racial discrimination",
"White people",
"Leadership",
"Social justice",
"Canada"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Education is often assumed to be a moral activity (Stefkovich and Shapiro, 1999; Starratt, 1994). However, its moral nature is neither accidental nor neutral. As Schwandt (2000) suggests, schooling is involved in the creation and dissemination of knowledge, which is permeated with ideological and political values. As mirrors of the economic, political and ideological stratifications of societies in which they exist, schools normalize and idealize white, middle class, male, heterosexual experiences and world-views, and exacerbate the injustices of the larger society. Ryan (2006) contends that the cultural capital valued by and in schools is based within a specific class, race, gender, and sexual orientation. As a result, students whose life experiences are outside of those thought to be desirable (p. 7) \"are routinely excluded from learning activities because they do not bring to school the same kinds of language and interaction skills that are required\". By privileging the knowledges and experiences of the already advantaged, educational institutions routinely configure society as a static entity into which students must fit.\nReview of literature: The ideology of transformational leadership which is currently in vogue in Ontario school districts highlights the leader/follower dichotomy, which Ryan (2002, p. 991) notes claims that \"leaders are gifted in ways that followers are not, and as a consequence, it is their responsibility to inspire those less skilled individuals to reach greater heights\". It assumes that ministry and district initiatives that are aimed at differentiated success and engendered compliance are moral. Although cloaked in the language of student success, the role of the transformational administrator is to overcome resistance to reforms and inculcate school personnel with high \"levels of personal commitment to organizational goals and greater capacity of accomplishing those goals\" (Leithwood et al., 1999, p. 9). This ideology which pervades preparation programmes and school district selection processes, produces educational administrators who as Rapp (2002, p. 226) contends, \"are trained, hired technicians of the status quo who generally believe in, benefit from, and often coerce teacher and students into supporting unjust state and corporate agendas\". Transformational leadership fails to question the morality of the organizational goals of education and the means by which they are achieved.The goals of educational systems, as Connell (1993, p. 27) identifies them, focus on \"the production of social hierarchies\" and \"the modern legitimation of inequality\". These are evident in a recent communique celebrating the success of the latest educational reforms in Ontario which reports that 60.5 percent of secondary school students have currently completed 16 credits at the end of their second year (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2006). It is not disaggregated to determine which credits, at what level and where they lead. It also does not acknowledge who comprises the almost 40 percent of students the schools are failing. Instead, sorting and slotting mechanisms surreptitiously called \"Choices for Success\" (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2006) are implemented in school districts throughout the province.Contrary to educational leadership models which serve to create and maintain inequities are leadership paradigms that are emancipatory (Corson, 2000; Ryan, 2003), transformative (Anderson, 2004; Dantley and Tillman, 2006; Foster, 1986), or polyfocal (McMahon and Armstrong, 2006). These are consistent with notions of social justice and antiracist education. As such, they are imbued with beliefs that educational leadership focuses on \"democratic practice and equitable treatment of all members of the learning community\" (Dantley and Tillman, 2006, p. 22). Informed by conceptions of critical pedagogy and democracy, Grogan (2002, p. 115) claims that social justice leaders must \"interrupt the continued maintenance of the status quo\". Schools have the potential to become sites for democratic transformation where leaders facilitate the creation of space and means for dialogue and action through which democratic processes are enacted.Social justice\nMethodology: Purposive sampling and snowballing techniques (Merriam, 1998) were used in the selection of participants for this study. They were referred by graduate studies faculty members and other interviewees.Pseudonyms are used throughout this paper to protect the identities of the participants. The ten respondents (see Table I), from three school districts in the greater Toronto area, were chosen primarily because of their initial receptivity to talking about whiteness and issues of anti-racism, equity, and social justice and because they work in schools and districts with predominantly black and South Asian student populations. The students of South Asian heritage in these schools are primarily immigrants, while the majority of the black students are born in Canada. Research (McMahon and Armstrong, 2003; Ryan, 2002) demonstrates a discrepancy in the treatment of students from diverse racial minority groups by school personnel. Students of East Asian heritage are limited in their options by being ascribed the quiet, hard working, math specialist, \"model minority\" label (Asher, 2001). Conversely, research (Dei et al., 1997; McMahon and Armstrong, 2003; Solomon and Palmer, 2006) finds that black students are configured as less capable and more violent. South Asian Canadian students' experiences of racism are similar to those of the black students, as identified by Bannerji (1997), who sees Canada's colonial heritage as complicit in the entrenched racism which contributes to the marginalization of Canadians of South Asian heritage.Data was obtained through semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions allowing me to gain an understanding of their lived experiences, analyze responses and obtain information that is \"richly descriptive\" (Merriam, 1998, p. 8). Although I assume that the participants in the study are honest in their revelations I am also mindful of the selective nature of disclosures. This may in part be self-protection and also a result of a self-enhancing variable, as identified by Taylor and Brown (1988), which suggests that individuals need to present themselves in a positive light. Analysis of the data identifies a broad range of understandings of whiteness, anti-racism, and social justice within these emerging themes:* participants' understanding of their racial identities, and whiteness as it operates at individual, institutional, and organizational levels;* their involvement in socially just initiatives; and* individual institutional and organizational factors that enhance or inhibit this work.\nFindings and discussion: The data indicates that whiteness is a difficult subject even for white administrators who agree to be interviewed about whiteness, racism, equity and social justice. The interviewees are Canadian born and intentionally were not asked about their cultural backgrounds because for white people ethnicity is often used to supplant acknowledgement of race. They are all accredited by administration preparation programs that are consistent with what Marshall (2004, p. 4) found in the USA where, \"[t]raditional training for educational leadership reflects a culture that has marginalized issues and concerns of social justice\". Consequently their formal education is not instrumental in their understandings of whiteness, racism, equity and social justice. Marshall (2004, p. 4) contends that \"educational administration faculty members may not have the knowledge, materials, strategies, rationales, or skills to infuse their curriculum content [...] with issues related to poverty, language minority, special needs, gender, race, and sexuality\". It is often more the case that the faculty is also entrenched in the structures which work to preserve their power and privilege.As agents of the school districts where they are employed, the administrators commonly view these issues from an organizational perspective that do not challenge hegemonic structures. Generally they understand social justice from non-critical perspectives; see whiteness at the level of the individual, racism as unacceptable individual acts, and multiculturalism as preferable to anti-racism. Ms Edwards, conversely, states that while she does play that role, her imminent retirement grants her a freedom which is not available to people who are seeking further promotion in the district. She speaks about the consequences she faced after introducing the ideologies of Freire during a transformational leadership retreat focused on improving test scores. She says:They co-opt this whole notion of what we can do for children and we call these same practices to improve EQAO scores transformation without any of the context of it. I got hauled in by the director ... I said, I'm retiring in June. I said to him, Did I participate? Did I provide ideas? Yes you did, but your body language. I don't mind paying the price because there always is one.Unlike the other respondents, she consistently identifies a pressing need for a form of social justice which radically changes existing curriculum, policies and procedures; an understanding of the individual, institutional, and systemic privilege of whiteness; and the importance of implementing anti-racism which generates social transformation.Social justice\nConclusions and recommendations: The findings point to a lack of understanding of the tenets of social justice and anti-racism. The participants struggled with even talking about the impacts of whiteness, racism and anti-racism on experiences of schooling. This supports Ryan's (2003) study, which suggests that narrow views of what constitutes racism combined with a desire to project a positive image of themselves and their school community renders administrators blind. Intentional or not, the damage this inflicts and the privilege it bestows are real. It would be beneficial to conduct further interviews with these participants to determine the extent to which these conversations have impacted on the ways in which they speak about whiteness, anti-racism, and social justice.Although the administrators need to be accountable for their roles in maintaining inequitable hierarchies, school districts, faculties of graduate studies and administrator preparation program providers are ultimately responsible. The issues discussed in this paper are sidebars in mainstream Canadian graduate studies programs in educational administration, relegated to the domains of social foundations or equity studies. Principal and Supervisory Officer preparation programs (Ontario Principals Council, 2007) focus on leading effective schools within paradigms of efficiency. Candidates for promotion are judged by the extent to which they are compliant with ministry and district initiatives. In all of these arenas, discourse about whiteness, social justice and anti-racism are noticeably absent. Administrators who are involved in these initiatives are often transformative (Dantley and Tillman, 2006) in working with their student, parent, and school communities. At the same time they are also solo \"heroic\" leaders within school districts which neither value nor reward their efforts.There is a need for anti-racist administrators to build alliances across school districts, to gain support for their work and share strategies. The respondents expressed a need for venues through which these conversations could take place. Transformative leadership enacted in community with students, parents, and other board personnel would enable educational leaders to operate from a perspective consistent with social change (Miner, 1995). School reforms, graduate studies and administrator preparation programs need to be reconfigured to reflect a social justice perspective. At the same time, in order to fulfill school and district mission statements, recruitment, hiring, and promotion policies and practices need to reward rather than punish educators who understand the complex and multiple ways that whiteness permeates schooling, and who work with students, parents, staff, and communities in the creation of antiracist learning environments.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to examine the intersections of whiteness, anti-racism and social justice in educational administration. It is an attempt to understand how white administrators who work in racially minoritized school communities reconcile the moral challenges of articulations of racial equity with the hierarchical institutions of schooling.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This qualitative study asks ten white administrators how they understand themselves as raced, the ways they see race operating at individual and institutional levels in schools and districts, and factors that facilitate and/or hinder social justice work as it pertains to race.\nFindings: - The data indicates that whiteness is a difficult subject for white administrators, even those who agreed to be interviewed about whiteness, racism, equity and social justice. As agents of the school districts where they are employed, the administrators generally view these issues from an organizational perspective that does not challenge hegemonic structures. They typically understand social justice from non-critical perspectives, see whiteness at the level of the individual, racism as unacceptable individual acts, and multiculturalism as preferable to anti-racism.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The findings cannot be generalized; however, they show that academic education and certification programs need to be revised in order to prepare administrators to deal with issues of locatedness and difference.\nOriginality/value: - The study is set in a Canadian context where, in spite of overwhelming evidence that visible minority students are marginalized in and by school policies and practices, racism is often overtly and emphatically conceptualized as a phenomenon that happens in other times and places.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Does Vintners Quality Alliance (VQA) certification benefit winemakers in British Columbia (BC), Canada?
|
[
"Marketing",
"Canada",
"Economics",
"Pricing",
"Regression",
"Wines",
"Logit/probit/tobit",
"Econometric model",
"Analytical economic model",
"Collective reputation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: 1.1 Background\n2. Literature: In the wine literature, the relationships between wine certification or appellations and wine prices have been frequently researched. Landon and Smith (1997) analyzed how consumers use quality and reputation indicators for Bordeaux wines in the formation of their willingness to pay for these wines. Their research shows that reputation has a substantial impact on the consumers' willingness to pay for wine, with a long-term reputation being more important than short-term quality adjustments. The authors also established that the collective reputation has an as significant impact on the consumers' willingness to pay for wine as individual reputation.\n3. Stylized facts, conceptual framework and hypotheses: 3.1 Stylized facts\n4. Methodology, model and data: 4.1 Methodology\n5. Results and discussion: 5.1 Probit results\n6. Conclusion, implications, limitations and future research: The results of this article point toward several quite interesting findings.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to analyze the significance of British Columbia Vintners Quality Alliance (BC VQA) certification that constitutes BC's wine appellation and its influence on wine prices, the volume of wine sales and winemakers' revenues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A three-stage endogenous dummy variable specification that addresses the endogeneity of the VQA certification is used. The data used in this research come from the BC liquor distribution branch, and it is composed of a monthly scanner wholesales data of all wines sold by the BC estate wineries located in the Okanagan and Similkameen Valleys of BC in 2011-2015.\nFindings: The obtained results suggest that VQA certification has a positive and marginally significant effect on the average volume of sales of BC produced wines, but it seems not to influence the average wine prices and the average revenue share. The results imply then that VQA certification allows rent dissipation via over-certification, which, in turn, allows arbitraging away of producers' rents.\nOriginality/value: The research constitutes the first attempt of the use of three-stage endogenous dummy variable modeling approach to correct for the endogeneity of the VQA certification in BC. The analysis is essential for BC winemakers as it can inform them about the current role of the VQA certification in BC. This knowledge is especially important now when the BC wine region is developing its collective, regional reputation and is in the process of introduction of new appellations and sub-appellations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Bringing anime to academic libraries: a recommended core collection
|
[
"Japan",
"Film",
"Animation",
"Anime",
"Japanese animation",
"Japanimation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Today a person can find collections of Japanese anime and manga in almost any public library, but not in the general academic collection. Anime is simply the term used to describe all forms of animation from Japan; manga are Japanese comics. Public libraries are collecting them to fulfill their mission to gather materials that will entertain as well as educate and reflect the interests of their community.\nBackground: Both manga and anime provide insights into Japanese culture and allow individuals to experience it without visiting Japan. Within anime, viewers can learn about family life, religion, spirituality, and ethics. It is easy to dismiss anime as not reflective of Japanese culture because the characters do not necessarily appear Asian. Much of anime demonstrates a quality of mukokuseki, which can be translated as stateless or lacking nationality (Mckevitt, 2010). Anime has a unique style in which watchers are transported to another world; it may be represented as Earth, but it is meant to be one separate from the current reality. Therefore, this quality of statelessness means that most characters do not have features that can be linked to a particular nationality. That does not mean, however, that Japanese culture is not represented.\nLiterature review: There are numerous articles that address creating a film collection within academic libraries. Those articles, however, tend to focus on the mechanics involved, such as cataloging, shelving, determining loan rules, establishing selection criteria, and budgeting. All of those are important considerations and should be kept in mind. Articles that recommend what to collect are rarer.\nCore list of anime: This list was assembled based upon the author's 20-plus years of viewing anime and is the culmination of a sabbatical in which the author studied the history of Japanese animation and read extensively from acknowledged experts in the field. The films included here have stood the test of time and inspire multiple viewings. The initial catalog of films which were reviewed for this project came from a variety of sources, including 500 Essential Anime Movies, The Anime Encyclopedia, The Complete Anime Guide, Watching Anime and Reading Manga, and The Rough Guide to Anime. In some cases, the sources included best of lists. In others, topical essays highlighted films and series that demonstrated the best of a genre. Compiling these recommendations into one list, viewing all of the films again, and comparing them with information from these experts and other readings resulted in this core list.\nConclusion: The films listed here provide a foundation for an anime collection beginning with sources many are not familiar with because they are unique pieces that, for the most part, are not tied into televised series or manga. They serve as an introduction to some of the best Japanese studios and animators and can evolve into a larger collection that will incorporate televised series. Anime is a medium that can be used to explore a diversity of genres and themes. Within the academic field, anime can be used to supplement discussions on science fiction, ecology, man versus nature, war, self-awareness, man versus technology, and so much more. Anime can also be used to learn about Japanese culture and customs. Incorporating anime into an academic library collection will encourage students to use the library and engage them in new ways.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to provide reasons for developing an anime collection within academic libraries as well as providing guidance in starting such a collection.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper is based upon research of literature and anime-related websites, as well as familiarity gained through viewing anime.\nFindings: Anime is a medium that can be used to explore all genres, as well as universal themes, and provide a glimpse of Japanese life. The study of film has been accepted for decades and the study of animation has grown from that but has been restricted to primarily American animation. Anime is animation specific to Japan which can inspire students and faculty to explore another culture. Libraries should provide classic anime that can support cross-cultural and interdisciplinary studies. By creating an anime collection, a library will provide their community with engaging materials that can be used for enjoyment as well as study. A list of core titles is included.\nOriginality/value: This paper reflects recent trends toward increased interest in Japanese popular culture, specifically anime, and offers academic libraries a rationale for including such materials within their collection to connect with their students and faculty. There are no articles on the topic of collecting anime in academic libraries.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Egyptian women supervisory empowerment behaviors on well-being outcomes
|
[
"Egyptian women managers and professionals",
"Empowerment",
"Work and well-being outcomes"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Research and writing on the role and benefits of empowerment in organizations began almost 20 years ago. Herrenkohl et al. (1999, p. 375) define empowerment as \"a set of dimensions that characterize an environments interaction with persons in it so as to encourage their taking initiative to improve procedures and to take action\". Spreitzer (1996, p. 1005) described two types or levels of empowerment: the macro organizational environment of policies approaches to decision-making, structure, locus of control and the micro feelings of empowerment of employees that recognizes risk taking, showing initiative and seeking out information on organizational priorities.\nMethod: Procedure\nResults: Supervisor empowerment behaviors, psychological empowerment and work and well-being outcomes\nConclusion and practical implications: We found overall support for our hypothesis (Table II). First, levels of supervisory empowerment behaviors were significantly and positively related with most of the outcome measures (Burke et al., 2016, 2018). Second, levels of personal psychological empowerment were generally positively related with work and well-being outcomes, with the exception of employees' quit intentions and levels of exhaustion/burnout. The variance on our measure of exhaustion/burnout - the absence of symptoms- was limited as the sample was generally young and in relatively good health.\nLimitations of the research: The present research has shortcomings which should be noted to better consider the findings. First, all data were collected using self-report questionnaires with the small risk of response set and common method biases. Second, all data were collected at one point in time making it challenging to address issues of causality. Third, all respondents came from the two largest cities in Egypt; Cairo and Alexandria, thus the extent to which our findings would generalize to managerial and professional women and men is indeterminate. Fourth, it was not possible to determine the representativeness of our sample as well.\nFuture research directions: The size and nature of our sample made this an exploratory investigation of empowerment in Egyptian organizations, to our knowledge the first Egyptian study of empowerment among Egyptian female managers and professionals. The results, consistent with our hypothesis and previous research findings from other countries and other industries, indicated that supervisory empowering behaviors were associated with valued individual and organizational outcomes. As a consequence undertaking future research in Egypt which examines empowerment is warranted and should include larger and more representative samples of managers and professionals. In addition, including outcomes measures of a more objective nature such as absenteeism, managerial ratings of job performance and actual job performance evidence would strengthen conclusions about the potential benefits of empowerment in organizations. Finally, initiating efforts to increase levels of empowerment, where appropriate, and evaluating these efforts, would provide meaningful information to organizational leaders.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine the relationship of perceived supervisor empowerment behaviors and feelings of personal empowerment with important work and well-being outcomes in a sample of Egyptian women managers and professionals.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected from 155 managerial and professional women using anonymously completed questionnaires. Respondents were relatively young; had university educations; had the short job and organizational tenures; held various levels of management jobs; and worked in a range of functions. All measures used here had been used and validated previously by other researchers.\nFindings: Work outcomes included job satisfaction, career satisfaction, work engagement, work-family and family-work conflict, emotional exhaustion/burnout, life satisfaction and intent to quit. Both perceived levels of supervisory/leader empowerment behaviors and self-reported feelings of empowerment had significant relationships with the majority of work and well-being outcomes.\nResearch limitations/implications: Data were collected using self-report questionnaires with the small risk of response set and common method biases. Second, all data were collected at one point in time making it challenging to address issues of causality. Third, all respondents came from the two largest cities in Egypt, Cairo and Alexandria; thus, the extent to which our findings would generalize to managerial and professional women and men is indeterminate. Fourth, it was not possible to determine the representativeness of our sample as well.\nPractical implications: Practical implications of these findings along with future research directions are offered. Practical applications include training supervisors on empowerment behaviors, and training all employees on the benefits of personal empowerment and efficacy and ways to increase them.\nSocial implications: A number of ways to increase levels of empowerment of both front-line employees and managers have been identified. These include increasing employee participation in decision-making, delegating authority and control to these employees, creating more challenging work roles through job redesign, leaders sharing more information and leaders providing more coaching and mentoring to their staff. At the micro level, increasing levels of employee self-efficacy through training and more effective use of their work experiences will increase personal empowerment and improve work outcomes.\nOriginality/value: Relatively little research has been undertaken on women in management and human resource management in Egypt.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Pedagogical utility of oral discussion versus collaborative drafting
|
[
"Collaborative drafting",
"Oral discussion",
"Pre-writing tasks",
"Social constructivism",
"Writing components",
"Writing skill"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Traditionally, English as a Second Language (ESL)/ English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing classrooms are known as a place where language learners work individually. However, social constructivism, strongly influenced by Vygotsky's (1978) work, stresses that learning is a social process. Social constructivists claim that knowledge is socially constructed (Prawat and Floden, 1994) and meaning is created through individuals' interactions with each other. They state that meaningful learning occurs when individuals are engaged in social activities such as interaction and collaboration (McMahon, 1997). Social constructivists further assume that sharing of perspectives - called collaborative elaboration (Meter and Stevens, 2000) - causes learners to construct understanding together and this construction is not conceivable alone.\n2. Literature review: A review of the literature related to oral discussion as well as collaborative writing in first language (L1) and second language (L2) is presented to clarify the scope of this study.\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Design of the study\n4. Results: 4.1 Addressing the first and second research questions\n5. Discussion: The findings emerging from the present research substantiate that oral discussion had significant effects on Iranian EFL learners' writing performance. One plausible justification for the results could be that oral discussion creates a beneficial social atmosphere in the classroom. When learners discuss an issue, the social interaction and mutual negotiation with their peers create a friendly social atmosphere in which a variety of ideas are proposed and lead to improvement in their learning. D'Arcy-Warmington (2008) also underscored the benefits of this social atmosphere. Furthermore, learners' critical thinking may also be promoted in this social atmosphere. During oral discussions, the participants are careful about the issues they present. They try to present as logical ideas as possible to persuade others. Likewise, Florea and Hurjui (2014) and Davidson and Worsham (1992) claimed that discussions can improve critical thinking which is logical and persuasive in essence.\n6. Conclusion and implications: The study is an attempt to shed more light on the effectiveness of oral discussion and collaborative drafting as two pre-writing tasks and to compare the efficacy of these two interventions. Moreover, the improvement of writing components after oral discussion and collaborative drafting was explored. The first conclusion is that both pre-writing tasks proved to be beneficial in improving Iranian EFL learners' writing skills. The collaborative drafting was showed to be more effective. This effectiveness might be the result of learners feeling more secure and less anxious, given the lack of competition in the presentation of ideas. An additional conclusion concerns the social atmosphere created through oral discussion. It provides a supportive context promoting communication among learners. Such social interaction leads to critical thinking, too. In addition, particularly in group discussions, students have an equal chance to participate, and thus the discussions are not restricted to more active students. Finally, students appear to be more concentrated after collaborative drafting tasks, as more components improved after this task.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate and compare the effects of group-to-whole student-led oral discussion and small-group collaborative drafting as pre-writing tasks on Iranian intermediate English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' writing performance. Additionally, the difference between the writing components was examined.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To achieve these objectives, a group of 120 intermediate EFL learners participated in a pretest-posttest study in which they were randomly assigned into two experimental groups and one control group. The students in all three groups were tasked with writing a textbook evaluation report for the pretest and posttest. The pre-writing process in the first experimental group consisted of a group-to-whole student-led oral discussion, while the second experimental group engaged in small-group collaborative drafting.\nFindings: The results indicate that both pre-tasks were effective in improving the participants' writing skill, while collaborative drafting was even more efficient. Furthermore, it was observed that more writing components improved through collaborative drafting. It is concluded, therefore, that the social atmosphere created through oral discussion and the scaffolding resulting from collaborative drafting can help in writing improvement.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings herein can have implications for first language (L1) composition instruction and second language (L2) writing teaching and, thus, underscoring the utility of the social constructivist approach to writing instruction.\nOriginality/value: As there has been no study conducted to explore the effects of group-to-whole student-led oral discussion on EFL learners' writing skill and to compare its impacts to those of small-group collaborative drafting, the results of this study fill this gap in the literature.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Development of a comprehensive model for stakeholder management in mental healthcare
|
[
"Stakeholders",
"Healthcare",
"Policy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nBackground: Context\nMethods: Research design\nResults: The results of the study are reported below in two parts. First, specific results of the stakeholder analysis at a mental healthcare organization (GGzE) are provided; second, results are presented for the assessment of the applicability of Steps 1-4 of the comprehensive stakeholder management model (Preble, 2005) for healthcare providers.\nDiscussion: Discussion of the results of the analysis (Steps 1-4)\nConclusions: This study contributes to the understanding and application of stakeholder management in healthcare organizations. However, additional research is needed to successfully implement this as a management tool within the healthcare sector. The first step is to adapt the steps of the model for the specific field of healthcare and to improve the feasibility of the model in practice. For this, the model should also be assessed in other healthcare organizations. This will generate more input for the revision and adaptation of the model and improve its general applicability in mental healthcare organizations. Also, results should be evaluated to check whether this method of stakeholder management actually leads to a better relationship as perceived by a healthcare organization and its stakeholders. It may also be possible to measure the effectiveness of the model by asking patients if they notice an improvement in cooperation. These evaluations could prove valuable after stakeholder management has been fully implemented within the organization.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Stakeholder management is not yet incorporated into the standard practice of most healthcare providers. The purpose of this paper is to assess the applicability of a comprehensive model for stakeholder management in mental healthcare organization for more evidence-based (stakeholder) management.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The assessment was performed in two research parts: the steps described in the model were executed in a single case study at a mental healthcare organization in the Netherlands; and a process and effect evaluation was done to find the supporting and impeding factors with regard to the applicability of the model. Interviews were held with managers and directors to evaluate the effectiveness of the model with a view to stakeholder management.\nFindings: The stakeholder analysis resulted in the identification of eight stakeholder groups. Different expectations were identified for each of these groups. The analysis on performance gaps revealed that stakeholders generally find the collaboration with a mental healthcare provider \"sufficient.\" Finally a prioritization showed that five stakeholder groups were seen as \"definite\" stakeholders by the organization.\nPractical implications: The assessment of the model showed that it generated useful knowledge for more evidence-based (stakeholder) management. Adaptation of the model is needed to increase its feasibility in practice.\nOriginality/value: Provided that the model is properly adapted for the specific field, the analysis can provide more knowledge on stakeholders and can help integrate stakeholder management as a comprehensive process in policy planning.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Trading places: Examining leadership competencies between for-profit vs. public and non-profit leaders
|
[
"Leadership",
"Competences",
"Non‐profit organizations",
"Public sector organizations",
"Small to medium‐sized enterprises",
"United States of America"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Much research has been conducted on the impact of leadership styles in driving performance in large industry, for-profit firms as well as some studies in large non-profit government settings (Goleman et al., 2002; Kamensky and Morales, 2005; Michaels, 2005). However, there is less research on this topic in small to medium-sized non-profit and for-profit business settings. Moreover, what differences, if any, are there in leadership style, behaviors, and competencies to drive performance between public/non-profit and for-profit organizational leaders? If so, knowledge of these differences can provide guidance for leadership development programs in each sector.With these questions in mind, an exploratory research study was designed to determine if differences exist between for-profit and public/non-profit leaders in small to medium-sized organizations in terms of leadership style, behavior, and competencies targeted at achieving organizational goals.\nLiterature review: To guide this inquiry, it is useful to focus on three topic areas in the literature. These are:1. context of for-profit and public/non-profit firms;2. leadership focus in for-profit, government, and non-profit firms; and3. leadership competencies.By reviewing these three areas, useful information is identified to frame the purpose and impact of this exploratory research study.Context of for-profit and public/non-profit firms\nMethodology: A structured interview format was utilized for the data collection portion of this research. A 17-item questionnaire was developed, which included open-ended questions on leadership style, organizational mission and strategy, and factors to drive performance. In addition, a list of 23 leadership competencies derived from current leadership literature was included (Hamlin, 2004; Behn, 2004; Fulmer and Goldsmith, 2001; Goleman et al., 2002).A total of 300 leaders participated in this study: 142 from non-profit and government organizations and 158 from for-profit industry organizations. In order to participate, leaders had to work in a small- to medium-sized organization within the State of California, and have at least three employees but not more than 1,000 at their site. Small businesses were defined as having less than 100 employees; and medium-sized businesses ranged from 101 to 1,000 (SMB, 2004). In addition, leaders had to have a minimum of two employees reporting to them, and have either a managerial or executive title, such as Director, VP, Manager, or CEO. Potential interviewees were identified through web searching and networking.Participants were contacted by telephone or email to request their involvement in the study. Participation was voluntary. Once participants agreed to be in the study, an interview date and time was scheduled at their office location. A team of university student interviewers was trained to conduct the interviews. Interviews averaged 30-45 minutes in length and were conducted one-on-one in a face-to-face setting. The interviewer recorded notes for all open-ended questions either by writing in pencil on the questionnaire or typing responses into a laptop. For the 23 leadership competencies, leaders were handed a deck of 23 cards. Each card had one competency listed on it. Leaders were asked first to select their top 7 to 10 competencies that they believed would drive positive results. Leaders were asked to rank order the top three competencies and then explain why they selected their top three. The question was phrased as \"Why did you pick ... as number 1, 2, and 3?\" Leaders were also asked to describe the key factors that helped them achieve positive results. Finally, leaders were asked to rate the importance of leadership to achieving business results (on a scale of 1 to 10).Data analysis\nResults and discussion: The results of the quantitative data are listed first, following by highlights from the qualitative analysis. This results section begins with an overview of the sample characteristics and then illustrates the rankings of the 23 competencies. This is followed by the qualitative results describing the reasons the leaders selected the top three competencies, as well as factors that help them drive performance and achieve business goals. This section concludes with the results from a short quantitative question asking the leaders to rate the importance of leadership to achieving business results.Sample characteristics\nImplications: The findings from this study suggest substantial similarity among the most highly rated leadership competencies required for effective leadership in the for-profit and public/non-profit sectors, signifying the universality of these skills regardless of organization type. Yet, the results also reveal that some differences do exist among leaders in the two sectors, and these disparities might merit further attention. For example, what might explain the differences between the for-profit and public/non-profit groups in terms of time management and self-knowledge? Perhaps these skills have been emphasized more in the for-profit sector and in the typical university's business school curriculum. Similarly, what explains the differences between the sectors on the conflict management and being inspirational competencies? Does the context of public/non-profit leadership demand these skills to a greater degree? Future studies should delve deeper into these preliminary findings to determine if they indicate significant differences between the sectors. If they do, leadership development programs can be structured to target the relevant competencies for the particular sector.The qualitative findings showed that both sectors' leaders identified customer service and their employees as major factors in driving business performance. However, when delving into their descriptive comments about why these factors were important, it was discovered that for-profit leaders emphasized customer service as a means to achieve revenues and profit, and therefore wanted to ensure that their employees were trained to deliver exceptional customer service. The public/non-profit leaders, on the other hand, switched this ranking to focus on employees first as the foundation for excellent customer service. This difference in mental mindset may represent an important distinction that can inform the development of sector-specific leadership training programs. It might also be interesting fodder for future research into the relative importance of customer service vs. human resources practices as the primary drivers of business performance.Finally, leaders from both sectors assigned similarly high rankings to the importance of leadership skills for achieving business results. This result supports the premise that leadership skills are important regardless of the type of organization being managed. The big question is, which skills and competencies are most important for each sector? While this study begins to answer that question, much more research needs to be done to ascertain the presence and degree of significant, sector-based differences.\nLimitations: A variety of limitations for this study resulted from data-related issues. Interviewers did not always gather data in the appropriate format. As discussed in the methodology section, a few researchers entered a range of numbers for some of the variables instead of a specific figure (e.g. \"15-20\" years of experience as a leader or \"100+\" employees in the organization). Our solution was to use the lowest number in the range in each case, but some data integrity was obviously lost in the process. That said, this affected only about six cases in the sample.A larger hit to the sample size was incurred by interviewers who inadvertently selected leaders at large organizations (greater than 1,000 employees). In some cases, the interviewers simply failed to choose an appropriately small or medium-sized organization as specified by the researchers. In other cases, the interviewers may have inaccurately categorized the organization's size. For example, interviewers who interviewed leaders at a local post office branch listed the total employee population of the US Postal Service (800,000 plus workers) instead of the total number of employees at the branch. The result of these errors was that 51 cases of quantitative data had to be dropped from the data set. Qualitative data included all managers in the original data set as the qualitative comments were separated from the quantitative results before this problem came to light.Another limitation of the study arises from potential consistency problems in the research methodology. It is possible that the interviews were not performed consistently across subjects due to the inexperience of university students in conducting interviews specifically and research in general. Finally, it would have been interesting if the interviewers had captured additional information concerning the participants. Such data could include gender, specific job title (to determine leadership level), types of leadership training available, type of organizational structure (e.g. team based, traditional, decentralized, etc.), and overall performance of the organization.\nFuture research: Although this study was exploratory in nature, it provides clues that further analysis into this topic is warranted. Future research can start with a more rigorous analysis of the differences between public/non-profit and private leadership. To tease out the subtleties of the competency-related differences, scaled surveys can be used instead of the simple \"yes versus no\" approach used here. Subsequent studies might also investigate any differences in competencies between small, medium, and large organizations. It is quite possible that the importance of the various competencies may change as the number of employees expands beyond the 1,000 employee maximum that was used in this study. Another interesting future study could examine the differences in competencies among private, public, and non-profit leaders as three separate groups. Since our study combined the responses from public and non-profit leaders into one category, we were unable to determine if there were differences between these groups or between these groups and the private sector leaders. Finally, as stated in the Limitations section, it would be useful to gather more specific information on the participants regarding gender, leadership training, and other distinguishing characteristics.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to identify differences, if any, that exist in leadership style, behaviors, and competencies to drive performance between public/non-profit and for-profit organizational leaders.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study describes the results of in-depth interviews with leaders in small to medium-sized organizations in California. Approximately half of the leaders work in non-profit and public organizations, while the other half work in for-profit companies.\nFindings: - The findings reveal both similarities and differences between the two groups.\nOriginality/value: - The results are a first step in examining the key leadership competencies required for success in each sector and serve as a springboard for future research.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Development, production and use in policy initiated innovation
|
[
"Innovation processes",
"Inter-organizational networks",
"Regional strategic network",
"Resource interaction"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nAcronyms: CaF= Catch a Feather\n1. Introduction: Researchers studying economic growth generally agree that technological innovation is the key driving force (Nelson, 2008, p. 4). To this end, companies in peripheral regions are encouraged by municipalities to collaborate in regional strategic networks (RSNs) to promote innovation and regional growth (Coletti, 2010; Cooke, 2007; Solvell, 2009). An RSN can be defined as a cooperation project involving companies in a regional setting supported by public agencies and other organizations striving to promote novel network structures (Eklinder-Frick et al., 2011; Hallen and Johanson, 2009). Local institutions take on the role of intermediaries and provide regional firms with new information and knowledge, thereby supporting innovation (Arikan, 2009; Camison, 2004; Camison and Fores, 2011; Evers et al., 2010; He and Fallah, 2009). Hence, \"establishing new clusters and promoting more regional cluster policies since clustering seems to provide better and positive inter-firm integration\" may \"result in more innovative marketing strategies\" (Felzensztein et al., 2012). Sotarauta (2010, p. 387) similarly claims that \"people responsible for regional development often understand fairly well the need to construct regional advantage and build clusters\" and \"what they have not been given much advice on, is how to do it\". Hence, there is an established strategy of creating prerequisites for innovation by encouraging regional firms to network. Still, Moller et al. (2005) pose that \"more knowledge about the organizational arrangements and managerial practices in nets aiming to create radical technological innovations and new business concepts is needed\".\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Innovation systems and RSNs\n3. Methodology and data collection: Case study research is a well-established methodology in industrial marketing and network research (Visconti, 2009) and plays an \"important role in theory development within industrial marketing and the industrial networks paradigm\" (Wagner et al., 2009, p. 6). As stated by Borghini et al. (2009), the principal objective of case study research is \"a deep understanding of the actors, interactions, sentiments, and behaviors occurring for a specific process through time\". According to Henneberg et al. (2010), the methodological challenge for current business marketing research is to conceptually integrate the perceptions and cognitions of the manager or actor into the industrial network approach. This paper contains a case study of a single innovation process undertaken within a network context and focuses on how the involved actors interpret the process and strategy in which the process unfolds.\n4. Case description: 4.1 The RSN FPX\n5. Analysis: 5.1 The developing setting\n6. Conclusions: Fagerberg et al. (2012) defines an innovation system as a \"new and more holistic perspective on the roles of policy, governance and institutions for innovation\", and I have argued for the RSN to be the strategic tool used by policy actors in achieving collaborative exchange between these actors. But this collaborative exchange is often confined to merely enabling knowledge to be exchanged. Within the network perspective, innovation is not just about coming up with a novel solution; it is a complex process of combining something new with the organizational structures needed to enable its widespread use (Fagerberg, 2004; Van de Ven, 1986). Hakansson and Olsen (2012) claim that:\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore and describe the forces which promote or obstruct a policy-initiated innovation process in the context of a regional strategic network (RSN).\nDesign/methodology/approach: An innovation requires that an invention survives in relevant developing, producing and using settings. This is analyzed as resource interaction in these three settings. Data are obtained from a case study of an innovation process undertaken from 2007 to 2011 where 24 respondents representing the involved actors in the development of a geographical information system technology platform were interviewed in separate meetings lasting 60-100 minutes. Primary sources of secondary data have also been analyzed.\nFindings: The strategy imposed by the RSN enabled knowledge to be exchanged between the involved actors, but problems remained regarding resource interaction of the relevant settings. The studied case showed that achieving resource interaction between the producing and using settings was particularly challenging when the innovation processes is policy-initiated and thus involves both the private sector and the public sector. This serves to explain why policy initiatives to turn scientific knowledge into commercialized innovation often fall short of their objectives.\nOriginality/value: Research investigating policy-initiated innovation and regional economic growth often focuses on achieving information exchange between the actors that make up the innovation systems. This paper sheds light on the resource interaction between the members of RSN s and how this can facilitate the innovation processes.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
An organizational taxonomy of entrepreneurship policy delivery structures
|
[
"Organization",
"Outsourcing",
"Collaboration",
"Governance",
"Entrepreneurship policy",
"Policy delivery",
"Policy performance"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In this study, the organizational archetypes of entrepreneurship policy organization are identified, based on three primary factors of organizational structure: outsourcing, system-level governance and cooperation. Moreover, the frequency of the archetypes and, more importantly, their effect on performance is investigated.\nOrganizing entrepreneurship policy: Entrepreneurship policy researchers have been investigating both the contents (Hoffmann, 2007; Lundstrom and Stevenson, 2005) and effects of political initiatives (Storey and Potter, 2007; Storey, 2000). Much of the research on entrepreneurship policy evaluation has been done at country level (Curran, 2000) or at the individual programme level (Lundstrom and Stevenson, 2005; Storey and Potter, 2007; Storey, 2002; Turok, 1997). While these investigations have proven valuable, the investigations of policy effectiveness produce ambiguous results (Minniti, 2008).\nA taxonomy of entrepreneurship policy delivery: From the perspective that organizational structure has an impact on performance, this paper explores the organizational archetypes of entrepreneurship policy delivery structures and their similarities and differences when it comes to performance. Archetypes and typologies are used in many different fields of research. Biology and the natural sciences are frequent users, however management researchers have also leaned towards identifying different archetypes of organizational configurations. Minzberg's five organizational structures are probably the best known: simple structure, machine bureaucracy, professional bureaucracy, divisionalized form and adhocracy (Mintzberg, 1979). Also Miles et al. (1978) have developed a typology, dividing organizations into three strategic types: defenders, prospectors and analysers, with a fourth \"default\" type, called reactors.\nMethodology: Data collection\nFindings: The two-step cluster analysis generates four clusters across three variables. The four-cluster solution was proposed by the model itself (possible only in two-step cluster analysis). The quality of the cluster analysis is fair with a silhouette coefficient of 0.5. A positive silhouette coefficient indicates that the average distance between the cases is smaller within clusters than between clusters. Thus the closer the coefficient is to 1, the better. A coefficient of 0.5 is not optimal, however it is within the range of a fair to good quality of analysis. The ratio between the largest and smallest cluster is 3.27, indicating that the largest cluster is 3.27 times larger than the smallest.\nDiscussion: The analysis shows that one of the clusters seems to be underperforming compared to the other clusters. Low cooperation levels and a lack of coordination within the delivery structure characterize Cluster 2. Clusters 1, 3 and 4 on the other hand are performing at a uniform level, despite their different outsourcing solutions. The following discusses possible reasons for both the differences and similarities between the clusters.\nConclusions: The purpose of this study was to identify archetypes of organizational arrangements within local entrepreneurship policy. Scholars in entrepreneurship policy research have done a great deal of work, identifying attributes and characteristics of entrepreneurship policies, the effects of policy has been examined, and lately, context has been brought into the discussion as well. However, there still seems to be a missing link between context, policy and performance, and what this paper suggests is that this missing link may be found in the organizational configuration of the delivery structure. Delivery structures are defined as the network of organizations, institutions, units and other actors involved in the implementation of a political programme (Hjern and Porter, 1981). In local entrepreneurship policy these are, e.g. business development agencies, incubators and educational institutions - all of which own a share in local entrepreneurship policy.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Organizing entrepreneurship policy efforts is not an easy task. There are often several different actors involved, and their efforts towards improving conditions for entrepreneurs may be more or less organized. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the organizational archetypes of local entrepreneurship policy, across a number of factors relating to coordination mechanisms and outsourcing.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study is based on a survey of 77 Danish municipalities, covering 79 per cent of the total population, and their entrepreneurship policy structures. A two-step cluster analysis has been performed to identify taxonomies of entrepreneurship policy organizations.\nFindings: The findings reveal four different clusters: arm's length coordination; arm's length decoupling; internal centralization; and arm's length centralization. Moreover the study reveals a link between these archetypes and the effectiveness of the local entrepreneurship policy delivery structure, suggesting that some structures may be more effective than other.\nOriginality/value: The paper shifts the focus from policy formulation to organization, showing the importance of organizational structure for better performance. Specifically, the paper illustrates how lack of reaction to the environment leads to underperformance. Moreover, the paper draws the attention towards these new taxonomies, which are of value not only to academia but also to the political world.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Perceptions toward academic library app implementation
|
[
"Academic libraries",
"Social sciences",
"Kuwait",
"Students",
"Library services",
"Library apps",
"Mobile library"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Smart devices are becoming increasingly dominant in modern life around the world, and Kuwait is no exception. This is evident from the Global Information Technology Report produced by the World Economic Forum, which indicates that 100 per cent of the Kuwaiti population is covered by a mobile network signal and that Kuwait ranks second globally in individual adoption of mobile subscriptions (Baller et al., 2016). Liu and Briggs (2015) stated that people of all ages, genders and socio-economic classes use these devices for blogging, video sharing, communication, social networking and collaborative authoring. Wei et al. (2015) cited the release of the iPhone, the enhancement of the mobile internet and low prices as factors driving the adoption of smart devices.\n2. Literature review: Use of mobile technology has potential in education. Education was the third apps category in terms of the number of apps downloaded from the 180 billion apps available in the App Store as of June 2017 (Statista, 2018). The literature confirms increased use of these apps in education. For example, Gikas and Grant (2013) conducted a qualitative study focused on students from three US universities in which they investigated their perspectives on learning with cellphones, smartphones and social media. They found that mobile computing devices and the use of social media allowed students to engage in content creation, communication and interaction and collaboration. Wai et al. (2016) discovered that undergraduate students in Hong Kong use mobile apps frequently to engage in academic learning activities, such as communication and collaborative working, accessing academic resources and checking dictionaries. Salisbury et al. (2015) investigated undergraduate engagement and use of mobile devices in an academic environment. Their results indicated that students primarily used social networking apps on their mobile devices, followed by entertainment apps, communication, information, education, utility, commerce, health and religion apps.\n3. Problem statement: As most students spend a significant amount of time on their smartphones, academic librarians should explore options for connecting with their patrons through mobile apps. Providing library apps could lead to better promotion of library and information services and increased engagement with patrons and potential users.\n4. Research questions: This study answers the following questions:\n5. Methodology: This study used a mixed methodological approach consisting of quantitative (questionnaire) and qualitative (focus group) data collection techniques. The survey was conducted at the College of Social Sciences at Kuwait University during the spring semester of the 2015/2016 academic year.\n6. Research context: The College of Social Sciences at Kuwait University has more than 3,000 undergraduate students and around 100 full-time faculty members in five departments: information studies, sociology and social work, psychology, political science and geography. The college also has six masters-level programs: information studies, psychology, political sciences, geography, sociology and socialwork.\n7. Results: 7.1 Respondent profiles\n8. Discussion: This study investigated the perceptions of students and other stakeholders at Kuwait University toward the use of library apps for accessing resources and services. A small percentage of students visited the library frequently in person; 45 per cent visited less than five times monthly and only 22 per cent visited 5 to 10 times. These findings show a low engagement of students with the library and might be related to the lack of a technological presence by the library, especially in social media. Little (2011) mentioned that a lack of library visits could be related to low understanding of students' needs and low engagement on social media.\n9. Conclusions: This study provided baseline data about the perceptions of students and staff at Kuwait University regarding library apps. These findings are useful for academic libraries considering the development of mobile apps. Academic librarians should either train their current staff, especially those who are equipped with technology skills, or otherwise outsource the development of such apps. They also need to design a mobile library website that is compatible with mobile devices and deliver their resources and services through mobile apps. The library app could also be integrated with social media to promote library services and contents and facilitate access via the social media accounts already possessed by prospective users. Further, the app could provide real-time information about library usage, current capacity and free areas and allow users to create friends lists comprising other users. These apps can also provide valuable data to academic libraries, such as user and geographic location information, which can be used to push messages to users. The available data could also be used for the evaluation of library resources and services. Another implication for academic libraries is the training of students and academic staff on the use of mobile devices for accessing library resources and services.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceptions of Kuwait University students majoring in the social sciences, faculty members and academic librarians toward mobile library applications (apps), which are not currently available. These technologies are highly desirable for students, but many libraries struggle to properly implement them.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Quantitative survey questionnaires were distributed to 400 undergraduate students, of which 184 valid and completed questionnaires were collected. In addition, three focus groups were conducted with social sciences graduate students, academics and librarians to further explore attitudes and perspectives toward library apps.\nFindings: A majority of respondents (62 per cent) visited the academic library less than five times per month or never, but a smaller majority (57 per cent) also preferred to use a combination of computers and mobile devices to access library information. The most desirable student uses for library apps involved access to basic information or services such as library hours, book renewal or catalog searches. Most potential barriers to student use of library apps received low scores; only slow internet speed was considered a significant problem. Focus group discussions clarified that major concerns regarding the implementation of library apps included the potential cost, knowledge, training and administrator support for these efforts.\nOriginality/value: This study highlights the unique interest in, and barriers to, library app implementation at Kuwait University, while providing an informative structure for similar studies and considerations elsewhere.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Sufficient challenges and a weekend ahead - Generation Y describing motivation at work
|
[
"Human resource management",
"Motivation",
"Generation Y",
"MEBs"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The main task of the human resource management (HRM) function is to create human capital in organisations and facilitate high performance workplaces in order to create competitive advantage (e.g. Boxall and Macky, 2009; Paauwe, 2004; Becker et al., 2001). One of the most important means is to attract, recruit and retain motivated and talented people, and to do that in a better way than the competitors can. This concern is especially related to the youngest generation entering working life, i.e., Generation Y - a group commonly agreed to have been born between 1982 and 2000 (Hart and Brossard, 2002; Arsenault, 2004). Members of Generation Y are often referred to as Millennials.\nWork motivation: The rationale behind theories of work motivation is to provide a framework through which organisations can better influence their employees' drive to work and increase their enthusiasm (Furnham et al., 2009). Work motivation has been defined as, for example, \"a set of energetic forces that originate both within as well as beyond an individual's being, to initiate work-related behaviour and to determine its form, direction, intensity, and duration\" (Pinder, 1998, p. 11). Motivation has seen as having two forms: intrinsic motivation (i.e. doing an activity because one finds it inherently interesting and satisfying) and extrinsic motivation (i.e. doing an activity for an instrumental reason) (Catania and Randall, 2013; Stringer et al., 2011; Lawrence and Jordan, 2009). There is research evidence showing that work motivation makes the employee more committed to the organisation (Moynihan and Pandey, 2007), positively influences job performance, (Springer, 2011) and increases job well-being (Fernet et al., 2010), and is influenced, for example, by work content (Houkes et al., 2001), goal setting (Brown and Latham, 2000), performance feedback and social recognition (Van-Dijk and Kluger, 2004; Stajkovic and Luthans, 2001), monetary rewarding (Stajkovic and Luthans, 2001) and flex-time (Barney and Elias, 2010).\nMethod: The aim of this study is to investigate the perceptions of work motivation among Millennials in depth. Our research design resembles that of Herzberg et al. (1959) in some aspects; first in that we too adopted a qualitative approach, and also in that we adopted a method where the results concerning work motivation are so pronounced that it is possible to consider them separately. Herzberg used interviews involving critical incident analysis, which at the time was a relatively new method of data collection. More than 50 years later, we followed by adopting relatively innovative methods too.\nFindings: After the positive story, the informants were asked why the person, Sami, felt so motivated and enthusiastic. In their explanations, certain themes were repeated in several answers. First, many respondents mentioned that the work environment and the climate in the workplace were good. Examples offered to explain what made it so included a pleasant and open atmosphere, enthusiastic and encouraging colleagues and equality among employees. Colleagues were often mentioned in explanations, and they were described as supportive, encouraging and trustworthy. Interestingly, the organisation as a whole was not mentioned in this context but the closest work unit was.\nDiscussion and conclusion: Our first research question was \"which factors do Millennials see as motivating or demotivating at work and in the workplace?\". In general, our findings were very much in line with some earlier studies (e.g. Behrstock-Sherratt and Coggshall, 2010; Smith, 2010; Cennamo and Gardner, 2008; Solnet and Hood, 2008; Wong et al., 2008): interesting work content, flexibility with timetables and working hours, a possibility to learn and develop at work, a good atmosphere in the community of work and a nice supervisor were important factors of motivation in the written stories of the Millennials. However, our qualitative data revealed some interesting variance in the degree of emphasis placed on these issues.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine some perceptions of Millennials concerning what makes work motivating, and discuss their implications for human resource management (HRM) practices.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Empirical data were collected via Facebook using the method of empathy-based stories (MEBS). The theoretical framework is grounded in the literature on motivation.\nFindings: The full-time working Millennials wrote more about intrinsic motivators than extrinsic ones. Additionally, there were several dichotomies of positive and negative factors causing motivation/demotivation. Thus, the results contradict to some extent with the ones of Herzberg's. The stories revealed that the most important things having an effect on motivation were an interesting, varying and flexible job and good relationships with colleagues and supervisor.\nPractical implications: The results revealed some particular factors that should be considered when designing HRM practices to dovetail with the motivational drivers of the Millennials: flexibility, work-life balance, convenient social relationships, need for coaching-based leadership and the opportunity to develop.\nSocial implications: Due to retirements and shrinking generations, the impact of Generation Y is increasing in the workforce. Thus, recognising its motivational factors is important.\nOriginality/value: The originality of the study partly rests in its methodological innovativeness. Often adopted by sociologists, this study introduces the method of MEBS to the business field. Furthermore, Facebook is still seldom used in data gathering. While much of the extant research on Generation Y is quantitative in nature, the adoption of a qualitative approach allows for the voice of Generation Y to be heard.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Customer-brand engagement and Facebook fan-page "Like"-intention
|
[
"Facebook",
"Brand trust",
"CBE scale",
"Customer–brand engagement",
"Intention to “Like”"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The concept of social media is at the top of the agenda for many business executives today. According to the 2013 Social Media Industry Report (Stelzner, 2013), 86 per cent of marketers believe that social media channels are important components of their marketing initiatives. Social media allow firms to engage in timely and direct end-consumer contact at a relatively low cost and higher levels of efficiency than can be achieved with more traditional communication tools (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). Marketers have embraced social media marketing for a variety of marketing objectives, including branding, research, customer relationship management, service and sales promotions. Of these, most marketers value social media the most for branding (eMarketer, 2013). In addition, professional social media marketing has been found to affect corporate reputation positively (Dijkmans et al., 2015a, 2015b).\n2. Theoretical framework: 2.1 Customer-brand engagement\n3. Model development: The model developed to achieve the objective of the study is presented in Figure 1. The model comprises the three dimensions of CBE, the two specific \"Like\"-intentions, a general \"Like\"-intention construct, brand trust as a moderator and a control variable, \"Facebook-use motivation for social purposes\".\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Sampling and data collection\n5. Results: 5.1 Assessment of the measurement model\n6. Findings: The purpose of the study was to address two key questions:\n7. Theoretical and managerial implications, and directions for future research: The main theoretical contributions of the study are twofold. First, the empirical results showed that CBE is an important behaviour that influences not only brand usage intent but also engagement with the brand through social media (in this instance, Facebook fan pages). Collectively, the three CBE dimensions explain more than 50 per cent of the variance in each of the two \"Like\"-intentions. Second, the three significant moderation effects based on the ELM present novel insights into the influences of affection and activation on \"Like\"-intentions INFO and WOM. Specifically, the moderation results offer insights into the boundary conditions for affection to influence \"Like\"-intention INFO, and when affection is a strong factor influencing \"Like\"-intention INFO. The moderation results also show that high brand trust is necessary for customers to be motivated more by activation to \"Like\" the fan page to receive information and to engage in WOM.\n8. Conclusion: Facebook - now the most widely used social media platform - presents new opportunities for brands to develop deeper, more meaningful customer-brand relationships. However, for brands to capitalise on these opportunities, it would be important to stimulate Facebook \"engagement\" intentions based on existing customer-brand relationships. This study provides empirical evidence of how positively valenced brand-related cognitive, emotional and behavioural activity influences \"Like\"-intentions on brand pages, and of how the level of brand trust of the customer determines which dimension of CBE would be salient in the formation of the two \"Like\"-intentions. By taking note of this study's findings, brands will be able to develop strategies to stimulate the \"Liking\" of the brand's fan page that will deepen customer-brand relationships, taking into account the customer's level of brand trust as well.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The potential outcomes of social media-facilitated customer-brand relationships have prompted many firms to develop strategies that would enable them to connect with as many customers as possible through social media. Nevertheless, the marketing value of these artificial connections is questionable. Therefore, this paper aims to identify determinants of customers' intention to connect with a brand on social media (i.e. Facebook) in the absence of \"pull-strategies\".\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this paper, the concept of customer-brand engagement (CBE) is applied to the intentions to \"Like\" a brand's Facebook fan page using structural equation modelling.\nFindings: The results show that the three dimensions of CBE collectively explain about 50 per cent of the intentions to \"Like\" a brand's Facebook fan page. Additionally, the results show that the influences of two of the CBE dimensions on the two \"Like\"-intentions are conditional effects of brand trust.\nOriginality/value: Because of the novelty of the CBE construct, further investigation of its application in a social media setting is lacking. To address this gap in the literature, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how CBE influences customers' intention to \"Like\" a brand's Facebook page.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The development of entrepreneurial potential among higher education students
|
[
"Longitudinal data",
"Entrepreneurial intention",
"University",
"Entrepreneurship",
"Student"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In current societies, especially in Western countries, a large number of initiatives to promote entrepreneurial actions have been introduced in order to respond to different societal challenges (such as aging population, regional inequalities, etc.). To this end, education is one of the more common ways through which entrepreneurial potential is promoted and hence one of the key areas where we should investigate the impact of entrepreneurship initiatives at individual level. Longitudinal studies on the subject, however, are relatively few (Matlay and Carey, 2007), and pose formidable data collection challenges (e.g. Harte and Stewart, 2010).\nA conceptual model of entrepreneurial potential: Intention as proxy for entrepreneurial potential\nMethodology: The empirical context of our study is located in Finland, and more specifically in South Ostrobotnia in the Seinajoki University of Applied Sciences. The provision of some level of entrepreneurship education on all levels of schooling has been a stated policy objective in Finland since the 1990s (Pihkala, 2008). Higher education institutions have considerably increasing their efforts to promote entrepreneurship in the twenty-first century. For Seinajoki University of Applied Sciences entrepreneurship is one of its strategic areas of emphasis.\nEmpirical results: Correlations among the variables in the model are presented in Appendix 5. Tolerance and VIF-values were analyzed to see that there was not a threat of multicollinearity between independent variables.\nDiscussion and conclusions: The overall purpose of our study was to increase our understanding about the usefulness of enterprise education in general, on the one hand, and different kinds of pedagogical approaches, on the other hand, on the development of entrepreneurial potential among higher education students. Using an interesting sample from one Finnish University, where we followed the development of entrepreneurial potential at the individual level during three years, we were able to find evidence to conclude that higher education in general seems to have a negative impact on the development of entrepreneurial potential of individuals. However, our results demonstrate that those individuals who take part in active-based entrepreneurship courses do not seem to decrease their entrepreneurial potential, as do their colleagues who participate in lecture-based entrepreneurship courses only.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of how entrepreneurial potential is developed among young people. Changes in individuals' entrepreneurial intentions and the antecedents of intentions are investigated, as well as the impact of entrepreneurship education on the changes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) is applied. Longitudinal data from 197 HE students, in their first and third year of studies, is examined using path analysis.\nFindings: Overall the entrepreneurial intentions of HE students decreased over time. Intentions decreased particularly for those with high initial level of intentions, whereas the group with increasing intentions rose from low to neutral level of intentions. Changes in attitudes and perceived behavioral control have a significant positive impact. Versatile entrepreneurship courses have direct effect on changes in attitudes. Changes in attitudes have a dual role, as they influence change in both intentions and perceived behavioral control. The developed model explains 19 percent of the variance among women and 28 percent among men, suggesting gender differences in development of intentions.\nResearch limitations/implications: Only one way of developing entrepreneurial potential in young people (i.e. education) is covered. The empirical sample is limited to one university.\nPractical implications: The results suggest versatile methods of entrepreneurship education are more effective in developing intentions than perhaps purely active modes. Gender differences should be considered when designing interventions to foster entrepreneurial potential.\nOriginality/value: The research confirms with longitudinal individual-level data the applicability of TPB on entrepreneurial intentions and demonstrates the mediated impact of versatile entrepreneurship courses on changes in intentions.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Women-friendly policies disclosure by companies in India
|
[
"Women",
"Human resources",
"Disclosures",
"Indian companies",
"Women-friendly policies"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Employees are one of the most important resources of an organisation. Every organisation has the required capital, land, equipment and technology or, sooner or later, they can have these but, it is the human resources which are to be nurtured and if done properly, it can give an edge. To gain a competitive advantage, workforce diversity is important (Cox and Blake, 1991) and gender diversity is a crucial aspect when it comes to maintaining workplace diversity. It is no more an option but a requisite for an organisation to be able to sustain in the competitive market place. According to ManpowerGroup's (2016) Annual Talent Shortage Survey, 40 per cent of the employers, all across the globe, are facing difficulty in filling the vacant positions, whereas in India, the percentage of employers facing the same problem is 48 per cent and one of the main reasons for this is the lack of availability of applicants. In this scenario of talent shortage in India, organisations can gain substantially if more women are recruited, developed and retained. There are several barriers that women encounter at the workplace (Morrison et al., 1987) that lead to lesser participation of women in the workforce (Ruble et al., 1984). According to World Bank (2017) estimates, in India, the rate of participation of women in the workforce is estimated to have drastically decreased from 35 per cent in the year 1990 to 27 per cent in 2017. Thus, it is very crucial for organisations in India to have practices that are women-friendly. Organisations often state that they are concerned towards gender diversity and according to Subbarao and Zeghal (1997), the HR information disclosed by a company in the annual report indicates the importance that it gives to human resources. Therefore, how vital gender diversity is to the organisations can be discovered through their disclosed information in the annual reports.\n2. Literature review: Companies do reporting related to gender equality for investors, potential employees, customers, clients, society and government (Grosser and Moon, 2008). Also, stakeholders want to keep themselves updated about the HR-related information of organisations for their specific reasons. Employees are keen to know if human resources are being developed, employment security and good wages are provided (Subbarao and Zeghal, 1997), and safety and skill improvement measures are undertaken by the organisation (Kansal and Joshi, 2015). The social image of the company impacts the job seekers' decision of selecting that particular company's job. Reporting of information related to HR helps a company to improve communication, deal with rumours and build a good rapport with the employees (Craig and Hussey, 1980). Human resource-related disclosure helps investors in differentiating between good and bad performing firms (Samudhram et al., 2010). This makes it easy for them to decide on which company to invest in so that they can earn a better return on investment. Society wants to know about the measures taken by organisations towards the improvement of national resources, equal employment opportunities and health and safety at the workplace (Subbarao and Zeghal, 1997). Disclosures related to human resource provide insights about the firm's various practices and policies related to the employees. Organisations make disclosures to brief about their progress to the internal and external stakeholders. This helps in increasing transparency within the organisation and also acts as a medium of communication with the outside world (Kansal and Joshi, 2015). This discussion indicates us towards the stakeholder theory; it can be said that organisations disclose information in order to meet the information needs of the organisational stakeholders.\n3. Research methodology: The present study investigates the disclosures made by the Indian companies in their annual report regarding women-friendly policies practiced in their organisation. Annual reports have been used for the study, as these were popularly used in the earlier HR-related disclosure studies (Subbarao and Zeghal, 1997; Raman, 2006; Azim et al., 2009; Sobhani et al., 2009) and also these are a credible source of information (Raman, 2006). Thus, for the study, the sample companies have been taken from the list of the top 100 Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) companies by market capitalisations in India as on 31December 2016. Of these, 17 financial sector companies have been eliminated since the disclosure requirements of financial sector organisations are different (Kansal and Joshi, 2015). The annual reports of the remaining 83 companies for the years 2014, 2015 and 2016 were taken from the companies' website. A total sample of 245 annual reports have been examined in this study.\n4. Analysis and results: 4.1 Item-wise analysis of women-friendly policies disclosure (2015-2016)\n5. Discussions and conclusion: The present study has examined the women-friendly policies disclosure by the top BSE-listed companies in India by conducting a content analysis of their annual report. The paper also explores the changes in the disclosure by companies over a period of three years (2014-2016) along with the detailed analysis of women-friendly policies disclosure in 2016. Unfortunately, the study shows low disclosure of women-friendly policies by companies in India in their annual report. Other studies have found a similar result of low levels of disclosures relating to gender in company reports (Benschop and Meihuizen, 2002; Vuontisjarvi, 2006). An anti-sexual harassment policy and a special committee for handling sexual harassment have been disclosed by most of the companies. The high disclosure of these two policies is primarily due to the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, which mandates this disclosure by companies employing more than ten women. The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 requires companies to provide maternity leave to female employees. Despite this, maternity leave has not been disclosed by most of the companies. A similar result was found in another study (Kansal and Joshi, 2015), but the number of companies disclosing about maternity leave has increased from the year 2008 to 2009, taken in that study. At the same time, it is encouraging that the disclosures made by companies in their annual report are increasing at a satisfactory rate and this indicates a significant development in respect of implementation and disclosure of women-friendly policies. A substantial improvement can be seen in the disclosure of policies such as maternity leave, leadership development programme, a special committee for handling sexual harassment and anti-sexual harassment policy. Also, some decent increase has been observed in the disclosure of creche or remuneration in lieu of creche, work from home or telecommuting policy and welfare programmes for women.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand the significance that companies give to women-friendly policies and practices. Thus, the disclosures on women-friendly policies made in annual reports by top listed companies in India have been examined. This paper also attempts to investigate the disclosure-level changes over a three-year period: 2014-2016.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper investigates the extent of women-friendly policies disclosure made by top 83 Bombay Stock Exchange listed companies in India in their annual report. The content analysis method is used to examine the annual reports of each organisation over a period of three years to determine the extent of disclosure.\nFindings: The result points out that the sexual harassment policy is the most disclosed item, followed by a special committee for handling sexual harassment and maternity leave. Most of the companies have ignored policies such as job sharing, cafeteria benefit plan and differential referral payment programme. It was also found that over a period of three years the women-friendly policies disclosure by companies has increased.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study focuses on the annual reports published by the companies. A broader study can be done by using other reports issued by companies.\nOriginality/value: In terms of the knowledge of the researchers, this is the first-ever study in the area of women-friendly policies disclosure in the annual report by listed companies in India. Thus, it also adds to the scarce research on women-friendly policies by companies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
An empirical analysis of fertiliser use intensity in rural Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Tofa local government area, Kano State, Nigeria
|
[
"Sub-Saharan",
"Africa",
"Fertiliser",
"Use",
"Tofa"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Shortage of food is one of the most important crises facing Sub-Saharan Africa, where the realisation of food sufficiency in the region is highly correlated with poor and bad agricultural tools and methods (Idrisa et al., 2012). Most of the areas of the region of Sub-Saharan Africa cannot provide food for their needs, coupled with lack of good access to enough food via trade to meet satisfactorily the nutritional needs of a common man (Braun and Paulino, 1990). This situation is reflected in the average amount of calorie intake per day per person, which is equivalent to about 1,300 calories, far below that of the world daily average of about 2,700 calories (Idrisa et al., 2008). The adverse situation would be worsened with the fact that the projected population growth rate outweighs the rate of internal food production (Valbuena et al., 2014; Mwangi, 1996).\n2. Brief review and conceptual framework: Fertiliser use and consumption have been one of the major concerns of some previous studies (Assa et al., 2014; Saweda and Tasie, 2014; Singh and Solanki, 2014; Takeshima and Nkonya, 2014; Arslan et al., 2013; Idris and Ahmad, 2013; Ma et al., 2013; Sheahan et al., 2013; Wakeyo and Gardebroek, 2013; Akpan et al., 2012; Mariano et al., 2012; Amadi, 2010; Kormawa et al., 2003; Naseem and Kelly, 1999; Nkamleu and Adesina, 2000; Chembezi, 1990).\n3. The model: 3.1 Theoretical framework\n4. Sampling and data used in the study: This study is based mainly on primary data. A structured questionnaire was used as an instrument for the gathering the primary data. The total sample size used in the study was determined based on Dillman (2011). According to Dillman (2011), the formula for determining a good representative sample is as follows:(42)\n5. Model specifications: However, since some significant number of farmers in rural areas of developing countries do not use modern inorganic fertiliser, or they use very meagre amount that is closer to zero bag on an average size of farmland, Tobit regression model was employed in the analysis. This is because an attempt to use ordinary least square method of estimation to model rural farmer fertiliser consumption with a large percentage of zero observations for the dependent variable would result in biased estimates (Maddala, 1992). Therefore, the Tobit model estimation was conducted to utilise both zero and non-zero values of the dependent variable (i.e. fertiliser consumption per rural farmer household) in order to take into account the significant number of zero observations. This model has been widely utilised in applied micro-econometric studies (Brehanu and Fufa, 2008; Amemiya, 1984) and studies of household behaviour (Lee, 2013; Song et al., 2012; Jingchao and Kotani, 2012).\n6. Descriptive analysis of the socio-economic background of the farmers: Table II contains the description of the socio-economic characteristics of farmers in Tofa local government area, Kano State, Nigeria. Table II indicates that majority of the respondents are married. This is a clear picture of people in rural areas, because both men and women in rural areas usually marry as early as possible, because they do not usually undergo schooling before marriage. Furthermore, the table shows that the majority of the respondents (62 per cent) either did not attend school or attended formal school to the primary level only. This is because most of the rural dwellers are not seriously concerned about going to school. Most of them cannot afford the responsibility of educating their children due to lack of available schools, which serves as a constraint for school enrolment. The 29 per cent of the respondents who were able to attend school up to a secondary level may be attributed to the seemingly positive effect of free universal basic education programme. Therefore, majority of fertiliser users in Tofa local government area have minimal years of formal education. As for the age of the farmers, most of them (82 per cent) are within the adulthood age between 15 and 45 years. This is because farming activities require strength and energy, and any person with age above or below the stated age levels does not have the sufficient strength required for good farming activities. Additionally, majority of the respondents (57 per cent) have household sizes ranging between 6 and 15 members. This could be attributed to the practices of early marriage in rural areas and also due to the culture and tradition of polygamy marriage system. Large families in the rural area are expected, because large household size supplies the much needed labour for farm work as well as serves as a cushion against social insecurity in terms of old age.\n7. Results and discussion: As discussed earlier, Tobit model was used to estimate the factors that influence the pattern of fertiliser use intensity in rural Sub-Saharan Africa; Table III exhibits the results of the estimated Tobit model and OLS model, respectively.\n8. Conclusions: This study analyses fertiliser use intensity in rural Sub-Saharan Africa taking Tofa local government area as the case of study. Tobit model was used to analyse the determinants of farmers' fertiliser use intensity. OLS model was also estimated to compare the results of the estimates from the two models. Nearly similar results were obtained from using the both models (Tobit and OLS models). The main difference was that in the estimated Tobit model, variable representing method of fertiliser application was found to be significant, whereas it was not significant in the estimated OLS model. However, it should be noted that all the analyses in this paper are only based on the results obtained from the estimated Tobit model since it is more appropriate for our data.\n9. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further researches: However, despite the ability of this study to provide information on farmers' fertiliser use intensity, three issues serve as the limitations of this study. First, although this study is micro in nature by concentrating on a single rural area as a case study, it cannot provide generalisable results for all rural areas of different regions and countries of Sub-Saharan Africa; therefore, there is a need for a study with wider scope that will cover a number of rural areas of different regions of Sub-Saharan Africa for the purpose of comparisons and generalisations. Second, the study did not incorporate the influence of subsidy on fertilisers used by farmers because most of the farmers argued that they are not benefiting from the scheme at all, implying non-availability of data related to this issue in the study area. Lastly, the study is a static analysis and therefore did not analyse the influence of time dimension on fertiliser use intensity; hence, a study that will assess the intensity of fertiliser use over time will serve as a contribution in the area.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: It is generally agreed that shortage of food, which is one of the main problems bedevilling Sub-Saharan African region, can be eliminated via the adoption of modern agricultural production technology, one of which is chemical fertiliser. The purpose of this paper is to assess the factors that can be used to improve the intensity of fertiliser use in rural Sub-Saharan African countries, taking Tofa, a local government area in Kano State, Nigeria, as the case study.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study adopted a two-stage sampling technique. In the first stage, four districts were chosen using a simple random sampling technique from the list of the 15 districts in the local government area, namely, Tofa, Langel, Lambu and Doka. In the second stage, 25 farmer households were systematically selected from each of the selected communities. Moreover, Tobit Regression model was used to examine and analyse the influence of some socio-economic factors on fertiliser use intensity.\nFindings: To improve the rate of fertiliser use intensity, farmers need to be exposed to skills and training on some off-farm jobs to raise the farmers' income to enable them to afford more fertiliser. The study finds that income, contact with extension agent, age of the farmer and method of fertiliser application have positive significant impacts on the intensity of fertiliser use. On the other hand, price of fertiliser was found to have negative impact on the intensity of using fertiliser in the study area. Furthermore, based on the data obtained from the selected samples, the average rate of fertiliser application in Tofa local government area during the crop season of 2011/2012 was 25 kg per hectare.\nOriginality/value: Policies that will strengthen the farmers' contact with extension agents throughout the farming periods should be adopted. Also, farmers need to be exposed with skills and training on some off farm jobs to raise the farmers' income to enable them afford more fertiliser.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A fresh look at the role of switching cost in influencing customer loyalty: Empirical investigation using structural equation modelling analysis
|
[
"Customer satisfaction",
"Customer retention",
"Marketing in China",
"Consumer loyalty",
"Brand loyalty",
"Consumer switching costs"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: China's mobile phone market has grown exponentially over the last decade or so. An estimated 500 million people use mobile devices for communication, according to the latest estimates by the state-run China Internet Network Information Center (Yu, 2014). Of the 618 million internet subscribers, 80 per cent use mobile devices for internet access (Yu, 2014).\n2. Literature review: CL has been defined in a number of different ways. Notwithstanding this variety, the authors of these definitions seem to concur that repeat purchase behaviour and the consistency of a favourable purchase pattern for a particular product or service are the underpinning principles that define loyalty (Kim et al., 2004; Oliver, 2015).\n3. Conceptual framework: Given the rationale above, this study seeks to look into three antecedent factors in the Chinese mobile telecommunication context, namely, CS, BI, and switching barriers/costs. The rationale behind the choice of these factors is: the chosen factors are not only inherently interwoven and dependent on each other, but tend to be central to organisational strategies and marketing programmes to attract and retain customers and influence loyalty, thus meriting further study; they have not been tested in an integrated manner; while the role of SC as a moderating variable has been explored before, how it mediates the relationship between factors and loyalty remains under-researched; and to respond to calls for further investigation into the role of these antecedent factors in the China telecommunication context.\n4. Research methodology: In this study, consistent with prior studies indicator items to measure each construct or latent variable (LV) of the model are adapted from previous studies to ensure the content validity of the measurement scales (Ram et al., 2014a). The selected item measures were then modified to fit the context of the study. Measures for CS are taken from Andreassen (2000), including whether customers are satisfied with shopping experience (in relation to, e.g. store atmosphere, sales people, and promotions), with service quality (in relation to, e.g. making/receiving calls and service packages in the case of mobile phone services), and with the service provider over a long period in a cumulative sense.\n5. Results: 5.1 Assessment of the measurement model\n6. Discussion of findings: 6.1 Direct and mediated effects of CS on CL\n7. Implications, limitation, and further research: 7.1 Implications for theory and practice\n8. Conclusion: Set in the Chinese mobile telecommunication sector context, this study sought to investigate the role of SC in building CL. The study empirically showed that SC does not mediate the influence of CS on loyalty, nor that of BI on loyalty. The results provide an interesting perspective on CS and BI and how they can be managed by taking a more balanced approach towards setting up and implementing SC strategies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the possible mediating role of switching cost (SC) in influencing customer loyalty (CL).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors derive a model containing the relationships between customer satisfaction (CS), brand image (BI), and CL through mediating effects of SC. Data collected from 200 subscribers of China Mobile was analysed using structural equation modelling technique.\nFindings: The authors find that SC does not mediate the relationship between CS and CL, nor that between BI and CL. While both CS and BI have a direct and positive relationship with CL, only CS is positively associated with the SC. SC in itself has no direct relationship with CL, necessitating further understanding of its role.\nResearch limitations/implications: Prior findings have suggested the mediating role of SC, this study, however, show that SC does not have any mediating role in influencing CL. In fact, the direct role of SC is also questioned, as the authors do not find any direct relationship between SC and CL.\nPractical implications: While managers should retain a balanced strategy for implementing SC, developing a strong BI and achieving CS is more important, and could help avoid any negative implications that may ensue from the implementation of SC.\nOriginality/value: This paper offers empirical evidence of the importance of SC - or rather lack of it - in enhancing CL. It also helps explain how SC interacts with CS and BI.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Alcatel-Lucent University: Customer and employee learning at Alcatel-Lucent University
|
[
"Learning",
"Training",
"Professional education"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Alcatel-Lucent is a partner of service providers, enterprises and governments around the world, providing solutions to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. It leverages the scientific and technical expertise of Bell Labs, a leading innovator in the communications industry, to provide fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP technologies, applications and services. A major part of its current business model is the facilitation of its corporate university.\nCustomer and client learning: Alcatel-Lucent University offers its clients training in areas such as the pre-sales process, and assessing the development needs of the customer's workforce in advance of the final contract being signed. The training revolves around the best use of Alcatel-Lucent's products and services, and aims to enhance its customers' proficiencies and accelerate their speed-to-market. Customer feedback has held particular praise for the University's quality of training and trainers, identifying especially that the trainers are always in \"a constant cycle of learning\" themselves. This ensures that everything being passed onto the client is up-to-date and fully competitive. Trainers are also helped by the organization's international structure, which allows them to travel to centers like Belgium and Stuttgart and bring back competitive information from other markets and business cultures.The delivery strategy combines alternative media training (web, mobile learning, CD-ROMs, etc.), with direct classroom based experiences. This mixed delivery ensures a powerful combination of theoretical and practical experiences for the customer.\nEmployee learning: The University is a huge benefit to employees of Alcatel-Lucent, who have a need for speed when it comes to gaining a competitive advantage. To this end, the University has adopted a two-pronged approach to employee learning: key qualification programs, and more general competency-based training.The qualification programs are designed to expand employees' knowledge, and eventually enhance their employment records through a system of accreditation. Employees will take a series of learning programs tailored to their specific job roles. Upon completion, they receive an accreditation, which in turn is designed to strengthen their professional credentials. These programs support the following business areas of priority:* sales;* customer-facing project management;* leadership development and services;* industry specific IP transformation; and* product line management.The project management program has been of particular success, producing about 1,000 PMP-certified project managers in the organization.More general competency-based training is seen as crucial to employees' professional development opportunities, which encourage loyalty to the organization and therefore increase retention of talent. The University offers employees up-to-date courses in categories such as the following:* products and solutions;* technology and business applications; and* professional development and managerial skills.These courses are voluntary, and can be used to build a comprehensive development plan in partnership with his/her manager. In addition, through its \"Always-on\" initiative, the University is building a self-service online learning portal, from which employees can view and choose the courses that best suit their learning needs. As a sign of this project's success, nearly 40 percent of employees conduct their learning outside of the classroom.\nConclusion: In June 2008, Alcatel-Lucent University received a certificate of quality from the European Foundation for Management Development, an honour bestowed on only 14 corporate universities throughout Europe. Despite its success to date, however, the University continues to seek feedback from employees and clients, in order to improve its services and operations. Customer perceptions are tracked, through end-of-course assessments, post-training impact assessments and key stakeholder surveys. As White explains, \"In today's competitive market, it is not enough to simply check the training box and move on; if not continuously improving in the minds of the customer, you have given them reason to look elsewhere\".\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - To explain the effectiveness, and otherwise promote, Alcatel-Lucent University as a training institution for partners, clients, and employees.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Review of the organization and supporting reviews/awards.\nFindings: - Alcatel-Lucent University is a highly successful, internationally spread organization that mixes a global with a regional approach to learning and training.\nSocial implications: - It will help corporations to recognize the importance of acknowledging, learning, and utilizing the strengths of local/regional cultures and best business practices within a global organization.\nOriginality/value: - Not a great deal of new evidence, its value is primarily promotional and informative of Alcatel-Lucent University, its operations, and its success.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Green supply chain management (GSCM): a structured literature review and research implications
|
[
"Literature review",
"Green supply chain management",
"GSCM",
"Research implications"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The environmental issues and resource depletion problems now a day were contributed by the economic growth which increases the level of energy and the material consumption. The environmental and economic performance is balanced by the organizations facing regulatory, competitive and community pressures were increases significantly (Shultz and Holbrook, 1999). Environmental sustainability is the matter of concern for going green which is the strategy that most of the organizations adopted in their business. Their adoption towards green technology results in the greater benefits that will also affects customer and their suppliers. Environmental legislation is one of the prime concerns for manufacturer across the world economy (Ninlawan et al., 2011). Hence, it is essential to develop the new, systematic and emerging environmental approach for whole supply chain (SC) commonly known as green supply chain management (GSCM). It is used by the fastest growing and green thinking business organizations (Zhu and Sarkis, 2004). GSCM is the integration of environmental thinking into SC which includes manufacturing process, material sourcing and selection, product design and delivery of the final product to the consumers as well as end-of-life management of the product after it useful life (Srivastava, 2007). It is an important strategy to integrate the environmental management practices and SC for increasing the business profit and market share for achieving the competitive advantage and maintaining the greener SC (Rao and Holt, 2005). GSCM is consider as \"closing the loop\" as it ranges from green purchasing to integrated SC starting from supplier, to manufacturer, to customer and reverse logistics (Zhu and Sarkis, 2004).\n2. Existing literature reviews of research paper on GSCM: It was found out during the current research that five literature reviews on GSCM have been done in the past. The different reviews in chronological order are as follows:\n3. Scheme and methodology of review: 3.1. Prelude to literature review\n4. Summary of review and discussion: This section contains the summary of review as per the scheme and methodology of review. The complete details are discussed as follows.\n5. Conclusion: This paper presents insights into the conceptualization and methodological research bases of the GSCM. The review enables us to understand the state-of-art practices in the area of GSCM. This paper attempts to provide an overview of the body of the 177 articles covering 66 different peer-reviewed journals and having \"green supply chain\" in the title and in the phrases. The present research investigates the series of dimensions including the journals most often publishing articles on GSCM research, authors most active in the subject area (in terms of articles published), unit of analysis, research design applied, techniques used for analysing the data's, the theories and theoretical constructs utilized, and contexts examined. The empirical attest presented by authors in GSCM studies are often linked with the question and methodology used to conduct research. To some concern the GSCM authors convince readers of their proffer, theories and there validity. The motivation behind this investigation is to provide a comprehensive examination and useful insights into the significant findings, current research gaps and future research directions.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the status of green supply chain management (GSCM) research in terms of how the field is represented along a number of dimensions including journal, year, country, university, publishing house, authors, research design, research methods, data analysis techniques, multi criteria decision-making methods, research topics/issues and major industries actively involved.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A range of online databases from 1998 to August 2013 were searched containing the word \"green supply chain\" in their title and in the phrases to provide a comprehensive listing of journal articles on GSCM. Based on this a total of 177 articles were found and the information on a series of variables was gathered. Each of these articles was further reviewed and classified. The review and classification process was independently verified. All papers were allocated to the main and sub-categories based on the major focus.\nFindings: The major findings shows that survey research holds greater credibility and the trend in survey research is moving from exploratory to model building and testing. GSCM research related to organizational practices, environmental issues, process, performance and sustainability were found to be most widely published topics within the GSCM domain.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper is limited in reviewing those articles which contains the word \"green supply chain\" in the title and the phrases of the articles.\nOriginality/value: The present review will provide increased understanding of the current state of research and what still needs to be investigated in the GSCM discipline.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
How do R&D employees use their social networks to acquire user information?
|
[
"User information",
"Social networks",
"R&D",
"New product development",
"Medical technology"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Timely and reliable information about users' needs is one of the most critical types of information in new product development (Adams et al., 1998; Bacon et al., 1994). Indeed, research and development (hereinafter R&D) employees in companies with high innovation performance have a better understanding of users' needs than R&D employees in less successful companies (Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1994). At the same time, previous research reveals that this particular information can be costly and difficult to transfer from users to company employees (von Hippel, 1994). The problem of transferring user information may be caused by the nature of the information, the quantities of information that need to be transferred or that the company in question lacks absorptive capacity (Bogers et al., 2010). Consequently, practitioners and researchers alike have invested much time and resources in finding new and better ways to provide R&D employees with timely and reliable information about the users' needs.\n2. Theoretical exposition: 2.1 User information and R&D\n3. Methods used: To address the explorative purpose of this study, we conducted a single-case study within a large medical technology company. The background for the case selection was that the company participated in a longitudinal project together with several other companies, universities and healthcare providers, aiming to improve collaboration between medical technology companies and healthcare providers, and thereby facilitate innovation. The study presented in this article was a subset of this project. There are several examples in the literature where single-case studies within established medical technology companies have made important contributions to theory building (Lilien et al., 2002). In general, case studies have been shown to be appropriate for describing a phenomenon and building theory if the intention is to explore new areas (Eisenhardt, 1989). We adopted a mixed-method approach comprising a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. This method was applied to gain a good overview of the R&D employees' social networks through which they acquire user information, and at the same time develop a more in-depth understanding of the relationships that act as conduits for this information.\n4. Results: The empirical results are presented in two parts. In the first section is the result of the questionnaire presented and in the second part is the result from the interviews presented. Figure 1 illustrates means by which R&D employees interact with different user groups and acquire user information from colleagues. Nodes in the diagram represent the individual members of the business unit and the focal user groups. The lines between business unit members and user groups represent interaction, and the lines between unit members represent user information transfer. The more central a node is in the diagram, the more R&D employees have indicated that they have interacted or acquired user information from that node. The diagram reveals that several employees in the product application and research group (nodes 20, 23, 24 and 25) were seen as a source of valuable user information by many R&D colleagues. Other valuable sources of user information were national physicians and nurses (e.g. nodes 87 and 89), marketers (e.g. nodes 7, 9, 10 and 11) and some product developers (e.g. nodes 42, 62 and 64). A majority of the product developers have a rather peripheral position in the network diagram, i.e. they were not seen as sources of valuable user information by many R&D colleagues. Moreover, apart from national nurses and physicians, the user groups (e.g. nodes 88, 90 91, 92, 93, 94, 95 and 96) do not have a central position in the diagram.\n5. Analysis: To start with, the results reveal that there are large differences between different R&D employees. Some R&D employees (node 19, 62 and 64) have rather comprehensive networks through which they access valuable user information. Other R&D employees have a very limited number of relationships for this purpose (node 52 and 85). Several explanations for these differences can be induced from the result. One reason is that the use of relationships to access user information is closely linked to the tasks that employees are working with. In line with the observation of Gales and Mansour-Cole (1995), those employees who are working with tasks that have a high degree of uncertainty and ambiguity related to the users' needs tend to establish more proficient relationships to access user information (node 24 or 62). Some respondents even describe that they are directly dependent on these relationships and that the relationships are an important \"tool\" for them to solve the tasks that they are assigned. Moreover, the interviews indicate that there are differences between product developers and researchers in the way they use their social networks to acquire and exploit user information. Product developers (node 52 and 70) tend to use their relationships in specific stages and for specific tasks in product development projects. In contrast to this, researchers (node 17, 19 and 24) tend to use their social networks more spontaneously, as they explore new ideas and concepts.\n6. Concluding discussion: This article set off to investigate how R&D employees acquire user information through their social networks and how they use this information in new product development. The article has implications for several theoretical fields. To start with, the article has implications for the literature on absorptive capacity. Resent research argues that it is necessary to not only focus on the R&D function but also other functions when assessing companies' absorptive capacity. For instance, Bogers and Lhuillery (2011) argue that companies' marketing-based sources influence how they absorb external information. This notion, that market information processing plays an important role in new product development, also finds support in other parts of the literature (Griffin and Hauser, 1996; Leenders and Wierenga, 2002). However, these streams of literature are highly focused on the role of marketing departments and mainly concern the handling of market information (i.e. information about customers and competitors). This article instead shows that companies may benefit from a more explicit focus on their sources of direct and indirect use experience. Indeed, the results reveal that many R&D employees establish strong relationships to people with extensive use experience (in this case, incorporated clinicians) from whom they can access information in a timely and cost-efficient manner. The results also show that the information that R&D employees access from people with direct use experience is significantly different from the type of knowledge they receive from people with indirect use experiences (like, for instance, marketers or interaction designers).\n7. Limitations and future research: Based on the findings in this study, the authors see a number of areas of interest for future research. First, a limitation of this study is the fact that it is based solely on one firm's R&D unit. Consequently, it is difficult to evaluate how representative the findings are to other R&D organizations in other industries. It would be interesting to investigate and compare these results with R&D units in other industries and cultural settings. Second, the authors did not have the opportunity to verify R&D employees' interaction with \"external\" users. Thus, an interesting direction for future research would be to investigate the relationships that R&D employees establish with users outside the company and how these relationships are utilized over time. Third, our investigation solely focused on the handling of user information. Future research could combine this approach with an investigation of relationships conducive to technological information and knowledge.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This article aims to investigate how R&D employees use their social networks to acquire user information and how this information is used in the development of new products.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A single case study was conducted within a business unit at a multinational medical technology company. Data were collected through a mixed method.\nFindings: The results show that many R&D employees lack social networks through which they can acquire information about the users' needs. However, some R&D employees establish cost-efficient relationships to people with a direct experience of using the company's products. These relationships are established over time and are often used in a rather informal way to acquire user information. Moreover, the results show how R&D employees are purposefully complementing these relationships with more occasional interactions with people who hold direct and indirect use experiences.\nResearch limitations/implications: As with most single-case studies, it will be important to replicate this investigation in other contexts to clarify the generalizability of the findings.\nPractical implications: The article shows how important it is that management provides R&D employees with opportunities to establish, nurture and utilize relationships conducive to information about the users' needs. The article provides some advice on how this can be accomplished.\nOriginality/value: This is one of the first articles that clearly explain how R&D employees use their social networks to acquire user information for the development of new products.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Supply chain talent: the missing link in supply chain strategy
|
[
"Supply chain management",
"Confirmatory factor analysis",
"Knowledge-skill theory",
"Supply chain talent"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In recent years, the supply chain talent has attracted burgeoning interest among researchers and practitioners (Wagner and Kemmerling, 2014). The current literature on supply chain talent has identified supply chain talent management as a source of competitive advantage for growing firms (van Hoek and Wagner, 2013). In one of the report Aquino and Draper (2008), critically argued that corporates have failed to see shortage of supply chain talent as one of the important source of supply chain risks. Lambert et al. (1998), Lambert and Cooper (2000), in their works have highlighted the issues and challenges of managing complex supply chain network. In recent research, it has been argued that managing supply chain talent is one of the major sources of risk (Aquino and Draper, 2008). Ellinger and Ellinger (2014) argued the need for alignment between corporate human resource management policies and supply chain skills required to meet growing supply chain talent for growing enterprise. Dischinger et al. (2006), in of their article argued the popularity of supply chain profession which is a paradigm shift from conventional way of managing business. Mangan and Christopher (2005) in their research have outlined the need for specific knowledge to build necessary skills for managing complex supply chains has attracted numerous citations from leading researchers. While there is a rich body of literature on supply chain talent (Gammelgaard and Larson, 2001; Wagner and Kemmerling, 2014), knowledge theory (Butcher, 2007), skill theory (Gammelgaard and Larson, 2001; Murphy and Poist, 2007; Dubey and Singh, 2009; Dazmin et al., 2011; Kovacs et al., 2012; Lorentz et al., 2013; Sohal, 2013; Ellinger and Ellinger, 2014) and knowledge-skill theory (Mangan and Christopher, 2005; van Hoek and Wagner, 2013; Wu et al., 2013; Bak and Boulocher-Passet, 2013; Bernon and Mena, 2013; Bourlakis et al., 2013).\n2. Theoretical framework: In this section we have classified our literature on the basis of building blocks of our theoretical framework as shown in Figure 1. The basic premise behind our theoretical framework is knowledge-skill theory. In our introduction section, we have outlined some contributions toward knowledge-skill theory in supply chain talent literature. We argue that knowledge and skill are important determinants of supply chain talent.\n3. Research design: 3.1. Construct operationalization\n4. Data analyses and results: Before we assess the reliability and validity of our constructs and their measuring items, it is pertinent for us to check the assumptions which include constant variance test, existence of outliers and normality. We used plots of residuals, rankits plot of residual and statistics of skewness and kurtosis. Our results suggest that neither the plots, nor the statistics indicated any significant deviances from the standard assumption. To test the theory (see Figure 1), we used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to establish convergent validity and discriminant validity of our constructs (see Tables III and IV). From appendix C, we can say that the standardized factor loadings of items of constructs, the scale composite reliability (SCR), the average variance extracted (AVE) are greater or equal to minimum cut of value (i.e. 0.5, 0.7 and 0.5) as reported in literature (see Fornell and Larcker, 1981; Chen and Paulraj, 2004) and from appendix D we can infer that square root of AVE in a leading diagonal of a correlation matrix is greater than the other value in the given column and row. Hence, the CFA analysis results indicated that our constructs possess convergent validity and discriminant validity. We further checked the goodness of fit using partial least square (PLS) structural equation modeling which is a variance-based method (Tenenhaus et al., 2005).\n5. Discussion: Our interest in investigating the knowledge-skill theory is triggered by two facets of supply chain talent. First, the lack of empirical research on supply chain talent and second, the knowledge-skill theory was not empirically test in context to supply chain talent. Our study is an attempt to test the importance of supply chain knowledge which is important for building supply chain competencies and skills required based on perception of supply chain and logistics managers drawn from Indian organizations. Our statistical analyses on 20 items construct (knowledge) we observed that 16 items out of 20 items and ten items out of 11 items construct (skill) were retained after our CFA analysis. Hence, we can say that 16 supply chain field-related knowledge are important for building competencies among future supply chain managers and 11 skills related to supply chain professions are very important.\n6. Conclusions: Drawing broadly on knowledge-skill theory, the integration of supply chain-related knowledge and skills, we developed a theoretical framework. Our theoretical framework reconciles the independent contributions of two well-established streams in literature: knowledge and skills required by supply chain professionals. We attempt to explain how knowledge and skill together can build required supply chain competencies in future supply chain managers. Analyses are based on 210 responses gathered from Indian organizations representing 3PL organizations, manufacturing sector, retail firms and FMCG organizations. The respondents were largely in decision making positions and have relevant exposure to the current position for significant years. The framework is further tested using gathered data after checking for constant variance, outliers and normality. The model is tested using CFA analysis and further GOF is checked using PLS-SEM. The results of our statistical analyses supported extant literature and attempted to extend the previous literature.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to build a supply chain talent framework and test it empirically.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The present study adopts extant literature to understand current state of supply chain talent literature and used knowledge and skill constructs and their items from comprehensive literature review to develop an instrument to gather data. The data are further checked for assumptions and further examines the framework using confirmatory factor analysis.\nFindings: The findings support previous studies and establishes that knowledge-skill framework is scientifically a strong framework which can help to build current supply chain competencies among future supply chain managers.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study considers only a limited number of variables that define the supply chain talent. The framework can be further developed and extended to different industries and countries.\nPractical implications: The study identifies knowledge-skill framework which can help to develop a training module for current or aspiring supply chain managers. It also can provide significant input to design university supply chain management program to meet future supply chain manager's requirements.\nSocial implications: Include providing the right education and training in support of supply chain operations and in turn serving the community with products and services on time and that too in a most cost effective manner.\nOriginality/value: This paper develops a new framework for supply chain talent development. This framework has been empirically tested, and major findings and future research directions are highlighted.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Job characteristics and mentoring in pre-schools: Mentoring relationships among the educational staff when challenged by problem-solving tasks
|
[
"Norway",
"Teachers",
"Nursery education",
"Mentoring",
"Problem solving",
"Problem solving tasks",
"Mentoring received",
"Peer mentoring",
"Mentoring provided",
"Pre‐schools"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Educational and organizational changes in Norwegian pre-schools have resulted in new tasks and new ways of performing these tasks, for example when educational leaders have to involve themselves in network-based cooperation with professionals outside the pre-schools. Changing needs among the children have also promoted interdisciplinary cooperation with primary schools and other public services that are involved in the welfare and upbringing of children. These work-related changes could challenge the roles that employees take in formalized mentoring relationships. The study of Lohmander et al. (2009) provides a description of the context in Norwegian pre-schools.Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop three dimensions of mentoring as learning and knowledge sharing relationships: mentoring provided, mentoring received and peer mentoring. Furthermore, the influence of problem solving tasks on these three dimensions of mentoring relationships will be investigated in order to study how job characteristics influence mentoring. To the best of my knowledge, there is no research on the influence of job characteristics on mentoring. But there is literature that refers to the lack of research that explores the relationship between work and mentoring (McManus and Russel, 1997). Ragins (1997) argues for the need to study how structural changes at work, which are thematically related to job characteristics, influence the initiation of diversified mentoring relationships. Finally, Waters (2004) has shown that high workloads are time-consuming and thereby have a negative influence on establishing a protege-mentoring agreement.Garavan and McGuire (2001) argue that mentoring can be one of many approaches to workplace learning. Accordingly, the mentoring dimensions developed in this article describe mentoring as a workplace learning arena.\nTheoretical foundation: Theoretical background\nMethod: Sample\nResults: Descriptive statistics and correlations\nDiscussion: No previous research has addressed the question of how job characteristics contribute to the occurrence of mentoring relationships. The main aim of this article was to study the extent to which the job characteristic of problem solving tasks has an influence on mentoring received, peer mentoring and mentoring provided. Several key findings have emerged from the study.First, mentoring relationships seen as knowledge or competence sharing relationships with the purpose of workplace learning reveal three different dimensions of mentoring: mentoring received, peer mentoring and mentoring provided. This finding supports the literature that reveals a clear distinction between protegees who receive mentoring and mentors with the responsibility of providing mentoring (Bozionelos, 2004). The peer mentoring dimension is also supported by more recent research showing that employees can go in and out of the mentor or protegee roles dependent upon the actual work situation (Lim, 2002).Second, problem solving tasks seem to have an influence on all of these mentoring dimensions. Findings have shown that receiving mentoring is important for employees who are being socialized into a new job (Ostroff and Kozlowski, 1993). Even if employees are professionally educated and experienced, a new job will represent new challenges in the sense of solving problems that they have not encountered before. When it comes to mentoring provided, it is not surprising that problem solving tasks influence the occurrence of this mentoring dimension. In a formalized mentoring relationship the function of the mentor is to provide new skills and knowledge to protegees who are being confronted with tasks that need new approaches to be solved (Bennetts, 1995). The relatively strong influence of problem solving tasks on peer mentoring indicates that the work environments in pre-schools are influenced by internal and external environmental changes. Both due to political changes and the increased use of individually accommodated training for children, there is a need for employees in pre-schools to learn new skills and knowledge by being mentors for each other. This need is supported by the literature (Lim, 2002) and the increased emphasis on network-based cooperation by professionals in Norway. In the pre-schools, cooperation with primary school teachers, child care professionals, doctors and nurses is becoming an important strategic target, thereby making peer-mentoring an important tool in interdisciplinary development. Hou et al. (2009) argue for increased use of knowledge-sharing as a problem-solving strategy. Even though they do not relate their study to mentoring, they argue that the sharing of teacher-related knowledge may help teachers solve a variety of problems that they face.Third, problem solving tasks seem to have a larger influence on mentoring provided than on peer mentoring and mentoring received. Likewise, the influence on peer mentoring is larger than on mentoring received. This is supported by Kirschner et al. (2006), who argue against the idea of individuals being responsible for their learning without getting some kind of instruction. They see guided instruction, for example providing formalized mentoring, as a prerequisite for solving problems and conclude that unguided learning is less effective and may result in acquiring misconceptions or incomplete or disorganized knowledge (Kirschner et al., 2006, p. 84). This view is supported by Billett (2000), who describes a workplace mentor as responsible for guided learning.The implications of these findings indicate the importance of coordination at work in order to establish a job environment where problem solving tasks can be solved through a multidimensional mentoring system. One central element in coordination is to standardize tasks in order to better achieve specific objectives. Such standardization could be used to achieve both individual and organizational learning objectives by formalizing how different mentoring roles can be used in order to handle a changing workplace. Morgeson and Humphrey (2006) refer to the high-cognitive demands at work that are associated with increased complexity at work. By developing mentor roles depending upon cognitive demands at work, we may expect formal mentoring relationships to inspire and help employees perform a larger range of tasks. In this way child care assistants could be motivated to involve themselves in more challenging tasks and employees with a pre-school teacher education could be involved in more strategically oriented interdisciplinary cooperation with other professionals outside the organization.Limitations of this study\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to study the influence of problem-solving tasks on mentoring received, peer mentoring and mentoring provided.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This cross-sectional survey was based on a questionnaire that was sent to a total of 435 employees from 29 pre-schools in Norway. A total of 284 responses were returned, a response rate of 65.3 per cent. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to assess the validity and reliability of measurement scales. Research questions were formulated. Stepwise regression analysis was recommended to assess the magnitude and direction of the independent variable on the three dependent variables, when controlled for by demographic and career variables.\nFindings: - The results revealed that problem-solving tasks have a positive and significant influence on mentoring received, peer mentoring and mentoring provided. This means that performing unfamiliar tasks increases the occurrence of the three mentoring roles.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The independent variables only explained 14 per cent, 30 per cent and 38 per cent of mentoring received, peer-mentoring and mentoring provided, respectively. Thus, other job characteristics, for example specialization, need further investigation to uncover the influence of job characteristics on mentoring.\nPractical implications: - Problem-solving tasks will be a challenge for educational leadership to coordinate the mentoring roles according to the changing nature of work in pre-schools.\nOriginality/value: - There is no previous research that investigates how job characteristics in general and problem-solving tasks in particular influence the occurrence of mentoring relationships.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The concept of market value in thin markets and its implications for international accounting rules (IFRS)
|
[
"Accounting",
"IFRS",
"Property valuation",
"Market value",
"Fair value",
"Thin markets"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In practice, there seems to be no consensus about what the definition of a market value (MV) really means in some situations in the real estate market. This is especially the case when the real estate market is a thin market in terms of number of transactions and number of potential buyers and sellers. In this paper, we discuss how MV can be interpreted in such a market, and also implications for accounting rules.\nMarket value, exit price and entry price on a \"thick\" market: From the perspective of economic theory, prices are determined by \"demand and supply.\" In introductory courses demand and supply curves are drawn, and the intersection between the curves determines the equilibrium price. The equilibrium price can be seen as the MV, the most probable price.\nThe interpretation problem on a thin market with heterogenous actors: An example can illustrate the problem. If a company has bought a property for 1,000 on a market with many participants with similar expectations and many transactions, there should be another potential buyer willing to pay 1,000-EUR, where EUR is arbitrarily small. As argued in the last section, on such a \"thick\" market entry price, exit price and MV would for all practical purposes be the same, assuming reasonably rational actors.\nA closer look at value concepts and accounting and valuation standards: The definition of MV according to IVS 104 Bases of Value (IVS, 2017) makes it clear that the estimate of MV specifically excludes an estimated price inflated or deflated by special terms or circumstances connected to a specific participant. Such impacts on a specific participant's price bid could, for example, be atypical finance, special considerations or concessions granted by anyone associated with the sale, or any element of value available only to a specific owner or purchaser. Elements of value available only to a specific owner could be, e.g., synergies not available to market participants in general. MV requires disregarding any such element of value because, at any given date, it is only assumed that there is a willing buyer, not a particular willing buyer.\nConclusion: The price bids and the entry price as described in IFRS 13 can in a thin market be driven by investment value or value in use for a particular owner. This makes it problematic to use entry price as a good indicator of exit price (FV), as defined in IFRS 13.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss how the concepts market value (MV) and exit price should be interpreted in thin markets and how accounting rules may need to change to take this into account.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This is a conceptual paper using hypothetical examples as a base for the conclusions.\nFindings: In a thin market, actors can have rather different reservation prices. The price will then be set through bargaining and the agreed price could be considerable above the reservation price of the actor with the second highest reservation price. The exit price should then be below what the MV was before the transaction and below the entry price, and according to the current accounting rules, the value in the balance sheet should then be below the price paid. The authors' experience is, however, that this rarely happens in practice.\nResearch limitations/implications: The limitation of the paper is that it is a conceptual paper and not based a systematic empirical study of accounting practices.\nPractical implications: The results of the paper indicate that there is a need to revise the current accounting rules. Possible changes are discussed.\nOriginality/value: As far as the authors know, this is the first paper that looks at problems in the current value concepts related to differences in reservation prices in thin markets.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Universal health coverage and litigation in Latin America
|
[
"Argentina",
"Brazil",
"Chile",
"Colombia",
"Costa Rica",
"Peru",
"Uruguay",
"Health care",
"Health services sector",
"Latin America",
"Universal health coverage",
"Litigation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In recent years, several middle-income Latin American countries have seen a steep increase in the number of cases litigating access to curative services and inputs. A renewed judicial approach to the enforcement of the right to health, a more demanding public interest, an increased prevalence of non communicable diseases, and a limited capacity for fair and solid benefit basket design lie at the basis of this phenomenon. Using an interdisciplinary approach and evidence from seven countries of the region (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru and Uruguay), this paper examines this complex phenomenon outlines some of its roots and impacts. Finally, it argues for the need to incorporate a rights-based approach to health policy as a foundation to societal efforts to achieve Universal Health Coverage.\n2. Background: 2.1 Constitutional evolution\n3. The evidence: The phenomenon of health judicialization has appeared, with variations, in several countries of Latin America, impacting not only government budgets, but also affecting the process in which health resources are allocated. Health litigation can be used for different purposes (medical malpractice lawsuits are not considered human rights litigations). For example in 2004 a group of residents in the Matanza/Riachuelo basin filed a suit before the Supreme Court of Argentina, seeking compensation from damages resulting from water pollution (Supreme Court of Justice of Argentina, 2008). Notwithstanding, litigations demanding access to curative health care are by far the most frequent in the region. Most of these lawsuits affect only one plaintiff (are inter partes), and therefore do not necessarily affect the entire population (erga omnes).Information available from the judiciary and/or from payers' databases on the number, nature and costs of cases, as well as on the socio-economic characteristics of the plaintiffs is incomplete, thus limiting a comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon. Nevertheless, the data available suggest a worrisome tendency of increasing judicialization in the seven countries being studied and provide useful information on the overall nature of the phenomenon.3.1 The magnitude of litigation\n4. Discussion: In order to better understand the judicialization of the right to health in Latin America, it is necessary to take into account the cultural, historical and ideological context in which deontological, and consequentialist precepts coexist, but often clash. This becomes evident in the described resource allocation tension between the judiciary and health authorities. Interestingly, this tension occurs in many countries of the region independently of the judicial model or type of health system adopted.Several factors may contribute to explain today's phenomenon: first, public interest has changed. During the 1940s in Costa Rica, public interest demanded public solutions to health issues; during the 1970s, universal health coverage was demanded. Nowadays, Costa Ricans demand timely, high quality and service oriented health care (Navarro, 2010).Second, constitutions and notions of state have also changed, creating fertile ground to accept citizens' demands. Third, there is an increasing judicial activism where a renewed public interest finds the willingness of courts to study these demands. Thus, the greater the success of the citizenry demands, the greater the possibilities of extending the intervention of the Judiciary to other areas besides health care.Fourth, health systems in the region maintain prioritization and resource allocation processes that still lack of sufficient technical validity, transparency, participation and accountability. Finally, demographic and epidemiological transitions are shaping population's clinical needs, while a larger and more expensive array of health care technologies are available to face such needs.4.1 Impact of judicialization of the right to health\n5. Conclusion: As judicialization is on the rise in Latin America, courts are now key actors of health policy. As the existence of checks and balances are central to well functioning democracies in the region, today the judiciary not only protects civil and political rights but is also increasingly protecting the R2H.However, not surprisingly, court rulings have generated tensions with health authorities, as most writs of protection are inter partes and granting access to curative services/inputs. Furthermore, courts have generally not accepted resource constraints as the main justification to deny access to non-essential services. Preliminary evidence suggests that these allocations defined by the Judiciary may result in worsened inequities or in the provision of ineffective services. A smaller, but more outreaching, subset of rulings mandates fundamental redress in health policy. By adding democratic deliberation to this redress courts may substantively improve policy design and monitoring.Developing fair, transparent, technically sound and progressive priority setting processes is at the top of the next generation policy challenges that Latin American health systems face. To achieve this improved data and health information systems are a necessity. Judicialization of the R2H has evidenced weaknesses in these processes, particularly as health systems fail to provide solid reasons for health technology exclusions. According to the courts, arguments solely based in resource constraints may hide inefficiencies, incapacities, or even corruption hence they cannot be reasonably accepted to deny access to care. However, the non-absoluteness of R2H is not in question.Epidemiological and demographic transitions will continue to affect health systems, as service needs increase and costs rise. Not surprisingly, non-essential high-cost NCD treatments are among the most commonly litigated services in the region. A human rights approach to complex decisions may provide health systems with a unique opportunity to review decision-making results and procedures. Furthermore, achieving universal health coverage will require a participatory dialogue to legitimately decide resource allocation and technology. Increased transparency and accountability will not only improve human rights protection but ultimately will also strengthen health systems.The experience of these seven Latin American should draw the attention of other developing countries within and outside the region, particularly now when many are committed to expanding population and service coverage. Courting social rights (Gauri and Brinks, 2008) is an increasingly common global phenomenon with cases arising both in common and civil law countries, and in insurance and non - insurance based health systems. Promoting a fluid dialogue between consequentialist and deontological approaches, between human rights and health systems will be certainly beneficial.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Over the last five years many middle-income Latin American countries have seen a steep increase in the number of cases litigating access to curative services. The purpose of this paper is to explore this complex phenomenon and outline some of its roots and impacts.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The authors use an interdisciplinary approach based on a literature review and workshops convened to discuss the issue.\nFindings: - A range of reasons can explain this increased legal activity. These include: a renewed judicial approach to the enforcement of the right to health; a more demanding public interest; an increased prevalence of non communicable diseases; and limited capacity for fair benefit package.\nOriginality/value: - The findings in this paper argue for the need to incorporate a rights-based approach to health policy as a foundation of societal efforts to achieve universal health coverage in Latin America.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Fluid leadership in dynamic contexts: A qualitative comparative analysis of the biblical account of Nehemiah
|
[
"Leadership",
"Comparative analysis",
"Authentic",
"Narrative analysis",
"Servant",
"Transformational"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Then I said to them, \"You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace\". [...] They replied, \"Let us start rebuilding\" Nehemiah 2: 11-17[1].\nIntroduction: Historical interest in leaders, leadership styles and processes that make leaders effective has generated volumes of studies (Chow et al., 2010; Sidani, 2008; Humphreys et al., 2007; Bass, 1981; Novicevic et al., 2005, 2008a, 2015). Despite this substantial body of historical research, a notion remains among scholars that our understanding of leadership phenomena requires further development and integration among existing models (Avolio et al., 2003). In particular, Hooijberg et al. (1997) argue that researchers should synthesize cognitive, social and behavioral aspects of leadership, and explicate how these aspects jointly operate across changing contexts. Emphasizing the need for an integrative synthesis, these authors posit that effective leaders draw from a variety of leadership behaviors, based upon cognitively processing numerous contingencies and understanding the unique social needs of distinct situations (Hunt, 1991; Osborn et al., 2002). We extend their work using a historical case that portrays an exemplary leader who fluidly transitioned through multiple leadership styles based on identifying and responding to salient demands of a dynamic context.\nOverview of Nehemiah's story: The biblical account of Nehemiah covers the Persian period characterized by a scarcity of primary historical data (Finkelstein, 2008). Because of this scarcity, we used the biblical text as our primary data source. The text reports, in a schematic fashion, how Nehemiah managed the project of rebuilding the protective wall around Jerusalem. By providing snapshots of Nehemiah's leadership behaviors at multiple points in time defined by dramatic situational changes, this account supports a quasi-repeated treatment analysis of the same subject across different circumstances. Though embedded within a spiritual context, Nehemiah's story involves leadership and managerial practices that are applicable within spiritual and secular domains alike. As such, it offers valuable leadership lessons and practical managerial insights for contemporary leaders.\nOur investigative approach: We drew from contemporary insights on leadership styles and analyzed them against the backdrop of Nehemiah's case using the sociohistorical method. This method entails the collection and analysis of data in the form of historical texts to examine specific phenomena (e.g. leadership) that reflect behavior of individuals and social processes as they unfold over time. Such data are commonly uncovered from historical records or ancient texts and take the form of narratives describing a chronological sequence of events. To understand the latent meanings embodied in such records, the social and the institutional context in which the identified text was generated must be examined (Novicevic et al., 2008b, 2011).\nOur findings: In the earliest passages of Nehemiah's personal account, we are given a window into his innermost thoughts and feelings. His calling as a leader was spiritually inspired and prayerfully directed. Nehemiah used prayer in a purposeful manner to establish and solidify a vision of what he hoped to accomplish in his leadership role. This is not unlike successful present-day organizational leaders who bolster their self-awareness by spending time introspectively seeking inspiration and clarity regarding how they plan to lead their enterprise (Morgan et al., 2005; Jaworski, 1996; Kouzes and Posner, 2007).\nConcluding remarks and practical implications: Our analysis of Nehemiah's fluid transition through multiple leadership styles was theoretically grounded in the Leaderplex model (Hooijberg et al., 1997) which integrates social awareness, cognitive complexity and the ability to enact multiple leader-like behaviors. Throughout the three major periods of his mission, Nehemiah encountered contexts which can be described as dynamic and extreme, and he enacted a wide variety of behaviors (i.e. a broad behavioral repertoire). Nehemiah also seemed particularly astute in identifying the fears, needs and desires of his followers (i.e. social awareness), and his recognition of the complex and dynamic demands of each situation (i.e. cognitive complexity) facilitated his choice of behavioral responses. At the outset of his gubernatorial reign, when his primary goal was to establish his credibility, Nehemiah acted predominantly as an authentic leader. After establishing legitimacy from his followers, Nehemiah acted as a servant leader, helping his community rebuild the wall around the city. Finally, in facilitating organizational, structural and cultural changes, Nehemiah most prominently displayed transformational leadership. Thus, he adapted his leadership style on multiple occasions in response to salient contextual demands.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine an historical account of an effective leader who was able to draw from multiple styles of leadership, and choose a dominant style based upon contextual constraints and demands context, and subordinate behaviors associated with leadership styles not suited to the context.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To identify his prominent style at each leadership episode, we critically analyzed Nehemiah's leadership role transitions across 13 chapters of text using sociohistorical method and a quasi-repeated treatment design via qualitative comparative analysis.\nFindings: We found that Nehemiah adapted his behaviors such that his prominently displayed leadership style varied based on dynamic configurations of demands placed on him during his rebuilding efforts. As Nehemiah progressed through distinct stages of his mission, he differentially emphasized tactics associated with different styles of leadership in response to the contextual demands that were most salient during each stage.\nPractical implications: Organizational leaders are presented with evidence that developing a broad repertoire of leadership behaviors is essential to guiding followers within dynamic environments.\nOriginality/value: This paper uses a novel historical source material to investigate contemporary leadership concepts grounded in established theoretical frameworks. Using this material, we demonstrate the applicability of various leadership styles within different contexts, and use Nehemiah as an illustration of an effective leader capable of fluidly enacting multiple leadership styles.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Improving assessment capability for accounts receivable pool financiers: An empirical investigation
|
[
"Information structure",
"Accounts receivable pool finance",
"Sales information"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Electronic invoices are the product of modern information society. By the end of 2016, more than 700m electronic VAT invoices had been released from 90,000 enterprises in China. In the meantime, lacking credit rating, opaque information and deficient collateral have made affordable bank credit unattainable to most small enterprises (Ma et al., 2019). As an innovative mode to be expected, accounts receivable pool (ARP) finance is a financial service derived from electronic invoicing system. ARP financiers, mostly banks, connect their lending system with the borrower's invoicing system, and provide loans on the receivables from manifold transactions.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Focus on ARP finance\n3. Research method: 3.1 Sample collection and description\n4. Results: 4.1 Growth rate, volatility and the probability of cash insolvency\n5. Conclusions and implications: The implementation of electronic invoices and invoicing systems have been recognized as useful infrastructures to facilitate the innovative services of finance. Given the increasing importance of invoice-based data, practical knowledge on how to better organize ARP finance is in the interest of banks and other financial institutes but has not been fully explored.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The accounts receivable pool (ARP) is an e-invoice management system that provides suppliers with easy access to financial service. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the strength and weakness of ARP mechanism and suggest efficient methods to identify creditworthy borrowers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: By decomposing the sales records of 348 ARP borrowers and predicting the occurrence of overdue incidences, this study first portrays the creditworthy borrowers by sales features. Then, content analysis was applied to measure the loadings of soft and hard information, and examined the effectiveness of different information structures in creditworthiness assessment.\nFindings: For ARP borrowers, upward trend and low volatility reveal their creditworthiness. In order to identify creditworthy borrowers beforehand, ARP financiers who have elaborated more soft information and less hard information can perform better.\nOriginality/value: This study first discussed ARP finance from a critical perspective and underlines borrower assessment to eliminate the defect of loose recourse. The empirical evidence presents the sales features of creditworthy borrowers. Moreover, the results suggest an efficient approach for ARP financiers to conduct better assessment.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Modelling the factors affecting Indian medical tourism sector using interpretive structural modeling
|
[
"ISM",
"Interpretive structural modelling",
"Healthcare services",
"MICMAC analysis",
"Medical tourism",
"Clinical excellence"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Medical Tourism industry nowadays is considered to be one of the most promptly expanding industries in this competitive environment and is constantly faced with new concerns, obstacles, disputes and threats. Because of the growing business of delivery of healthcare services across the borders by the movement of people seeking healthcare service, people providing healthcare services and various collaborations and mergers, challenges for healthcare industry are increasing (Chanda, 2002). Trade across the borders is believed to be one of the finest modes to generate the secondary resources and manpower for the healthcare sector (Siddiqi et al., 2010). Liberalization of cross-border trade in healthcare has created new opportunities as well as threats, especially in the developing countries to provide phenomenal and efficient healthcare services (Ajmera et al., 2015).\n2. Literature review: The origin of medical tourism is not the new one. Patients from Britain used to travel across the borders to the Hot Waters Springs to cure their diseases. Also, upper-class strata of Europeans often traveled to Spas of Germany and Nile in order to improve their health. However, today medical tourism has developed to a much wider scale.\n3. Identification of factors affecting Indian medical tourism market: Taking into account the literature review and consultation with the experts in the healthcare and academic domains, 19 factors were extracted and utilized in the survey based on a questionnaire. These factors are depicted in Table I.\n4. Research methodology: First, a questionnaire-based survey was done followed by the ISM approach in order to achieve the aims of this research work.\n5. Modeling the factors affecting medical tourism sector in India: The different steps leading to the evolution of the model are stated below.\n6. MICMAC analysis: Sharma and Gupta (1995) analysed Matrice d'Impacts croises-multipication applique an classment (MICMAC, i.e. cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification) based on the multiplication properties of matrices. Analyzing the drive and dependence power of variables is the prime objective of the MICMAC analysis. The variables are categorized into four clusters:\n7. Discussion and conclusion: The main aim of this research is to determine the factors that have a considerable effect on medical tourism sector of India so that management of healthcare organizations and policymakers may deal with these factors efficiently. A model based on the ISM approach has been established so that interrelations among these factors can be analyzed. This model determines the hierarchy of different actions which can be taken by the management for managing the factors that significantly affect the Indian medical tourism sector. The doctors, healthcare professionals and managers can obtain information from the drive power dependence matrix so that they can have a thorough understanding of the relative importance, interdependencies and interactions among these factors. It is indicated from the results of the survey that Interpreter facility, pharmacology sector, effective Human resource pool, clinical excellence, and the competence of doctors and staff are the top level factors.\n8. Implications of research: This model depicts how different factors affecting the Indian medical tourism sector are interrelated and affect each other. Policymakers, doctors and other healthcare professionals must be aware of the relative importance of these factors. The Indian medical tourism sector is facing new challenges because of continuous market changes and patient's requirements while at the same time advancements in current health services have also been observed. Medical tourism encourages the traveling of patients, expert healthcare professionals and promotes cross-border trade in healthcare services. But it is facing certain ethical and legal concerns also. This research assesses the effects of globalization on delivery of healthcare services in India by conducting critical analysis of the medical tourism industry by collecting original data from the international patients coming to India for different types of medical procedures so that a comprehensive model can be prepared which will help the hospitals and policymakers to improve the processes related to medical tourism. It is therefore very important to understand and address the issues of the patients. This research has evaluated the important factors which have made India an affordable medical tourism destination.\n9. Limitations and future prospects of the study: In this research, a structural model related to various factors affecting the Indian medical tourism sector has been developed on the basis of inputs received from literature review, discussion with experts in the relevant area and the results of the questionnaire-based survey. The model may differ from real world situations and relationships between different factors may differ from the derived model because ISM technique does not quantify the influence of each variable.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Medical tourism encourages the traveling of patients, expert healthcare professionals and promotes cross-border trade in healthcare services. The Indian medical tourism sector is facing new challenges as well as certain ethical and legal issues because of continuous market changes and patient's requirements while at the same time advancements in current health services have also been observed. It is therefore very important to understand and address the issues of the medical tourists. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the important factors which can make India an affordable medical tourism destination.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this paper, the factors influencing Indian medical tourism sector have been explored by conducting literature review, they are ranked according to the results of a questionnaire-based survey and further analyzed by using the interpretive structural modeling (ISM) approach. The mutual relationships between these factors were identified to develop an ISM model so as to find out the important factors which can make India an affordable place for medical tourism.\nFindings: The results of the survey and the model show that cost of medical procedures, facilitation, and care, the infrastructure of Indian hospitals, clinical excellence and the competence of doctors and staff are the top level factors.\nPractical implications: It is very important to address the concerns of the patients coming to a developing country like India for availing medical services. This research has evaluated the important factors which can make India an affordable medical tourism destination.\nOriginality/value: This research assesses the effects of globalization on delivery of healthcare services in India by conducting critical analysis of the medical tourism industry by collecting original data from the international patients coming to India for different types of medical procedures so that a comprehensive model can be prepared which will help the hospitals and policymakers to improve the processes related to medical tourism.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Predicting technology integration and performance in transition economies: insights from Russia
|
[
"Russia",
"Transition economies",
"IT integration",
"Spatial distance",
"Urban agglomeration",
"X-efficiency theory"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A significant portion of research related to supply chain management and firm performance takes place in the economically developed West. As such, there is an implicit assumption that strong legal and political institutional frameworks undergird the various supply chain activities. A recent stream of strategic management research cautions that applying \"mainstream\" theoretical frameworks may not have the same implications for firms in non-Western economies (Peng et al., 2008; Yayla and Hu, 2012). These theorists contend that the institutional context in these countries is critical in explaining firm behavior, and doing so can lead to the emergence of new theoretical insights (Sheng et al., 2013; Yang and Su, 2013). This exposes a gap in the literature, although calls for understanding the nuances of supply chain management practices in these foreign markets continues to mount (Narasimhan and Mahapatra, 2004; Lorentz and Ghauri, 2010).\nResearch context: supply chain dynamics in Russia: Russia and other former Eastern (Soviet) Bloc countries are included in a subset of emerging economies moving from a central planned economic system to a market-driven system labeled transition economies (Roztocki and Weistroffer, 2011). These transition economies have been studied at the macro level in the economics discipline, but traditional business disciplines have given only cursory attention to this significant and growing segment of the global business landscape. A growing literature stream highlights how fundamental and comprehensive changes in transition economies affect a firm's ability to create competitive advantage in the global marketplace (e.g. Kogut and Zander, 2000; Peng, 2000; Shinkle and Kriauciunas, 2012). The logistics literature noted the significance of logistics capabilities and distribution channel development shortly after the transition (Radovilsky, 1994; Rodnikov, 1994; Taylor, 1994; Beier and Ardishvili, 1995), and there have since been calls for more research to examine how logistics and supply chain capabilities evolve in the Eastern Bloc countries (Johanson, 2004; Lorentz et al., 2007; Lintukangas et al., 2010). Russia in particular is the largest country in the world, spans eleven time zones, and is home to about 150 million people, so the size and opportunity of this transition economy in particular warrants additional research to investigate economic activity at the firm level.\nTheory development and hypotheses: Given the expansive capabilities of IT systems, we narrow our focus to IT capabilities of traditional logistics activities. Figure 1 illustrates the conceptual model for the research. Based on the production-oriented dimension of IT (Kendall, 1997) and following the conceptualization offered by Davis-Sramek et al. (2010), we examine integrated logistics IT, which refers to the firm's degree of coordinative technology that enables more effective decision-making and efficient development of logistics alternatives or solutions. In the Russian context where supply chain concepts are still relatively new, integrated logistics IT includes the \"traditional\" components that might seem dated by Western standards. We examine to what degree logistics activities have been integrated though IT systems and software technologies for electronic ordering systems (i.e. EDI) and enterprise resource planning software to facilitate information sharing and communication, advanced planning, and scheduling systems to make decisions about where, when and how to make production schedules, and transportation, warehouse, and product development management systems to optimize product and place decision-making.\nMethod: Sample\nResults: A structural equation model was analyzed to assess the hypotheses. The initial model fit well; however, modification indices indicated that fit would be improved by including a direct effect from spatial distance to logistics performance. The final structural model and a summary of the results are shown in Table IV. The model fit is adequate: kh2=632.182, df=128, p\nDiscussion: Accounting for about one-third of the total world population (Soubbotina and Sheram, 2007), transition economies play an increasingly important role in the global economy. Russia, in particular, is the world's largest country in terms of territory, covering one-eighth of the world's land surface. Massive systemic change took place with the transition, and with it came difficulty in adapting to a new market-oriented environment. Domestic firms were laden with inertia when it was critical for them to strategically align themselves to the new environment (Kogut and Zander, 2000). Managers were not equipped with adequate skill sets and competencies nor did firms have adequate Western technologies that would allow them to effectively compete against the onslaught of foreign competition (Radovilsky, 1994). While it was understood that securing logistics competitiveness through Western IT applications was going to be a key socioeconomic force going forward (Rodnikov, 1994; Taylor, 1994), Russia remains plagued with weak legal and economic institutions that compromise data quality and hamper the diffusion of integrated IT systems (Piatkowski, 2006).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine a traditional information technology (IT) integration-performance framework in the transition economy of Russia, which has undergone significant and tumultuous institutional shifts. The research incorporates variables not previously utilized in the supply chain literature but underscore significant roles in the context of the Russian institutional environment to examine the drivers of IT integration.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The Moscow-based, Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) was contracted to collect data from Russia manufacturing firms with 100 or more employees, and the effort resulted in 769 responses from Russian private sector firms. This primary survey data were combined with two secondary data sets to test the model using structural equation modeling.\nFindings: Overall, the results indicate that firms in developed economies must pay special attention to specific contextual nuances in transition economy firms that can affect their ability to successfully navigate this significantly different supply chain environment. Specifically, the results show that spatial distance from Moscow hampers a firm's ability to integrate its logistics IT capabilities, suggesting that \"modern\" logistics IT (and possibly supply chain practice in general) initiate from the Moscow core and spread outward. Further, results find that growth in the number of foreign competitors in a firm's primary industry over the prior five-year period associates with greater integrated logistics IT. It appears that increasing foreign competition creates a sense of urgency for managers within Russian firms to focus on cost reduction and improvements in logistics efficiencies by way of greater IT integration.\nOriginality/value: A significant portion of research related to supply chain management and firm performance takes place in the economically developed West, but there are questions about whether these findings are applicable in transition economies that have a significantly different set of institutional dynamics. This research highlights how the unique contexts in transition economies such as Russia can present challenges for firms as they adapt to the realities of global market dynamics.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Improving performance of construction projects: A project manager's emotional intelligence approach
|
[
"Emotional intelligence",
"Project manager",
"Project performance",
"Large and complex projects",
"Construction industry",
"Project management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: What needs to be done to improve project performance (PP) has been voiced as a perennial and troublesome problem in construction (Love et al., 2011), and the implication of project managers' (PMs) competencies becomes one of the key branches (Ahadzie et al., 2009). emotional intelligence (EI) is a relatively new approach in this industry, though it has been demonstrated to predict project outcomes. Large and complex projects place additional emphasis on PMs' needs for EI, because of the unique characteristics such as complexity of personnel, multiplicity of goals, intensive of capital, strong uncertainty of activities, difficulty in coordinating stakeholders, etc. Generally, for projects of medium and small scale, PMs may achieve project success eventually through the good use of strong technical knowledge and intelligence quotient (IQ), though their EI levels are relatively low. By comparison, the properties of large and complex projects determine so many opportunities for breakdown that it is barely allowable for PMs to make any mistakes (Mersino, 2007). PMs therefore must gain high level of EI to ensure the success of large and complex projects. Furthermore, the increasing professional competition raises PMs' concerns on large and complex projects which are considered as stepping stones to enhance their occupational abilities and promote their career development. Another reason why we conduct our research on large and complex projects is that project complexity level (one criterion of project type) was confirmed to moderate the relationship between project success and EI (Muller and Turner, 2007).This inspiring idea, EI, captures the worldwide attention since 1995, Daniel Goleman's work titled Emotional Intelligence: Why it can Matter More Than IQ reached the New York Times Best-sellers List (Day and Carroll, 2004). Thereinto, Goleman elaborated the idea of EI basically riding on the back of Gardner's earlier remarkable work of \"multiple intelligences\" (Love et al., 2011). Subsequent studies indicate that among the contributions of technical skills, IQ and EI to overall performance, EI is proved to be twice as important as the others (Goleman, 1998). In the past decade henceforth, more and more researchers of different disciplines came to realize the importance of EI, and then focussed their studies on EI, attempting to explore the competitive advantages to developing within industries. Thus, EI is gaining increasing acceptance as a crucial success factor in various industries, such as business, nursing, law, medicine, engineering, sports and academy fields from the traditional field of philosophy (Carmeli, 2003; Stein et al., 2009; Augusto-Landa et al., 2008; Brackett et al., 2011; Song et al., 2010). Therein, the realm of project management may benefit more from positive EI, due to the unique attributes of projects such as temporary, unique and progressively elaborated (Druskat and Druskat, 2006).Meanwhile, as the core in project management system, PMs need high EI to deal with the complex relationships at work. At the early stage of EI research, the importance of PMs' EI competencies has been highlighted by Spencer (2001), according to a study of emotional competencies and work performance of 28 engineering and construction PMs. Similarly, by assessing 74 PMs in an international petroleum corporation, Mount (2006) provided the statistical insight that, of the skills that predict work success, 69 percent are emotional competencies. Moreover, a survey conducted by Mersino covering more than 100 PMs in 2005 indicated that most PMs have recognized the significance of EI to succeed, and generally expressed their expectations for further attentions and a better understanding of EI, yet they are unfamiliar with EI actually.Certain quantities of both empirical and theoretical studies have centered on the application of PMs' EI to projects, among which the specific compositions of the classical EI frameworks have been stressed more than once, such as leadership, teamwork and empathy. For example, by studying 24 PMs and their associated projects of six industries, i.e. healthcare, manufacturing and sales services, project management services, information technology services and training and consulting services, Leban and Zulauf (2004) concluded that EI contributes to PM's transformational leadership style, and subsequently the actual PP, based on Mayer et al.'s (2000) EI theories. Leadership styles are proved to predict project success by investigating the engineering projects, information projects and organizational projects (Muller and Turner, 2007). Yang et al. (2010) supported that the PP of different project types are affected by teamwork to different extents, and finally influenced by leadership styles. Sunindijo et al. (2007) together with his partners, conducted their study in Thailand by interviewing PMs, engineers and client representatives of construction projects, found that EI affects leadership behaviors of the project leaders and subsequently contributes to the positive project outcomes, using Goleman's (2001) EI models directly. Turner and Lloyd-Walker (2008) addressed the roles of both PMs and team members' EI in project success, by examining three overarching variables which are EI (based on Goleman's model), job satisfaction and job performance in a defense contracting organization in the USA.However, there are a few empirical studies on PMs' EI, and most of them concentrate on the certain compositions of EI, such as leadership (Clarke, 2010a; Bratton et al., 2011; Lindebaum and Cartwright, 2010; Butler and Chinowsky, 2006), yet fail to cover every branch or factor of EI distinguishingly. In addition, researches of specific project industry or project type were conducted by using an existing EI model directly, which is lack of pertinence to some extent. This paper therefore modifies a corresponding EI model for PMs, not only to make up for the deficiency of PMs' EI framework, but to guarantee the pertinence and validity of the conclusions. Based on this theoretical model, comprehensive analyses are made.More importantly, the requirement and preference of EI ingredients differs in industries. Namely, some competencies of an EI model may strongly affect one industry, however, offer little help to others. For example, seven ingredients of EI, i.e. influence, motivation, conscientiousness, self-awareness, emotional resilience, sensitivity and intuitiveness, greatly influence information and telecommunication technology projects, while only the first three ones play important roles in engineering projects (Muller and Turner, 2010). Whereas, the concept of EI remains largely unexplored in construction industry, even though researchers pointed out many benefits of EI, and there is a real need to examine the individual or organization behaviors in order to improve the PP in construction (Love et al., 2011).This paper accordingly modifies PP criteria for construction projects, as well as an EI framework for PMs, so as to analyze the correlation between PMs' EI and PP at a convincing level of statistical significance, and then find out the significant dimensions or competencies on PP. We contribute to the body of PM's EI in two directions as follows:(1) specify an appropriate and qualified EI model of PM for large and complex projects, and make recommendations on selection, training or appointment of PMs for construction organizations; and(2) help PMs recognize which competencies (EI only) should be emphasized, so as to satisfy the requisition of large and complex construction projects.\nBrief comparison of three major EI theories: A variety of EI theories defined from different perspectives have emerged, ever since the concept of EI was first proposed by Barbara Leuner in 1966. The topic of EI concept has been discussed for a long time, however, an agreement has hardly been reached to date (Mayer et al., 2008). Herein, three popular theories developed by Mayer et al. Goleman and Bar-on have been widely used and regarded as three major EI theories (Bar-on and Parker, 2000).Based on literature review, we make a brief comparison of the three major EI theories graphically in Table I (Matthews et al., 2004; Conte, 2005; O'Boyle et al., 2011; Boyatzis, 2009), from which we can find that each of the three popular EI models suffers from certain limitations when applied in a specific industry.\nFrameworks and moderators for this research: EI model for PMs\nQuestionnaire-based Survey: We design a questionnaire to study the correlation between PM's EI and PP in the context of large and complex construction projects. To attain this goal, the questionnaire is divided into two parts: the first part is targeted to evaluate PMs' EI, while the other is to assess PP. Then we apply SPSS for statistical analysis.Overall, this study addresses 200 Chinese PMs in construction organizations and their most recent projects, out of which 132 PMs respond and 112 questionnaires are used in analysis. Among these 112 usable responses, about 24.1 percent PM respondents have less than five years project management experiences, 43.8 percent have six to ten years experiences and 32.1 percent are of over ten years experiences.EI assessment\nResults and analysis: Reliability and validity\nConclusions and recommendations: This study focus on investigating the benefits of PMs' EI to PP in the context of large and complex construction projects, which not only contributes to improving the poor performance of construction projects from the view of PMs' EI, but also adds value to the body of a largely unexplored EI research in construction. The following achievements can be derived from this study.First and foremost, we modify an EI model for PMs to tap into the functions of PMs, in order to provide an appropriate and qualified framework of EI competence for PMs and construction organizations. In addition, this paper revises the PP criteria for construction projects according to the attributes of construction projects.Strong positive correlation between PM's EI and PP are observed. These correlations show each EI dimension affect PP at a different level. More detailed results between the 12 EI factors and PP support that emotional self-awareness, emotional self-control, empathy, organizational awareness, cultural understanding and communication deserve attentions due to their significant effects; whereas the effects of self-confidence and teamwork on PP have not been confirmed.Furthermore, international involvement and contract type are examined to play moderating roles on the relationships between certain EI factors and PP. Based on the analysis of Figures 1-5 aforementioned, the following conclusions and recommendations in two directions can be made:* To make efficient use of human resource in organizations, PMs with high cultural understanding and adaptability are supposed to be sent to international projects; meanwhile domestic projects would better to be undertaken by PMs with good organizational awareness. Then with respect to contract types, PMs with high inspirational leadership would better be allocated to the projects of unit price contract; while cost plus projects need PMs with high level of empathy to achieve better PP.* Since international projects are strongly affected by the abilities of cultural understanding and adaptability, PMs undertaking international projects would better attach more importance to improving cultural understanding and adaptability, and domestic PMs should attempt to enhance organizational awareness. Similarly, PMs of unit price projects may try to perfect inspirational leadership, while the ability of empathy in cost plus projects instead.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - As a crucial soft skill, emotional intelligence (EI) is reported to have many benefits, yet it remains largely unexplored in construction project management. The purpose of this paper is to explore further application of project manager's EI to improve project performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A questionnaire-based survey covering 112 project managers in construction is used to determine project managers' EI, and relate that to the performance of their most recent projects, as well as examine the moderating effects of international involvement and contract type.\nFindings: - Results indicate high expressions of six EI factors in project performance of large and complex scale; whereas the effects of self-confidence and teamwork have not been confirmed. Additionally, international involvement and contract type are found to moderate the relationships between certain EI factors and project performance.\nPractical implications: - The paper makes recommendations on selection and appointment of project managers to construction organizations; meanwhile it assists project managers in recognizing the significant competencies that cater for large and complex construction projects.\nOriginality/value: - In this paper, the EI model is modified especially for project managers, to make up for the deficiency of project managers' EI framework, as well as the project performance criteria for construction projects. Then an analysis takes place of the key EI dimensions or competencies on project performance, which contributes to the body of project managers' EI.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Mental models of the bibliographic universe. Part 2: comparison task and conclusions
|
[
"Bibliographics",
"User studies",
"Cognition",
"Slovenia"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Background: Functional requirements for bibliographic records (FRBR) is a conceptual model of bibliographic universe. Because of lack of user studies connected with FRBR, we decided to undertake a study of mental models of bibliographic universe. It consisted of three tasks. The background, motivation and the results of the first two tasks, card-sorting and concept mapping, are presented in Part 1. This second part is devoted to the presentation of the third task, comparison task, as well as a thorough discussion of the results.\n2 Comparison task: 2.1 Methodology\n3 Findings of the comparison task: Interviews showed that text (language), medium and contents were the most noticed aspects of objects observed and also the most frequently given reasons for two objects in a pair not to be substitutable. While it would be wrong to observe these attributes in isolation from other important but less frequently named ones, such as author and title, the results confirm the importance of recording them in bibliographic databases in order to allow searching and meaningful display and clustering of results.Average rankings were completely in line with FRBR, even for the borderline case. Also, both parts of the comparison task indicate that the FRBR distinction between manifestation and expression is justified.\n4 Conclusions: 4.1 General findings\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The paper aims to provide some insight into mental models of the bibliographic universe and how they compare with functional requirements for bibliographic records (FRBR) as a conceptual model of the bibliographic universe.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - To get a more complete picture of the mental models, different elicitation techniques were used. The three tasks of the paper were: card-sorting, concept mapping and comparison task. The paper deals with comparison task, which consisted of interviews and rankings, and provides a discussion of the results of the paper as a whole.\nFindings: - Results of the ranking part of the comparison task confirm the findings of concept mapping task. In both cases, while there are individual differences between mental models, on average they gravitate towards FRBR.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This is a small study and it provides only a glimpse of the implications of using FRBR as a conceptual basis for cataloguing. More FRBR-related user studies are needed, including similar studies on different groups of individuals and different types of materials, as well as practical studies of user needs and user interfaces.\nPractical implications: - The results of this study are the first user-tested indication of the validity of FRBR as a conceptual basis for the future of cataloguing.\nOriginality/value: - This is the first published paper of mental models of the bibliographic universe and uses a unique combination of mental model elicitation techniques.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The analysis of demographic and work life variables which affect the occupational commitment of nurses
|
[
"Nurses",
"Hospitals",
"Turkey",
"Job commitment",
"Professional commitment",
"Nursing management",
"Burnout"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Profession covers all the systematic activities gained through a specific education, surrounded by the rules determined by the society and performed to earn a living. The transformation of an occupation to a profession is a multidimensional social phenomenon which is of great importance. Professions are of utmost importance to the society as they require time, effort and resources to be acquired, and they perform vital functions in general. Professions offer individuals income, social status, opportunity to be developed mentally and physically, a specific social environment and lifestyle, the opportunity to contribute and unite with the society. Although individuals may prefer to change their occupations, they generally tend to continue their professions. Therefore, work experiences of most individuals have the potential to have permanent effects on their lifestyles.Nurses tend to focus on their occupation more compared to those working in other fields, due to factors such as their medical education, professional experiences, knowledge, unions, etc. This tendency makes nurses view their occupation as a career (Blau, 1985). Occupational commitment of a nurse can be mentioned when the occupational development and career of a nurse begin to be of central importance (Greenhouse, 1971). This is because occupational commitment develops when an individual believes in the necessity and importance of the occupation they have chosen, and wants to be a member of that occupation and develop themselves (Vanderberg and Scarpello, 1994).The occupational commitment of nurses will have an unquestionably strong effect on their work results. This is a rather stronger effect than organizational commitment or work commitment, because individuals who are more devoted to their occupations advance with occupational expectations rather than organizational ones (Cohen, 2000). As a result, nurses' occupational satisfaction increase and their intentions of leaving their jobs decrease over time. Studies made with nurses in various cultures reveal that occupational commitment correlates positively with job satisfaction and also leads to a decrease in intentions of leaving their jobs (Wang et al., 2011; Lu et al., 2002; Laurel and Parbudyal, 2002; Yoder, 1995; Fisher et al., 1994). Considering that numbers and quality of nurses are insufficient in our country and the world, it is obvious that the job satisfaction, job continuation, occupational and organizational commitments of nurses are important. While the occupational commitments of the nurses develop during their education, they also differ according to certain variables during their worklife. It is necessary to discover the effects of these variables to employ more occupationally committed nurses and design work patterns and applications that will ensure occupational commitment. The aim of this study is to exhibit a model that will display the correspondence between demographic and work-related variables and occupational commitment, and test this model.\n2. The model and hypotheses of the research: A model that reveals the correlation between occupational commitment and the variables that affect it is developed and tested in this study. Age, educational and parental status, tenure, regularity in working time patterns and weekly working hours as in Figure 1 are considered to be the variables which affects occupational commitment.Six hypotheses were set in the model. Three of the hypotheses tested the correlation between the demographic variables such as age (age groups of 19 or below, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60 and over), educational status (high school degree, associate's degree, bachelor's degree, master's degree), parental status (yes, no) and occupational commitment while the rest of the hypotheses tested the correlation between tenure (years of 0-9, 10-19, 20-29, 30 and over), regularity in working time patterns (fixed day hours, regular shifts, irregular day and night shifts) and weekly working hours (below 40 hours, 40 hours, 45 hours, over 45 hours) and occupational commitment.2.1. Demographic variables which affect occupational commitment\n3. Methodology: 3.1. Sample\n4. Findings and results: The demographic characteristics of the participants of the study are given in Table I. According to this table, half of the participant nurses belong to the age group of 30-39, are married, have children, hold associate's degree education and have 10-19 years of experience. It was noticed that 53 percent of the participant nurses have fixed day hours while 41 percent of them have irregular day and night shifts, and 66 percent work 45 hours a week.The internal consistency coefficient of the occupational commitment inventory employed in the study was evaluated with Cronbach's a, and found to be 0.621. The Cronbach's a value change from 0 to 1, and 1 represents a thorough reliability. It can be asserted that the occupational commitment inventory is reliable with a value of 0.621. The criteria and results regarding the appropriacy of the research model presented in Figure 1 are given in Table II. This table shows that the research model is thoroughly appropriate for the study.The standardized regression coefficients regarding the research model and their statistical significances are given in Table III. According to these results, the coefficients are significant except for the coefficient of weekly working time with 5 percent significance.The values in Table III show that age, educational status, parental status, tenure and working time patterns variables have -0.86, 0.13, 0.43, -0.94 and 0.57 effect on occupational commitment, respectively.As a result, except for one, all the hypotheses in the scope of the research model were refuted. In other words, as a result of the analysis conducted, it was found that there is a relationship between the nurses' occupational commitment and their age, educational status, parental status, tenure and working time patterns. However, there is not any relationship between occupational commitment and weekly working hours.\n5. Discussion: Ensuring the occupational commitment of nurses will yield a lot of benefits for both organizations and individuals. These benefits can be obtained as the nurses are more willing to make an effort for their profession, accept its goals and values and stay in the profession. It is important to know which variables make them feel or nor feel committed to their occupation. In this study, the occupational commitment of the nurses was investigated in terms of some demographic and work variables.5.1. Demographic variables which affect occupational commitment of nurses\n6. Study limitations and further recommendations: One of the limitations of the study is that sampling covers just one big city and nurses employed in hospitals with 500 or more bed capacity. It is possible to get different results when the same study is conducted with another sampling. Therefore, the results should be considered within the limits of the sampling.The occupational commitment level of the nurses in the sampling is low. This situation may have stemmed from the characteristics of the profession and the profession choice and education process of the nurses in Turkey. Were the occupational commitment level of the sampling high, it would have been possible to get different results.This study has shown that variables can have different effects from the findings of the studies on occupational commitment in the literature, so it contributed to the literature in this aspect. Conducting a similar study in regions or countries with different cultures and working conditions and comparing the results will increase this contribution more.In the light of the information gained from this study, it can be suggested that hospitals should investigate the professional burnout of the nurses, reveal the reasons for it and take the necessary precautions. Furthermore, if the hospitals provide career development opportunities and flexible working hours, this can help increase the occupational commitment of the nurses.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - It is very important for health institutions to develop the occupational commitment of their nurses. While the occupational commitments of the nurses develop during their education, they also change according to certain variables during their work life. In order to employ nurses who are more committed to their occupation, it is essential to know the effects of these variables on occupational commitment. The purpose of this paper is to exhibit and test a model that will display the correlation between demographic, work life and family life variables and occupational commitment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research was conducted with the participation of 355 nurses employed in seven state hospitals with 500 or more bed capacity and three medical faculties under the administration of Ankara Ministry of Health, using the proportional distribution method in stratified sampling. Structural equation modeling was used for analysis.\nFindings: - The results of the analysis suggest that there is a relationship between the nurses' professional commitment and age, education, parental status, tenure and working hours scheme. Although the previous studies generally revealed a positive relationship between professional commitment and age and tenure, the relationship found out in this study is a negative one. Similarly, although a negative relationship was presented between professional commitment and parental status and working hours scheme, the relationship revealed in this study is a positive one. Further, unlike the previous studies, this study found out no relationship between the nurses' professional commitment and weekly working time.\nOriginality/value: - This study is an original study, having been applied to a different sample in a different cultural environment. The authors sincerely believe that the results of the study will be beneficial to the scientific world.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Benchmarking logistics facilities: a rating model to assess building quality and functionality
|
[
"Benchmarking",
"Warehouse",
"Building performance measurement",
"Cross-docking facility",
"Logistics facility",
"Rating system"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Logistics real estate has been experiencing a recent revival, induced by the numerous transformations to the logistics landscape. Several reasons behind this significant growth may be identified.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Rating models in the real estate industry\n3. Research questions: The literature examined revealed no logistics real estate assessment models with a specific focus on building quality and functionality. The present research aims to fill this research gap by developing a rating model for evaluating logistics real estate, which can identify, classify and rate the most relevant features of a logistics facility. The intended objective is to assess the overall facility quality, while also identifying its main functionality. From this latter perspective, the model focusses on two distinctive types of buildings, namely stock warehouses and cross-docking facilities, as they are defined in literature as the most common facilities in the logistics sector (Staudt et al., 2015; Baker and Canessa, 2009) and they have different functions and related implications for inventory and customer lead times, as well as for costs and service (Baker, 2004).\n4. Methodology: The research methodology was divided into three main phases, as shown in Figure 1.\n5. Model formulation: 5.1 Model structure and weights\n6. Discussion and conclusions: Although logistics real estate has been the subject of much-renewed interest driven by the numerous transformations taking place in the logistics landscape, as of today the topic of logistics real estate assessment has found very little exposure in academic literature.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Logistics real estate has been experiencing a recent rebirth led by the growth of retailing and e-commerce. Although these sectors are looking for facilities matching their logistics needs, the identification of the most suitable building becomes a challenging task. To date, from both the practitioner's and academic perspectives there is a lack of models for assessing the quality of logistics facilities together with functionality (i.e. whether a warehouse is suitable for hosting a given logistics activity). The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by developing a rating model for assessing the quality and functionality of logistics facilities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A three-pronged methodology was adopted. First, a Systematic Literature Network Analysis (SLNA) was carried out to identify the relevant features that must be taken into consideration when assessing logistics real estate. Second, a Delphi method involving experts in the field was used to fine-tune the list of features that emerged from the SLNA process and to evaluate the importance of each feature from a company perspective. The rating model was developed and validated through pilot tests on 27 logistics facilities.\nFindings: The rating model is divided into four sections: location, technical specifications, external spaces and internal areas. As an output, the model determines the building quality and main functionality, together with a gap analysis to detect the weakest emerging elements.\nOriginality/value: This research fills an identified research gap in the logistics real estate literature. Specifically, it offers a quantitative and shared evaluation method, which can be used to estimate building quality and functionality, thus extending the scope of the previous assessment methods available.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Innovation in education: what works, what doesn't, and what to do about it?
|
[
"Implementation",
"Innovation",
"Educational technology",
"Time efficiency"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Necessity is the mother of invention(Plato).\nIntroduction: Education, being a social institution serving the needs of society, is indispensable for society to survive and thrive. It should be not only comprehensive, sustainable, and superb, but must continuously evolve to meet the challenges of the fast-changing and unpredictable globalized world. This evolution must be systemic, consistent, and scalable; therefore, school teachers, college professors, administrators, researchers, and policy makers are expected to innovate the theory and practice of teaching and learning, as well as all other aspects of this complex organization to ensure quality preparation of all students to life and work.\nInnovations in US education: For an individual, a nation, and humankind to survive and progress, innovation and evolution are essential. Innovations in education are of particular importance because education plays a crucial role in creating a sustainable future. \"Innovation resembles mutation, the biological process that keeps species evolving so they can better compete for survival\" (Hoffman and Holzhuter, 2012, p. 3). Innovation, therefore, is to be regarded as an instrument of necessary and positive change. Any human activity (e.g. industrial, business, or educational) needs constant innovation to remain sustainable.\nWhat is educational innovation?: Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things(Theodore Levitt).To innovate is to look beyond what we are currently doing and develop a novel idea that helps us to do our job in a new way. The purpose of any invention, therefore, is to create something different from what we have been doing, be it in quality or quantity or both. To produce a considerable, transformative effect, the innovation must be put to work, which requires prompt diffusion and large-scale implementation.\nEffects of technology innovations in education: A tool is just an opportunity with a handle(Kevin Kelly).When analyzing innovations of our time, we cannot fail to see that an overwhelming majority of them are tangible, being either technology tools (laptops, iPads, smart phones) or technology-based learning systems and materials, e.g., learning management system (LMS), educational software, and web-based resources. Technology has always served as both a driving force and instrument of innovation in any area of human activity. It is then natural for us to expect that innovations based on ET applications can improve teaching and learning. Though technology is a great asset, nonetheless, is it the single or main source of today's innovations, and is it wise to rely solely on technology?\nTechnocentric syndrome: More disquieting than even the lack of pedagogical foundation for technology-enhanced education is the sincere belief of many educators that technology will fix all the problems they encounter in the classroom, be they live or virtual. Consequently, fewer university professors nowadays perceive the need for pedagogic mastery in online teaching in addition to content-area expertise as they reason technology will solve all instructional difficulties anyway. This belief is called \"technocentrism\" (Pappert, 1990), which, according to Nickols (2011), is common in higher education and e-learning discussions. It is probably common in secondary school as well. Unfortunately, educators often forget that the computer is only an extension of human abilities, not a replacement or substitute. We, as educators, must realize that for technology innovation to produce a positive effect in learning it must be preceded by pedagogic leadership, research, and sound theory; however, the reality is typically the reverse. We are excited to grab the new gadget and try to fit it into the classroom without preliminary assessment of its implementation challenges and potential effects, solid research, or laying out a theoretical foundation based on advanced pedagogic theory which will ensure its effective use. Former Kodak Chairman George Fisher described it this way, \"Even good people get locked into processes that may be totally inappropriate to deal with a new technology attacking from underneath (Christensen and Eyring, 2011, p. 16).\nBarriers to innovation: There are reasons for the discrepancy between the drive for educational innovation that we observe in some areas, great educational innovations of recent times, and the daily reality of the education system.\nWhat to do? Possible solutions: To create innovations, we need innovators, and many of them. But though innovation is often a spark originated in the mind of a bright person, it needs an environment that can nourish the fire. This environment is formed and fed by educational institutions, societal culture, and advanced economy. Csikszentmihalyi underlines the importance of creating a stimulating macroenvironment, which integrates the social, cultural, and institutional context, and also microenvironment, the immediate setting in which a person works. \"Successful environment [...] provide(s) freedom of action and stimulation of ideas, coupled with a respectful and nurturant attitude toward potential geniuses\" (2013, p. 140). Control over such an environment, he reasons, is in the educators' hands.\nGlobalization in education: Along with developing our own innovations and creating a broad base for implementation, it might be useful to look outside the box. As the world becomes more and more globalized, national education systems are shedding their uniqueness and gaining a more universal, homogeneous look (e.g. the Bologna process, which has brought 50 national higher education systems to a common denominator in Europe and beyond) (Bologna process, 2016). Scholars indicate there is \"[...] the need for US universities to keep up with the rest of the world in today's highly competitive educational marketplace\" (Wildavsky et al., 2012, p. 1). It is also economically and culturally beneficial to learn from each other in the spirit of global cooperation and share one's achievements with others. While in the context of globalization it may be convenient to have a common education system across the world, however, to satisfy the needs and expectations of the nation-state it is necessary to continue innovating within one's own system. The rich international educational palette offers unique solutions to many issues facing US schools and universities.\nLearning faster, learning better, and at a lower cost?: You don't have the time, you make the time(Thorin Klosowski).Among many points for educational innovations time definitely deserves close attention. Time is a significant factor in education. Attempts to save time on learning and raise its productivity are well known to each of us. To increase learning efficiency using so-called accelerated and intensive approaches is a promising path for innovation. These two approaches demonstrate the difference between evolutionary and revolutionary disruptive approaches.\nConclusion: US education desperately needs effective innovations of scale that can help produce high quality learning outcomes across the system and for all students. We can start by intensifying our integration of successful international learning models and creating conditions in our schools and colleges that foster and support innovators and educational entrepreneurs, or edupreneurs (Tait and Faulkner, 2016). Moreover, these transformations should be varied, yet systematic, targeting different vital aspects of education. Deep, multifaceted, and comprehensive innovations, both tangible and intangible, have the capacity to quickly generate scalable effects.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present an analytical review of the educational innovation field in the USA. It outlines classification of innovations, discusses the hurdles to innovation, and offers ways to increase the scale and rate of innovation-based transformations in the education system.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper is based on a literature survey and author research.\nFindings: US education badly needs effective innovations of scale that can help produce the needed high-quality learning outcomes across the system. The primary focus of educational innovations should be on teaching and learning theory and practice, as well as on the learner, parents, community, society, and its culture. Technology applications need a solid theoretical foundation based on purposeful, systemic research, and a sound pedagogy. One of the critical areas of research and innovation can be cost and time efficiency of the learning.\nPractical implications: Several practical recommendations stem out of this paper: how to create a base for large-scale innovations and their implementation; how to increase effectiveness of technology innovations in education, particularly online learning; how to raise time and cost efficiency of education.\nSocial implications: Innovations in education are regarded, along with the education system, within the context of a societal supersystem demonstrating their interrelations and interdependencies at all levels. Raising the quality and scale of innovations in education will positively affect education itself and benefit the whole society.\nOriginality/value: Originality is in the systemic approach to education and educational innovations, in offering a comprehensive classification of innovations; in exposing the hurdles to innovations, in new arguments about effectiveness of technology applications, and in time efficiency of education.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The potential for civic engagement of older persons in the ageing society of Thailand
|
[
"Well-being",
"Older persons",
"Civic engagement",
"Volunteering",
"Ageing society"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: An ageing society is generally viewed negatively in terms of contributing to an increase in the dependency ratio or the number of younger and older age groups as a proportion of the working-age population. Thailand is becoming an ageing society by virtue of changes in the structure of the population. The proportion of the population aged 60 years or older increased from 7.2 percent in 1993 to 11.4 percent in 2010. This percentage will increase at a faster pace, 19.8 percent of the total by 2021, reaching 26.6 percent in 2030 and 32.1 percent in 2040[1]. The National Economic and Social Development Plan (NESDP) reflects the importance of these challenges and has given priority to policy and programs to address the needs of Thai older people in the 12th Five-year NESDP (2017-2021)[2].\nMethodology: This study analyzed secondary data from the 2011 National Survey of Older Persons, a nationally representative sample survey conducted by the Thai National Statistical Office (NSO). The survey used a stratified two-stage sampling design. The first stratum was the 76 provinces in Thailand, divided into two sub-stratum of urban areas (municipal enumeration areas-EAs) and rural areas (villages). These included 5,796 EAs/villages. For the second stage, 79,560 households having persons aged 50 years or over were selected from these EAs/villages. The survey was conducted during May-July, 2011. The questions related to household information and older persons' demographics, socio-economic characteristics, health status, satisfaction with family and government assistance and their social engagement. The summary report of the survey can be accessed via the website of the NSO[34].\nResults: The participation of the older persons in constructive community activities, including assisting in community and social projects, sharing knowledge and skills, volunteering in the community and caring for other older people both inside and outside the family are primarily presented. Table I shows that older persons have limited readiness and willingness to engage in community activities, which varies by type of activity. Only one-fourth (23.2 percent) of the sample said they were both ready and willing to be actively engaged in constructive activities for the local community and society, and only 14.9 percent of older persons were prepared to share their traditional knowledge and skills. Fewer still expressed a willingness to volunteer for community causes (10.4 percent), and care for other older people (7. 3 percent). However, when we look at readiness and willingness separately, the potential of engagement is at a higher level. For example, those who were \"ready\" to engage in constructive activities for the local community and society (regardless of whether they were willing or not) constitute up to 29.6 percent (23.2 and 6.4) and those who were \"willing\" to do so represent as high as 39.0 percent (23.2 and 15.8). The proportion drops when both readiness and willingness were required. This pattern is consistent across all four activities, and it should be noted that willingness is uniformly higher than readiness.\nDiscussion: The findings reflect the importance of both competing elements of active ageing, i.e., the internal constraining factors and the external enthusing elements. First, the internal constraining component was found to be a significant determinant in this study and includes health-related factors (both physical health status and psychological well-being). Confidence in receiving support from family members if facing a health problem is also important. These findings are consistent with many studies investigating the influence of perceived health on helping behaviors and volunteer work[4, 10, 35]. Poor health is more likely to be a barrier to volunteering, and depressive symptoms also decrease voluntary engagement[36]. Good physical and psychological health could encourage older persons to participate in community service[37]. Perceived availability of family support in case of illness could help older persons feel confident to engage in civic activity, as a form of \"paying it forward.\" Additionally, a previous study on Korean older people found that both giving and receiving family support could contribute to an increase in the older person's sense of well-being[38].\nConclusions: The potential of older persons to contribute to the Thai ageing society is undeniable. Evidence shows that the intention to participate in social and community activities among Thai older persons is robust. However, achieving an optimal level of \"readiness and willingness\" still needs attention. The question of how to promote an enabling environment for expanded civic engagement of older persons is a challenge for policymakers. When controlling for demographic and socio-economic variables, this study found that self-perception of good physical and psychological health, as well as confidence in family support in case of illness, was significantly associated with civic engagement across the four types of community activities. However, income inadequacy was shown to inhibit civic engagement in terms of sharing knowledge and skills where the qualifications of the volunteer are more important. In addition, older persons who were satisfied with government services were consistently more likely to engage in all four of those civic activities. This finding supports social exchange theory which premises that state welfare services[23] have a direct and strong relationship with civic engagement among older persons.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Several studies revealed the importance of older persons' contribution to society. The enhancement of their potential to engage in civic activities should be encouraged. The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors associated with their civic engagement potential.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data are from Thailand's National Survey of Older Persons conducted by the National Statistical Office in 2011. A sample of 24,433 persons aged 60 years or older was analyzed to assess their engagement in four community activities. The data were subjected to logistic regression analysis.\nFindings: This study found that the readiness and willingness to engage in socially productive activities of Thai older persons ranged from 7 to 23 percent depending on type of activities. The factors of ageing health, confidence in their family's ability to assist them, and satisfaction with government services were significantly associated with their readiness and willingness to engage in socially productive activities. Inadequacy of income was not found to be an obstructing factor toward their readiness and willingness to engage in civic life in general, it inhibited only the sharing of knowledge and skills with others.\nOriginality/value: The findings reflect the impact of internal constraining factors and external enhancing factors on engagement of Thai older persons in civic activities. Policy implications on the role of the government to promote active ageing are discussed.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Sustainability reporting in the Austrian, German and Swiss public sector
|
[
"Public sector",
"Germany",
"Austria",
"Accountability",
"Global reporting initiative",
"Documentary analysis"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Since the 1990s there has been a growing relevance of sustainability reporting (SR) across all sectors (i.e. profit, non-profit and public sector). Historically, the term sustainability was developed in the context of forestry where it was used to argue that not more wood should be chopped than can be re-grown (von Carlowitz, 1713/2000). In the 1980s, sustainability had evolved as a key concept in global developmental policy. Now sustainable development is regarded as a necessary step towards ensuring intra- and intergenerational justice. In 1987, the Brundtland report (United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987) made this idea popular. Agenda 21, a non-binding programme approved by 172 governments at the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, resulted in strengthening the focus on environmental aspects. The debate about corporate social responsibility (CSR) helped to re-adjust the orientation as voiced in the European Commission's CSR strategy 2011-2014. Therein CSR is defined as \"the responsibility of enterprises for their impacts on society\" (European Commission, 2011, p. 7).\nSR in the public sector: (Sustainability) reporting by PSOs\nMethodology and sample description: The authors used content analysis as many previous studies demonstrated the usefulness of this method in the context of SR or CSR reporting (e.g. Quick and Knocinski, 2006; Gamerschlag et al., 2011). The assessment of sustainability reports is based on G3.1. The authors chose this framework instead of G4 because the availability of sustainability reports in line with G4 guidelines is still very limited (cf. previous section). The reports are analysed regarding all categories (profile, management approaches and core PIs) and thus the assessment includes 42 profile disclosures (PD), six management approaches and 55 core indicators ([?] 103 assessment-items). The scoring used a two-stage scale (0=a PSO does not report on a specific indicator/1=a PSO does report on a specific indicator). Organisations not reporting on a specific indicator because it is not material or applicable can still get a positive evaluation, if reasons are stated. This practice has made it possible that organisations with a limited area of activity can reach a high-compliance score. For each G3.1 subcategory a compliance level is calculated as shown in the following example:\nFindings: The numbers in the following spider charts represent the PSO under review. For instance, Figure 2 shows that report No. 6 scores 100 per cent as it reports on every indicator of this category, while No. 7 reports on less than 40 per cent of all indicators. The inner circles in all charts illustrate the mean of each category. As for PDs (cf. Figure 2) the mean value of compliance is 89.9 per cent. PD include four different types of contents: strategy and analysis, organisational profile, report parameters and governance, commitments and engagement. They are covered by specific indicators such as nature of ownership, reporting cycle or governance structure of the organisation (GRI, 2011a).\nDiscussion: Out of 42 sustainability reports assessed, 29 achieved an overall performance higher than 50 per cent, while 21 of them reached 75 per cent. Moreover, ten PSO attained a TCR above 90 per cent. This finding indicates that the level of adoption of GRI guidelines for SR by PSO show considerable variations. However, despite the variations these results can be interpreted as an indication that PSO provide comprehensive sustainability reports and that the pressure through expectations of the society has led to coercive isomorphism. Therefore, the results are in line with the first hypothesis.\nConclusion, limitations and directions for further research: Almost a quarter of the SR analysed (ten) comply with the GRI framework, to a large extent (TCR\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate to what extent public sector entities in Austria, Germany and Switzerland apply sustainability reporting (SR) guidelines in line with the global reporting initiative (GRI) to respond to societal pressure. It further assesses the kind of data reported in order to illuminate whether well-balanced share of economic, environmental and social information are provided.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study provides an empirical analysis of SR based on a documentary analysis of external reports by public sector organisations (PSO) included in the GRI's database for the years 2012-2014.\nFindings: PSO applying the GRI guidelines comply to a relatively great extent but show considerable variations and a clear imbalance of information reported concerning the three pillars of sustainable development.\nOriginality/value: The paper offers insight into GRI reporting practices by PSO in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. Additionally, a country and sector comparison was conducted. As previous studies mostly focus on SR in private corporations, the results contribute to advancing research on SR in the public sector where PSO increasingly have to demonstrate their (sustainable) contributions to the public benefit.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Integration of demand forecasts in ABC-XYZ analysis: practical investigation at an industrial company
|
[
"ABC‐XYZ analysis",
"Purchasing",
"Inventory control",
"Demand forecasting",
"Item classification",
"Mathematical analysis"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nProcesses of classification: The classification of items is very important to manufacturing logistics of industrial enterprises. It supports the stock management and helps to realize potentials. Additionally, a classification of items can assist determining the material planning strategy of the different items (Bruckner and von Wrede, 1998). There are many different possibilities to classify items, which can be applied depending on the objective. Main techniques include the ABC analysis (ranking the items according to the annual turnover) and the XYZ analysis (analysis of the usage regularity) as well as further alternatives, which can be found in (Bruckner and von Wrede, 1998; Wiendahl and Nyhuis, 2002). The characteristic which is used to classify the items with the ABC analysis is the periodic turnover. It is determined as the product of: the cost of a unit and its consumption rate within a certain period. If characterizing the items by classes A, B and C the ideal Pareto principle can be found with comparably few, however valuable A-items and numerous but inexpensive C-items (Jung, 2006).The XYZ analysis distinguishes between items according to their fluctuations in consumption. Classes become summarized as follows (Errasti et al., 2010; Wassermann, 2001):* X: some extent constant consumption, fluctuations are rather rate.* Y: stronger fluctuations in consumption, usually for trend-moderate or seasonal reasons.* Z: completely irregular consumption.For the XYZ analysis the feature characteristic of statistic measurement is the coefficient of variation (Hoppe, 2005; Schonsleben, 2007), which is the ratio of the standard deviation of item consumption over a certain period and the average consumption. Due to it is broad application spectrum the ABC analysis is regularly applied as the primary analysis and supported by the XYZ analysis (Hoppe, 2005; Schonsleben, 2007; Reese and Geisel, 1997; Reiner and Trcka, 2004). Hence the classification matrix (AX, BX, CX, AY, BY, CY, AZ, BZ, CZ) evolves.One of the advantages of these analyses is the integration of items with similar characteristics to process them with the same material planning parameters. Since the demand of an item over the past cycles is crucial for its classification it is important to perform the item classification with consistently defined standards in periodic intervals to include possible changes promptly. Gudehus (2006) advises to perform the classification monthly, quarterly or at least yearly, depending on the industrial branch.\nProcedure of the ABC-XYZ analysis based on data of an industrial company: This study determines if the consideration of the future sales volume through a demand forecast improves the quality of the ABC-XYZ analysis. Future trends can have a direct impact on the classification and the classification can be improved by considering them, instead of only influencing the classification retrospectively. For our study, real data of an industrial enterprise in the mechanical engineering sector (focal company) is analyzed and evaluated. Factual item consumption data and demand forecasts from the previous years are considered. After reassessing the total amount of items due to discontinued parts and new additions, a total of 15,000 actively dispatched items is available.The ABC analysis of the items is based on the turnover of the previous twelve months. The parameters of the classification were set in consultation with field experts:* A-items: 0-80 percent of the accumulated consumption value.* B-items: 80-95 percent of the accumulated consumption value.* C-items: 95-100 percent of the accumulated consumption value.For the XYZ analysis the following framework is set: the considered period of time is set to twelve months and material consumption is aggregated on a monthly basis. The critical values of the coefficient of variation, which is an indicator for the stability of consumption, are classified as following in consultation with field experts:* X-items: coefficient of variation <0.5.* Y-items: coefficient of variation between 0.5 and 1.* Z-items: coefficient of variation >1.\nImprovement of the ABC analysis through forecast integration verified with practical data: Before forecast data can be implemented in the ABC analysis, the effect of the length of the base period in respect to the quality of the classification is evaluated. Therefore an ABC analysis is made in 2007 as well as in 2008 (with an interval of 12 months). The results of the analyses are compared in terms of the disposition of items in classes. The comparison shows that the items were classified identically in only 60 percent of the cases. If in the practical example the ABC-XYZ analysis was made only once a year; in the end of 2007, shortly before performing the second item classification, approximately 40 percent of all items would not be in the right category in terms of item consumption.Since two consecutive ABC-XYZ analyses made annually have a weak correlation, it is being tested whether an adjustment of the base period by one month influences the result of the ABC-XYZ analysis. The monthly deviation of the classification is indicated in percent. It expresses the proportion of the items, which are not classified in the same category in two consecutive ABC-XYZ analyses, with the base period of the analysis differing one month. In the process two cases are distinct: on the one hand (case 1) the monthly deviation of the classification results could be caused by extension and/or reduction of the base period. In this case the addition or subtraction of a month results in a mean proportion of \"class changes\" of is 4.24 percent. On the other hand (case 2) the monthly variation of the ABC-XYZ analysis is determined by deferring the base period by one month. In this case the analyzed data shows a mean monthly deviation of 6.5 percent (Figure 1).The considerable deviation makes clear that an annual ABC-XYZ analysis is not sufficient. Since the practical example indicates that adding or subtracting a month to/from the base period and/or deferring the base period by a month explicitly changes the result (4.24 percent or rather 6.5 percent), it seems appropriate to make the ABC-XYZ analysis monthly. A shorter interval is not reasonable due to the main data collection and analysis effort. And with respect to the focal company the number of customer orders will not change the results significantly within a shorter period.Furthermore, due to continuous changes in the item consumption it is preferable to use a classification period which includes an equal share of past months and upcoming months. This way it shall be guaranteed that both the consumption fluctuations of the past and the future trends (forecasts) are incorporated in the ABC-XYZ classification.To realize that, demand forecasts or rather data about planed consumption rates are necessary. Starting on a reference date, these are determined and regularly updated over a specific period in respect to the production program plan. In the practical example, the demand forecasts include existing customer orders as well as statistically forecasted sales volumes of the focal company. The proportion of real customer orders decreases with the progressing planning period (Figure 2a). In the practical example this is a major reason for the decreasing quality of the forecasts, whose qualitative characteristics are presented in Figure 2b.To analyze the deviation of the ABC-XYZ classifications based on consumption forecasts from the actually optimal reference classification (Figure 3a) an item classification based on real data is made. Afterwards the found optimal reference classification is compared to classifications, which are partially based on available forecasts. The aim is to find amount of additional forecast periods which leads to the least deviation from the optimal classification. For this purpose seven additional material classifications are made. The base periods include the six previous months (months -1 to -6) as well as an increasing number of consumption-forecast-periods (months +0 to +6) (Figure 3b).Afterwards each of the seven ABC-XYZ classifications is compared to the reference classification regarding the disposition of items in the same class. The comparison shows that classification 1, whose respective time horizon only involves the previous six months, however no consumption forecasts, has a relatively low correspondence of 78 percent with the reference classification. The other classifications, which consider demand forecasts, have a higher correspondence with the reference classification, with five incorporated consumption months being the highest result (92 percent). In contrast, despite having the same number of periods as the reference classification with six consumption months and six consumption-forecast-periods, the conformance of classification 7 (Figure 3b) decreases due to the poor forecasting quality (Figure 4).\nResults: The evaluation of the data at hand shows that the material classification according to Figure 4 leads to a higher correspondence in terms of items remaining in the same class compared to other alternatives. The decreasing correspondence in classification 7 is caused by poor forecasting quality since a demand forecast on more than six months results in a strong decrease of reliable customer orders for the focal company.Utilizing demand forecasts for the ABC-XYZ classification proves to be advantageous in the practical example. The evaluation of consumption data and forecast data determines that a material classification based on six previous consumption months and five succeeding demand forecast months has a correspondence of 92 percent with the reference classification suggested by experts (Figure 3a). Compared to the reference classification, an ABC-XYZ classification based on the previous twelve months, which is often recommended in technical literature and in praxis, only has a correspondence of 75 percent of items remaining in the same class (Figure 3c).\nFinal summary and discussion: Summing up it is evident, that a comprehensive data analysis of the focal company can recommend a specific implementation of the ABC-XYZ classification. On the one hand it makes sense to repeat the ABC-XYZ analysis on a monthly basis due to the high dynamics in terms of consumption consistency of items. On the other hand the consideration of consumption forecasts proves to be beneficial since future trends have a greater influence on the classification quality than forecasting errors. In contrast to the classic method of making the ABC-XYZ analysis based on consumption data only, the developed approach in this paper offers considerable advantages. These are quantifiable in respect to an assumed optimal reference classification, with the classic approach having a correspondence of 75 percent and the developed approach reaching a correspondence of 92 percent.The evaluation of the results is very promising and applicable to other branches besides mechanical engineering. For that purpose a preliminary screening of the item consumption dynamics is highly important to determine the adequate time intervals between item classification. In addition, the forecasting quality has to be analyzed to choose the quantity of subsequent months suitable for integration in the classification. Afterwards the accuracy of the item classification should be considerably improvable.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Item classification based on ABC-XYZ analysis is of high importance for strategic supply and inventory control. It is common to perform the analysis with past consumption data. In this context, the purpose of this study is to test the hypothesis that an integration of demand forecasts can improve the performance of item classification, in particular the performance of ABC-XYZ analysis.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - For the study, real data of an industrial enterprise in the mechanical engineering sector (focal company) were analyzed and evaluated.\nFindings: - The study shows that a comprehensive data analysis of the focal company can recommend a specific implementation of the ABC-XYZ classification. In contrast to the classic method of making the ABC-XYZ analysis based on consumption data only, the approach developed in this paper offers considerable advantages. These are quantifiable in respect to an assumed optimal reference classification.\nOriginality/value: - The evaluation of the results is very promising and applicable to other branches besides mechanical engineering.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Being smart about employee flexibility: Innovation in office layout, HR and ICT support
|
[
"ICT",
"Office layout",
"Smart work",
"Human resource practices"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: If you had to pick a word to define the times we are living in, surely one contender could be \"smart\". Everywhere you look, something else seems to be described as \"smart\" - and we do not mean people who are well-dressed and elegant or quick-witted and bright. Our phones and TVs have been smart for a while, and now we have got \"smart\" refrigerators that scan sell-by dates, for example, and \"smart\" heating systems which allow us to turn up or down the temperature of our homes while we are out. The list of examples goes on. So why not \"smart work\"? Well, we have that too, and support is growing.\n\"Inconsistent\", \"analogical\", \"digital\", and \"complete\" models: Elisabetta Raguseo of Grenoble Ecole de Management, France, Luca Gastaldi of the Politecnico di Milano, Italy, and Paolo Neirotti of the Politecnico di Torino, Italy, explored SW to identify whether firms adopt different models, to explore complementarities between the factors that can lead to the choice of an SW model, and to figure out whether contingent variables matter in the implementation of a particular SW model.\nDevelopment and diffusion of digital technologies: Results show that there are complementarities between the elements that characterize an SW model and that at least two elements are developed in each SW model. In case all the three elements are developed, companies achieve higher labor productivity.\nAchieving benefits at both company and individual levels: The study demonstrates that the complementary investments in the three elements positively affect labor productivity, implying that firms should focus their attention and their investments on all three elements that characterize an SW setting in a comprehensive and holistic fashion.\nComment: This review is based on \"Smart work:supporting employees' flexibility through ICT, HR practices and office layout\" by Raguseo et al. (2016). The authors explore \"smart work\", a practice characterized by spatial and temporal flexibility, supported by technical tools, providing all employees with the best working conditions to accomplish their tasks.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.\nFindings: This paper explores smart work (SW), a work practice characterized by spatial and temporal flexibility, supported by technological tools, and that provides all employees of an organization with the best working conditions to accomplish their tasks. Four SW models can be chosen by companies. They are named inconsistent, analogical, digital, and complete SW. They are different according to investments in enabling digital technologies, in transformations of the organizational policies, and in workspace settings, according to the contingent conditions where firms operate. Results show that there are complementarities between the elements that characterize an SW model and that at least two elements are developed in each SW model. In case all the three elements are developed, companies achieve higher labor productivity.\nPractical implications: The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.\nOriginality/value: The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Strategic issues in supply chain management of Indian SMEs due to globalization: an empirical study
|
[
"SMEs",
"Supply chain management",
"Strategic issues",
"Performance",
"Globalization",
"Investment priorities"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: From last few decennaries, Indian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have been key contributors in the growth of Indian economy. They are generating employment with lowest investments in urban and rural areas. 36 million units of Indian SMEs give employment to 80 million people. With 6,000 products, they add eight percent to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 40 percent to Indian exports. Working as major suppliers to big enterprises they conduce significantly to the social and economic growth of the nation (Small and Medium Development chamber of India, 2015). However, working in global competition with advanced technologies is very stimulating situation for SMEs. Flexibility in operations can give edge to SMEs in competition (Singh et al., 2005). Kumar et al. (2015) stated that in high competition, effectuation of SCM can be helpful for SMEs in becoming flexible. The term SCM was first coined by an American industry consultant in the early 1980s.For successful implementation of SCM, SMEs encounter with number of constraints (Trakman et al., 2007).SMEs serve as integral institutions in the development of an economy. A majority of them are covered under the secondary sector of an economy and assist various large firms in their production. Definition of small and medium enterprises changes from country to country (Enquobahrie, 1997; Harabi, 2005). In UK, SMEs contribute about 70 percent to GDP and about 90 percent to the employment. UK SMEs gives advantage of economic advancement on local and national front (Quayle, 2003). SMEs are key contributors to manufacturing and service sector across the world (Huin et al., 2002). In emerging economies, SMEs are contributing in economic development and employment generation (UNCTAD, 1993). Singh et al. (2019) have observed that for sustainable growth in globalized digital economy, SMEs have to upgrade their existing technologies. Certain observations about SMEs from literature are as follows:SMEs face problems of fluctuating demand, poor know-how of SCM, and middlemen interference (Kumar et al., 2014).SMEs face the constraints of information, resources, and skilled workforce (Taylor et al., 2004; Kumar et al., 2016). Financial constraints affect the implementation of modern IT technologies in SMEs (Singh et al., 2008).In contemporary scenario of ecumenical competition, competitive advantage can be gained by implementation of SCM in Indian SMEs (Kumar et al., 2016). Tripathy et al. (2016) observed that adoption of modern technologies can amend relation with customers, suppliers, and meliorate operational and logistics performance of Indian SMEs.Although big enterprises in India are successfully implementing SCM but SMEs are still struggling in getting benefited from SCM due to different kinds of resource and technological constraints (Singh et al., 2010). After globalization of market, SMEs are facing challenges in terms of technological upgradation and in improving SCM to compete with global players. They can compete only if they could perform in terms of product quality, delivery on time, sustainability, and agility without increasing the cost of operation. It is only possible by making SCM effective. Therefore, present study would try to explore many strategic issues for effective SCM of Indian SMEs in context to globalized market. Authors have proposed a framework including different issues of SCM in Indian SMEs such as investment priorities, motivation, hindrances, and performance in SCM implementation. Authors also analyzed the impact of various issues of SCM on performance of Indian SMEs by testing the research hypothesis. The rest of the research paper has been orchestrated as follows. Section 2 reviewed the related literature and hypothesis development. Section 3 discourses research design. Descriptive analysis of findings from questionnaire-based survey, testing of research hypothesis and implications of the study have been done in Section 4. Conclusion has been discussed in Section 5.\n2. Literature review and hypothesis development: Indian SMEs of manufacturing sectors are facing challenges of competitive product price and quality to stay competitive in global markets (Kumar et al., 2014). Managing members of supply chain (SC) is very challenging and complex process in modern time. Improving coordination in SC can help in managing needs of SC members (Arshinder et al., 2009). Although many organizations still compete at individual level in developing countries (Kohand Tan, 2006) but it is observed that organization working in coordination has competitive advantage as compared to isolated organizations (Singh et al., 2012).To study different strategic issues of SCM in SMEs such as motivation, investment priorities, hindrances in SCM implementation, SCM practices, and performance, the authors proposed a framework as shown in Figure 1. On the basis of framework, motivations, investment priorities, and hindrances, SCM practices would be selected and effect of these SCM practices will be studied, with regard to Indian SMEs performance. As per the proposed framework the literature has been reviewed in following sections. 2.1 Characteristics of Indian SMEs\n3. Research design: Present study deals with different issues related to motivation, investment priorities, hindrances for implementing SCM, and selecting best SC practices, and finally their effects on business performance. Questionnaire has been developed to conduct the survey of Indian SMEs. The unit of analysis was firm level. Results of survey-based study ensure significant and valid results (Straub et al., 2004). All items under different constructs have been taken from available literature. Therefore authors began the process with a review of the extensive literature on motivation, investment priorities, hindrances, best SC practices, and performance. Survey has been conducted among Indian manufacturing SMEs of various manufacturing sectors including automobile, plastic, light engineering, chemical, and electric/electronics sectors from January 2019 to July 2019. Most of surveyed organizations were in local or semi-urban region. Preliminary survey has been conducted in 40 SMEs from various sectors before giving final shape to the questionnaire. Of 40 organizations participating in pilot survey, 10 were from automobile sector, 10 from plastic sector, 10 from light engineering, five from chemical, and five from electric/electronics sector. Graphical representation of different sectors responded during survey are shown in Figure 2. Organizations for survey were selected from different sources such as Confederation of Indian Industries, Auto Component Manufacturers Association, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industries and Directorate of Industries (Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi). Final survey instrument was having two sections A and B. Section A included questions about general information and different criteria of classification of SMEs in India. Section B have questions on different strategic issues for effective SCM such as motivation, priorities, hindrances, SCM practices, information sharing practices, supplier selection, evaluation and development, and performance and respondent profile.By postal or electronic mail-based survey, preliminary survey has been conducted on a personal basis by taking prior appointment with organizations. One Annexure was attached with the questionnaire. It focused on guidelines and terminology to avert any biasing. Survey-based approach has been used by Dubey et al. (2018) for analyzing SC issues of Indian auto component makers.In the present study, respondents were requested to grade the vividness of each ascribe for their own organization on a five-point Likert scale (1 - lowest, 5 - highest). After pilot survey, the survey instrument was finalized. About 1,500 SMEs from all regions of India were approached for gathering responses. In spite of repetitive mails, telephonic calls, and personal visits to organizations, only 257 complete questionnaires could be incurred. Most of the responders were from middle and top management position, having the power to take strategic decisions. For survey results analysis, SPSS 17 software has been used.\n4. Results and discussion: Descriptive analysis is done to analyze different operational issues of SCM in Indian SMEs, and then correlation analysis has been done to test the research propositions made in this study. 4.1 Descriptive analysis\n5. Conclusions, implications, limitation, and future scope: This study has analyzed the different strategic issues such as motivation, investment priorities, and hindrances for effective SCM in Indian SMEs. Survey-based approach was used in this study. 257 complete responses were considered for analysis of data through different statistical tests. Following are the few observations from this study:Reducing delivery lead time, reducing product cost, and reducing inventory cost are the major motivating factors for effective SCM of Indian SMEs in a globalized market.Quality improvement, quick response to customer demands, and accurate sales forecasting and planning are the main investment priorities for SCM implementation in SMEs.Lack of top management commitment, lack of resources and funds, and poor demand forecast system are the major hindrances in implementing effective SCM in SMEs.CRM, ERP, and integrated inventory management are the main SCM practices of Indian SMEs.Level of Motivations and investment in different areas has significant positive correlation with investment for effective SCM.SCM practices such as integrated inventory management, vendor managed inventory, lead time management, customer relationship management, barcode/RFID/other automatic identification practices, sharing of point of sales information with partners, third party logistics, bullwhip effect analysis, and design of logistics have significant. 5.1 Implications of study\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In globalized market, organizations of all sizes are having huge opportunities for growth. However, due to various resource constraints, it has become challenging for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of growing economies to survive in this global competition. Effective supply chain management (SCM) can be a major driving factor for success of Indian SMEs in dynamic world economy. SMEs face many operational challenges while implementing effective SCM. The purpose of this paper is to study different strategic issues for successful implementation of SCM in Indian SMEs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A survey has been conducted in Indian SMEs of different sectors. Major constructs of survey instrument are motivations, hindrances, investment priorities, supply chain practices and performance. In total, 1,500 Indian SMEs have been approached for collecting response through survey instrument. 257 complete responses were finalized. Statistical analysis of data acquired from survey is performed by using SPSS software.\nFindings: It is observed that managing customers, organization resources, and inventory are main SCM practices. Major investment areas are systems for developing quick response and quality management. Currently, human resource and knowledge management have been found to be less priority areas for SMEs. The major focus of Indian SMEs is on cost and lead time reduction by having effective SCM.\nOriginality/value: Novelty of this study is that strategic issues for effective SCM in context to Indian SMEs have been analyzed. The findings of the study will help Indian SMEs in doing strategic planning for being competitive in the global market.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Total productive maintenance, total quality management and operational performance: An empirical study of Indian pharmaceutical industry
|
[
"Total quality management",
"Total productive maintenance",
"Operational performance"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The manufacturing industry has undergone a significant changes in last four decades. These changes involve, top management approach, customer expectations, supplier capabilities and technologies used in process and product development (Ahuja et al., 2006). Today's global environment and competition puts numerous pressure on manufacturing companies to achieve world class performance (Miyake and Enkawa, 1999). In order to realize world class performance many companies are putting efforts to improve productivity, quality and to reduce costs. Many companies have included an examination of the activities of their maintenance function. The role of maintenance is to improve the machine(s) availability for production processes and to maintain them in good condition (Swanson, 2001). In highly complex environment like pharmaceuticals, the equipment's and machines are the main contributors to operational performance of an organization (Kutucuoglu et al., 2001). The importance of equipment's/machines is ever increasing and growing with rapid growing technology (Maggard and Rhyne, 1992). That is why, maintenance has become an essential function in a manufacturing environment (Ahmed et al., 2005). Maintenance has become an integral function of quality, productivity and plant production strategy (Kumar et al., 2004). To achieve world class manufacturing, maintenance has become the strategic issue for many manufacturing organizations (Brah and Chong, 2004). The organizations should have capable maintenance and manufacturing approach to gain competitive edge over others. The effective integration of maintenance function and quality practices will help the companies to save time, money and other resources.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 TPM\n3. Research methodology: 3.1 Data collection\n4. Results and discussion: The standard deviation, mean and bivariate correlation along with Cronbach a, for TPM, TQM and operational performance constructs has been shown in Table VI. Four TPM constructs along with 16 items have been conceptualized with literature support mentioned in Table II. Whether single factor is sufficient for TPM construct can be measured through fit indices. The fit indices for the second order model were kh\n5. Conclusion and implications: The present study examines the relationship between TPM, TQM and operational performance with reference to pharmaceutical industry. The TPM practices having a great role to maintain and develop the quality in terms of reduced scrap and less defective products. The machines and equipment's are the back bone of any manufacturing environment. Due to complexity of pharmaceutical operations, the role of machines and tools become critical. The quality of pharmaceutical products is crucial, which is the resultant of well-maintained machines and thus manufacturing operations. The disciplined maintenance, emphasize upon a dedicated portion of every day for maintenance. The maintenance is a strategy to achieve quality and schedule compliance to run smooth operations.\n6. Limitations scope for future research: The present study provides the justification for the framework represented in Figure 1. Through the study is having limitations. The present study considers 254 respondents from pharmaceutical plants. There was only one respondent per plant from either maintenance, production or quality department, which may have created a biased view. The interdependencies of constructs of TPM and TQM have not been checked. Future research many include the other approaches of TPM, namely, aggressive, proactive and reactive maintenance. In TQM practices only hard factors has been considers, which leave the scope of inclusion of soft factor in future studies. The contextual factors can also be added in future studies. The future studies can also include the comparison of TPM and TQM practices from plant to plant level. There is a scope that TPM and TQM practice may differ from formulation to bulk drugs in the industry. The ISO certification of present level of TQM practices and implementation of TPM level can also be considered in future studies, which may impact operational performance. In TPM the role of teams can also be included. For overall operational performance, the JIT system along with TPM and TQM can be studied. The role of TPM and TQM can be studied for world class manufacturing.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of total productive maintenance (TPM) and total quality management (TQM) practices on operational performance and their inter-relationship.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The present study includes three main constructs, namely, TPM, TQM and operational performance of pharmaceutical industry. Under TPM, four constructs, namely, disciplined maintenance, information tracking, housekeeping and operator involvement has been considered with the help of literature. In TQM, four constructs, namely, quality data and reporting, product innovation, research and development (R&D) management and technology management has been considered. Out of 410 Indian pharmaceutical plants contacted for survey, 254 responses have been used in the study for analysis. The factor analysis, path model and structural equation modeling has been used to analyze the proposed framework. The results for alternate models has been studied, interpreted and reported. Finally the direct and indirect effect of TPM and TQM on operational performance has been tested and checked for proving and disproving the hypotheses.\nFindings: TPM practices have a significant impact on plant-level operational performance. When TPM and TQM practices are coming together to achieve operational performance, then TPM is having strong influence on operational performance. TQM is having significant support from TPM to achieve operational performance. TPM impact TQM and TQM in turn helps to achieve operational performance. TPM practices impact significantly R&D, product innovation and technology management, whereas quality data and reporting is the least contributor toward TQM. This may help industry to understand implications of implementation of TPM and TQM to achieve plant-level operational performance. TPM will help to reduce the cost of quality in terms of reduced scrap and less defective products.\nPractical implications: The present study provides the useful insights to practicing managers. In literature it has been mentioned that TQM helps in TPM implementation. In practice TPM plays a great role to achieve quality in processes and therefore in products. In turn quality products, with reduced work in process inventory, less defective products and reduced scrap helps to achieve the operational performance at plant level. TPM practices will help the organization to improve the pace of product innovation and improvement in productivity, which is critical to pharmaceutical industry. The continuous monitoring of TPM practices can help organizations to run day to day operations and maintenance requirement of each machine over a specified period of time.\nOriginality/value: The present study diagnoses the inter-dimensional linkage between TPM, TQM and operational performance. The pharmaceutical industry is complex system of advance equipment's and processes. After human resources, the health of machines/equipment's describe the strength of an organization. The machines require the regular maintenance to produce the products with desired specifications. The specifications in medicines and very tight, which can be achieved only if machines/testing equipment's are updated and maintained regularly. The TPM practices will helps the plants to achieve the operational performance by having quality in processes.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Does emotional labor color service actions in customer buying?
|
[
"Emotion",
"Customer service",
"Service delivery",
"Frontline service employees",
"Service employees",
"Emotional labor",
"In-role/extra-role actions",
"Buying behavior"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Service heterogeneity and inseparability have sparked various challenges in the area of customer service performance (Zeithaml et al., 2006), which require service employees to be flexible and creative in performing their jobs (Chebat and Kollias, 2000). Service performance includes numerous skills and behaviors, such as efficiency, product knowledge and a central part of interpersonal behaviors (Parasuraman et al., 1988, cited in Chi and Grandey, 2019). Consequently, previous research has primarily emphasized employees' emotional performance (Chi and Grandey, 2019; Hur et al., 2015; Bono and Vey, 2005). However, in work contexts characterized by uncertainty and interdependence, employees need to go beyond narrowly defined formalized work roles (Griffin et al., 2007). Hence, in addition to employees' emotional performance, customer service performance is highly dependent on service employees' actions (Liu et al., 2013). Employees' in-role actions comprise those dictated by the job's requirements and norms, such as bringing the customer what he or she requested, employees' extra-role actions are discretionary behaviors not mandated by the job norms (Organ, 1988), such as taking the initiative to suggest a novel solution to a problem presented by the customer. Employees' extra-role performance has been found to be positively related to business success and improved organizational functioning (Piccolo and Colquitt, 2006). The distinction between in-role and extra-role service performance has been researched in the service literature in terms of organizational citizenship behaviors (Tsaur and Lin, 2004; Liu et al., 2013; Seger-Guttmann and Vilnai-Yavetz, 2014).\nLiterature review: Conceptualizations of service employees' in-role/extra-role actions\nPhase I: Study 1 - method and findings\nPhase II: Study 3: The aim of Study 3 was to predict the combined effect of performed emotional labor and in-role and extra-role actions on customer buying behavior. A daily-diary methodology was adopted, with diaries completed by the service employee participants.\nResults: Analysis strategy\nDiscussion: This study's contribution is threefold: theoretically, it explores service employees' actions and distinguishes between in-role and extra-role actions. Methodologically, the study encompasses analyses of unique measurement tools: gathering data by diverse means, including videos, daily diaries and direct observations. Finally, this study is a pioneering effort to examine the joint effects of service actions and emotional labor on customer buying behavior. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to examine specific service behaviors and how they are ultimately interpreted and colored by emotional labor strategies and affect customer buying behaviors. While Grandey (2003) limited her investigation to service employees' smiles, the current research examined six behaviors, concluding that no matter how effortless the service provider makes it look, if it is fake customers will leave the store with fewer purchases.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Service research has highlighted the role of emotional labor in service delivery but has neglected service employees' actions. This study aims to distinguish between the recurrent in-role and extra-role actions of service employees and to examine the joint effect of service employees' actions and their emotional labor, which may color these actions on customer buying behavior (number of purchased items and total bill).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Phase I comprised two studies: Study 1 examined 70 service interaction videos to identify employees' service actions, and Study 2 quantitatively validated the most frequent employee actions, used for further study, by examining 40 employee-customer interactions in fashion stores. For Phase II, Study 3 derived data from 60 service employees' diaries to predict the joint effect of performed emotional labor and service actions on customer buying behavior.\nFindings: Findings revealed that emotional labor moderated the relationship between service actions and customer buying behavior. The relationship between in-role/extra-role actions and buying behavior was stronger in the lower surface-acting (less emotional faking) condition, whereas the relationship between in-role/extra-role actions and buying behavior was stronger for the higher deep-acting (more emotionally authentic) condition.\nPractical implications: Service organizations should not limit training to the more easily attained service actions. This possibility may be lacking if it ignores the emotional component that accompanied the action. This may shift the focus from customer satisfaction to customer delight.\nOriginality/value: This study is a pioneering effort to examine the specific circumstances in which service employees' actions (regardless of in-role or extra-role status) will not produce the desired customer-related outcome in the presence of emotional labor.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Towards lean product lifecycle management: A framework for new product development
|
[
"New products",
"Product life cycle",
"Knowledge management",
"Plans"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The last twenty years have seen a significant contribution from Lean thinking at both academic and practitioner levels. Indeed in many industries such as the automotive sector, Lean thinking is a way of life. However, the widespread understanding of lean approaches by academics and industrialists often lags the leading edge of lean evolution (Hines et al., 2004).The most recent evolution of lean according to these authors is into a lean value system. This lean value system encompasses a value-adding network of operations across companies, with the goal of providing a series of contingent value proposition to individual final consumers. Within this lean value system, and of relevance to this paper, are two notable features. First, the close integration of strategy formation with operational improvement and second, the focus on a range of other contingent processes away from Lean thinking's traditional focus on order fulfilment activities.Within the first of these areas, the focus has been developing a seamless transition between corporate strategy and the activities undertaken to achieve this strategic intent. The linking pin for this integration is through a cascading of strategy formation through strategy deployment into key business processes as shown in Figure 1. The primary alignment vehicle here is to understand an organization's critical success factors and aligning the business to these factors by the deployment of contingent performance measures and targets by business process (Hines and Taylor, 2000).The importance of new product development (NPD) within product lifecycle management (PLM) has been highlighted by virtually all businesses that have adopted this contemporary lean approach. Within the context of this paper, we will refer specifically to physical products and define NPD as the creation of a new product from the generation of an initial concept or idea through to the decision to commercialise the product. We then refer to new product introduction (NPI) as the part of the process from this point through to the product launch, mass production and associated marketing support for the product.We will refer to PLM as a wider process which in addition to NPD and NPI also extends through the delivery, various upgrades, service, repair and retirement of products. With a few notable exceptions, for instance Clark and Fujimoto (1991), Tsuzuki (1993) and Uchida (1993), this key process has until recently received scant attention from the lean thinking world, although a sizeable technical product development literature does exist. However, the last few years have seen the publication of a number of lean articles and texts on this subject (Cusumano and Nobeoka, 1998; Sobek et al., 1998; Sobek et al., 1999; Hines et al., 2000; Mynott, 2000; Ward, 2001; Tanaka, 2002). Although these publications have started discussion, this material is often partial or incomplete in its coverage. Thus, at present there is a lack of a coherent theoretical outline for a lean system for PLM. This paper is designed to be a first step in correcting this.\nRelation to existing theories and work: The academic literature concerning an understanding of the innovative behaviour in organizations is vast (Wolf, 1994) and the recent publications on Lean NPD mentioned in the introduction to this paper form a small subset. This narrower technical literature has a number of defining characteristics. It is applied in nature and contains significant contributions made by practitioners and consultants. It also concentrates on suggesting \"solutions\" to a number of problems that it establishes to be encountered commonly within the NPD process.The problems addressed by this literature form two groups. The first of these are concerned with development process effectiveness; the subsequent market success of the newly developed product. Specific problems within this group include lack of alignment of the product development strategy with the wider business strategic plan, unnecessary development activity, lack of understanding of customer requirements, and ultimately high new product failure rates. The second group of problems are concerned with the efficiency of the development process itself. These include the lack of a formal or standardised process, ineffective control of high volume development environments, poor internal communications and lack of common focus. They also include an inability to improve or learn from mistakes, and ultimately poor project deadline achievement and fiscal control. As a consequence of this problem-solution focus, the technical product development literature adopts as its major theme of study the identification of the best practices (traits) associated with alleviating these problems.Two distinct types of writing emerge from a critical review of this technical product development literature, which we refer to as the winners and losers and World Class Performance genres,, respectively, (Francis, 2005a). Whilst both consider the best practice traits referred to above, they each address a subtly different problem and emphasise different product development practices. The terms practice, trait and success factor are used interchangeably within this technical literature, and are said to refer to the \"... tools, techniques and methods ... that are most commonly associated with firms that are more successful in developing new products\" (Griffin, 1997, p. 429)Winners and losers research\nResearch approach: The research approach taken in this work has been based around theory development. This theoretical viewpoint has been reached by synthesising a range of primary industry cases, practical approaches and partial solutions available within the existing literature. The industry cases have been studied via a range of research approaches including direct observation, semi-structured interview and action based research (Hakim, 1987; Hartley, 1994). Each of these cases has helped to build our understanding but all are instrumental in their nature (Stake, 1998). Thus, this paper has not been designed directly to report on the cases but rather to use them to help understand what the firms are doing and then to collate this knowledge with other sources into a coherent systemic approach.\nTowards a theoretical framework: The theoretical model that has been developed is made up of six distinct stages which start with the development and understanding of customer (including internal strategic) needs and establishes a benchmark as-is current state map of how PLM is undertaken. The approach then outlines how a single project can be managed more effectively from both a technical and people-based perspective. The output of this is the development of an improved future state for managing individual product lifecycles or projects. However, in contrast to other approaches the outline goes on to extend to a full process multi-product environment and describes some of the key steps required for effective lean overall process management. Each of the six steps will be reviewed in the following section.Understanding customer needs\nConclusion: This paper has sought to develop a framework for Lean Product Development. This framework was judged to be required, as existing approaches to lean thinking in the product development area appeared to be partial or incomplete. In addition existing approaches discussed within the technical literature tended to be dominated by either marketing or quality/engineering perspectives. The new framework seeks to be more pluralist in its functional bias.The approach described here is also a tentative step in trying to overcome other weaknesses in the technical literature. Firstly, it is a contingent approach that can be used for both high innovation and low innovation environments and indeed outside of a manufacturing environment with service \"products\". Secondly, it takes a more realistic approach as it considers that most firms work within a multi-project environment. Thirdly, it pays specific attention to the human aspects of NPD and PLM. The next steps of our research approach are to test the framework approach in a number of different environments to ensure that it is robust as a framework for the development of competitive advantage.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to discuss a holistic framework for guiding applied research within the field of new product development. This work is a precursor to developing a framework for undertaking lean product lifecycle management (PLM).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research approach taken in this work has been based around theory development from a review and synthesis of a range of primary industry cases, practical approaches and partial solutions available within the existing literature.\nFindings: - The result is a six-step theoretical framework that can be used as a point of reference for academics discussing the development of systemic approaches to the subject, as well as those from industry searching for a framework for their new product development activity. At this point the framework as a whole has not been tested, although each of the various elements has been successfully applied in isolation. The implications of this paper are that the existing technical product development literature has a number of gaps and weaknesses. These include, but are not limited to: a propensity to be functionally myopic, tending to be mostly dominated by marketing or quality/engineering perspective; a lack of focus on the human aspects of product development and a lack of focus on real world environments that often involve a high volume of medium to low innovation products being developed simultaneously.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Owing to space limitations, we have not covered in detail the wider process of lean PLM which will be covered in future work\nOriginality/value: - The originality of this paper is not in its constituent framework elements but more in its synthesis of existing best practice from industry, consultancy and academia into a coherent framework for the achievement of effective lean PLM.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
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