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The networked firm: a framework for RBV	[ "Resources", "Social interaction", "Capital" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The resource-based view (RBV) of the firm posits that a firm's comparative advantage devolves from its ability to exploit the strategic resources under its control. This contrasts with the traditional structure-conduct-performance model of industrial organisation theory, which focuses on the external environment of the firm in order to explain its behaviour. RBV has found wide acceptance, particularly in the management literature, but it has also attracted criticism. Two criticisms which this paper seeks to address are the difficulty RBV has treating the interaction between resources and the lack of a theory of the growth of the firm in RBV. The paper does this by viewing a firm as a network of resources, with the entrepreneur or owner of the firm determining the shape of the network, and hence its capabilities, and capturing any synergy rents which might result from joining resources together in a network.Section 2 of this paper provides a brief review of the RBV literature. Section 3 outlines the idea of \"social capital\" from the social networks literature, which allows for a generalised treatment of the relationship between network connection and the output of a network. Section 4 outlines how notions of social capital might usefully be applied within the RBV literature. Section 5 concludes.\n2. The resource based view of the firm: Traditional industrial organisation theory is based upon the structure-conduct- performance (SCP) framework originally posited by Bain (1959) and later modified by Porter (1980) and his \"five forces\" model. In SCP, the main determinant of firm performance is market structure, which drives a firm's behaviour. There is little attempt to look within the black box of the firm and examine its internal operations to ascertain whether these might affect firm performance. SCP sits squarely within the neo-classical tradition, which posits that competition will lead to the discovery of the cost-minimising production technology that will be adopted by all surviving firms.RBV is an attempt to look inside the firm, and examine how its inputs might drive the outputs it can create. The seminal works are those of Wernerfelt (1984) and Barney (1991), who introduced and refined (respectively) the idea that some of the more strategic assets of the firm might drive the outputs it can create. The notion that a firm's inputs might drive its outputs is much older, as both authors acknowledge. There is a long tradition of attempting to ascertain how value is created: Aristotle addressed the issue, somewhat briefly and unsuccessfully, and his analysis was taken up by Thomas Aquinas and the Medieval Scholastics who sought to define the notion of a \"just price\" (see Schumpeter, 1954, for a survey of this historical literature). The French physiocrats, following a political more than an economic agenda, sought to establish land as the primary repository of value (see Blaug, 1978, for a brief analysis) and Marx (1867) suggested that labour drives the value of products. Ricardo (1817) presaged the core idea of RBV - i.e. that some assets are strategic - by noting that there were a small class of assets (mostly land) whose supply was limited. In the twentieth century, Chamberlin (1933) and Robinson (1933) discussed several key resources possessed by firms, such as know-how and brand name. Penrose (1959) examined the interaction between resources and their management in a hierarchy and began to look at a wider range of inputs with inelastic supply than Ricardo. Nelson and Winter (1982) developed a theory of evolutionary economics which models the way in which entrepreneurs initiate change in firm and industry structure. Rubin (1973) suggested that resources are inputs specialised to a firm whose value inside the firm is larger than their value outside it, and developed a model describing how a firm decides to hire new resources or make use of its existing stock. The transactions cost economics literature, beginning with Coase (1937) and continued by Williamson (1975) and others also has strong links with the ideas of RBV.RBV focuses on \"strategic\" resources. Wernerfelt (1984) coined the phrase, examining the role of strategic resources in raising barriers to entry, and Barney (1991) built upon Wernerfelt's ideas, codifying what made a resource strategic in a way which has since become germane to the literature. According to Barney, a strategic resource has four qualities:1. value - the resource can produce something which is valued by consumers;2. rarity - the resource must be limited in supply;3. inimitablity - the resource must be difficult for other firms to imitate; and4. non-substitutablity - the resource must have few close substitutes.The first two of these characteristics are essentially those that render a resource strategic, while the second two are those that perpetuate that strategic nature and enable firms to appropriate a sustained competitive advantage from them. A key focus of the RBV literature is the third characteristic, determining what it is that makes a resource inimitable. Much of this literature focuses on the \"intangible assets\" of a firm (first delineated as distinct from tangible assets by Itami and Roehl, 1987) as these are held to be less imitable than tangible assets. There are, according to Galbreath (2004), five sources of inimitability cited in the literature:1. causal ambiguity - it is not possible for outsiders to understand how the intangible assets have been built, nor how they contribute to value creation (Dierickx and Cool, 1989; Reed and DeFillippi, 1990);2. history - firms evolve via a path dependency which is hard to replicate;3. legal property rights - firms hold patents and other assets which cannot legally be imitated;4. social complexity - firms are social organisations and the informal social interactions which occur between resources in a firm are hard to replicate without detailed insider knowledge (Nelson and Winter, 1982; Barney, 1986); and5. time compression diseconomies - it takes time to learn firm knowledge through experience or to train workers in a skill, which can confer competitive advantages - Wernerfelt (1984) refers to this as the \"experience curve\".Since its inception more than 20 years ago, RBV has branched into a number of different fields. The core competency field (Prahalad and Hamel, 1990) examines the firm in terms of its collective learning and the ways in which it does its tasks rather than the tasks it performs. The capabilities literature began in the 1980s with a focus on R&D strategies, and moved to dynamic capabilities during the 1990s. Teece and Pisano (1994) suggest that strategic advantage is delivered not by that which allows a firm to operate well in its own environment, but by that which allows a firm to create new products and processes in response to environmental change. The knowledge-based theory of the firm examines the firm from the perspective of its abilities as a knowledge manager (Grant, 1996). Taking inspiration also from the transactions cost economics literature, it posits that the main comparative advantage a firm has over the market is its ability to manage and coordinate knowledge amongst its resources.Other authors have sought to place RBV within the context of other theoretical paradigms. Thompson and Lockett (2001) examine ties between RBV and economics, noting particularly the ties between RBV and transactions cost economics. Lewin and Phelan (1999) explore the links between RBV and economics, and Mathews (2002) focuses on the links between RBV and Schumpeterian economics, noting that the \"creative gales of destruction\" which Schumpeter suggests are central to capitalism are very similar in character to resource recombinations seen in the RBV literature. He also notes that the disequilibrium framework of the resource economy is more similar to Schumpeterian economics (as is the role of the entrepreneur as resource manager) than it is to the equilibrium framework of neoclassical economics.Whilst RBV has attracted adherents, it has also attracted considerable criticism, including an accusation of vagueness (Nanda, 1996; Hax and Wilde, 2001; Bontis, 1998). Barney's categorisation of what makes a resource strategic leaves open a wide range of possibilities without a rigorous framework within which to judge taxonomies. It is also accused of being tautological. Porter (1991) comments that RBV can be circular because it posits that a successful firm owes its success to its unique resources and that one can see which resources are unique because they are utilised by successful firms. Tautology means that the central tenets of RBV may be difficult to verify, debilitating its applicability as a tool of scientific analysis. Foss (1998) criticises RBV for not having a theory of how firms grow, and in particular of how strategic resources drive growth. A final criticism is that RBV, by focussing on the single resource as the unit of analysis, misses interaction between resources (Foss, 1998). It may be that interaction between resources, rather than some intrinsic property of individual resources themselves, is a more useful focus of analysis for those seeking to understand the strategic aspects of firm construction. Dierickx and Cool (1989), Black and Boal (1994) and Amit and Schoemaker (1993) represent three papers which have examined the issue of resource interaction.\n3. Networks and social capital: The way in which groups are connected and networks form is an area of growing interest (see Barabasi, 2002, or Demange and Wooders, 2005, for interdisciplinary surveys of this literature). One area in which the study of networks is particularly advanced is that of mathematical sociology and the study of social networks. Wasserman and Faust (1999) provide a textbook treatment of this field and a comprehensive review of the literature. The social network literature focuses on inter-relationships between actors and most particularly the ties between actors within a network framework and how the patterns of such ties contribute to outcomes.There are many aspects of the social networks literature which could find application in the study of the internal workings of the firm, but for the purposes of this paper, the idea of \"social capital\" seems a useful tool. In economics, social capital has a macro-focus; on aspects of societies which are cannot be traded in markets but which nevertheless make a crucial contribution to the operations of a market economy. Bjornskov (2006) provides a recent review of this \"macro\" literature, which tends not to measure social capital directly, but rather to infer it through the presence or absence of indicators such as membership of associations, bribe taking, corporate governance, schooling, ethnic composition and diversity, political ideology and democracy.In the social networks literature, social capital refers to aspects of individual networks. Coleman (1988) defines social capital as the \"something extra\" in a network which allows the actors in the network, when working together, to create a whole which is greater than the sum of their individual contributions; in essence, social capital is a measure of the synergies or superadditivity networks can create.It is useful to define social capital with reference to networks because it can then be quantified directly. Jackson and Wolinski (1996) examine the issue of network value from the perspective of individual participants; suggesting that networks links are formed because of the (nett - after the costs of link formation) utility which network participants (nodes) gain by the formation of a network and thus that the value of the network is the sum of these utilities. Hornby and Wills-Johnson (2004) offer a different approach, positing that network participants bring private information to a network, which they then share along the network pathways, resulting in a change in the \"information space\" which the network occupies and thus a superadditivity in the network which is its social capital. This superadditivity can be measured directly via a relatively simple measure based on the determinant of the adjacency matrix which describes the network[1]. Whilst the two approaches have a different genesis, if utility is gained by the sharing information, then conceptually they are very similar.A key issue pertaining to networks is how they grow and whether growth can be predicted. There is a growing body of research within the game theory literature attempting to ascertain whether and how a network might be expected to grow and when one might expect a network to stabilise. Dorien (2006) and Goyal and Joshi (2003) provide two approaches. Demange and Wooders (2005) provide a comprehensive literature review. Hornby and Wills-Johnson (2004) posit that network growth is the result of the tension between the interests of the group as a whole to increase its value and the interests of individuals within the group to maximise their share of the outputs of the network. The degree to which individuals can \"veto\" network decisions is dependent upon the power of an individual in the group, which the social networks concept of \"centrality\" (for three different treatments, see Bonacich, 1972; Freeman, 1979; Stephenson and Zelen, 1989) can be used to calculate.\n4. Social capital and networks as a framework for RBV: The idea that a firm is a network is an attractive one for the study of firm behaviour within the context of the RBV, for it provides a framework (outlined above) within which one might analyse the interactions between strategic assets in the firm and how these interactions might drive the growth of the firm. In particular, there would appear to be two ways in which the notion of social capital might be useful for the RBV:1. the formalisation of the notion of intangible assets; and2. the provision of a theoretical framework to examine the growth of firms.4.1 Explaining intangible assets\n5. Conclusions: The RBV, although very popular, has been subject to criticism in the literature. This paper addresses two criticisms:1. the nature of intangible assets; and2. the way in which RBV deals with the growth of firms.It suggests that thinking about the firm as a network of strategic assets, with the owner of the firm appropriating synergy rents from that network, might be a useful way in which to address these criticisms. The social networks literature, and in particular the notion of social capital, presents a potential way in which to structure this thinking. The approaches outlined in this paper have yet to be fully formalised into a robust theory of the firm, and they still leave some questions pertaining to RBV unanswered, but they do suggest a potentially useful and fruitful avenue of future analysis.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to examine a potential approach to introduce a topology to the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm to address the issue of the formation of intangible assets and predictions of the growth of the firm by RBV, both issues that have been identified in the literature as shortcomings of the RBV approach.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper is a conceptual paper. It provides a brief review of and introduces concepts from the social networks literature, suggesting ways in which viewing the firm as a connected network of resources might usefully augment RBV theory.\nFindings: - Viewing the firm as a network is a potentially powerful tool for analysing the notion of intangible assets in the RBV and for providing a theory of the growth of the firm.\nOriginality/value: - The paper provides a useful framework for further work in the RBV field to assist in understanding what makes assets strategic and how firms grow through the accumulation of strategic assets, and highlights possibilities for cross-fertilisation between the social networks and RBV literature.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Introduction to the special issue on employment discrimination against immigrants	[ "Discrimination in employment", "Immigrants", "Prejudice", "Ethnic conflict", "Gender" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Immigrants are people who move to a country other than their country of birth and live in the new country long-term. A common definition of immigrants refers to immigrants as people who are foreign-born, but have the right to reside in their host country irrespective of whether they have or do not have host country citizenship. The OECD, for example, uses this definition and reports that in 2006 foreign born employees made up 24.9 percent of the Australian labor force, 21.2 percent of the Canadian labor force, 15.6 percent of the US American labor force, and 11 percent of the UK labor force (OECD, 2009). Across Western nations, the immigrant proportion of the labor force has steadily increased and is expected to continue to do so. For example, in Canada, by 2011, projection of the entire labor force growth will be made up by immigrants (Government of Canada, 2004). These figures alone suggest that immigrant employees deserve the attention of organizational scholars, but to date they have been an under-studied group (Jonsen et al., in press). Recent reviews of the literature on employment discrimination (Dipboye and Colella, 2005; Goldman et al., 2006) did not refer to immigrants.\nResearch on employment discrimination against immigrants: All immigrants are alike and, more importantly, they are not\nThe articles in the special issue: Five articles make up the current special issue. In the first article, Hosada and Stone-Romero report a study on the effects of accents in the workplace in a US sample. Accents, a common marker of immigrants, refer to the pronunciation of language. In most cases, they are not a matter of language proficiency, and they do not constitute an entirely different language. Nonetheless, immigrants can and often do experience differential treatment in part because of their accents as shown by Hosada and Stone-Romero. The authors acknowledged that their findings might have been a function of accent or applicant name (applicants with a Japanese accent had a Japanese name). This natural confound illustrates a basic dilemma of immigrant research. As mentioned earlier, immigrants do not only differ from citizens in their residential status, but they also have a different background on many dimensions including education, work experience, and mother tongue. An experimental purist will be disenchanted by the threat to internal validity posed by natural confounds. An alternate position is that Hosada and Stone-Romero's research allows inferences about combinations of properties (Japanese accent and Japanese name) in comparison to other combinations of properties (e.g. Anglo-American name and Anglo-American accent), and that these are the inferences that matter for understanding the phenomenon as it occurs in real world. I see the value of both positions, in particular, when studying immigrant-related issues, as long as researchers are clear about their motives and choices regarding natural confounds.The second study by Avery, Tonidandel, Volpone, and Raghuram points to differences between immigrant employees and local employees in how justice perceptions affect the interpretation of work. In a US sample, immigrants, but not local employees, tended to react less negatively to work overload, when they felt fairly treated in the work, suggesting, as Avery et al. noted, higher sensitivity of immigrants to managerial signals of courtesy and respect. It seems plausible that differences between immigrant employees and local employees in their expectations about how they would be treated at work might have contributed to Avery et al.'s findings. Most immigrants have out-group status that is likely associated with low expectations for fair treatment at work. Certainly, understanding the expectations of immigrants for work and their impact on work-related outcomes constitutes a fruitful avenue for future research. Banerjee (2008), for example, argued that higher expectations for equitable treatment might explain increasing perceptions of discrimination among longer-term immigrants relative to recent immigrants.The third study by Baltes and Rudolph examines the effects of negative stereotypes about Turkish managers on workplace outcomes in a German sample. Recent research on prejudice and stereotypes in the workplace (e.g. Brief et al., 2000; Petersen and Dietz, 2005) has emphasized that they may lead to discriminatory behaviour only in specific organizational contexts (i.e. in which discriminatory behaviour can be attributed to non-prejudicial reasons). Baltes and Rudolph, however, identified an alternate procedure to document manifestations of stereotypes in the workplace: Researchers have to be very specific in gauging stereotypes by, for example, measuring stereotypes about Turkish managers rather than about Turkish people. Then, they can show direct effects of these stereotypes on discriminatory behaviour against immigrant applicants, at least when these applicants are qualified. This latter boundary condition, in fact, is interesting and should motivate additional research. Are qualified immigrant applicants more affected by stereotypes than non-qualified applicants because (a) the latter do not pose a threat to qualified local applicants (a motivational argument), or (b) their low qualifications lead evaluators not to pay attention to them (a more cognitive argument)?The fouth study by Hakak, Holzinger, and Zilic was conducted in a sample of Hispanic graduates of Canadian MBA programs. Hakak et al. found that being an immigrant \"can act both as a disadvantage ... and as an advantage\" in work settings. This is an important contribution to understanding the treatment of immigrant employees. In my own work, I (and many of my colleagues) have often focused solely on negative outcomes for immigrants and other minority groups. Such a focus is justified because data at multiple levels (individual perceptions of discrimination, economic data such as salaries and unemployment rates) clearly demonstrate that immigrant employees do experience worse outcomes than do local outcomes. Yet, immigrants' skills and experiences can be a resource for success. Clearly, Hakak et al.'s work illustrates that there certainly is a dark side, but that they also can be a bright side to being an immigrant employee. Students of employment discrimination learn from Hakak et al. that they could (and maybe should be) positive organizational scholars who examine positive outcomes for immigrant employees and strategies for achieving these outcomes.Finally, the paper by Bell, Kwesiga and Berry brings us back to the dark side of employment discrimination against immigrants. In their critical piece, they discuss immigrants as the new \"invisible men and women\" in diversity research. They focus on low-skilled Hispanic immigrants in the US, who arguably have been ignored by scholars of diversity and inclusion. Noticeably, even in this special issue, there is a greater emphasis on highly skilled immigrants. Why? Are students of diversity research also \"servants of power\" (Baritz, 1960; Brief, 2000) who study skilled employees because they contribute more to the bottom-line? Do students of diversity avoid contact or lack access to possibly undocumented and illegal immigrants? Whatever the reason, just like the piece by Hakak et al. does, the paper by Bell et al. reminds scholars that they must be able to take multiple perspectives to explore and understand the complex phenomena of discrimination against immigrants.In summary, the aim of this special issue was to draw attention to research on employment discrimination against immigrants. I hope that this special issue in the Journal of Managerial Psychology was successful in this regard. Immigrant employees compose sizable proportions of the labour forces of many Western nations, and yet organizational scholars have previously neglected to study them. It was also important to me to document the diversity in perspectives that scholars of diversity-related issues must bring to their work. This diversity refers to both the researchers and their approaches themselves (e.g. quantitative and qualitative methodologies; positivist, constructivist, critical paradigms) and their view of the phenomenon. This diversity in perspectives, be it the recognition that being an immigrant can be a disadvantage or an advantage in the workplace, the understanding that the immigrant experience in the workplace has many facets, the recognition that multiple perspectives inform research on the treatment of immigrants in the workplace, and, of course, the recognition that not all immigrants are alike, is critical to advancing knowledge about immigrant employment and informing immigrant employees and their employers. I thank the editor of the Journal of Managerial Psychology Dianna Stone for inviting this special issue and for supporting me throughout this effort, the managing editor Kay Sutcliffe for her diligence and patience, the authors for submitting their work, and the many anonymous reviewers for their valuable input into the editorial process.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This editorial aims to introduce the special issue on employment discrimination against immigrants.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The first part is a commentary on key issues in the study of employment discrimination against immigrants. The second part presents the five articles in the special issue.\nFindings: - The papers in this special issue focus on a variety of issues associated with employment discrimination against immigrants. For example, they consider: discrimination based on accents; differences among justice perceptions among immigrants and non-immigrants; the effects of negative stereotypes on workplace outcomes; the treatment of Hispanic immigrants; and the reasons for the lack of research on Hispanic immigrants.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The author comments on key issues that researchers of employment discrimination against immigrants have to take into account. These issues include: the appreciation of the diversity among immigrants; an understanding of the complexity of employment discrimination research; openness to cross-disciplinary approaches; and the consideration of employment discrimination within the context of the immigrant experience. The five articles that make up the special issues vary in their nature (empirical, critical), methodologies (quantitative, qualitative), locations (United States, Germany, and Canada), and implications.\nPractical implications: - The issues discussed in the papers have important implications for understanding and overcoming employment discrimination against immigrants.\nOriginality/value: - The Journal of Managerial Psychology invited this special issue to initiate psychological research on employment discrimination against immigrants. The intent is to draw the attention of organizational scholars to the large, yet under-studied immigrant segment of the workforce.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Improving transfer of training with transfer design: Does supervisor support moderate the relationship?	[ "Training", "Moderation", "Transfer of training", "Supervisor support", "Transfer design" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Training is defined to be \"a planned and systematic effort to modify or develop knowledge, skills and attitudes (KSAs) through learning experiences to achieve effective performance in an activity or a range of activities\" (Garavan, 1997, p. 41). Effective training and learning and development opportunities have been established to lead to several work-related outcomes in past studies, such as enhanced retention of employees (Arnold, 2005; Herman, 2005; Govaerts et al., 2011). Transfer of training occurs after a training programme is completed (Goldstein and Ford, 2007) and is considered to have paramount significance in determining effectiveness of training and education programmes (Kasim and Ali, 2011). Several researchers (Colquitt et al., 2000; Kontoghiorghes, 2004) have posited that training transfer leads to better employee performance, e.g. service quality (Zumrah, 2015). Training transfer is also an issue of concern for researchers and practitioners alike because transfer often meets with high failure rates (Anthony and Norton, 1991; Garavaglia, 1993), and consequently training investments do not give satisfactory results (Burke and Hutchins, 2007). In fact, training transfer is a challenge to organizations that invest in training their workforce (Chiaburu et al., 2010).\nRationale for selection of variables: The decision to focus on training design and work environment rests primarily on the wide popularity of variables under these categories in academic research and also because both the constructs can be easily controlled and manipulated by an organization to enhance transfer of training. Further, training transfer is posited to be a complex and systemic issue that features several variables (Ford et al., 1997 as cited by May, 1998). Hence, instead of evaluating individual relationships among the variables, researchers emphasize on dealing with transfer from a systemic perspective (Nijman et al., 2006).\nLiterature review and hypotheses development: Transfer of training\nResearch design: Organizational context\nAnalysis and results: Measurement model\nFindings and discussion: This study aims at examining the possibility of moderation by supervisor support in the linkage of transfer design with transfer of training. Analysis of data has concluded in the following points. First, we have hypothesized and evidenced impact of transfer design on transfer of training, which is in consonance with extant literature (Holton, 2005; Velada et al., 2007; Bhatti et al., 2014) that has already established the significance of transfer design in enhancing application of learned skills. Outcomes of our study emphasize the instrumental role of transfer design in training transfer. This may be translated as: if a trainee has confidence in the trainer and the latter uses examples during any training programme to demonstrate how the trainee could use learned knowledge at workplace, then chances of transfer would be escalated. We agree with Velada et al. (2007), who opine that:\nResearch contribution: Training methods and means as a part of planning of any training programme are considered as important factors that determine success of the programme (Nikandrou et al., 2009). Motivation to include transfer design in this research has been drawn from the comprehension that despite its significance in enhancing training transfer (Velada et al., 2007; Bhatti and Kaur, 2010; Kirwan and Birchall, 2006), transfer design as a construct has been under-reported in training literature. Previous studies have tested the impact of transfer design via individual/trainee factors like self-efficacy (Kirwan and Birchall, 2006) and transfer motivation (Bhatti and Kaur, 2010). Our study thus adds to existing research on transfer by focusing on how transfer design influences transfer in combination with supervisor support. So far the moderating role of supervisor support in training transfer has not been studied much. Recently, Homklin et al. (2014) have investigated whether supervisor support acts as a moderator in the mechanism by which learning influences transfer of training among employees working in the automotive industry in Thailand. Richman-Hirsch (2001) has similarly examined whether supportive work environment affects self-management training and goal setting; both had greater effect in a work environment that is supportive.\nManagerial implications of the study: Our study findings have several implications for human resource practices and procedures. First, the finding in context of direct (or, non-moderated) impact of transfer design on training transfer is especially relevant because transfer design focuses on design of learning activities which have a direct impact on transfer. Organizations should identify hindrances in the process of transfer through feedbacks and surveys. Training designers, while designing training programmes, should try to involve trainees in activities and exercises which would ensure application of principles and methods, and should include practice session(s) after every theoretical session.\nStudy limitations and avenues for future research: Although this study has evidenced supervisor support as a moderator between transfer design and transfer of training, its findings should be considered against the background of limitations related with our research. A notable shortcoming of this study is that, the data used pertain to a single case, i.e. employees of a single manufacturing unit. However, the case unit under consideration being quite large (with a workforce size of nearly, 1,000), and working conditions at this unit being similar to other organizations in manufacturing industry in India, generalization of results does not seem to be a major issue. Nevertheless, we welcome similar research in on training transfer in multiple units of organization and in other industries to check the validity of our results. The other two limitations of our study are that, data have been collected only at one point in time, and also that this study is based on self-reports of employees for all the constructs, which might cause possibility of common method variance. In lines with Chiaburu et al. (2010), it is suggested to adopt a longitudinal research design to obtain causal inferences. Though it is often posited (Chiaburu et al., 2010) that observers might not report training transfer more accurately than trainees themselves, the possibility of single source bias can still not be ruled out in this study.\nConclusions: Past literature bears numerous academic evidences on how transfer design and supervisor support each as an independent variable influences transfer of training; but not much can be conclusively said about how supervisor support interacts with transfer design in the transfer mechanism. This study enhances comprehension of the relationship between transfer design, supervisor support and transfer of training, especially in Indian context. Our findings crystallize supervisor support as a moderator, and hence our research poses as the first study to explore this new relationship with transfer of training. HRD practitioners and organizations should therefore focus on supervisor support to augment the influence of transfer design on training transfer.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: In response to a perceived need for research investigating the relatively less-explored role of supervisor support as a moderator in the transfer mechanism, this paper aims to empirically examine the influence of transfer design on transfer of training and also the moderating role of supervisor support between these constructs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A survey was conducted using a self-reported questionnaire administered on employees of a manufacturing unit engaged in power transmission and located at the city of Allahabad in India. The sample size of the study is 149. The role of supervisor support as a moderator was tested using hierarchical regression analysis.\nFindings: Findings of the study direct organizations to consider both transfer design and supervisor support to get the maximum output from training. The moderating role of supervisor support is confirmed in the study.\nPractical implications: If a trainer is not able to provide much practice to the trainee during training programme, then a supportive supervisor can counter such poor transfer design. A well-designed training programme should be coupled with supervisor support to ensure effective transfer of training. Influence of transfer design on transfer of training is likely to be more if the supervisor is supportive.\nOriginality/value: The authors have hypothesized and established the direct influence of transfer design on training transfer. Further, supervisor support has been found to moderate the relationship between transfer design and transfer of training.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
An activity-based costing approach for detecting inefficiencies of healthcare processes	[ "Case studies", "Healthcare", "Activity-based costing", "Business process reengineering" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The achievement of relevant and accurate cost information to ground the decisions concerning strategy, pricing and management is a fundamental issue for policy makers who face hospital financing and reimbursement problems, for hospital administrators who pursue internal cost management purposes, and for health policy scholars (Cardinaels et al., 2004; Gil and Hartmann, 2007; Eldenburg and Krishan, 1997; Pettersen, 2001; Hovenga, 1996). This premise implies the critical role of the design and implementation of cost accounting systems in healthcare organizations.\n2. Background: The relevance of ABC for healthcare organizations is well highlighted in the literature stream of process reengineering. Snyder et al. (2005) outline that health system should be oriented to promote continuous improvements, using effectively the information in order to monitor costs and quality of care.\n3. A methodological framework to compute the cost of a DTP: 3.1. Theoretical assumptions\n4. The case study: 4.1. Context description\n5. Results: The results of this study show how the cost of a DTP and of its activities can be used to efficiently manage the DTP itself. Furthermore, it identifies the main barriers and advantages presented by the application of an ABC methodology.\n6. Conclusions: The aim of this paper is to present a methodological framework to apply the ABC technique in healthcare organizations provided with a pre-existent accounting system based on cost centres. The proposed ABC methodology allows computing the minimum cost of a DTP.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to set out a methodological framework to investigate how the integration of an activity-based costing (ABC) logic into the pre-existent accounting system supports healthcare organizations in identifying the inefficiencies related to their diagnostic therapeutic pathways (DTP) and related reengineering interventions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The BPM-ABC methodological framework has been applied to the case of a specific surgery pathway, at the Orthopaedic Division of a University Hospital in Italy.\nFindings: The case-study described in the paper points out: first, how the Business Process Management (BPM)-ABC methodology is able to produce significant information about consumed resources and the costs of the activities, useful to highlight opportunities for DTPs improvement; second, the barriers related to a pre-existing accounting system based on cost centres that can hinder the implementation of the BPM-ABC model.\nPractical implications: The case study points out the role of the ABC as a management tool for supporting decision-making processes. The ABC allows inferring information for two purposes. First, ABC supports a cost containment process as it allows highlighting the most cost-consuming activities and resources. Second, the ABC allows identifying reengineering paths, distinguishing between incremental and radical ones.\nOriginality/value: This study represents a remarkable reference raising the awareness of the pivotal role accounting systems play in the management of the organizational processes.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Accuracy of nutrition labels of pre-packaged foods in Malaysia	[ "Malaysia", "Compliance", "Accuracy", "Nutrition label", "Tolerance limits" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A nutrition label is a panel found on food packaging which contains a variety of information on the nutrition value of the food item. There are many pieces of information which are standard on most food labels, including serving size, number of calories, grams of fat, including nutrient and list of ingredients. This information helps people who are trying to restrict their intake of fat, sugar, sodium and other ingredients, or for those individuals who are trying to optimize their intake of healthy nutrients such as calcium or vitamin C. The label provides each item with its approximate percentage of daily value, generally based on 2,000 of calories. Therefore, nutrition label is acting as a conduit to convey information related to the content of prepackaged food from food manufacturers to consumers.\nMaterials and methods: Prepackaged foods are stratified into eight categories. Five are food which require mandatory nutrition labels as stated in the Food Act 1983 and Regulations 1983 (Malaysia), namely prepared cereal food and bread; flour confection; milk products; canned meat, fish and vegetable; and, canned fruits and various fruit juices. The other three categories are snacks and other indulgence food; coffee, tea and other hot beverages; and lastly jam, kaya and other spreads. There are a total of 300 samples (triplicate samples for same products) from the eight categories of prepackaged food bought randomly from hypermarkets, supermarkets and mini markets in the Klang Valley areas in Malaysia during March to August 2015. All samples bought are ready-to-eat, ready-to-drink, non-perishable and convenient preparation (only pour hot water prior to consumption).\nResults: A total of 1,200 analytical results were recorded for moisture, ash, fat and protein including triplicate results. Conversely, 200 calculated results were obtained for total energy and total carbohydrate.\nDiscussion: Reasons that caused non-compliance\nConclusion: When comparing the compliance with the tolerance limits in the Food Act 1983 and Regulations, the tolerance limit stated in the Food Act 1983 is one-way approach comparison, whereby the declared nutrient values on pre-packaged food for energy, fat and carbohydrate must be 120 per cent to comply with and 80 per cent for protein for compliance. A total of 100 samples with 3 replicates of each sample were analysed on the core nutrients (energy, protein, fat and carbohydrate). The number of compliance for the products was 66 per cent when compared with tolerance limits of the Food Act 1983 and Regulation, Schedule 18C.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the prepackaged foods in Malaysia are able to provide credible nutrition labels for consumers and how many prepackaged foods do not comply with the tolerance limits, regardless of whether the products are sold in Malaysia or exported to overseas even though there are no standardization of tolerance limits.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The present study consists of 300 samples (triplicate samples for each product) of core nutrients (energy, fat, carbohydrate and protein), which have been stratified into eight categories, were analysed and the analytical values were compared with the declared values. Compliance of products were obtained through the comparison with different guidelines.\nFindings: About 34 per cent of analysed products did not comply with the tolerance limit according to the Food Act 1983, Malaysia (one way approach tolerance limit). Then, 73 per cent of products failed to comply with the tolerance leeway +-20 per cent (two-way approach) and 56 per cent of products did not comply with the tolerance limits set in the Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services.\nResearch limitations/implications: Many researches have proved that consumers used nutrition label as a tool to improve their healthy lifestyles. The misleading of nutrition label will elicit detrimental effect to consumers especially who always rely on the nutrition label before purchasing. Hence, credibility of nutrition label is imperative. However, this research only focussed on four major core nutrients. Nutrients such as trans-fat and sodium have proved that are detrimental to human's health are not covered in the study.\nPractical implications: First, this research could directly reflect the credibility of nutrition label in the market. The government of the country should improve the surveillance activity on nutrition label. Meantime, free trade activities especially on food industries are active now; an accurate nutrition label is the first key to success in the business. This research can inject awareness to food producers who incline to do global free trade business shall always assure the accuracy of the nutrition label no matter the tolerance or guidelines are different among the countries.\nOriginality/value: There are many research about improvement in consumers' awareness towards nutrition label but very little research conducted on the accuracy of nutrition label. The main purpose of those research is to improve public health awareness but this may become insignificant if the values of nutrition label are inaccurate. Then, the asymmetric of tolerance limits would trigger awareness from policy makers or food manufacturers to be more responsible in providing credible nutrition label. At the end, consumers are protected from inaccurate nutrition labels and a healthy nation can be sustained.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Effective internal environment-related communication: An employee perspective	[ "Corporate social responsibility", "Communication", "Employees", "Environmental management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the past few decades, companies have become increasingly concerned with corporate social responsibility (CSR). At the same time, researchers and businesses have shifted to viewing CSR from a stakeholder perspective (Jamali, 2008; O'Riordan and Fairbrass, 2008; Pater and van Lierop, 2006; Pedersen, 2006). A central aspect in managing CSR and stakeholder relationships in organizations is communication (Ligeti and Oravecz, 2009), but studies reveal that communication is often not treated as a central link in the practice of corporate responsibility (Dawkins, 2005; Juholin, 2004; Clark, 2000). A similarly forgotten core link in CSR is one of the key stakeholder groups: employees. Employees are critically important because other stakeholders see them as a credible information source, and they can, therefore, be useful for enhancing a company's reputation (Dawkins, 2005). Nevertheless, employees are not always involved in decision making, and are often just sent one-way messages about decisions made elsewhere in the organization (Ligeti and Oravecz, 2009). In doing so, companies fail to utilize the full potential of employees as active CSR communicators (Kuvaja and Malmelin, 2008; Dawkins, 2005).At the same time, that the importance of employees as stakeholders has been recognized, the natural environment has become a potential salient stakeholder (Norton, 2007; Driscoll and Starik, 2004) as, e.g. climate change has become increasingly topical. This makes it impossible for organizations to avoid considering the environmental aspects of their operations. Given that employees are a key group in implementing CSR initiatives in practice (Collier and Esteban, 2007), it is important to examine the role of employees not only as communicators, but also as producers and users of environmental knowledge in organizations. To increase our understanding of the role of employees, this paper presents findings from interviews that were conducted within a company. By examining employee viewpoints on internal environmental communication, and how and why they incorporate (or fail to incorporate) organizational environmental strategies into their work, this study benefits the field of CSR and communication research in two main ways: first, it gives more insight into the role of employees in the environmental aspect of CSR and second, it analyzes the role of internal communication in environment-related knowledge generation and use.The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Relevant literature on CSR communication is reviewed next to build the theoretical framework for this study. This is followed by a presentation of the interview method and data and a discussion of the main findings. The paper is then concluded together with suggestions for further research.\nCSR communication: Recently, research on CSR-related topics has proliferated, and an increasing number of studies have focused on CSR communication. In this section, relevant research is discussed to point out why it is important to extend these studies to employees and internal communication to gain more insight into how all employees can be engaged in an organization's environment-related activities.CSR communication studies\nMethod and data: KONE case company\nFindings: The analysis focused on three main issues: the interviewees' ability to link the company's environmental policy to their own jobs, employee views on the content and channel of environmental communications, and employee views on potential barriers to communication and action in environmental issues.Ability to link environmental policy to one's own work\nConclusions and discussion: As industrial companies face increasingly stringent environmental regulation with the advent of large, supranational initiatives such as the European Union climate package, it is becoming more crucial for corporations to strive for greener operations. In addition, in times of fierce global competition, it is important for companies wanting to use environmental responsibility as a competitive advantage to engage all employees in environmental work. This study has aimed to gain more insight into the role of employees as participants in an organization's environmental activities. Specifically, it set out to understand how well employees know their organization's environmental policy/strategy, if they get to participate in the policy-making process, and whether they see the policy as meaningful in their jobs. The study also aimed to understand employee viewpoints on how environmental messages should be communicated for them to be effective, as well as potential barriers that employees feel might hinder internal environmental activity. Researching employee viewpoints is important, because as Heiskanen and Mantyla (2004) claim, real practices in organizations often fall short of the recommendations made in literature concerning the involvement of employees in environmental initiatives.In the case organization, it seems that communication about the organization's environmental policy has reached employees well through what the majority of the interviewees saw as asymmetric two-way communication. The company thus seems to use a stakeholder response strategy (Morsing and Schultz, 2006) in communicating environmental issues, as is typical in Finnish organizations (Juholin, 2004). In other words, the voice of employees is heard and the employees feel that their suggestions are taken seriously. They do not, however, with the exception of people whose jobs include making improvement suggestions, to a great extent get to participate in the sensemaking and sensegiving processes. It is, of course, important to keep in mind that all employees might not even be motivated to participate in stakeholder dialogue concerning environmental issues, especially if they do not feel these issues are important for them personally. Regardless of which communication strategy a company uses, however, the reality is that many environmental actions are related to cost savings. Therefore, companies would benefit from motivating their employees to consider the environment in their work.To engage all employees in environmental work, the findings of this study point to an important overall barrier to environmental action as well as three potentially important considerations with regard to internal communication. The former, an overall barrier, is that environmental issues do not seem to be a priority to many employees. Rather, these issues are easily pushed aside when people are \"too busy\" or when \"time is money.\" The latter, important considerations in internal communication, include three issues. First, in line with previous studies (Welch and Jackson, 2007; Barrett, 2002), the results stress the importance of tailoring environmental messages to different employee groups based on what is relevant to them in their jobs. Specifically, it would be important for production-driven organizations to clearly communicate what different types of workers can do for the environment. Second, environmental messages might best encourage employees to take environmental action if the messages are clear, practical, and easy to implement. The interviews indicate that employees might be positively oriented towards environmental action only if it does not require too much effort from them. Emphasizing cost-savings and optimization might best motivate employees to consider the environmental impact of their work at least in an organization like KONE, where the corporate culture is engineering-driven. Concerning this finding, however, it would be important to study companies based in other countries and different types of organizations to understand what kinds of motivational factors best work in other contexts. Finally, to utilize environmentally active employees as internal communicators to promote environmental activity throughout the organization, it might be useful to assign contact persons to each department who everyone could then approach with environmental initiatives. This might help in overcoming the problem that people at least in the Finnish, individualistic culture feel that there is a communication barrier to approaching colleagues directly with suggestions for two reasons: first, unwillingness to interfere with others' action for fear of insulting them, and second, strong willingness to be seen as \"normal,\" i.e. to not stand out as a \"green hippy.\" This theme emerged very strongly from the data, pointing to the fact that it might be an important consideration also more widely. The study also points to the importance of encouraging managers to collect suggestions and discuss environmental issues in formal and informal meetings to provide a venue for employees to bring up environmental suggestions without the need to tell them directly to their colleagues.This study has explored environment-related communication in one multinational company that has actively strived to become green throughout the organization, and that has during the period of over one year purposefully approached internal environment-related communication from a strategic communication perspective. To gain more insight into employee views on effective environmental communication and how employees see organizations' environmental strategies, it would be important to conduct similar studies in other companies that function in different fields, that have different levels of environmental activity, and that might not have integrated CSR issues into strategic communication planning. As a recent study by Nielsen and Thomsen (2009a) points out, it can well be that CSR issues are not always seen as sources for competitive advantage, and they might be isolated from strategic communication planning. This might influence employee views, and studying different types of organizations would provide an opportunity to investigate whether the findings discussed above would also be relevant in other types of organizations. In addition, it would be very interesting to conduct cross-cultural interview studies that focus on understanding why people from certain countries feel and act in a certain way. In particular, it would be interesting to contrast Western nations with developing nations such as China or India. Focusing on these areas would also address the lack of research regarding environmental responsibility in poorer countries (Egri and Ralston, 2008). For multinational companies, this kind of cross-cultural understanding would be important in designing global and local communication strategies.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The paper aims to understand what kinds of internal messages concerning a company's environment-related corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities would be most effective in engaging employees in implementing an organization's environmental strategy. Furthermore, the paper explores how environmentally active employees could be utilized as internal communicators to spread environmental activity internally.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper reports on findings from interviews (n=12) conducted within a multinational case company that has recently adopted an active approach to communicating its environmental policy internally.\nFindings: - Employees whose work does not have a clear environmental impact can find corporate environmental policies distant, and would rather see simple, practical messages about what they can do for the environment in their jobs. Furthermore, employees might ignore environmental considerations if they are too busy at work. To encourage environmentally active employees to share their ideas, it might be useful to assign clear environmental contact persons to each department, because employees may be unwilling to approach colleagues directly with environment-related suggestions.\nPractical implications: - At a time when most companies are striving to be greener, the findings help organizations understand how they can communicate effectively to encourage all employees to consider the environment in their jobs. In addition, the results point to how organizations can better utilize environmentally active employees for internal promotion of environmental strategies.\nOriginality/value: - The paper extends research on CSR communication to consider internal communication within an organization. In addition, it adopts the perspective of employees to bring new insight into their role in CSR-related activities.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Intellectual capital in tangible intensive firms: the case of Brazilian real estate companies	[ "Intellectual capital", "VAIC", "Real estate", "Real estate firms", "Tangible intensive firms" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A variety of models have been designed to evaluate intellectual capital (IC) and its components in knowledge-based firms, especially in intangible intensive corporations such as pharmaceuticals and IT firms. However, firms using intensive capital to create value have had few approaches in the IC community.\nWhy study IC in RE?: Ever since the 1960s, the RE sector in Brazil has represented more than 10 percent of GDP (IBGE - Brazilian Economy and Census Bureau), with large companies providing services either to the government (infrastructure) or private customers (residential and commercial). However, before 2005, BMF and BOVESPA, the Brazilian stock exchange, did not have any listed RE companies.\nIC literature review: Since the 1990s, many models have been proposed to measure, identify and evaluate IC, but they are based on the same principles with different terminology or few practical additions, as pointed out by Bontis (2001).\nResearch methodology: Data\nResults: We first analyze the correlations among the variables as shown in Table III. VAIC is strongly correlated with HCE and ROIC is moderately correlated with %NOPAT, VAIC and HCE. Due to the effects of the correlations, %NOPAT and ROIC will be used as independent variables in different regression models as much as VAIC and HCE as dependent variables.\nConclusion: The awareness of IC and its potential to create value by improving the capacity of firms to develop competitive advantages have been recognized by some authors although the results of this research find the opposite in some ways (see Table VIII).\nImplications for researchers and practitioners: It is not clear what explains IC in RE firms. The discussion about the business model using traditional accounting standard is at a cross-roads. Despite the many models and taxonomies that have been developed, it is now necessary to ascertain the relationships between models and value creation.\nLimitations of the study and future research: The limitations of this study are focussed on time and proxy variables. IC was measured by VAIC model using data from a period of intense volatility. To increase the robustness of the conclusions, other variables should be used as proxies for IC and the results compared. Stahle et al. (2011) point out that the VAIC model has certain deficiencies in measuring IC.\nSuggested future areas of research: Disclosure data of public companies must be expanded for other data available beyond financial indicators or measures. The almost exclusive use of financial ratios to measure performance can create bias in understanding how IC influences value.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to clarify whether value created by real estate (RE) companies (tangible intensive firms) can be evaluated better using intellectual capital (IC) elements (human, structural and physical assets) or traditional accounting measures of efficiency (ROIC and profit margins).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Correlations and cross-sectional OLS regressions with robust standard errors were used to find relationships between variables explaining value creation. Data were collected from 2007 to 2011 for Brazilian RE firms. To measure market risk, the authors used a new approach to deal with low liquidity. VAIC and I\nFindings: IC has a significant inverse relationship with market value. The more valuable companies showed lower levels of IC except for CEE which explains value as much as ROIC. Also, IC does not influence market risk caused by size and leverage and does not explain ROIC.\nResearch limitations/implications: The limitations of this study result from time and proxy variables. IC was measured by a VAIC model using data from a period of intense volatility. To increase the robustness of the conclusions, other variables should be used as proxies for IC and the results compared. The VAIC model has certain deficiencies in measuring IC.\nPractical implications: Managers and investors in the RE sector need to change the way they create value and measure value creation. The low level of HC explaining either ROIC or market value is a signal of low innovation which, combined with high CEE, induces a short-term outlook.\nOriginality/value: This study opens discussion of IC in the Brazilian RE sector. A new methodology for identifying value creation is necessary for better evaluation and determining the fair value of firms.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How organizational green culture influences green performance and competitive advantage: The mediating role of green innovation	[ "Competitive advantage", "Green innovation", "Organizational green culture", "Green performance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Environmental issues are increasingly becoming important to manufacturing industries as decision makers face mounting public sensitivity, stricter environmental regulations and growing shareholder pressure to preserve the natural environment (Leonidou et al., 2013; Yu et al., 2017). From the supply side, global warming, carbon restrictions, soil erosion and shortages of electricity are now critical issues for manufacturing industries (Delmas and Toffel, 2008). From the demand side, customers are increasingly shifting their preferences to more environmentally friendly products and services (Kotler, 2011), which are less harmful or even beneficial to the natural environment (Hoffmann, 2007; Zhu et al., 2008). Governmental monitoring and control of ecological impacts of production activity are being implemented to minimize environmental damage. Environmental concerns have thus impacted manufacturing firms' innovation.\nLiterature and hypotheses: OGC and green performance\nMethodology: Data on specific environmental innovation issues at the firm level are not usually available from published sources, so we use a questionnaire. The questionnaire is developed based on the literature in proceeding sections. Measures are reported in the Appendix. Initially 1,000 questionnaires were mailed to manufacturing firms. In total, 608 of the original 1,000 did not respond. A total of 392 questionnaires were received, representing a response rate of 39.2 percent. Since 65 recipients of the original 392 were not considered because they were incomplete. The final sample consisted of 327 usable questionnaires. The survey will be mailed, together with a letter explaining the general purpose of the study.\nResults: Measure validation\nDiscussion and managerial implications: Our findings have a number of significant managerial implications. There is a clear positive influence of OGC on green performance. An OGC supporting environmentally friendly values directs managers to become conscious of resources used, waste produced and energy consumed, thereby improving the firm's green performance. While recognizing that existing green environmental regulations and rapidly changing technological environments may be a serious challenge, our results encourage managers to adopt OGC characteristics. For a firm to make green culture a priority, it should hire managers who support environmental issues that represent shared values of a green culture the firm wants to espouse. Under current strict environmental regulations and environmental attitudes, managers should practice eco-friendly conduct to create new market opportunities for their firms and thus improve the firm's green performance.\nTheoretical contribution: The role of organizational culture in affecting competitive advantage and performance is well discussed in the organizational literature (Deshpande and Farley, 2004; Farley et al., 2008). What is less understood is how OGC affect green performance and competitive advantage by the mediating role of green innovation. The key findings of this study signify our contribution to the theory of management. Although the determinants concerns have received major attention in green innovation research, most literature on green innovation does not focus specifically on organizational culture issues. On one hand, previous green innovation research has highlighted the role of market-pull and technology-push factors as determinants of green innovation (Cleff and Rennings, 1999; Jaffe et al., 2002; Porter and Van der Linde, 1995b). On the other hand, the research concerning the outcomes of implementing OGC strategies has remained scarce for a long time. There are few studies on the alignment between OGC and green innovation apart from Yang et al. (2017). This study contributes to the existing literature on organizational culture and innovation by considering green environmental concerns, which have not been empirically explored, though some literature supports the importance of green issues. (e.g. Moreton et al., 2005; Sugita and Takahashi, 2015).\nLimitation and future research: This study has some limitations that point to the future lines of research. Perhaps, the biggest limitation of the study is that the data are from a single country, which may hamper generalization. Although Taiwanese manufacturing settings display an attractive context, in addition, as a developed country, Taiwan has been enforced strict environmental regulations. In light of this limitation, future work should test this study's hypotheses in other economic and culture settings, including newly industrialized countries such as Brazil, South Korea or Singapore, with concerns for the natural environment.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Growing public concern about the natural environment is rapidly transforming the competitive landscape and forcing firms to adopt green innovation strategies. Many manufacturing firms have recognized the concept of green innovation, though there has been relatively little research on considerations of its driver and effect. The purpose of this paper is to empirically develop and test a theoretical model that analyzes how organizational green culture (OGC) influences green performance and competitive advantage. Specifically, this model explains how green innovation mediates these relationships.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper collected data from 327 manufacturing firms of different industry sectors in Taiwan. Structural equation modeling with AMOS 11 software was applied to analyze the data. Data on specific environmental innovation issues at the firm level are not usually available from published sources, so this paper uses a questionnaire. The questionnaire is developed based on the literature.\nFindings: The findings of this paper suggest that OGC significantly predicted green performance and competitive advantage, respectively. Moreover, the results show that both green innovation completely mediates between OGC and green performance, and that it has a partially mediating effect on the relationship between organization green culture and competitive advantage under environmental pressure.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study has some limitations that point to the future lines of research. Perhaps, the biggest limitation of the study is that the data are from a single country, which may hamper generalization. This study is also limited in that it is based on cross-sectional data. A final limitation is the origin of organizational culture vs employee attitude culture.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to the existing literature on organizational culture and innovation by considering green environmental concerns, which have not been empirically explored. This study also offers a unique theoretical argument describing the relationships by considering the mediating effect of green innovation strategy.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Are board characteristics relevant for banking efficiency? Evidence from the US	[ "Corporate governance", "Board of directors", "Banking efficiency", "Stochastic frontier analysis", "G21", "G32" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The recent decade has witnessed increased attention of stakeholders and regulatory bodies to the corporate governance practices, fostered by the publication of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) corporate governance principles (2004) and Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002), which were in turn triggered by scandals in Enron, Worldcom and Parmalat. These events undermined investor confidence and thus created obstacles to transferring capital to its best use. One of the solutions to this issue is corporate governance. As mentioned by Tanna et al. (2011), OECD considers governance as an important element of the economic efficiency. Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS, 2006; BCBS, 2014) echoes this statement:\n2. The impact of corporate governance practices on performance and efficiency: Until recently, the financial services industry was not put under particular constraints in terms of corporate governance. Apart from the general principles required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and NASDAQ listing requirements from all publicly traded companies, regardless of the sector, and greater oversight of executive compensation stipulated by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, there were no specific rules guiding bank governance. BCBS (2014) is one of the first official documents to address this issue. In addition to discussing extensively peculiar features of banking operations, in particular risk-taking inherent in financial operations, it adopts a differentiated approach to banks of various size and complexity, rather than allowing for a \"one-size-fits-all\" framework. For instance, it requires an audit and risk committee for systemically important banks, while for others, they remain highly advised or recommended.\n3. Data and methodology: 3.1 Sample selection\n4. Results: 4.1 Basic results\n5. Further research: 5.1 Relevance of risk governance: role of risk committee\n6. Conclusion: Banks play an important role of financial intermediaries. Their efficiency is essential for financial stability, whereas inefficiency may have a ripple effect on the economy (Qian and Yeung, 2015). It is therefore relevant to understand whether sound corporate governance may improve banking efficiency.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine whether board-related characteristics matter for cost efficiency in banking sector.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study uses a sample of publicly traded US commercial banks and savings institutions to estimate a relationship between cost efficiency measured by stochastic frontier analysis and a set of board-related characteristics for the period 2007-2013.\nFindings: An inverted U-shape relation is found between board size and efficiency. Thus, there is a trade-off between costs and benefits of larger boards. Optimal board size is higher for banks with more complex operations. This study also observed an inverted U-shape relation between board independence and cost efficiency. The banks where the Chairman also executes the CEO responsibility show lower efficiency. However, a higher proportion of independent board members in banks with unitary leadership structure may mitigate the conflict of interest and lower efficiency stemming from CEO duality.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study's evidence supports the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision emphasis on advising a board composition that provides for a sufficient degree of director independence.\nPractical Implications: The results are relevant for banks and their external and internal stakeholders. Banks may adjust their current board characteristics to increase the board effectiveness. Externally, potential investors can evaluate the quality of corporate governance of banks before making investment decisions. The empirical findings can also be useful for regulators imposing corporate governance codes in banking.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first paper to provide empirical evidence on the impact of board characteristics on bank efficiency for a wide panel of US banks. Additionally, a comprehensive set of board-related variables is used.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Consumer behavior dynamics of Chinese minorities	[ "Self-identity", "Religion", "Subjective norm", "Behavior intention", "Dietary acculturation", "Halal products" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: China's constitution defines the country as a unitary multinational state. Among its population of just under 1,344 billion (National Bureau Statistics of China, 2002), the state recognizes a majority nationality, the Han, and 55 minority nationalities, the latter being 8.4 percent of the population, or about 113 million people. Hui Muslims in China have undergone 200 years of Chinese rule (Gladney, 2003), and many challenges they tackle are new as a consequence of government transformation and increased globalized society (Guo et al., 2011; Lin and Ke, 2010). Muslims in China live as minority communities among many other minority groups, who are secularist, polytheist, and heathen. Although Muslims comprise only 2 percent of the population of China, their total numbers are large compared with numbers in other Muslim countries across the world.\nLiterature review: Impact of religion on food consumption\nConceptual framework: Many models have been proposed to explain consumer behavior towards food in general (Sparks and Shepherd, 1992; Thompson et al., 1996; Conner and Sparks, 1996). However, a limited number of studies have focused specifically on investigating the determinants of Halal meat consumption. In this study, the influence of the classical components of the TPB on intention to consume Halal meat is measured within an ethnic minority population of Muslims living in China. The influence of the cultural and more specific religious context in which Halal meat is consumed is investigated using the framework shown in Figure 1.\nResearch hypotheses: Previous research shows that Muslims follow strictly the dietary rules and eat Halal meat without following other religious prescriptions (Bonne and Verbeke, 2006). Probably, some westernized individuals are less committed to Islam than others and are therefore less interested in following religious instructions, surrendering to the influence of the local community. On the contrary, individuals with a high Muslim identification would be more inclined to comply with Islamic instructions and therefore be less open to major community influence. In a collectivistic society promoted by Islam, people tend to perceive themselves as interdependent with their group and tend to strive for in-group compliance (Van Hooft et al., 2006). Therefore, the following hypotheses are set forth:\nResearch methodology: The research framework, presented in Figure 1, contains seven constructs with six independent variables, two moderating variables, and one dependent variable. Bonne et al. (2007) suggest that these constructs enable the researcher to measure the behavioral intention. The measurements of the variables were adopted from previous studies (Bonne et al., 2007; Ajzen, 2002; Chang, 1998); the variables were behavioral intention, attitude, subjective norm, personal conviction, perceived control, perceived availability, habit, self-identity, and dietary acculturation, in addition to relevant socio-demographic variables such as age, gender, race, province, marital status, and level of education.\nResults and discussion: Descriptive statistics of demographic variables\nConclusion: Different ethnic groups have different behavioral attitudes and intentions toward Halal meat consumption. Uyghur Turkish Muslim consumers of China specifically have high behavioral dispositions toward consuming Halal meat products. At the same time, there is no significant difference between Uyghur and Hui Muslims in the ways they consider themselves to be \"a Muslim.\" The motivation to comply and personal conviction create a positive attitude toward behavioral intention to consume Halal meat. However, perceived control has a negative relationship with behavioral intention.\nManagerial implications: Practical implications extend to food policy decision-makers and food marketers who might pursue identity- and/or acculturation-related strategies in their distribution and communication efforts targeted at the growing Halal food market segments across China and worldwide (Cui and Liu, 2000). The results show that the decision-making process that precedes Halal consumption is different from regular meat consumption decision-making processes. Consequently, different marketing techniques should be used to stimulate Halal meat consumption versus regular meat consumption (Lupton et al., 2010). In addition, different decision segments exist within the Halal market (i.e., segments that base their decision(s) on different variable(s)).\nResearch limitations: First, the study focused on only two individual characteristics related to religious food consumption, namely self-identity and dietary acculturation. Additional possible individual characteristics have not been considered, such as trust (Stefani et al., 2005), moral obligation (Sparks et al., 1995), involvement or values (Vermeir and Verbeke, 2006). Second, the survey was confined to consumers residing within the vicinity of Urumqi city, which is a modern city, where consumers from other parts of the Xinjiang - like Kashgar and Hotan where Muslims are living in a more Islamic environment - were excluded from the research due to time and cost constraints. Consequently, the study is subject to limitations by possible biases that exist when only one geographic area is selected and when the sampling method representative of the actual target market as a whole is not used. Finally, because of the sensitive, religious nature of the topic, some questions - like social or subjective norms, personal norms, and personal relevance - had to be asked indirectly as some respondents were hesitant to answer them appropriately.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Meat consumption decisions within a religious context can differ significantly from purchase decisions where religion does not play a key role. The purpose of this study is to investigate the determinants of Halal meat consumption within a Chinese Muslim population using the \"marketing theory of planned behavior\". The role of self-identity as a Muslim and dietary acculturation in the host culture is investigated.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study is based on a questionnaire survey. Cross-sectional data were collected through a survey of 368 Muslim participants, mainly from Xinjiang province in China. Data were analyzed by a series of regression analyses to test the model and the moderating effects of self-identity and dietary acculturation on behavioral intention.\nFindings: The results indicate that motivation to comply with religious requirements, and personal conviction, have a positive attitude toward behavioral intention to consume Halal meat. However, perceived control has a negative relationship with behavioral intention to eat Halal meat among Muslims. Results also show that in general, Halal meat consumption is determined by the pressure of others, personal conviction, and the perceived control.\nPractical implications: For marketing managers, Muslims with a low Muslim identity can be motivated to buy Halal meat by communicating through slogans that focus on the individual's opportunity to make his or her own choice(s).\nOriginality/value: This paper will prove valuable to food-policy decision makers and food marketers, who might pursue identity and/or acculturation-related strategies in their distribution and communication efforts targeting the growing Halal food market segment in China and globally.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
HR practice, organisational commitment & citizenship behaviour: A study of primary school teachers in Taiwan	[ "Public sector organizations", "Taiwan", "Human resource management", "Commitment", "Organizational commitment", "Organizational citizenship behaviour", "School teachers", "HR practice" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The term human resource (HR) describes a group of people who make up an organisation and/or business' workforce (Lin and Lamond, 2014). HR practices is particularly important nowadays, as both organisations and managers are eager to improve managerial efficacy, reduce resource attrition and enhance organisational identification and performance during the economic recession (Chang et al., 2013; Li et al., 2011; Martin and Epitropaki, 2001). Researchers are studying the associations between HR practice and performance in order to improve employee commitment, reduce staff turnover, increase productivity and enhance quality and efficiency (Dalal, 2005; Zhao, 2014). While prior studies examine diverse factors pertinent to the efficacy of HR practice, the majority of these studies adopt business sectors and industries as research samples, leading to more commercial - performance and profits - oriented implications (Combs et al., 2006; Guest, 2011). Despite prior studies' value and contribution to HR practice, their findings may not necessarily apply to general schools, such as the management of primary school teachers.\nLiterature review and theoretical framing: HRM or HR is a function in organisations, or typically a department, designed to maximise employee performance as part of an employer's strategic objectives (Johnason, 2009). HR is primarily concerned with the management of employees within organisations, focusing on policies and on systems, to for instance, encounter victimisation (Kim and Glomb, 2014) or abusive supervision (Tepper et al., 2011). HR departments in organisations characteristically undertake a number of people-related activities, including employee recruitment, training and development, performance appraisal, employee benefits designing, and rewarding (e.g. managing pay and benefit systems).\nHypothesis development: HR practice and organisational citizenship behaviour\nMethod: Research sample and data collection\nMeasurement: We adopted three standardised scales to measure the research variables. Details follow: school HR practice scale (Lu, 2006) was used to measure how teachers perceive the HR practice at their schools. The scale comprises of 20 items, assessing four different aspects of HR practice, including: RP (five items; a=0.90), TEC(five items; a=0.88), CSR (six items; a=0.93), and PA (four items; a=0.95). All items were preceded by the stem: please rate the truth of each statement as it applies to you at your campus. Sample items include: the selection of new teachers is based on school's demands (RP), my school offers workshop opportunities to meet teachers' professional needs (TEC), my school values the information exchange and communication between teachers and admin staff (CSR), and the appraisal policies and procedure are clear and fair (PA). Responses were recorded using a six-point Likert scale (completely agree=6, completely disagree=1). Higher scores represent higher levels of agreement, indicating that participants felt more positive about this specific aspect of HR practice at their schools.\nResults and analysis: Preliminary analyses suggest correlations across variables. For example, OCB is correlated with AOC (r=0.26, p<0.01) and four aspects of HR practice (r=0.41-0.51, p<0.01-0.001) (see Table I). These initial findings affirm associations between different variables, serving as sound foundation for further advanced statistical analyses. Moreover, teachers show different perceptions about the aspects of HR practice (F (1, 575)=5.65, p<0.02). Specifically, teachers indicate the highest (positive) perception of HR practice RP (M=5.11, SD=0.63), followed by HR practice TEC (M=4.78, SD=0.69), HR practice PA (M=4.52, SD=0.89) and HR practice SCR (M=4.44, SD=0.88). To examine the inter-relations across variables and research hypotheses, we conduct further statistical analyses.\nDiscussion: Our research aims to analyse teachers' HR experience and its influence at work. We discover new findings, which challenge the efficacy of HR practice at workplace. Specifically, we show that not all HR practice contributes to positive behaviour in the workplace (e.g. OCB in the current research). Our research also finds statistical evidence to support the moderating effect of three factors on the HR-OCB relationship. These factors are: AOC, rank of position and campus size. Overall, our findings contribute to the knowledge of HR-OCB relationship, which are meaningful and useful to scholars and HR practitioners in several ways.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between HR practice (four aspects), organisational commitment and citizenship behaviour at primary schools in Taiwan. The four human resource (HR) aspects include: recruitment and placement (RP), teaching, education and career (TEC) development, support, communication and retention (SCR), and performance and appraisal (PA).\nDesign/methodology/approach: With the assistance from the school HR managers and using an anti-common method variance strategy, research data from 568 incumbent teachers in Taiwan are collected, analysed and evaluated.\nFindings: Different from prior studies, highlighting the merits of HR practice, the study discovers that HR practice may not necessarily contribute to citizenship behaviour. Teachers with positive perceptions of RP and TEC are more likely to demonstrate citizenship behaviour, whereas teachers with positive perceptions of SCR and PA are not. In addition, the study finds three moderators: affective organisational commitment (AOC), rank of positions, and campus size. The analysis shows that teachers with more AOC, higher positions and from smaller campus are more likely to demonstrate organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB).\nOriginality/value: The study provides a closer look at the HR-OCB relationship in Taiwan. It reveals that a positive perception of HR practice may not necessarily contribute to OCB occurrence. In addition, the results indicate that teachers have different views about varying HR aspects. Specifically, aspects of RP and TEC development receive relatively higher levels of positive perception, whereas aspects of SCR and PA receive relatively lower levels of positive perception. Questions arise as to whether HR practice may lead to more OCB at primary schools. If this statement is true, school managers shall think further of how to promote OCB using other policies, rather than relying on the HR practice investigated here.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Toward a new taxonomy for understanding the nature and consequences of contingent employment	[ "Part time workers", "Temporary workers", "Homeworking", "Employee attitudes", "Job satisfaction" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The issues surrounding contingent employment have been prominent in the careers literature for 25 years. Particularly beginning with the publication of Rotchford and Roberts's \"Part-time workers as missing persons in organizational research\" in 1982, researchers have paid more and more attention to the careers of part-time, temporary, contract, and other \"non-permanent\" employment. In large part, renewed interest in contingent employment was driven by the sheer rise in numbers of part-time and temporary employees, who constituted about 20 percent of the US workforce in the 1980s (Tilly, 1991) and the problems these individuals faced in the workplace (e.g. Jacofsky and Peters, 1987; Wakefield et al., 1987).\nThe construct of contingent work: Contingent work has been defined in somewhat different ways by various authors who work in this research area. Nonetheless, there are three key elements that seem to be consistent across research studies on the topic.First, contingent work does not entail permanent positions with any one employer or client. (Connelly and Gallagher, 2004; Gallagher and McLean Parks, 2001). Second, contingent work generally consists of less than 30-35 hours per week with any given employer (Polivka and Nardone, 1989; Tilly, 1991). So, although a contingent worker may be employed in total more than 40 hours per week, rarely does that contingent worker put in all those hours with one particular client or, certainly, does not do so for extended periods of time. Third, contingent work is limited in scope in some way. In some cases, that scope is defined by contract (e.g. temporary workers); in other cases, that scope is defined by the duration of a specific project or task to complete (e.g. web site designers). In one way or another, though, there is some demarcation of partial inclusion from \"core\" employees (Cappelli and Neumark, 2003).For our purposes, then, we define contingent work as employment that is:1. Not permanently associated with any one employer or client.2. Consists of less than 35 hours per week with any one employer.3. Is limited in duration either by contract or by the duration of a specific task or project.\nOutcomes of contingent work: Job attitudes\nDimensions of contingent work: In this paper, we conceptualize contingent employment along three dimensions: time, space, and number/kind of employers. We elaborate on each of these three dimensions below (see Table I).Time\nRelationships between dimensions of contingent employment and work outcomes: These dimensions (and subdimensions) of contingent employment can be used to more fully understand the impact of various kinds of contingent employment on the broad array of employment outcomes identified above. Although it is not possible here to consider all the combinations and permutations of contingent employment dimensions identified above, some of the most important main and interaction effects of time, space, and number/kinds of employers on work-related outcomes are highlighted below.Main effects\nThe role of demographic status: In the literature on part-time and temporary workers in the 1970s and 1980s, researchers examined demographic group differences in reactions to part-time and temporary jobs (Jacofsky and Peters, 1987). The variables most studied in this context were age and gender. Feldman (1990) suggested that demographic group differences within the contingent workforce could be explained by two complementary processes. First, demographic groups differ in how voluntary their attachment to contingent work is. So, some of the gender differences observed between male and female contingent workers can be attributed to the fact that women are more likely than men to be voluntarily employed in part-time and temporary jobs in order to balance work/family issues (Albion, 2004). Second, different demographic groups gravitate into different kinds of contingent jobs that vary tremendously in the amount of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards associated with them. Thus, one reason younger workers tend to be less satisfied with contingent employment is that they are clustered in low-skill jobs which are typically boring and pay poorly (Connelly and Gallagher, 2004).Here, we extend the theoretical perspectives on the role of demographic status in contingent employment in two ways. First, we expand the set of focal demographic differences to include education, race, citizenship status, and relational demography (the degree of difference in demographics between a contingent worker and his/her colleagues). Second, we consider the moderating effects of demographic variables on relationships between dimensions of contingent employment and work outcomes.Gravitation to contingent employment\nDiscussion: In this final section, we address three additional issues related to this new framework for understanding contingent work. First, we highlight additional theoretical perspectives that could be used to inform research on contingent workers; second, we identify important methodological improvements needed in the contingent research area; last, we explore some of the implications of the ideas discussed above for career development strategies.Theory development\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The main goal of this article is to present a new taxonomy of contingent employment that better represents the wide variety of part-time, temporary, and contract employment arrangements that have emerged since Feldman's review.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Reviews the literature over the past 15 years.\nFindings: - The paper suggests that contingent work arrangements can be arrayed along three dimensions: time, space, and the number/kind of employers. In addition, analysis of the recent research on contingent employment should be expanded to include worker timeliness, responsiveness, job embeddedness, citizenship behaviours, quality of work, and social integration costs.\nOriginality/value: - The article suggests that a wider range of individual differences (including education, race, citizenship, career stage, and rational demography) all serve to moderate the relationships between different kinds of contingent work arrangements and outcome variables.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Criteria for achieving efficient contractor-supplier relations	[ "Supplier relationship management", "Buyer‐supplier relationships", "Construction industry", "Long‐term orientation", "Sweden" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The search for criteria that distinguish efficient relationships between buyers and suppliers has been ongoing for the last few decades and has been a natural step in the advancement of supplier relationship management. Dyer et al. (1998) among others however accentuate that a buying organisation should not initiate partnerships with all suppliers, but differentiate the supplier base and the methods of working with them. According to Dyer et al. (1998, p. 73), long-term relations and partnerships should be aimed at strategic partners which are \"suppliers that provide inputs that are typically of high value and play an important role in differentiating the buyer's final product\", grounding this reasoning in studies of the automotive industry. Kraljic (1983) argued that long-term relations should be exclusive for a specific range of suppliers, namely those supplying scarce or high-value products where the complexity of the supply market is high and where the product is of great importance for the buying company. Similarly, Spekman et al. (1998) addressed that processes and practices within a relationship should depend on the complexity and strategic importance of the relationship. Furthermore, several studies have shown that long-term relations and partnerships between buyer and supplier increase the financial and purchasing efficiency of the involved organisations (Janda and Seshadri, 2001; Carr and Pearson, 1999), and that commitment and trust are the cornerstones of these relations (Krause, 1999; Monczka et al., 1998).However, most of the studies focused on the buyer-supplier relationship in the context of the manufacturing industry and studies in the construction industry are few. Research within construction has so far focused on relationships between contractor and client and ignored the relationship between contractor and supplier (Saad et al., 2002). Supply chain management within construction has even been argued to be synonymous with relations on the client-contractor level (Fernie and Thorpe, 2007) and a reason for this ignorance of suppliers might be the fact that the industry is majorly client driven (Akintoye and Main, 2007). Besides this lack of focus on contractor-supplier relationships, the Swedish government has criticised the construction industry for its low quality and productivity (Byggkommissionen, 2002) and pointed at the need to further develop the inter-organisational relationships in order to deal with the underlying fragmentation of the industry (Statskontoret, 2009).Additionally, the construction industry is often characterized as project-based with unique teams and rather limited knowledge dissemination and learning. Management is often considered to lack familiarity with local resources and conditions due to the geographical range of projects (Gidado, 1996) and projects also create their own subculture because of the isolation of projects, resulting in difficulties of communication between projects (Gluch and Raisanen, 2009). In addition, inherent tendencies of sub-optimization throughout the projects and organisations as well as their vast number and variety of suppliers sourced for every single project is another often mentioned constraint. As these characteristics make the construction industry quite different from other industries, findings from studies of the manufacturing industry may thereby not necessarily be directly transferred (Errasti et al., 2007). This motivates further investigation of the situation between contractors and suppliers in order to sort out criteria for efficient relationships. Hence, based on the views of strategic purchasers within a large contractor and drawing on the general literature on buyer-supplier relationships, the purpose of this paper is to identify criteria for achieving efficient contractor-supplier relations in construction.\nFrame of reference: Efficiency as a concept for buyer-supplier relationships\nMethod: The basic qualitative case study (Merriam, 2009; Yin, 2009) used as a basis for this paper was carried out during 2008 by conducting participatory observations and in-depth interviews. The case study was part of a two-year study of Skanska Sweden, which was collaboratively initiated by Skanska and Chalmers University of Technology in order to study supplier development and supplier relations. The author has been employed by the case study company for two years. A role as participant-as-observer (Gold, 1958) has provided opportunities for frequent discussions and workshops with stakeholders and purchasing management, which has added a unique perspective to the research and provided insights to the organisation that might not have otherwise been possible. Due to the participatory nature of this study, a reflexive and critical stance has been maintained in order to mitigate bias.Additionally, in-depth interviews were conducted with 12 of 40 category managers at Skanska Sweden in order to identify the criteria that the organisation considered important. The respondents were chosen according to their position and type of managed category. Six respondents managed service suppliers and six respondents managed material suppliers. Of each set of six respondents, two were purchasing group managers in addition to their roles as category managers.The interviews were performed at Skanska's offices and lasted for 60 to 90 minutes. Each interview was audio recorded with the permission of the respondents, and field notes (Bryman and Bell, 2007) were also taken in order to capture what was said before and after the interview as well as the initial reflections during the interviews. A semi-structured approach was chosen for the interviews, allowing respondents to freely answer a number of questions concerning their view on what the supplier and the contractor have to live up to in order to achieve an efficient contractor-supplier relationship. They were also asked to describe the methods currently used to evaluate their suppliers and to explain any ideas they might have for developing the evaluations further. Furthermore, respondents were asked to define and rank in order of importance five criteria that the supplier should fulfil and five criteria that the contractor should fulfil in order to achieve an efficient contractor-supplier relationship. The criteria were later grouped based on similarity and the total score for each group calculated to provide an order of importance for an efficient buyer-supplier relationship.\nResults: Skanska Sweden - the case company\nDiscussion: When relating the respondents' criteria for efficient contractor-supplier relationships to the literature review, it is evident that some discrepancies are found. Even though the respondents primarily point towards the activities in the relationship as the most essential, there is an underlying emphasis on the enablers in the relationship, the input criteria. Quality for instance is elucidated by the respondent as the primary criterion for suppliers to live up to regardless the supplier material or services. This criterion was, however, most of the times followed by an explanation by the respondent including both effective communication and long-term orientation. Both of which are argued to be prerequisites for efficient buyer-supplier relationships (Monczka et al., 1998). Additionally, when the respondents discuss development work they state that contractors are advised to work together with the supplier and share information instead of keeping it to themselves, which is vital in the process of ensuring high quality (Krause, 1999). Furthermore, when the respondents point out loyalty to framework agreement there is an emphasis on that this need for loyalty is founded in a promise to the supplier, which might be referred to as a prerequisite for trust (Monczka et al., 1998). Likewise, the criterion on service to users is based on a need for higher interaction frequency and effective communication, also facilitating efficient buyer-supplier relationships (Ryu et al., 2007).The respondents' comments have been categorised based on whether they relate to the input, throughput or output of this process. This paper draws on the model presented by van Echtelt and Wynstra's (2001) where some modifications have been done in order to suit the nature of this study. The input category (enablers), concerns input from the two parties, which affect the prerequisites for an efficient relationship. It addresses criteria relating to characteristics that are considered important for facilitating development of the contractor-supplier relationship to enable it to become more efficient. The throughput category (activities), addresses the criteria directly related to the specific relationship and the direct contact between the buyer and supplier. The activities and processes in this category are linked to either the buyer or the supplier but may also be linked to the reciprocal interface. The output category (results), relates to the outcome of the relationship, which are the effects of the relationship from both the buyer's and supplier's perspective, such as mutual incentives and decreased total costs.As all of the 12 respondents defined ten criteria each, a total of 120 criteria were collected of which many were mentioned multiple times. When each criterion was categorised according to the input-throughput-output model, the result was as shown in Table I; the numbers are divided with respect to whether the criteria concerns what the contractor or the supplier should fulfil.When summarizing both the criteria concerning supplier and contractor, the most frequently mentioned criteria in each of the categories are shown in Figure 1. However, even if mentioned during the interviews, the criteria categorised as output, may not affect the efficiency in the relationship as these are defined as results or potential effects of the relationship.As can be seen from the results, the focus during the interviews was mainly on the input criteria, especially when considering the criteria that suppliers should fulfil. When discussing the contractor's contribution to the relationship, throughput was mentioned the most number of times. A possible reason for this might be that the strategic purchasers that were interviewed are very much involved in throughput activities since working with them all the time, making them easier to come up with, but also because they are easier to grasp. Nevertheless, even if many of the responses concerned activities, a clear indication of the need for relationship enablers can be seen.As claimed by Rozemeijer (2008), customers need to be in control of their operative processes in order to be perceived as an attractive customer, but in order to do this relevant input to the relationship needs to be in place. Potential, and desired output of the relationship with a supplier, is quite easy to see, and define but how this output can be affected by the operative, and strategic processes, is often tougher for the contractor to realize. Nonetheless, it might be an even tougher challenge for the contractor to see the connection to the softer input variables like core values, creativity and commitment and their effect on the efficiency of the contractor-supplier relationship and the corresponding output.\nConclusions: With the purpose to identify criteria for achieving efficient contractor-supplier relations, participatory observations and 12 strategic purchasers within a major contractor in the Swedish construction industry were interviewed. Achieving efficient contractor-supplier relations, has been defined as cutting costs, and reducing lead times, through reciprocal involvement by contractor, and supplier in the interface-related value creating processes. In conclusion, it may not always be possible to increase efficiency in the interface-related value creating processes of the contractor-supplier relationship by just aiming the development and improvement efforts towards these processes; the root cause might instead be related to the input variables as the relationship enablers. This study found that the most eminent enablers are total cost focus, aligned core values as well as the willingness and capability for collaboration and development. It should be noted that respondents made a clear distinction between willingness and capability and stressed that both need to be in place; it is not enough if the organisation has the capability if it does not have the willingness to collaborate and develop, and vice versa. Furthermore, not only the supplier needs to adapt to the contractor and provide the relevant relationship enablers, the contractor also needs to adapt and make an effort in order to be an attractive customer to the supplier, which in some cases seems to be forgotten.Consequently, improving the input to the relationship may be a way to positively affect the efficiency in the relationship between contractor and supplier. Anyhow, it was once said that Rome was not built in a day, and the same applies to efficient contractor-supplier relationships. Many of the relationship enablers are dependent on continuity in the relationship and therefore it is essential to have a long-term orientation from the buying organisation in order to make it possible to build and strengthen them. As an effect of the quarterly reporting interconnected with most of the private market, a business needs to make short-term profits in order to satisfy external stakeholders and although investments in long-term relationships with suppliers are likely to eventually pay off, it is initially costly and, according to Lafley (2009), a decision that only a contractor's CEO can make. A differentiation between the individual and firm-level decisions is essential (Emberson and Storey, 2006). The construction industry, however, appears to be reluctant to embrace the concept of formalised long-term relationships between contractors and their suppliers, and contractors themselves seem hesitant to initiate such arrangements. To help change this situation, the constraints related to establishing and maintaining contractor-supplier relations within the construction industry need to be further investigated and discussed.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Despite numerous examples of benefits when adapting supplier relationship management in the manufacturing industry, the construction industry still lags behind in such areas as long-term relationships with suppliers and continuous cost-reductions. This may be because the characteristics of the construction industry differ from those of the manufacturing industry due to their project-based structure, its inherent tendency for sub-optimization and the vast number and variety of suppliers. The purpose of this study is to identify criteria for achieving efficient contractor-supplier relations in the construction industry and for large contractors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper draws on the literature on efficiency and differentiation of efficient buyer-supplier relationships as well as a two-year case study based on participatory observations and interviews with strategic purchasers at a large Swedish contractor.\nFindings: - As it is not always possible to increase efficiency in the interface-related value-creating processes by only aiming the development and improvement efforts directly at these processes, relationship enablers such as total cost focus, aligned core values as well as willingness and capability for collaboration and development must first be in place. In order to achieve this, the contractor has to adopt a long-term orientation towards the relationship with the suppliers, which is a decision for the management to make.\nPractical implications: - Drawing from the findings, this paper elucidates the connection between increased efficiency and input variables in the contractor-supplier relationship, which might be difficult for contractors to see. Furthermore, contractors need to take responsibility over their own processes in order to be an attractive customer to the supplier.\nOriginality/value: - Even though research within construction has focused on relations between different actors, mostly client and contractor, this paper widens the perspective and takes a grasp of the relationship between contractor and supplier.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The impact of internal brand management on employee job satisfaction, brand commitment and intention to stay	[ "Internal marketing", "Job satisfaction", "Brand commitment", "Intention to stay", "Internal brand management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: According to Jacobs (2003):\nBackground theory and development of hypotheses: The evolution of IBM from IM\nResearch methodology: Sampling\nResults: Sample\nConclusion: Implications for management\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which internal brand management (IBM), a subset of internal marketing, impacts on the three dimensions of job satisfaction ( JS), brand commitment (BC) and intention to stay (IS).\nDesign/methodology/approach: A financial services company in Southern Africa was selected using convenience sampling. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to identify the dimensions of IBM, BC, JS and IS. Partial least squares path modeling was used to test the model and the hypotheses. The Mann-Whitney test was used to identify any statistically significant differences between frontline staff and management/support staff.\nFindings: The EFA of the components of IBM did not yield the three expected dimensions. For service staff, IBM significantly contributes to JS, BC and IS. Internal brand communication is the most important contributor to IBM.\nResearch limitations/implications: In common with others, this research uses a limited sample size in a specific geographic location. The results may differ if replicated in other geographies or organizations.\nPractical implications: Executives and managers of financial service firms are advised to drive focussed IBM practices rather than waiting for it to become the passive consequence of human resource management.\nOriginality/value: Given the paucity of research into the practical application of IBM, the purpose of this research is to explore the impact of IBM on frontline employees in the financial services industry.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Understanding customer needs through quantitative analysis of Kano's model	[ "Customer satisfaction", "Customer service management", "Quantitative methods" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Customer needs have become a primary concern for companies who compete in the global market. Companies can no longer rely solely on high-volume and low-cost production to maintain growth or even survive in the market. Instead, they put their effort into meeting customer needs or requirements (CRs) and achieving customer satisfaction to remain competitive in the market.Various methods and tools have been developed accordingly to help companies obtain a better understanding of CRs. Among them, Kano's model is a widely used tool for understanding the voice of customers and their impact on customer satisfaction. In the past, the relationships between the degree of customer satisfaction and the fulfillment level of CRs were generally viewed in one-dimensional terms - that is, the higher the level of fulfillment in CRs, the greater customer satisfaction. However, the contributions to customer satisfaction by different CRs vary. Fulfilling customer expectations to a greater extent does not necessarily guarantee a higher level of customer satisfaction (Matzler and Hinterhuber, 1998). Based on this understanding, Kano's model categorizes different CRs based on how well they are able to achieve customer satisfaction. It suggests that there are three main types of CRs, including must-be, one-dimensional and attractive attributes, which have different impacts on customer satisfaction as the level of fulfillment for CRs varies (Kano et al., 1984).Kano's model recognises the diverse relationships between CR fulfillment and customer satisfaction, especially the nonlinear relationships. However, the model only focuses on the classification method and the qualitative descriptions of various relationship curves. Limited quantitative analysis or measurement of the relationships is discussed in the traditional Kano's model. Therefore, the problem that arises is how to identify possible improvement to Kano's original model, so that quantitative analysis can be developed to measure the various relationships between customer satisfaction and CR fulfillment.To enhance the above aspect, a novel approach is proposed to refine Kano's model and on this basis to quantify the model by identifying the relationship functions between customer satisfaction and CR fulfillment. The remaining parts of the paper are organised as follows. Section 2 gives a brief review of Kano's model. Following that, the novel approach to quantifying Kano's model is proposed in Section 3. A case study concerning notebook computer design is presented in Section 4 to illustrate the application of the proposed approach. Finally, a brief conclusion is drawn in Section 5.\n2. Review of Kano's model: Kano's model, proposed by the Japanese professor Noriaki Kano and his colleagues, is a useful tool to understand customer needs and their impact on customer satisfaction (Kano et al., 1984). It categorizes different CRs based on how well they are able to achieve customer satisfaction. In the following section, the literature on the traditional Kano's model and its recent research is reviewed.2.1 The Kano diagram and questionnaire\n3. Quantitative analysis of Kano's model: Based on the understanding of the original model, a novel approach is proposed to extend Kano's model from qualitative descriptions to quantitative analysis to understand customer needs in a more accurate manner. Kano's model is employed as a starting point of the proposed quantitative analysis, which involves conducting preliminary study, developing and administrating the Kano questionnaire, as well as analyzing questionnaire results to identify Kano categories for each CR. After obtaining the classification results, the proposed four-step approach is applied to quantify Kano's model.3.1 Calculating CS and DS values\n4. Case study: To demonstrate the applicability of the proposed quantitative analysis of Kano's model, a case study concerning the notebook computer design is presented in this section. The primary objective of the case study is to investigate what are the major customer needs or requirements (CRs) for a notebook computer and the impact of these requirements on customer satisfaction. Target customers are those university students who are a major customer segment in the notebook computer market. The case study is conducted by four steps including conducting preliminary study, developing and administering Kano questionnaires, processing survey results and applying Kano quantitative analysis.4.1 Conducting the preliminary study\n5. Conclusion: Kano's model provides an effective approach in classifying different CRs into different categories based on their impact on customer satisfaction. The proposed approach goes beyond this basic understanding by analyzing Kano's model in a quantitative way. The S-CR relationship functions have been determined for the three main categories of CRs. The S-CR relationship functions help understand customer needs in a more accurate way. More importantly, it provides a way for Kano's model to integrate with other mathematical models or tools for optimizing customer-focused product design. Future work could be directed to this aspect by integrating Kano's model into some product design tools, such as Quality Function Deployment (QFD). Moreover, it is noted that the S-CR relationship functions for attractive and must-be attributes are based on the assumption that their curves follows the shape of an exponential function. Future work could focus on improving this assumption by deriving more solid data in determining the shape of relationship curves of attractive and must-be attributes objectively.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The paper aims to help companies develop a better understanding of customer needs through quantitative analysis of Kano's model.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A novel approach is developed to measure and quantify the relationships between customer satisfaction and the fulfillment of customer requirements (S-CR) as depicted in Kano's model. A case study concerning notebook computer design is conducted to illustrate the application of the proposed approach.\nFindings: - By implementing the proposed approach, S-CR relationship functions have been identified from Kano's model to illustrate the impact of different customer requirements on customer satisfaction. The case study demonstrates that the proposed approach can be implemented successfully.\nResearch limitations/implications: - In order to identify the S-CR relationship functions, several assumptions have been made in determining the shape of relationship curves in Kano's model. Future work could focus on improving the assumptions to derive the relationship functions more objectively.\nPractical implications: - The proposed approach enables companies to develop a better understanding of customer requirements by visualizing the impact of customer requirements on customer satisfaction through S-CR relationship functions. More importantly, it provides a way for companies to integrate Kano's model with other mathematical models or tools to support engineering design.\nOriginality/value: - The proposed approach goes beyond the qualitative analysis in Kano's model by identifying S-CR relationship functions, both linear and nonlinear, to measure the impact of different customer requirements on customer satisfaction, which is currently a new attempt in the analysis of Kano's model for quality improvement.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The art of influence: apply emotional intelligence and create time and space for thinking	[ "Leadership development", "Emotional intelligence", "Influence" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The ability for leaders to positively influence others is a critical skill for those who want to retain their company's best talent, remain competitive and unleash the creative energy of employees. Yet many learning and development (L&D) professionals identify \"influence\" as the number one skill gap in their organizations' leadership teams. For years, companies have recruited their leaders by focusing on IQ and technical skills, yet research shows (Goleman, 1995) that leaders who demonstrate high levels of social intelligence and emotional intelligence (EI) are best placed to build a high-performance culture and deliver higher levels of financial performance.\nSelf-awareness: The first area to focus on is for a leader to become fully aware of who they really are; to understand the core values that drive them as leaders; to recognize how their (often hidden) beliefs affect their performance, relationships and leadership style; to recognize their emotional triggers and emotional responses to both work demands and the challenge of working with emotionally and psychologically complex colleagues, team members and stakeholders. Neuroscience shows just how critical it is for leaders to firstly develop emotional awareness and emotional self-regulation.\nSelf-management: Leaders are therefore uniquely placed to positively (or negatively) influence those they lead. Leaders who actively manage their own emotions and consciously attend to the psychological environment of the organization are better able to maintain employees' motivation, commitment and loyalty. When a leader communicates with passion, honesty and emotional coherence, they are able to significantly shift the emotional set point of the group and help to address some of the fears and anxieties that are activated during times of change or uncertainty.\nSocial awareness: There are five common triggers for employees' negative emotional reactions that can reduce morale, motivation and commitment of employees (Schwartz, 2010):\nLeadership development: Because EI begins with the skill of self-awareness, it is critical to start a leadership development program by using a high-quality psychological diagnostic tool that will give leaders deeper insight into their emotional strengths and areas for development. Assessment tools are useful when organizations want to build EI skills across a broad leadership population. And using a common diagnostic assessment helps leaders and managers build a common understanding, language and toolkit for EI. Coaching is also a critical element of any EI program, so that leaders can work with a coach to agree on an action plan and receive focused feedback and support as they shift behavior and try new approaches to old challenges.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to explore how emotional intelligence and the emerging field of neuroscience can tell us much about how leaders can use their own emotions to positively influence people. The ability for leaders to positively influence others is a critical skill and yet it is often identified as a gap in leadership teams.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper draws on the work of Goleman, Kline, Ramachandran and Schwartz, as well as the author's own recently published book.\nFindings: An emotionally intelligent leader, rather than assuming that those who speak the loudest have the most valuable contribution will be more likely to understand and value different thinking and personality styles and will take active steps to create an environment where people feel safe to contribute their very best thinking.\nPractical implications: This paper provides useful, practical advice to those involved in leadership development or leaders themselves who want to better understand how they can improve their ability to influence others.\nOriginality/value: The paper provides practical advice, grounded in research, that professional learning and development executives or leaders themselves can put in action.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Fit perceptions, work engagement, satisfaction and commitment	[ "Job satisfaction", "Organizational commitment", "Work engagement", "Person–environment fit" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Engagement research has flourished since Kahn (1990), but the antecedents of engagement remain a key area of interest. In today's fast-changing and competitive environment, organizations desire an engaged workforce as engaged employees: have high motivation to perform better, produce more and succeed in their jobs (Christian et al., 2011; Leiter and Bakker, 2010); and are indicators of workforce well-being (Warr and Inceoglu, 2012). The responsibility for creating an engaged workforce has typically been attributed to organizational factors such as design, leadership and culture. However, this view underestimates the role played by employees in controlling their work and work environment (Parke and Weinhardt, 2018). According to fit theory, employees have an inner drive to exercise control, and they consequently seek jobs and organizations to which they fit well (Yu, 2013). Therefore, organizational level factors can only partially explain employees' engagement, as they cannot reflect the intrinsic needs of individuals. Hence, this study aims to deepen our understanding by examining the roles that employees' perceptions of job fit and organization fit play in shaping their work engagement (WE) as well as investigating potential mediators of these relationships.\nTheoretical background: Fit perceptions\nMethod: Sample and procedure\nResults: Table I shows descriptive statistics for the variables in the study. The correlation between WE and PJ fit is 0.57 and that between WE and PO fit is 0.51. These results suggest value in deeper analysis. Table II presents fit statistics based on confirmatory factor analysis of nine non-nested measurement models to aid assessment of the factor structure of the data collected. These models, and the structural equation models that follow, were all fit using the MLM estimator in MPlus as this estimator is robust to the lack of multivariate normality evident in our data.\nDiscussion: The purpose of this study was to examine links between fit perceptions and WE, as well as whether levels of employees' satisfaction and commitment play a role in these fit-engagement links. Our findings indicate that the hypothesized relationships are all positive and significant. We found that employees experiencing high levels of PO and PJ fit are more likely to feel satisfied with their job and feel affectively committed to their organization. Furthermore, employees with high levels of satisfaction and commitment are actively engaged in their work.\nConclusion: This study expands our knowledge of the ways fit perceptions shape WE by including JS and AC as mediators. This investigation of the ways in which employee-level factors influence WE improves our understanding of the antecedents of WE, augmenting previous efforts focused on organization-level explanations of WE. We encourage further exploration of employee-level antecedents of engagement as a way of understanding why sets of practices that are common across any given organization lead to the evident variety of engagement levels among employees.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between fit (organization and job) perceptions and work engagement (WE).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors deployed a two-wave survey among 377 clerical employees of the specialist lending division of a large UK bank, with the waves separated by 12 months.\nFindings: The results show a positive relationship between person organization (PO) and person job (PJ) fit perceptions (at Time 1) and WE (at Time 2). Job satisfaction (JS) and affective commitment (AC) dual-mediate these relationships. The effect of PO fit on WE manifests primarily via AC, while the effect of PJ fit manifests primarily via JS.\nPractical implications: The study indicates that organizations should consider the fit of employees to their jobs and the organization when designing interventions intended to increase WE. Also, potential synergies exist between organizational interventions designed to influence employee attitudes focused on similar units of analysis: e.g., PJ fit with JS or PO fit with AC.\nOriginality/value: This study provides the first investigation of the dual-mediation, via JS and AC, of the effects of both PJ and PO fit on WE. Furthermore, the use of a time-lagged design strengthens the evidence for the novel hypotheses of this study and enables verification of findings in the extant literature.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Quality improvement in physiotherapy services	[ "Healthcare", "Quality improvement", "Process improvement", "Systems change" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: There is pressure on healthcare staff throughout the developed world to cope with rising demand and constrained funds (WHO, 2009). Process improvement (Health Foundation, 2013; Porter and Lee, 2013), quality improvement (Gauld et al., 2014) and Lean management (Jones and Mitchell, 2006) have been used to change systems, improve value for money and reduce waste. There are claims about methodological effectiveness (Hwang et al., 2014; Mazzocato et al., 2010), although some commentators voice doubts about how easily these approaches can be applied to healthcare (Burgess and Radnor, 2013; McIntosh et al., 2014; Young and McClean, 2009).\nImproving processes in healthcare: Methods used in manufacturing organisations to improve systems and processes and to reduce waste have been introduced into healthcare. These methods are variously described as process improvement (DH, 2011; Health Foundation, 2013; Kaplan and Porter, 2011; Locock, 2003; NHS III, 2005), quality improvement (Aveling et al., 2012; Gauld et al., 2014; Gijo et al., 2013) and Lean management (Brandao de Souza, 2009; Drotz and Poksinska, 2014; Hwang et al., 2014; IHI, 2005; Jones and Mitchell, 2006). There are broad similarities between these approaches (Walshe, 2009). Process improvement is concerned with analysing and redesigning healthcare systems and processes to make them more effective and efficient (Locock, 2003; NHS III, 2005). Quality improvement focuses on value to customers; in healthcare, a key aspect is better outcomes for patients (Batalden and Davidoff, 2007) and waste reduction (Gijo et al., 2013). Lean is based on identifying and producing services and products that customers' value, and eliminating waste (Joosten et al., 2009). Process analysis and process change - key process improvements - are central elements (Mazzocato et al., 2010). Lean in manufacturing is designed to be a system-wide approach, but in healthcare, Lean may focus on specific techniques (Waring and Bishop, 2010) or be \"primarily implemented as a process improvement approach\" (Drotz and Poksinska, 2014, p. 179) or be applied in a fragmented, rather than a systemic, way (Burgess and Radnor, 2013).\nMethodology: We aimed to assess attempts to change physiotherapy services provided to patients; therefore, our study is evaluation research (Robson, 2011). As a realistic evaluation, we identify change effects, causal mechanisms leading to effects and the contextual elements that may have affected the outcomes (Pawson and Tilley, 1997). We bore the Mazzocato et al. (2010, pp. 376-377) observations in mind: \"Realistic evaluation is grounded on the belief that social interventions, such as quality improvement initiatives, are complex, and that the way they bring about change is influenced by, dependent on and in turn influences their contexts\". We adopted a multiple case study approach, focussing on eight MSK physiotherapy services in north-west England. Multiple case studies have been used to identify quality improvement patterns elsewhere in healthcare (Ovretveit and Klazinga, 2012) and management innovations (Ovretveit et al., 2012). Regarding Lean changes in healthcare, Mazzocato et al. (2014, p. 267) noted that most studies were single cases:[...] it is difficult to know if variation in performance is due to the content of the lean changes, to the context of their application, to the process of implementation, or to interactions between the three [...]. Comparative multiple-case studies of lean applications could help clarify this knowledge gap.\nThe change: The services on which we focus all aimed to reduce patient waiting times and reduce DNAs by introducing a new system for arranging routine follow-up appointments. This was the most common change explored in all 11 services involved in the network. In a traditional appointment system, a patient sees a physiotherapist for an initial assessment and perhaps some therapy or guidance is provided. In routine outpatient cases, the patient is given exercises designed to address his/her needs over time and to improve functionality and/or reduce pain. At the first appointment, before the patient leaves the clinic, a follow-up appointment is booked. An alternative approach is known as the \"opt-in\" system, i.e., the patient is invited to make the follow-up appointment if s/he feels it is needed within a certain time following the initial meeting with the physiotherapist, after the patient has undertaken the recommended exercises. If s/he chooses not to opt-in during this period, s/he is discharged. In behavioural economic terms, this change to the system re-structures the decisions that the patient is asked to make. A similar approach has been taken to re-organise the first therapy-service appointment process, where patients are encouraged to self-refer, rather than accessing services only through referral by a doctor (CSP, 2009; DH, 2008). Effects include:\nResults: Staff in eight services in the network attempted to introduce opt-in systems (coded as services A-H). Services covered different environments, urban, rural and mixed. Typically, they provided therapy at different sites within their catchment area. Service establishments ranged from 12 to 31 whole time equivalent therapists. The eight services took different approaches to implementing the change and achieved different results (Table I). Staff in three other network services did not attempt to introduce opt-in systems: in one case this was because the appointment-booking system was centralised and the service manager thought that staff would not be able to manage opt-in bookings, nor was there any additional administrative support to set up an alternative system. In the other two cases, major changes to organisational systems and structures meant that service staff made no attempt to introduce changes during the project.\nDiscussion: Our research intervention was relatively small in comparison to system-wide changes seen in many quality improvement programmes (Burgess and Radnor, 2013), but with a potentially powerful effect. The small scale and the intervention's containment meant that the change could be implemented without seeking cooperation from several stakeholders. The key groups were clinicians in the therapy teams, patients and in some cases administrative staff. Introducing opt-in systems for routine follow-up appointments re-structured the choices facing patients. Re-structuring can significantly reduce the number who did not attend appointments, and thus improve productivity and reduce waiting times for routine appointments. However, the interventions had different effects in different services - possibly owing to differences in how the changes were introduced and implemented, and contextual factors, such as C's increasing referrals.\nConclusions: These case studies show that changing the appointment system for routine follow-up therapy can reduce DNAs and subsequently reduce waiting times for new and for follow-up appointments. At a time when services are under pressure from rising demand and shrinking budgets, this is a significant finding. However, these results are not guaranteed and appear to depend at least in part on how the new system is explained to patients. There may also be other contextual factors that affect the change's effect. How quickly improvements were achieved also varied between cases and some adjustments were necessary to the plans for change in all cases. Clinical and administrative staff cooperation was essential to the change. Factors that appeared to be important in engaging staff were:\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a process change in physiotherapy services and to explore factors that may have influenced the outcomes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This is a multiple case study and information was gathered from eight physiotherapy teams over 24 months.\nFindings: The process change was successfully implemented in six teams. It had a clear, positive effect on service quality provided to patients in three teams. Whilst quality also improved in three other teams, other issues make changes difficult to assess. Factors that enabled process change to be effective are suggested.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings are based on results achieved by only eight English teams.\nPractical implications: This process change may be appropriate for other teams providing therapy services if attention is paid to potential enabling factors, and a learning approach is adopted to designing and introducing the change.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, no other longitudinal process change study in therapy services has been published.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A comparative analysis of contemporary 155 mm artillery projectiles	[ "Monte Carlo simulation", "Artillery projectiles", "United States army", "Value-based modelling" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Over the past thirty years, the US Army has undergone a philosophy shift to adapt to an unconventional adversary. Through both World Wars and the Cold War, the USA needed to maintain the ability to mass large amounts of fires quickly as maneuver elements moved about the battlefield. This was critical to supporting the freedom of maneuver for the decisive operation. However, this capability was not as paramount moving into the twenty-first century. During the invasion of Iraq in 2003 troops were met with adversaries that fought among the civilian population rather than on the front lines of a battlefield. To adapt, the army focused on assets that more directly aided ground troops, such as available airpower. Today, the army's attention is shifting back toward near-peer threats, and the army must adapt its mission and doctrine accordingly. With these changes comes a renewed interest in bolstering field artillery assets. Retired Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland (former training and doctrine command deputy commander) noted, \"the army is investing not only in quality but also quantity of fires\" (South, 2018).\nBackground: 155 mm projectile technology: The biggest issue the army is currently facing in terms of field artillery capabilities is matching, and ideally exceeding adversarial ranges. The standard 155 mm howitzer in the US arsenal has a maximum range of 14 miles, and the rocket-assisted 155 mm projectile increases the maximum range to almost 18 miles (South, 2018). Looking at one of the current near-peers, Russia's existing mobile artillery, the 2S35, has a range of 44 miles. This gives Russia the ability to devastate US forward forces before they can even get within firing range. However, technological advances being made to the 155 mm projectile are expected to push ranges of the current artillery assets between 44 and 62 miles, putting the USA well within reach of its near-peers' current standing.\nTechniques for measuring firing effectiveness: a brief review: When new technology is introduced into the market, several levels of analysis are used to determine its effectiveness. In the context of field artillery, the first layer is an accurate analysis. Supplemental models that can aid in accuracy analysis are trajectory and predictive models. Often these models can serve as inputs into a larger simulation. Once the technology in question has passed through these preliminary screenings to determine its merit, a comparison is performed with other technologies.\nModeling approach: Formulating a model\nResearch findings: Results and analysis\nConclusion: In summary, the Department of Defense has highlighted a necessity for enhanced long-range field assets. A primary candidate solution is the Excalibur munition. To begin analyzing the effectiveness of these projectiles, a Monte Carlo simulation was developed to predict the expected number of projectiles required for target destruction. This output was used to determine the probability of kill and an effective range of a given munition. The findings were then extended to a value-based model for further analysis. Based on the results of the value-based framework, the Excalibur series munitions provide the most value. Given these findings, commanders should be encouraged to use the Excalibur 1a-2 for point and small area targets, such as radars and single structures, but consider the use of the M795 or M549A1 for large area targets. As technological improvements are made, updated data can populate the simulation to gather an up-to-date expected value, variance, probability of kill and effective range. Similarly, the value functions and swing weights should continue to be updated to reflect the needs of the army. The output of this updated analysis would determine if commander's guidance should be updated once again.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: To recover the growing deficit between American and near-peer mobile artillery ranges, the US Army is exploring the use of the M982 Excalibur munition, a family of long-range precision projectiles. This paper aims to analyze the effectiveness of the M982 in comparison to the M795 and M549A1 projectiles to further the understanding of what this new asset contributes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based upon doctrinal scenarios for target destruction, a statistical analysis is performed using Monte Carlo simulation to identify a likely probability of kill ratio for the M982. A values-based hierarchical modeling approach is then used to differentiate the M982 from similar-type projectiles quantitatively in terms of several different attributes. Finally, sensitivity analyzes are presented for each of the value attributes, to identify areas where measures may lack robustness in precision.\nFindings: Based upon a set of seven value measures, such as maximum range, effective range, the expected number of rounds to destroy a target, and the unit cost of a munition, the M982 1a-2 was found to be best suited for engaging point and small area targets. It is noted, however, that the M795 and M549A1 projectiles are likely better munition options for large area targets. Hence, an integrated targeting plan may best optimize the force's weapon systems against a near-peer adversary.\nOriginality/value: The findings provide initial evidence that doctrinal adjustments in how the Army uses its artillery systems may be beneficial in facing near-peer adversaries. In addition, the values-based modeling approach offered in this research provides a framework for which similar technological advances may be examined.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Bank Service Quality (BSQ) Index: An indicator of service performance	[ "Quality", "Indexing", "Banking", "SERVQUAL", "Customer service management", "Malaysia" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The financial services industry is changing rapidly. Technology, government regulation, and increasing customer sophistication are forcing financial service institutions to re-evaluate their current business practices. Financial institutions across the globe are re-examining how they are meeting their customer's needs today and developing business plans needed to align them strategically to remain competitive and profitable in the future. Service quality in banking has recently become a topic of interest for academicians and researchers alike despite being considered markedly important over the years. Such interest may be the result of a reduced customer base and decreased market share affecting a portion of the banking industry (Bowen and Hedges, 1993). Banks that excel in quality service can have a distinct marketing edge since improved levels of service quality are related to higher revenues, increased cross-sell ratios, higher customer retention (Bennett and Higgins, 1988), and expanded market share (Bowen and Hedges, 1993). Likewise, provision of high quality services enhances customer retention rates, helps attract new customers through word of mouth advertising, increases productivity, leads to higher market shares, lowers staff turnover and operating costs, and improves employee morale, financial performance and profitability (Julian and Ramaseshan, 1994; Lewis, 1989, 1993). Therefore, delivering quality service to customers is a must for success and survival in today's competitive banking environment (Samli and Frohlich, 1992).A review of literature indicates that there are many areas of disagreement in the debate over how to measure service quality. Recent research has raised many questions over the principles on which the instruments are founded. The use of existing measures, in particular SERVQUAL as a means of measuring service quality throughout the marketing sectors may have been tested with some degree of success, but this may not be the case for other service sectors, particularly the banking sector. As such, it may not be fruitful to continue pursuing the development of a standard measurement scale applicable to a wide variety of services. Instead, an instrument that is exclusively designed for a particular industry is a more viable research strategy to pursue. It is against this backdrop that a new service quality measurement instrument is developed and tested empirically, and eventually forms the basis for capturing the authentic determinants of service quality within the banking sector. In an effort to promote quality and create a more competitive and market oriented banking sector, BSQ Index reflecting the level of service quality is proposed. The new index is expected to be an important complement to traditional measures of economic performance, providing useful information not only to the banking institutions themselves, but also to shareholders and investors, government regulators, and customers.\nResearch background: Many researchers (Parasuraman et al., 1985; Carman, 1990; Bolton and Drew, 1991) concur that service quality is an elusive concept, and there is considerable debate in literature about how best to conceptualise this phenomenon. They seem to come to an agreement that a comprehensive definition of service quality is notoriously difficult to produce. However, they acknowledge that service quality is a dynamic, multidimensional concept, incorporating a number of aspects of both past and present service experience. Nonetheless, there seems to be a broad consensus that service quality is an attitude of overall judgement about service superiority, although the exact nature of this attitude is still obscure. It is a well-established argument in the literature that a person learns about a concept and at the same time forms an attitude towards the concept.A substantial number of empirical studies on bank service quality were sighted in the literature, however most of these studies measured service quality by replicating or adapting the SERVQUAL model (Kumar et al., 2010; Petridou et al., 2007; Jabnoun and Al Tamimi, 2003; Blanchard and Galloway, 1994; MacDougall and Levesque, 1994a, b; Newman and Cowling, 1996; Athanassopoulos, 1997; Lloyd-Walker and Cheung, 1998; Marshall and Smith, 2000). However, the SERVQUAL model was questioned for its conceptual suitability by several authors. Carman (1990) and Babakus and Boller (1992) noted that the five dimensions are not generic, and that they should be industry-specific. Both authors argued that some dimensions required expansion in order to capture service quality adequately across different services, and that service quality is a simple unidimensional construct in some context, but a complex multidimensional construct in others. Whereas the reliability and validity of SERVQUAL's difference score formulation has been questioned by Babakus and Boller (1992) and Brown et al. (1993), and that SERVQUAL's dimensionality has not proved universal.Likewise in the banking context, Lam (1995) reported some problems with the dimension of SERVQUAL thus raised a fundamental question of what is SERVQUAL measuring. The insufficiency of SERVQUAL being a measure of service quality raised concerns whether SERVQUAL really is a reliable measure of service quality or, indeed whether it is measuring service quality at all. Seth et al. (2005) recognized that the outcome and measurement of SERVQUAL were dependent on type of service setting, situation, time and number of encounter, competitive environment and needs. Perhaps the most comprehensive study thus far was conducted by Avkiran (1994), who developed a utilitarian multi-dimensional instrument, for measuring customer-perceived quality, of retail branch banking.Berry et al. (1988) noted that most financial institutions are alike in the services provided to their customers, and as they grow there is a tendency for service to give way to volume delivery to enhance profitability. These large banks appear to have mistakenly concluded that quality service caused profits to erode. It would appear that service quality could make a difference according to Lewis (1993), who noted that service quality leads to reduced costs, increased profitability, and other beneficial elements. Acquiring customers and having them leave is not only disconcerting but it is counterproductive, and a profit drain on the organization.In today's banking environment, banks' profitability levels have been compressed due to increased competition and spread reductions. Banks once relied on products to make their profit margin in a highly regulated industry, and the customers basically were on the sidelines, but today, banks are driven by customers, who demand service quality (Stone, 1995). Berry et al. (1988) observed that quality of service is very important in separating competing businesses in the retail sector as well as in banking. Banks seeking to maximize profitability have come to realize that good quality helps a bank obtain and keep customers and poor quality will cause customers to leave a bank. Lewis (1993) found that service quality was one of the most effective means of establishing a competitive position and improving profit performance. To establish a competitive position, it was noted by Hall (1995) that banks must measure and determine their level of service quality, if they desire to keep their customers and satisfy their needs. There have been a large number of researchers who identify service quality as a primary means of providing a competitive advantage to banks, and according to Soteriou and Stavrinides (1997) the importance of service quality has been documented in numerous studies.\nResearch design and methodology: This study aims to design and validate a new measuring instrument of service quality, and ultimately to develop a national service quality index for the banking sector in Malaysia. The stages involved are shown by means of the flow chart in Figure 1. The draft questionnaire consisted of four sections namely A, B, C and D. Section A contained ten questions pertaining to respondent profile. Whereas section B contained 31 items related to different aspects of bank's service offering, and the items were presented randomly as statements on the questionnaire, with the same rating scale used throughout. The items will be measured on five-point Likert-type scales that vary from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree.Multistage sampling procedure was used for the study. A total of 3,380 customers from 21 banking institutions were selected, from whom 1,519 corrected and completed questionnaires from 14 banks had been obtained, yielding a response rate of 44.9 per cent. The high response rate was due to the \"personal contact\" approach used followed by frequent follow-ups with the \"contact persons\".Factor analysis\nConclusions: The primary contribution of this study is the insight offered regarding what factors affect service quality and the BSQ Index, a national indicator reflecting the level of service quality within the banking sector. This paper has also sought to contribute further to the fast growing literature on service quality by advancing a new 29-item measuring instrument, specifically tailored for the banking sector. Such valid and reliable measuring scale would be a tool that banking institutions could use to improve service performance in the light of increased competition and uncertainty in the global financial markets. The results from the current study are crucial because previous studies have produced scales that bear a resemblance to SERVQUAL, a generic measure of service quality, which may not be totally adequate to assess the perceived quality in the banking sector. Thus, the present study captured customers' evaluation of service quality in a 29-item questionnaire exclusively adapted to the unique nature of the banking sector.The results confirmed that the three dimensions namely systemization, reliable communication and responsiveness were distinct and conceptually clear. Therefore, banking institutions should be able to assess all the dimensions of service quality to ascertain the level of services provided, and to determine which dimensions need improvement. Evaluating service quality level and understanding how various dimensions impact overall service quality would ultimately enable the banking institutions to efficiently design the service delivery process. While many service quality attributes may influence a customer's perception to a certain extent, the results indicate that one attribute has a greater impact on the overall perception of service quality. Systemization which relates to such aspects as systematic and orderly arrangement of banks' service delivery has significantly influenced the overall service quality perception. In other words, customers perceived systemization of service delivery to be more important than other dimensions in determining the quality of the service that they received.However, findings suggest that banking institutions should also put emphasis on other service quality dimensions such as reliable communication and responsiveness. It is important for these institutions to provide adequate service on all dimensions, and then possibly to ascertain which dimensions may require greater attention. Results of the study reveal that reliable communication and responsiveness have a direct bearing on perceptions of quality. In terms of reliable communication, banks should be able to communicate and perform their services in a dependable, reliable and understanding manner to ensure customer's confidentiality, and service personnel exhibiting professionalism, sympathy and reassurance when dealing with customers. As for responsiveness, banks' employees must have the desire, willingness and readiness to assist customers and deliver prompt service. The overall weighted BSQ Index, which stood at 4.00 implies that customers are generally pleased with the quality of services rendered by banking institutions in Malaysia. This new national indicator shall provide a comparative baseline for determining whether the customers are more or less pleased with the quality of services provided by the banking institutions over time.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This study aims to design and validate a new measuring instrument of service quality, and ultimately to establish a national service quality index for the banking sector. The primary contribution is the insight offered regarding what factors affect service quality and the BSQ Index, a national indicator reflecting the level of service quality within the banking sector.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A total of 3380 questionnaires were distributed to the customers of 21 commercial and Islamic banks, of which only 1,519 were deemed usable, yielding a response rate of 44.9 per cent. The proposed 29-item instrument has been empirically tested for unidimensionality, reliability and validity using both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis.\nFindings: - A factorial analysis suggests that service quality has three dimensions namely \"Systemization\", \"Reliable Communication\" and \"Responsiveness\", and subsequent multiple regression analysis revealed that \"Systemization\" is the most important service quality dimension within the banking sector. The overall weighted BSQ Index of 4.00 implies that banking customers are generally pleased with the quality of services rendered by banking institutions.\nPractical implications: - The new Bank Service Quality Index (BSQ Index) is expected to be an important complement to traditional measures of economic performance, providing useful information to the banking institutions, shareholders, investors, government regulators, and customers. This composite index shall become an indicator reflecting the level of service quality in the banking institutions.\nOriginality/value: - The results from the current study are crucial because previous studies have produced scales that bear a resemblance to SERVQUAL, a generic measure of service quality, which may not be totally adequate to assess the perceived quality in the banking sector. Thus, the present study captured customers' evaluation of service quality in a 29-item questionnaire exclusively adapted to the unique nature of the banking sector.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Overall multiobjective optimization of construction projects scheduling using particle swarm	[ "Optimization techniques", "Integration", "Construction management", "Construction", "Financial performance", "Critical path analysis" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Construction projects represent a huge investment. Based on its importance, and due to inherited risks, construction managers and contractors must carefully plan, schedule, and manage projects in the most efficient manner. There are several dimensions that should be monitored to have a realistic schedule; time, cost, resources, and cash flow. Having a schedule that respects the time only may be inappropriate from other views such as the resources used, cost, and/or cash flow, and vice versa.\nMulti-objective PSO: In the case of single-objective optimization, the optimal solution is the one that achieves the best (minimum/maximum) value of the objective function. In case of multi-objective optimization, the functions are incommensurable and often have conflicting objectives, so there is no single optimized solution. Multi-objective optimization with such conflicting objectives gives rise to a set of optimized solutions, instead of one. In solving a problem with multiple objectives, different methods can be employed, such as, considering a new single-objective defined by weighted sum of the multiple objectives or bounding all but one of the objectives and trying to optimize the selected one. One other advantageous approach is to find the Pareto-optimal solution set (Iranmanesh et al., 2008). A solution belongs to the Pareto set (set of non-dominated solutions) if there is no other solutions that can improve at least one of the objectives without degradation of any other objectives.\nModel formulation: The proposed model considers time, cost, resources, and cash flow to obtain a set of Pareto-optimal solutions (schedules). In order to optimize construction resources, resource leveling should be performed to smooth-out the unconstrained resource utilization along project duration.\nOverall multiobjective optimization for project schedules: In PSO, each solution (particle) is represented as a string of elements equals twice the number of activities. Each activity is represented by two variables (Figure 3): activity start index Is, and construction-method index Im. Start index Is represents the start option of the chosen activity, which ranges between (zero) and (activity total float). For example, Activity 1, has Is=0, and Im=2 which means that the activity will start at its original start date, and will be executed using construction method number two. However, solutions of the first iteration will be generated randomly.\nApplication project: This section is dedicated to show the ability of the multi-objective PSO model to solve multi-objective project scheduling problems. The steps of applying the developed model are described as follows:\nComments and future extensions: The model presented in this paper has been demonstrated to work effectively on a comparison example project. With different experimentation, the suitable numbers of particles and generations were set as 40 and 200, respectively. To validate the model, verification example from the literature uses two objectives only were used (no example in the literature using four objectives were found). The results showed that the developed model produces quite similar results to those produced by other model with little improvement. Further experimentation was also conducted on real-life project and the proposed model performed very well. A variety of pareto-optimal solutions that covered a wide solution space (as discussed in the previous section) were presented along with the pareto-optimal compromise solution. The analysis of the application project proves that the proposed model is valid in modeling real-life construction projects and can give important results for schedulers and project managers. The proposed model is expected to help construction managers and decision makers in successfully completing the project on time and reduced budget. The main characteristics of the proposed model that makes it a proper tool for optimizing overall projects schedules stem from: it applies multi-objective optimization using a robust PSO to optimize four objectives simultaneously; it uses a unique solution represents a mutually agreeable trade-off among all competing objectives \"compromise solution\" to drive solution fitness. In such case, tracking a single point reminiscent of single-objective optimization; and it helps the user by presenting a unique compromise solution especially in complex objective spaces. In addition to creating many Pareto-optimal solutions from which the user can choose based on his/her preferences.\nSummary and conclusions: The characteristics of successful project management in construction required constructing the project schedule based on the optimum integration of several important information factors. In this paper an overall optimization model for multi-objective project scheduling was developed by integrating the shared information of time, cost, available resources, and cash flow components, and next, by utilizing multi-objective PSO technique that searches for the optimal solution. The mathematical and logic methodology of the utilized optimization technique was also provided. In order to validate the performance of the developed model, a real-life case study of construction example was tested. The project of the \"Head regulator of Alabbasi Canal\" located in Zefta, Egypt. Multiobjective optimization of PSO is applied using four objective functions of minimized time, cost, resources, and cash flow, with appropriate optimization parameters of population size and iterations. The optimization process of the model generated 20 optimal solutions that satisfy the resources constraints and covers wide range of the objectives. Each characterized by one or more advantages over the others. Based on his/her preferences and the project's practical concerns, Project managers can choose the solution with minimum project cost, or the solution with minimum project duration, or solution with small resource moment, or solution with minimum value of monthly overdraft, etc. Finally, and to overcome the difficulty of selecting single solution among the set of Pareto-optimal solutions, a procedure to obtain the best-alternative solution was applied to get the Pareto-compromise solution.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Developing an optimized project schedule that considers all decision criteria represents a challenge for project managers. The purpose of this paper is to provide a multi-objectives overall optimization model for project scheduling considering time, cost, resources, and cash flow. This development aims to overcome the limitations of optimizing each objective at once resulting of non-overall optimized schedule.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this paper, a multi-objectives overall optimization model for project scheduling is developed using particle swarm optimization with a new evolutionary strategy based on the compromise solution of the Pareto-front. This model optimizes the most important decisions that affect a given project including: time, cost, resources, and cash flow. The study assumes each activity has different execution methods accompanied by different time, cost, cost distribution pattern, and multiple resource utilization schemes.\nFindings: Applying the developed model to schedule a real-life case study project proves that the proposed model is valid in modeling real-life construction projects and gives important results for schedulers and project managers. The proposed model is expected to help construction managers and decision makers in successfully completing the project on time and reduced budget by utilizing the available information and resources.\nOriginality/value: The paper presented a novel model that has four main characteristics: it produces an optimized schedule considering time, cost, resources, and cash flow simultaneously; it incorporates a powerful particle swarm optimization technique to search for the optimum schedule; it applies multi-objectives optimization rather than single-objective and it uses a unique Pareto-compromise solution to drive the fitness calculations of the evolutionary process.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Service quality in public health clinics: perceptions of users and health professionals	[ "Perception", "Quality gaps", "Health service quality", "Healthcare providers", "Outpatients clinics" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Delivering public healthcare services can be precarious in developing countries that struggle under the pressure of increasing demands and diminishing resources. Therefore, evaluating these services has become essential to assuring service quality in these contexts. By identifying users' perceptions of the services they receive, and service providers' perceptions of the services they provide, we can effectively evaluate service quality. According to Donabedian (1988), the patients' perceptions of quality are related to how quickly their needs are met, and if the benefits they gain outweigh any risks involved in receiving the service. For these users, service quality is associated with infrastructure, and the health professionals, in addition to other services aimed at meeting their needs.\nTheoretical basis: To design quality gap models, Parasuraman et al. (1988) proposed a multi-dimensional scale to measure perceived service quality - the SERVQUAL scale, which incorporates a set of 22 attributes, in five domains: tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. The SERVQUAL scale, despite being widely used in empirical studies on service quality, received criticism for lacking contextualization of the attributes and dimensions in different industries and cultures.\nEmpirical studies on health services: Measuring and assessing healthcare service quality offers managers in this sector the opportunity to develop mechanisms/operating systems, procedures and protocols that improve their programs. The benefits are evident in both the public and private sectors. With effective public management, governments can achieve a greater social return on the investment of public resources. In the private sector, managers can make health services very competitive and cost effective. In order to evaluate service quality in healthcare efficiently, a deeper understanding of the nature of the doctor-patient relationship is essential to identifying and quantifying the attributes of the service. Naidu (2008), based on the results of 24 published studies, outlined a comprehensive model of the factors affecting satisfaction and the quality of health services. He identified the following as key dimensions: access, cost, patient care, role and behavior of physicians and tangible factors, such as appearance and the structure of the facility. Additionally, the perceptions of users seem to be mediated by associated socio-demographic factors (Alrubaiee and Alkaa'ida, 2011; Naidu, 2008; Narang, 2011).\nMethod: The research presented here was conducted with patients and health professionals at three public health centers in the city of Natal/Brazil. The city's medical health centers cater to patients in consultations regarding various medical specialties. They also provide minor surgery and laboratory tests. Access to services and laboratory tests are scheduled by appointment. There were 379 attributes related to healthcare service quality listed in the articles reviewed in this study. From a preliminary analysis, based on points such as completeness, juxtaposition, similarity and specificity, it was possible to consolidate a core set of 20 attributes. The basic set of attributes was presented to 15 managers and health professionals from three clinics through semi-structured interviews. Respondents stated which attributes they thought were important to include, or that they would like to see in the final survey instrument. They also suggested which attributes they would exclude. After the interviews, considering the suggestions of the respondents and the specificities of the local health service, the definitive research instrument of 25 attributes was established.\nResults: The results presented in this section reflect the responses on valid questionnaires applied to 265 health professionals and 1,200 patients at three city public health clinics in Natal, Brazil - 74 percent women; 50 percent were between the ages of 26 and 49; 55 percent had completed elementary school only, and the majority belong to the poorest social class in the population. A 49.43 percent response rate, 265 valid responses, was obtained from the health professionals: 40.5 percent physicians, 53.4 percent other health professionals such as psychologists, dentists, physiotherapists, speech therapists, pharmacists and nurses. Professional managers of polyclinics corresponded to 6.1 percent of the sample. The majority of the professionals interviewed work 40 hours a week (58 percent) and 66.4 percent were women.\nManagerial implications: The evaluation of a service begins with the consumers' perspective, measuring how well the service meets their needs, their priorities and how well it is performed. The study presented here is a multi-case study, to evaluate the general issues involving selected health clinics in general, and particular issues defined according to the specific situations of each.\nConclusion and recommendations: This study proposed a discussion of the different expectations and perceptions of service performance in clinics from the perspective of public health patients and providers. On the average, users' expectations resulted in values registering at the higher range of the scale; the average expectations about the service ranged from 9.16 to 9.59. For the providers, averages for patients ranged from 8.29 to 9.24. The results show that the providers think that patients have lower levels of expectations than those indicated by the patients in all attributes.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the expectations and quality gaps in services provided at city public health clinics in the city of Natal, Brazil, from the perspective of patients and healthcare service providers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research sample consisted of 1,200 patients who used public health services and 265 providers - doctors, nutritionists, physiotherapists, psychologists, pharmacists and managers at three health clinics in the city of Natal, Brazil. A scale with 25 health service attributes was used in data collection. Summary statistics and t-test were used to analyze the data.\nFindings: The results show that the providers think that users have lower levels of expectations than those indicated by the users in all attributes. Providers and users have the most approximate insights into what attributes are considered most important: explanations, level of knowledge and attention dispensed by health professionals. Users and providers perceived similar quality gaps for most of the attributes. The gaps were statistically the same, when comparing the mean quality shortcomings by means of a Student's test, considering a significance level of 5 percent, obtained independently by the manifestation of users and providers.\nResearch limitations/implications: The results reveal only a photograph of the moment. The study did not consider the differences that may exist between groups with different income levels, genders or age groups. A qualitative study could improve the understanding of the differences and coincidences of the diverse points of views. A more advanced research could even study possibilities so that health managers could promote changes in the service, some of them low cost, as the health professionals training for contact with patients.\nPractical implications: The evaluation of the service quality complemented by the matrix of opportunities, importance x quality gaps generates information to help make decisions in the rational allocation of available resources and improvement of the quality of the service delivered to patients. Besides, it offers a focus to prioritize specific actions.\nOriginality/value: It is important to compare the perceptions of service quality between patients and the healthcare service providers who work in direct contact with them. The managers can smooth out these differences and ensure, over time, customer satisfaction. In this study, providers were asked to express what they think about the expectations of patients and about their own service performance delivered. Thus, not only the traditional gap 5 was measured, but it was also possible to evaluate the distance between what providers think that patients need and their actual needs.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Information security management and the human aspect in organizations	[ "Information security", "Culture and technology", "Employee behaviour in technology", "IT human aspects", "Security and leadership" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The rapid growth of information technology (IT) has increased security risks in both industrial and financial sectors. Currently, human activity is considered the most critical factor in the management of information security. Information security risks related to human activity are observed in employees from large- and medium-sized businesses where employees violate company security policies or personally engage in security theft (Vance et al., 2013). These issues occur because of various factors such as poor information security awareness among employees, poor employee information security training and poorly managed teams. These factors are major threats to a company's information security. Compliance to a company security policy and frequent information security training of employees can positively impact the human aspects of security.\n2. Literature review: There have been numerous studies on information security management - for example, the information security viability model proposed by Kankan-Halli et al. (2003), and the planning of security and risk management approach proposed by Soo Hoo (2000). Cavusoglu et al. (2004a, 2004b) studied investment in information security and assessment. While these studies have improved our comprehension of information security from different viewpoints, their outcomes have not been able to solve all the security issues that face organizations.\n3. Method: Uneducated employees and/or unethical employee behavior are the causes of information security risk (Abawajy, 2014; Arce, 2003). It is clear that security risk cannot just be eliminated solely via security awareness without effective implementation and enforcement of compliances by organization management boards. In this study, we first analyzed levels of employee information security awareness regarding information security risk via their observational and behavioral viewpoints. We were also aware that employee awareness of information security does not guarantee that they will be compliant; therefore, we extended the scope of the study to analyze top management board individuals' information security awareness, and we proposed an effective information security policy compliance guideline.\n4. Findings and analysis: In all three organizations in our study, we found that the main issues that trigger security incidents and that hinder the accomplishment and enhancement of information security compliance were based on different factors. For example, we found that employee behavior is the most common obstacle associated with information security compliance (e.g. password sharing, password written down on a piece of paper, using shortcuts, visiting unauthorized websites, downloading unapproved internet programs from the internet, opening unapproved email attachments, disregarding important security strategies, lack of knowledge, poor information security training, keeping relevant information to themselves, lack of commitment, lack of security awareness, security infringement(s) not reported, culprit(s) not punished, weak security-related guidelines and lack of security compliance regulations). On the organizational level, we found that employees do not comply with organization rules and regulations due to lack of organization handbooks with clear rules and regulations, as well as lack of information security training, lack of managerial direction and absence of compliance departments. On the technical level, we found that both the automobile and the bank institutes were still using legacy technology devices and traditional information security management standards that do not meet their needs.\n5. Study limitations: We encountered limitations during this study. Some of the data collected were from organizations that were externally regulated. The FinTech external regulator initially disapproved the project due to risk management (i.e. not realizing finance and risk alignment benefits). The external regulators believed that the FinTech organization lacked the capability needed to execute compliance policies successfully in the real world. It was a tedious task to acquire authorization from these regulators for surveys and data collection in the area of information security. In any case, the data we collected were enhanced with a greater sample size by including the other organizations.\n6. Compliance guidelines and decision-making: Globalization and emerging markets have increased the complexity of information sharing. This complexity has also increased security risks, which has become a large issue in many organizations' information security management. Recent studies have depicted how organizations are deploying technology solutions and other strategies to eliminate these risks. From our findings, none of these approaches yielded positive results, while some organizations are not even aware of the importance of data security. On the other hand, modern organizations rely on information to make decisions that are used to carry out organizational activities. In this section, we answer RQ3 by proposing a principle that will enhance the development and implementation of information security management policies in an organization. This will also help eliminate various issues with respect to information security management and help to enhance productivity in an organization.\n7. Implications for research, practice and/or society: Our main objective in this study was to address the lack of research evidence on what mobilizes and influences information security management development and implementation. We have fulfilled this objective by surveying, collecting and analyzing data and giving an account of the attributes that hinder information security management. Accordingly, a major practical contribution of the present research is the empirical data it provides that enables us to have a bigger picture and precise information about the real issues that cause information security management shortcomings. Assessing an organization's valuable information will highlight the activities of the CEO, IT managers, top-level personnel, policymakers, consultants and trainers to design initiatives, apparatuses and actions in view of what strategy needs to be adopted to implement information security management, what they need to do and where they are now in terms of security-related issues, as opposed to what they think they ought to do. For instance, policymakers could observe that more often than not, top personnel will not read policies specifically and are probably going to pass them to their immediate staff members. This will enable them to reformat their policies accordingly. We believe that, various organizations could derive comparative implications through some of our findings.\n8. Conclusion and limitations: Information breaches could be successfully mitigated if security policy compliance is taken seriously in an organization (Ifinedo and Olsen, 2014; Vance et al., 2013). The arguments of the information security literature and the results from our survey on information security policy compliance via leadership decisions, employee commitment, collaboration and communication have been the main focus of this work. Certain variables such as knowledge sharing, socialization, work experience, skilled leadership management and intervention can direct employee behaviors toward compliance with information security policies and processes. Sharing information knowledge in an organization enhances both security awareness and the essence of organization security policy compliance and their processes. Leaders in the organization should encourage the importance of knowledge sharing via information security management training, and motivate employees through intrinsic and extrinsic manners for information security risk abatement. Lai and Chen (2014) concur that organization leaders can reward their staff via extrinsic motivation. There is no reward associated with intrinsic motivation because this type of motivation is based on the interest of the employees. Shibchurn and Yan (2015) also added that intrinsic motivations are influenced via satisfaction, and that pleasure is influenced via curiosity.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The aim of this study is to encourage management boards to recognize that employees play a major role in the management of information security. Thus, these issues need to be addressed efficiently, especially in organizations in which data are a valuable asset.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Before developing the instrument for the survey, first, effective measurement built upon existing literature review was identified and developed and the survey questionnaires were set according to past studies and the findings based on qualitative analyses. Data were collected by using cross-sectional questionnaire and a Likert scale, whereby each question was related to an item as in the work of Witherspoon et al. (2013). Data analysis was done using the SPSS.3B.\nFindings: Based on the results from three surveys and findings, a principle of information security compliance practices was proposed based on the authors' proposed nine-five-circle (NFC) principle that enhances information security management by identifying human conduct and IT security-related issues regarding the aspect of information security management. Furthermore, the authors' principle has enabled closing the gap between technology and humans in this study by proving that the factors in the present study's finding are interrelated and work together, rather than on their own.\nResearch limitations/implications: The main objective of this study was to address the lack of research evidence on what mobilizes and influences information security management development and implementation. This objective has been fulfilled by surveying, collecting and analyzing data and by giving an account of the attributes that hinder information security management. Accordingly, a major practical contribution of the present research is the empirical data it provides that enable obtaining a bigger picture and precise information about the real issues that cause information security management shortcomings.\nPractical implications: In this sense, despite the fact that this study has limitations concerning the development of a diagnostic tool, it is obviously the main procedure for the measurements of a framework to assess information security compliance policies in the organizations surveyed.\nSocial implications: The present study's discoveries recommend in actuality that using flexible tools that can be scoped to meet individual organizational needs have positive effects on the implementation of information security management policies within an organization. Accordingly, the research proposes that organizations should forsake the oversimplified generalized guidelines that neglect the verification of the difference in information security requirements in various organizations. Instead, they should focus on the issue of how to sustain and enhance their organization's compliance through a dynamic compliance process that involves awareness of the compliance regulation, controlling integration and closing gaps.\nOriginality/value: The rapid growth of information technology (IT) has created numerous business opportunities. At the same time, this growth has increased information security risk. IT security risk is an important issue in industrial sectors, and in organizations that are innovating owing to globalization or changes in organizational culture. Previously, technology-associated risk assessments focused on various technology factors, but as of the early twenty-first century, the most important issue identified in technology risk studies is the human factor.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
An empirical study of nation branding for attracting internationally mobile skilled professionals	[ "Migration", "Human capital", "Highly skilled workers", "Nation branding", "Talent mobility", "Global mobility" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The World Economic Forum (2013, p. 3) emphasizes that a \"nation's human capital endowment - the skills and capacities that reside in its people - can be a more important determinant of its long-term economic success than virtually any other resource.\" Modern economies require educated and skilled workforces at all levels, especially in managerial and technical roles (Scullion et al., 2007; Shaffer et al., 2012). As human capital becomes increasingly essential to economic growth and competiveness, the question of how and where to source talent - especially international mobile skilled professionals - is becoming ever more important not only for companies, but for industries as well as nations (D'Costa, 2008; Favell et al., 2006; PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2012). Many nations, for example, are realizing that they \"must encourage an increase in foreign labor flows to meet the demands of their economies, keep up with the reach of multinational corporations, offset the adverse consequences of an aging population, stimulate research and development and/or promote entrepreneurship, and expand foreign markets\" (Batalova and Lowell, 2006, p. 81).\nNation branding for attracting internationally mobile skilled professionals: The aim of place or nation branding is to provide countries with a framework for expressing their core strengths and values in a concise and effective manner (Anholt, 1998, 2002). The practice of engaging in nation branding and advertising activities to attract skilled labor is not new. In late-nineteenth century America, for example, the Northern Pacific Railroad advertised Duluth, Minnesota, as a city adorned with orange groves and orchards in order to attract skilled European farmers (Chernow, 2001). Its goal was to entice farmers away from other prospective emigrant destinations, including Argentina and Canada. As in the past, nation branding continues to be predicated upon the belief that countries are engaged in a competition for scarce resources that includes tourists, skilled migrants, investment, and trade (Papadopoulos, 2004). Kaneva (2011, p. 120) finds that nation branding is generally used for what she describes as \"technical-economic\" purposes aimed at encouraging \"economic growth, efficiency and capital accumulation\" and as \"a strategic tool for enhancing a nation's competitive advantage in a global marketplace.\" The World Economic Forum (2011) asserts that nations will need to develop effective branding strategies for attracting talent from abroad for the purpose of enhancing their economic competitiveness and growth.\nOrigins and development of hypotheses: To develop our hypotheses, we examine the literature on internationally mobile skilled professionals and the role that Silvanto and Ryan's (2014) five vision drivers play in influencing international relocation decisions. Silvanto and Ryan's (2014) framework is theoretically predicated on Lievens and Highhouse's (2003) observation that attracting skilled professionals requires instrumental, practical, and symbolic attributes.\nModel and methodology: To test the six hypotheses set forth above, we used bivariate analysis, a multiple linear regression and a relative importance analysis. Six independent variables were used as proxies for testing the six hypotheses derived from Silvanto and Ryan's (2014) framework. The strategic vision drivers examined in this study, through the use of carefully selected proxies, were: remunerative employment; ethnic diversity; tolerance; good governance; concentration of talent; and quality of life. The data sources and proxies for the independent variables in this study are discussed below.\nAnalysis and results: Bivariate analysis\nDiscussion: Taken together, the accepted hypotheses suggest that internationally mobile skilled professionals generally prefer to relocate to countries that offer a high quality of life, employment opportunities, sound governance, and a spirit of tolerance and inclusiveness, all other things being equal. Countries wishing to attract such talent (e.g. Canada, New Zealand, and Luxembourg) should, accordingly, emphasize these qualities and assets in their nation branding and promotional efforts by representing their countries not only as fair and rewarding places to work, but also as safe, stable, well-managed and satisfying societies in which to live. Overall, the findings suggest that a holistic and comprehensive approach that emphasizes a range of key themes is necessary for devising and implementing successful nation branding campaigns aimed at attracting talent from abroad. These themes include emphasizing an acceptance of diversity, an appreciation for professional expertise, strong industries, employment, high wages, good governance, and a high quality of life. Furthermore, the study supports Lievens and Highhouse's (2003) assertion that, just as companies with brand images emphasizing their instrumental and symbolic attributes are more successful at attracting talented recruits than those that do not, the same approach also applies to nation branding. In other words, countries that are able to promote key functional and symbolic virtues, such as good governance and a good quality of life, are more successful at attracting internationally mobile skilled professionals than others.\nConclusion: Nation branding campaigns are designed to project a favorable image of a country relative to attracting a specific type of \"talent\" in the form of expatriates, em/migrants and other skilled professionals. In this study, our findings provide insight into the \"macro\" factors that draw internationally mobile skilled professionals to some countries over others. The contribution of this study is that it allows a more objective comparison of these factors across a broad array of country attraction factors based on variables that the literature suggests matter to this cohort of professionals. Future studies would ideally seek to confirm or further test our findings by using the same or alternative research methodologies to identify other economic, social and institutional factors that might matter for attracting internationally mobile skilled professionals.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to empirically assess the importance for nations of key institutional, economic, and societal factors for attracting skilled professionals from abroad. It examines the existing literature on international talent mobility and empirically tests the validity of nation branding as a strategy for attracting internationally mobile skilled professionals.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors use secondary data from the World Economic Forum, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Martin Prosperity Institute to test six hypotheses concerning factors that attract internationally mobile skilled professionals to a foreign country to live and work.\nFindings: The study finds that conditions of employment, quality of life, good governance, and tolerance towards people of diverse backgrounds are key issues that need to be holistically emphasized in successful nation branding campaigns aimed at attracting highly skilled professionals from abroad.\nOriginality/value: The authors use strong secondary data to reduce common method bias in the results which show that \"macro\" factors sway internationally mobile skilled professionals to favor some countries over others. The authors contribute to the literature on international talent flows by conceptualizing nation branding as a framework through which a variety of push and pull factors can be examined to entice and attract internationally mobile skilled professionals to a particular host-country. The findings will apply to several different types of skilled professionals including self-initiated expatriates, self-initiated corporate expatriates, and third country nationals and local foreign hires.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Can food production diversity influence farm households' dietary diversity? An appraisal from two-dimensional food diversity measures	[ "Food security", "Diet quality", "Dietary diversity", "Farm production diversity", "Rural Nigeria" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The crucial roles of agriculture in sustaining human lives through production of foods and fibers as well as provision of shelter and medicinal plants cannot be overemphasized (Hawkes and Ruel, 2006; McDermott et al., 2013). Although efforts to alleviate food insecurity, hunger and malnutrition in many developing countries by encouraging agricultural productivity growth, particularly through increased cereals/staples production have substantially raised supply of food calories, the rates of food insecurity and micronutrient malnutrition are still unacceptable high by international standard in many developing regions of the world. As a way of combating hunger and calorific under-nutrition, many poor household groups in developing countries have increased consumption of poor quality energy-dense-processed foods. Such shift in dietary patterns has contributed to the rising rates of overweight and obesity, and slow progress of micronutrient malnutrition reduction in these regions. With this in perspective, there has been repeated emphasis on policies and programs for agricultural development at various fora on food security either at the local, national or global level because of the significant role agricultural transformation could play in enhancing food security, quality of diets and nutritional well-being (Remans et al., 2011; Carletto et al., 2015). This, therefore, raises an important question of whether agricultural development pathway that prioritizes diversification of agricultural production systems for more varied diets could offer new chances for addressing the persistent food insecurity, malnutrition and related health problems such as obesity and other chronic non-communicable diseases (Frison, 2007; Keding et al., 2012; McDermott et al., 2013; Qaim et al., 2014) in many developing countries, Nigeria inclusive.\nMethodology: Data for the study\nResults and discussion: Diets diversity and farm production diversity scores\nConclusion: The unique opportunity to eliminate poverty, hunger, malnutrition and related diseases makes development of agriculture and food systems that enhances production and consumption of more diverse foods an indispensable pathway toward realizing the sustainable development goal in Nigeria. Our findings suggest that more diverse farm production systems may substantially stimulate consumption of varied diets. However, other challengers must be addresses as the linkage between farm production and dietary diversity is somewhat complex. The relationship may be influenced, among others, by rural food prices, especially staples, household income, household size and whether the household is a net-seller or net buyer of foods. Even though findings would broadly suggest encouragement of a more diverse farm system, we caution against extensive abstraction of findings as it would appear to brush aside the fundamental economic concept of comparative advantage in farm production. Efforts toward deepening rural market integration, expanding the value of farm production, and removal of other roadblocks that can preclude farmers from taking advantage of price signals to raise farm incomes are vital for promoting dietary diversity which would subsequently enhance the food security and nutritional well-being of the households.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Emphasis on the potential roles diverse farm production systems could play in enhancing food consumption variety and nutritional well-being in rural developing countries has increased in recent times. However, there are paucities of empirical works connecting diversity in agricultural production and dietary diversity in Africa, and Nigeria in particular. The purpose of this paper is to, therefore, examine, among others, the causal link between farm production diversity and consumption of varied diets among farm households in Nigeria using a nationally representative panel data.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Unlike the simple food count measure, the authors adopt two-dimensional indices to assess food diversity, and estimated both fixed and random effects versions of panel data econometrics models with the two-dimensional indices as regressands.\nFindings: Results show that food production system is less diverse with an average farm household consuming fairly varied foods across seasons. All the econometrics models estimated consistently established positive and statistically significant influence of farm production diversity on household dietary diversity. Higher food prices, especially rice and roots and tubers could substantially reduce dietary diversity with the negative effects likely to be more devastating for low-income farm households. The specificity of household being a net food seller had positive, although weak influence on dietary diversity.\nOriginality/value: The findings accentuate, among others, the need for strategies to promote farm production diversity, transform farm households to net-sellers of foods and enable them take advantage of food price signals to boost farm incomes as important pathway for diet quality improvement and reduction of food insecurity, malnutrition and related diseases in rural Nigeria\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Comparing three models to explain precautionary online behavioural intentions	[ "Online banking", "Protection motivation theory", "Human aspects", "Information security behaviour", "Reasoned action approach" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Today, society is becoming increasingly networked and connected (van Dijk, 2012). As more services to customers are offered online, such as banking, government and health, security becomes increasingly important. Individuals, economy and society can be harmed when security is compromised, for example, by means of data breaches and distributed denial-of-service attacks. The Netherlands' first National Cybersecurity Strategy states: (secure) IT is fundamental for our prosperity and well-being and essential for economic growth. This means that besides increasing the adoption and use of IT, it is equally important to ensure its safety and security (Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice, 2011). It is evident that societal issues, like cybersecurity, need to be addressed by different parties, such as internet service providers, telecom organisations and governmental agencies. However, it is equally important that end-users behave in a secure fashion, as they play an essential role in safeguarding the online domain. Moreover, they are essential for achieving online security (Furnell et al., 2006; Liang and Xue, 2010; Ng et al., 2009).\n2. Background literature and development of hypotheses: In this section, first, an overview of PMT (Section 2.1) and RAA (Section 2.2) is presented, complemented with definitions of the predictor variables and a set of hypotheses that are tested in this study. This is followed by a discussion of precautionary online behavioural intention, the target behaviour of our study (Section 2.3).\n3. Method: In this section, we describe the methods used to test the hypotheses and evaluate which model is most effective in predicting users' motivation for precautionary online behaviour. First, we discuss the survey questionnaire and procedure (Section 3.1). Second, we provide details on the survey participants (Section 3.2). We then discuss data analysis, validity and reliability of measures (Section 3.3).\n4. Results: The structural models with the test results are presented in Figures 1-3. We evaluated the significance of the model predictors of precautionary online behaviour.\n5. Limitations: Our study has some limitations. First, the attitude construct contains one item only for hypotheses-testing, which potentially threatens reliability. Only three items were included in the questionnaire to measure this rather complex construct. Although the scale itself was reliable, two items loaded too heavily on protection motivation. Future research could make use of a more robust measure of attitude, as its explanatory power is often shown (Ifinedo, 2012, 2014; Venkatesh et al., 2003). However, Herath and Rao (2009) found no significant relationship between attitude and security policy compliance. They attributed this result to factors such as context, sample and other extraneous factors. Furthermore, they argue that the predictive power of attitude might be reduced by the inclusion of other constructs, such as self-efficacy and norms. Hence, the precise effect of attitude in this regard is an interesting topic for future research.\n6. Conclusions and discussion: The aim of our study was to evaluate the usefulness of PMT and RAA in explaining precautionary online behaviour. PMT and RAA both show good explanatory power, which indicates that both seem valuable in explaining this kind of behaviour. A main contribution of the combined model is that it shows that the individual predictors of the two constituent models (PMT and RAA) remain significant, thereby potentially providing practitioners more opportunities for prevention through increasing people's precautionary behaviour. Significant predictors should, for example, be emphasised in prevention campaigns in an effort to achieve behavioural change. Increased precautionary behaviour of end users is beneficial for banks, as it might reduce the number of online banking fraud incidents.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to compare three social cognitive models in their ability to explain intentions of precautionary online behaviour. The models are: protection motivation theory (PMT), the reasoned action approach (RAA) and an integrated model comprising variables of these models.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected from 1,200 Dutch users of online banking by means of an online survey and analysed using partial least squares path modelling method.\nFindings: The two models equally explain about much of the variance in precautionary online behaviour; in the integrated model, the significant predictors of the two models remained significant. Precautionary online behaviour is largely driven by response efficacy, attitude towards behaviour and self-efficacy.\nResearch limitations/implications: One limitation is that the predictor variables - \"self-efficacy\" and \"attitude\" - are represented by one item only in the path-analysis because of high cross-loadings of the other items with the dependent variable.\nPractical implications: The results give practitioners a potentially wider range of options to design preventative measures.\nOriginality/value: The three models are successfully applied to online banking. This paper concludes that both PMT and RAA make a unique contribution in explaining variance for precautionary online behaviour. This paper is a re-publication of a previous conference paper (Jansen and van Schaik, 2016).\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Inter-professional physician-nurse collaboration in Lebanon	[ "Risk management", "Communication", "Teamwork", "Evidence-based practice", "Health care quality", "Clinical leadership culture" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nBackground: Physician-nurse communication is a complex process and is considered one of the most important indicator of high-quality patient care (Benner, 2007; Sheldon and Hilaire, 2015). In the hospital setting, many players are involved in patients care, but the two central players are the physicians and nurses. Their relationship does not simply consist of an exchange of information, but rather a professional and shared-decision-making process aiming at achieving best patient care (Coombs and Essers, 2003; Hassankhani and Jasemi, 2013; Alibakhshikenari, 2018). Furthermore, effective communication significantly helps in reaching collaborative decisions toward positive outcomes for patients (Elsous et al., 2017; Lockhart-Wood, 2000). Unfortunately, some studies have shown that conflicts may exist between nurses and physicians (Sweet and Norman, 1995). For instance, some physicians think that they should be the dominant party in this relationship. They further think that they should be the only ones involved in making decisions concerning their patients care, and they believe that the nurses' roles is to simply carry out the physicians' orders, while providing healthcare services to their patients (Hartley, 2002; Olajide et al., 2015; Keddy et al., 1986). Furthermore, in addition to work-related attitude problems, other factors negatively affect this relationship including but not limited to organizational factors, such as stress, and lack of adequate team training (Tschannen and Lee, 2012; Minamizono et al., 2013; Scalise, 2006; Schmalenberg and Kramer, 2009). If the information transmitted between physicians and nurses is not properly communicated and understood, the tension between health care team members may significantly increase (Shannon and Myers, 2012). Thus, a negative physician-nurse relationship leads to workplace stress and puts patients at risk. For instance, nurses may not contact physicians to clarify a medication order if they were not at good terms. In a study conducted in China to assess the nurses' perceptions of collaboration, the results came positive in patient information sharing, but were not that great in the joined participation in the treatment decision-making process (Wang et al., 2018). Hence, this physician-nurse relationship is complicated. Even more, patients need to have confidence in the healthcare professional (McKay and Narasimhan, 2012). Since this relationship is important, and given its varying nature in different contexts, many studies were conducted trying to assess the nature of the physician-nurse relationship in their local context. For instance, in a tertiary health facility in Nigeria, a descriptive study was conducted to assess the attitudes toward the physician-nurse collaboration among physicians and nurses working there. The study reported that nurses, especially female nurses, tended to have better attitude when compared to physicians concerning their relationship (Falana et al., 2016). This was also confirmed in other studies (Pevida, 2009; El Sayed and Sleem, 2011). However, in another study conducted in a neonatal intensive care unit in a hospital in Australia, physicians were found to better collaborate when compared to nurses. In a research study conducted by Schmalenberg and Kramer, the results obtained from six research articles combined concerning physician-nurse communication described the relationship, as reported by nurses, to be collaborative with equal trust and mutual respect (El Sayed and Sleem, 2011). On the other hand, an integrated review including 22 studies showed that physician-nurse communication remains ineffective (Tan et al., 2017). A study using the same scale was conducted in the USA, Israel, Italy and Mexico, with a total of 2,522 physicians and nurses. This study revealed inter- and intra-cultural similarities and differences among the groups (Hojat et al., 2003). It is extremely important that efforts should be made in order to determine the type of physician-nurse relationship in every local context as this relationship affects the quality of patient care. In addition, this may help promote inter-professional undergraduate to postgraduate education, which needs to orient training nurses and physicians to communicate in an effective manner. Given the lack of literature on studies done in Lebanon, this study is conducted with the aim of identifying the type of physician-nurse relationship that exists in hospitals in Southern Lebanon - an economically less developed area than the rest of the country - and the factors that affect this relationship. This study is particularly interested in the lack of good communication and relationship, which negatively affects the work environment, the patients' care and the hospitals' finances.\nMethods: Study design and setting\nResults: The study included 89 physicians and 245 nurses; see Table I for demographic information. The flow diagram is presented in Figure 1. The mean Jefferson Scale of Attitudes toward Physician-Nurse Collaboration score was calculated. The d!-test analysis showed that nurses had1 significantly higher scores compared to physicians, 48 vs 43 respectively, reflecting a more positive attitude toward collaboration among nurses when compared to physicians. When compared to other hospitals, Hammoud Hospital had significantly higher scores. However, no significant difference was noted in the scores in relation to the degrees attained by nurses and to years of experience for all participants. Table II presents the details: male and female nurses had significantly higher scores compared to male and female physicians respectively. Similarly, for all hospitals, nurses had higher scores compared to physicians. Years of experience did not reflect any significance with relation to the scores; however, nurses tended to have higher scores when compared to physicians, in each of the subdivided years of experience group.A kh2 test of independence was performed to examine the relationship between nurses and physicians with respect to different aspects of their relationship. The majority of physicians and nurses agreed that shortage of nurses' staff would affect proper patient care delivery; however, that belief was significantly higher among physicians. As for having inter-professional education as part of their undergraduate studies, the majority of participants agreed to this. When participants were asked whether nurses should be involved in policy-making decisions concerning hospital support services, significantly more nurses were in favor of that compared to physicians, where it was found that 22 percent of physicians disagreed to the involvement of nurses. Furthermore, significantly more nurses believed that they should be given responsibility for monitoring effects of medical treatment on patients. It was also shown that nurses more strongly believed that they should clarify a physician's order when they feel that it might have the potential of having detrimental effects on the patient. One fourth of physicians disagreed that nurses be considered as a collaborator and colleague with physicians, rather than their assistant, and there was a statistical significant difference between physicians and nurses' responses in that regards. There was a statistical significant difference between physicians and nurses concerning physicians' dominance. In sum, 64 percent of nurses (majority) did not agree that physicians should be the dominant authority in all health care matters, compared to 49 percent of physicians who disagreed with this statement. When compared to physicians, significantly more nurses disagreed that the primary function of the nurse is to carry out the physician's orders (41 vs 24 percent respectively). The majority of physicians and nurses believed that physicians should round more often on their patients. Again, when asked, more nurses believed that physicians and nurses should contribute to decisions regarding the hospital discharge of patients. The majority of nurses and physicians believed that social interaction outside the work environment is a good predictor of a good physician-nurse relationship. Please check Table III for details.\nDiscussion: Our research paper investigates the nature of the physician-nurse relationship in Lebanon, as this is important for the delivery of high-quality medical care to patients. Our results support the literature provided by Elsous et al. (2017) and El Sayed et al., which have shown that physicians and nurses differ in their attitudes toward collaboration, with nurses expressing more interest than physicians in collaboration regardless of gender, hospital or years of experience. Similarly, a study conducted in Ireland and the USA showed the same results (Bell, 2018). In the literature, it has been shown that physicians are more likely to believe in a traditional \"captain of the ship\" relationship, and tend to consider nurses as inferior rather than as colleagues (El Sayed and Sleem, 2011). Furthermore, nurses believed that they tend to be unwilling to challenge physician's authority; however, patients' advocacy justified their questioning of some of the physicians' decisions (Snelgrove and Hughes, 2000). In a study in Korea, physicians wished that nurses were more considerate and believed that they were willing to receive feedback from nurses for the sake of patients' safety (Park et al., 2018). In Singapore, physicians and nurses expressed their interest in collaboration during their bedside rounds, with no significant difference in the attitude between physicians and nurses. However, in this study, barriers suggested to may affect this relationship included time-related issues (Chew et al., 2019). Time pressure was also reported to negatively affect the physician-nurse relationship in acute care settings as well (Ma and Stimpfel, 2018). In some studies, work overload was considered as a negative factor (Manojlovich and Antonakos, 2008; Lyndon et al., 2011; McKnight et al., 2001). One of the studies tried to assess the relationship between nurses and some junior physicians who both admitted that it was extremely important to cooperate with barriers to their relationship including heavy clinical workload and differing power relationships. It was believed that nurses have to take on more responsibilities in the decision-making process of patients' care to foster effective inter-professional collaboration (Tang et al., 2018). In our study, more than 75 percent of physicians believed that nurses could be involved in making policy decisions affecting their working conditions. This was also documented in other studies (Sandelowski, 1986; Manning, 2006). A study found that work environment, resources and values regarding a physician-nurse collaboration played a major role in this relationship (Sabone et al., 2019).We compared our mean JSAPNC scores with other international studies that used the same scoring system. Similar to ours, a study conducted in Singapore using the same scale showed primary care nurses to have higher scores when compared to physicians, where the mean JSAPNC score for physicians was 50.39 (SD=4.67) vs 51.61 (SD=4.19) for nurses and this was significant (Zheng et al., 2016). Similarly, this was reported in other studies (Biddle, 1979, p. 28; Ward et al., 2008; Hansson et al., 2010). Finding that this relationship is not ideal as was shown by the lower scores reported in Lebanon compared to other countries would highlight the need for an action plan to work on making this relationship better. Thus, there is a need to conduct workshops and awareness campaigns on improving this relationship and highlighting the importance of having a healthy relation between nurses and physicians. Further work should be done in universities to enhance inter-professional education courses and simulations in order to work on improving this relationship. Hojat et al.'s (2003) study revealed that American nurses, when compared to nurses in Italy and Mexico, expressed more interest toward collaboration with physicians. Other studies showed that physicians in intensive care units had higher scores when compared to nurses (Miller, 2001; Hamric and Blackhall, 2007).However, it is important to note that in Lebanon, lower scores were reported for both physicians and nurses, pointing to the fact that significant actions should be done in order to enhance the collaboration process between them. In a study, it was found that awareness about nurses' roles would favorably increase collaboration (Barrere and Ellis, 2002). The significantly lower scores reported by physicians when compared to nurses in Lebanon was striking. This highlights a defect in the system, which apparently does not work on improving this collaboration. Universities should focus more on this issue and postgraduate training should be oriented toward working on improving this relationship.It is important to note that there are significantly more physicians than nurses registered in Lebanon. This could highlight that since the relationship between nurses and physicians is not ideal in Lebanon, this may have led nurses to travel abroad to work in other countries. However, this nursing shortage is also found to be reported worldwide (Haddad and Toney-Butler, 2019; Alipour et al., 2019). Our study did not show that years of experience affect this relationship, while opposite results were found in Gaza (Elsous et al., 2017).This study has some limitations. The first of which is the complex relationship normally displayed by physicians and nurses that cannot be easily interpreted and analyzed. Furthermore, physicians and nurses may have given socially desirable responses while filling the questionnaire. In addition, this was a cross-sectional study, which may be a subject of recall bias. Even more, this study was conducted in hospitals in Southern Lebanon, and it would be nice to extend it to include further hospitals in other regions in Lebanon as well.\nConclusion: This study aims at identifying the type of physician-nurse relationship that exists in hospitals in Southern Lebanon. Its primary role is to show how to build a good health care system by promoting better collaboration between nurses and physicians to work as a team and to show how important this relationship is in the hospital for decreasing workplace tensions, which would ultimately lead to better quality of care. This study has shown that the attitude toward this relationship is not ideal and that there are some gaps in this collaboration. On the other hand, it clearly showed that nurses displayed higher scores when compared to physicians with significantly higher scores displayed by females. Thus, hospitals, medical and nursing staff should consider ways to harmonize attitudes toward collaboration, through workshops, joint meetings, etc. Additional efforts are also required in order to have better alignment and to make their expectations more explicit regarding collaboration. The majority of participants agreed that having an inter-professional education is essential as part of their undergraduate studies. Given that the study was conducted in Hospitals of Southern Lebanon, and given that the nature of this relationship varies depending on the local context, the generalizability of this study to other countries is limited. Practical implications of this study include the need for a better education and to stress on the importance of this relationship and collaboration is necessary in order to ensure better patient safety and quality care.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: A physician-nurse relationship is a complex, professional and shared-decision-making process, which is an important predictor of high-quality patient care. The purpose of this paper is to explore the attitude of the physician-nurse relationship in Southern Lebanon hospitals.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A descriptive institutional cross-sectional study was conducted among different departments of three hospitals in Southern Lebanon using a validated Jefferson Scale of Attitude.\nFindings: In sum, 89 physicians and 245 nurses accepted to participate. The nurses' mean age was 32 and the physicians' was 44. The mean score was found to be 46 for all participants, with significantly higher scores noted among nurses compared to physicians (48 vs 43, respectively) and higher scores among females compared to males (48 vs 46, respectively). However, the study scored no significant difference in relation to the degrees attained by nurses and the participants' years of experience. The majority had agreed that the shortage in the nurses' staff affects proper patient care delivery. One fourth of the physicians disagreed that nurses should be considered as a collaborator and colleague. Therefore, more work is required to improve this collaboration.\nResearch limitations/implications: There is a complex relationship normally displayed by physicians and nurses, which cannot be easily interpreted and analyzed. Physicians and nurses may have given socially desirable responses while filling the questionnaire. Even more, this study was conducted in Hospitals in Southern Lebanon, and it would be nice to extend this study to include further hospitals in other regions in Lebanon as well.\nPractical implications: Nurses had higher scores toward collaboration, with females scoring higher than males. However, overall scores are considered to be lower compared to other countries. Thus, more efforts should be done on improving this communication among nurses and physicians, through promoting inter-professional undergraduate and postgraduate education training toward more effective communication.\nSocial implications: Quality of patient care would be improved if more work is done on improving the collaboration between physicians and nurses, and this was shown to be required as per study results.\nOriginality/value: There is a gap in literature assessing this important topic which is the collaboration and attitude of nurses and physicians toward their relationship in Lebanon. It is extremely important that efforts should be taken in order to determine the type of nurse-physician relationship in every local context as this relationship affects quality of patients' care.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Playing the HR field: An interview with R. Wayne Pace, founding president of the Academy of Human Resource Development, and author of Human Resource Development: The Field	[ "Human resource development (HRD)", "Organizational development", "Employee engagement", "Human resourcing" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Few people have been as prolific in the field of human resource development as Dr R. Wayne Pace. He is author of over 30 books and 100 articles, specializing in human resource development, organizational change, and organizational communication. He has also served as corporate advisor to training and development consultancies QuickKnowledge, Anchor Point Institute, and STS International.\nWhat is the greatest challenge HR practitioners are faced with today?: The field of human resources is, of course, considerably broader than HR development. In 1991, along with a couple of other colleagues, we published a book called Human Resource Development: the Field. In it we identified three key dimensions of the HR field: creating the system, maintaining the system, and improving the system. HRD was associated with improving the system and included individual development, organization development, and career development. Most HR management activities have to do with maintaining the system and include selection and staffing, information systems, compensation and benefits, employee assistance, and labor relations. Creating the system involves activities such as organization design, job design, planning, and sometimes staffing. Many of these activities are taught in Schools of Management, but especially in organizational behavior academic programs.I'm less aware of the problems that professionals who work in the trenches have nowadays, but the world itself is becoming more complex and limitations imposed by austerity measures make the acquisition of resources more difficult. Organizations may appear to be more restricted in giving employees time to be developed and providing the staff and materials. The issues seem to be quite similar to those that were experienced twenty years or more ago.Many writers predicted that HRD staff would be faced with several problems in the future, and this is probably the future to which they were referring. HRD staff would be occupied with creating an empowered work force. With the economic downturn, that may not be an issue that is as prominent as it could be. Aligning worker goals with the larger organizational priorities was also predicted to be a concern. Making sure that the organization has the talent needed was listed as a future concern. Having a productive interpersonal environment, meaning minimal conflict, openness in communication, and positive productivity, was also a top concern. Another concern was creating an atmosphere of change so that the organization could adapt quickly to new developments. Having a strong customer focus was also listed, and, finally, maintaining a high quality of work life. For the most part, these critical people issues are probably as important today as they were 25 years ago.\nHow can organizations create and maintain an engaged and energized workforce?: I appreciate that question since one of my major research programs focused on that issue. My answer to such a question has been published in one of my books, Organizational Dynamism. If it took me a book manuscript to answer the question, I can hardly do more than briefly summarize what we discovered. Quite a bit has been written on engagement and energizing employees. Our research focused on what we called organizational and worker vitality or dynamism. We discovered that an employee's enthusiasm and energy output is related to perceptions of four types which we called POFE.\"P\" represents the perceptions employees have of their ability to work at high levels of competence. We called these performance perceptions and they encompass the concepts of self-efficacy and self-confidence.\"O\" represents the perceptions employees have of the extent of their influence and impact in and on the organization. We called these opportunity perceptions.\"F\" represents the perceptions employees have of the extent of their autonomy and self-determination in the organization, or how free they are to work as they please. We called these fulfillment perceptions.\"E\" represents the perceptions employees have of the extent to which their aspirations and expectations are being met in the organization. We called these expectations, but it includes how meaningful an employee feels his or her work is.If these four perceptions are very positive, we can almost guarantee that the employee or employees will be enthusiastic and expend a great deal of energy in what they do in the organization, resulting in high output and positive consequences. If employees have negative perceptions on the POFE perceptions, you can be assured that what we called \"anhedonia\" will emerge and reduce or even destroy employee energy.Associated with the POFE perceptions is what we call a set of \"natural work goals\" or NWG's. We identified sixteen NWG's that, if achieved, work to create positive work perceptions. We concluded from our research that great companies focus the disciplined energy of employees and achieve a sustained output that make a vital different in organizations. Every organization needs to assess how well employees are accomplishing the 16 NWG's and how positive their employee's work perceptions or POFE are.\nWhat kinds of work does the Academy of HRD carry out?: The Academy of Human Resource Development is a scholarly organization dedicated to, as one of our mottos says, leading the field of HRD through research. It has an international membership and is governed by Officers, who serve two-year terms and a board of directors, each of whom serve three-year terms. To encourage research, the Academy sponsors research conferences in at least three different areas each year - the America's, Europe, and Asia. The 2012 America's conference was held in Denver, Colorado, the European conference in Portugal, and the Asian conference in Malaysia while the 2013 conference will be held in Arlington, Virginia, USA. Scholars from around the world will attend one or more of these conferences and report on the research that they have been doing during the year.Members of the academy are organized around special interest groups, such as the scholar-practitioner SIG and the HRD theory SIG. Research interests are flexible, so SIG's emerge and discontinue in such diverse areas as instructional design, action learning, diversity, organization development, e-learning, knowledge management, strategy, leadership development, and organizational learning.\nWhat role does HRD play in encouraging socio-economic growth?: I wrote at one time that the goal of HRD is to achieve the highest quality of work life for employees and to produce the highest quality products and services possible in the environment and context of the organization in which development is occurring. This refers primarily to the professionals working in the human resource development unit of an organization. The goal of practitioners in the field of HRD is to encourage growth in both the social and the technical systems of an organization.\nWhat has been the highlight of your career and what are your plans for the future?: I've served as chair of four different university departments and assisted in the founding of HRD programs in several other universities. I help found the Academy of HRD, served as President of the International Communication Association and the Western States Communication Association, and taught thousands of students. I've traveled internationally and served as a university research fellow in Australia. Together, they represent some major highlights of my career. I have to admit, however, that publishing thirty books is a major accomplishment as well.For the future, I plan to continue working on a half-dozen new books and hope to have some of them published before too long. I have a love of the game of lawn bowling and I plan to continue playing bowls several times a week. Since retiring my wife, Gae, and I have served as leaders of a delegation of HRD professionals to China, accepted a Senior Fulbright appointment in the Netherlands, visited some cousins in Germany, and constructed a lovely home on a cliff in Southern Utah. We might even look into another trip abroad. Who knows?\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The aim of the article is to provide the text of an interview with Dr R. Wayne Pace\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Gareth Bell interviews R. Wayne Pace, founding president of the Academy of Human Resource Development, and author of Human Resource Development: the Field.\nFindings: - Few people have been as prolific in the field of human resource development as Dr R. Wayne Pace. He is author of over 30 books and 100 articles, specializing in human resource development, organizational change, and organizational communication. He has also served as corporate advisor to training and development consultancies QuickKnowledge, Anchor Point Institute, and STS International.\nOriginality/value: - The article provides an interview with one of the most respected figures in the field of human resource development, who gives his views on the challenges HR practitioners are faced with today.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Using simulation to assess the introduction of technology in a continuous operations process	[ "Production processes", "Simulation", "Automation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This paper presents a simulation study of a major investment in automation, specifically the design of an automated sorting and packing facility at a large-scale snacks process production facility.Simulation modelling is arguably more widely applied to manufacturing systems in general more than any other application area (Law and Kelton, 2000). Some of the reasons for this are the competitive environment in many industries that has resulted in a greater emphasis on automation to improve productivity and quality. Since automated systems are more complex, they typically can only be analysed by simulation. Another factor is that the cost of equipment and facilities can be quite large, thus the relatively small expenditure on simulation can reduce the risk of failed implementation. Thus, the process industries with their generally high level of automation and capital investment would seem an ideal opportunity to utilise the simulation technique. However, despite their widespread occurrence, (within the manufacturing sector Novitsky (1983) states that approximately 50 per cent of all firms consider themselves to be in the process industries) examples of the use of simulation modelling are few, and those that do occur tend to focus on the analysis of production planning and control issues. Examples include ten Kate (1994) who uses simulation to compare two coordination mechanisms between production and sales activities. Katayama (1996) uses simulation to assess a production planning procedure for a multi-item continuous production system in a petrochemical plant. White and Tsai (1999) use simulation to analyse the logistics of solvent recovery in a chemical processing plant. Vaidyanathan et al. (1998) use simulation as a daily production scheduling tool in a coffee manufacturing process. Saraph (2001) uses simulation to imitate demand and supply of water in a continuous process biotech manufacturing facility.In relation to the literature regarding continuous operations van Dam et al. (1993) outline the complexity of scheduling of packaging lines in the process industry. In describing processing operations White and Tsai (1999) state that \"continuity of operations\" is very important in such plants both for economic reasons and technical reasons; specifically, shutdowns interrupt the continuous flow of production and can cause expensive and time-consuming shut-down and start-up situations. Previous research has investigated the use of a preventive maintenance strategy (Deshpande and Modak, 2003) and increasing machine idle time (Liao and Chen, 2004) as ways of reducing breakdown events in continuous operations. However, while acknowledging that breakdown events should be minimised, they may still occur and strategies need to be developed to cope with their consequences.In this study, the main focus of the simulation investigation was on the effect of conveyor breakdowns on system performance. In this factory, because of the expense of shutting down the output from the ovens feeding the conveyor system, the \"idling\" strategy outlined by Liao and Chen was not considered feasible. An alternative approach involved storing the inventory generated during a breakdown event and then reintroducing it to the conveyor system after the problem has been fixed. The simulation was used to investigate a breakdown event and any potential implications for the proposed automated system derived from this policy.\nCase study: A case-based research method was chosen with the aim to provide an exemplar of practice and test the proposition that the use of simulation modelling can improve the implementation and running of conveyor systems in continuous process facilities. The case study concerns a large-scale crisps and snacks production facility with a potential annual output of approximately 30 million cases of product, in a market worth PS2 billion per annum in the UK alone.The company processes the raw material, potatoes, through a preparation stage and then a cooking process. The product is then packaged in bags and stored in cardboard boxes, termed cases, for transportation. Cases are various sizes, depending on customer requirements and may hold over 100 bags of crisps or snacks. The cases are moved using a conveyor system to a packing point and are stacked manually on wooden pallets for transportation by lorry to customers. Inventory management is a major issue due to the high volume and continuous nature of the product flow. The size of the boxed products means that any stoppage in the conveyor or packing system will lead to a build-up of inventory which can quickly consume a large amount of storage space.It is proposed that the conveyors will feed into two automated sorter conveyors from which cases would be removed by a number of robotic arms. The robots would then stack the cases on a pallet and on completion of the pallet it would be shrink-wrapped by machine. Currently cases are manually taken from the conveyor systems by work teams, placed on pallets and shrink wrapped, ready for delivery by lorry. Although, it was envisaged that the replacement of the current manual system by the automated system would improve efficiency, it was important to arrive at the correct specification to ensure smooth operation, but without over-investment. The focus was on the need to test the effect of a machine breakdown occurrence on the operation of the system. Of particular interest was the volume of inventory produced in a high-volume, continuous output system when a breakdown occurs.\nSimulation study: A methodology based on Greasley (2004) was used to construct the model which includes data collection, model build, validation and verification and experimentation. These stages were undertaken in an iterative manner with discussions with the client as the model was developed.Objectives\nConclusion: The case study represents an example of the use of the simulation technique in providing information for the design specification of a major investment in automated machinery. Although, simulation is often seen as a tool for analysis at an operational level, when major investment decisions are made the success of these strategic decisions is dependant on the subsequent operational effectiveness of the investment. In this case the success of the strategic decision to invest in a multi-million pound automated system was dependent on its smooth operation over time. The usefulness of the simulation technique is demonstrated in its ability to model transient events which can have major effects on automated machinery in process industries exhibiting high volume and continuous operations. By observing the graphical output of inventory levels over time it became apparent that the rate of re-introduction of inventory generated during the breakdown event would need to be regulated in order to prevent overloading of the proposed automated system.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To investigate the role of simulation in the introduction of technology in a continuous operations process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A case-based research method was chosen with the aim to provide an exemplar of practice and test the proposition that the use of simulation can improve the implementation and running of conveyor systems in continuous process facilities.\nFindings: - The research determines the optimum rate of re-introduction of inventory to a conveyor system generated during a breakdown event.\nResearch limitations/implications: - More case studies are required demonstrating the operational and strategic benefits that can be gained by using simulation to assess technology in organisations.\nPractical implications: - A practical outcome of the study was the implementation of a policy for the manual re-introduction of inventory on a conveyor line after a breakdown event had occurred.\nOriginality/value: - The paper presents a novel example of the use of simulation to estimate the re-introduction rate of inventory after a breakdown event on a conveyor line. The paper highlights how by addressing this operational issue, ahead of implementation, the likelihood of the success of the strategic decision to acquire the technology can be improved.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Boards attributes that increase firm risk - evidence from the UK	[ "Board composition", "Decision making", "Firm risk", "UK corporate governance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The financial fraud cases in the early 2000s in the USA as well as the geographically broader financial crisis in 2008 fuelled the debate on risk management and the need to control risk. As part of the regulatory reforms, the role of corporate governance and risk management has been highlighted by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) in the UK. It published a report on \"Boards and Risk\" (FRC, 2011) which outlines the responsibilities of boards of directors for \"risk decision-making\", determining \"the company's approach to risk, setting its culture, risk identification, oversight of risk management and crisis management\". In the USA, corporate governance reforms which form part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002) provide specific guidance on internal control mechanisms and board attributes to improve corporate accountability and reduce the risk of firm insolvency. This study contributes to the literature by providing empirical-based findings on how board attributes may affect firm risk.\n2. Hypotheses development: Risk management in firms is not about continuous corporate risk reduction but about how firms select the type of risk and the level of risk that is appropriate to them (Crouhy et al., 2006). In essence, risk management and risk-taking are the \"two sides of the same coin\". Successful companies take risk in relation to the reward and manage the risk (Crouhy et al., 2006).\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Sample\n4. Results: Table IV presents the results of the generalised least squares random-effects estimation of the empirical model. The pre-sign indicates the prediction as made in the hypotheses. The results of the regression using total risk and asset return risk as the dependent variable are shown in the table. The overall model fit with total risk is 59.93 per cent and asset return risk is 60.20 per cent. From Table IV, it can be seen that the direction of the relationship between the independent and alternative dependent variables is consistent. Therefore, the results are discussed using total risk which is most often used by firms and regulators alike as a significant risk measure.\n5. Robustness tests: Hermalin and Weisbach (2003) and Adams and Ferreira (2007) in their study of board variables propose that board size and the proportion of NEDs are endogenously formed; for instance, they argue that when firm performance increases, board size and number of NEDs on the board decreases. This reverse causality where the dependent variable influences the explanatory variables causes a bias in the estimation. Therefore, robustness tests are conducted in this section. First, a test to check for reverse causality is conducted. Next, following the methods used by Pathan (2009), the instrumental variable technique, using the three-stage least squares (3SLS) estimation method, is used to estimate the endogenous variables of board size and the percentage of NEDs.\n6. Conclusion: This empirical study has provided evidence that certain board composition attributes can significantly affect firm risk. Using a sample of 260 FTSE 350 UK firms between the years 2005 and 2010, the results show that a decrease in board size can significantly increase firm risk. The percentage of women on the board is consistently negatively related to firm risk, this could be due to the fact that women have an input in better monitoring of management, though the association is not significant. Independent directors are associated with less firm risk, but this relation is not significant. Powerful CEO was found to be significantly and positively related to only asset return risk. While higher board executive equity ownership and the percentage of institutional investors holding firm equity significantly increases firm's total risk. Therefore, a board with a small board size, high equity ownership by executive board members and high institutional investor ownership can increase firm risk. The policy implication of the findings is that they can inform regulators in the use of board attributes as internal risk control mechanisms. Investors can also consider using the board attributes to assess firm risk.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the board attributes that significantly increase firm risk. The study aims to find whether board size, percentage of non-executive directors, women on the board, a powerful chief executive officer, equity ownership amongst executive board directors and institutional investor ownership are associated with firm risk. This is the first study that examines which board attributes increase firm risk using a UK-based sample.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This empirical study collected secondary data from Bloomberg and Morningstar databases. The data sample is an unbalanced panel of 260 companies' secondary data on FTSE 350 index in the UK, from 2005 to 2010. The data were statistically analysed using STATA.\nFindings: The study establishes the board attributes that were significantly related to firm risk. The results show that a board which can increase firm risk is one that is small in size, has high equity ownership amongst executive board directors and has high institutional investor ownership.\nResearch limitations/implications: The governance culture and regulatory system in the UK is different from other countries. As the data are a UK-based sample, the results can lack generalisability.\nPractical implications: The results are useful for investors who invest in large firms, to have the knowledge about the board attributes that can increase firm risk. Regulators can also use the results to strengthen regulatory guidelines.\nOriginality/value: This study fills the gap in knowledge in UK governance literature on the board attributes that can increase firm risk.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Does corporate social responsibility matter to financial service representatives in faith-expressive firms?	[ "Corporate social responsibility", "Structural equation modelling", "Affective attachment", "Financial service representative" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Developing and managing firm identities and corporate image have been an integral part of corporate strategy to gain favorable appeal, positive customer recognition and competitive market advantage (Melewar and Jenkins, 2002). Recently, many firms adopted a \"Faith-Expressive\" (FE) image with significant marketing success where faith and religion are used as foundations of corporate identity and market image. A prime example is Islamic Shariah banks that managed to attract considerable clientele by appealing directly to customers' values, beliefs and practices through value-expressive branding and advertising. While such a unique FE image managed to draw customers using faith congruency as a strong emotional appeal, the same cannot be ascertained for other stakeholders. An FE identity and image can act as a strong appeal for customers, workers and other stakeholders to identify with the firm; however, it is unknown whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts can exert favorable impact on stakeholders' positive attitudinal, emotional and behavioral responses toward the firm beyond expressed faith image.\nLiterature review: CSR: investment or resource drain?\nJob engagement and work proactivity: The directional relationship between work engagement and proactive work behavior is investigated in this research. Workers' inclinations be work proactive is preceded by a strong level of felt engagement with work tasks and duties. A disengaged worker is less likely to care enough to provide work with extra discretionary efforts that are dedicated toward achieving the firm's objectives. Sonnentag (2003) studied the effects of workers' recovery from crises on their proactive work behavior and found that work engagement mediated the relationship between these two constructs. This expected finding is in line with the belief that employees exhibiting strong engagement are also more inclined to exhibit proactive work tendencies, mainly because these work-engaged employees acknowledge the importance of achieving organizational goals, especially as work behaviors can be beneficial to their firm goal attainment. Therefore, it is expected that:\nModel constructs and measures: This study investigates the impact of CSR images on frontline employees in financial services by proposing a hierarchal effect model with directional links from cognitive to affective and conative constructs. In this model, FSRs' perceptions and cognitive beliefs regarding how well firms performs their CSR initiatives toward stakeholders are linked to their affective attachment and emotional bonding with their firms, which then mediates the effects of CSR on work engagement and proactive work behaviors.\nDependent constructs: Affective attachment\nData collection: Design and sample\nMeasurement model: Results obtained from CFA showed adequate measurement fit (kh2 = 560.1, df = 369, p < 0.01; kh2/df = 1.52; NFI = 0.82; CFI = 0.93; RMSEA = 0.055); the PCLOSE value of 0.204 exceeded the cut-off of 0.05, indicating good fit. All standardized factor loadings exceeded 0.65 and were statistically significant (p < 0.001).\nStructural model and tested hypotheses: The proposed model, as depicted in Figure 2, was fitted to data collected from the sample to test the suggested conceptual model. Results showed that fit indices were generally adequate and supportive of structural model, suggesting a proper fit (kh2 = 582.2, df = 381, p < 0.01; kh2/df = 1.53; NFI = 0.82; CFI = 0.93; RMSEA = 0.054); the PCLOSE value of 0.173 exceeded the cut-off of 0.05, indicating good fit (Table V). All standardized factor loadings ranged between 0.6 and 0.93 and were statistically significant (p < 0.001).\nDiscussion: This paper investigated the effects of CSR images on frontline employees' level of affective attachment and pro-work behaviors. In extending existing research to FE firms context, obtained findings lend partial support to the effects of CSR images on work-related emotions and behavioral motivations of FSRs as frontline employees. It was hypothesized that FSRs' work engagement and work proactivity will increase when perceived CSR images are favorable and when affective attachment is strong. Results found CSR images for employees, social issues and law/government to exert positive influence on pro-work motivations, and these relationships were completely mediated by affective attachment while dismissing the effects of CSR toward pressure groups, suppliers and competition on affective attachment, work engagement or proactive work behavior. It was also revealed that the extent to which FSRs are engaged with their work affected directly their proactive work behavior and indirectly through their level of attachment to their firms. Theoretical and managerial consequences are discussed.\nTheoretical implications: Competition has pushed firms to use multiple methods to motivate frontline workers to increase their productivity and loyalty. These methods typically fall under the social cognition model, where individuals form attitudes based on their beliefs toward firms and positive or negative values associated with these firms. Firm's engagement in non-profit social initiatives creates positive firm's CSR reputation that is linked to employees' higher-order needs (Vlachos et al., 2010), contributing to stronger pro-work motivations. CSR initiatives convey value cues that FSRs can appreciate and identify with, leading to stronger bonding with their firms. This study shows that for FSRs, some types of CSR images matter to them, and as these CSR initiatives directly related to their goals increase, their bonding with work and attitude toward work also improve. Compared to six CSR images, only three emerged as significant, and CSR toward employees produced the highest impact on affective attachment, which is similar to the findings reported by Turker (2009b). It is likely that CSR initiatives targeting these stakeholders may have been viewed as relevant to the firm (as confirmed by focus groups) but considered inconsequential to how FSRs bonded with their firms and, as such, failed to influence workers' assessment of their affective attachments. But, when FSRs held positive CSR images of their firms toward employees, governing agencies and for social causes, their work engagement and proactive work behaviors were elevated via their increased level of affective attachment.\nManagerial implications: While recognizing that customers-FSRs dyadic service encounters produce service quality perceptions (Gounaris et al., 2003), findings from this research carry useful implications to managers of FE firms competing in the financial services industry. First, results are consistent with the prevailing view in marketing that FSRs' positive evaluations of specific CSR images can contribute to pro-work attitudes and productivity behaviors among frontline employees in ways that support service quality. However, not all CSR initiatives are conducive to pro-work motivations. This counterintuitive result indicates that what prompts positive customer goodwill may not produce similar effects on workers. At a time when market success indicators showed that FE firms have effectively used their identity as a unique selling point to attract customers in financial services, and drew talented employees with congruent faith and value systems, this unique FE identity may possibly have produced dimming effects that suppress typical CSR images from motivating the existing salesforce.\nLimitations and directions for future research: Similar to all published research, results from this study should be interpreted while taking in account its limitations. This research was conducted in a single market where FE firms thrived while others exist in other non-Western economies. It may be research-worthy to explore CSR effects in FE firms operating in other markets, in different service industries, where it is possible to recruit larger sample sizes, to establish a greater generalizability of existing findings. Another limitation of this research pertains to the exploration of CSR images on affective attachment and pro-work behaviors without extending the measurement of actual FSR performance with measures collected from objective sources (i.e. peers, supervisors and managers). Future research pursuing the study of FE firms may include these measures while accounting for the influence of other variables that contribute to performance success. Finally, this research centered the attention on studying CSR desirable effects in prosperous times, where both revenues and profits are significant, yet it is not known if observed CSR impact changes when economy cycle changes to less fortunate results. Importance of CSR may represent a different meaning during hard economic conditions, which is worthy of further investigation.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the conceptual and empirical effects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on affective and behavioral inclinations of financial service representatives (FSRs) in faith-expressive (FE) banks and financial institutions in non-Western markets.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Drawing upon recent CSR research findings, this study proposed a conceptual model of the association between FSRs' perceptions of the firm's CSR toward stakeholders with FSRs' affective attachment, work engagement and proactive work inclinations using survey data (n = 175). Pre-analysis procedures were applied followed by structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses.\nFindings: FSRs were more emotionally attached to the firm when CSR initiatives were directed at them or toward social organizations, but were generally ambivalent to CSR directed to suppliers or competition. As firm attachment becomes stronger, propensity to engage in work and proactive work behaviors increases.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper improves management understanding and sensitivity to managing the service salesforce in FE firms as emerging organizations. Future research can focus on actual measures of job performance and on comparative results when applied to traditional financial firms.\nPractical implications: Marketing managers relying on CSR to motivate FSRs should realize its limitations when applied to FE firms. Qualitative approaches to solicit stakeholders' input are encouraged to improve CSR performance.\nOriginality/value: In non-Western FE firms, strategizing CSR initiative spending should include its potential impact on service employees dealing with customers with particular attention to firm attachment, and inclination to excel in service providing.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The relation between voluntary carbon disclosure and environmental performance: The case of S&P 500	[ "Disclosure", "Environment", "Carbon disclosure Leadership index", "Greenhouse gas emissions" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have been considered among the main threats that could affect the human globalization in this century. The increased concentration of GHG on the earth's surface and atmosphere causes adverse consequences in natural ecosystems and humankind, burdening the phenomenon of global warming (United Nations, 1992; Liu et al., 2015; Stern, 2006; Tsanaktsidis et al., 2016). Stakeholders, such as shareholders and consumers exert pressure on companies to decrease their GHG emissions (Jeswani et al., 2008; Weinhofer and Hoffman, 2010); thus, companies are expected to play a pivotal role to reduce their GHG emissions stabilizing climate change (Luo and Tang, 2014). Therefore, companies face an increased demand to disseminate more information into disclosures relevant to actual performance to present that they satisfy their environmental concerns (Meng et al., 2014).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Theories of environmental disclosure\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Sample\n4. Results: 4.1 Descriptive results and correlation matrix\n5. Conclusions: This study intends to deal an unresolved environmental issue regarding the relationship between corporate environmental disclosures and corporate environmental performance (Hughes et al., 2001; Al-Tuwaijri et al., 2004; Meng et al., 2014; Luo and Tang, 2014). In particular, it is investigated whether carbon disclosure is indicative of the environmental performance under the voluntary disclosure theory and legitimacy theory. For the purpose of study, GHG emission is used as a proxy of environmental performance because it causes global warming, and CDLI is used as a proxy of environmental disclosure level. Inconsistent with previous empirical studies, CDLI reflects both the depth and breadth of corporate carbon information, as it is based in qualitative and quantity disclosure criteria. The results show that managerial behavior is explained by voluntary disclosure theory in which the relationship between environmental performance and disclosure level is positive. In particular, environmental disclosure can be used as a signal tool by corporate management so as to present to investors and other stakeholders their actual environmental performance. This signal is very important to investors to assess their value and future prospects of businesses. Finally, companies that disseminate carbon emissions' information vulnerably via CDP questionnaire intend to have better environmental performance in terms of GHG emissions. The implication of the results is that when a company is unwilling to reveal its emission profile, it is possible to have a poor climate change record.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of environmental performance on the environmental disclosure level.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Carbon disclosure leadership index score is considered as a proxy of carbon disclosure level, while greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as a proxy of environmental performance. In addition, six control variables are used: return on assets, financial leverage, company's size, CEO duality, board size and percentage of independent directors on board. The sample comprises 102 companies from a population of Standard & Poor's 500 (S&P 500) companies over a five-year period, 2009-2013.\nFindings: Results revealed that higher pollution levels in terms of GHG emissions affect negatively the dissemination of carbon disclosure information, suggesting a positive relationship between environmental performance and environmental disclosure level. In addition, companies with good environmental performance in relation to their average environmental performance disseminate more carbon information in their disclosures. Thus, the carbon disclosure level is indicative of environmental performance consistent with the voluntary disclosure theory.\nPractical implications: The managerial behavior regarding the relation of environmental disclosure and environmental performance is explained. In addition, the findings should be of use to those investors interested in finding carbon emission information so that they assess investments and evaluate their current portfolios in terms of environmental sustainability.\nOriginality/value: It is intended to ascertain the reliability level of carbon disclosure regarding carbon emission information by incorporating the carbon disclosure leadership index score and GHG emissions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Is work engagement gendered?	[ "Gendered work engagement", "Work engagement", "Gender in the workplace" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Work engagement, the employment of oneself physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performance (Kahn, 1990), has received much attention recently as practitioners and academicians claim to have positive consequences for employees and organisations (Saks, 2006; Jeung, 2011; Bhatnagar, 2012). Work engagement is regarded as one of \"the hottest topics in management\" (Welbourne, 2007, p. 45) and \"certainly something worth promoting\" (Taris et al., 2008, p. 185). The benefits of being engaged range from positive emotional outcomes (Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004; Schaufeli et al., 2008) to improving organisational performance (Harter et al., 2002). It is also found that disengaged employees negatively affect their co-workers' engagement (Loehr and Schwartz, 2003), and that work disengagement is costing organisations large sums of money (Flade, 2003; Loehr and Schwartz, 2003; Frank et al., 2004). Hence, work engagement is argued in the literature to cure most organisational problems. This paper, however, argues that the way work engagement is presented in the literature is problematic especially for women who may have more difficulties and more barriers to face in organisations than men. Hence, this paper will investigate work engagement through the lens of gender.\nWork engagement: This section is divided into two subsections. The first subsection describes the different approaches to work engagement, and the second subsection discusses the consequences of work engagement.\nGendered organisation: Gender is referred to as the social differences between women and men, as opposed to sex, which is the biological differences between female and male (Acker, 1992a). As a result, gender is changeable and its content and meaning differs from one place to another and overtime (Acker, 1992a; Ely and Padavic, 2007). Gender here is a system, rather than an individual's property, which derives its meaning from an institutionalised system of social practices. Gender, as in any other system of differences, such as class and race, appears in mutually reinforcing arenas such as: \"resource distributions in societies, hierarchical structures and work practices in organizations, task allocation in families, patterns of interaction between people, and the meanings and identities people enact as individuals\" (Ely and Padavic, 2007, p. 1128). The major components of the gender system are masculinity and femininity which refer to varied experiences, values, and meanings of individuals, organisations and societies (i.e. achievement vs nurturing orientations) (Britton and Logan, 2008; Alvesson and Billing, 2009). Therefore, \"feminine and masculine genders consist of the values and ideals that originate from culture\" (Aaltio-Marjosola and Mills, 2002, p. 4).\nGendered work engagement: As mentioned earlier, Kahn (1990) identifies three psychological antecedents that influence the level of engagement at work, psychological meaningfulness, safety, and availability. Kahn argued that people engage in the work place when they have a meaningful job, feel psychologically safe, and have the physical and psychological resources to do so. We argue that work engagement is gendered, in that it is easier for men to be engaged than women. To explain this argument, we refer to Kahn's proposed psychological antecedents: psychological meaningfulness, safety, and availability.\nDiscussion: The present review has demonstrated that work engagement is a gendered construct where it is easier for men to be engaged than women. Even though previous research discussed engagement as a positive term, it may not always be innocuous (Sonnentag et al., 2008; Halbesleben et al., 2009; Shantz et al., 2010; Bakker et al., 2011) especially for individuals who have family responsibilities and who have to overcome barriers present in the gendered organisations. Individuals who do not comply with the \"ideal worker\" image may have to put in extra efforts to demonstrate engagement in the workplace. Thus, the current presentation of work engagement in the literature and the view that work engagement is the cure to most organisational problems is problematic and gendered.\nImplications for research and practice: Given that the gendered nature of work engagement remains relatively under-explored in the academic and practitioner literature, there is a need to conduct empirical studies, both qualitative and quantitative, to explore the nature and extent to which work engagement remains gendered and its implications for female and male employees. This paper has shown that the notion of work engagement is not gender neutral and proposed a new conceptual model of gendered work engagement that is informed by Acker's (1990) and Kahn's (1990) theories, which may be useful in future research to investigate and analyse gendered work engagement along its three psychological components: gendered psychological meaningfulness, gendered psychological safety, and gendered psychological availability. Furthermore, future research can expand this model to examine the different factors that may influence women's work engagement in particular including factors within and outsides the workplace. In addition, future research is needed to investigate the negative consequences of work engagement in the long run. The research can analyse how family responsibilities and workload can influence employees.\nConclusion: Despite a plethora of scholarship on work engagement and its significant impact on individuals and organisations, the notion of work engagement remains largely gender neutral where men and women can equally experience and demonstrate engagement in the workplace. This paper has analysed work engagement through a gender lens, and showed that work engagement is gendered where it is easier for men to be physically, cognitively and emotionally engaged than women in organisations. Organisations' structure, culture, and ideologies disadvantage women and make it harder for them to experience the three psychological conditions (i.e. psychological meaningfulness, psychological safety, and psychological availability) of work engagement. This paper covered some of the gaps in work engagement that do not pay much attention to the influence of gender in their evaluation. We, therefore, would argue that the common view of work engagement and the attempts to raise the level of engagement need to be reconsidered as this may add the workload for women and have negative consequences on their well-being.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The way work engagement is constructed and researched in literature is assumed, at least implicitly, to be gender-neutral where women and men have equal opportunity to demonstrate their engagement in the workplace. This review paper aims to integrate gender into the notion of work engagement in order to examine whether the notion of work engagement is gendered.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper is based on a review of the literatures related to work engagement and gendered organisations.\nFindings: The paper proposes a conceptual framework to develop and explain the notion of gendered work engagement. It shows that work engagement is gendered concept as it is easier for men to demonstrate work engagement than for women.\nOriginality/value: The paper investigates the gendered nature of work engagement which is an under-explored area.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Portuguese employers' perceptions on management undergraduates' transferable competencies	[ "Portugal", "Employer perceptions", "Management faculties", "Management undergraduates", "Transferable competencies" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The employability of graduates has become a critical issue for European higher education (HE). This results from significant changes promoted by the Bologna Agreement, as well as the growing social expectations placed upon universities to provide students with the competencies required to secure both their employability and the organizations' competitiveness in the demanding and unpredictable labor market. This paper analyzes the perceptions of a group of Portuguese employers regarding: the transferable competencies (TCs) that enhance the employability of recent management graduates; the mechanisms for their development; and the role of universities, students and employers in this process. Portugal is a particularly interesting context given the great financial crisis it has recently endured, and the resulting pressure on new graduates to rapidly present the competencies required to perform effectively and add value to companies. However, little information has thus far become available regarding employers' perceptions of management graduates' TCs.\nTheoretical background: The focus on transferable competencies\nMethods: A qualitative approach to data gathering and analysis was considered to be adequate given the exploratory nature of the study aims (Bryman and Burgess, 1999), as well as the selection of a national context where little information has thus far become available concerning employers' perceptions on management graduates' TCs. The research focuses on revealing and understanding the perceptions of Portuguese employers, with the purpose of identifying core consistencies and meanings, instead of quantifying the observed attributes (Strauss and Corbin, 1994). Qualitative research methods were previously selected by analogous studies developed in different countries, which focused on the perceptions of either employers (e.g. Andrews and Higson, 2008; Azevedo et al., 2012; Le Deist, 2009), academics (e.g. Mulder et al., 2009) or students (e.g. Azevedo et al., 2012; Barth et al., 2007).\nResults: The most valued TCs\nConclusions and implications: The results of this investigation (summarized in Table II, where \"x\" means the attribute is present) point to the expectation of Portuguese employers that recent management graduates should combine solid technical knowledge, obtained at a reputable university, with a synthesis of TCs. This asserts their ability to adapt to the function rapidly and perform effectively, as well as to learn continuously in the current global, diverse and volatile business environment. These employers recognize the role of companies in the development of young managers' TCs. However, they expect management graduates to possess already a range of TCs that responds to the market's needs, and which is far more extensive than the set of competencies they can develop later. Particular value is ascribed to the early acquisition of emotional intelligence competencies since employers perceive this category to be the most difficult to develop afterwards and through organizational means. These results suggest that the Portuguese labor market expects a serious investment by Portuguese faculties in apposite teaching practices and specific initiatives for the development of undergraduates' TCs, as well as an absolute commitment by the latter to such activities - which is in line with the increasingly widespread value attributed to competency-based HE (e.g. Mulder et al., 2009; Sin and Neave, 2016). The substantial catalog of appreciated TCs identified in this study can prove to constitute a valuable resource for Portuguese management faculties in the processes of implementing and reviewing programs and initiatives for the development of TCs.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to disclose the perceptions of Portuguese employers regarding the transferable competencies (TCs) that enhance the employability of recent management graduates, the mechanisms for their development and the role played by different agents (faculties, students and companies) in this process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Participants were 41 chief executive officers and human resource managers belonging to the same number of companies located in northern Portugal. A semi-structured interview guide allowed the participants to express their views through their own words and in depth.\nFindings: The participants identified the TCs they seek in recent management graduates, including several cognitive competencies, emotional intelligence competencies and social intelligence competencies. They discerned the curricular internship and the Erasmus+ program as the most effective mechanisms to develop undergraduates' TCs. The role of companies in the development of the TCs of students and recent graduates was acknowledged; nonetheless, these employers expect greater involvement from Portuguese faculties and students.\nResearch limitations/implications: Although the results of this exploratory study cannot be generalized to the Portuguese population of employers, it contributes to uncover and understand their perceptions, hence providing a basis for subsequent investigations using larger samples.\nOriginality/value: Portugal is a particularly relevant context to conduct this research given the recent financial crisis and ensuing pressure on new graduates to deliver good performance rapidly, as well as the involvement of Portuguese universities in processes of international evaluation and accreditation. However, little information has thus far become available regarding employers' perceptions of management graduates' TCs.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
An ambidexterity perspective toward configurations of knowledge flows: an empirical testing of its two-phase performance implications	[ "Knowledge flows", "Configurations", "Ambidexterity", "NBA", "Two-phase performance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Knowledge flow across organizations is crucial to enable sustainability, especially in the context of sport. National Basketball Association (NBA) is one of the four major professional sports leagues in the USA. NBA attracts a large number of fans because of the high level of competition between teams. This to a large extent depends on excellent skills, intelligence quotient (IQ) and teamwork, especially the role of star players. These star players exert their excellent basketball skills to help teams win. NBA teams, thus, import or export core players and even star players through multiple forms of player mobility. This is done every year during the league off-season so that teams can effectively get the players they need for the season. Player mobility can often change some teams' status quo and the entire league prospects. For example, Shaquille O'Neal moved from the Orlando Magic to the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1996-1997 season, stayed there nine years and help the Lakers win three consecutive championships from the 1999-2000 to 2001-2002 season. After he left, the Lakers only got 34 wins in 2004-2005. He moved to the Miami Heat in 2004-2005 and helped the team win the championship in 2005-2006. The Lakers opened a new chapter until Paul Gasol was traded to the Lakers in 2007-2008, winning two championships in the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 season.\n2. Theoretical background and hypothesis: 2.1 Theoretical background\n3. Method: 3.1 Research context and data sources\n4. Results: The count data model is used in this study because our dependent variable is a count variable i.e. the dependent variable is concentrated on a few small discrete values. We specifically use the random effects Poisson regression model with a vice (robust) option, to reduce the problem of \"overdispersion\" in our data (Cameron and Trivedi, 2009). The results of the Hausman test do not reject the original assumption that the random effects will provide a consistent estimate (p > 0.1). In other words, it is more appropriate to adopt a random effect model. Table 3 presents the correlations and descriptive statistics of the variables. We find that the quality of knowledge outflows and the quantity of knowledge outflows has a negative effect on regular-season performance (-0.323, p < 0.01; -0.304, p < 0.01) and on playoffs performance (-0.296, p < 0.01; -0.281, p < 0.01).\n5. Discussions: This study examines the interaction between knowledge inflows and outflows and its impact on two-phase performance. This paper constructs the configurations of knowledge flows from an ambidexterity perspective, based on the characteristics of knowledge (i.e. quantity and quality dimension) and the direction of knowledge flows (i.e. knowledge inflows and outflows), which reflects the dynamic interaction between knowledge inflows and outflows. Based on a unique data set from NBA, our findings show that knowledge inflows under the quality dimension of knowledge impact positively on playoffs performance (Phase 2); knowledge outflows under the quantity dimension of knowledge negatively impact on two-phase performance, these two findings are consistent with Rahko's (2017) study. However, we also find that knowledge flows have non-linear effects on performance, which enriches the existing literature focusing on its linear effects (DeCarolis and Deeds, 1999). Our findings show that knowledge outflows under the quality dimensions of knowledge have an inverted U effect on two-phase performance; knowledge inflows under the quantity dimension of knowledge have an inverted U effect on two-phase performance. These results also enrich the non-linear relationship between knowledge flows and performance (Erden et al., 2014).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how knowledge inflows and outflows interact to affect performance outcomes. Though previous studies have dealt with knowledge inflows and outflows, the quality and quantity characteristics of knowledge are often not taken into account, thus leaving a research gap with regards to the effect of their interactions on performance outcomes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on Poisson regression analysis, this quantitative study fills the aforementioned research gaps by analyzing the ambidextrous configurations of knowledge flows from an ambidexterity perspective and examines their effects on two-phase performance (i.e. regular season and playoffs), using a longitudinal data set of National Basketball Association transactions from the 2003-2004 to 2014-2015 season.\nFindings: The results suggest that the complementarity between knowledge inflows and outflows along the quality and quantity dimensions of knowledge, respectively, has a positive impact on two-phase performance, while the imbalance between knowledge inflows and outflows under the quality and quantity dimensions of knowledge, respectively, has a negative impact on playoffs performance (Phase 2). These findings suggest that organizations can balance knowledge inflows and outflows under a single quality or quantity dimension of knowledge. Furthermore, the interaction between the quantity of the inflows of knowledge and the quality of the outflows of knowledge and the interaction between the quality of the inflows of knowledge and the quantity of the outflows of knowledge are both positively related to two-phase performance. These findings suggest that organizations can balance knowledge inflows and outflows across quality and quantity dimensions of knowledge. Finally, the effects of the interaction between knowledge inflows and outflows on playoffs performance are greater than regular-season.\nPractical implications: Organizations should leverage ambidexterity to manage/balance knowledge inflows and outflows across quality and quantity dimensions, further enhancing performance outcomes.\nOriginality/value: This study, first, provides new insights into knowledge flows by distinguishing between the quality and quantity of knowledge, the inflows and outflows of knowledge, constructing ambidextrous configurations of knowledge flows from an ambidexterity perspective. Second, it contributes to the relationship between knowledge flows and organizational performance by revealing how ambidextrous configurations of knowledge flows exert different effects on performance outcomes. Third, it adds to the literature of ambidexterity-performance relationships and expands it to the context of sports.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Tools to manage continuing change: Program and projects	[ "Change management", "Project management", "Organizational change" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: It is a well-worn cliche that competition has never been as intense as it is today. After all, it is an integral part of most consultancy pitches and the most frequently quoted explanation for poor business results in everything from divisional reviews to annual general meetings. Everyone is also familiar with the usual \"culprits\": globalization, industry convergence, technological advance, low cost providers, fickle consumers - and, more recently, product/price transparency on the internet. And there is little to suggest that these pressures will ease. In fact, with the growing sophistication of the Indian economy and the likelihood that China will soon overtake the UK and France to become the world's fourth largest trading nation, more competitive threats loom on the horizon.\nProject and program management: Coincidentally, over the same period, the concept of using project management as a way to manage any \"unique assignment\" was gaining ground. From its origins in the construction and engineering industries, the tools, techniques and disciplines of project management had moved into new areas such as software development, and now moved on to become, in a growing number of organizations, an identifiable way to manage non-routine initiatives and tasks. By the early 1990s, the phrase \"management by project\" was the latest buzz.But just managing change initiatives as properly defined projects was not going to be enough. The issue of coordinating the many disparate projects, weeding out those that were irrelevant and focusing on those that were strategically important remained. And that is where another new idea took root - program management.Program management was conceived as a process that converted an organization's strategy into a coherent set of projects designed to achieve that strategy. Program management allows for the top-down planning of programs and projects in a rational and coherent way. Projects can be slowed down or delayed, brought forward or accelerated, started or stopped to suit available resources and the present priorities within the overall strategic plan. Unlike projects, programs have no distinctive start or end and therefore provide both a vehicle and a disciplined approach to managing change in organizations. Integral to program management is benefits management - a focus on delivering the benefits of the project rather than just the project itself.Program management enables that fundamental question to be asked before starting a project: \"Where does it fit into our strategy?\" If it does not fit, then the project should not go ahead and the organization should not invest in the project. If it does, the process helps to identify its overall priority and importance to the organization. This in turn helps to determine the allocation of scarce resources between projects and between programs. The cancellation of projects that were not identifiable within the strategic plan has proved painful for many organizations when the concept of program management has first been introduced - not least because some of senior management's pet-projects have often had to be abandoned in the process.Now managing by project and the use of program management to introduce, manage and embed change has become increasingly wide-spread with many high achieving organizations becoming specifically project-oriented in the way they manage themselves. This is reflected in the sharp increase in the numbers of people taking examinations in the two best practice standards for project and program management - PRINCE2 and Managing Successful Programs (MSP). Both are owned by the Office of Government Commerce (OGC); PRINCE2 is a detailed process for the delivery of projects and MSP provides a structured framework for managing programs. Currently each year over 15,000 people take one or other of the two PRINCE2 exams (at foundation or practitioner level) and over 100 people a month take the MSP examinations.\nThe Program and Project Management Diploma: In the autumn of 2003 the APM Group and the UK's Chartered Management Institute launched a new qualification: The Program and Project Management Diploma (PPM Diploma). The PPM Diploma is a degree standard qualification. The qualification is unusual in that it recognizes current knowledge and experience. It also takes into account an individual's previous program, project and risk management qualifications as well as other relevant learning and experience.The PPM Diploma concentrates on the development of a clear understanding of the range of disciplines and methodologies, which underpin successful program and project management, and their practical application. In the context of personal development, it also provides a foundation for continuing professional and personal development in program and project management.\nConclusion: For the future, organizations will need to be more adaptable and flexible than in the past and, to do this, they are also likely to become more \"project-oriented\", running programs to make sure strategy is successfully translated into successful execution. Its important therefore that the organization's ability to manage change is kept up-to date via training in projects and programs or enlisting the services of a consultant. That way, you'll be better equipped to deal with the future, whatever it may hold.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to inform readers about new ways of coping with change in organizations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper examines the environment in which today's organizations operate and gives advice about up-to date training methods.\nFindings: - Program and project management can help the organization embrace change.\nPractical implications: - The implications of this paper are that organizations can change effectively if they have the right training and or help from outside consultants.\nOriginality/value: - This paper looks at a new diploma and methods for enlisting the services of consultants who can help the organization through transitional periods.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Extended regional dispatch for truckload carriers	[ "Despatch", "Drivers", "Freight forwarding simulation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction and motivation: One of the greatest challenges faced by truckload (TL) trucking companies in North America is that of driver retention. This problem is well documented in the literature and the reasons for the problem are numerous. According to Stephenson and Fox (1996), driver retention is one of the most daunting problems facing nonunionized, long-haul carriers. Traditional dispatching methods can exacerbate retention problems and alternative forms of dispatch are needed to alleviate the problem.1.1 The driver turnover problem\n2 Experimental plan: The experiments utilized to examine extended regional models of the type depicted in Figure 3 are in five broad categories; experiments to validate the simulation model and establish baseline values, experiments to examine various ways to integrate regional models with lanes, experiments to determine desirable service area sizes when priority is given to regional dispatching, experiments to determine desirable service area sizes when priority is given to lane dispatching, and experiments to determine if various types of operating flexibility in dispatching are desirable. In all cases, the effect of extended regional dispatching on the remaining OTR fleet is concurrently considered.2.1 Validation and baseline establishment\n3 Supporting data, evaluative models, and metrics: Data supporting the simulation experiments is substantial. Provided by J.B. Hunt Transport, one of the largest TL trucking companies in North America, the data consists of five one-month data sets containing historical freight data for hundreds of thousands of individual loads. Each load record contains information about pick-up and delivery locations and the available time windows for pick-up and delivery. In an effort to more directly compare star dispatch methods to previously examined dispatching alternatives, we are utilizing the same data sets used to support previous dispatching studies. Also in an effort to make direct comparisons possible and to reduce the considerable computational burden associated with simulation of full data sets, we have randomly deleted 3/4 of the load data, and have limited the number of available drivers to 1,500. Justification and validation for this 75 percent reduction in problem size is provided in Taylor et al. (2006), and the reduction can be made without significantly affecting performance relative to any performance metric. With the reduction in problem size, five one-month replications of each scenario can be completed in approximately two hours on a PC platform.The star dispatch model is quite complex. It is capable of concurrently dispatching drivers as either OTR, regional, lane or pipeline drivers. A second version of the code enables the examination of scenarios featuring flexibility in dispatch so that drivers can operate on any lane connected to their home region. Both models are driven by the arrival of loads (from the historical data sets). In each replication, the model reads in all load information for loads within a user-specified dispatch window (8 hours in this paper). The characteristics of each load are examined to determine if it is a regional load, a lane load, a pipeline load (utilized in only one scenario in this paper), or an OTR load and the loads are then made available to a \"router\". Clearly, the objective is to minimize the number of OTR drivers required, so dispatch priority is given to regional or lane loads drivers first, depending upon the scenario.The most complex part of the simulation code is the matching of loads to drivers. Drivers who have waited excessively long for a new dispatch are given first priority. If no priority driver requires the load, it is assigned to a driver awaiting dispatch, a driver approaching the end of a government mandated rest period, or a driver nearing the completion of his or her current dispatch, in that order. To break ties within groups, the code seeks to minimize empty repositioning moves for drivers. To ensure that the simulation is initialized with a realistic dispersion of drivers in the field, drivers are initially created at the pick-up points of early loads and are then allowed to travel wherever the load takes them. The new driver position is then noted and he or she is made available for a next dispatch. After approximately one week of simulated activity, all 1,500 drivers have been created and dispersed, and one could reasonably assume that a one-week transient period would provide a realistic starting point for data collection. However, to be completely sure that drivers are dispersed realistically, we utilize a two-week transient period and collect data during the third week for each of five monthly runs. The remainder of the simulation code ensures correct delays for empty dispatch moves, loaded moves, and rest breaks as mandated by the US Department of Transportation.The simulation code was written in the SIMNET II language, which provides powerful entity manipulation capabilities that greatly facilitates the simulation of large-scale, complex, interactive systems (Taha, 1992). SIMNET II utilizes the multiplicative congruential method for generating independent uniform random numbers that are then transformed to fit various distributions specified by the user.In addition to the validating runs discussed in Section 2.1 above, the code was extensively verified using the SIMNET II $TRACE function, which enables a detailed examination of each attribute of each simulated entity on every line of code. Test scenarios were developed to force entities through each section of code so perfect operation of the simulation code could be verified. Additional validation was accomplished by expert industry evaluators from J.B. Hunt Transport, Inc. to ensure that results are reasonable in comparison with previous work and with actual results in related situations.We utilize performance metrics of interest to all major constituencies; the carrier, the customers, and the drivers. Actually, we utilize seven different performance metrics and collect them for four different sets of drivers as defined by their dispatch characteristics; OTR drivers, regional drivers, lane drivers, and pipeline drivers (in one scenario only). We also collect values of the seven performance metrics for all drivers combined. The metrics collected for each set of drivers include the following:* LOADS. The number of loads dispatched by each method. There should be as few OTR loads as possible.* DRIVERS. The maximum number of drivers created in each dispatch category. The number of OTR drivers should be as small as possible.* MILES/DAY. The total miles driven per driver per day, again partitioned according to driver type. It is desirable to have large values in all driver categories.* EMPTY. The average empty miles per dispatch by driver type. This should be minimized.* LOADED. The average loaded miles per dispatch by driver type. This should be maximized.* LATE. The percentage of loads delivered late by driver type. This should be minimized.* DELETED. The percentage of loads deleted because no drivers were available. This should be as small as possible.Ideally, the metrics would also include specific measures of tour lengths for individual drivers. However, the dispatching methods commonly used in industry to determine tour length are quite complex and include multiple factors that would be difficult to capture in an evaluative simulation model tasked with so many other functions. In the interest of efficiency in run length, we therefore opted to not collect tour length explicitly. Instead, we chose to rely on the fact that regional drivers are home frequently enough that tour length is not a major retention issue and that lane drivers would return to their domicile on the next dispatch after leaving their region.\n4 Results of experimentation: This section contains the results of the experiments described in Section 2. The discussion of each set of experiments will include values for all performance metrics described in Section 3. Because all results are based on the historical data sets provided by J.B. Hunt Transport, Inc., and because this data is considered highly proprietary by the company, all baseline values have been converted to a value of 1.00. All other results are then presented as a ratio of the actual value for the scenario compared to the value in the baseline scenario. For example, if the baseline scenario resulted in 35 empty miles per dispatch and another scenario had only 32 empty miles per dispatch, the value reported would be 32/35 or 0.91. Also, when we are discussing statistical differences between scenarios, we assume an alpha value of a=0.05. Although results for all metrics are important and certainly affect the selection of scenarios deemed most appropriate for implementation, we will pay particular attention to increasing the number of nonOTR driving jobs while avoiding negative impacts to the remaining OTR drivers, especially in terms of miles per driver per day. Law (2007) points out the difficulty of selecting the \"best of k\" systems. Even when examining a single system, evaluation can be difficult when multiple performance metrics are present. In this paper, we take the approach that Law (2007) calls \"comparison to a standard,\" or a baseline scenario. This approach eliminates the difficulty of multiple comparisons and supports a more subjective comparison of alternative scenarios in which the personal views, experience, and background of the authors can be employed to select desirable alternatives.4.1 Validation results and baseline establishment\n5 Conclusions and future research: The results of experimentation presented in this paper are very encouraging. The use of freight lanes emanating from regional centroids provide a means of greatly extending the reach of regional dispatching methods. Utilizing regional dispatching only, 40.87 percent of the drivers can be partitioned into regional driving solutions when using the nation-wide freight information provided by J.B. Hunt Transport, Inc., leaving 59.13 percent of drivers using OTR dispatch. The BR-IL-300 scenario, by contrast, adds another 37.53 percent of drivers partitioned as lane drivers leaving only 21.60 percent of drivers in OTR. The BL1-IR-300 scenario goes even further, leaving only 16.23 percent of the drivers in OTR jobs with almost all remaining drivers operating on lanes. It is important to note that this OTR reduction is achieved without any appreciable impacts on the remaining OTR fleet. It should be noted that similar results may or may not be possible for carriers that are significantly smaller than J.B. Hunt Transport, Inc. because they may not have a driving force sufficiently large to maintain operational efficiency with a smaller OTR fleet.Clearly, both the BR-IL-300 and BL1-IR-300 scenarios both offer new dispatching paradigms that are very effective in terms of reducing the dependence on OTR dispatching, and either could be implemented as a means of extending the reach of regional solutions. Which solution would best suit any individual carrier likely depends upon the specifics of their customer freight base. Carriers that are dominant in a single region or small number of regions may elect to operate according to the BR-IL-300 scenario. Those that have more long-haul freight and that are less dominant in a particular region may opt to operate on a BL1-IR-300 paradigm. Our conclusions are theoretically sound and intuitive in most cases, but the final selection of an extended regional dispatch implementation strategy is based primarily upon empirical simulation results. The correct extended regional solution for any particular carrier should not be selected for implementation without a rigorous review of operations via simulation or other analysis. This may be particularly true if economic conditions continue to reduce driver turnover. Furthermore, carriers would need to undertake a rigorous review of driver pay policies to determine if a strict dollars-per-mile model is more effective or if some other form of mileage-based or assessorial pay would be both warranted and desirable. OTR drivers tend to be paid primarily on a mileage-based system. Extended regional drivers paid strictly on a mileage basis may require a higher per mile rate or perhaps have a significant part of their total compensation coming from assessorial pay (i.e., a set number of dollars per load) or from hourly pay. Finally, extended regional solutions should likely be phased in slowly, perhaps with a single region and associated lanes. This approach would greatly reduce any risks associated with the process and would permit adequate time to evaluate operational efficacy and to develop cost-efficient practices prior to full implementation.The extended regional dispatching methods presented herein appear to provide dispatching solutions that can greatly reduce the dependence on OTR dispatching in the TL trucking industry. This, in turn, enables carriers to provide better driving jobs to their drivers and aids greatly with one of the greatest problems in the industry, that of driver retention. If implemented prudently, extended regional dispatch has the potential to fundamentally change the truckload trucking industry for the better, while improving the quality of life for the all-important professional driver.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine whether or not driver job satisfaction, carrier performance, and customer service can be improved as a result of the use of uniquely constructed, extended regional dispatching systems.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Simulation is used to examine regional dispatching systems that are extended in scope of dispatch by using integrated freight lanes. The results of extended regional dispatching systems are compared to traditional dispatching methods and previous experimentation with stand-alone regional and lane dispatching.\nFindings: - It is shown that a carrier's adoption of extended regional dispatching can be beneficial to both trucking companies and drivers, while remaining relatively neutral to customers. Additionally, it is shown that this improvement can be obtained without significant degradation of the driving jobs that remain outside the regional dispatching network.\nResearch limitations/implications: - A new method of dispatching has been developed in such a way that very attractive regional driving jobs can be extended to a much larger percentage of drivers than in more established regional alternatives. This reduces reliance on the less effective random, over-the-road dispatching systems that are typically utilized in the truckload trucking industry.\nPractical implications: - Carriers may be able to utilize extended regional dispatching systems as a means of improving driver satisfaction and retention.\nOriginality/value: - This research extends knowledge in the area of alternative dispatching methods for truckload carriers in a way that drastically improves the quality of life for professional drivers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Is cybersecurity eating internet governance? Causes and consequences of alternative framings	[ "Global governance", "Cybersecurity", "Internet governance", "Security dilemma" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The purpose of this paper is to bring conceptual clarity to the relationship between internet governance and cybersecurity governance. It discusses and evaluates definitions of cyberspace, cybersecurity, national security, cybersecurity governance and internet governance to sharpen our understanding of the relationship. It tries to develop an understanding of the degree to which internet governance and cybersecurity governance are interdependent, and hence the impact that the two fields have on each other. This introductory section explains why I think such clarifications are necessary.\nInternet governance meets national security: Historically, cybersecurity-oriented discourse and internet governance discourse are rooted in different communities of actors (Dunn-Cavelty, 2008). One group of actors tends to look at the internet through a national security lens and is more prone to link policy-making to traditional geopolitical rivalries, nation-state conflicts and nationally focused institutions. Internet governance discourse and stakeholders, on the other hand, are rooted in a transnational community that is primarily civilian in outlook. While deeply interested in cybersecurity, they see security as contributing to goals related to commerce, communication, personal privacy and freedom. Internet governance is often characterized as cooperative global governance in which national territorial divisions are minimized, and state actors and nonstate actors participate as equals.\nConcepts and definitions: It is helpful in this context to back up and reconsider some basic concepts and definitions. What do we mean by cyberspace and by cybersecurity? How is national security related to cybersecurity? What do we mean by internet governance? In discussing governance, what difference does it make if we refer to the object of governance as cyberspace, cybersecurity or the internet? These terms are often thrown about as if they were interchangeable and can be used by different communities in different ways, unfamiliar with their usage in different contexts by other epistemic communities. It is, therefore, important to clarify the use of these terms. We will first approach these as definitional questions and then, explore some empirical applications.\nThe IG and CG relationship: four propositions: Considering all the parallels and interdependencies between internet governance (IG) and cybersecurity governance (CG), one is led to four possible propositions:\nConclusion: This paper had two modest goals: to examine the relationship between CG and IG more carefully and to explore the ill effects of the current tendency for cybersecurity-related discourse to alter and dominate the way we approach many of the established problems of IG. Conceptually, the paper demonstrated the centrality of internet connectivity to any notion of cyberspace. This helps to clarify the way IG and CG are highly interdependent. Drawing on classic notions of a security dilemma, the paper also argued for distinguishing between national cybersecurity and societal cybersecurity. That distinction reinforces the need to avoid abandoning the governance model rooted in nonstate actors that has developed for the internet. In attempting to summarize the results of this conceptual re-examination, the paper rejected the notion that CG is identical to IG and was not able to fully accept the proposition that CG is a subset of IG. Instead, it concluded that major structural features of the governance problem in both areas are analogous and that, joint production of internet services and cybersecurity makes them heavily interdependent. This means that CG could indeed take a separate path than IG, and through these deep interdependencies, push IG in a more nationalistic or state-centric direction. But the reverse could also happen: the models and norms developed around IG could play a major role in shaping CG.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between cybersecurity governance and internet governance and to explore the effects of the current tendency for cybersecurity-related discourse to dominate and change the way we approach the established problems of internet governance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper demonstrates the centrality of internet connectivity to any definition of cyberspace and to cybersecurity, which clarifies the way internet governance and cybersecurity governance are interdependent. Drawing on classic notions of a security dilemma, the paper also argues for distinguishing between national cybersecurity and societal cybersecurity.\nFindings: Major structural features of the governance problem in cybersecurity and internet governance are analogous. Joint production of internet services and cybersecurity makes them heavily interdependent. This means that cybersecurity governance and internet governance models need to be compatible, and the approach we take to one will influence how we approach the other.\nOriginality/value: The interdependence of cybersecurity governance and internet governance has not been carefully examined before, and the relationship is not well understood. These two strands of thinking about cyberspace governance have not been properly connected. This paper bridges the gap and makes policymakers more aware of the potential tensions between a cybersecurity perspective and an internet governance perspective.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Chain governance structures: the European traditional food sector	[ "Governance", "Organizational structures", "Belgium", "Italy", "Hungary" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction and objective: The dynamic character of relations and interdependencies between the members of agribusiness chains cause a challenge in today's business society. One of the success factors when facing this challenge is the use of sound chain governance structures (Grandori, 1997). Contrary to this, key issues of chain governance structures have not received significant attention in literature (Albers et al., 2003).First, although considerable theoretical effort has been devoted to gain a better understanding of governance structures (Williamson, 1973; Webster, 1992; Jagdev and Thoben, 2001; Peterson et al., 2001), a more extensive empirical analysis is still required. For example, little research effort has been devoted to the investigation of chain-level specific characteristics of governance structures (Raynaud et al., 2005; Robert, 2006; Schulze et al., 2006). Since several authors acknowledged that chain-level is a source of variation in governance structures (Yin and Zajac, 2004; Luo and Luo, 2007), this issue deserves additional attention. Further, most empirical research investigated individual products and countries (Schulze et al., 2006; Szabo and Bardos, 2006) and limited cross product and cross-country research is available. Since product- and country-specific characteristics interact in shaping governance structures (Williamson, 1991), understanding the choice and the role of chain governance structures requires comparison of different products and countries (Fischer et al., 2008). For instance, poultry or pork chains are the most cited examples of tight integration (Peterson et al., 2001) compared to some less integrated chains, such as beef or fruit and vegetable. Nevertheless, even in the more integrated chains, country-specific differences can be observed and pork-producing countries can be roughly divided into two groups (Schulze et al., 2006). In Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France spot markets, long-term relationships and marketing contracts are dominating (Boston et al., 2004; Spiller et al., 2005) while in the USA and Denmark, production contracts, contract farming, and vertical integration have largely dominating (Schulze et al., 2006). Without taking into account chain-level-, product- and country-specific characteristics of governance, tailor-made development of chain governance structures cannot be realized (Fischer et al., 2008), and accurate recommendations for improvements cannot be formulated. As a result, in the well-theorized areas of chain governance structures, there is an explicit empirical claim to devote more research efforts on chain-level-, product- and country-specific characteristics.Second, since not all governance structures are equally well suited for chains, it is up to the chain members to select the most appropriate one from a continuum with spot market and vertical integration as the two extremes (Szabo and Bardos, 2006). This selection depends on a number of variables (Gulati and Singh, 1998) such as the duration of relationship or the state of technology being applied between the parties (Fragata et al., 2007). Recent developments in chain governance structures started to create taxonomy providing insights to these determining variables (Gereffi, 2005). However, the almost unlimited alternatives of chain governance structures illustrate that such taxonomy development is difficult (Jagdev and Thoben, 2001; Gereffi, 2005). Consequently, areas of taxonomy development remain unresolved. This is especially true for agribusiness chains having a limited set of governance structures to choose from (Peterson et al., 2001). Additional particularities can be noted related to traditional food chains, where institutional arrangements are set up on a collective basis (e.g. protected designations of origin (PDO) certification) (Chappuis and Pierre, 2000), and the chance of free riding on the collective reputation is higher (Raynaud et al., 2005). Besides some notable exception (Chappuis and Pierre, 2000; Raynaud et al., 2005), research on chain governance structures of traditional food products received little attention in the literature (Jordana, 2000) and consequently, taxonomy development also lags behind.This is the rationale of our study contributing to address these key issues. Based on a theoretically grounded taxonomy, our objective is to identify chain-level, product-, and country-specific characteristics of chain governance structures in the traditional food sector.This paper is structured as follows. The second part presents the methodology. Next, the research results are discussed and finally conclusions are drawn as well as further research topics formulated.\n2. Methodology: Different methodological approaches are used in our paper making a distinction between taxonomy compilation and pilot testing.2.1 Taxonomy compilation\n3. Results: We start with presenting the general graph of meat chains representing the main product flow and the main transactions being investigated. Next, the distribution of governance structures along the chain for the whole sample is discussed and followed by product-specific and country-specific differences based on the examples of meat and white pepper chains.Following the methodology presented above, the graphs of the selected traditional food chains are compared and chain complexity is reduced. As a result, comparable units of analysis are obtained, representing a general graph of the main product flow (Figure 1 represents the general graph of meat chains).The distribution of the different chain governance structures is shown in Table IV.We notice a huge diversity of governance structures along the chain except for vertical integration. Vertical integration is not present in our sample. A huge variety of governance structures is present at the downstream end of the chain (T4 and T5) as compared to the upstream one (T1, T2, T3). Transactions between farmers and the first processing step (T2) apply more diverse governance structures from both sides of the continuum (spot market and equity based alliance), while transactions between farmers and their input suppliers (T1) as well as between the first and the second processing step (T3) are rather positioned at the middle of the continuum. The dominance of contractual relationships is clear throughout the sample.Table V presents the dominant governance structure for each transaction related to each product. Two governance structures for one transaction mean that they are equally present in the chain.Meat chains cover basically two types of products, sausage and ham. At the level of T1 (transaction between feed supplier and pig breeder), the subject of the product flow is feed, characterized by large variety and having an important impact on the ultimate quality of the pig meat. The feed producer is usually large, being a national or international firm. T1 varies between contractual relationship (C) and non-contractual relationship with qualified partner (S++). Taking into account seasonality (which makes pig feed supply limited) and the high impact of the feed on the meat quality and consequently on profitability, finding a reliable, qualified feed supplier, providing on top of the feed technical advice is important and initiates long term relationships.The intensity of control present in the relationship is low (focusing generally on the relationship itself) or moderately low (focusing on contract terms) and depends on entering a contractual or maintaining a non-contractual relationship. While non-contractual relationship with non-qualified partners were more prevalent in Hungary, contractual relationships were more common in Italy for this type of transaction.At the level of T2 (transaction between pig breeder and slaughterhouse), the subject of the product flow is the pig. Slaughterhouses in Italy are usually big, with limited competition nearby, because the concentration of the industry already took place at regional level. Contrary to Italy, the number of slaughterhouses just started to decrease in Hungary (from 453 in 2003 to 71 in 2007) as a result of the introduction of more severe EU food safety regulations. The lack of information about the long-term existence of the slaughterhouses drives national patterns of Hungary. As a result, contractual relationship (C) is the dominant governance structure in Italy, while in Hungary spot market (S) is also prevalent besides contractual relationships (C).The subject of the transaction between the slaughterhouses and the manufacturers (T3) is the fresh meat such as ham or shoulder for cured ham production. Transaction practices differ between the two countries. In Italy, ham producers often visit the premises of the slaughterhouses and choose the fresh meat personally, because of the large quality differences. Sometimes, even a premium is paid over the official price for the privilege to choose first. The transaction is classified as being a non-contractual relationship with a qualified partner (S++). In Hungary, contractual relationships (C) dominate more this transaction. Respondents from both countries expressed the importance of the quality/safety of the supply, which explains the importance attached to the identity of the slaughterhouse. During the interviews, it becomes clear that some Italian slaughterhouses made several attempts to reach a higher level of vertical integration with ham manufacturers by:subcontracting the processing of the ham, while keeping ownership; andfully vertically integrating the ham producer.This trend towards vertical integration is motivated by slaughterhouses trying:* to increase their profitability, since ham production is a high value-added production phase;* to valorize the legs that ham manufacturers leave in their premises; or* to increase their bargaining power when negotiating with large retailers.The subject of the transaction between the manufacturers and the wholesalers (T4) as well as between the manufacturer (or wholesaler) and the retailers (T5) is the finished ham or sausage. Italian (Parma) ham is mostly sold unsliced, while in case of the (Hungarian) sausages, sliced and vacuum packed (small or bulk packs) varieties as well as bars are sold. T4 is characterized by either spot market (S) or contractual relationship (C). Small sized manufacturers tend to prefer contractual relationship, hoping to ensure long term business opportunities, while medium sized manufacturers more spot markets.At the level of T5, differences are identified based on the size of the retail partner. Large retailers rarely buy directly from the manufacturers. In this case, they are looking for approved suppliers, meeting fully the retailers' specifications, being able to supply regularly and working with short lead times. In this case, contractual relationship (C) is the preferred governance structure. The same is valid for the transaction between wholesalers and large retailers. On the contrary, small retailers and food manufacturers often form a relation-based alliance (Rba), based on trust (control of relationship instead of control of contract terms or transactions), high professional skills of both parties and common interest in selling top quality product, often having joint forces for mutual benefits.There are three main types of products covered under processed white pepper chains: pickles, letcho and stuffed pepper. At the level of T1, the subject of the product flow is the seed. Seed quality in producing top quality white pepper products is highly recognized and as a result, contractual relationship (C) prevails. The subject of the transaction between pepper growers and the first processing step (T2) (buyer/integrator) is the fresh white pepper product. The first processing step is often realized by a Producer Organization (PO), dealing not only with sorting, packaging and aggregating the products and coordinating the sales activities of the growers, but sometimes also with assuring seeds, fertilizers, foil, carrying out marketing surveys, providing advice on growing technology or plant protection (Felfoldi, 2005). On the one hand, the legal form of the PO is often a cooperative, which assume the occurrence of equity-based alliance, where the growers are stockholders, but stay legally independent. The parties join forces to achieve mutual benefits, which is often in a form of a membership fee or the purchase of a share of common stocks. On the other hand, the appearance of spot market (S) is also relevant for this transaction because consumer requirements change quickly or because growers offer insufficient quantity or quality (e.g. because of weather conditions). The transaction between the PO and the pepper manufacturer sometimes deals with the aggregated sorted and packed white pepper supply (T3). Contractual relationships (C) dominate this transaction, aiming to ensure a guaranteed quantity and quality supply before every season. The subject of T4 and T5 are the pickles, letcho and stuffed pepper. T4 reveals to be spot market (S), while T5 is mainly contract (C). Although it is not reflected in the results, pickles, letcho and stuffed pepper manufacturers hold a different competitive position. On the one hand, \"Vecsesi\" pickle products are produced by a large number of family businesses and marketed as traditional products (certified PDO). On the other hand, pickles manufactured by medium sized canning factories are cheaper and less distinguished. Further, deep frozen and canned ready meals (letcho and stuffed paprika) are manufactured mainly by medium sized companies and sold in the supermarket under private label. The stronger competitive position of the high quality, PDO certified pickle could result in a future change in the type of governance structure, where more equal, more appreciated position of the manufacturers can be achieved.\n4. Conclusion: Our paper investigates chain governance structures in the traditional food sector based on a theoretically-grounded taxonomy. The empirical research is based on qualitative data collected via individual interviews with 54 companies belonging to traditional food chains across Belgium, Italy and Hungary representing cheese, beer, white pepper, dry sausage and meat subsectors.The investigated chains varied largely in terms of their complexity resulting in a diversity of governance structures in the total chain. However, vertical integration as a governance structure is not identified in our sample, which indicates a slot in our test of the established taxonomy. Still, transactions can evolve and reach a higher level of integration, e.g. in the Italian ham case and one might also expect the Hungarian traditional food sector to evolve towards higher levels of cooperation as a consequence of further economic integration within the EU. Therefore we consider the established taxonomy to respond to the gap experienced in previous research.The empirical results show clear indications that the used compilation of both determining variables and governance structures is well suited to identify chain-level-, product- and country-specific differences. Besides product- and country-specific differences, the size of the retailers being present in the transactions also revealed to be a determining factor of the applied governance structure. Transactions with small retailers are more often classified as relationship based alliance than transaction with big retailers. The latter are much more characterized by contract-based agreements.Future research should tackle two important aspects. First, the results should be repeated on a larger sample in the traditional food sector and in other food and non-food sectors. Second, chain governance structures should be linked with chain performance in order to reveal whether or not a causal relationship between both exits and what might be the direction of that causal relationship.Our study stresses the benefits of a theoretically grounded taxonomy in relating, identifying and understanding chain governance structures. Further, it provides guidance for selecting an appropriate governance structure given the characteristics of the chain, the products or the country.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of the paper is to identify chain-level, product-, and country-specific characteristics of chain governance structures in the traditional food sector in the European Union (EU).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The approach combined taxonomy compilation: selecting chain governance structures, Selecting determining variables and assigning values to them; and pilot testing: individual interviews with 54 companies across Belgium, Italy and Hungary representing cheese, beer, white pepper and meat chains. The number of participants is 54.\nFindings: - It was found that the chains varied largely in terms of their complexity. Besides chain-level, product-, and country-specific differences, the retailers' size is a determining factor of the applied governance structure.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The research only considers traditional food chains.\nPractical implications: - The paper provides guidance for selecting an appropriate governance structure given the characteristics of the chain, the products or the country.\nOriginality/value: - The paper compiles a taxonomy providing important insights to determining variables of the application of governance structures. Further, it analyzes chain-level, product-, and country-specific differences.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Strategic planning and organizational flexibility in turbulent environments	[ "Strategic management", "Flexibility", "Volatility", "Uncertainty management", "Strategic decision making", "Strategic foresight", "Environmental uncertainty" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The competitive landscape has been shifting impressively in the past three decades. Globalization, rapid technological changes, codification of knowledge, the Internet, talent and employee mobility, increased rates of technology transfer, the emergence of new customer needs and the innovation of products and business models, all these factors contributed to increase industry turbulence (Doz and Kosonen, 2008a; Roveda and Vecchiato, 2008). In a chaotic world in which markets and entire industries continuously emerge, collide, split evolve and die, one of the primary determinants of success is the ability of the firm to cope with growing uncertainty, by sensing, seizing and handling external changes (Teece, 2007).\n2. Fast-paced environments, uncertainty and strategic decision making: Environmental uncertainty has been for a long time a key issue in literature on organization and innovation management. It arises when managers do not feel confident that they understand what the major events or changes in their industry are (Knight, 1921; Duncan, 1972; Loveridge and Saritas, 2012).\n3. Methods and data: Given the gap in the literature and the open-ended nature of our question, we adopted the case study methodology as the most useful, given its strength for theory building (Yin, 2003). We used an inductive, multiple case research design, as multiple cases permit a replication logic in which comparisons clarify whether emerging findings and inferences drawn from one case are confirmed or disconfirmed by results from the others, and also create more robust theory, because propositions are more deeply grounded in varied empirical evidence, and research questions and theoretical propositions more broadly explored (Eisenhardt, 1989).\n4. Results: In this section we illustrate what key drivers of change Shell and Nokia had to face, their methodological and organizational approaches to cope with these changes and their long-term performances.\n5. A framework for industrial change, strategic foresight and organizational flexibility: In prior sections, we sketched the planning and foresight-based approaches that major companies adopted throughout the 2000s to face the increasing uncertainty of the energy and mobile communication industries. Table II sums up our findings.\n6. Discussion: We add to the study of strategic decision making under uncertainty. We address a fundamental issue in strategic management: How firms should craft their strategy in fast-paced environments? (Rumelt et al., 1994). Despite the limitations of our case study research, some managerial and theoretical implications can reasonably be drawn. Our core contribution is the broad outline of a framework for strategic foresight versus organizational flexibility in fast-paced industries.\n7. Conclusions: Research setting, data collection and data analysis were designed in order to enhance the construct and internal validity of our theoretical framework; through data triangulation between different sources and through pattern-matching across cases we sought to strengthen the reliability and external validity of our conclusions (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007). The considerable differences between Shell and Nokia, in terms both of their businesses and the kinds of uncertainty they faced, allowed to more clearly observe contrasting patterns in the data regarding the selection of foresight practices and techniques and at the same time enhanced the generalizability of our conclusions regarding their use for strategic decision making. On the other hand, it is critical to note that our work is based on two focal firms and thus on a limited number of cases. We selected our theoretical sample according to the main purpose of this paper that is - as typical of case study research - to develop theory: the next step is empirical testing (Eisenhardt, 1989). Future research may build upon our work to explore the cases of other firms and investigate the role of strategic foresight versus flexible approaches in sustaining the performance of the organization in fast-paced environments (Teece, 2007).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The main purpose of this paper is to address a key issue in literature on management and foresight: the author explores how firms might cope with the increased turbulence of the business environment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper is based on a multiple case study of major firms of the energy and the mobile communication industries.\nFindings: The focus is on strategic foresight and organizational flexibility: the author introduces the concept of \"boundary uncertainty\" and investigates its managerial implications.\nOriginality/value: The main contribution of this paper is to expand our understanding of environmental uncertainty and to reinvigorate the study of strategic decision making in turbulent industries. The author provides descriptive data on the foresight approaches that some of the world's largest and most influential companies used throughout the 2000s for remaining aligned with their fast-paced environments, and thus informs the debate between the \"planning\" and the \"learning\" schools of strategic management.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Fixing another firm's mistake: how should recovering firms react?	[ "Service failure", "Justice", "Transference", "Equity theory", "Spillover", "Customer recovery" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A recent real-world example of a service spillover occurred in April 2017 when United Airlines forcibly and aggressively removed a passenger from one of its overbooked flights; indeed, this was a shocking news story that gained widespread attention. The company's lack of an immediate and proper response further damaged its reputation, and in the thirty days following the incident, consumer research found that United Airlines passengers said their likelihood of booking another flight with the airline dropped from 47 to 22 per cent (Martin, 2017). This created a positive spillover effect within the airline industry, as competing airlines such as JetBlue and Southwest Airlines received higher booking-likelihood scores in the same research study. In addition to this, on April 27, Southwest announced that it would end the practice of overbooking flights, effective May 8 (Schlangenstein and Sasso, 2017). On the same day as Southwest's announcement, other airlines including United itself followed suit and addressed their overbooking and payout policies as well. Therefore, it is clear that United's negative incident not only had an effect on the company itself, but also on other companies. More specifically, the negative incident at United \"spilled over\" within the airline industry, and provided an opportunity for its competitors to capitalize on the issue. Indeed, the concept of spillover effects has been studied extensively in various marketing contexts. In the field of branding, a product's reputation consists not only of product-specific components, but also a component that is \"spilled over\" from the brand itself, which is shared by all products with the same brand name (Sullivan, 1990; Balachander and Ghose, 2003). In the field of sustainable marketing, it has been found that products labeled as organic and Fairtrade can improve consumers' perceptions of the brand, but that the labeling also spills over to regular, non-organic and non-Fairtrade products in the brand's portfolio and hurts perceptions of those items (Anagnostou et al., 2015). In the field of services marketing, it has been found that the quality of a service at one firm can spill over and directly impact how a customer evaluates the quality of a service at a partner firm (Bourdeau et al., 2007).\nTheoretical background: Service failure and equity theory\nEmpirical context: Encompassed within a hypothetical travel scenario, the service scenarios used in the current research consist of a failure occurring at a car rental company outside an airport, and recoveries being offered at a hotel that the participant is staying at. This context consists of two contiguous service scenarios, which are each in failure-frequent industries (Andreeva, 1998), thus outlining a realistic external recovery context.\nResults: Pretest\nDiscussions: Theoretical and managerial implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: While within-firm service failure and recovery have been studied extensively, the context in which a service failure at one firm \"spills over\" and provides an opportunity for an external firm (a subsequent service provider) to recover (compensate) a customer has received limited attention. This study aims to examine how the extent of a service failure plays a role in how external firms should shape their recovery efforts, and how customers' evaluations of the recovering firm and their feelings of unhappiness are affected.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A pretest conducted on MTurk gauged participants' perceptions of equitability of the external firm's recovery effort. In the main study, a 3 x 3 between-subjects experiment examined the effects of failure extent and external recovery type on evaluations of the recovering firm and reduced feelings of unhappiness.\nFindings: It is found that equity judgments remain consistent in the external recovery context; transferred negative affect is able to be mitigate only in low-failure scenarios, and customers' evaluations of the external firm increase only in high-failure scenarios.\nResearch limitations/implications: The use of hypothetical scenarios, as opposed to the employment of a field study, is the primary limitation of the study.\nOriginality/value: This research finds that external firms can reap the benefits of another firm's service failure by offering no-cost recoveries, rather than ones that carry some form of cost.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Optimal technology selection considering input levels of resource	[ "Product technology", "Production planning and control", "Technology selection", "Data envelopment analysis‐assurance region", "Analytic hierarchy process rating method", "K‐means clustering", "Input levels of resource" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Technology selection is one of the most challenging decision-making areas that a technology-based company encounters. Due to the increasing number and complexity of technology, technology selection is becoming more and more difficult (Torkkeli and Tuominen, 2002). When selecting a suitable technology among multiple technology alternatives, the information of technology alternatives should be collected under the predefined selection criteria and then evaluate these alternatives against each other (Lamb and Gregory, 1997). Considering technology's required input levels of resource is very important in technology selection. If a company selects a technology and ignores the difference between its own resource level and the selected technology's required input levels of resource, the selected technology cannot be carried out in reality. In this case, the selected technology is not an optimal technology to the company even if it is an excellent technology.In this research, we proposed an optimal technology selection (OTS) method which considers the technology alternative's required input levels of resource. The OTS method can select a technology whose required input levels of resource match with a company's actual resource levels. Thus, the selected technology can be carried out in reality by the company.The OTS method used K-means method to group the technology alternatives according to their required input levels of resource. The optimal number of clusters was defined by Ward's (1963) method. For the technology alternatives within each technology cluster, the OTS method employed data envelopment analysis-assurance region (DEA-AR) and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) rating method to accurately measure the efficiencies and priorities of technology alternatives, respectively.The OTS method used DEA-AR, a weighted data envelopment analysis (DEA) model, to avoid the unreasonable distribution of weights in basic DEA model. DEA-AR has also shown good performance in evaluating efficiency in case of ordinal (rating) survey data (Takamura and Tone, 2003; Kong and Fu, 2012). The OTS method also used AHP rating method because it is particularly useful when there are a large number of alternatives and pair-wise comparison is impracticable (Sueyoshi et al., 2009). In this study, we selected six criteria for the OTS. In the six criteria, four criteria were used for evaluating each technology alternative's efficiency by DEA-AR model, two criteria were used for evaluating each technology alternative's priority by AHP rating method. The OTS method evaluated each technology alternative comprehensively and determined both the efficiency and the priority of each technology alternative. Therefore, each technology alternative was finally evaluated by combining the alternative's DEA-AR efficiency (DEA score) and AHP priority (AHP score). The combined score of each technology alternative was used as the basis for OTS. In each cluster, the technology alternative with the highest combined score can be selected as the optimal technology.This paper is organized as follows. In the literature review section, we will review the literature of technology selection method, DEA-AR and AHP rating method. The proposed OTS method is then described. After that, the OTS method is applied to a case of a Korean company's clean technology selection and the results are explained. Then, conclusions are drawn. In the last section, limitations and recommendations for future works are introduced.\n2 Literature review: 2.1 Technology selection method\n3 Framework of the OTS method: The OTS method can provide an effective selection of optimal technology among various technology alternatives. Six criteria such as research and development (R&D) capability, ease of production, marketability, technical extension, urgency and government support are taken into consideration by the OTS method. R&D capability means the required costs or resources for researching and developing a technology, such as financial costs, human resources and material supplies. Ease of production means the ease of production by utilizing a technology. Marketability means a technology's marketability. Technical extension means a technology's extension to other products or fields. Urgency means the market or society's urgent need to a technology. Government support means government's support to a technology.R&D capability and ease of production are input resources. They are defined as the inputs in DEA-AR. Marketability and technical extension are results of applying a technology. They are defined as the outputs in DEA-AR. Figure 1 shows the framework of the OTS method.As shown in Figure 1, there are five main steps in the process of the OTS method:1. Cluster technology alternatives according to the levels of two input criteria (R&D capability and ease of production).2. Use AHP relative measurement to set AR for applying DEA-AR, and then use DEA-AR on the ratings of four criteria (R&D capability, ease of production, marketability and technical extension) in each cluster to evaluate the efficiencies of technology alternatives within each cluster. In this research, the efficiency of a technology alternative is defined as DEA score.3. Use AHP rating method on the ratings of two criteria (urgency and government support) to calculate the priorities of technology alternatives within each cluster. In this research, the priority of a technology alternative is defined as AHP score.4. Calculate the combined scores of each cluster's technology alternatives by adding each technology alternative's DEA score and AHP score.5. Select an optimal technology among each cluster's technology alternative with the highest combined score.3.1 Cluster technology alternative according to the levels of input criteria\n4 Application study: 4.1 Introduction\n5 Conclusion: In this research, we proposed an OTS method to tackle the limitations of the conventional technology selection methods such as ignoring the difference between company's own resource levels and the selected technology's required input levels of resource and the lack of systematic evaluation to technology. The OTS method evaluated the technology alternatives at both the efficiency aspect and the priority aspect after clustering them according to the alternative's required input levels. Companies can choose a proper technology cluster after considering their actual resource capability, and then select the optimal one in the proper cluster.In this research, we applied the proposed OTS method to experts' ordinal rating data of technology alternatives to get the technology clusters according to input levels of resource, efficiency scores and priority scores of technology alternatives. After selecting proper cluster, decision makers referred to combined scores (sum of efficiency scores and priority scores) of the proper cluster's technology alternatives to select optimal technology. The application results can provide useful guidance for decision makers to solve the OTS problem in practice.In this research, a technology selection analysis for a Korean company A is performed to explore the application of the OTS method in the optimal clean technology selection. The Korean company A's 2 input levels of resource, R&D capability and ease of production, were rated at 4.1 and 4.0, respectively. After applying the OTS method to the average ratings of 185 clean technologies, the Korean company A selected cluster 3 which is most suitable to the company as the proper cluster. Among the 23 technology alternatives in cluster 3, the technology 75 (water network construction technology) which has the highest combined score, also the highest AHP score (1.000) and the second highest DEA score (0.997), was selected as the optimal clean technology by the company A.Our research has several important managerial implications. The OTS method highlights that decision makers should take technology alternative's required input levels of resource into consideration in process of technology selection. This will help the decision makers to focus on practicable technology alternatives and make rational use of the company's resources. The OTS method also suggests that both the efficiency and the priority should be taken into consideration when selecting optimal technology among the practicable technology alternatives. This can evaluate technology alternatives comprehensively and will make the OTS more persuasive. Furthermore, the OTS method can make decision makers become more confident and feel more convenient in the process of selecting the right optimal technology. That is because the results of applying OTS method can provide a clear view of all technology alternatives' entire situation and largely facilitate the managerial decision-making process. The OTS method can also help the decision makers to establish an official technology selection system to tighten up the management.This research also has implications at aspects of both practice and research. For practice, the proposed method can help decision makers to find an optimal and practicable technology accurately. This can contribute to avoiding unnecessary investment and the risk of increasing resource costs. For research, this study contributes to theoretical knowledge of technology selection method and provides valuable academic discussion about using integrated DEA and AHP model in a new field.\n6 Limitations and recommendations for future work: This research has some limitations. We only considered six criteria in our research. In future work, more other criteria, such as criteria related with input and output, should be taken into consideration. Especially, some specific criteria related with technology, such as technical barrier, technical maturity and so on, should be added to make the evaluation more comprehensive. The criteria used for clustering were only criteria of input resource. In future work, other criteria, such as marketability and technical extension, could also be taken into consideration for clustering to provide a new selection perspective and cater to various requirements. We applied the OTS method to clean technology only. In future work, the proposed method should be applied to other kinds of technology to get more validation. In this research, we put equal weight on the efficiency and priority. In future work, different weight can be given. In addition, developing new models by combining other methods or approaches is another research direction.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to propose an optimal technology selection (OTS) method considering technology alternatives' required input levels of resource, to help companies select an optimal technology.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The proposed method clustered technology alternatives according to their required input levels of resource. After that, in each cluster, the proposed method used data envelopment analysis-assurance region (DEA-AR) and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) rating method to evaluate the efficiencies and priorities of the technology alternatives, respectively. Finally, combined scores of the technology alternatives were calculated. A company can choose a proper technology cluster, and then select the technology alternative with the highest combined score within the selected cluster as the optimal technology.\nFindings: - The results showed that the OTS method cannot only select suitable technology which accords with a company's actual input capabilities, but also provide a more accurate selection result.\nOriginality/value: - Traditionally, technologies are evaluated without considering the technologies' required input levels, and simply ranked for selection. However, there are differences between a company's actual resource levels and a selected technology's required input levels of resource. This study proposes an integrated method to evaluate technology systematically and provides a more reasonable selection process for selecting optimal technology.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
It's not fake, it's biased: insights into morality of incentivized reviewers	[ "Consumer behaviour", "Decision-making", "Trust", "Consumer-generated reviews", "Incetivized reviews" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Online shopping is booming. According to the Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce, \"the estimate of USA retail e-commerce sales for the third quarter of 2017, adjusted for seasonal variation, but not for price changes, was $115.3 billion\" (The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce, 2017). This amount, for the third quarter alone, is an increase of 3.6 per cent (+-0.7 per cent) over the second quarter. Furthermore, CNNMoney reported that on Black Friday, US shoppers spent $5bn within 24 h, almost 17 per cent more than Black Friday 2016. Sales on Amazon.com reached \"record levels\" (Wattles, 2015). Amazon.com (\"Amazon\" hereafter) is at the forefront of this boom. A study by Slice Intelligence, as cited in Business Insider, estimated that 43 per cent of online retail purchases in the USA have been made through Amazon. A number of logical factors come to mind when attempting to explain the prevalence of online shopping. Convenience is certainly one of the most important.\n2. Literature review: Word of mouth (WOM), which has long been known to impact consumer behavior, is \"the act of consumers providing information about goods, services, brands or companies to other consumers. Such information communicated through the internet (e.g. reviews, tweets, blog posts, \"likes,\" \"pins,\" images, video testimonials) is called \"electronic word of mouth\" (eWOM), and it represents one of the most significant developments in contemporary consumer behavior\" (Rosario et al., 2016, p. 297). With the emergence of the internet and online shopping, eWOM generated by consumers on review forums gained importance for consumers and sellers. Online reviews, whether positive or negative, often influence purchase decisions. In particular, ones that are high quality and rated helpful can positively impact consumer online purchases (Chen et al., 2008). Product characteristics, consumer characteristics and other characteristics (e.g. competition), affect the degree of consumer reliance on online reviews (Zhu and Zhang, 2010). Reviews are often assumed to be unbiased (Hu et al., 2011) because consumers voluntarily share their opinions of a product. In fact, many reviewers openly state that their reviews are unbiased. But the actual level of bias is impossible to know with certainty.\n3. Method: Data were collected over a period of 1.5 years using observational netnography. According to Kozinets (2002, 2006), netnography stems from its predecessor, ethnography and the cultural analysis of communities. In fact, Caliandro (2014, p. 1) defined netnography as ethnography in a virtual setting: \"the most appropriate method to understand the culture that consumers produce within their daily life practices on social media is undoubtedly web-based ethnography.\" Netnography, which developed after the emergence of the World Wide Web and online communities, allows for analysis of online communities in their natural setting. Because of its anthropological perspective, netnography offers an opportunity to enhance our understanding of online cultural phenomena (Kozinets, 2006). Netnography is much less obtrusive than ethnography, focus groups and surveys because, in most instances, members of the online communities do not know that they are being observed. What adds to an unobtrusive nature is the fact that information posted in various online forums is voluntary and unprompted by the researchers. Additionally, anyone can gain acceptance into the group. Offering great flexibility, netnography \"can be used as a purely observational method or as one that incorporates a high degree of participation\" (Kozinets, 2006, p. 281).\n4. Analysis: Thematic analysis was used instead of data mining because netnography is known to offer context-rich information. Unlike digital ethnography, which relies on data mining, netnography uncovers nuances that are otherwise difficult to uncover using other methods (Kozinets, 2006). Thematic analysis permits fuller understanding of context, reaching far beyond the written communication that the online community uses. First, over a period of 1.5 years, numerous screenshots of online discourse among members of the community were collected. Second, the textual data were analyzed into themes based on emerging patterns. Themes are defined as units derived from patterns such as \"conversation topics, vocabulary, recurring activities, meanings, feelings, or folk sayings and proverbs\" (Taylor and Bogdan, 1984, p. 131). After the themes emerged, the identified patterns were further organized into supporting sub-themes based on current recommendations of thematic analysis (Aronson, 1995; Fereday and Muir-Cochrane, 2006). Supporting themes deepened understanding of the main themes. Finally, based on the most prevalent patterns, themes and sub-themes, a story line was developed and supported by selected direct quotes in the form of screenshots. A brief timeline of events was developed and summarized into three periods: incentivized reviewer boom, incentivized reviewer activity ban and post-ban revival of reviewer activity.\n5. Findings: To provide a clear picture of incentivized reviewer culture and the forces that drove it on Amazon, a timeline was established around the changes made to Amazon's terms of service regarding reviewer activity. The first period was the incentivized reviewer boom, during which reviewers could receive as many free products as they were given. Reviewers might receive ten products a day, and the higher their reviewer ranking, the better the products would be. In fact, incentivized reviews were explicitly permitted by Amazon if the consumer left a disclaimer informing potential readers that writing the review was done exchange for free product. The second period occurred after Amazon decided to change its terms of service on October 3, 2016, launching the incentivized reviewer activity ban. After the initial shock, the Facebook groups where online reviewing communities thrived changed their rules as well. Afterwards, the third, and still current (as of 2.25.2019), period began: post-ban revival of reviewer activity. Incentivized reviews are still banned, but reviewing activity continues.\n6. Discussion: This study revealed that incentivized reviewers, in most cases, violated Amazon's terms of service and, intentionally or not, biased the review system thereby negatively affecting other consumers by manipulating the reviewing system in several ways. First, the requirement to post high ratings contributed to an inordinate number of five-star reviews that likely affected the \"at first glance\" perception of consumers who only check star ratings prior to purchase. Second, reviewers were discouraged from leaving unfavorable reviews regardless of their true experience, magnifying the unethical practices of these groups and further amplifying the J distribution. Over time, this behavior seemed to bother fewer and fewer consumers, suggesting that unethical behavior was being normalized in the group culture. All these behaviors occurred under the prevalent fear of being caught by Amazon and having reviewing or purchasing privileges revoked. When Amazon banned incentivized review activity, some reviewers celebrated the potential for validity and honesty in product reviews. At the same time, unethical behavior continued, and some groups even encouraged illegal behavior. To circumvent Amazon's terms of service, some groups found ways to look like verified purchasers when they were still receiving free or discounted products.\n7. Conclusions limitations and future research: This study focused on the online community of incentivized Amazon reviewers. The research process and analysis resulted in rich and in-depth insights into the ethics and culture of online Amazon reviewers. As it is the case with qualitative studies, this study is highly context bound and no attempts should be made to generalize the findings into population. However, given fact that reviewing group sizes ranged from 200 to 64,000 members, the size of groups and prevalence of behaviors across groups appeared to be quite consistent. Additionally, the benefit of this study goes beyond its findings and includes data collection over period when many changes occurred, something difficult to replicate. Attempts to replicate can be made particularly with respect to the third era which is post TOS change.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper was to uncover morality and dynamics of community of incentivized reviewers who primarily review products on Amazon.com. and, as of late, on various social media platforms. This study is important because it uncovers unknown dynamics that shapes consumer morality and drives reviewer's ethics. Given the fact that consumers heavily rely on reviews, findings of this paper are of great values to practitioners, consumers and policymakers and highlight potential area of research particularly related to morality.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study, conducted over a period of 1.5 years, relying on a netnography to collect data and thematic analysis to make sense of data, uncovered behaviors that contribute to the J-shape distribution of reviews on Amazon.com and questionable reviewer ethics.\nFindings: Findings of this study suggest suppressed consumer morality driven by desire to gain benefits in form of free products and manipulation of the review system in an attempt to boost sales and the prevalence of biased reviews. The findings shed light on overconsumption driven by an opportunity to receive free products, introduction of review bias into the public domain and attempts to manipulate Amazon's algorithms.\nResearch limitations/implications: Findings of this study carry tremendous implications for average consumer who relies on consumer-generated reviews without realizing the presence of bias. Furthermore, the findings shed light of unfair business practices of sellers who demand high ratings. Finally, the findings suggest that there is opportunity for policymakers to address a loophole because incentivized reviewers, regardless of Federal Trade Commission regulations, may be operating in gray area, much less controlled than advertising.\nOriginality/value: This study is unique because while other studies may conduct similar netnographies of reviewing communities, this community was examined during a span that covered the incentivized reviewing boom, Amazon's ban on incentivized reviewing, and the revival of reviewing activity post ban. Given recent changes to Amazon's Terms of Service, the researcher documented changes that future studies will not be able to examine unless data have already been collected. However, post ban activity continues and is likely affecting purchasing decisions of unsuspecting consumers all around.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Improvement process selection framework for the formation of improvement solution alternatives	[ "Case studies", "Performance management", "Decision making", "Production improvement", "Process improvement", "Multiple criteria decision making" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In today's business environment, the rise of global competition is one of the factors that drives the need for process improvement, particularly in manufacturing companies. According to Hernandez-Matias et al. (2008), manufacturing companies need to constantly evaluate operational processes and practices, and embark on process improvement. These initiatives allow the company to compete and to sustain growth (Smadi, 2009). By implementing solutions on the production floor that are based on a process improvement campaign, the company can achieve the following goals: proactively improve production quality, reduce manufacturing waste, and increase customer satisfaction (Hales et al., 2006).\n2. IPS framework: MCDM is about solving decision problems involving multiple criteria in a structured way. During the decision-making process, the decision maker's preferences, suitably supported by the evidence, are needed to differentiate between solution alternatives. From there, the \"best\" alternative from a set of available alternatives is chosen. As mentioned in Section 1, MCDM had been carried out in various fields, such as system selection, software selection, automated robot selection, project selection, and layout selection. However, there is a lack of MCDM work on selecting improvement solutions for the production floor. Therefore, this paper has developed a framework based on the MCDM concept to aid a company solve decision making related to process improvement on the production floor. The framework is developed to guide the decision maker in the improvement project during the selection process.\n3. Case study validation: A case study is conducted in an injection moulding (IM) company to validate and verify the designed IPS framework. The company provides plastic product through fabrication and assembly of such products as radio parts, audio speaker parts and so on. The flow-line production type is used in the company for fabrication. More than 80 IM machines in the plant fabricate finished and semi-finished products. Since over 70 per cent of the products need post-processing after the IM process, the company assigns labour to finish the product through the post-processing that includes label-sticking, de-gating, cutting, touch up, inspection, and others. Once the post-processing is completed, the operator packages the products in boxes and sends these for shipping. Therefore, the main characteristic of the IM company is labour- and capital-intensive investment. The IM company has proposed to follow the IPS framework, which was a simple but efficient framework, for selecting the optimum solution in the improvement project. The sections of the IPS framework are used as a guideline to improve the specific production flow-lines assigned by the company. The results of the case study are stated in the following section.\n4. Discussion: The optimal level of improvement factors with multiple performance metrics for process improvement on the shop floor, which is Set 4, is selected. Table XIV compares the multiple performance metrics for the selected best proposed and initial conditions of the flow-lines for Products A and B. The percentage of busy operator increases significantly from the average of 37.30-84.77 per cent. The number of operators assigned is reduced by 50 per cent. As mentioned in Section 3.1, the improvement solution alternatives that have been suggested should not reduce the production output of Products A and B. As seem in Table XIV, the daily output of Product A is maintained, while the daily output of Product B is increased by 17 per cent. The best proposed improvement alternative flow-line production is presented in Figure 7. The two injection machines that fabricate Products A and B have been assigned to one operator for the de-gating process and inspection. Additionally, the management needs to continuously review and monitor the performance after implementation. Frequent training should be provided for inexperienced operators to strengthen their skills to eliminate the man-made defect.\n5. Conclusion: In conclusion, improvement solution alternatives selection has become the most important issue in improving production performance prior to actual implementation on a production floor. The process of improvement alternative selection aims to find an optimal scenario where a product can be produced quickly and at reduced cost via the efficient utilization of resources, such as labour. An improvement solution selection that involves various factors and performance measures is a complex MCDM problem. The presented IPS framework has been shown to be capable of providing a systematic and effective way to quantify the decision criteria and link section by section under a MCDM environment. It highlights the waste problems in the workplace and provides a clear vision of the problem focus in the initial phase. The IPS framework can assist engineers to select an accurate and reliable solution that can address the prioritized problems and thereby convince management. The structure of the decision-making process used in this framework can be tailored to select effectively the approach to process improvement in a company.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) processes within a flow-line production-improvement activity. Investigation can lead to understanding of how a process improvement framework influences the decision and fulfillment of the potential to successfully change the operation process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The improvement process selection (IPS) framework is built systematically by incorporating all related decision criteria with suitable tools required to select improvement alternatives. The process consists of three phases: identification, prediction, and selection. The IPS framework is validated through a case study of a company that was carrying out a flow-line production-improvement project.\nFindings: The developed framework is used to prioritize the problem scope and select the solutions from various options. The case study illustrates the process through which the developed framework provided a systematic approach in identifying the solutions and achieving the desired performance improvement. Prediction result analysis shows the framework achieved sustainable process improvement changes and prevents management levels from higher risks in failure improvement. The feedback of the case study has verified the robustness of the framework.\nPractical implications: Quantitative improvement tools, such as MCDM employed in the IPS framework are vital for better understanding of the improvement impact of changes. Thus, the improvement solution alternatives can be analyzed in more comprehensive ways by considering numerous performance metrics in order to select the best improvement alternatives.\nOriginality/value: The IPS framework can assist the company in determining optimal decisions in relation to selection of improvement alternatives. As a result, production performance can be affected positively.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Activity scheduling and resource allocation with uncertainties and learning in activities	[ "Critical chain buffers", "Evolutionary multi-objective optimization", "Learning effect" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Scheduling is basically the allocation of finite resources to the various activities to attain optimality. The Resource Constrained Project Scheduling Problem (RCPSP) is considered to be a NP-hard problem, but it can be readily stated as a problem with renewable resources and activities, with the aim of minimising the duration of the activities (Brucker, 2002). The renewable resources are machines, equipment, manpower, etc. There are a lot of risks involved in any industry, and the major factors that account for risk or uncertainty are the non-availability of raw materials, longer activity time than usual and the reprocessing of defective items.\n2. Literature review: Many researchers have worked in the field of project management but the area of resource efficiency is still new. Resources (Kolisch and Padman, 2001) are classified into: renewable, non-renewable, partially renewable and doubly constrained. RCPSP consists of renewable resource constraints with precedence constraints for the activities. RCPSP with heuristic and meta-heuristic approaches has been reported in the literature (Herroelen et al., 1998; Kolisch and Padman, 2001).\n3. Problem statement: This is an activity scheduling and resource allocation problem which takes into consideration both the uncertainty in activity durations and in the whole project while considering the learning rate of different resources. The assumptions considered for this paper are as follows:\n4. Algorithms: The algorithms chosen to solve this problem are NSGA-II and NSGA-III as for most of the problems these algorithms are able to find solutions that have a better spread and better convergence to the front of optimal solutions than the other evolutionary algorithms.\n5. Numerical experiment and discussion: NSGII and NSGA-III both were used to solve the problem with the same starting chromosomes for all the individual cases. Table I clearly shows the comparison between both algorithms. It is evident from the result that NSGA-III outperforms NSGA-II at different complexity levels. The machine used was Apple MacBook with a 1.2 GHz Intel Core M processor with 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 RAM and the code was run on MATLAB_R2017b.\n6. Conclusions: The model defined in this paper can be used in any manufacturing industry that has human intervention in the supply chain, for example, automobile industry, handloom industry, etc., as the industry produces the same product again and again and thereby replicating the same activities which results in learning effect among the operators/workers. The number of industries is expected to increase in the near future and the number of resources available will be limited, so proper scheduling and planning is very important. The challenges that the project managers often face in practice are in solving the multi-objective allocation of resources and the scheduling of activities with uncertainty, changing resource efficiencies and dealing with unwanted circumstances. These issues have been addressed in this paper while considering learning rate for the activities. There are few software/packages available in the market to help the project managers with these tasks, so our algorithm and approach can help in developing software for project managers. The work described in this paper helps project managers to find an effective schedule to decrease the makespan of the project and increase the efficiency of the resources while keeping in mind the uncertainty during the whole project.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a model which schedules activities and allocates resources in a resource constrained project management problem. This paper also considers learning rate and uncertainties in the activity durations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An activity schedule with requirements of different resource units is used to calculate the objectives: makespan and resource efficiency. A comparisons between non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm - II (NSGA-II) and non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm - III (NSGA-III) is done to calculate near optimal solutions. Buffers are introduced in the activity schedule to take uncertainty into account and learning rate is used to incorporate the learning effect.\nFindings: The results show that NSGA-III gives better near optimal solutions than NSGA-II for multi-objective problem with different complexities of activity schedule.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper does not considers activity sequencing with multiple activity relations (for instance partial overlapping among different activities) and dynamic events occurring in between or during activities.\nPractical implications: The paper helps project managers in manufacturing industry to schedule the activities and allocate resources for a near-real world environment.\nOriginality/value: This paper takes into account both the learning rate and the uncertainties in the activity duration for a resource constrained project management problem. The uncertainty in both the individual durations of activities and the whole project duration time is taken into consideration. Genetic algorithms were used to solve the problem at hand.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Consumer shopping value for retail brands	[ "Retail management", "Brands", "Clothing", "Product differentiation", "Shopping" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Retail branding is emerging as one of the most important strategic initiatives in the modern retail industry (Wileman and Jary, 1997). Retailers seeking more control over products, profits, and customer satisfaction are producing/integrating their own brands into product strategy (Corstjens and Lal, 1997). The practice of retail branding has become popular among retail sectors in both the United States and Europe (Birtwistle and Freathy, 1998). Specifically within the United States, apparel retailers such as Gap, Inc. and Limited, Inc. have built successful, market-leading divisions using retail branding as their key strategy. Although the majority of retail branding for apparel products has occurred in the specialty store segment, stores in the discount sector (e.g. Target, Wal-Mart) and the department store sector (e.g. Sears and JC Penney) are also developing strong retail brands within their apparel categories (Hisey, 2002; Lee, 2003; The Economist, 2003).Judging from the industry shift towards in-house/contract product development, managers and executives clearly perceive retail branding as a strong vehicle that can be used to create growth in increasingly competitive retail markets. Evidence of branding efforts is also highly visible among the marketing policies of retailers within the apparel sector. Print and television advertising along with in-store promotional activities exemplify the branding tactics that retailers use to build relationships with their target consumers to generate repeat business and loyalty. As the trend towards retail branding continues to penetrate the apparel sector, it is critical that industry practitioners understand the factors that consumer's value when shopping for retail brands within this context. Past academic research considers a number of issues associated with the consumer shopping experience ranging from sources of consumer value (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982; Babin et al., 1994; Mathwick et al., 2001, 2002), to elements of the store environment (Grossbart et al., 1975). However, to date no single study has undertaken an empirical examination of consumer value for the broader concept of the retail brand (apparel) that encompasses the entire consumer shopping experience associated with the context. Because domestic retailers are developing their formats towards brand concepts they are committing a great deal of effort and capital towards creating a shopping experience for the consumer that will ultimately increase their brand equity (Smith, 2000; Lisanti, 2001).In many cases specialty apparel brands are positioned to appeal to target markets on both social and psychological levels (Dunne et al., 2002). To achieve this end, retailers who employ a store as the brand strategy provide consumers with unique shopping experiences that are intended to be pleasurable and in turn reinforce and differentiate their respective brand(s). Though retailers believe that their products and in-store marketing efforts lead to customer retention and loyalty, the degree of consumer value for their in-store marketing efforts in this area remains unknown.The academic literature views shopping value as having two major sources: hedonic value and utilitarian value. Hedonic refers to the value derived from pleasurable experience and utilitarian refers to the value derived from efficient (economic) experience. Past research suggests that consumers expect retailers to deliver both utilitarian and hedonic value during the shopping experience (Babin et al., 1994; Mathwick et al., 2002). Within this stream of research, researchers have noted the increasingly important role of hedonic value as retailers try to respond to consumers' desire for entertainment and excitement within the shopping experience (Sit et al., 2003).Drawing on the emerging context of store as brand practice in the domestic retail sector and theoretical direction from the consumer shopping value literature, we seek understanding on two levels: First, do consumers actually perceive the hedonic value that retailers are working so hard to interject into the shopping experience? Second, what is the role of utilitarian value in the highly stimulating retail environment for apparel brands? Does the consumer's need for utility change in the presence of hedonic value? Through answering these questions, we can provide a first step towards understanding consumer value perceptions of the branding efforts that retailers are implementing to enhance the shopping experience. From an academic perspective, the study extends the empirical research on the role of hedonic versus utilitarian shopping value across new contexts including retail branding and the apparel category. From a practical perspective, the research provides important direction for retailers engaged in branding or considering branding to coordinate their in-store experiences with product initiatives.\nRetail brands and the apparel sector: Smith (2000) reports that apparel retailers are beginning to use the store as the brand strategy to develop customer loyalty within US markets. The store as the brand approach is attractive to retailers in this sector due to its potential power in differentiating the retailer from its competition among consumers. The consumer tends to associate an element of exclusivity with the retail brand because the unique shopping experience and merchandise is only available at a particular retail store or chain of stores. In contrast, when shopping in other retail formats (i.e. department stores) consumers see the same national brands and labels from store to store. The uniqueness of the retail brand is more difficult to substitute and therefore leads to consumer loyalty.The store as the brand strategy also provides the retailer more control over pricing policy. For example, a retailer that carries national brands faces price competition from all other retailers selling the same national brands. A retailer, which carries their own retail brand/s is able to escape this competitive parity and therefore reduces the threat of direct price competition. It has also been argued that retail brands enjoy an advantage over national brands because the consumer perceives a better value when there is only one mark-up involved (Corstjens and Corstjens, 1995).\nUtilitarian and hedonic shopping value: Utilitarian value refers to the consumer's evaluation of whether the outcome of a shopping experience was successful in terms of satisfying the need that stimulated the shopping trip (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982). Consumers seek utilitarian value in a task-oriented, rational manner (Batra and Ahtola, 1990; Blackwell et al., 2000). Holbrook and Hirschman (1982) characterize utilitarian value in the shopping context as shopping at work.In contrast, hedonic value derived from the shopping experience reflects the emotional or psychological worth of the experience (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982). Sources of hedonic value can include the joy and/or the excitement of the shopping experience, or the escape from everyday activities that is provided by shopping. Therefore, hedonic value is more personal and subjective compared to utilitarian value, and is often the result of fun and playful experiences (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982). Utilitarian value represents an economic concept which is derived from the information-processing paradigm, while hedonic value is inherently behavioral, derived from the experiential paradigm within consumer behavior research (Blackwell et al., 2000).Several researchers have demonstrated that both utilitarian and hedonic value can be provided by the retailer during the shopping experience (Belk, 1979; Fischer and Arnold, 1990; Sherry, 1990). For example, a consumer might be successful at finding the product that motivated the shopping trip at the first store visited and might also find that the product is being offered at a special sale price. Utilitarian value would then be derived from the consumer's success at quickly finding the product they needed, and hedonic value would be created by the excitement associated with the special sale price. However, Triandis (1977) notes that a high level of one type of value does not preclude a high level of the other, and vice versa.\nResearch design: Store format and retail brand selection\nMethodology: Sampling method and procedure\nResults: Sample characteristics\nLimitations, conclusions, and future research: This research has several limitations that must be acknowledged. A degree of external validity was sacrificed in favor of internal validity by using a college student sample. Therefore, these results can only be generalized to a college student population, which is, conveniently, an important target sector for store as brand retailers in the US. However, to better inform retailer branding strategies across different target segments, research in additional contexts is required. Value perceptions of additionally important consumer groups including the retiring baby boomers and the affluent seniors should also be considered within this stream of research. In addition, the sample is proportionately heavier in female respondents. Attention to the effect of gender as well as other demographics including: age, income, and education can provide actionable direction(s) for apparel retailers who are building their in-store branding strategies.The significant differences in consumer perceptions of hedonic value across the three retail apparel brands indicates that consumers recognize the uniqueness among the in-store experience that retailers are working hard to achieve. Therefore, the delivery of value through the shopping experience seems to be an effective source of differentiation. This finding affirms that retailers using a \"store as the brand\" strategy should continue to invest in creating a specific, unique shopping experience for their target consumer.Based on the outcomes of the focused contrasts, it appears that consumers perceive hedonic shopping value across the focal brands in the manner that retailers intended. There appears to be an underlying continuum with BR at one end and ON at the other. BR reflects the highest level of hedonic shopping value among the three brands in the sample. According to our findings BR is succeeding at delivering a distinctive shopping experience to its target consumers. In contrast, ON showed a lower level of hedonic value for its much broader, less targeted consumer segment. Therefore, it appears that consumers perceive greater hedonic value from the shopping experience associated with retailers that cater to narrower/more specific target markets compared to those with broader target markets.The findings indicate marginally significant differences in the delivery of utilitarian shopping value across the three retail apparel brands. Considering the fundamental nature of the construct, this finding supports the idea that consumers expect retailers to consistently deliver a minimum level of utilitarian value. Therefore, retailers should be mindful that regardless of the excitement and fun delivered in the shopping experience, consumers appeared to expect utility including the right merchandise, in the right place, at the right time and the right price.Future research should investigate consumer perceptions of the importance of hedonic shopping value and examine its specific dimensions (i.e. fun, excitement, escapism) in order to provide retailers with a better understanding of which dimensions of hedonic value are most effective in motivating consumers during the shopping experience. In addition, further investigation should be undertaken to examine the underlying continuum for hedonic shopping value. Examining the retailer's specified retail branding strategy (i.e. lifestyle, value) and target market in relation to hedonic shopping value delivery would assist retailers in selecting the desired level of delivery and understanding the consequences of this decision.In conclusion, it appears that the young adult retail brand shopper associates specific value with the shopping experience in this context. Hedonic (pleasure) value appears to differentiate the shopping experience for consumers, while the value of utility remains constant. It is important to underscore the importance of utilitarian value among the sample of young consumers. As retailers continue to invest effort and capital towards enhancing the shopping experience, they need to consider the importance that consumers appear to place on the fundamentals. Therefore, factors such as merchandise availability and convenience should always be attended along with elaborate in-store branding efforts.Overall, the findings support current in-store branding efforts that practitioners are implementing as well as past findings in this area which suggest that a combination of hedonic and utilitarian value is sought by consumers across a number of contexts (e.g. Babin et al., 1994; Mathwick et al., 2002). Whether the value associated with this context leads to satisfaction and ultimately loyalty, is yet another important question that needs to be addressed.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To examine whether consumers value the in-store experience that retailers provide as part of the store as brand concept.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A sample of young adult consumers (N=188) was surveyed using a self-administered questionnaire. Statistical techniques (MANOVA, post hoc tests) were used to evaluate the data.\nFindings: - Statistical models indicate that consumers expect both hedonic and utilitarian value to be present when shopping in the store as brand context.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The findings are useful because they confirm significant differences in consumer perceptions of hedonic shopping value across several retail brands. Therefore, customers appear to recognize the uniqueness among the in-store experience that retailers are working hard to achieve. This delivery of value, then, seems to be an effective source of differentiation.\nPractical implications: - The results of this study indicate that retailers using a \"store as the brand\" strategy should continue to invest in creating a specific, unique shopping experience for their target customer. However, retailers should always be mindful that regardless of the excitement and fun delivered in the shopping experience, consumers appear to expect utility including the right merchandise, in the right place, at the right time, and at the right price.\nOriginality/value: - This paper undertakes an empirical examination of consumer value for the broader concept of the retail brand (apparel) that encompasses the entire consumer shopping experience associated with the context.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Strategic orientation and organizational forms: an integrative framework	[ "Entrepreneurial orientation", "Strategic orientation", "Market orientation", "Configurations", "Organizational forms" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Strategic orientation (SO) and organization forms literatures are exemplars of theorizing using typologies (Doty and Glick, 1994; Hakala, 2011; Miles and Snow, 1978; Short et al., 2008; Venkatraman, 1989). Orientations and their contributions to firms' performance have been studied in marketing, entrepreneurship, and strategy literatures. Due to different research focus and units of analysis of these disciplines, however, there have been as many constructs (entrepreneurial, learning, innovation, product, customer, market, marketing, selling, production and technology) as the research needs, indicating a scope of reconciliation of the SO literature (Hakala, 2011). Recent advances (Atuahene-Gima and Ko, 2001; Hakala, 2011; Schindehutte et al., 2008; Wang, 2008) have purported that entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and market orientation (MO) coexist. So, a natural question is: what configurations of SO emerge from interactions of EO and MO?\nTheoretical background: Given the vastness of SO literature, objective of the paper, and that thorough literature reviews already exist, it was decided to look for researches concerning study of simultaneity and interaction between EO and MO, and its implications for firms' strategic attributes and overall performance. Ebsco Business Source Complete, ABI/Inform Complete, and Emerald databases were searched for simultaneous mention of \"key words\" \"EO\" and \"MO\" in the \"abstract\" of \"peer reviewed\" \"articles\" published in \"scholarly journals\" up to the year \"2011\". This resulted in 17, 18, and six articles in Ebsco, ABI/Inform, and Emerald, respectively, of which eight articles were common leaving 33 unique articles. Abstracts of these articles were read, and references from selected articles (Baker and Sinkula, 2009; Schindehutte et al., 2008) and earlier reviews (Hakala, 2011) were used as source of further scholarly material (for thorough reviews of SO, EO, and MO literatures please refer Hakala, 2011; Kirca et al., 2005; Rauch et al., 2009). Thus, following selective-intensive approach of literature review, only such references from these articles were explored and selected that provided insights concerning causal mechanisms between EO and MO; relationship between EO, MO, and strategic attributes; and how this interaction among orientations affects choices of strategic attributes.\nProposed SO typology: Following the researches referring to mutuality between organizations' strategic attributes and:\nOrganizational forms: A strong body of literature has shaped our understanding of relationship between organizational orientation and configuration profiles (Harms et al., 2007; Ketchen et al., 1997; Miles and Snow, 1978; Miller, 1983, 1988; Miller and Friesen, 1978; Mintzberg, 1979; Short et al., 2008). Following Short et al. (2008, p. 1057), the term \"organization forms\" is used to refer to configuration literature as the term configuration may also connote three more configuration types: strategic groups; archetypes and generic strategies. As this paper uses multiple organizational features to elaborate generalizable configurations, choice of the term \"organizational forms\" seems apt (Short et al., 2008, p. 1057).\nConclusion: This paper highlights that there is a scope of reconciliation with in SO literature, and to integrate it with organizational forms literature. Literature review highlights several strategic decision attributes, all of which are not simultaneously captured by the prevalent SO typologies. Accordingly, the paper proposes a refined SO typology and postulates organizational profiles for the proposed typology. Tabular frameworks allow for positioning the proposed typology vis-a-vis the existing literature, and help in explaining the fine grained distinctions among strategic choices made by firms.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to bring together strategic orientation (SO) and organizational forms literatures by proposing refined SO typologies based on various combinations of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and market orientation (MO); and postulating typical organizational forms (configurations) for proposed SO types relative to each other in terms of parameters identified from organizational forms literature.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This conceptual paper employs selective-intensive review of literature dealing with: both EO and MO to identify extant SO typologies, relevant strategic attributes, and relationships between EO, MO and strategic attributes; and organizational forms to identify parameters. Tabular frameworks are used to compare the proposed and extant SO types, posit strategic attributes for the proposed SO types, and compare ideal organizational profiles across SO types.\nFindings: EO and MO are related constructs that capture distinct aspects of business philosophy. Relationships of EO and MO with each strategic attributes are summarized. To explain differences across all attributes simultaneously, using combinations of EO and MO, five SO types - prospector, analyzer, proactive defender, reactive defender, and reactor - are proposed. Relative organizational profiles are specified for proposed SO types, using parameters strategy, structure, resources, and environment.\nOriginality/value: This paper brings together sporadic attempts towards developing SO typology and explicitly integrates SO and organizational forms literatures. It offers ground work for developing testable propositions and tabular frameworks that may serve as heuristics into nature of firms' orientations and their performance implications.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Bradford's zone to LIS publications published in collection building journal from 2009-2012: a citation study	[ "Citation analysis", "Authorship pattern", "Collection building journal", "Journals ranking and Bradford’s law", "LIS publications" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Libraries must have a robust and dynamic collection development policy to keep abreast with changing needs of its users, be they undergraduates, teaching staff or researchers. Changing trends in research areas and information seeking behavior of users are factors that libraries need to study to provide collections and services that fulfill the information needs of their clients (Yeap Chun et al.). Bibliometrics is a research method used in library and information science (LIS). It is an emerging area of research in the LIS field and is a study of quantitative analysis and statistics to describe pattern analysis of publication within a given field or body of literature. Researchers use bibliometrics methods of evaluation to determine the influence of a single author or to describe the relationship between two or more authors or work. Bibliometric studies can be used to study regional patterns of research, the extent of cooperation between research groups and national research profile. The main derivatives of bibliometrics are: publication counts, citations, co-citation analysis, co-word analysis, scientific \"mapping\" and citations in patents (Thanuskodi, 2010, 2011).\n2. Objectives: The following objectives of the study are:\n3. Methodology: The data for this study were drawn from a selective sample from the journal, Collection Building, which is published by the Emerald Group. The necessary data is retrieved through online via the Infonet consortia of Kuvempu University. A total of four volumes were selected from the archives of Collection Building, which cover a period of 2009 to 2012. In total, 91 articles were selected and the references listed for each article were examined and duplicate references in each individual list were removed. A total of 1,302 citations were analyzed, and authorship pattern, degree of collaboration, form distribution and geographical distribution were recorded. The data collected for the study have been analyzed, prepared the rank list of most cited journals and finally applied the Bradford's law. The data have been presented in the form of tables and graphs.\n4. Data analysis and interpretation: Citation studies attempt to study the characteristics of subject literature. The investigations of such kind of studies are found to be useful to manage the information resources and services in libraries and information centers.\n5. Findings, suggestions and conclusion: The techniques of citation analysis is being used for a variety of purposes like determination of various scientific indicators, evaluation of scientific output, selection of journals for libraries and even forecasting the potential of a particular field. The popularity in the adaptation of citation analysis techniques in various disciplines stimulated stupendous growth of literature on bibliometrics and its related areas. Collection Building has published 91 articles during the period of study. In total 1,302 citations have been cited and the maximum numbers of contributions are single authors with 723 (55.53 per cent). It is also observed that among the 91 articles, 8 articles do not include even a single citation. The present study reveals that journal article is the highest cited citation and the highest number of articles has appeared in the area of collection development and collection management. In case of geographical contribution study found that the USA is the highest contributor of citations followed by the UK. Collection Building is the highly preferred journal for communication by LIS professionals.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The present paper aims at analyzing the research output performance of library and information science (LIS) professionals. Citation analysis of all the journal articles published in the Collection Building journal during 2009-2012 is carried out.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data for this study were drawn from a selective sample of a free e-journal, i.e. Collection Building, available through the Kuvempu University Web site without subscription or registration. A total of 91 articles published during 2009 to 2012 with 1,302 citations. The analysis cover mainly the number of articles, authorship pattern, subject-wise distribution of articles, average number of references per articles, forms of documents cited, rank list of journals, Bradford's law.\nFindings: The study reveals that journals (53.84 per cent of citations) are the most preferred sources of information used by the researchers in the field of LIS. It is followed by Web resources with 24.27 per cent, these two together constitute 78.11 per cent of total citations and remaining 21.89 per cent of citations from books, proceedings, theses, reports and gazetteer. Collection Building (USA) has ranked first with 68 (9.70 per cent) citations. Further, Bradford's law of scattering was applied. It is observed that major citations are from journal literature. In addition, more cited materials were contributed by multi-authors, and degree of collaboration is 0.44.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper presents a sense of the importance of LIS research, and as such, informs the community and researchers involved in the citation analysis.\nOriginality/value: The outcome of the study is an original research work with citation analysis of LIS publications. The study highlights the information materials available and used by researchers in the field of LIS, and those that need to be added for a healthy collection.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Promising avenue or dead end street? A meta analytic review of the Forbes and Milliken model of board behaviour	[ "Boards of Directors", "Meta-analysis", "Boardroom dynamics", "Conflict management", "Boardroom effectiveness", "Boardroom performance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Over the past decade of corporate governance research, the insight that it is not so much the structural or formal characteristics that determine board performance, but rather social and behavioural aspects has been gaining ground (Ong and Wan, 2008; Sur, 2014). Several studies have been conducted, from different theoretical perspectives and with different methods, on the behavioural processes within boards of directors (Murphy and McIntyre, 2007; Neill and Dulewicz, 2010). Within this diverse stream of research, the concise and researchable model presented by Forbes and Milliken in 1999 has been the most promising avenue for the behavioural study of boards of directors. Huse considered it to be one of the major building blocks in understanding behavioural perspectives on boards, calling the article \"a main point of reference for scholars wanting to explore behavioural dynamics in the boardroom\" (Huse, 2009c, p. 64).\n2. Theory and hypotheses: 2.1 The Forbes and Milliken model of board performance\n3. Meta-analytic methods: 3.1 Inclusion criteria and effect size\n4. Results: Table I presents meta-analytic evidence that further bears on the broad relationships between board processes and board task performance. Analyses of the funnel plots for these effects, presented in Figure 1 suggest no distorting effect of publication bias (Egger et al., 1997). As most studies compare the effects of board processes in the FM-Model with the formal characteristics of boards (size, composition, CEO-duality, etc.), it is indeed not expected that non-significant findings will not be published.\n5. Discussion and conclusions: The purpose of this meta-analysis is twofold. First, the aim is to take stock of the research on the FM-Model and to estimate the effect of effort norms, cognitive conflicts and the use of knowledge and skills on board task performance. A second objective is to assess the moderating effect of the methodological issues within self-report survey research on the FM-Model.\n6. Directions for future research: Almost two decades since Forbes and Milliken, strong evidence has been accumulated for the positive effect of board processes such as effort norms and the use of knowledge and skills. Unfortunately the discussion above illustrate that we still lack understanding of what is arguably the most interesting and promising of all board processes: cognitive conflict. The actual methodological issues of the FM-model are far more fundamental than the overestimated threats of common method and respondent bias. Empirical research into board behaviour and performance could therefore greatly benefit from further research that changes course from research on conflicts within boards done so far in two important ways.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Over the past decades, growing interest in the behaviour of boards of directors has brought forth empirical studies on actual board behaviour. An important stream within this research followed the model proposed by Forbes and Milliken in 1999 in which the board processes, effort norms, cognitive conflict and the use of knowledge, are hypothesized to influence the performance of boards of directors. This paper aims to take stock of the results from this stream of research. The sometimes inconsistent results, and assumed methodological flaws of this research, leave open the question whether it makes sense to continue with this line of research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Through a research synthesis of 17 primary studies on (parts of) the model proposed by Forbes and Milliken (1999), this question is addressed directly by clarifying what is known from the research done so far and by identifying possible distorting methodological moderators.\nFindings: Strong empirical support is found for the effect of effort norms and the use of knowledge and skills on board task performance. The evidence for cognitive conflicts however was found to be inconclusive. Common method and respondent bias seem to be a lesser concern than often stated.\nResearch limitations/implications: Future studies should not only look closely at the construct validity of conflict, but should also have to account for the multidimensionality of conflicts and the interdependency and endogeneity in the relationship between behaviour and performance in boards.\nOriginality/value: This is the first paper that systematically integrates and reviews the empirical results of the research following the Forbes and Milliken model and sketches roads for future research on board behaviour.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The profile of unethical insurance customers: a European perspective	[ "Value", "Attitude", "Clustering", "Insurance fraud", "Unethical behaviour" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Insurance fraud is a prevailing problem all over the world (Brinkmann and Lentz, 2006). Insurance fraud mostly takes the form of exaggerated claims, fabricated claims, deliberate injuries, multiple claims or misrepresentation of other kinds of insurance-related information (Derrig, 2002). Since many cases of insurance fraud are not detected and prosecuted, estimation of the severity of the issue is difficult. However, evidence shows that fraud accounts for 11 to 15 percent of total payouts in auto insurance claims and 7.3 percent of total payouts in the US health care system (Insurance Research Council, 2008). A similar pattern exists in Europe. The value of detected fraud in the UK in 2010 was equal to 7 percent of total insurance payments. Studies in France have shown that 35,042 fraudulent insurance claims, worth of ;168m, were detected in 2011. A study in Finland revealed that 27 percent of respondents knew a person \"who has deceived his/her insurance company\" (Insurance Europe, 2013).\nSegmentation of unethical customers: In this study, unethical customers are considered as those who have reported either exaggerated or fabricated insurance claims. Identifying the dishonest and unethical customer would help insurance companies to better deal with the issue of heterogeneity. Heterogeneity pertains to the fact that the same message from insurance companies regarding morality can be interpreted differently by different customers. While a given message can reinforce an attitude toward fraud for one group, the same message might provoke opposing attitudes in another group of customers (Brinkmann and Lentz, 2006). Different moral philosophies and different interpretation of the message due to cultural interpretations are responsible for this phenomenon (Brinkmann and Lentz, 2006). Insurance companies may profit from reliable and valid social science data related to insurance fraud probability, and value- attitude-based reasoning related to filing an exaggerated/false insurance claim.\nAttributes of (un)ethical insurance customers: Demographic variables\nMethod: Data\nResults: Russia, the Czech Republic, Ukraine and Denmark were found to have the highest rate of insurance fraud claims (respectively, 3.5, 3.4, 3.1 and 3.0 percent of the respondents from these countries were categorized as unethical as they had reported exaggerated/false insurance claim at least once in the last five years). Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Estonia and Portugal had the lowest rate of insurance fraud claims (respectively, 0.4, 0.5, 0.5, 0.7 and 0.7 percent).\nDiscussion: The results reveal some interesting behavioral patterns among unethical insurance customers. First, it is noticeable that most of the unethical customers (segments of 1, 2 and 4) consider the nature of insurance fraud in a negative light yet continue to file an exaggerated/false claim anyway. Brinkmann (2005) identified five types of neutralization which refers to the ways that individuals reduce the inconsistency of knowing what is right and doing what is wrong. Although, in general, customers believe insurance fraud is wrong, different types of neutralization and justification mechanisms evolve in the situation and reduce the contradiction between attitude and behavior. Second, Segment 3 is the segment with the greatest tendency to repeat committing fraudulent claim. Apparently, insurance fraud is considered as a soft crime for this segment, unplanned, not-systematic and opportunistic. Interestingly, for Segment 3, customer tendency is accompanied by the perceptions that insurance fraud is not wrong at all, the probability of punishment is very low and a high level of relativistic moral philosophy exhibited by the member of this segment. This implies that a set of attributes can lead to unethical behavior by customers in this segment. Third, a pattern emerges from juxtaposing values of different unethical customers with the continuum of values developed by Schwartz et al. (2012). The continuum contains the list of refined basic values of Schwartz (1994) which are ordered around a cycle. The cycle shows that neighboring values are compatible and opposing values create conflict. The cycle also shows the place of values regarding three dimensions: the focus on personal (e.g. hedonism) vs social (e.g. tradition) outcomes and values which aim to avoid anxiety (e.g. security) vs values which are relatively anxiety-free (e.g. benevolence) and whether the value work for self-protection (e.g. power) or care for self-expansion and growth (e.g. universalism) (Schwartz, 2009; Schwartz et al., 2012). Based on the characteristics of the four clusters and the position of the dominant values of each cluster in the value continuum, Table V labels and summarizes the main attributes of the four clusters. Thereafter, based on the characteristics of the segments, appropriate policies and communication strategies to prevent the members of each cluster from filing an exaggerated/false claim are discussed as the practical implications of this research.\nManagerial implications: As a practical contribution, this paper takes into account the importance of heterogeneity proposed by (Brinkmann and Lentz, 2006) and asserts that different segments of customers have different motivations toward unethical behavior in insurance contexts and deterrence strategies need to be sensitive to this. It appears that the focus of the insurance industry on detection and investigation only affects one segment, namely Segment 2, and that other preventive means can be developed for the other three segments identified in this study. For non-conservatives, focusing on individual ethics and morals and sending the message that committing fraud is a wrong deed might be an effective strategy, since these customers need an ethical stimulus in order to resist economic temptations. For hedonists, showing that being caught negatively affects their lives, through means such as presenting them with cases of customers who have been caught and punished, could be a proper preventive method. Their sensitivity to hedonistic values, is the reason that attracts their attention to such negative messages and makes them think twice before committing insurance fraud. Finally, for socially focused customers, messages can reinforce the fact that insurance fraud is not socially acceptable. Messages such as insurance fraud is not a victimless crime and it includes stealing from the other customers (and the public) and not just the insurance company could be an effective method. This is because these customers pay great attention to social values such as universalism and benevolence.\nFuture research and limitations: It is important to recognize how the research presented in this paper can be advanced and limitations that may apply to the reported research. Individuals have self-reported their frequency of fraudulent claims which is not a correct and socially accepted behavior. Therefore, social desirability bias might have distorted the responses. There might be customers who have not reported their fraudulent behavior and were not included in the sample since the data filtering approach used self-reported measures of fraudulent behavior. It is, however, reasonable to assume that those who have self-reported cases of fraud are honest in reporting their unethical/dishonest behavior which permits us to deduct from the current data and the identified segments. Previous researches have reported important factors that affect perceived ethicality of insurance fraud, such as the level of the deductible (Miyazaki, 2009), social/financial background of customers (Dean, 2004), previous negative experience with the insurance company (Tennyson, 2002; Nepomuceno and Porto, 2010) which are not included in this study. Further research can extend the results of this study by inclusion of these variables and focusing on the different sectors of the insurance industry and the interplay of social and psychological factors.\nConclusion: In this study, we hypothesized that although unethical insurance customers are similar in terms of behaving unethically, their values and attitudes are not necessarily the same. Using cluster analysis, we provided empirical support for the hypothesis and observed four segments of unethical customers in the context of insurance fraud. The segments include non-conservatives (sensitive to both wrong behavior and the monetary payoff for a fraudulent claim), self-protectionists (sensitive to the probability of being caught), hedonists (sensitive to the personal pleasure and monetary payoffs for insurance fraud) and socially focused customers (sensitive to social norms regarding admitting to having committed insurance fraud).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Although perceived as a wrong act, insurance fraud is a prevalent phenomenon. The purpose of this paper is to understand the psychological factors that lead to reporting an exaggerated/false insurance claim would enable insurance companies and policy makers to devise better preventive policies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Utilizing data-driven clustering techniques on psychological and demographic measures from 985 insurance customers in Europe, this study outlines profiles of segments of customers as it relates to dishonesty in dealing with insurance companies. The segmentation criteria include attitude toward insurance fraud, perceived probability of punishment, basic human values and morals, religiosity, life satisfaction and demographic characteristics.\nFindings: Results reveal the existence of four market segments. The segments include non-conservatives (sensitive to both perception of wrong behavior and the monetary payoff for a fraudulent claim), self-protectionists (sensitive to the probability of being caught), hedonists (sensitive to the personal pleasure and monetary payoffs for insurance fraud) and socially focused individuals (sensitive to social norms regarding admitting to having committed insurance fraud). Among the demographic variables, only education and among psychological variables, universalism, hedonism, security, conformity, tradition, benevolence, moral philosophy, religiosity, perceived probability of punishment and attitude toward insurance fraud were significantly different among the four identified segments.\nPractical implications: Specific policies are proposed in order to prevent insurance fraud, tailored to the specific profile of each segment.\nOriginality/value: Using a psychological perspective and a data-driven methodology, this study identifies four heterogeneous segments of unethical insurance customers with dissimilar values, attitudes toward fraud and perception of punishment probability.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Segmenting the non-adopter category in the diffusion of internet banking	[ "Market segmentation", "Banking", "Internet" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The infusion of technology into consumers' daily lives has become remarkably visible (Bitner et al., 2000). The rapid growth of high-tech communication media has pushed many service providers including financial institutions to explore new ways of delivering services to their customers. Innovative technologies save costs, improve customer experiences at service encounters (Bitner et al., 2000; Keeney, 1999), and enable effective customer relationship management for service providers (Ghose and Dou, 1998; Kopf, 2000). On the other hand, service experiences delivered using the internet are quite unique, often raising public concerns about privacy and security. While banks \"vie for online retail dominance\" (Retail Delivery News, 2000), consumers' adoption of internet banking warrants special research attention.\nNon-adopters: Why segment the non-adopter category?\nAdoption factors of internet banking: The potential theoretical contribution of this study is the integration of a multitude of theories to best capture the heterogeneous nature of non-adopter categories. It should be noted that we do not use the Roger's model exclusively, but use draw on a multitude of literature on technology adoption, perceived risk, and internet banking adoption to find the best identification and predictors of three adopter categories. Thus, not all the hypotheses are proposed within the Roger's model, and not all the elements of his model were tested in our study. For example, we do not include observability because internet banking is used mostly in private settings; a recent study of internet banking also reports that observability had only a marginal effect on consumer adoption of internet banking (Lee et al., 2004). In identifying three adopter categories, i.e. segmenting between and within the non-adopter categories, two theories (Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations and Fishbein and Ajzen's Theory of Reasoned Action and Multi-attribute attitude model originating from TRA) are used integratively in this study. The idea of identifying different consumer groups based on the timing of adoption, for example, as adopters and non-adopters, is commonly found in previous diffusion studies (e.g., Akinci et al., 2004; Gerrard and Cunningham, 2003; Rotchanakitmnuai and Speece, 2003). Further, what is new in this study is segmenting within the non-adopter category is based on the future intentions to adopt, which is inspired by TRA. Given the heterogeneity within the non-adopter category, what predictor variables (i.e. adoption factors) can differentiate individuals in different adopter categories?Perceived attributes of internet banking\nMethodology: This section presents the methods employed in an empirical study designed to investigate how the aforementioned adopter categories can be identified with regard to selective adoption factors, previously described in this paper. Three consumer segments are identified as follows: the current adopters, non-adopters who are likely to adopt internet banking within the next 12 months (prospective adopters), and non-adopters who are not likely to adopt internet banking within the next 12 months (persistent non-adopters).Data\nResults: Among the 1,355 usable responses, 26 percent (n = 354) were current adopters of internet banking, 27 percent (n = 368) were prospective adopters (those who are likely adopt within the next 12 months), and 47 percent (n = 633) were persistent non-adopters (those who are not likely adopt within the next 12 months). Those who answered \"Neither unlikely nor likely\" (n = 245, 15.3 percent) to adopt internet banking within the next 12 months were not included, leaving 1,355 usable responses for employment in the subsequent multivariate analyses.Model fit\nDiscussion and implications: Many previous studies on consumer adoption of innovations have taken a dichotomous view of adopter versus non-adopter in investigating the effects of adoption factors. However, the results of our study demonstrate that the adoption factors can, in fact, separate prospective adopters from the persistent non-adopter population. The heterogeneity of the non-adopter population of technology-based services is reflected in our finding that substantial differences exist in the non-adopter population, specifically, between prospective adopters and persistent non-adopters. For effective bank segmentation, it is important separately to profile different types of non-adoption categories. Our subsequent discussion provides comparison profiles and marketing implications for the adopter segments.Current adopters versus persistent non-adopters\nConclusion and implications: Companies providing internet banking must effectively identify consumer segment(s) that will be immediately responsive to internet service offers. This study demonstrated the viability of identifying distinctive consumer segments within the non-adopter category based on motivational and perceptual variables. Interestingly, we found more profound differences among non-adopters (between prospective adopters and persistent non-adopters) than between current adopters and prospective adopters. Prospective adopters and persistent non-adopters are qualitatively distinct segments and should not be lumped together. Our results also indicate that any attempt to profile adopters (as opposed to the broad non-adopter population) using only demographic characteristics may fail to generate meaningful implications, due to the wide heterogeneity within the non-adopter category.For financial institutions marketing new services on the internet, especially in the introduction period, it is critical to identify prospective adopters. Companies can then focus marketing efforts on the prospect group who will potentially become full adopters. The results of this study indicate that the major differences between adopters and prospective adopters are perceptual; whereas differences between prospective adopters and persistent non-adopters reflect varying levels of technological sophistication. Thus financial institutions should focus their marketing communications on changing potential adopters' perceptions about internet banking, emphasizing the convenience factor in particular. In order to lure prospective adopters into using internet banking, banks must create a safe and secure online environment and provide monetary incentives.On the other hand, before consumers can fully adopt internet banking, they should be proficient in the use of computers and web browsers. The results of this study indicate that lack of experience with technology-based services, the internet, and computer technologies significantly decreases a consumer's likelihood of adopting technology-based services. Persistent non-adopters generally lack experiences that are compatible with the skills needed to use internet banking. Therefore, it may require more than attitudinal changes to bring these persistent non-adopters closer to adopting a high-tech service. Such technological barriers may be the main factors that prevent persistent non-adopters from adopting a technology-based service. General adoption, and widespread diffusion, of internet banking will occur only after such technological barriers are lowered.In sum, this study explored the heterogeneous nature of the non-adopter category in the diffusion of internet banking. Certainly as concerns the e-commerce community, differentiating persistent non-adopters from prospective adopters is most beneficial to those designing bank marketing strategies. The two non-adopter categories clearly compose different market segments and, as such, require different methods of approaching consumers. This study reflects that the previous research practice of bifurcating adoption categories (adoption versus non-adoption) is oversimplified, hindering the development of future theory and practical management strategies. A more precise segmentation and targeting can facilitate the diffusion of internet banking and enable financial institutions to fully harvest the growth potential of e-commerce.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - For a new technology-based product or service at an early stage of diffusion, it is likely that only a small subset of consumers have adopted it. When non-adopters still comprise the majority of the target populations, describing all non-adopters as a homogeneous population may be inaccurate and inappropriate. It is important to be able to identify differences, not only between adopters and non-adopters, but also among non-adopters, the latter providing a means of identifying the consumer segments likely to be profitable in the future. The first objective of this paper is to demonstrate the appropriateness of further segmenting the non-adopter category based on motivations (intentions) to adopt internet-banking by those who are \"persistent non-adopters\" and those who are likely \"prospective adopters\". The second objective of this paper is to further the understanding of the adoption process of internet banking by examining a range of diffusion factors that affect consumers' adoption behavior.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This study identifies three adopter segments, persistent non-adopters, prospective adopters, and adopters, in the diffusion of internet banking services based on individuals' intentions to adopt internet banking and their actual adoption behavior, using the data collected by the Graphic, Visualization, & Usability Center and Georgia Tech Research Corporation. Selective adoption factors (i.e. perceived attribute importance of internet banking, perceived risk, compatibility with existing banking services, and compatibility with the internet and computer technologies) were used to predict individuals' adoption status through multinomial logit modeling.\nFindings: - It was found that further segmenting the non-adopter category revealed meaningful differences between prospective adopters and persistent non-adopters. This study reflects that the previous research practice of bifurcating adoption categories (adoption versus non-adoption) is oversimplified. The two qualitatively different segments, prospective adopters and persistent non-adopters, should not be lumped together in the diffusion of internet banking.\nOriginality/value: - This study provides comparison profiles of the three adopter categories and discusses marketing implications for segmentation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
High school-university disconnect: a complex issue in Malaysia	[ "Malaysia", "Transition", "First-year experience", "Freshmen", "High school-university disconnect", "University readiness" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Recent studies in the USA have revealed that 75 per cent of college freshmen are not academically ready for university studies (ACT Inc., 2012). What is more startling is that unreadiness is not only related to academic content knowledge but also to skills and habits of mind (e.g. persistence and resilience) (Venezia and Jaeger, 2013). If the USA, as a developed country with a well-developed education system, has demonstrated such low university readiness, what might be the situation in a developing country, such as Malaysia? We explore the extent of readiness of first-year business students by examining their transition experiences from high school[1] to university. The transition from high school to higher education is not the same as moving up a grade. Young adults at this phase of their life often experience significant changes and major adjustments (Boroch and Hope, 2009; Jackson et al., 2000). Most first-year students usually experience academic, social and emotional adjustments (Briggs et al., 2012; Gerdes and Mallinckrodt, 1994). A student's ability to adjust in these three realms significantly affects their academic and personal development (Pascarella and Terenzini, 2005). As McInnis (2001, p. 106) said, \"Students are at their most vulnerable in the first year in terms of their likelihood of academic failure and they are most at risk with respect to a range of potential social, emotional, health and financial problems\". Students' first-year experiences are therefore critical to their psychological well-being, academic achievements and personal developments. From their experience, we can gauge whether there is a gap between university preparation and actual university learning and, if there is, where the gaps are.\nHigher education in Malaysia: Malaysia has a relatively new higher education system. Its first public university, the University of Malaya, was established in 1962 (Sivalingam, 2007). The increased demand for better quality higher education and the adoption of affirmative action pressured the government to liberalise the entire sector. In 1991, the government decided to allow for-profit private education institutions to run \"twinning programmes\". A twinning programme is a partnership agreement between a local private higher education institution and a foreign university. The local partner delivers the foreign university's curriculum for one year or more and then students go overseas to complete their degree. Upon the enactment of the Private Higher Education Institutions Act 1996, private universities were allowed to confer degrees (Wilkinson and Yussof, 2005). This permitted foreign universities to offer their degrees entirely through their local partner. The same act also permitted foreign universities to operate overseas campuses in Malaysia. The twinning programme and the foreign university branch campus models have fuelled the development of higher education in Malaysia. In 2010, student enrolment in private universities accounted for 54 per cent of all tertiary enrolment (Ministry of Education, 2010).\nDisconnect in the western context: Academic readiness\nMethod: Sample and procedure\nResults: Our analysis identified four main themes. They are presented below in the order of their significance.\nDiscussion and Conclusion: Where are the gaps?\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the major transition issues experienced by first-year students in Malaysia. In so doing, the authors compare the findings to those drawn from western contexts.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study applied a focus group method, conducting seven focus groups with a total of 35 business students.\nFindings: This study identified five skills that are central to quick adaptation to university learning: independent learning, research, time management, English and critical thinking. Unlike findings in the western literature, the findings of this study do not indicate social aspect as a major adjustment issue.\nResearch limitations/implications: The generalisability of the findings is limited due to the study's small sample size. To overcome this, future researchers should consider a national study using a survey-based research method. To test whether students in a relationship-based culture are less prone to challenges related to social aspects in their transitions into university, cross-national or cross-cultural studies are needed.\nPractical implications: The study's findings point to the need for Malaysia's universities to strengthen their transition programmes, and proactively form closer relationships with high schools to help their students identify suitable courses and develop their curricula.\nOriginality/value: This study highlights the inadequacy of private education in bridging the gap between high schools and private university education in Malaysia. As most first-year-experience studies have used western samples, this study provides much needed data addressing the development of higher education and its relationship with the school systems of developing countries.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The future of hotel rating	[ "Marketing", "Social media", "Guest reviews", "Hotel classification", "Hotel rating", "Online reputation management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: With the continued growth of social media platforms for guest feedback, the playing field for hotel ratings is changing rapidly. Though hoteliers and the travel trade were at first sceptical about review platforms such as TripAdvisor (www.tripadvisor.com), this attitude is changing rapidly. The changing focus of consumers from conventional hotel rating systems that provide stars to classify hotels to online guest reviews and ratings is changing the field from one whereby the expert inspector or government dictates hotel standards to one whereby the consumer almost directly dictates what constitutes hotel quality.\nThe impact of social media on conventional hotel rating systems: A multitude of organisations are involved in the rating of hotels. These organisations can be divided into two categories, namely, national and independent bodies. National organisations can be defined as bodies run by, or for a destination's government and independent organisations represent automobile associations, travel media, online travel agents and social media. Figure 1 outlines how these organisations supply information on the quality of hotels to the prospective traveller.\nTechnology as a driver: mobile devices and online reputation management software: The growth in the creation and use of online guest feedback for hotel rating continues as travellers start using mobile devices for travel planning and software provides integration across devices. TripAdvisor, for instance, reports a 150 per cent growth in the download of its travel apps for mobile devices with a total of 82 million downloads (TripAdvisor, 2014).\nOnline reputation management software for a tourism destination: the case of Abu Dhabi: Olery.com is the first of the reputation management company to provide an extended version of its product to the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (Edgcumbe, 2014) and the Bahrain Ministry of Culture (ExceedHospitality, 2014). The proposed procedure of monitoring for Abu Dhabi is proposed to be as follows:\nDropping participation in conventional rating systems: In the study by Hensens (2011), it was found that almost half of 110 hotels from 11 destinations did not have a conventional rating despite the sample consisting of the top ten highest ranked hotels on TripAdvisor. In short, these were the top hotels in the respective destinations that chose not to be rated by their national rating body. Such poor participation presents a negative cycle that is expected to decrease participation further. This is outlined in Figure 3.\nHotel rating in 2024: From the trends outlined above, a number of predictions can be made that will shape hotel rating over the next ten years. First, online guest feedback will continue to grow and be used more by more people. They key drivers are mobile devices and internet connectivity that allows travellers to write and read online reviews and ratings across devices, when and where they want. Conventional hotel rating systems will see a further drop in participation unless they have a legal base to enforce participation. To continue to justify their existence, conventional hotel rating systems will seek integration with social media, making the guests opinion an integral part of the rating process. As conventional rating systems seek this alignment, the hotel product will be shaped more directly by what consumers appreciate and not what expert inspectors dictate. This democratisation of the rating process will lead to an innovation revolution whereby hotels seek to respond quicker to consumer trends as they have a direct feedback loop to their position in the market.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide an insight in the future of hotel rating. It reviews the impact of social media, technology that provides integration of data for the consumer and the hotels, and the way that rating bodies may respond to the changing environment on how hotels are selected and reviewed.\nDesign/methodology/approach: By reviewing current trends, practices and technological possibilities, the impact of online reviews on conventional hotel rating systems is projected into the future.\nFindings: The paper predicts a full integration of conventional rating systems with online guest reviews from the different guest review platforms leading to greater transparency for the consumer and better positioning opportunities for innovative hotels. It is further predicted that those conventional rating systems that do not seek integration and alignment will see a continued drop in hotel participation and will cease to exist.\nOriginality/value: Little research has been done on the relation between online guest reviews and conventional hotel rating systems. The paper presents new insights into how current and future trends influence the way in which consumers select hotels and how this influences the way that hotels are rated.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Validation of a management competency assessment tool for health service managers	[ "Health managers", "Management competency", "Management competency assessment" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Competent health services managers (HSM) are essential for effective and efficient health services and systems. Competent managers display certain knowledge, behaviour, skills, attitudes and values, known collectively as competencies, which are associated with performance on the job (Calhoun et al., 2002). Yet there is little empirical evidence of the required competencies and appropriate level of attainment among HSM. The literature reveals many lists of competencies, largely based on the opinions of practitioners and identified experts (e.g. Honore and Costich 2009; Hudak et al., 1999; MacKinnon et al., 2004; Mohd-Shamsudin and Chuttipattana 2012; Shewchuk et al., 2005; Wenzel et al., 1994). While these competency lists (also known as models or frameworks) may have face validity based on the development processes, few have been subject to further tests of validity and reliability.\nBackground: The accepted definition of competencies stresses that competencies are a bundle of related knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours that:\nResearch questions: The following research questions structured the validation process:\nMethods: MCAP development\nResults: In all, 117 managers and their colleagues agreed to participate in the assessment process. There were 24 Level III hospital managers (20.5 per cent), 25 Level IV hospital managers (21.4 per cent) and 68 were Level III managers from CHS (58.1 per cent). The response rates varied from 89 to 95 per cent for the 360deg assessments.\nDiscussion: The MCAP competency framework and associated behavioural measurements items were developed through a rigorous, mixed-method multistage process. This study has applied the MCAP Tool to assessing the management competence of managers from hospital and CHS sectors in a single state in Australia. The mean of the self-assessments for the six competencies all fell within \"competent without guidance\" range (5.22-5.63). However, the percentage of behavioural items scoring less than 4 (advanced beginner or lower) ranged from 9 per cent (Communications) to 22 per cent (Knowledge). Conversely, between 78 and 92 per cent of items scored greater than or equal to 4 (competent but needs guidance occasionally or higher). The MCAP Tool was able to identify managers with both low and high scores.\nConclusions: The Tool and its behavioural items were based on a framework, which had been validated by a vigorous process (reference removed for peer review). The authors are aware of only two other management competency assessment process for the healthcare sector that has been developed using rigorous quantitative and qualitative research methods (Garman and Scribner, 2011; Ang et al., 2016). Most healthcare management competency frameworks and tools have been based \"on long-established and researched expert panel opinion and consensus-building methods\" (Calhoun et al., 2008, p. 376). This study has outlined the successful validation of the MCAP Tool for measuring health service management competencies. This major contribution to the field of HSM competencies takes a competency framework and tool through a robust evaluation process, with the results suggesting that the MCAP Tool is fit for purpose.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report on the validation of a management competency assessment tool for health services managers (HSM), which resulted from the development and validation of the framework, addressed by a previous paper.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The management competency assessment tool (MCAP Tool) was validated using assessment data from a sample of 117 senior and middle managers working in two public hospitals and five community services in Victoria, Australia. The assessments were conducted between January 2013 and September 2014.\nFindings: Both validity and reliability of the MCAP Tool were demonstrated.\nPractical implications: The MCAP Tool has the potential to assist in the measurement of the competencies of HSM. Further research is required to determine if the framework and tool are applicable to HSM in other settings.\nOriginality/value: This is the first published study outlining the validity and reliability of an assessment tool to measure the management competencies of Australian health service managers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Integrating value management into sustainable construction projects in Hong Kong	[ "Value management", "Construction", "Questionnaire survey", "Integrated practice" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Buildings have a massive effect on society, the economy and the environment over their entire life cycles. According to a report released by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP, 2009), buildings consume more than 40 per cent of global energy and contribute up to one-third of global GHG emissions in both developed and developing countries. Around 40 per cent of the total energy consumed by the USA and Europe is consumed in residential and commercial buildings (US Department of Energy, 2008; Buildings Performance Institute Europe, 2011). Buildings consume about 90 per cent of the electricity in Hong Kong, and alone generate around 60 per cent of Hong Kong's GHG emissions (Council for Sustainable Development, 2011; Yip and Ho, 2013). These have led to the development of \"sustainable buildings\" that are environmentally responsible and resource efficient over their development processes.\nLiterature review: VM and its application in Hong Kong\nResearch methodology: Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were adopted, including a questionnaire survey and three semi-structured interviews conducted with a public sector client, a VM participant and a VM facilitator, respectively. The use of qualitative and quantitative approaches together to study a research topic - triangulation - is a powerful to gain insights and results, to assist in making inferences and in drawing conclusions (Fellows and Liu, 2015).\nResults and discussions: SWOT analysis is a tool commonly used to scan the internal strengths and weaknesses of a product or service industry and highlight opportunities and threats presented by the external environment (Kurttila et al., 2000; Pasonen et al., 2000; Rauch, 2007). It comprises a general, brief and subjective list of attributes or statements that describe the present and future trends of both internal and external environments (Wickramasinghe and Takano, 2009). It is also considered a convenient technique for conducting situational assessments. Although SWOT analysis has been conducted in various fields, only a few studies have focused on sustainability and/or VM for infrastructure projects. Lu (2010) conducted a SWOT analysis of construction industry strategic planning. Milosevic (2010) did also from both the investor and contractor viewpoints during the planning, contracting and construction phases of a project. Other researchers have tried to quantify SWOT factors using hybrid methods. For example, Kurttila et al. (2000) and Yuan et al. (2012) used a combined SWOT-analytic hierarchy process (AHP) for public housing projects. In this case, the AHP, a multi-criteria decision-making method for determining the relative importance of attributes within a group, was used to evaluate the factors identified via SWOT analysis (Saaty, 1980). However, the SWOT-AHP approach is beyond the scope of this research.\nImplications: This research study has highlighted some important practical implications for clients, contractors and VM practitioners. The study demonstrated that the current practices are generally neglecting integration of sustainability into the VM process due to cost and time constraints. There are ample strengths and opportunities recommended by this study for integrating sustainability into the VM process which are beneficial for the clients and contractors for achieving value for money and meeting sustainability targets.\nLimitations and future studies: The major limitation of this study is that the completed survey and interviewees were held in only the one location, i.e. Hong Kong. The results may not able be generalisable to other well-developed countries but only to other locations with similar sustainability and VM practicing environments. Therefore, further research should be conducted at other locations and compared with the findings of this SWOT analysis. Moreover, in future research a hybrid SWOT-AHP decision-making method could be applied to a larger sample to make pair-wise comparison between the identified SWOT attributes.\nConclusions: This research study is presented as a contribution to understanding the factors affecting the integration of sustainability into the VM process. The study has identified areas of strengths, which support the notion of integrating sustainability into the VM process, and weaknesses, which could be converted into opportunities and threats to be avoided. The results indicate that the strongest factors (strengths and opportunities) relate to the potential for VM exercises to provide for multidisciplinary professionals and stakeholders involvement, and a focus on issues relating to society and a sustainable built environment at the conceptual and design stages of a project to encourage the reduction, reuse and recycling of construction and demolition waste. However, it is recognised that the client needs to strike a balance between economic, social and environmental objectives. The strongest factors (weaknesses and threats) hindering the potential for sustainability integration into the VM process are the lack of well-trained staff and low levels of VM participant expertise in relation to sustainable development and the additional time and resources required to achieve sustainability targets. The perception of extra time and cost was seen as the main obstacle to the implementation of sustainability initiatives. All interviewees observed that sustainability has recently been considered an important issue for both public and private sector projects in Hong Kong, but especially the former. All interviewees agreed that design teams should incorporate sustainability objectives early in the project design and development stages, and that design solutions should not conflict with sustainability and environmental objectives. Both public and private sector clients understand the concept of sustainability and are willing to implement them through the VM process. Along with other value drivers, sustainability should be given priority and should be integrated in the early stages of the VM process for successful project delivery.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Integrating sustainability into the value management (VM) process can provide a strategic platform for promoting and incorporating sustainable design and development during the lifespans of construction projects. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) for integrating sustainability into the VM process in Hong Kong.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Following an extensive literature review, 45 attributes were identified and grouped into strength, weakness, opportunity and threat elements. A questionnaire survey based on these groupings was supported by semi-structured interviews with public sector clients, value managers and VM facilitators. They shared their experience and views on how to integrate sustainability into the VM exercises.\nFindings: The triangulated results of the survey and interviews are presented in this paper. The ranking of the SWOT analysis results indicate that VM does provide opportunities for multidisciplinary professionals and stakeholders to focus on issues relating to society and the environment, which is considered a main strength. The major weakness of integration is the lack of well-trained staff and low levels of VM participant expertise in relation to the sustainable construction issue.\nResearch limitations/implications: Current practices generally neglect integration of sustainability into the VM process due to cost and time constraints. There are ample strengths and opportunities recommended by this study for integrating sustainability into the VM process which are beneficial for the clients and contractors for achieving value for money and meeting sustainability targets.\nPractical implications: There are immense opportunities for integrating sustainability into the VM process, including encouragement of the reduction, reuse and recycling of construction and demolition waste. However, threats presented by integration include the additional time and costs required for achieving sustainability targets.\nOriginality/value: Findings and recommendations provided in this paper should be helpful to decision makers including clients and VM facilitators for the successful integration of the sustainability concept into the VM process.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Generalised grey target decision method based on the Gini-Simpson index involving mixed attributes and uncertain numbers	[ "Weight function", "Binary connection number", "Generalized grey target decision method", "Gini–Simpson index", "Interval number", "Mixed attributes" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Decision making by grey target method depends on the target centre distance. The certain number-based grey target decision method arrives at the target centre distance mainly by distance-based method such as Euclidean distance and Mahalanobis distance (Wang et al., 2009; Song et al., 2010). The mixed attribute-based grey target decision method obtains the target centre distance (including the generalised target centre distance) in the reported literature as follows: by distance-based method mainly by Euclidean distance (Song et al., 2009; Shen et al., 2010; Luo and Wang, 2012); using the equivalent method such as cobweb area and incidence coefficient (Guan et al., 2015; Zeng et al., 2016); or by vector-based method, entropy-based method, or Gini-Simpson index (GSI)-based method, which are referred to as generalised grey target decision methods (GGTDM) (Ma and Ji, 2014; Ma, 2018a, b, 2019). The GGTDM differs from its conventional counterparts in its calculation process but follows the same principle as the conventional method (Ma, 2014, 2018a, b, 2019; Ma and Ji, 2014). Given that uncertainty originates from the uncertain number, an effective tool is essential to measure it in a GGTDM. The Gini index was proposed to quantify the inequality of income distributions (Fabrizi and Trivisano, 2016). Now, the Gini index (coefficient) has been advanced and applied to a wide range of topics, among which, the GSI is one of the forms of Gini index (Rao, 1982; Guiasu and Guiasu, 2012; Casquilho, 2016; Pesenti et al., 2017). The GSI (also known as quadratic entropy in information theory) has been reinvented by some scholars evolving to a few types of expressions (Osterreicher and Casquilho, 2018). Initially, GSI was used to measure biodiversity (Rao, 1982; Guiasu and Guiasu, 2012; Pesenti et al., 2017); later, it was applied in the detection of medical viruses (Gregori et al., 2016). In addition, it was also employed to measure the uncertainty of information (Petry et al., 2015; Jiang et al., 2017). More recently, the improved GSI was adopted in a decision-making task concerning mixed attribute values (Ma, 2019). It should be noted that the weighted Gini-Simpson index (WGSI) appears in different versions. Thus, the GGTDM concerning uncertain numbers could be rebuilt relying on the different versions of GSI.\n2. Basic theory: 2.1 Gini-Simpson index\n3. Generalised grey target decision method for mixed attributes based on the Gini-Simpson index: 3.1 The principle of decision making\n4. Numerical example: 4.1 Background and data\n5. Conclusion: A new GGTDM is investigated. The proposed method converts mixed attribute values into binary connection numbers, forming the basis for the whole calculation. The generalised target centre distance is based on the CWGSI with its variable regarded as the pseudo-probability linking the alternative, and target centre, indices. The method for combining the alternative index and target centre index relies on the ratio thereof, which can reflect the differences between alternative indices and the similarities between alternative indices and target centre indices. The mixed attribute weights are converted into the certain number-based weights by the weight function. The result of decision making is somewhat different from the reported vector-based method because the mechanisms of the two methods are different. The ranking of alternatives is different but for alternatives F4 and F2 the rank order remains the same. Most of all, the target centre indices determined by using different methods do not return the same result. Specifically, the target centre indices under attribute E2 and E3 are inconsistent. Furthermore, the converted certain number-based weights are also different. The vector-based method obtains the certain number-based weights by the proximity principle, which is different from the weight function method. The proposed approach ranks alternatives based on the CWGSI, from the perspective of measuring the uncertainty (heterogeneity): however, the vector-based GGTDM makes a decision based on the CWP, as if from the viewpoint of measuring the similarities between index vectors.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate a novel generalised grey target decision method (GGTDM) with index and weight involving mixed attribute values.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The mixed attribute values are transformed into binary connection numbers and also comprised of two-tuple (determinacy, uncertainty) numbers to fulfil the decision-making task. The proposed method constructs the weight function to convert the mixed attribute-based weights into the certain number-based weights and determines the alternatives ranking by the comprehensive weighted Gini-Simpson indices (CWGSIs).\nFindings: The result of decision making regarding the numerical example by the proposed approach is somewhat different from that obtained by the reported vector-based method. The reasons for this are threefold: the decision-making bases are different, the target centre indices are determined by different mechanisms and certain number-based weights are calculated in different ways.\nResearch limitations/implications: The proposed method ranks an alternative based on the Gini-Simpson index, as derived from the viewpoint of measuring the uncertainty (heterogeneity): however, the vector-based GGTDM makes a decision based on proximity, as is the case when measuring the similarities between index vectors.\nPractical implications: The proposed approach is admissible to solving mixed attribute-based decision making especially for alternative indices and attribute weights containing both uncertain numbers.\nOriginality/value: The proposed method provides a new perspective on measuring the difference of alternatives to the target centre via the CWGSI: the CWGSI is obtained by relying on the pseudo-probabilities achieved by the ratios of the alternative indices to the target centre indices. It also builds a weight function converting the mixed attribute-based weights into certain number-based weights. This method provides a framework that should be tested in terms of its effective decision making using real data and an actual problem.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Visible and invisible borders in time and space: History, biography and work borders in a research career	[ "Inequality", "History", "Biographical research", "Irish ethnicity", "Irish migration", "Autoethnography" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: This paper is based on a tenth anniversary keynote address at the 2017 Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) conference[2] in London. This was a particular honour for me as I had presented the keynote at the first EDI conference in 2008[3]. It was a stimulating conference devoted to the broad range of equality and diversity issues and one that enabled multi-disciplinary researchers to meet and build networks across disciplinary borders. The 2008 EDI conference was a huge achievement at the time bringing together such a diverse and talented range of scholars[4], some of whom worked in departments where they were intellectually isolated. In the intervening years since that first EDI conference, equality and diversity scholarship has thrived as more and more scholars, including doctoral students, have been attracted to our field, often in the context of greater policy attention. This growth enabled our field of study to build a strong foundation. This is no more evident than in my own institution, Queen Mary University of London, where in 2005 we set up the Centre for Research in Equality and Diversity, which continues to thrive[5].\nBiographical and diasporic borders: I would like to begin this section on diasporic borders with stories of my own and raising the question of my geographical borders and asking \"where is home\". I was the child of Irish immigrants. As you read this section, I would ask you to imagine not the Irish child of the past, but to think of the Muslim child or other racialized child today - they would probably tell a similar or worse story than I shall tell, and in many cases a thousand times worse, particularly the refugee child devoid of security.\nThat was then, what about the research?: You may now ask where is the research in these stories? Researching inequalities has been both motivating and depressing. Motivating because as a researcher you feel you are continually uncovering inequalities and that may lead to change; depressing because, while there has been change, often the research reveals the persistence of unfair employment practices over time. This persistence is despite copious studies, including our own, revealing the way that inequalities are reproduced. In some ways, my keynote lecture was to explain my positionality with respect to equality and diversity and in this paper I have tried to interweave my experiences with our wider understanding of inequalities. For this section, I will try to show briefly how my biography and my research life intersected.\nConclusions: This paper has provided an opportunity to reflect on my own biography and its relationship to my career and confirms the subjective as well as objective nature of career (Layder, 1993). What I hope it has also shown is the way a personal biography can be mirrored in the macro events of the time. While each personal biography is singular, our realities and the conditions of our lives are shaped by the historical moment in which we find ourselves. We are given different cards resources at birth and these to a large extent shape the constraints and opportunities we face, but we also have \"variable degrees of freedom\" (Mouzelis, 1995) with which we navigate the borders that we meet in our personal lives and our careers. Sadly, some have more degrees of freedom than others; the impact of austerity has been profound, hitting the economically poorest the hardest. In some ways, the middle classes are living in a bubble, protected from the worst effects of inequality and not recognising the impact that austerity has had on those less privileged.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how biography influences professional and academic development. It aims to show how in different ways our experiences reflect the structures of society and that histories repeat themselves with different protagonists and different preys. It uses the author's own biography to argue that in the author's case, early influences of Irish migration shaped some of the decisions she made and her commitment to researching inequalities. The paper also asks how relevant are early life influences on the careers of equality and diversity academics?\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper uses a biographical method that draws on a personal history of migration and relates these to historical moments to show the interconnection between the self and wider macro events.\nFindings: The findings of the paper show the relevance and interconnection of biography with the macro and political context. The paper explores how an academic's personal biography[1] and the multi-layered relationship between the self and the wider macro historical context have influenced her research development. It does this by using her personal stories of being part of an Irish community and shows how everyday interactions may lead to a sense of being an outsider, of being other. History is used to show the multiple borders that Irish and other migrants experience, from biographic and diasporic borders, to violence and conflict and finally to work borders including the link with the author's research work. The paper argues that while the targets of discrimination may change over time, contemporary events can intensify the devaluation and othering of particular migrant groups.\nOriginality/value: Each biography has a unique element but the paper shows how individual biographies are connected and interrelated with the macro level of analysis.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Could sustainability improve the promotion of luxury products?	[ "Perceived quality", "Luxury", "CSR", "Sustainable consumption", "Developing countries", "Developed countries" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The recent integration of sustainability to luxury[1] is a source of debate. The luxury industry is not generally considered to be concerned about its impact on the environment, human rights and animal well-being. In recent years, luxury brands have been in the spotlight of the media and international press, who highlighted a number of ethical scandals mainly related to unfair labor conditions, cruelty to animals and damage to natural resources (Caixiong, 2011). These examples include top brands such as Tiffany and Co., Cartier, Hermes, LVMH and Louis Vuitton, who were accused of environmental damage (Bendell and Kleanthous, 2007). Other companies such as Dior, Saint Laurent and Gucci have been criticized for racial discrimination and cruelty to animals (Wang and Snell, 2013).\nTheoretical development: The variation of consumer awareness of sustainability according to consumers' country of origin\nMethodology and procedure: To test the hypotheses, we used a 3 x 2 between-subject factorial design of \"sustainability information: without information, environmental information, social information\" x \"scarcity: high level, low level\" (Table III). All the variables considered in this study were measured by using existing scales from the literature (Appendix 1). All the scales showed a satisfactory reliability indicator of approximately 0.9.\nData analysis and results: ANOVA analysis was used to evaluate the direct effect of sustainability information on the perceived quality of luxury products (H1), taking the control groups into account (Braver and Smith, 1996; Dekhili and d'Hauteville, 2009). SPSS software was used.\nDiscussion and conclusion: Theoretical contributions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine the extent to which sustainability information unfavorably impacts consumers' behavior in the case of luxury. In particular, it explores the effect of social and environmental attributes on the perceived quality.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A between-subject experimental design involving 973 French and Saudi consumers has been conducted.\nFindings: The results indicate that sustainability information negatively impacts the perceived quality of luxury products. However, this result varies regarding the consumers' country of origin. While no significant effect was observed in the case of French respondents, Saudi consumers lower the evaluation of quality when social information is provided. In addition, the negative effect of sustainability information is moderated by the consumers' degree of liking of luxury and by the brand corporate social responsibility image.\nResearch limitations/implications: This research fills a gap occurred in the previous literature. In effect, limited studies examined perceptions of the association between luxury and sustainability. In addition, it enriches the limited literature on sustainable consumption in the context of developing countries. However, further studies should focus on specific dimensions of quality and examine different sustainable practices and luxury goods.\nPractical implications: From a practical point of view, this study suggests new applications with respect to the link between luxury and sustainability.\nOriginality/value: No study to date, as per the authors' knowledge, has investigated empirically the impact of sustainability information on the perceived quality of luxury products. Contrary to the literature indicating a positive effect of sustainable attributes on consumers' behavior, this study confirms the incompatibility between luxury and sustainability.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Rethinking student admission and access in higher education through the lens of capabilities approach	[ "Diversity", "Accessibility", "Inequality" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In this paper, Fields (2015, p. 1) argues that Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have the responsibility to ensure that education is accessible to every deserving undergraduate applicant who has earned the credentials necessary to be admitted. Among others, I argue that in the context of higher education, access has different meanings. Relying on CA as a lens, I argue further that HEIs should consider opportunities (capabilities) for all students to live the lives that they have reason to value (valued functionings). However, students are different in many ways, and this means that simply providing equal access to equivalent resources does not necessarily lead to equal outcomes, as diverse students are differently able to convert resources into desired outcomes depending on their personal characteristics, social and environmental circumstances. Against this backdrop, students' admission and access ought to have components of financial accessibility, geographical accessibility, academic accessibility and cultural/social/physical accessibility.\n2. Literature reviews: Fink (2019, p. 7) is of the view that literature review is a systematic, explicit and reproductive method for identifying, evaluating and synthesising the existing body of completed and recorded work produced by researchers, scholars and practitioners. Similarly, Xiao and Watson (2019, p. 93) view literature review as an essential feature of academic research. Fundamentally, knowledge advancement should be built on prior existing work. They further assert that to push the knowledge frontier, we must know where the frontier is. Therefore, by reviewing relevant literature, we understand the breadth and depth of the existing body of work and identify gaps to explore. They think that by summarizing, analysing, and synthesising a group of related literature, we can be able to evaluate the quality of existing work against a criterion to reveal weaknesses, inconsistencies, and contradictions. In this paper, literature review is done for intellectual reasons because I want to understand what is currently known about students' admission in higher education. The next section explores capabilities approach.\n3. Contribution to literature: The paper contributes to the current literature on students' admission in three ways: advance an understanding of the pedagogical issues concerning student admissions and access in higher education. This contribution highlights the importance of knowing the students' needs in education. Contribute to the debate on student admissions and access in HEIs by examining the admission barriers and the limitation of social mobility. This contribution highlights the challenges and the obstacles of HEIs on student admissions. It applies a CA to students' admission in higher education. This contribution highlights that students should be admitted based on their strengths. While there is a wide range of biases in individuals' decision making regarding admission, the paper focussed only on biases with regard to inequality in students' admission. The next section deals with implications for policy and practice.\n4. Implications for policy and practice: Unfortunately, limited resources and space availability often take precedence over students' admission in HEIs. This paper carries important implications for managing students' admission in HEIs. It suggests that attention and resources should be devoted to the plight of those students who are unable to get access in HEIs. The researcher is aware that opportunities that education is meant to bring are not universal. Therefore, there is a limit to the number of spaces that HEIs can provide for students. Generally, high participation in HEIs cannot bring every student what it seeks. Therefore, literature reviews indicate that HEIs are not for everyone. In this paper, the researcher argue that HEIs should be for everyone, because not all students can access HEIs due to admission criteria. The negative impact of allowing all students access into HEIs would be overcrowding and shortage of spaces. There is a need to maintain affirmative action and race-sensitive students' admission policies. Similarly, public HEIs and governments' policymakers need to invest more financial resources in programs that seek to increase access and success of students. HEIs admissions officers should engage stakeholders across communities in collaborative strategic planning processes to increase student enrolments. Accountability, retention and graduation rates of HEIs should be tied to standards by which performance will be assessed and used in accreditation. More resources (e.g. financial and otherwise) ought to be provided to those HEIs that strive to increase students' admission. The next section concludes the paper.\n5. Conclusion: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the scholarship of diversity, equity, and inclusivity about students' admission in higher education. Literature review was done for intellectual reasons. CA recognises the fact that the process of students' admission might not lead to the best choice of students. The use of diversity as a foundation in students' admission and access in higher education, in Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger, 2003, the Court ruled that students should be admitted without discriminating them on the basis of race. Affirmative action policies are needed for students to access HEIs. Factors such as changing demographics, public policy, institutional practices and marketing techniques all can have a subtle but important influence on the HEIs-choice process and admission. Each university has the legal authority to decide which students it will admit, but needs to do so on the basis of a published and transparent 'set of criteria the HEI will employ in making a decision on which students' will be admitted. Universal desires for social betterment can be articulated through HEIs students' admission systems. I propose the use of non-academic criteria in students' admission in higher education. This paper contributes to the debate on students' admission and access in higher education. Implications for policy and practice is that public HEIs and governments policymakers need to invest more financial resources in programs that seek to increase access and success of students.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the scholarship of diversity, equity and inclusivity in higher education. The focus is to advance an understanding of the issues concerning student admissions and access in higher education. The paper will contribute to the debate on student admissions and access in higher education. Among others, the author argues that in the context of higher education, access has different meanings.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper is conceptual in approach and draws from extant literature and the review was used in compiling the paper. Interpretivist approach was used in understanding the topic. Relying on capabilities approach (CA) as a lens in understanding student admissions and access the author argues that higher Education Institutions should consider opportunities (capabilities) for all students to live the lives that they have reason to value (valued functionings). CA works from the premise that human beings share universal capabilities and students' life can be fulfilling if given the opportunity to exercise their capabilities by universities.\nFindings: Universities can rely on students' racial and ethnic backgrounds, socioeconomic status and students' disabilities in admitting them. Diversity characteristics can be used as a tool to ensure the heterogeneity of the student population or as an unfair advantage given to students who might otherwise be deemed inadmissible on the basis of their academic or test performance. Factors such as changing demographics, public policy, institutional practices and marketing techniques seem to have a subtle influence on the process of admission. Students may experience challenges because of the \"invisibility\" of their disabilities due to a breakdown in communication within higher education systems.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper relied on literature review only and this is its limitation. Literature review may have been influenced by selection bias of the author and is likely to include only those sources that are most consistent with the author's personal opinion. Selection bias can arise when the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the review are not clearly stated and that might bias the findings.\nPractical implications: Admission officials in higher education institutions are expected to conduct a diversity needs assessment before admissions with the aim of using the data to identify student population. The needs assessment can look at aspects such as the students' racial and ethnic backgrounds, socioeconomic status and students' disabilities to ensure access and success of all students.\nSocial implications: Inequities around access and admission for diverse groups of students in higher education are a reality worldwide. There is a worldwide trend within countries to see universities as contributors to economic growth, and many institutions are now increasingly attuned to the money economy. A student's decision to apply on where to study may be influenced by the reputation of the institution.\nOriginality/value: This concept is relative and has different meanings depending on the nature of the work in question. The paper was compiled through literature review, all the sources used have been acknowledged, and the paper conveys the thoughts, interpretations and ideas of the author.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Managing coastal risks at the Wadden Sea: a societal perspective	[ "Risk management", "Risk perception", "Participatory approach", "Multi-risk situation", "Wadden Sea Region" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Coastal regions face both increased socio-economic pressures (Nicholls et al., 2012) and escalating stresses derived from natural hazards (Adger et al., 2005), resulting in new challenges for coastal risk management. These new challenges are emerging from the joint occurrence of these multifaceted risks both spatially and temporally. Joint occurrence as much as interlinkages between these risks from multiple sources call for enhanced forms of collaborative governance and integrative policymaking (Ballinger, 2015). In this regard, scientific and policy debates already call for enlarged integration of multiple interests and perspectives, the analysis of all available scientific and policy knowledge and increased sensitivity to the complexity of coastal risk management processes amongst all parties concerned (Ballinger, 2015; Hinkel et al., 2015). This focus on widening risk management toward broader participatory and collaborative approaches is also underscored by disaster risk management initiatives, in particular by the recently adopted Sendai Framework for Action 2015-2030 (UNISDR, 2015). All these activities put increased demands on addressing its practical implementations rather than on theoretical discussions.\n2. Why risk management as a social process?: The call for increased social processes brings to light the role of integrative and participatory structures and its mindset within risk management. The term social underlines a differentiation from purely technical risk management processes and emphasizes the enhanced inclusion and evaluation of risk perceptions[1] and societal frames. Understanding risk to be a mental construct, emerging in the human mind and shaped by social, political, economic and cultural contexts (Douglas and Wildavsky, 1982; Luhmann, 1993), risk management should be understood as the process of dealing with issues perceived as risky by the society. These issues might include single events such as natural hazards, as much as uncertain short- and long-term developments such as uncertain environmental and socio-economic processes of change. From a conceptual perspective, increased complexity in (coastal) governance regimes requires collaborative and participatory processes where different interests held by scientists, different sectors and contrasting institutions are balanced and negotiated (Ballinger, 2015; Renn, 2008; Stirling, 2010). Besides the normative objective to include all relevant agents in a democratic process (Stringer et al., 2006), collaborative and participatory processes mediate between values, norms and regulative structures (Beierle, 2002) facilitate more robust decision making under uncertainty (Hinkel et al., 2015) and offer an opportunity to collect more ideas or alternative viewpoints on how to minimize human impacts (Bell et al., 2013; de Jonge and Giebels, 2015). These endeavors reflect on the need to strengthen mutual debate and recognition of different risk-rationales driven by different knowledge regimes, taking into account the pressing challenges to bridge the gap between knowledge development and translation into disaster risk reduction policies and practices (Aven, 2016; UNISDR, 2015; Weichselgartner and Pigeon, 2015). A social process perspective recognizes the need to combine scientific and technical expertise with locally embedded forms of situated knowledge derived from the practical experiences of stakeholders. This implies recognition that risk management and collaborative governance processes more generally are embedded within a specific socio-environmental context (Healy, 2006, p. 29). Facilitating knowledge exchange and mutual learning can thus lead to the development of greater understanding of societal processes and more \"actionable\" knowledge for all stakeholders (Weichselgartner and Pigeon, 2015). Stakeholders in this context are understood as representatives of different interest groups or institutions that are directly affected, have an interest in the decision or with legal responsibility and authority relative to a decision (Mitchell, 2002).\n3. New impulses for risk management activities in the trilateral WSR: The participatory risk management framework presented here was developed and implemented in the trilateral WSR. A particularly striking feature of this case study is a situation of simultaneous occurrence of natural hazards, environmental and societal risks. The following section will show why this multi-risk situation in particular requires enhanced implementation of social processes in its coastal risk management scheme.\n4. Methodological implementation of social risk management processes - insights from the WSR: From a methodological perspective, the challenge to implement and foster social risk management activities does not lie in providing more information but rather in listening to and including stakeholders' (and society's) concerns, allowing time for stakeholders to communicate and evaluate their perspectives and to provide space for a mutual learning process. In view of these objectives, a series of methods had been applied, whose combination was appropriate to deal with these different aspects. Following the overall objective of facilitating exchange and discussion between multiple stakeholders, the mixed-method approach was carried out as a series of three, one and a half day collaborative stakeholder workshops, spread over a period of one year. The workshop participants were drawn from the WSF network of stakeholders, whereby between 13 and 20 WSF stakeholders participated in the workshops, seven of them participated in all three workshops. The multi-stakeholder community of the WSF is characterized by wide-reaching expertise from sectoral institutions, NGOs and local, regional and national governmental authorities. Although the composition of stakeholders changed, each workshop portrayed a balanced picture of most of the sectors and administrative levels from the three countries represented in the WSF.\n5. Conclusion: Risk management in the trilateral WSR is confronted with new challenges emerging not only from increasing natural hazards but also from socio-economic developments, in particular demographic change and conflicting spatial uses. Meeting these challenges will include a shift in understanding risk management processes not as a purely technical process. Rather risk management is to a great extent a social process, directly and indirectly facilitating stakeholders from different involved sectors easier access and making their concerns heard as much as to balance and negotiate different interests and concerns.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The trilateral Wadden Sea Region (WSR), extending from Den Helder in the Netherlands, along the German North Sea coast, to Esbjerg in Denmark, constitutes a unique but vulnerable coastal landscape. Vulnerability to environmental and societal risks is expected to increase in coming decades with encompassing new challenges such as demographic changes and conflicting uses of space, both on land and at sea. Meeting these challenges will require a shift toward an understanding of risk management as a social process, marking a significant departure from the dominant technical risk management paradigm. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In practice, this paradigm shift requires participatory stakeholder engagement, bringing together multiple and diverse perspectives, interests and concerns. This paper aims to support the implementation and expansion of enhanced social processes in coastal risk management by presenting a case study of participatory risk management process. Implemented in collaboration with a trilateral stakeholder partnership, the authors present a mixed-method approach which encouraged a joint, deliberate approach to environmental and societal risks within an overall framework.\nFindings: The results enable the authors to deduce implications of participatory risk management processes for the WSR, wherein the partnership can act as a communicator and ambassador for an improved understanding of risk management as a social process.\nOriginality/value: In this context, the trilateral dimension, discussed here for the first time in relation with coastal risk management processes in the WSR, is emphasized as an efficient level that offers room for enhanced participatory and negotiation processes that are crucial for enhanced risk management processes.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
An integrated three-layered foresight framework	[ "Uncertainty", "Foresight", "Decision-making", "Kondratieff", "Megatrends" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In today's complex rapid-changing world, trends in various spheres interact in increasingly unpredictable ways so that a single-issue focus is no longer sufficient to deal with emerging threats and opportunities (Habegger, 2010; UNDP GCPSE, 2014). The objective of strategic foresight is to take what we know and project it forward in useful ways (Wayland, 2015). Foresight practitioners are challenged to improve insight into plausible futures by a systematic process of anticipation (Martin, 1995). Plausible developments can be described by means of trends and key uncertainties. Trends describe historical changes up until the present, which can be expected to continue until they bend or break. Key uncertainties relate to emerging developments, which play a role in bending or breaking historical trends such as a possible new technology, a potential public policy issue or a concept, and can develop into a trend in its own right (Lum, 2016).\n2. The proposed foresight method: The foresight method proposed in this paper is based on an integrated three-layered framework for improving foresight by systematically analysing aggregated long-term trends (or megatrends) with a different level of inertia in an integrated way at the overarching meta-level. Oxford Living Dictionaries (2018) refers to meta-level as \"A level or degree (of understanding, existence, etc.) which is higher and often more abstract than those levels at which a subject, etc., is normally understood or treated\". The meta-level approach leads to insights in the broader context of individual trends.\n3. Step 1: identifying relevant megatrends: Step 1 involves the systematic screening of megatrends and key uncertainties relevant to the subject under consideration, neglecting the inertia of these trends. Megatrends are named after Naisbitt (1982). They can be distinguished from normal trends by their time horizon, reach and intensity of impact. Megatrends can be observed over the decades; impact comprehensively on all regions; and impact powerfully and extensively on all actors (Z-Punkt GmbH, 2020). Key uncertainties are defined as uncertainties that are considered plausible and likely to have a major impact on the system under consideration in case they appear (such as e.g. the development of nuclear fission power or the event of war). Because numerous trends and key uncertainties exist, a well-structured approach is required to filter out relevant ones.\n4. Step 2: century-long trends: Once the overall set of trends and key uncertainties is obtained, Step 2 analyses the trends identified in Step 1 and filters out the trends that have existed for a century or more, making use of corroborating time series. These trends belong to the top layer of the framework. They have low inertia, are relatively stable and likely to head in the same direction for at least few more decades. Acknowledging that the list is not comprehensive, the following century-long trends were identified and assessed in greater detail in the mentioned case study report (Van Dorsser et al., 2018a):\n5. Step 3: Kondratieff waves: Step 3 analyses K-waves which are a linking pin between the individual megatrends and the centuries-long lasting trends. They concern a cyclical movement around the centuries-long trend in technology development and per capita economic growth. Cyclical movements have been studied ever since the Industrial Revolution started to cause social crises and many cycles of varying lengths have been identified (De Groot and Franses, 2009). The more commonly reported cycles are:\n6. Step 4: interaction between the layers: Step 4 analyses the interaction between the layers in Figure 1 and the insights that the layers offer each other through a better understanding of the broader context at the meta-level.\n7. Step 5: SWOT analysis: Based on the integrated framework of trends and key uncertainties developed in the previous sections, we can proceed to apply the framework to develop strategic insight and use these insights to prepare the concerned entity for upcoming threats and opportunities. The first step in this process it to conduct a thorough SWOT analysis. This is illustrated by a case study for the Port of Rotterdam (PoR), which is the largest port in Europe and well connected to the West-European hinterland by means of road, rail and inland waterway transport. A summary of the identified threats and opportunities, as well as the strengths and weaknesses in relation to these threats and opportunities, is presented in Table IV.\n8. Step 6: trend-based narratives: By analysing the strengths and weaknesses of the port in conjunction with the threats and opportunities that were identified on the basis of the three-layered framework, it becomes possible to develop a number of trend-based narratives for various clusters of port activities. For means of illustration, we will now address the narratives on the liquid bulk and chemical, the dry bulk, the container and the offshore construction and recycling sector in the PoR. For these sectors, several threats and opportunities are combined in the narrative, which is logical as multiple trends exert forces on the port environment simultaneously.\n9. Step 6: towards a vision and port strategy: These narratives indicate an urgent need for more efficient use of space in the port over the next few decades to seize opportunities and facilitate the development of new activities and port clusters. It is expected that port space will remain scarce over the next 20 years in spite of the recent expansion at the 2nd Maasvlakte. This is because the fossil industry is still expected to require another 20 years before phasing out, while space is already required for new activities that are gradually developing in line with the sustainability driver of the sixth K-wave. From a port perspective, it is desirable to support and facilitate these activities to ensure that the port is ready for the future around the year 2040 when new sustainable activities take over the dominant position of the old fossil industry and begin to scale up.\n10. Conclusions and further discussion: Foresight aims at identifying plausible developments to improve strategic decision-making. However, in today's complex rapid changing world, where trends in various spheres interact in increasingly unpredictable ways, it is difficult to gain insight into the inertia and expected direction of individual trends. This paper proposes a new integrated three-layered foresight framework and method for assessing various layers of megatrends based on their inertia or duration. The proposed theoretical framework shows that by analysing trends and key uncertainties in conjunction at the meta-level, and by placing them in a broader three-layered framework of megatrends, additional insight is obtained in the inertia and direction of long-term trends, aiming at sharper foresight for better decision-making.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The paper aims to present an integrated foresight framework and method to support decision-makers who are confronted with today's complex and rapidly changing world. The method aims at reducing the degree of uncertainty by addressing the inertia or duration of unfolding trends and by placing individual trends in a broader context.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper presents a three-layered framework and method for assessing megatrends based on their inertia or duration. It suggests that if long-term trends and key future uncertainties are studied in conjunction at a meta-level and placed in a broader multi-layered framework of trends, it can result in new insights.\nFindings: The application of the proposed foresight method helps to systematically place a wide range of unrelated trends and key uncertainties in the context of a broader framework of trends, thereby improving the ability to understand the inertia, direction and mutual interaction of these trends.\nResearch limitations/implications: The elaboration of identified trends and key uncertainties is partly case-specific and subject to interpretation. It is aimed at illustrating the potential use of the framework.\nPractical implications: The paper presents a new approach that may, by itself or in combination with existing foresight methods, offer new means for anticipating future developments.\nSocial implications: The use of the proposed framework has potential to provide better insight in the complexity of today's rapid-changing world and the major transitions taking place. It aims to result in sharper foresight by reducing epistemic uncertainty for decision-makers.\nOriginality/value: The paper demonstrates how megatrends, Kondratieff waves and century-long trends can be placed in an integrated framework and analysed in conjunction.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The interplay of rules, asymmetries in language fluency, and team dynamics in culturally diverse teams: Case study insights	[ "Multinational company", "Culturally diverse project teams", "Faultline configurations", "Language-fluency asymmetries", "Rules and norms" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Short-term project teams, increasingly prevalent in today's competitive business environment, need members to pool their diverse perspectives and collaborate to complete organizational tasks (Crisp and Jarvenpaa, 2013; Tjosvold, 1985, 1988; Tjosvold et al., 2014). In recent years, due to globalization, these temporary, project-based teams (Pazos, 2012) have become more and more diverse in terms of demographic and professional variables (Kozlowski and Ilgen, 2006; Tjosvold et al., 2014; Tsui et al., 2007; Zhou and Shi, 2011). While tension is inherent in any group or team (Appelbaum et al., 1998; Maznevski et al., 2006; Smith and Berg, 1997), the heterogeneity of culturally diverse teams amplifies individual differences and intensifies the likelihood of conflict and controversy (Appelbaum et al., 1998; Griffith et al., 2003; Mach and Baruch, 2015; Pelled et al., 1999; Tjosvold, 1985). In this paper, we take a case study approach to explore the impact of rules and language fluency disparities, and the interplay between the two, on the ways in which members of culturally diverse teams establish ways of working together smoothly.\nLiterature review: Intragroup rules in culturally diverse teams\nMethod: Research setting\nFindings: Rule development and implementation\nEnglish-fluency disparities: Table III reports the English-language disparities which manifested themselves across teams.\nLanguage faultlines: Each of the teams can be divided into two subgroups according to their fluency in English: FSs and LFSs. Language fluency can, thus, become a potential faultline, splitting the group into in-groups and out-groups (O'Leary and Mortensen, 2010), depending on the configurations within the teams. The distribution of FSs and LFSs is shown in Table IV.\nDiscussion: Theoretical contribution\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how newly formed culturally diverse project teams develop and implement rules, and how these processes may be affected by language-fluency asymmetries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using a case-study research design, the authors investigated three multicultural project teams within a management integration program in a multinational company in France. Their complete data set includes 37.5 hours of observations and 49 hours of semi-structured interviews.\nFindings: Findings revealed that subgroups formed on the basis of language-fluency and this affected the development and implementation of rules. While rule-setting mechanisms emerged across teams, they varied in form. On the one hand, tightly structured rules emerged and rules were rigidly applied when there were greater language inequalities. In contrast, implicit behavior controls guided interactions when language-fluency subgroupings were less salient. The findings also revealed that the alignment of other individual attributes with language fluency reinforced subgroup divisions, further impacting the rule development and implementation processes.\nPractical implications: Understanding rule development and implementation in culturally diverse teams and how these processes are impacted by language disparities enables managers to help members develop more successful behavioral patterns by keeping language-fluency (and other) attributes in mind.\nOriginality/value: The study extends and complements previous team research by providing in-depth insights into the process of rule development and implementation. It demonstrates the impact of language-fluency asymmetries and subgroup dynamics on these processes. The authors propose a model to capture the processes by which culturally diverse teams create rules, and how the rule-setting mechanisms might be moderated by faultlines such as language-based disparities.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Dominant discourses of workplace curriculum in Iranian organizations	[ "Discourse-making", "Workplace curriculum", "Workplace curriculum commonplaces", "Workplace curriculum discourses" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: As claimed by Moore, the work environments naturally and inherently possess some kind of curriculum, and this curriculum is constantly being used and followed (Moore, 2004, p. 325). This sort of curriculum is socially organized and its body of knowledge is formulated based on different work situations and conditions (Moore, 2004, p. 326). The main goal of a workplace curriculum is to develop all the technical and non-technical capabilities the employers need to master their line of work and enable them to do their duties in the best way possible (Drohan, 2014, p. 99). To fully understand the workplace curriculum is to comprehend the ways in which knowledge is specified, organized and used (Moore, 2004, p. 327). Workplace curriculum is a systematic process which aims at inspiring commitment to constant and continuous learning via formal, informal or implicit ways, and also, providing the technology of necessary grounds for continuous organizational development; it also stresses on both introduction and development of the principal skills of different fields of work and personal and individual development of all the workers (Boud and Solomon, 2000). Moore (2004) maintains that workplace curriculum is a developmental process which is designed by all the people involved, including both the new workers and the experts, and manifested the moment they start doing things and accomplishing duties according to this plan. To accept and understand this concept from workplace curriculum can lead to a better and clearer understanding of workplace learning (WPL) (Drohan, 2014). The development of educational units and improvement of human resources in private and state firms and institutions have led to formation of a professional identity for the experts and specialists of this field (Khorasani et al., 2014, p. 25), and the formation of specialized and scientific associations has led to the growth of educational interests and concerns in progressive organizations; in this way, there could be some experimental, field and comparative attempts to invent and promote the new approaches, patterns and methods in designing workplace curriculum, which can identify the needs, design the plans, design educational courses, provide and guarantee consistency of the quality of the courses and also effectiveness evaluation, and this trend can be perfectly attested to prizes and awards of excellence (Khorasani et al., 2014, p. 26).\nTheoretical and research backgrounds: Theoretical background\nFindings: What are the current discourses in regard to workplace curriculum in Iranian organizations?\nConclusion: The study of currents of the workplace curriculum is, in fact, studying and understanding the thought waves resulted from the perceptions and attitudes about the concept of education and development in organizations which will eventually lead to the movement, change and improvement. And that is because the organizations and their culture are where the currents form, grow, develop or die. There is no doubt that studying and knowing any phenomenon, such as workplace curriculum, as an ignored or emergent discourse requires first understanding its currents. Making currents mostly includes the behaviors, people and periods of time and then relate them to one another. However, the process of one or some related concepts being placed at the center in a network of concepts leads to the formation of a discourse. Discourse-making for workplace curriculum requires discourse analysis of the scattered elements and also adjustment and reformation of the relation among these principal elements. To do such an analysis, the main signifier of each discourse should first be identified through articulation and formulation, and then other important elements of the workplace curriculum should be signified. In this process, we encounter some elements whose meaning is dependent on the analyst's conception and interpretation which leads to them getting different, sometimes opposite, meanings in each discourse. The discourses of the workplace curriculum are not innate and unchangeable and are entirely related to time, place and the organizational conditions and therefore are not stable and sustainable. The main reason for this changeability is that there is always a gap in each discourse which the discourse is unable to fill and it will eventually lead to discourse dynamism or disintegration. The organizations and their dominant conditions also change. Hence, the current discourse would not be able to symbolize all the phenomena and accidents and would eventually lead to the formation of another emergent discourse (Table V).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate and analyze the dominant discourses of the workplace curriculum in Iranian organizations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research data were collected through in-depth interviews with 30 professionals working in the field of workplace curriculum in three groups of consultants, managers and experts who were selected purposefully and with a theoretical sampling strategy. To analyze the data, thematic analysis method was used. The themes are extracted and categorized into three phases, namely, descriptive coding, interpretive coding and determination of overarching theme. To validate the data, collaborative research technique, member checking and researcher review and, to make sure of findings' reliability, reliability index between two coders were used.\nFindings: Based on the findings, the kind of planner's look at the workplace curriculum commonplaces will shape the nature of the curriculum and in terms of this look define and redefine the workplace curriculum discourses. Therefore, based on perceptions and attitudes in these areas, 11 different discourses are recognizable from the workplace curriculum. These include suppression discourse, justification discourse, ceremonial/ formality discourse, administrative discourse, engineering discourse, economical discourse, psychological discourse, partnership discourse, research discourse, developmental discourse and, finally, multi-cultural discourse.\nPractical implications: The common goal of all learning professionals in the workplace is to play the role of a strategic partner, or at least be a good partner for the organization. One of the main challenges of learning and development professionals in the workplace is increase in integration and alignment between learning programs and developmental opportunities with business organization strategies. Achieving this important goal is possible when we have a proper understanding of the current situation and condition. Various situations and conditions are identified and described in the form of 11 discourses. If the authors do not look at the context and proper understanding of the main concepts - The main concepts of each discourse are put into a quill - in which any discourse that was created, the authors will not be able to make the appropriate strategies. A good doctor will hear and understand well before the first thing.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is one of the few studies that offer a variety of discourses for the workplace curriculum.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Transforming education to prepare students to invent the future	[ "Fourth Industrial Revolution", "Global education", "21st century skills", "Transforming education" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Human talent is rapidly becoming the most important asset for individuals, communities and nations [1]. As the world changes rapidly because of globalization and technological innovation, new opportunities and challenges arise for individuals, communities and nations. Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum, predicts that the Fourth Industrial Revolution, resulting from increased and ubiquitous automation and the development of artificial intelligence, will eliminate many of the jobs currently available. Together with neurotechnological and genetic developments these changes will create new opportunities and serious challenges, which require a heightened commitment to putting humans at the center, and empowerment as a goal (Schwab, 2017). These developments create a new urgency to examine whether children and youth are being prepared to be effective and productive citizens and workers, and to not just understand the future but to invent it. There is an emerging consensus that the skills students will need to invent the future must include cognitive, interpersonal, and intrapersonal skills (Pellegrino and Hilton, 2012). The growing awareness that the adequate development of these requires deliberate efforts to cultivate them is also stimulating questions and innovations about the kind of educational experiences which can cultivate those skills.\nPerceived self-efficacy of Saudi students: In a recent survey to secondary school students [6], I asked them to rate to what extent they considered themselves capable of performing a series of tasks. The results are presented in Table 1 which summarizes the percentage of those students who felt capable of doing them to a great extent - Values 4 and 5 in the five-point scale. Less than half of the students see a connection between their education and the real world. While most students feel prepared to working in teams, which 80% feel prepared to do, or adapt to new situations, which 70% feel prepared to do, or solve problems (73%), the percentage of those who feel capable of various social activities is smaller, only about half feel they can make a presentation to a group of peers (56%) or of adults (55%), or resolve differences within a group (70%), only 62% think they would solve community problems, or persuade others (64%), or negotiate conflict in a peaceful way (73%) or lead a team (62%).\nOpportunities to address these challenges in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic: Implementing the curriculum changes mentioned above requires significant systemic changes. Paradoxically, the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic create an opportunity to make these changes.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Human talent is rapidly becoming the most important asset for individuals, communities and nations. As the world changes rapidly due to globalization and technological innovation new opportunities and challenges arise for individuals, communities and nations. This paper aims to explore transforming education to prepare students to invent the future.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This essay draws on an evaluation of the impact of an entrepreneurship education program on a sample of youth in Saudi Arabia and integrates the core findings and ideas of literature relevant to the topic of education for the 21st century, including several books by the author.\nFindings: This paper highlights five principles guide a series of curriculum resources to advance dispositions and skills for student empowerment and civic participation: start with the end in mind to design curriculum; leverage improvement networks to design curriculum; learn by doing; the power of problem-based education; and the power of collaboration in diverse teams.\nOriginality/value: Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum, predicts that the Fourth Industrial Revolution, resulting from increased and ubiquitous automation and the development of artificial intelligence, will eliminate many of the jobs currently available. Together with neurotechnological and genetic developments, these changes will create new opportunities and serious challenges, which require a heightened commitment to putting humans at the center, and empowerment as a goal (Schwab, 2017). These developments create a new urgency to examine whether children and youth are being prepared to be effective and productive citizens and workers, and to not just understand the future but to invent it. There is an emerging consensus that the skills students will need to invent the future must include cognitive, interpersonal and intrapersonal skills (Pellegrino and Hilton, 2012). The growing awareness that the adequate development of these requires deliberate efforts to cultivate them is also stimulating questions and innovations about the kind of educational experiences which can cultivate those skills.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Sustainable business practices in Spain: a two-case study	[ "Sustainability", "Supply chain management", "Case studies", "Spain" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: The implementation of sustainable business approaches is not a new issue in companies' agendas. The sustainability concept proposes an equilibrium between economic growth and environmental responsibility (Wagner and Svensson, 2010; Holliday et al., 2002). In the last few years, however, the interest of these issues had increased exponentially. Clear examples of this fact are the international treaties reached in the Kyoto Protocol and the COP15-summit in Copenhagen, amongst others.Despite the relevance of this topic, there are still several companies and governments that seem to worry about the immediate objectives and disregard that the future of their companies and economies requires sustainability. From our point of view, in spite of the importance of the \"big decisions\", by observing companies' actions and individual business attitudes, we can identify the ties between business and sustainability. Consequently, supply chain management (SCM) as a business management discipline cannot remain in the shadows. There are several SCM activities that can implement sustainable actions: provider's agreements, transportations modes, production systems, recycling, etc.The literature survey has identified several gaps in the topic of sustainability in supply chains. This paper carries out a comparative case study of two companies belonging to two different industries:1. food and agriculture; and2. chemical.From the comparative analysis of both companies' situations, several implications and conclusions can be drawn for the management of sustainable supply chains.This paper begins with a review of the existing literature. This review is followed by the analysis of two cases, first individually and then in a comparative manner. The final section of this paper discusses the main implications of the study and proposes various lines of future research.\n2 An approximation to the sustainability concept: Savitz and Weber (2006) propose that a sustainable corporation is one that creates profits for its stakeholders while protecting the environment and improving the lives of those with whom it interacts. Sustainability and efficiency are not rival concepts (Tsai and Hung, 2009). In fact, authors such as Engardio (2007), Esty and Wiston (2006), and Zhu et al. (2005) suggest that environmentally conscious and ecologically-friendly business strategies can generate important competitive advantages and superior financial performance for companies. Additionally, Lash and Wellington (2007) suggest that firms will be at a competitive disadvantage if they do not pay attention to sustainability issues.However, Sharma et al. (2010) show that the study of the sustainable link between business and environment is still in an initial stage within the B2B context, although it is in a more mature state in the B2 C context. There has been a considerable interest in the issue of environmental sustainability in business practices but, so far, discussions have been confined to disciplinary silos of management, marketing and operations and production management. From the strategic point of view, the work by Baumann et al. (2002) is of great interest. These authors carry out an extensive literature analysis and propose a model that simultaneously considers the effect of the company profile and the environmental regulations. Companies should consider their negative externalities and introduce environmental principles in their strategic core. From that point onward, and thanks to the R&D efforts, it would be possible to simultaneously increase the level of environmental respect and the efficiency of the organization. The paper of Wagner and Svensson (2010) proposes a model of sustainable business based on the management of concepts such as natural environment, purchasing policies, intermediaries and transport, retail practices, marketplace and value-adding processes.Still thinking of sustainable practices, another aspect of interest is the structure of the values of the owner or the company's management team. Literature suggests that values may be understood as concepts, beliefs, conditions or behaviours that transcend specific situations and guide the selection or evaluation of situation and behaviour (Fritzsche, 1995). Such values exist within an individual's overall value system, which represents the relationships between people and society and the relative importance of each value to the individual. In general, there seems to be a common view that values influence behaviour.The individual's value system is the group of personal values, arranged hierarchically on the basis of the relative importance that each individual assigns them (Fritzsche, 1995). In other words, the value system can be understood as the arranged group of preferences and standards that influence the personal decisions, actions, conflict resolution and application for social rewards and punishments. The next level is defined by corporate values, which are the extension of the owners and/or managers of the firm (Hemingway and Maclagan, 2004; Harris and Crane, 2002). Corporate values determine the organisational culture and the organization's behaviour (Agle and Cadewell, 1999). Therefore, values may determine sustainability in firms.However, if market and values were not enough and the nature of the activity and/or waste produced by firms had negative impacts on the environment, then public administrations would have to act through legal rules. These rules are the basics of the proposed model by Cambra et al. (2008) that suggest the interaction between market, corporate values and legislation.As a consequence of this literature review, we suggest that, as a company adequately manages the sustainability concept, it will provide competitive advantages including its image, efficiency, and international positioning.\n3 Empirical study: an inter-industry comparative case study: Information was obtained, mainly, from semi-structured in-depth interviews and from direct visits to the firms. The main fieldwork was developed between March and June 2010. The following aspects served as a guideline for analysis:* general information about the firm, interviewees' position (e.g. respect to the family), experience, and rank;* the firm's global values system;* how the firm understands sustainability;* the firm's strategy in terms of provider's agreements, product stewardship, internal ethics, and sustainable operations; and* potential influence on business and network performance.Interviews were recorded for later transcription. Notes from each interview session were sent to key informants for subsequent discussion. Following this exchange, informants were provided with a brief summary of the main conclusions and were asked for their opinions regarding the ideas they contained prior to more exhaustive analyses. As a consequence of such interactions, we received valuable insights on our initial research.3.1 Bodega Pirineos\n4 Final comments: This section introduces a set of comments about implications derived from our case studies for the sustainability of business cycles and for the management of supply chains. Some proposals for future research are also presented.4.1 Main implications for sustainable business cycles\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to study sustainable business practices of two Spanish small and medium enterprise (SMEs) belonging to different sectors: a winery and a paint company. Special attention is paid to the drivers of such business practices and the lessons that can be learnt from them.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This research employs a comparative case study approach. The authors describe and compare two business cases from different industry sectors. This paper concludes with several findings that could be of interest for some other companies, as well as interesting areas of future research.\nFindings: - A comparison of sustainable business practices and their drivers. Similarities and differences between companies lead to different approaches to sustainability. Sustainability may be understood as a strategic tool in order to achieve competitive advantages and help companies successfully operate internationally.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The main limitation of this research is the specific sectors in which it has been carried out that can limit the application of the findings. Further research in additional industry sectors needs to be done to support the implications found in this paper.\nPractical implications: - Companies need to consider sustainability practices as a long-term investment instead of as an immediate cost. Culture is a decisive factor in the implementation of sustainable practices.\nSocial implications: - Customers can force companies to implement sustainable practices. However, it has been observed that sometimes there is a need for strict regulations in the sector to encourage companies to implement such practices since customers may not be influenced by the company's sustainable practices.\nOriginality/value: - This research studies and compares actual sustainable business practices in two SMEs based in Spain, but of international activity and belonging to different industry sectors. The main drivers and characteristics of sustainable practices are compared and general implications are drawn from the study.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Alleviating feature fatigue of multi-generation products	[ "Feature fatigue", "Customer equity", "Multi-generation product", "Norton-Bass model" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Nowadays, manufacturers (especially in high-tech or electronic industries) persist in offering customers an ever-increasing number of features, aiming to improve product capability and attractiveness (Angelis, 2008; Thompson et al., 2005). Customers are indeed seduced by high-feature products at the purchase moment (before use). However, once they start using the products (after use), they become dissatisfied with the complexity of these feature-overloaded products. Their dissatisfaction will lead to negative Word-Of-Mouth (WOM), and ultimately decrease manufacturer's long-term profit (Li and Wang, 2011; Li et al., 2013; Thompson et al., 2005). Therefore, a problem of balancing the benefit of increasing \"capability\" with the cost of decreasing \"usability\" exists.\n2. Related work: The term CE was first used by Blattberg and Deighton (1996), and they defined CE as the ideal balance between what companies spend on acquiring customers and what they spend on retaining them. To calculate CE, Blattberg and Deighton suggested that a company measure expected contributions from each customer, taking into consideration their life expectancy. Later, the company should discount these expected contributions (at the discount rate that the company expects to earn on its investments) to compute their net present value. Afterwards, other authors enhanced the definition of CE or even proposed different concepts and ways of measuring CE. Gupta et al.'s (2004) study extended the work of different researchers (e.g. Blattberg et al., 2001; Niraj et al., 2001; Reinartz and Kumar, 2000; Rust et al., 2000) and followed the traditional model, adopting a financial approach of discounted cash flow to determine CLV for every customer, and then to estimate CE (sum of all CLVs of the firm). The basis of their approach is that CLV is the net discounted cash flow of future income derived from the acquisition, retention and expansion of the customer base minus their associated costs. The computation of cash flow used data obtained only from secondary sources, including actual information on the retention rate of customers over time. However, this information is often unavailable from secondary sources. In fact, Gupta et al. (2004) use estimations of this rate in their own paper. A point worth noting is that in Gupta et al.'s model, the acquisition of customers is possible at all times since the acquisition and loss of customers occur in a continuous process.\n3. Predicting FF based on Norton-bass model: The framework of the proposed approach is shown in Figure 2. It consists of two modules: first, customer purchase analysis; second, feature combinations optimization. In the first module, the Norton-Bass model is utilized to depict WOM effects on customer purchase behavior (in this paper we use customer transition processes, including acquisition, retention and defection, to represent customer purchase behavior). Then, a quantitative customer transition model considering WOM effects is proposed to analyze customer purchase behavior under different feature combinations. In the second module, a GA is used to search an optimal feature combination that maximizes CE. CE is used as the fitness function of the GA that can be calculated on the basis of the first module. A chromosome represents a feature combination which will be inputted into the first module for the calculation of CE. So the two modules form an iterative cycle, and the iteration will stop when the optimal feature combination has been found. The details of the proposed approach are presented in the following subsections.\n4. Case study: 4.1. Case description\n5. Discussion: From the case study, we can suppose a situation that, a product designers need to design a new generation product, and there are 20 potential features, they must decide which features should be added in the new product. In addition, there are already two earlier generation products in the market of the same company. The designers have to consider the effects of earlier generation products on the later ones. As discussed in former sections, whether a product being successful or not has significant effects on CE even the development of a company. Our approach is exactly aimed at solving this kind of problem, helping the designers to find an optimal feature combination that will maximize CE considering FF.\n6. Conclusion: In this paper, we propose a novel method based on the Norton-Bass model to predict and alleviate FF in product development considering the earlier generations. We focus on predicting the impacts of adding features on CE considering the effects of earlier generations, thereby providing decision support for designers to decide what features should be added so as to maximize total CE and alleviate FF.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Feature fatigue (FF) will lead to negative Word-Of-Mouth (WOM), which damages the brand's long-term profit and ultimately decreases the manufacturer's customer equity (CE). It becomes severer in multi-generation products because of the significant impacts of earlier generation products on the CE of later ones. The purpose of this paper is to alleviate FF, it is imperative for designers to decide what features should be integrated to balance initial revenue and long-term profit so as to maximize CE.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this paper, a novel method based on the Norton-Bass model is proposed to alleviate FF of multi-generation products to help designers find optimal feature combination that maximizes CE. The authors take the effects of adding features on product capability and usability into account, and integrate product capability, usability, WOM and earlier-generation product's effects into the Norton-Bass model to predict the impacts of FF on CE in current product development. A case study of a virtual product is presented to illustrate and validate the proposed method.\nFindings: The advantage of the proposed method is highlighted in the cases of large feature number, high-product complexity (low-product usability) and multi-generation products. The experiments show that the earlier generations do affect the later ones from the perspective of maximizing CE. The superiority of the proposed method compared with the traditional way to put all potential features into a product during the product development is demonstrated. And the more features, the larger CE obtained using the proposed model than the one obtained by traditional way.\nOriginality/value: Although, there are reports attempting to analyze and alleviate FF, most of these studies still suffer the limitations that cannot point out what features should be added to the product with the objective of maximizing CE. In addition, few studies have been carried out to alleviate FF of multi-generation products. A novel method based on the Norton-Bass model and a genetic algorithm is proposed to alleviate FF of multi-generation products to help designers find optimal feature combination that maximizes CE.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Analysis of delays in Tanzanian construction industry: Transaction cost economics (TCE) and structural equation modeling (SEM) approach	[ "Project management", "Construction management", "Modelling", "Surveys", "Sub-Saharan Africa", "Multivariate analysis" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A time overrun of 10 to 30 percent on 70 percent of the construction projects is not uncommon (Assaf and Al-Hejji, 2006). Delays in projects usually result in either extension or acceleration of the project and these result in additional cost. According to Marzouk and El-Rasa (2014), delay is defined as \"an act or event which extends required time to perform or complete work of the contract and manifests itself as additional days of work\" (p. 49). Identifying the causes and effects of delays in the construction industry in different parts of the world has been the passion of researchers and practitioners. In fact, many researchers have addressed the issue of identifying the causes and/or effects of delays in the construction industry in different countries (e.g. Assaf and Al-Hejji, 2006 (Saudi Arabia); Kasimu and Abubakar, 2012 (Nigeria); Marzouk and El-Rasa, 2014 (Egypt); Alaghbari et al., 2007; Sambasivan and Soon, 2007 (Malaysia)). Few researchers have analyzed the relationships between the causes and effects of delays using simple correlation (e.g. Sambasivan and Soon, 2007) and regression (e.g. Aibinu and Jagboro, 2002; Parikh and Joshi, 2013). These simple approaches fall short of revealing the complete relationships between the causes and effects of delays and inter-relationships within the effects of delays. For example, among the effects of delays, time overrun leads to cost overrun (Aibinu and Jagboro, 2002), cost and time overruns often lead to disputes. Another significant problem in using correlations for understanding relationships is the issues of collinearity and multi-collinearity between explanatory variables. According to Tu et al. (2005), these issues can lead to incorrect interpretation of results. It is essential for the project managers to understand all the links between causes and effects of delays in order to make effective decisions to reduce delays in project completion. In this research, the use of a more sophisticated tool, namely structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze the complex relationships, is demonstrated. The possibility of handling complex dependencies is regarded as one of the main advantages of using SEM Qureshi and Kang (2015). SEM is not new to research related to project management. However, the current study is one of the initial studies that use SEM to study the relationships between causes and effects of delays in the construction industry.\nLiterature review: Previous studies - SEM and project management\nSome prefatory remarks on TCE: The current research attempts to explain the link between the causes and effects of delays in the construction industry based on TCE. The origin of transaction costs can be traced back to Richard Coase's seminal work on the nature of the firm. However, it was Williamson (1989) who carried the work further to explain the economics of organizations. According to Williamson (1989), TCE focuses on the organization of transactions that occur whenever a good or service is transferred from a provider to a user. The transactions occurring inside the organization can include costs such as managing and monitoring, procuring inputs and capital equipment and the transactions occurring outside the organization can include costs such as search and information cost, bargaining cost, and policing and enforcement costs. The determinants of transaction costs are frequency, specificity, uncertainty, limited (bounded) rationality, and opportunistic behavior (Williamson, 1996). TCE uses a contractual approach to the study of economic organizations. According to Williamson (1996, p. 548), TCE is \"central to the study of organizations through assessing how their governance structures serve to economize on these transaction costs.\" TCE has been subjected to severe criticisms because of its treatment of human behavior as \"opportunistic\" and for being ad hoc. Klein and Shelanski (1996) have refuted the criticisms and have provided empirical evidence to support the logic of organization described by TCE. The authors have shown a range of applications of TCE including vertical integration, complex contracts and hybrid modes of organizations, transfer pricing, and multinational corporations. Construction project organizations owing to their temporary structures can be classified as hybrid modes of organizations. TCE has been one of the most influential theories in the study of organizations because of the empirical studies that it has engendered (Williamson, 2007). In this research, application of TCE is extended to construction industry.\nResearch framework and hypothesis development: According to Dubois and Gadde (2002), construction is a project-based activity in which time, quality, and budget are for an individual project and the relationships between the stakeholders (clients, contractors, consultants, and suppliers) are established on a short-term basis. Winch (1989) argues that the nature of construction projects gives rise to temporary coalitions of firms (a firm can represent a client, a contractor, a consultant, or a supplier) with divergent economic and social interest. According to TCE, the nature of coalition often leads to transaction costs incurred by the firms (Williamson, 1996). In the construction industry, search and information costs may relate to costs associated with finding the appropriate contractors, consultants, and suppliers; bargaining costs are the costs associated with drawing up the required contractual agreement between the parties that transact; policing and enforcement costs are the costs associated with ensuring that each party adheres to the terms of contract. The next logical question is:\nMethodology: This study was conducted using the survey method. A questionnaire was developed to assess the perceptions of clients, consultants, and contractors on the relative importance of causes and effects of delay in TCI. Since one of the coauthors had links in TCI, the questionnaire was sent to (Construction) Contractor Registration Board (CRB) in Tanzania to vet and verify the relevance of causes and effects of delays in TCI. After the factors were agreed upon by the researchers and CRB, 400 questionnaires were distributed to 50 clients, 200 consultants, and 150 contractors. There were 6,000 firms registered with CRB. The sampling frame was provided by CRB. The questionnaire was divided into three parts: background information of the respondents, causes of delays, and effects of delays (Odeh and Battaineh, 2002; Sambasivan and Soon, 2007).\nResults: Descriptive statistics\nDiscussions: In this research, a theoretical foundation using TCE to explain the link between the causes and effects of delays in the construction industry has been developed. Earlier studies have argued the relevance of TCE in the construction industry but have not explained how TCE can be used to understand the impact of causes on effects of delays. This gap has been filled by recognizing the role of transaction costs in providing the required explanation. Specifically, it is argued that nature of coalition between the firms (clients, contractors, consultants, and suppliers) leads to uncertainty, bounded rationality, and opportunistic behavior (Williamson, 1996). These lead to the effects such as cost overrun, disputes, arbitration, litigation, and abandonment through increase in the transaction costs incurred by the firms.\nConclusions: The current study has argued the role of TCE in the construction-industry literature in explaining the impact of causes on effects of delays. Specifically, it has been shown that increase in transaction costs due to uncertainty, limited rationality, and opportunistic behavior play a crucial role in explaining the impact. The application of SEM in analyzing the complex relationships between causes and effects of delays has been demonstrated. Analyzing and understanding the relationships can help stakeholders reduce the incidences of delays in the construction industry. These two new developments are the important contributions of this study to the body of knowledge on construction industry.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to develop theoretical underpinnings using TCE, and second, to run the analysis using an advanced tool such as structural equation modeling (SEM).\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study was conducted in the construction industry in Tanzania. A questionnaire-based survey method was used. A total of 308 respondents participated in the study. The relationships between the cause and effect factors were analyzed using SEM.\nFindings: The important findings are as follows:cost overrun can be explained by consultant-related and material-related factors; disputes can be explained by cost overrun; arbitration can be explained by consultant-related, cost overrun, and dispute factors; litigation can be explained by client-related, disputes, and arbitration factors; and abandonment can be explained by consultant-related, external-related, disputes, arbitration, and litigation factors.\nOriginality/value: The main contributions of this study are theoretical development and comprehensive analyses of \"cause\" and \"effect\" factors of delays in the construction industry.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The precision of asset beta estimates	[ "Asset beta", "Cost of equity estimation", "Hamada’s equation", "Privately held firms", "Proxy beta", "Pure play method" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Despite a vast body of theoretical and empirical research that has questioned the estimation and validity of beta as the sole measure of relevant risk[1], the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) is one of the most widely used models in financial practice. Over the past half century almost every aspect of the CAPM has been researched and it has often been found lacking with respect to its ability to explain returns. However, its importance in practice makes the ability to precisely estimate its parameters still very relevant.\n2. Background: 2.1 CAPM and leverage\n4. Methods and results: Our sample consists of 75,304 firm-year observations representing 9,942 firms from 1992 to 2013. Given that practitioners tend to use the S&P 500 (a value-weighted index) as a market proxy, we estimate our betas using the CRSP value-weighted index with monthly returns[5]. Following common practice, we compute betas over the previous five years. We also calculate market value of equity at the end of each year using CRSP data. We exclude firms with fewer than 30 available returns over the observation period.\n5. Conclusions: This paper examines the precision of estimating the beta of untraded assets using Hamada's formula and the pure play method. We find no significant relationship between the degree of operating leverage and the intra-industry differences in asset beta. We then identify several measures that can be used by firms to choose comparable companies, and test each of these measures for efficacy in calculating an adequate proxy asset beta. We make several contributions to the literature. First, we compare observed to proxy betas by means of absolute differences rather than average differences, because average differences are close to zero by definition. We find absolute difference to be quite large relative to average asset beta; hence we attempt to improve the estimate using several different metrics to identify peers. No metric we examined improves the estimate to a level of precision we deem acceptable to a practitioner trying to estimate equity cost of capital. In addition, we use lagged variables for the decile matching in order to simulate the information that would actually be available to practitioners when they are choosing peers.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The capital asset pricing model has fundamentally changed the way finance is taught and practiced since its development in 1964. However, one problem with the use of the model is estimating the systematic risk of untraded assets. Academics and practitioners have dealt with the problem by using traded assets as \"proxies\" for the untraded asset. Some academic research has attempted to measure the validity of this technique using the average difference in the true beta of a traded firm and the \"proxy\" beta using a sample of similar firms. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: However, the use of the average difference across a number of comparisons is not necessarily useful to a practitioner. This paper examines the absolute difference between a firm's unlevered beta and a proxy beta calculated using the formula given in Hamada, 1972, and the pure play method.\nFindings: The authors find that the estimates are not reliably close to the true value. Using both deciles of relevant variables and a matching method similar to that used by practitioners, the authors examine a variety of different characteristics to identify similar firms.\nOriginality/value: However, the authors do not find any matching criteria that improves the absolute error of the estimate to a level, the authors believe would be acceptable to practitioners attempting to measure cost of equity capital for their untraded firm or asset. The authors conclude that managers should use pure play estimates of asset beta with caution. More research should be done in order to identify a better way for managers of untraded firms or assets to proxy their systematic risk.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
HRM practices and knowledge sharing: an empirical study	[ "Human resource management", "Knowledge sharing", "Manufacturing industries", "Knowledge management", "Malaysia" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: It is well recognized that human resources are critical inputs in the production process. Organizations manage human resources through establishing human resource (HR) departments in a functional organizational structure, even though the role of HR is not limited to just the HR department itself. Human resource management (HRM) practices are widely recognized as playing a crucial role in creating and sustaining organizational performance (Becker and Gerhart, 1996).Although there is an abundant literature that has investigated the relationship between HRM and organizational performance, there is a shortage of concrete findings on the strength of the relationship between HRM practices and knowledge sharing behavior both in general and, especially, within the Malaysian industry context. Malaysia is a relatively small developing country with an open economy, located within the Southeast Asia (SEA) region. It faces stiff competition from countries around the world in terms of the export of goods and services, and particularly from neighboring countries such as Thailand and Indonesia, following the formation of Asian Free Trade Area (AFTA). Given this competition, Malaysian firms have been searching for mechanisms to sustain and improve their competitiveness in this era of deregulation and globalization. With the ever-increasing importance of the knowledge economy, firms around the world including those in Malaysia have been searching for an appropriate role of HRM to contribute to the competitiveness of their organizations. Consequently, well-designed and managed HRM programs, coupled with a conducive organizational environment for knowledge sharing, are much sought after by Malaysian firms. With the aim of providing the organizations with practical guidance in dealing with HRM and its association with knowledge sharing, this paper investigates whether knowledge sharing by the managers of Malaysian firms is enhanced by the deployment of appropriate HRM practices.Supported by the above rationale, this paper is designed to carry out an empirical study with the core objective of investigating the association between HRM practices and knowledge sharing behavior as perceived by managers in Malaysian manufacturing and service firms. The remaining sections of this empirical paper are arranged in the following manner. The literature review of HRM practices in section 2 discusses the concept and theory of knowledge sharing, and the effect of HRM practices on knowledge sharing behavior. The hypotheses of the research are presented in section 3. The research methodology is discussed in section 4, including detailed information on the research instruments, data, and analysis performed in this study; this is followed by a presentation of the results. The results are discussed in section 5, followed by a consideration of the research limitations of the study (section 6). Implications for researchers and managers, recommendations for future research and final conclusions are provided in section 7.\n2. Literature review: HRM practices\n3. Hypotheses formulation: the link between HRM practices and knowledge sharing: There are a number of factors influencing knowledge sharing behavior of employees. From the literature review of knowledge management and knowledge sharing domain, these could be classified into individual and organizational factors. The former refers to employee motivation, information ownership, benefits and ethics etc. The latter refers to organizational culture, HRM practices, and leadership etc. However, not all HRM practices enhance knowledge sharing; wrong HRM practices can be harmful to knowledge sharing behavior (Currie and Kerrin, 2003). Thus, it is important to choose the appropriate HRM practices that facilitate knowledge sharing among employees in a particular organization. There are certain HRM practices that are found to be effective in encouraging knowledge sharing behavior, e.g. staffing, training and development, performance appraisal and compensation (Cabrera and Cabrera, 2005). For this study, we have chosen five HRM practices that we anticipate would give a substantial positive impact to employee knowledge sharing behavior. These are:1. recruitment and selection;2. compensation and reward;3. performance appraisal;4. teamwork; and5. employee training and development.Recruitment and selection\n4. Methodology: Sample and data collection\n5. Discussion: The overall results of the structural analysis indicate that HRM practices have a significant positive relationship with knowledge sharing. The results show that four out of five HRM practices (i.e. recruitment and selection, performance appraisal, teamwork, and training and development) are significant factors in predicting knowledge sharing among managers (with the exception of compensation and reward).The statistical result reveals that recruitment and selection, being important activities of staffing function in HRM, are significant in enhancing knowledge sharing behavior of managers. This finding is consistent with the finding of Cabrera and Cabrera (2005) that selection of employees with the appropriate value and personality traits will enhance knowledge sharing behaviors. Therefore, it is essential for firms to select the right P-O fit for employees with necessary traits, value, intention and inclination to share knowledge (Chatman, 1991) so that firms will be able to create a better organizational environment and culture for knowledge sharing. This selective hiring practice reaffirmed the finding of Goodman and Svyantek (1999) that the new employees with the closer P-O fit are able to adapt to the new working environment, thus enhancing the interchange of knowledge among old and new employees.It was determined from the results that the association between compensation and reward and knowledge sharing is weak and insignificant. We attribute the weak relationship to the failure of firms to provide good organizational support (Rhoades and Eisenberger, 2002) to motivate managers to share their knowledge with colleagues. This contrasts with the findings of Lin (2007b) for Taiwan that intrinsic rewards (knowledge self-efficacy, and enjoyment in helping others) and part of extrinsic reward (reciprocal benefits) were significantly associated with employee knowledge sharing attitudes and intentions, except for expected organizational rewards. This result may be related to the fact that the respondents are managers, and other factors may play a part in influencing the propensity for knowledge sharing by managers. For instance, the amount of compensation given by the firm is not considered as of value to the managers or there is no sufficient organizational support for knowledge sharing, e.g. fairness of treatment and work conditions.It was found that performance appraisal is significantly associated with knowledge sharing. This result provides evidence that performance appraisal serves as a motivator to enhance knowledge sharing behavior of managers. The results imply that it is important to include knowledge sharing as one of the criteria or components of Key Performance Index (KPI) to measure individual or team performance of workers in an organization. Positive pressure generated by performance appraisal creates a sense of accomplishment (Jaw and Liu, 2003). Employees also display a higher level of knowledge sharing with the expectation of receiving better compensation commensurate with the desired behavior. Provided that performance appraisal is shown to be properly administered, then this could result in successful knowledge sharing behavior in organizations.The results provide strong evidence that teamwork is important in enhancing knowledge sharing behavior among managers. It serves as a critical HR practice to enable a wider sharing of knowledge among members of cohesive teams with similar norms and values. In contrast to an individualist organization, collectivist organizations deemphasize individual success. On the other hand, they tend to provide a strong incentive to individuals who support team members by sharing knowledge across departments (Alberts, 2007). The results emphasize the need for establishing a strong co-operative and collaborative culture (Goh, 2002) through interaction and exchange of information, ideas as well as expertise, in a working team to facilitate knowledge sharing.The research findings elaborate that training and development are found to be significant and contribute to the enhancement of knowledge sharing among employees. This is in line with the results of Ramirez and Li (2009) that knowledge transfer occurs as employees are trained to use new equipment and, in turn, teach others. The finding also reinforces the view that training is important in motivating knowledge sharing, as it provides a platform for employees to gather and share new knowledge. Consequently, the leaders of organizations should recognize the importance of training and development, which serve as a forum for ideas and knowledge to flow freely from one individual to another.\n6. Research limitations and future research: Several limitations have been identified in this study and taken into consideration to improve further research.First, the research design used in this study was cross-sectional instead of longitudinal. Hence, even though the SEM method was adopted, the interpretation of the cause-effect-relationship among the variables could not be determined (Tippins and Sohi, 2003, p. 746; Martinez-Costa and Jimenez-Jimenez, 2009, p. 115). Therefore, since only the existence of the positive and significant associations has been observed, the cause and effect relationships among the variables cannot be confirmed. In this case, longitudinal research designs serve to be more constructive compared with cross-sectional designs when it comes to providing causation evidence between HRM practices and knowledge sharing.Second, the sample data collected represent only firms, both manufacturing and service, from Malaysia. Future research may consider collecting data from other Asia Pacific countries, such as Singapore, Japan and China, so that a more comprehensive study can be made of the global manufacturing and service industry.Third, the questionnaire survey may suffer from response bias, although this is a cost-effective and, generally, reliable research method. Therefore, it is proposed that field observations and qualitative interviews of managers from the sample should be conducted too.Last, due to the deficiency of current measurement issues in both HRM and knowledge sharing, the methods used in the present study are best regarded as preliminary. This is because the five HRM practices and knowledge sharing methods are extracted from past research studies. Further improvements are needed in HRM key dimensions as several other HRM practices (e.g. degree of employee participation in decision making, empowerment and job definition, etc.) could probably have an effect on employees' knowledge sharing.\n7. Conclusion and implications: In conclusion, the purpose of this study is to investigate the associations between the practices of HRM and knowledge sharing among managers, in Malaysian industry. The empirical findings have shown that HRM practices are positively associated with knowledge sharing. Apart from this, the findings provide evidence showing training and development, recruitment and selection, teamwork and performance appraisal have a positively impact on managers' knowledge sharing. Training and development and recruitment and selection are perceived to be the dominant HRM practices and both are significantly related to the knowledge sharing of managers.Theoretical implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the association between human resource management (HRM) practices and knowledge sharing from the Malaysian industry context.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The method of exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were employed to evaluate the reliability and validity of the measurement model. The structural equation modeling (SEM) method was applied to examine the theoretical framework.\nFindings: - The results indicate that recruitment and selection, teamwork, training and development, and performance appraisal, showed a positive relationship with knowledge sharing, as perceived by the managers in the Malaysian manufacturing and service organizations.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The research design in this study was cross-sectional rather than longitudinal. Hence, even though the SEM method was adopted, the interpretations of the cause-effect-relationship among the variables could not be determined. In this case, longitudinal research designs serve to be more constructive as compared with cross-sectional designs in providing causation evidence between HRM practices and knowledge sharing.\nPractical implications: - Findings from this study should be beneficial for HRM managers in developing countries such as Malaysia, who plan to develop competitive knowledge sharing competencies through the adoption of HRM practices.\nOriginality/value: - The contribution of this study is the construction of a measurement system of HRM practices and knowledge sharing that could facilitate future research on human resource management, as well as highlighting important implications for HR managers in developing countries.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Understanding entrepreneurial deviance through social learning and entrepreneurial action theory: an empirical study	[ "Entrepreneurial deviance", "Business ethics", "Entrepreneurial action", "Social learning theory", "Beekeepers", "New Zealand" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The importance of entrepreneurship, particularly concerning its positive socioeconomic effects, is widely recognised (Audretsch, 2000; Toma et al., 2014). While the academic literature has proposed many conceptualisations of entrepreneurship, a suitable definition is possibly \"the largest obstacle in creating a conceptual framework for the entrepreneurship field\" (Shane and Venkataraman, 2000, p. 218). This study will adopt Shane and Venkataraman's (2000) conceptualisation. In considering earlier research (Venkataraman, 1997), these authors define entrepreneurship as the study of evaluating, potential sources and maximisation of opportunities, processes of discovery and the study of people involved in these processes, namely, the entrepreneurs.\nLiterature review: Deviant behaviour\nMethodology: As advocated by authors (Bell et al., 2018; Bryman, 2016; Silverman, 2013), and as detailed in the following paragraphs, this study makes various key methodological considerations regarding its research approach, sampling methodology and data collection methods to ensure robustness of analysis and findings.\nFindings: Entrepreneurial deviance - Impacts\nDiscussion: Theory has been conceptualised as any coherent explanation or description of experienced or observed phenomena; furthermore, the process of theory building consists of generating, testing, or refining theoretical representations (Gioia and Pitre, 1990). Corley and Gioia (2011) agree that originality (revelatory or incremental) and utility (pragmatic/scientific usefulness) are two dimensions pertaining to what constitutes a theoretical contribution. This study adopted social learning and entrepreneurial action theory in the context of entrepreneurial deviance. The resulting refinement represented by the conceptual framework (Figure 1) is the outcome of recurrent links that have alignment with the above theories and authors. First, the following sections discuss various linkages between SLT and the findings, particularly Bandura and Walters (1977):\nConclusions: According to Harris et al. (2009), there is growing scholarly attention to the intersection between ethics and entrepreneurship. By examining unethical practices through entrepreneurial deviance from the perspective of entrepreneurs being affected by this phenomenon in a burgeoning industry, the present study has made various contributions to the entrepreneurship literature. Fundamentally, the study proposed a theoretical framework combining social learning and entrepreneurial action theory to deepen and advance the understanding of factors stimulating and triggering entrepreneurial deviance. In doing so, the study has also addressed knowledge gaps identified in previous studies (Ji et al., 2017; Khan et al., 2007; Miller, 2015), notably, in regards to the scant research illuminating knowledge of the negative, or dark side of entrepreneurship (Kets de Vries, 1985). In turn, the study's findings contribute to the current body of knowledge and shed light on lesser discussed aspects of entrepreneurship, combining two major theoretical models in the understanding of deviance alongside facilitating further understanding in business ethics and/or its drivers. Similarly, by identifying various considerations for beekeepers and local associations/bodies, the study provides useful practical insights and signposting for the industry.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this exploratory study is to examine entrepreneurial deviance from the perspective of New Zealand's commercial honey producers. The study adopts entrepreneurial action and social learning theories and proposes a theoretical framework in the context of entrepreneurial deviance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected through online surveys from 52 professional beekeepers.\nFindings: Overstocking of beehives, encroachment, biosecurity threats and unfair competition were most common forms of deviance affecting participants. While these predominantly responded through investing in disease prevention, security equipment or by reporting deviant incidents, finding proper solutions remains elusive. The findings revealed robust alignments with both theories. Overall, offenders' perceived incentives to act illustrate alignment with social learning theory's four key constructs. Entrepreneurial action emerged through individual perpetrators' evaluation and subsequent maximisation of potentially lucrative opportunities.\nOriginality/value: The study addresses an important and under-researched dimension, notably, the negative or \"dark\" side of entrepreneurs, in this case, illustrated through greed and disregard for fair and proper ways of conducting business. This knowledge gap is even more obvious among small and medium business, which is also the focus of the research.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Does doing good pay off? Social impact bonds and lessons for Islamic finance to serve the real economy	[ "Social impact bonds", "SRI sukuk", "Social impact sukuk", "Social responsibility", "G10", "G23", "P43", "P34", "M14. KAUJIE Classification — K19", "R48", "I43", "I73", "L4" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Social impact bonds (SIBs) are innovative mechanisms that bring together the public, private and voluntary sectors to address social issues that focus on delivery of outcomes. SIB is a commissioning tool where social investors provide the initial funding for a social project and receive returns based on the impact or results achieved from the project (UK Government, 2012). Broadly speaking, SIBs are a part of the \"social finance\" discourse that is happening especially in the western world. The term \"social finance\" can be described as any investment activity that generates financial returns and considers social and environmental impact which comprises four main strategies: socially responsible investing, environmental finance, development finance and impact investing (Davis Pluess et al., 2015).\n2. Social impact bonds: SIB is a financial mechanism that helps raise investments to alleviate social problems. SIB development is often credited to a not-for-profit organisation called Social Finance, based in the UK. Social Finance was set up in 2007 to better understand the shortfall in funding the social sector. As things began to progress, Social Finance gained valuable insight on the fundamental issues relating to funding social services. With this, Social Finance (n.d.) designed various structures that would offer flexibility and long-term funding, encourage innovation, and deliver impact - this eventually led to the SIB model.\n3. Risks and limitations of SIB: Although there are plenty of theoretical and proven benefits of SIB from initial pilots, the SIB model is not free from risks and limitations. McKay (2013) highlights that the risk shifting from the public sector to the private sector that is anticipated from SIB may not occur on a substantial scale as there is a lack of an investment market that tolerates a high degree of risk in outcomes for social programmes.\n4. Case study: Peterborough SIB: In 2010, the world's first SIB was launched in the UK with support from its Ministry of Justice. Using the SIB mechanism, approximately PS5m was raised from 17 investors to fund an intervention called \"the One Service\". The intervention programme aimed to reduce reoffending by short-term prisoners (less than 12 months) who have been released from HMP Peterborough. It was identified that reoffending rates within a year of release for short-term prisoners were as high as 60 per cent in the UK. This happened because upon release, most of these people did not have a place to live, no job, no family waiting for them and often ended up mixing with the same crowd (Helbitz et al., 2011).\n5. SRI development in Islamic finance: The SIB model is commonly linked with \"SRI\", which is a generic term used as an acronym for sustainable, responsible and impactful investments (CIWM, 2015b), SRIs (Bennet and Iqbal, 2013; Renneboog et al., 2008), and sustainable and responsible investment (CIMB, 2015; Securities Commission Malaysia, 2014a). All these terms vary but almost connotate the same meanings. Generally, it can be understood that SRI encompasses social, sustainable, responsible, impactful investments or strategies. In this paper, \"SRI\" is used as a general representation of all the terms.\n6. Development of SIS and key lessons from Peterborough SIB: This section expands on the idea of a general SIS model and proposes the key elements that must be taken into account when developing this instrument. These key elements are extracted from the lessons learned from the Peterborough SIB case study.\n7. Conclusion: This paper raises the question to whether \"doing good pays off?\" The case studies of Peterborough SIB and Ihsan SRI sukuk show evidences that doing good does indeed pay off, not only monetarily but also towards the social context. The paper also highlighted the encouraging growth of the SRI sector within the Islamic finance industry. However, the paper argues that there are still weaknesses and shortcomings of the progress of SRI development in Islamic finance practice where they mimic their conventional counterparts by making instruments \"Shariah-compliant\" whilst neglecting the true values and substance of Islamic finance such as risk sharing and social impact. As such, the paper argues for the need to break this formalist deadlock and revive Islamic finance values through innovative developments that give priority to measurable social impact. Taking key lessons from the experiences of Peterborough SIB, the paper proposes SIS as a possible innovative tool. In doing so, the future development of SRI in Islamic finance and specifically SIS must put into consideration several aspects: social impact; measurable success indicators; data collection and management systems; flexibility of contracts; integration of third sector and stakeholder collaboration; the practice of true risk-sharing concept; and the culture of fostering new ideas and innovation. With more comprehensive and genuine SRI considerations, Islamic finance can truly play a greater role in contributing towards the Islamic economy, and provide holistic solutions to social problems that are impactful and can bring benefit to the whole universe (rahmatan lil 'aalamiin).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the world's first social impact bond (SIB) and the lessons that can be learned for the Islamic finance industry to fulfil its true objectives.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The Peterborough SIB was recently announced to be successful in achieving its targeted social and investment outcomes, reducing recidivism by 9 per cent and paying back investors a 3 per cent pa return. The paper compares Peterborough SIB with socially responsible investment (SRI) sukuk in terms of form and substance, and finds that there are various lessons from the Peterborough SIB that can be useful for future development of Islamic financial products.\nFindings: Innovative social financial tools such as SIB exemplify the true spirit of risk sharing and social responsibility, which is arguably missing in current practices of the Islamic finance industry. With the growing interest towards SRI strategies and increase in socially motivated investors, such financial tools may not only help the sustainable growth of the Islamic finance industry, but also fill in the gap between its theory and practice.\nPractical implications: As such, the paper also proposes a social impact sukuk model which integrates the key aspects learned from Peterborough SIB. This includes prioritising social impact, measurable success indicators, data and management systems, flexible contracts, third sector integration, risk sharing and fostering the culture of innovation.\nOriginality/value: The findings can offer some practical insights in dealing with the issue of Islamic finance practice being overly concerned with its formal adherence with Islamic legal rules whilst neglecting its true fundamental values.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Learning the discourse of quality assurance: A case of workplace learning in online in-service training	[ "Chat discussions", "Documentary practices", "Food production", "General vocabularies", "Online in-service training" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In this study, the research interest concerns online in-service training in the Swedish food production industry. The food production industry is undergoing transformation, becoming more regulated and facing new demands on competence within the production, making it an interesting educational case. Workplace training is increasingly supported by, and dependent on information technology (IT). Because companies are operating in an intensely competitive, global arena, the employees need to be continuously educated throughout their careers. IT is seen both as part of this challenge and as a possible aid. As Cheng et al. (2014, p. 57) stated, creating an \"[...] information intensive and technology oriented working life have led to new ways of learning and training through the adoption of e-learning and information and communication technologies\". The changing demands at work can also be understood as one reason why education has difficulties in providing the knowledge needed at work, a gap discussed by Tynjala (2008). According to Tynjala (2008, p. 145), students \"need to be provided with conceptual and pedagogical tools which make it possible for them to integrate theoretical knowledge with their practical experiences\".\nTheoretical perspective: Transformations through regulating and procedural practices are theoretically understood as a set of changes that bring about highly specific documentary practices. In this manner, in-service training may be considered as an example of an activity through which documentary practices are implemented, as new textual practices are particularly relevant in companies seeking to participate in global economies (Farrell, 2001). Smith (2005) argued that such documentary practices are central to institutions' coordination to regulate what people are made accountable for in their work. A main function of such discursive practices is documentary governance (Smith, 2005; Smith and Schryer, 2008). The unique property of written documents is that the same content can be shared at multiple local work sites (Smith, 2001). Consequently, for rules and regulations to be implemented and coordinated across multiple local settings and over time, generic vocabularies hold a remarkable capacity to have far-reaching consequences (Wagner, 2005).\nEmpirical case and data: The empirical material consists of chat log files from in-service training courses. The courses address the issues of food safety and QA. In 2006, the European Union initiated new food regulations that considerably raised the requirements and standards for food handling procedures. The regulations state that all employees handling and preparing food in some way are required to work systematically according to specific QA methods.\nMethod: Garcia and Jacobs (1999) argued that the ongoing construction of the chat cannot be captured in chat log files, as the process of producing a posting is private and therefore not visible to other participants until it is posted. In this study, we acknowledge that the process of formulating a posting is unavailable to the other course participants and cannot be used as a resource for understanding in the chat sessions. This implies that what is available as resources and contributions to which participants respond needs to be made recognisable in the chat forum to be picked up and oriented to as social actions. It is precisely on these premises that this communication develops. Thus, the concern here is, thus, not with the production of posted texts, but rather the way posted texts are organized in the chat sessions so as to be intelligible to the participants (Nilsen and Makitalo, 2010).\nResults: Each course included one to nine chat sessions and each chat session lasted 20 minutes to 2 hours. The number of participants in the studied sessions varied between 1 and 10, including experts. The number of postings in the sessions ranged from 13 to 288. With regard to the number of postings produced by individual participants in each of the sessions, the course experts clearly dominated the discussions with 30-60 per cent of the total number of postings in each chat. The chat sessions were initiated and moderated by course experts.\nDiscussion and conclusions: This study examined online text-based discussions as part of in-service training for employees in the food industry, particularly how current work practices and experiences are confronted with the new discursive practices of general QA principles and vocabulary. The in-service training has specific implications for the participants' work practices. In contrast to higher education, in the in-service training, participants will be accountable for the issues they discuss, which necessitate a different relation to the content at hand. The approach they are supposed to develop for their work practice cannot be found in the curriculum alone. Rather, the in-service training provides a context in which the participants are expected to learn a QA discourse that will permeate the industry they are working in. In the online discussions, they are expected to learn how to write different kinds of plans and documents and how to establish and maintain a QA discourse and approach in their own work practices. Although the course experts might \"own\" the issues during the in-service training efforts, the participants will subsequently be made accountable for implementing these QA issues in their own organisations.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: In this study, online in-service training for people employed in the food production industry is scrutinized. The purpose of this study is to analyse how the participants adapt to such online environments in terms of the kind of discussions they establish. The more specific interest relates to how the participants discuss current work experiences in relation to the contents of quality assurance they are expected to learn.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data analyzed are Web discussions in forms of chat log files from ten courses.\nFindings: The results show that, on the one hand, general principles have to be substantiated in the form of concrete examples to actually function as principles and, on the other hand, concrete examples are made interesting only if they have a bearing on a more general issue. Another interesting finding is that the course participants gradually take over the vocabulary of quality assurance; they more frequently write about their work in terms of, e.g. criteria, relevance, estimations and hazards. The conclusion is that Web discussions as part of in-service training constitute a new arena for reflection in and on practice.\nOriginality/value: This is interesting to explore, as it is designed to meet the needs of employers and employees to learn the new set of rules and procedures, which regulate the European food industry. In this respect, the training activities are of direct relevance to daily work practices. Simultaneously, online environments seem to offer flexibility and thus constitute a solution for training in a dispersed industry.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Understanding the determinants of mobile payment continuance usage	[ "Trust", "Mobile payment", "Flow", "Continuance usage" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Mobile internet has been developing rapidly in the world. According to a report issued by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) in January 2014, the number of mobile internet users in China has exceeded 500 million, accounting for 81 percent of its internet population (618 million) (CNNIC, 2014). Faced with the great market, service providers have released a variety of mobile services, such as mobile instant messaging, mobile search, mobile games and mobile payment. As a basic application of mobile business, mobile payment has received considerable attention from enterprises. For example, Alipay, the largest online payment service provider in China, has offered its mobile payment product to users. Tencent, the largest instant messaging company in China, has also developed WeChat payment that can be accessed via mobile devices. Telecommunication service providers such as China Mobile have released mobile payment products, which enable users to pay public bus fees and buy cinema tickets through their mobile phones. These enterprises have recognized the opportunity of mobile payment market and tried to achieve advantages in the intense competition. Extant research has noted that the cost of acquiring a new user is five times that of retaining an existing user (Reichheld and Schefter, 2000). Service providers have invested great effort and resources on acquiring new users. If they cannot retain these users, they will not recover costs and make profits. Thus, it is critical to retain users and facilitate their continuance usage. On the other hand, the switching costs are low. Users can easily switch from a service provider to an alternative one. This also highlights the need to retain users.\n2. Research model and hypotheses: 2.1 Mobile payment user adoption\n3. Method: The research model includes seven factors. Each factor was measured with multiple items. All items were adapted from extant literature to improve content validity (Straub et al., 2004). When the instrument was developed, it was tested among five users that had mobile payment usage experience. Two of them were e-commerce faculties and all of them had used mobile payment for more than half a year. Then according to their comments, we revised some items to improve the clarity and understandability. We conducted an exploratory factor analysis with data collected from 40 mobile payment users. The results indicated that each item has a high loading on its corresponding factor, and low cross-loadings (<0.4) on other factors. We also checked the Cronbach a values of each factor and all of them are larger than 0.7. These results demonstrate the good reliability and validity of the scale. The final items and their sources are listed in the Appendix.\n4. Results: Following the two-step approach recommended by Anderson and Gerbing (1988), we first examined the measurement model to test reliability and validity. Then we examined the structural model to test research hypotheses and model fitness.\n5. Discussion: As shown in Figure 2, except H1.1, H2.2, H3.1 and H3.3, other hypotheses are supported. Trust in online payment affects trust in mobile payment and flow. System quality strongly affects performance expectancy and flow. Information quality has a significant effect on trust in mobile payment, which in turn affects performance expectancy and flow. These three factors determine continuance usage.\n6. Theoretical and managerial implications: From a theoretical perspective, this research identified the factors affecting continuance usage of mobile payment. As noted earlier, extant research has focussed on users' initial adoption and usage of mobile payment, and has seldom examined post-adoption usage. Due to the high acquisition costs and low switching costs, it is critical to retain users and facilitate their continuance usage. This research tries to fill the gap. We integrate three perspectives of performance expectancy, trust and flow to examine continuance usage. The results indicated that these three factors have significant effects on continuance usage. Among them, flow and performance expectancy have relatively larger effects. And system quality has strong effects on both flow and performance expectancy. On the other hand, extant research has mainly been concerned with the effects of instrumental beliefs such as perceived usefulness on mobile payment user behavior, and has seldom considered the effect of flow experience. Perceived usefulness represents an extrinsic motivation that emphasizes usage outcomes, whereas flow represents an intrinsic motivation that emphasizes usage process. User behavior may receive a dual influence from both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations (Davis et al., 1992). Thus, it is necessary to combine both perspectives of extrinsic and intrinsic motivations to examine mobile user behavior. Our results indicated that both performance expectancy and flow have significant effects on continuance usage. These results advance our understanding of mobile payment user behavior.\n7. Conclusion: Retaining users and facilitating their continuance usage are crucial to the success of mobile payment service providers. By integrating three perspectives of performance expectancy, trust and flow experience, this research identified the factors affecting continuance usage. The results imply that service providers need to deliver a positive utility and compelling experience to users in order to facilitate their continuance usage.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors affecting continuance usage of mobile payment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on the valid responses collected from a survey questionnaire, structural equation modeling (SEM) technology was employed to examine the research model.\nFindings: The results indicated that performance expectancy, trust in mobile payment and flow affect continuance usage. Among them, flow has a relatively larger effect. In addition, system quality has strong effects on performance expectancy and flow.\nResearch limitations/implications: This research is conducted in China, where mobile internet is still in its early stage. Thus, the results need to be generalized to other countries that have developed mobile internet.\nOriginality/value: Extant research has mainly focussed on the effects of instrumental beliefs such as perceived usefulness on mobile payment user behavior, and has seldom considered the effect of flow experience. This research tries to fill the gap.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Billions of impoverished people deserve to be better served: A call to action for the service research community	[ "Transformative service research", "Systems theory", "Service design", "Base of the pyramid", "Community action research" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: A Vision for the Service Research Community - \"A Dream with a Deadline\". By 2020, to help improve the lives of the world's impoverished people in an unrelenting, collaborative, and caring effort by applying our resources (intellectual, financial, and time), social networks (globally via the Internet and locally via physical presence), and professional infrastructures (universities, organizations, and conferences) and become a role model for how an academic research community can make a difference in the world\nIntroduction: Poverty is truly a wicked problem with no easy solutions. Every country has large numbers of citizens trapped in poverty, which led the United Nations (2015) to boldly declare that ending poverty is their Number 1 Sustainable Development Goal. When so many people in so many countries live in multi-generational poverty, the service systems of human society are failing to deliver adequate basic services. Such basic service systems include health, education, public safety, transportation, energy, sanitation, and such life support services as food, water, and shelter. Poverty is difficult to reduce because the service systems of human society are complex and interrelated. Further, the poor are routinely the victims of crime and corruption, which makes their plight all the more tragic.\nThe BoP: service problems and opportunities: BoP has become the common description for the approximately two thirds of the world's population who live on the equivalent of less than nine US Dollars per day (Arnold and Valentin, 2013). For these impoverished people, limited access to basic services and inadequate service systems leave them mired in poverty. These service problems include limited or no access to health care, education, transportation, and electricity; no sanitation; insufficient or poor quality food; no clean drinking water; and no adequate housing.\nUnderstanding the role of service systems in perpetuating poverty: Seeking to understand and reduce poverty is a difficult quest. To understand poverty requires examining the historical nature of the service systems where human life occurs. Systems theory is then explored to better understand the complex service system problems of the BoP.\nResearch approaches for understanding and reducing poverty: To expand beyond the significant streams of BoP research, we offer three service research approaches that are well suited to complex service system problems like the BoP. Transformative service research (TSR), service design research, and Community action research CAR were chosen based on our own expertise. There are numerous other service approaches that are relevant to the BoP problem that are not articulated here because of the space limitations of this short paper. For example, service ecosystems in the BoP (Ben Letaifa and Reynoso, 2015) and service co-creation in low-income markets via socially inclusive service innovation (Reynoso et al., 2015) are useful approaches to combine existing BoP research with service research priorities.\nCall to action: service research engages with the BoP: Developing and conducting service research that seeks to transform conditions at the BoP is overdue. We believe the service research community is ready for a call to action based on four pillars: the development of knowledge exchange activities for sharing ideas, experiences, and practices among researchers and practitioners from developed and developing countries; the design of joint research projects; the enhancement of established service theories and empirical generalizations; and the global promotion and diffusion of these research results.\nConclusion: Our service research community has a long history of generosity toward one another that has helped us grow and prosper as a field. The prehistory of our species shows that we are hardwired for such egalitarian generosity. Now we need to extend that generosity of spirit to those less fortunate by developing research projects that help impoverished people escape the poor service systems that undermines their futures and the futures of their children. Flawed service systems prevent our species from living in more just and equitable social, political, and economic systems. With better service design and social innovation, poverty can be significantly reduced.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to create a movement within the service research community that aspires to help the billions of impoverished people across the world achieve better service from each other, from their communities, from corporations, from their governments, and from nongovernmental organizations. The authors believe every human being is worthy of being served properly. To achieve this purpose, understanding and learning from this huge low-income segment of society known as the base of the pyramid (BoP) is essential. There are myths about the BoP that need to be dispelled and there is a fundamental lack of service research on this important problem.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The existence of an extensive BoP literature combined with service research priorities has called attention to drafting research agendas. Human service systems are explored historically and systems theory provides a perspective for understanding and reducing poverty. Transformative service research, service design research, and community action research are presented to illustrate three research approaches that can contribute to understanding and then better serving the needs of the neglected billions of humanity.\nFindings: First, the authors present a practical and meaningful call to action by making the case for the service research community to contribute to poverty alleviation with the creation of fresh ideas and research agendas. Second, the authors describe the ample opportunity for conducting service research in and with the BoP and thereby expanding service knowledge about the BoP. Third, the authors suggest a number of approaches for service researchers to join this new movement and help improve the well-being of billions of impoverished people.\nSocial implications: Most existing service research comes from highly developed Anglo-Saxon countries and concerns the service problems of customers in affluent societies. Therefore, there is a fundamental lack of service research at the BoP. The social implications are truly global. Poverty is a global service system problem that can be reduced. Effective poverty alleviation solutions in one part of the world can be adapted to other parts of the world.\nOriginality/value: This paper is a new and very original call to action to the service research community. First, with the exception of a few previous manuscripts calling for research on the BoP, this is the first time a collaborative effort has been made to start systematically changing this knowledge gap. Second, the service research community has never worked on a project of this magnitude. The authors hope to offer a role model to other academic communities as to how to marshal their resources to have a collective, positive impact on the well-being of the world's impoverished.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Health knowledge construction and pedagogical style in Finnish health education textbooks	[ "Books", "Health education", "Finland", "National curriculum" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The textbook as a pedagogical tool\nAims of the study: The aim of this study was to answer three questions arising from previous research and practice:1. What is the construction of health knowledge adopted in Finnish textbooks used for health education purposes?2. What type of pedagogical style is used?3. To what extent do the core contents meet the content of the national curriculum?We wanted to analyze the pedagogical properties of recent Finnish health knowledge textbooks at three levels. The three-level approach was taken because we believe that if we wish to analyze knowledge construction in textbooks we will have to analyze both the text and the contents:1. Conceptual knowledge construction. Analysing both the text and illustrations of the textbook, we aimed to evaluate whether more emphasis was placed on the BM or on the HP approach.2. Text. Our aim was to evaluate whether the pedagogical style of the text was written to give:* neutral information;* persuasive comments;* participative actions; or* injunctive instruction.We also aimed to assess how well the illustrations and student tasks were designed to increase students' understanding of the learning topic.3. Content. Our aim was to evaluate whether the health knowledge content, in recent health knowledge and biology textbooks, met the contents of the national curriculum.This study was part of an international, European Union funded, FP6 STREP Project, Biohead-Citizen (Carvalho et al., 2004). The project involved 19 countries and compared syllabuses and textbooks as well as pre-service and in-service teachers' conceptions of health knowledge. In this paper, we present the Finnish data and discuss health pedagogy as reflected in Finnish texts.\nMethods: Selection of textbooks\nResults: Conceptual knowledge construction level: biomedical vs health promotion approaches\nDiscussion: In this study, the content of six recent Finnish textbooks used in health education was compared with the national health education curriculum. Four of these textbooks (three health knowledge and one biology textbook) were further analysed to examine the health knowledge construction approach adopted and the pedagogical style of the texts, illustrations and tasks. Textbooks predominantly elaborated the conception of health from the HP point of view. The textual presentation favoured constructivist learning. However, illustrations did not usually support a constructivist approach. Although the national curriculum contains a wide range of health topics it was well covered by the textbooks.Our main interest was to explore the extent to which these recent textbooks had adopted a HP approach. In the textbooks analysed, illustrations constructed health knowledge mostly using the HP approach. In the textual presentation, however, there was a shift from the HP to the BM approach when moving from elementary school textbooks to upper level and to upper secondary level textbooks. A similar trend was also found when Finnish texts were compared internationally (Carvalho et al., 2008). In the international comparisons, one Finnish textbook was scored amongst the first five that favoured the HP approach (Carvalho et al., 2008). Information in textbooks was often written in an empowering style. Empowering in this context means helping students to take control of their personal health decisions and their immediate and global environment. In this, we need all three things: knowledge, values and practices. Also, environmental context was often used both in illustrations and text, indicating the importance of social environments to HP. Generally, health was pictured as holistic; including mental, social, and physical well-being.The number of illustrations was high. They were not, however, well connected with the learning topics. As a result, they rarely served a didactic purpose. On this basis, we think that illustration did not support well the constructivist approach. Similar results have also been reported by Mikkila-Erdmann et al. (1999) and Hannus (1996). This indicates that Finnish textbooks have space for improvement in their pedagogical illustration style.The textual presentation was mostly informative, but also persuasive and participative text styles were recorded. The texts were seldom injunctive. Persuasive styles were used to encourage and motivate students to adopt HP practices by explicitly reasoning the recommendation. The participative style included sentences and comments which made students discuss health matters and reflect upon their own practices. The analyses revealed that a persuasive style was most often used in secondary level textbooks and a participative style was typically used in student tasks which encouraged active knowledge adoption. Injunctive style, which was least used in the textbooks, gave information but did not explain it to the students. Our findings indicate that the emphasis is on pedagogical styles that aim to increase student's understanding on the learning topic by giving basic information and by explaining the recommended health actions.This study was part of the international Biohead-Citizen - Project, involving 19 countries, to analyse and compare the pedagogical styles used in health and science textbooks at primary and secondary levels of education. Health knowledge is taught as a self-standing subject, however, only in Finland and Estonia. In Finland, health knowledge education only recently gained (in 2006) this status in all upper and upper secondary level schools, making this study particularly timely. At the national level, the latest curriculum dates back to 2004. The studied textbooks were, therefore, the first compulsory texts reflecting the new national curriculum. The grids for analyses were validated (Carvalho et al., 2008) and researcher triangulation was used in performing analyses. Classifications were informative and clear enough to be recommended for use in future analyses.The wide range of health topics to be covered by the national curriculum, poses a great challenge to the authors of new textbooks. An approach that requires a wide variety of topics in one textbook, as was the case in the textbooks analysed in this study, can have either positive or negative effects on learning. A book with a plethora of fragmented topics can lead to an unnecessary volume of knowledge, but it can also serve as a library or a resource of easily available information when needed ( Mikkila-Erdmann et al., 1999).In addition to criticism of the wide range and detailed list of topics included in the new national curriculum (FNBE, 2003, 2004), recent research has suggested a need for review based on user demand. Hameen-Anttila et al. (2005), for example, reported that most teachers and primary level pupils would like to see pharmaceuticals and medication included in the list of topics that are covered.Our results showed that the pedagogic style of textbooks is conducive to the construction of health knowledge in students. Textbooks construct health knowledge from the viewpoint of HP, and their pedagogical style encourages knowledge construction. The health content is wide-rangeing and corresponds well to the national curriculum. The textbooks also form a logical continuum from one school level to the next. However, the textbook illustrations need to be developed to better facilitate learning.The adopted approach to health knowledge education and the pedagogical style used are important parts of the learning process. Textbooks are central didactic tools and as such they guide teachers in their approach to learning and teaching. This study has analysed the textual component of learning materials. In future research, more information would be needed on the way in which teachers actually use the new health education materials in the classroom setting and on the opinions of students at different ages.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to compare the construction of health knowledge in the Finnish national curriculum and recent Finnish health education textbooks, at primary and secondary levels of education. The authors examine the visual and textual content of the textbooks in an attempt to identify their pedagogical style and approach to health education.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study is part of an international, European Union funded, FP6 STREP Project, Biohead-Citizen. Conceptual health knowledge construction is analysed evaluating the emphasis placed on a biomedical model or on a health promotion ( HP) approach. Pedagogical style of the text and illustration is classified as either neutral, persuasive, participative or injunctive, out of which especially persuasive and participative reflect the constructionist approach.\nFindings: - The textbooks cover a wide range of health topics and meet the core contents of the national curriculum. The approach used was primarily that of HP and used a persuasive and participative approach. The pedagogical style of text, tasks and illustrations reflected current pedagogical thinking.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The study encourages future research to explore the effects of pedagogical construction on materials and learning in health education.\nOriginality/value: - The paper usefully analyzes the pedagogical properties of recent Finnish health knowledge textbooks.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
UK Generation Y male fashion consciousness	[ "United Kingdom", "Consumers", "Fashion", "Surveys", "Retailers" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the last two decades there have been significant changes in the way in which men see themselves as shoppers. For example, men are increasingly spending longer living by themselves without a significant other to shop for them (Scase, 1999). Indeed it is predicted that by 2021, 42 percent of all adult males in the UK will be unmarried or single, up from 35 percent of all adult males in 2001 (Scase, 1999). Moreover, on average, men earn PS116 per week more than women do (Equal Opportunities Commission, 2001) and 95 percent of 25-44 year old men are economically active; by far the most economically active group (Social Trends, 2001). As a result, single males generate over 20 percent of total consumer spending and represent a potentially lucrative market for retailers and fashion marketers. To date, there have been limited numbers of examples of male-targeted strategies. In the USA, for example, Woolworth's Drug Mart division has been targeting male shoppers since 1995 and, in the UK, Boots and Marks & Spencer's have both made moves on the male market with varying degrees of success. Menswear sales are forecast to increase by 8 percent over the next few years (Mintel, 2000) and between 1995 and 2004 the male clothing retail sector is expected to sustain its significant growth and was estimated to be worth around PS7 billion in 2001 (Mintel, 2000). London Men's Fashion Week was launched in 1998 and has proven itself to be highly successful. In particular there have been major changes in men's awareness of fashion through various sources including men's magazines such as: FHM and FHM Collections, Menswear, Loaded, Sky Magazine, Men's Health, Maxim, Attitude and GQ which have benefited from significant growth (up +300 percent between 1995-2000, Mintel, 2000).Historically, the practice of shopping and clothing consumption has been regarded as being a female issue, yet marketers are increasingly recognising that it is outmoded to view men as \"producers\" and women as \"consumers\". Although appearance consciousness has had a greater influence on women, a number of social theorists propose that environmental changes are redefining what it means to be a \"man\" and therefore, the phenomenon of the uninterested fashion-less male is outmoded (e.g. Edwards, 1998; Mort, 1996; Wernick, 1991; Featherstone, 1995; Kacen, 2000; Tseelon, 1995; Patterson and Elliot, 2002). This is particularly so for Generation Y males have been socialised by mass media and marketing activities to a greater extent than previous generations. Generation Y are the children of the \"Baby Boomers\" generation or \"Generation X\" (Herbig et al., 1993)1. In the US alone, there are approximately 60 million Generation Ys (Newborne and Kerwin, 1999) and in the UK the number of 15-21 year olds is growing to around 6 million (Census, 2001). When Generation Y's come of age they have unprecedented purchasing power (for example, US teenagers spend $97.3 billion annually) of which two thirds goes on clothing (Ebenkamp, 1999). Indeed, by the age of nine most boys have an understanding of fashion brands and their desirability (Hogg and Bruce, 1998). Interestingly, a recent study of fashion consciousness in Eastern European markets showed that young male respondents were more fashion conscious than their female counterparts (Manrai et al., 2001). It is likely therefore that Generation Y males have been socialised to view fashion in a more positive light compared with previous generations. The combined effect of: media influences, commercial practice and changing gender-roles/households, have set new cultural norms whereby fashion is something Generation Y men are aware of and involved with. To shed some light on this change, the research objectives were to examine the degree to which Generation Y males are fashion conscious and to explore the elements of fashion consciousness for Generation Y males using a revised and gender-specific version of Gould and Stern (1989) Fashion Consciousness Scale.\nBackground literature: Although the term \"fashion\" is used often to denote trends in consumerism, for the purpose of this article we were interested in the subject of clothing and how gender influences the buying and self-identity of Generation Y men. Since materialism has been argued to be a key influence in constructing a sense of self-identity, it is unsurprising that many studies have shown gender to be an important variable in fashion clothing consumption. For example, research on the functions of clothes and clothing (dis)satisfaction amongst British students revealed that men have a \"self-orientated\" approach to clothes and focus more upon functional benefits such as warmth and durability. Conversely women are more likely to adopt an \"other-orientated\" approach where clothes are used in terms of their symbolic value for gaining approval and acceptance from peers (Cox and Dittmar, 1995). This \"self\" versus \"other\" behavioural difference between the sexes can be explained by social conditioning which starts early as evidenced by clothing advertisements emphasising appearance issues for girls rather than boys (Ogletree et al., 1990). Girls also buy clothes with their peers, rather than parents, at an earlier age (Peters, 1989) and are more concerned with peer approval when they buy compared with boys (Kaiser and Freeman, 1989). In addition, clothes swapping, more frequently found amongst girls, can be interpreted as a mutual sharing of their identities (Lurie, 1991). As adult consumers, women generally have more awareness of, and interest in, clothing compared with men.Other studies confirming gender differences conclude that women are: better at decoding the communicative language of fashion statements (McCracken and Roth, 1989); more likely to attribute positive characteristics to owners of fashion products (Mayer and Belk, 1985); more involved in fashion (Zaichowsky, 1985; O'Cass, 2000); and more likely to use clothing and fashion as a means for self definition and self-identity (Gould and Stern, 1989; Soloman, 1989). These gender differences have been explained in terms of the greater importance society places on women's physical appearance compared with men. More recently a study by Bakewell and Mitchell (2003) on female Generation Y consumers using Sproles and Kendall (1986) Consumer Styles Inventory (CSI) as a basis for segmentation found five meaningful and distinct decision-making groups namely; \"recreational quality seekers\", \"recreational discount seekers\", \"trend stting loyals\", \"shopping and fashion uninterested\" and \"confused time/money conserving\".Factors affecting male fashion consciousness\nMethodology: The instrument and analysis\nResults and discussion: The overall scores for the items are shown in Table I.Table I shows the mean responses to each item. It can be seen that Generation Y males are fashion conscious as virtually all the fashion conscious items generated a mean above the neutral point of 3. Interestingly, the highest scoring fashion conscious items were those that measured cognitive and affective issues more so than behaviours. In other words, the results show that Generation Y males are aware of fashion and show a degree of involvement as evidenced by the highest scoring statement, \"I'm very alert to changes in men's fashion/trends,\" but this is not translated necessarily into behaviours such as, shopping regularly for clothes and embracing new styles. As an example, the item, \"I'm usually the first to buy the latest styles\" was the most strongly disagreed with statement. Similarly, the sample strongly agreed that \"I'm not very bold when it comes to fashions\".Table I also shows the results of the factor analysis. Unlike the original scale, the items did not reduce into four factors, but separated into only two. Generation Ys therefore do not appear to view fashion as being a multi-factorial phenomenon. Instead, they view fashion and their relationship to it, in a binary sense, i.e. one either is or is not fashionable. If one is fashion conscious, then this will include knowledge of, liking, and consumption practices. If one is not fashion conscious, there will be no attention devoted to one's own, or others', choice of clothing, nor time spent shopping for clothes. Table II shows the key results for these two fashion positions.Male Generation Ys are fashion conscious, but cautious\nImplications, conclusions and further research: Two main implications for fashion retailers come from the work, which can be characterised as \"anti-fashion\" marketing and \"dress to win\". Eisler and Skidmore (1987) propose that male gender-role stereotypes generate the following fears; not being sporty/fit enough, emotional intimacy, intimacy with other men/homophobia, not earning/achieving enough and fear of women. The key to fashion marketing for men would be to show how clothing could overcome some of these fears, e.g. not earning or achieving enough. At the same time fashion marketing for men should avoid the same appeals used to attract women. \"anti-fashion\" marketing, with its associated labelling, might represent one such route. Anti-fashion marketing style could be promoted as the route to \"getting ahead\" or becoming the \"big wheel\", i.e. a successful man who has made it in the working world and possesses and displays the status symbols to prove it (David and Brannon, 1976). However, the ways a man achieves being fashionable need to maintain certain gender-role norms. For example, Otnes and McGrath (2001) described how the highly gendered activity of shopping was appropriated and modified by men to create achievement outcomes in terms of: sexual, financial and occupational identities. The notion of \"shop to win\" needs to be translated as \"dress to win\", hence the branding and communication process may need to focus on different personality elements (Aaker, 1997)2. Likewise, since males have been shown to be more materialistic than females (Achenreiner, 1997), and use money as a status cue (Lim and Teo, 1997), Generation Y males will probably be reassured and less inhibited by higher priced fashion brands compared with their female counterparts. Some of the retailers who currently try to target this segment and are achieving some success are; Next and in particular Ted Baker who manages to combine the USP of non-feminine fashion with good quality and design at higher prices. The name denotes rugged yet well healed and says \"I am a real man with a real income\" (Mintel, 2004).Being such a nascent potential market segment, there are no empirical studies that specifically focus on Generation Ys. With the social context in mind, the objective of the study was to examine fashion consciousness among young men who are the prime targets for retail fashion. Our conclusion is that given the socio-economic changes and technological developments, male Generation Ys appear to possess different attitudes to fashion to those found in previous studies. The scale itself performed relatively well in identifying generation Y fashion consciousness, but the measurement characteristics of the new antifashion factors are weaker and suggest that the scale can be simplified and needs further refinement. In essence we would argue that a \"clothing interest\" rather than a \"fashion consciousness\" scale is needed in this field since the term \"fashion\" is so imbued with female connotations. A useful starting point to this would be qualitative research to uncover how Generation Ys categorise the \"fashionable\" from the \"unfashionable\" man. Given that it is likely that there are multiple notions of \"men\", which vary by race, sexuality and class, this should be explored with these groups too. It would also be useful to explore whether \"fear of the feminine\" or \"fear of other men\" is a barrier to fashion adoption? Future studies could look at whether one can predict fashion avoidance/adoption by understanding the \"avoided self\". Finally, the focus on male fashion consciousness has revealed that perhaps men are now sufficiently aware, confident and demanding that they require and deserve retail formats which are more in keeping with their different ways of thinking and behaving toward fashion items. Future research could address what this means specifically for store design, location, merchandising and service provision.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - As social theorists propose that there has been an intensification of social and commercial pressures on men to become fashion consumers, this paper sets out to examine the proposition by investigating fashion consciousness of Generation Y male consumers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were gathered from a survey of 346 male respondents aged between 18-25 who completed a fashion consciousness questionnaire, which was then factor-analysed.\nFindings: - Relatively high levels of fashion consciousness were found, but not necessarily fashion adoption. Factor analysis showed that men view fashion in highly simplistic terms and there is still a strong \"anti-fashion\" dimension to the average young male consumer.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Drawing on the fields of psychology and sociology, it is argued that \"anti-fashion\" fashion consumption creates the distinction necessary for men to create a defensible masculine practice.\nPractical implications: - The \"anti-fashion\" motivation is of interest to marketers and provides a basis for planning retailing and branding approaches. The key to fashion marketing for men would be to show how clothing could overcome some of these fears, e.g. not earning or achieving enough.\nOriginality/value: - Being such a nascent potential market segment, there are no empirical studies that specifically focus on male Generation Ys.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A comparison of high-speed internet service in Ghana: an analytical hierarchy approach	[ "Decision support systems", "AHP", "Developing countries", "IT services", "End user", "User satisfaction" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Though the internet is useful, its penetration and usage in Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA) is still low relative to other developing worlds. Generally, in the developing world, 31 percent of the population has access to the internet, compared with 77 percent in the developed world. In Africa, 16 percent of people have access to the internet even though penetration is projected to hit the 50 percent mark by 2019 (Sanou, 2013). The achievement of such a goal requires some pragmatic strategies, given the fiscal challenges of most countries in SSA. Fortunately, the emergence of the wireless internet technology (WIT) offers a good pathway due to its lower cost relative to the fixed line technology (FLT). There have been significant investments in internet infrastructure in developed countries (Shin, 2009). These investments are largely in FLT, however attention now, in those countries, is being given to investments in the WIT due to its relatively cheaper cost (Schumann and Kende, 2013). Incidentally, in recent times, there has been a massive growth in WIT in SSA due to its relatively lower cost. Currently, the ratio of WIT to FLT in respect of internet access is 9:1 in SSA (Minges et al., 2009).\nThe ISP environment: In an ISP environment, decisions made by consumers are largely informed by some underlying satisfaction processes which are predicated on the consumers' criteria and the service attributes. Hence, in order to build a model (as decision support system) to aid consumers in understanding how well alternative ISPs meet their needs and also to inform the ISPs about the underlying satisfaction processes of the consumers, some satisfaction criteria need to be identified. In the literature, there appears to be a degree of agreement among authors on key criteria (see Table I) that are used by consumers in selecting an ISP service. Internet cost is an important criterion for selecting an ISP (Goh, 1996; Smith, 1997; Zeng et al., 2003; Rehman et al., 2011). In a study conducted in Nigeria, 72 percent of the respondents in a survey indicated the high cost of internet as a challenge to the internet market (Adomi, 2005). Whereas consumers in the Nigerian environment express sensitivity to cost, in the US environment cost is considered a basic criterion for considering an ISP. Other dimensions such as customer service and ease of use are more critical for consumers in choosing an ISP and also for ISPs to win new customers and to retain existing ones (Erevelles et al., 2003). The assertion of Erevelles et al. (2003) confirmed a similar study (Tan and Teo, 1998) in Singapore and corroborated another study (Li et al., 2008) in Taiwan. In the UK, ISP satisfaction survey indicated that reliability of internet service is the most important criterion for 78 percent of consumers and more than half of the consumers indicated that they would switch to another ISP to have better reliability (McCue, 2006). The customer service dimension, as indicated by Erevelles et al. (2003), consists of criteria such as technical support, reliability of internet service and internet access speed. Besides, the ease of use dimension comprises criteria such as ease of software installation and user friendliness of software. Again, Vlachos and Vrechopoulos (2008) argued that consumers of internet services are motivated by the overall service quality which emanates from a stable (reliable) and fast internet network, quick response and customer support team that is trusted by customers. Thaichon et al. (2014) attempted to develop a model for assessing the service quality of ISPs by focusing on some elements that are deemed to impact on the overall quality of internet service. The elements included network quality (reliability and speed), customer service and technical support and website information support.\nAHP in research and practice: The AHP is one of the most used multi-criteria decision-making approaches. The AHP is primarily used in the selection of an alternative among several alternatives in a multi-criteria environment. It is suitable for solving complex and challenging evaluation problems such as ERP selection, R&D project selection, investment risk analysis, organizational planning, performance measurement, alternative selection, project evaluation and public policy analysis (Forgionne et al., 2002; Chow and Luk, 2005; Guh et al., 2009).\nMethodology: Axioms of AHP\nResults and discussion: As it is indicated in Table AII, there were 76 responses out of a total of 150. This constitutes an overall response rate of 51 percent as far as the survey is concerned with some variations across different modem pairs. There were very low responses, especially for the less popular modems (Expresso, Airtel, GLO and Tigo) but the responses for the popular modems (MTN and Vodafone) were high as can be observed in Table AII. The less popular modems had low response rates mainly because they were relatively not easy to come by unlike the popular modems. The criteria used to evaluate the modems were pairwise compared (see Figure 3) and referring to Saaty's (2008) intensities of importance, the following results were obtained:\nConclusion: The study illustrates the development of an AHP-based model for evaluating the ISPs of Ghana, a SSA country, on their service offerings through the USB modem with the view to finding out which vendor offers the best service in the Ghanaian environment. Besides, the approach (as theoretical contribution to literature) sought to unravel the critical underlying consumer satisfaction in ISP markets in developing economies, particularly Ghana, so as to inform the marketing strategies and also ensure focused service deliveries by the ISPs. Hence, five attributes or features of ISP modems, based on literature agreement, were used as the main evaluating criteria. The study reveals that GLO (ranked 1st) and Expresso (ranked 2nd) are the best in respect of the evaluating criteria. Their performances can, largely, be explained by their advantage on cost as consumers prioritized cost, most, among all the other criteria. Incidentally, these best performing ISPs seem to have the lowest market shares (GLO - 2.7 percent and Expresso - 0.3 percent) in Ghana due to their relatively low coverage area. MTN, the worst performing ISP in respect of the evaluating criteria, has the highest market share (50.5 percent) as a result of having the highest coverage area in Ghana. Hence, GLO and Expresso would need to work on increasing their respective coverage areas in order to improve on their market shares.\nLimitations and recommendations for future research: A minor drawback of this study is the use of Excel instead of a dedicated AHP tool such as Logical Decisions or Expert Choice. This limited any attempt at serious sensitivity analyses. Not too many people own more than one modem thus financial costs were incurred in equipping the participants with additional modems. There had to be a lot of modem swapping to cut down on cost. Swapping modems for respondents created proficiency challenges of the diagnostics of the swapped modem for respondents. This could potentially affect the validity of the responses from respondents.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The rising proportion of internet users in Sub-Saharan Africa and the lack of analytical techniques, as decision support systems, in choosing among alternative internet service providers (ISPs) by consumers underpin this study. The purpose of this paper is to propose an approach for evaluating high-speed internet service offered by ISPs in a sub-Saharan African country.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using a sample size of 150, pairwise comparisons of two ISPs along five criteria of cost, usability, support, reliability and speed were performed by ten person groups of university students working in various organizations in Ghana and undertaking an online Six Sigma Course. Geometric means were employed to aggregate the scores in 15 groups, and these scores were then normalized and used as input into an analytical hierarchy process grid.\nFindings: The results show that consumers of internet services highly emphasize the cost attribute of internet provision in their decision making. On the other hand, it was realized that consumers least emphasize the support provided by ISPs in their decision making among alternative ISPs.\nOriginality/value: This study has sought to provide an analytical framework for assessing the quality of service provided by alternative ISPs in a developing economy's context. The evaluating criteria in this framework also reveal the key consumer requirements in internet service provision in a developing economy's environment. This, to a large extent, will inform the marketing strategies of existing ISPs in Ghana as well as prospective ones intending to enter the Ghanaian market. Besides, the National Communication Authority, a regulator of communication services provision in Ghana, will be informed about the performances of the ISPs along five performance criteria. This is expected to aid in their regulatory functions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Providing a sustainable living environment in not-for-profit retirement villages: A case study in Australia	[ "Australia", "Case study", "Sustainable practices", "Not-for-profit", "Retirement villages", "Sustainable living environment" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Sustainable development has been widely accepted as an approach for dealing with the complicated links between environmental problems, socio-economic issues (e.g. poverty and inequality) and a healthy future for humanity (Hopwood et al., 2005). As an integral component of sustainable development, communities need to provide people with a liveable, resilient, diverse and adaptable residential environment (Roseland, 2000). Consequently, sustainable community initiatives have been popularly proposed around the world, such as the Sustainable Australia - Sustainable Communities in Australia and the Sustainable communities: building for the future in the UK. Though the sustainable community is a context-based concept that has been defined differently in various government documents and academic research (Xia et al., 2015b), it covers the issues involved in the environmental, economic and social sustainability of a community.\n2. Retirement villages and sustainability in Australia: In Australia, retirement villages refer to an age-segregated community that provides diverse services and facilities to meet the residents' unique needs in later life. They are an age-built environment that has features of age-homogeneity, institutionalization and independent living for the residents. In 2014, 5.7 per cent of Australians at least 65 years old lived in retirement villages, and it is predicted that this will increase to 7.5 per cent by 2025 because of the increasing aged population and rising popularity of village living (Property Council of Australia, 2014).\n3. Research method: Because of the lack of quantitative historical data, a case study approach was adopted to identify the sustainable features and practices used in a not-for-profit retirement village. The case study approach is often used to intensively study a phenomenon over time within its natural setting on one or more sites and is particularly suited to explanatory research where the experiences of participants and the context of actions are critical (Bhattacherjee, 2012; Zuo et al., 2014). The case study in this research placed special emphasis on the sustainable features and practices used in the management and operation stage of the village site.\n4. Case study: 4.1 Background and context\n5. Discussion: The study identified various sustainable practices in retirement village development and operation in terms of both physical and social environment. The results depict a comprehensive picture of specific strategies to support the development of a sustainable living environment in a not-for-profit retirement village setting. Other village developers can learn from these practices to address issues encountered during the delivery of sustainable living environment to residents.\n6. Conclusions: A sustainable living environment in retirement villages needs to satisfy their residents' needs in terms of the affordability, social and environmental friendliness. The sustainable features incorporated into the case study village cover diverse aspects, such as the selection of village location, site planning, provision of facilities and services, social life and living cost arrangement. These identified sustainable practices provide an age-friendly environment to meet aged needs, such as safety/security, social interaction, convenience, a sense of community, energy efficiency and affordability. Some of the sustainable practices were obtained without any significant additional costs to the developer or residents. This provides great encouragement for the future development of sustainable retirement villages, as developers are naturally concerned about the high initial investment involved and residents expect a financially comfortable environment.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: As a viable housing option for older people, retirement villages need to provide a sustainable living environment that satisfies their residents' needs in terms of affordability, lifestyle and environmental friendliness. This is, however, a significant challenge for not-for-profit developers because of the high upfront costs involved in using sustainable practices. The purpose of this paper is to identify the sustainable features and practices adopted in not-for-profit retirement villages.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Because of the lack of quantitative historical data, a case study approach was adopted to identify the sustainable features and practices used in a not-for-profit retirement village in Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. Data were collected based on interviews, direct observation and documentation, and collected data were analysed by using content analysis.\nFindings: The research findings indicate that similar to private developers, not-for-profit developers also have the capability to make their village environment sustainable. In this case, the sustainable practices cover various aspects including the selection of village location, site planning, provision of facilities and services, social life and living costs. Although the associated costs of adopting sustainable features is a concern for both developers and residents, some of the identified sustainable practices in this case do not result in significant cost increase but can improve the residents' quality of life substantially.\nPractical implications: The research findings provide a number of practical implications on how to deliver sustainable retirement villages in a not-for-profit village setting.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides a first look at sustainable features and practices adopted in both the development and operation stages of a not-for-profit retirement village.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Perspectives on informatics in the health sciences for information professionals	[ "Informatics", "Biomedical informatics", "DIKW framework", "Health infomatics", "Medical informatics", "Semantic tools" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The emergence of informatics as a discipline is a relatively recent phenomenon even if the conceptual foundation has been around for quite some time. It was only in 1983 that Gorn formally defined informatics as the combination of computer science and information science (Gorn, 1982).\nThe development of informatics in the health-care sector: With the increasing prevalence of mainframe computing systems in the late 1960s, hospitals and health-care providers started considering how computers could improve the practice of medicine and health care (Barnett, 1987). However, the early hopes for the development of computerized systems that could improve clinical practice in medicine, where naive and beset with unrealistic expectations (Barnett, 1987). However, with rapid increases in the capability of computers by the 1980s the promise of clinical information systems started to become a reality. It is in this period that I see the formation of conceptual models for how clinical information systems are differentiated from the administrative systems (such as financial and human resource applications) that were the primary applications of the day.\nUnderstanding the data, information, knowledge, wisdom (DIKW) framework: Nonetheless, the foci of an individual informaticist may span the range of from data to wisdom. This makes sense when you consider what data, information, knowledge and wisdom can potentially represent. Each of these types of item can be used to create meaningful action in practice.\nTypes of informatics in the health professions: As discussed earlier, there is no consistent definition of informatics, even in the health professions. This has led to the use of a myriad of terms, such as medical informatics and health informatics, without a universally consistent understanding of exactly what is being discussed.\nSemantic tools and informatics: An area where there is a clear intersection between informatics and information science is in the use of semantic tools to facilitate the work of analysis. Semantic tools are used in informatics to help convert data into information. This is primary done through controlled vocabularies, taxonomies and ontologies, reference terminologies and interoperability standards.\nSome challenges in informatics: Interpretation of data is often clouded by worldview. Medical doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health professionals may view the same set of data differently. The challenge for the informaticist is to find a commonality among varying worldviews.\nResources: Health level 7 (HL7) - www.hl7.org/\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Informatics is a relatively new interdisciplinary field which is not very well understood outside of specific disciplinary communities. With a review of the history of informatics and a discussion of the various branches of informatics related to health-care practice, the paper aims to provide an overview designed to enhance the understanding of an information professional interested in this field.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper is designed to provide a basic introduction to the topic of informatics for information professionals unfamiliar with the field. Using a combination of historical and current sources, the role of informatics in the health professions is explored through its history and development.\nFindings: The emergence of informatics as a discipline is a relatively recent phenomenon. Informatics is neither information technology (IT) nor information science but shares many common interests, concerns and techniques with these other two fields. The role of the informaticist is to transform data to knowledge and information. Consequently, while the outcomes may be different, there are many commonalities in informatics with the work information professionals perform.\nOriginality/value: Most introductions to informatics assume the reader is either an IT professional or a clinical practitioner in one of the health science fields. This paper takes a unique approach by positioning the discussion of the history and application of informatics in the health sciences from the perspective of the information professional.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A social norms approach to changing school children's perceptions of tobacco usage	[ "Perceptions", "Schools", "Children", "Young people", "Social norms", "School health promotion", "Smoking", "Social change", "Tobacco prevention", "Smoking education" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction and background: The last decade has seen a significant change in attitudes towards smoking, largely as a result of the growing realisation of its negative impact on an individual's health and society (Fry et al., 2008; Amos et al., 2009; Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), 2016). This realisation led to governments adopting a more active approach, including introducing regulation and legislation (Department of Health, 2011). There is good evidence that this active approach has contributed to a decline in the smoking rates among adults and young people (Amos et al., 2009; Crogan and Bromley, 2013; Milton et al., 2008; National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, 2010).\nMethodology: Given the above context, the objectives of this study are to evaluate the extent to which a social norms programme can change perceptions of smoking in young people and to explore the effectiveness of combinations of interventions. The specific programme we consider is the RUDifferent? programme that has been developed by social sense, a social marketing agency which was commissioned by local authorities to deliver positive and measurable outcomes to children, young people and their families (RUDifferent, 2017). A typical programme included an initial baseline survey followed by interventions and a repeat survey as described below. Each programme consisted of a combination of one or more interventions. These interventions can be grouped into two categories:\nResults: To assess whether the interventions had an impact, the change in perception and a measure reflecting the combined level of interventions were computed and then plotted to see if there was a positive trend. The measure used to assess the change in perception was simply the relative difference in perceptions between the pre- and post-intervention values:(1)\nDiscussion: The primary purpose of this study was to explore the impact of a social norms programme on the smoking habits of young people through a range of interventions. The results from this study support those of Echeverria et al. (2015) and Elsey et al. (2015) in that there is a measurable misperception between young people's beliefs of the number of smokers in their peer group against the actual number of young people who identify themselves as smokers. It is also consistent with the findings of other studies that explore the impact of social norms on the perceptions of young people on others' engagement with risky behaviours. Scholly et al. (2005) highlight a similar disparity in perceptions against reality in respect of sexual behaviour and Lightowlers et al. (2009) conclude that young people significantly overestimate their peers' consumption of alcohol compared to their own.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Over 200,000 young people in the UK embark on a smoking career annually, thus continued effort is required to understand the types of interventions that are most effective in changing perceptions about smoking amongst teenagers. Several authors have proposed the use of social norms programmes, where correcting misconceptions of what is considered normal behaviour lead to improved behaviours. There are a limited number of studies showing the effectiveness of such programmes for changing teenagers' perception of smoking habits, and hence this paper reports on the results from one of the largest social norms programmes that used a variety of interventions aimed at improving teenagers' perceptions of smoking. The paper aims to discuss this issue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A range of interventions were adopted for 57 programmes in year nine students, ranging from passive interventions such as posters and banners to active interventions such as student apps and enterprise days. Each programme consisted of a baseline survey followed by interventions and a repeat survey to calculate the change in perception. A clustering algorithm was also used to reveal the impact of combinations of interventions.\nFindings: The study reveals three main findings: the use of social norms is an effective means of changing perceptions, the level of interventions and change in perceptions are positively correlated, and that the most effective combinations of interventions include the use of interactive feedback assemblies, enterprise days, parent and student apps and newsletters to parents.\nOriginality/value: The paper presents results from one of the largest social norm programmes aimed at improving young people's perceptions and the first to use clustering methods to reveal the impact of combinations of intervention.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Clarity of CSR orientation and firm performance: case of Japanese SMEs	[ "Company performance", "Small and medium enterprises", "Corporate strategy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Firms often become quite serious in implementing strategic initiatives through experiencing crisis events. In 2014, several Japanese firms were involved in highly publicized incidents, starting from the recall of more than 24 million air bags of Takata Corp., a cockroach discovery inside the instant ramen of Peyangu, and an alien substance in the frozen pasta of Nissin Foods (Kubota, 2015). Stories of corporate scandals such as these have eroded public trust in corporate reputation (Panwar et al., 2014; Sethi, 2002). The media's extensive coverage of the failures of these companies highlighted the critical need of responsible corporate behaviors (Panwar et al., 2014; Basu and Palazzo, 2008; Palazzo and Scherer, 2006).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Background of CSR\n3. Methodology: To examine the above propositions, we adopted the case study method. Figure 2 is a summary of case study process. We first defined the selection criteria in terms of size, business model, CSR activities, competitive performance, domestic and international market scope, and their market reputation. Among the potential candidates of the initial selection (10+ firms), two Japanese SMEs were finally chosen. Fuji Optical Co. Ltd (hereafter referred to as Fuji Optical), is a retail optical company, dealing with glasses, sunglasses, hearing aids, low vision aid, and other optical goods. Organic Cotton Avanti (hereafter referred to as OCA) is a company that imports organically grown cotton; however, the company is involved in the entire process of the creation of its product, from the cultivation of agrochemical-free cotton, then producing and selling yarn, to fabric and finished goods.\n4. Case study results: In-depth interviews were conducted to explore the role of senior executives on the formulation, communication, and implementation of corporate purpose and value-oriented goals stated in their corporate mission statement.\n5. Conclusion: This explorative study clarified the linkage between CEO's clarity of CSR Orientation to CSR implementation to firm performance in the context of Japanese SMEs. Before deriving lessons and implications, three limitations of this study should be understood. First, this study was limited to two case studies of SMEs in Japan. Due to the lack of data and some outdated sources, further scrutiny and analysis will be useful. Second, this study lacks a comparison between large companies and SMEs. Finally, we did not compare Japanese SMEs with foreign SMEs.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how clarity of corporate social responsibility (CSR) orientation of Japanese small and medium enterprises (SMEs) achieves constructive firm performance outcomes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: On the basis of the literature review, the authors present a research model that defines key constructs and provide propositions that explain the interrelationships with theoretical rationale and practical implications. Using careful selection criteria, the authors have further conducted the in-depth interviews of the executives of two prominent Japanese SMEs.\nFindings: The results suggest that CEOs with strong CSR orientation are more likely to influence their firms to achieve effective firm performance. If CSR philosophy is strategically formulated, clearly communicated, and widely accepted, then such firm is more likely to attain desirable business performance outcomes for larger stakeholders. Furthermore, CSR implementation of SMEs is not necessarily too costly; in fact, the long-term rate of return on SMEs' CSR investment, with proper priority and prudent focus, is quite competitive.\nResearch limitations/implications: In spite of the specificity of the two case studies, the research model and the study findings give valuable insight on the role of CEO's philosophy on CSR implementation in the international market. The linkage mechanism between business operation and CSR by these SMEs is applicable to many innovative entrepreneurial firms that target beyond domestic markets.\nOriginality/value: The authors highlight how the clarity of CSR philosophy in terms of firm orientation and linkage mechanism aids SMEs in overcoming their resource constraints. Furthermore, well-implemented CSR activities may become instrumental in achieving long-term desirable performance in the form of customer loyalty, employee's sense of pride, and corporate socio-economic reputation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Lean as a learning system: What do organizations need to do to get the transformational benefits from Toyota's method?	[ "Lean", "Experiential learning", "Learning strategies" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: We have been studying \"lean\" for 30 years, as a strategic paradigm developed by Toyota, to grow sustainably and profitably in a saturated market dominated by powerful players. It is a radically disruptive strategy based on a different way of thinking and on continuously developing people to create a culture of autonomous problem-solvers - encouraging insight, initiative and teamwork at all levels. The method Toyota has developed since the 1960s has always been about getting people to think for themselves and come up with better ideas and being more engaged and responsible for their work. It is a cognitive approach, a method to \"learn to learn\", not an organizational approach.\nLeaders must change their thinking: The Western approach to management has developed at a time when technological advantage was used to flood world markets with innovative hardware. It is essentially based on nineteenth century military thinking of command and control and the separation of expert engineers (who develop products and processes) from armies of workers (who execute and are where possible replaced by automation) . The obvious assumption is that:\nDifferent types of learning: The divergence in thinking is actually deeper that it might look. When we ask managers to detail their understanding of learning they invariably assume a teacher and a student. The teacher knows, and teaches the student through repetitive lecturing and practicing exercises. The teacher favors \"good\" students who diligently perform the exercises and accurately reproduce what the teacher knows: through acquisition and application. Let us call this Type I learning: the teacher teaches, the learner learns.\nWhere are we now?: The \"lean\" movement we started accidentally three decades ago has won in a way, as lean has become a household name and now appears in the top management \"best practices.\" In defining competent management in an HBR paper, the authors list \"use of lean techniques\" and \"reasons for adopting lean processes\" at the top. Then they carry on with the usual performance monitoring, target setting and talent management (Sadun et al., 2017). It is a bitter victory as what corporations have mostly done is try to assimilate lean into traditional Taylorist thinking. They use lean tools to further enforce the power of experts to standardize and rationalize processes - as opposed to accommodation - where CEOs change their way of thinking and focus on creating the conditions for learning to develop everyone and benefit from their inputs.\nWhat next?: Lean is a system to continuously develop people and create a culture of problem-solving; a strategy to face challenges by engaging and involving all problem solvers into exploring issues and forming unknown solutions by learning experientially from practical countermeasures. Lean tools are techniques to create the conditions for such experiential learning and the lean approach turns management upside down by turning the chain of command into a chain of help: challenge and support, rather than command and control.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The creators of the \"lean\" approach share their extensive experience, highlighting how organizations can reap the benefits of Toyota's approach.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on the authors expertise and 30 plus years of experience developing and implementing the \"lean\" approach.\nFindings: A shift is required in leaders, away from a chain of command to a chain of help. Type IV learning is required where everyone, including the \"leaders\", explores, learns, and figures out, experientially, one change at a time.\nOriginality/value: The paper provides a succinct summary of the need for a mind-set shift in leaders if they are to create a truly lean culture in their organization. They call for leaders to start a cognitive revolution, rather than look to \"bolt on\" lean to existing organizational practices.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Relational capital and knowledge transfer in universities	[ "Relational capital", "Imprenditoriale university", "Case study", "Action research" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In recent years, in light of the so-called \"academic revolution,\" the university system has undergone a profound process of rethinking and reorganization (Etzkowitz et al., 2000; Etzkowitz, 2004), and its institutional aims have also changed, including teaching, research, and economic and social development (Etzkowitz, 2002; 2003). Universities have often been accused of being too \"self-referential\" (Etzkowitz et al., 2000; Shekarchizadeh et al., 2011). They have been urged to open up to the external environment, multiply and strengthen interactions with ever-expanding stakeholder groups and actively promote collaborative relationships in the business and institutional world to contribute to the development of the economic and social system (Furman and MacGarvie, 2009; Seethamraju, 2012)--the so-called \"third mission\" (Laredo, 2007). In this new context, universities must not only foster the creation of knowledge through research and its dissemination to students through teaching activities. They should also play a role in transferring it externally to encourage the exploitation of research results and foster the economic and cultural growth of regions and countries (Etzkowitz, 2002; Elena-Perez et al., 2011).\n2. Literature review: The restructuring of the university system and its institutional aims has forced the traditional academic mission to expand. Teaching is no longer the only focus--research and economic and social development are now considered just as valuable (Etzkowitz, 2003). This new trend relies on the concept of the triple helix of university-industry-government relationships, initiated in the 1990s by Etzkowitz (1993). The triple helix thesis calls for the hybridization of elements from universities, industries, and the government to generate new institutional and social formats for the production, transfer, and use of knowledge (Trequattrini et al., 2016; Vlajcic et al., 2018; Wehn and Montalvo, 2018). Triple helix theoretical and empirical research has increased over the last two decades (Klofsten et al., 1999, 2010; Inzelt, 2004; Geuna and Nesta, 2006; Smith and Bagchi-Sen, 2010; Geuna and Rossi, 2011; Svensson et al., 2012; Etzkowitz, 2002; Furman and MacGarvie, 2009). The most relevant aspect of this research is that all these studies look at various aspects of the university's third mission.\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Methodological approach\n4. Case study: The concept of Ipazia was created in 2015 by a university professor--one of the authors--with research experience in gender studies. After contemplating the creation of a scientific center, she shared the idea with some colleagues--mostly from different disciplinary areas and other universities--who were also friends. Her proposal was immediately accepted, and a group of multidisciplinary scholars quickly got organized. They decided to create a research organization with the intention to continue their research experience in gender issues. What followed was an Observatory of gender studies--Ipazia--that was founded at the university where the professor worked.\n5. Findings: 5.1 The main phases of the relational capital creation process\n6. Conclusions: In this paper, we have focused our attention on relational capital in universities. Relational capital is the means through which universities can promote and emphasize the effectiveness of the third mission.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The importance of relational capital for the university has grown enormously in recent years. In fact, relational capital allows universities to promote and emphasize the effectiveness of the third mission. The purpose of this paper is to propose a case study involving an Italian university that recently set up a new research observatory, and, thanks to its success, succeeded in enhancing its relational capital.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors adopted an action research approach to analyze the case study. Consistently, the authors followed the analysis, diagnosis, and intervention phases. First, the authors focused on the identification of the strengths and weaknesses of the process through which the university created relational capital, and finally, the authors proposed solutions to improve the process.\nFindings: This case study shows that the creation of relation capital for the host university was the result of a process of transfer and transformation of the individual relationships of the observatory's promoters.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to filling a significant gap in the literature on relational capital and universities and provides useful insights into how these organizations can encourage its creation. It also allows scholars, managers, and politicians involved in higher education to gain a greater understanding of this relevant topic.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Intellectual capital performance determinants and globalization status of Greek listed firms	[ "Intellectual capital", "Value added", "Performance criteria", "Greece" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Prolegomena: One of the ways corporations communicate with all various interested \"investors or stakeholders\" is with the issue of annual or casual reports. These reports enable all interested readers to find narrative and audited mandatory financial information about the issuing company itself and the related branch. Many researches in the past have analyzed the contents of the annual reports and preferably focus was put on financial issues (Copeland and Fredericks, 1968; Easton et al., 1992; Ohlson and Penman, 1992). The most common objectives of the researches was to reveal any possible relationships between the disclosed information and some classical company dimensions, like size, assets, financial leverage, sales, shareholders and parent company (Firth, 1979; Chow and Wong-Boren, 1987; Meek et al., 1995; Cooke, 1989; Abrahamson and Amir, 1996).The objective of the present survey is mainly to analyze the intellectual performance \"characteristics\" of exporting corporations listed on Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) (Katsikeas et al., 1996). According to Greek law every corporation in Greece is obliged to disclose a legal predefined minimum of information by admission of securities to the ASE. Using the disclosed information the interested reader is supposed to draw conclusions about the financial situation of any corporate. The type of disclosed information is mainly divided in three categories, namely narrative data, administrative data and financial data (Mavridis, 2002).In the present study the main intention is directed to draw conclusions from the administrative and financial data. The administrative data give information about the structural organization and offer so valuable information about the firm's organizational or entrepreneurial status quo. The financial data are an excellent opportunity to make an \"intellectual check up\" while the use of the Value Added Intellectual Capital(tm) (VAIC(tm)) method promises meaningful in-depth performance insights about the role of the physical (CA) and the human capital (HC) used. In order to produce comparable results leading to more practical conclusions some \"categorizations\" have been performed. The main research construct for the present work has been formulated as \"globalization status\" meaning whether a corporate is selling (gs =1) or not selling (gs =0) abroad. In order to extend our knowledge about the above-mentioned \"intellectual characteristics\", casual or interim reports (Enimerotika Deltia) of 102 listed corporations on the ASE have been \"randomly\" selected (Mavridis, 2002) through the 1990s. They are available - in the various banking institutes - to anybody, and usually during the period of subscription/admission of the shares. Among them again are firms with \"global\" (exporting) and \"local\" activities.\n2. VAIC(tm) methodology: In this context the intellectual capital (IC) as another and most important economic performance factor arises to a challenging dimension as the sum of human capital and structural capital (IC = HC + SC). It is regarded as a potential with two sides, the invisible side or tacit one and concludes its potentiality while the other side the explicit knowledge represent its reality (Nonaka and Umemoto, 2001). Structural capital is assumed to be the sum of organizational and customer capital (SC = OC + CC), while the organizational capital itself is the sum of innovation and process capital (OC = NC + PC) (see Bontis, 1998). Although \"knowledge\" cannot be seen, it still remains observable in its energetic emanations, which include transactions or processes. Furthermore, knowledge has to be acquired, created, shared, utilized, stored and retrieved (Williams, 2001).The VAIC(tm) is a measurement method developed by The Austrian Intellectual Capital Research Center (AICRS) that has been successfully used in the Austrian banking sector (www.measuring-ip.at). This easy to use research method has been successfully used also for the Greek (Mavridis and Kyrmizoglou, 2003) and Japanese banking sectors (Mavridis, 2004a). The same method has been used for the intellectual performance measurement of Greek listed firms (Mavridis, 2003a) whether under the special performance aspect of intellectual best practice (Mavridis, 2003b, 2004b), or the same due to their ownership structure (Mavridis, 2003c). The objective of this article is to present the findings and particularly to highlight the intellectual best practice performance (BPI) aspects due to the globalization status characteristics of the surveys of Greek listed firms.The main ideas of the VAIC(tm) concept assume that the human or knowledge potential is responsible for the performance in any firm and using expenses for wages (manpower or productive direct cost) or salaries (administrative or managerial staff indirect cost) ascribes them representative significant predictability for the creation of value added (VA). According to the VAIC(tm) the VA (5) is the difference between total revenues OUT (1) and total expenses IN (2) and represents the VA produced through the firm's physical capital (CA) and human capital (HC):Equation 1Equation 2Equation 3Equation 4Equation 5Equation 6Equation 7Equation 8The physical capital CA (3) is the sum of all monetary resources (equity, net profit, various funds), is one of the factors producing VA and is related to the \"natural growth strategy\" (land, money, labor) (Mavridis, 2003c). The next factor or resource responsible for the creation of VA is the intellectual capital, IC, and its main parts HC (4) and SC (OC + CC). The related to the \"intellectual growth strategy\" resource materials are data, information and knowledge as shown in the related Figure 1 (Mavridis, 2003c).All value added factors (VAF) whether \"... natural, procedural or technological\" (Mavridis, 2003c) and intellectual are summarized and expressed through the BPI (10) value. BPI is a neutral indicator informing about the particular usage of the physical, technological and intellectual (human) capital or in simple words the intellectual productivity of CA, HC and SC. The BPI value is the firm's objective business performance indicator either as a best practice or benchmarking criterion.\n3. Survey results: 3.1 The data used\n4. Conclusions: The present research had the objective to detect so far as possible all those significantly discriminating variables and integrating latent factors, which explain and predict the \"global or local\" listed ASE firm. A first insightful view allows the means technique; while the most common used multivariate analysis techniques - discriminant analysis and factor analysis - show the essential discriminative differences as well as the common integrative factors. Through these comparisons (means analysis), differentiations (discriminant analysis) and integrations (factor analysis) has been tried to shape a \"holistic set\" of characteristics for exporting corporates in general and for ASE-listed ones in particular. The main results from the mean analysis are shown in Table III and in Table VI:* Under the ten first (BPI) non-exporting (gs =0) companies of the set are seven (firm names in italics: Nestos, Marfin, Unifon, Axon, Radio Korasidis, Hellenic DFS and Atlantic Markets) belonging to the best of the total set of 102 ASE-listed firms (Table VI).* Under the ten first (BPI) exporting (gs =1) companies of the set are only three cases (firm names in italics: MLS, Alumil and Nakas) belonging to the best of the total set of 102 ASE-listed firms (Table VI).* The exporters group (gs =1) has a better absolute result value for VA but the non-exporters (gs =0) have better values in all other intellectual ratios like VACA, VAHC, SCVA and BPI (Table VI).* The exporters group (gs =1) has better absolute results for CA (almost four times more, the same for HC and better VA per director (white collar) (Table III).* Non-exporters (gs =0) have almost four times more SC and two times more VA per member of blue-collar staff (Table III).* Exporters and non-exporters have the same discriminating variables (and signs) like sales contribution to VA (VA per sold euro unit), business productivity ratio (OUT/IN), productivity of structural capital (VA per explicit capital unit) and human capital contribution to VA (VA per human capital unit), although the intensity of the relationship changes slightly in the most discriminating variables (Z0, Z1).* For exporters and non-exporters the factor analysis confirms that the first two components explain almost 60 percent of the total variability (Tables IV and V).* Non-exporters follow more the path of a traditional growth strategy managed under structural (technological and organizational) productivity aspects - the technocrats.* Exporters decide for more a intellectual growth strategy managed under total business productivity (BPI) aspects - the plutocrats.One of the restrictions of the present research has been its size, counting only 102 corporations or cases, although previous strategic research has used fewer annual reports (Point and Tyson, 1999). An extension towards more \"integrity\" or \"globality\" would represent a research for globalized firms when the analysis includes also disclosed importing data in order to catch the \"real\" global transaction share of the firms, the branch and even the whole economy itself.In this way the Balassa criterion would be a helpful basis and a starting point for a more in-depth intellectual analysis. From special interest seems to be the question whether and how far the \"global VA\" (export streams minus import streams) correlates with the classical intellectual - but global - variables (GCA, GHC, GSC), and how the relative global intellectual ratios (GVACA, GVAHC, GSCVA and GBPI) express the globalization phenomenon. And this is going to be the next research project concerning Greek (ASE) firms and banks as well as the Japanese banking and industry sector.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To present a study analyzing the intellectual performance of Greek listed corporations on the Athens Stock Exchange under the distinctive aspect of being a \"globalized\" or \"localized\" firm.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Due to the used VAIC(tm) method the firm's performance is researched under its intellectual (IC) and physical (CA) aspect. The investigation confirms the existence of some semantic - added value-based - performance differences by using predictor variables (discriminant analysis) and factors or \"drivers\" (factor analysis) influencing the actual \"globalization status quo\".\nFindings: - States that \"localized firms\" are the distinct small technocratic, blue-collar intellectual performers while the \"globalized\" ones are the large plutocratic, white-collar intellectual performers.\nResearch limitations/implications: - There is a need to analyze data of more corporations and for a longer time period in order to prove clearly the assumptions of the VAIC(tm) method. Additional comparative research with other (international) corporations will prove (or not) the above findings concerning intellectual differences due to the \"globalization\" status.\nPractical implications: - Offers an international comparative research possibility for \"advanced\" researchers in academia or praxis and enables \"beginners\" to learn a way of measuring intellectual capital performance.\nOriginality/value: - This paper is an original research based on confirmed data of listed firms, using a \"simple\" but excellent method, in order to highlight the intellectual phenomenon in a \"rational\" (metric) way.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Enabling organizations to implement smarter, customized social computing platforms by leveraging knowledge flow patterns	[ "Social computing", "Knowledge management", "KNA", "Knowledge flow", "Microsoft Office SharePoint", "Tacit and explicit" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Most practitioners and researchers recognize that knowledge flows are extremely important, especially in the current age where organizations have to learn and innovate continually to remain competitive. Given that knowledge is distributed unevenly through the enterprise, rapid and reliable knowledge flows are essential for organizations' sustainable competitive advantage (Joshi et al., 2012). Researchers point out that the value of most products and services depends primarily on \"knowledge-based intangibles\" like technological know-how, product design, marketing presentation, understanding the customer, personal creativity and innovation. Knowledge is viewed as either \"explicit\" - something formal and systematic - or \"tacit\" - something not easily visible or expressible. Knowledge management (KM) is the process of getting the right information to the right person at the right time. It involves knowledge creation and sharing. Typically, the knowledge that is created is validated by experts in the organization and stored in a repository for future use. The existing knowledge that is stored in the repositories must be handled effectively. Employees must be able to better organize and process the knowledge they create. To make these repositories more meaningful, workspace collaboration is necessary. The key steps of KM are to convert raw, unprocessed chunks of data into processed information and maintain the same for greater usage and update. The benefits of using cognitive information are many. Knowledge network system makes use of a large amount of information that can be gained from the experience of each node to improve the overall network.\n2. Knowledge network analysis: The socio-metric analysis that analyses knowledge flow patterns is called the knowledge network analysis (KNA). A knowledge network (socio-gram) is a mapping (as illustrated in Figures 1 and 2) of actors and the relationships between them that focus on a specific domain of knowledge. Information is often sought from colleagues and those we know better rather than through hierarchies and processes - KNA traces these networks of knowledge transfer. The outcomes of the KNA help identify the extent of knowledge sharing, resource dependencies, single point failures and several other measures. Knowledge flow patterns are identified from the KNA to enable the knowledge conversion spiral within teams. The conversion spiral proposed by Nonaka (Takeuchi and Nonaka, 1995) consists of four processes: socialization (tacit to tacit), externalization (tacit to explicit), combination (explicit to explicit) and internalization (explicit to tacit).\n3. Leveraging KNA for configurable social computing platform: Corporate blog can be used as a sustainable forum, leading to a shared understanding of organizational roles, increased sense of group cohesiveness, improved work processes and improved professional and personal ties among employees in the organization (Baehr and Alex-Brown, 2010). Typical off-the-shelf tools offer a one-size-fits-all solution for collaboration. They do not take into consideration the prevalent knowledge flow patterns. The proposed system aims at building a social computing platform that is configurable to suit individual needs of the teams rather than a standardized offering. To illustrate the concept, Microsoft Office SharePoint 2010 is adopted to develop, deploy and calibrate a tailored collaborative platform.\n4. Proposed configurable social computing platform: Several benefits of adapting to a social computing platform are discussed here. Microsoft Office SharePoint is chosen to illustrate key benefits of KNA-based social computing platforms. In SharePoint, one can create team sites for information sharing and document collaboration and target content to users based on job roles or interests. Besides, teams may choose to set version control for document changes, so it can be tracked and assigned different version numbers. Documents attached to incoming email messages can be added to a document library automatically. A user or a team leader can add an alert to a list or list item, so that they receive an email notification when changes are made, or when new announcements are made.\n5. Insights and outcomes observed: Organizations are very dependent on effective knowledge processes as they are aware that it will directly impact their business outcomes. Based on the results of the KNA, about two-thirds of employees could spontaneously name at least one human source of information when prompted (Burton et al., 2012).\n6. Conclusions and scope for future work: The current approach to KNA restricts to analyzing the as-is situation of the teams for a given knowledge area. Factors such as extent of knowledge sharing, mutual ties, etc. for a given knowledge area for a particular team composition are identified. We also identify factors such as the external resources and non-team members who are approached for particular competencies as an outcome of KNA. This represents the team's as-is knowledge sourcing behavior. Taking a higher-level view of the knowledge flow patterns would provide additional insights into the organizational dynamics and its impact on knowledge sourcing behaviors. Additionally, analyzing the knowledge flow patterns on a resource-based dimension would provide insights into potential behaviors among proposed teams, thereby assisting in narrowing down to the idealistic team composition for projects.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study was to understand the knowledge sharing in projects based on knowledge flow patterns. The impact of attrition, thereby leading to a loss of tacit knowledge, inability to capture and reuse knowledge and inability to understand the knowledge flow patterns, which leads to lack of structured workspace collaboration, are frequently faced challenges in organizations. The change in knowledge sourcing behaviors by the current generation workforce has a high reaching impact in driving collaboration among employees.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper attempts to study this impact and identify means to improve the effectiveness of collective knowledge sharing via social computing platforms. As part of this study, customized solutions are devised based on knowledge flow patterns prevalent in teams. Knowledge network analysis (KNA), a socio-metric analysis, is performed to understand knowledge flow patterns among employees in a team which helps understand the relationships between team members with respect to knowledge sharing. KNA helps in understanding ties and interactions between human and system resources.\nFindings: Significant changes were observed in knowledge sourcing and sharing behaviors. Capture of the tacit knowledge of employees further resulted in reducing the impact of knowledge attrition. For instance, targeted communities of practice (CoPs) based on the presence of cliques within teams enabled teams to complete projects effectively and efficiently.\nPractical implications: The results are used to identify push and pull networks to enable effective knowledge management (KM). Results of this study reveal that analyzing knowledge flow patterns in a team and deploying a customized social computing platform that is tailored to address the needs of specific knowledge flow patterns within that team, significantly enhances collaborative sharing as opposed to a standardized \"one-size-fits-all\" platform.\nOriginality/value: This paper is an original creation after research by the authors for a continuous assessment of KM within the organization.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A method for performance briefing at the project inception stage	[ "Performance management", "Strategic planning", "Computer software", "Libraries", "Australia" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This study describes an approach to managing stakeholder needs and preparing a performance brief during the project inception process using a method referred to as Strategic Needs Analysis (SNA) (Smith et al., 1998, 2003; Wyatt et al., 2004) in a real-life project involving a new library facility. The authors designed and organised the process for the development of the performance brief. The evolution of the performance brief is explained, summarised and illustrated through the various stages.The authors decided to gain the assistance of two software packages, Situation Structuring and Strategizer. The former was used to create and develop participant-based strategic themes or elements, and to then coalesce them into the final distinct options. Situation Structuring was created by Dickey (1995) and the software is described in Wyatt (1999). In essence, the software program and activities aim to combine diverse elements of a problem (people, places, objects) into coherent groups. This enables these simpler and more manageable groups to be considered one at a time. That is, the total problem is broken down into its major and distinctive elements and by carrying out such an analysis the author recognizes that there is a trade-off between simplicity and homogeneity (Dickey, 1995).The Situation Structuring process involves four distinct stages:1. identification of major elements, or in our case strategic themes or directions (people, physical objects, emotions and the like) in the problem or situation;2. using a repertory grid-like, trio-based method to generate important \"dimensions\" inherent within the situation, such as good-bad, new-old, healthy-sick and personal-impersonal;3. rating (by the individual or group) of each element on each dimension; and4. cluster analysis to group elements on the dimensions and so find the most favourable balance between simplicity (few groups) and homogeneity (similarity of elements within groups).The repertory grid technique (derived from personal construct theory - see Bannister and Fransella, 1986; Dalton and Dunnet, 1992, for an introduction) was developed by George A. Kelly (1955) as an instrument in clinical psychology for the elicitation of personal constructs. Dickey uses this simple knowledge elicitation approach to identify as small set of elements, the user (or users) is then asked to define some constructs (or attributes) which characterise these elements and then allocate values for each element on a limited scale between two extremes (poles). The strength of the software lies in the last part, the clustering of related elements.The authors believed that such the process imposed by the Situation Structuring software could assist in grouping (or clustering) the whole range of participant identified themes derived from the workshop brainstorming session. These groupings would then form the basis of an agreed range of options for scoring using the second software package, Strategizer, at the end of the first workshop. This software attempts to aid decision-making by making the options and the criteria for selection transparent. Individuals score each option independently and privately using the software installed on a laptop or a desktop computer. (For further information about Strategizer see Wyatt, 1999; Wyatt and Smith, 2000.)Situation Structuring software could thereby provide the important link and technical structure to the critical process of options development and agreement. In addition to the adoption of Situation Structuring, the latest version of the Strategizer software was used to provide a means of scoring the options for the participants. Laptop computers allowed each participant to score and review their selections. Results from their choices are displayed to the participants on the laptop screen by the software after the individual's scoring is complete to provide immediate feedback and a comparison of their scoring and preferences.\nThe performance brief study: The first discussions for the local council study began in late January 2000, when the authors made contact with the manager of Corporate Assets Division of the local council, who are responsible for library provision within a particular district. The area covered by this council was in the eastern part of Melbourne, lying around ten kilometres from the CBD, making it a middle suburb of Melbourne. The Corporate Assets Manager felt that SNA workshops would be useful in identifying the nature of the proposed complex with its potential uses involving a range of stakeholders who may be able to identify new opportunities for the new Centre at this critical stage in the planning and development stage of the project. The new facility would replace a leased shopfront in a neighbourhood-shopping strip (now termed urban village) that was experiencing a downturn in trade due to the location (3 kms distant) of a regional shopping centre, which dominated the area. The new facility provided the opportunity to regenerate the locality and the attractiveness of the shopping area and to consolidate and improve council services in the neighbourhood.The Council had appointed an architect to prepare preliminary plans of the proposed development prior to the completion of the Library Facilities Review in 1999, in the municipality. Two diagrammatic plans of the library had been prepared; a site location plan, adjoining properties and proposed facilities, and a floor plan indicating sizes and location of the various proposed spaces on the site.Aim\nWorkshop One: The process in workshop one consisted of the following steps:1. identify all stakeholder concerns (elements);2. refine list of concerns;3. identify extreme dimensions of each concern;4. rate each concern on the agreed dimension;5. group related concerns using Situation Structuring software;6. identify options arising out of grouped concerns;7. describe and agree content of stakeholder concerns under each option heading; and8. score options using Strategizer software.The participants were encouraged to identify their concerns about the project. No attempt was made at this stage to limit the concerns. Some 15 refined stakeholder concerns were developed, measured and analysed by the group within the Situation Structuring software (Dickey, 1995; Wyatt, 1999). This analysis produced three groups of linked or related concerns.The titles agreed by the participants for these related groups were:1. Workable;2. Council perspectives; and3. Community satisfaction.The groups were summarised under these working titles with the related concerns or characteristics listed. In addition, the group decided to add additional descriptive keywords that attempted to capture the essence of that grouping of concerns and to provide a focus for understanding the difference between the options.The three major groupings taken with their common concerns are summarised in Table I.Scoring the options\nThe performance brief: The performance brief was prepared based on these criteria. The draft brief was prepared within one week of the completion of the workshops and sent to the client for additional council and service department detail to be provided by the participants. The detail on each criterion provided by participants in the workshop provided the basis for the detail included in this performance brief. The performance brief was used to keep all service departments and the councillors informed of the type and extent of the various facilities in the new project. Once the project architects were appointed the performance brief was used as the basis of development of the more detailed project brief as part of the design approach and was a key reference document for stakeholders to assess the nature and extent of the facilities provision for their activities. The brief also provided for the possibility of community and commercial facilities to be included in the built facility.A sample from the final brief is provided as an Appendix (Figure A1). The highest scoring of the key criteria, service delivery, provides a good example of the style and content of the performance brief.The library project with a range of community services were integrated into the design and construction will commence in mid-2004 and is expected to be completed in mid-2005.The council officers in the property assets division consider this project to be the most successful major capital works project to be delivered by the Council. In their view, the major contributing factor to this success has been the development of the performance brief by the stakeholders who have been able to closely follow the development of the project through its planning, detail design and construction stages.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this article is to create a strategically positioned client performance brief with a clear and workable statement of the project requirements specified by a representative group of stakeholders.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The application describes the relocation of a library with community facilities with a local council. This action research study of the project inception stages used the process of strategic needs analysis (SNA). This approach uses a workshop setting involving stakeholders in identifying a range of strategic options for the project problem. The development of a range of realistic options was aided by the use of a problem- structuring computer program, Situation Structuring. Individual workshop participants then expressed their preferences for the final options using a second software package (Strategizer) and after a short period for analysis the results were presented to a second workshop for discussion. The performance brief was then prepared to reflect stakeholders' and the workshop's preferences.\nFindings: - The process involved is described with the development and selection of organizational strategic options with the council stakeholders. The creation and identification of user performance indicators to guide the design development process is illustrated and a sample from the final performance brief is provided. The project is nearing completion and the local Council considers the process has been a success.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The process described has been developed over six studies in varying client environments in Australia. Further studies are needed in client organisations with a rolling program of capital works to test the robustness of the approach described.\nPractical implications: - This work can assist the facilities manager to play an important role in the development of the initial performance-based brief during the project inception stage that can assist clients and guide the design team.\nOriginality/value: - Establishing client needs during the formative stages of a project (before design commences) is becoming an increasingly important role for the facilities manager. This work presents a description of a process that provides the means for clients and facilities managers to ensure that their strategic needs are met within the defined project.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Barriers and challenges in the application of Six Sigma in the hospitality industry: Some observations and findings	[ "Quality", "Six Sigma", "Process excellence", "Hospitality industry", "Hospitality management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Service quality is the core in hospitality industry and its role in the success of hospitality sector cannot be overemphasised (Wilkins et al., 2007). It is vital for the hotel managers to have a good understanding on what exactly the customers want. Identifying and meeting the specific expectations of customers and delivering high-quality service to customers in hospitality industry are imperative for achieving and sustaining competitiveness. Implementing Six Sigma in hospitality business will make processes efficient and effective which lead to increased customer satisfaction, and improved product and service quality. It will also aid in the identification, reduction and elimination of process deficiencies which lead to better employee morale and satisfaction.Given the unique characteristics of services, the application of Six Sigma is more challenging in the hospitality sector than in the manufacturing sector. Issues of intangibility, perishability, heterogeneity and simultaneity of production and consumption of the hospitality product make delivery of hospitality services and processes extremely challenging (Reisinger, 2001; Reid and Bojanic, 2009). Service industries such as hospitality have to consider business process improvement initiatives such as Six Sigma to provide distinctive, authentic and higher value customer experiences and develop competitive advantages.\nSix Sigma: Six Sigma is an evolutionary development in the science of continuous improvement that combines the best elements of many earlier quality initiatives (Folaron, 2003). It is not a radical breakthrough idea, but a natural consequence of the ongoing pursuit of quality improvement. While the term Six Sigma is catchy and fresh, most of the tools and techniques associated with Six Sigma have been in existence for many years (Folaron, 2003).Highlighting its importance in the business context, Antony and Banuelas (2003, p. 334) define Six Sigma as \"a business improvement strategy used to improve business profitability, to drive out waste, to reduce costs of poor quality and to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of all operations so as to meet or even exceed customers' needs and expectations\". On the other hand Lucas states that fundamentally, Six Sigma is a methodology for disciplined quality improvement. Pande and Holpp (2002) identify three distinguishing characteristics of Six Sigma as its equal stress on customer, returns on investment and changing how management operates.Lowenthal (2002) argues that one of the principle goals of a Six Sigma effort within a company is to reduce process variation, that is, to develop an approach to limit the variation and more tightly focus the process so as to produce the same results over a long period of time. Chowdhury (2001) simplifies the above discussion and establishes the relationship between process, variation and Six Sigma in the following manner:When there is an output... ... ...there is a processWhen there is a process... ... ...there is performance variationWhen there is a variation... ... ...there is a Six Sigma opportunityThere has clearly been a considerable investment in terms of management time and financial resources into finding solutions to service quality issues in hospitality. Those organisations with a focus on delivering a reliable, high level of service consistently outperform others in terms of operating profit margins, guest satisfaction and employee satisfaction (Zeithaml, 2000). However, there is also plenty of evidence that consumers want a reliable and responsive service above all else (e.g. Zeithaml et al., 1990; Key and Pawitra, 2001; Chow-Chua and Komaran, 2002; Gronroos, 2007). Six Sigma is a powerful business strategy which can offer hospitality managers an extremely powerful competitive advantage in terms of reducing operational costs, defect rate in core processes and delivery high-quality service which result in superior customer satisfaction (Tan and Chakraborty, 2009).\nCase study: This research was carried out in a hotel in Edinburgh, which is part of a major international hotel chain. A case study method was adopted to conduct the research. Yin (2003) states a case study consists of processes that try to describe and analyse some entity in qualitative, complex and comprehensive terms not infrequently as it unfolds over a period of time. Case study method has been found to be of particular use in gaining a rich understanding of the situational context of the phenomenon and the processes being enacted. Data were collected through interviews, observations and from various company documents related to Six Sigma initiatives.Also, key literature related to quality initiatives in the hospitality industry from research journals, books and newspaper articles were reviewed. Various company reports, especially of previous Six Sigma projects implemented in the hotel, including the Six Sigma \"storyboards\" were analysed in detail to identify key aspects of quality initiatives and Six Sigma implementation. The Six Sigma \"storyboards\" were narrative in nature, self-explanatory with graphical displays of the different phases of the projects together with key figures and statistics. Four separate project storyboards related to projects implemented in the departments of banqueting, housekeeping, front office and kitchen were analysed in detail, which acted as a reference guide to help understand the way Six Sigma was being implemented in the hotel. This background information provided an insight into the implementation of Six Sigma in the hotel.Interviews were conducted with key informants, who have been involved in the implementation of the Six Sigma process in the hotel, which included members of the top management, frontline employees and specialist trainers (black belt, green belts, etc.). Involvement of each of these three groups is critical to the success of any Six Sigma projects, and interviews with key informants from these groups formed the sample, that was selected on a purposive basis.From the top management, the director of sales and marketing, director of human resources and assistant front office manager were interviewed. The Six Sigma manager (black belt) and a food and beverages trainer, who was a green belt, formed the sample for specialist trainers. Two members of the frontline staff, a headwaiter in the food and beverages department and a front office assistant were interviewed as members of departments where Six Sigma projects have been implemented. A semi-structured interview schedule was developed based on the insight gained from literature review and document analysis, which helped identify important issues and themes for detailed investigation. As the research instruments allowed further exploration of issues through open ended and follow up questions, the interview method was effective in gathering information on Six Sigma initiatives in the hotel, especially given the exploratory nature of the study. The data collected from the above sources were then analysed employing a thematic approach to identify recurring themes and to develop in-depth, contextually rooted descriptions and explanations of barriers and success factors in implementing Six Sigma in the case study hotel.\nBarriers and key challenges to implementing Six Sigma: Pande and Holpp (2002) present three approaches to implementing Six Sigma, namley, business transformational approach, strategic improvement approach and problem-solving approach. The data gathered from document analysis and interviews suggest the hotel in question do not follow any of these approaches. However, the comments made by senior managers and the black belt seemed to suggest a combination of these approaches being used by the hotel, with stress being on problem solving and exploring the full potential of Six Sigma to enhance quality and overall organisational efficiency. This is indicative of the relatively recent introduction of Six Sigma in the hotel, which is the stage when the management tend to have limited exposure to Six Sigma and what it can really do to help the organisation, and thus are guided by the notion that adoption of any single method could be a constraint to tapping its full potential.As the black belt stated \"the aim of adopting Six Sigma was not only for problem-solving but to exploit its full potential and see how else it could assist the organisation to achieve its corporate objectives\". However, as reported by Pande and Holpp (2002) there is evidence of hotels employing Six Sigma as a strategy for business transformation. Given the potential of Six Sigma to make organisation-wide process improvements, business transformation seems to be a natural benefit of its deployment in the longer term.Introducing any new initiatives involves the challenge of overcoming a number of barriers that can be organisational, cultural and resource related, and the hospitality industry is no exception, especially given its relatively recent adoption of Six Sigma. A number of barriers were identified by the respondents, which include problems in procuring required data for analysis, lack of time, lack of clarity about the projects, lack of team consensus on core problems and resistance to change.The challenge of having quality data available in the service industry such as hospitality can be a major limitation of Six Sigma (Antony, 2004). Given the importance of measuring and analysis of process-related data as key steps in implementing Six Sigma, any shortcomings in making relevant data available can lead to erroneous conclusions and wrong actions. In the case of the case study hotel, this seems to be a major problem area in implementing Six Sigma. The black belt and green belt noted the main obstacles in data procurement as difficulties in knowing where to get the data from and ensuring that right kind of data has been collected.Lack of time was seen as another main concern. Two different perspectives about time were observed during the research. The black belt expressed his agreement on the importance of completing the project on time in order for the organisation to benefit from the improvement in quality processes. This statement, probably, indicates frustration or tacit admission of instances of project delays. Other respondents tend to support this finding, with another manager noting that getting all members of a team to meet consistently at a given time every week was nearly impossible and that this sometimes resulted in projects taking longer time to complete. The black belt attributed this to the perception of colleagues about Six Sigma as something additional to their normal work, which probably explain the lack of enthusiasm to be prompt with Six Sigma activities and resulting in delays and loss of momentum. The findings point to the fact that the Six Sigma projects were getting delayed and there was an unhealthy attitude towards the Six Sigma initiatives. This is also symptomatic of an absence of clear understanding about the reasons for introducing Six Sigma in the hotel. Educating the work force about the importance and benefits of Six Sigma can help in developing the right attitude among employees at all levels ensuring more enthusiastic and prompt participation in Six Sigma projects.Resistance to change and inability to define problem areas and build consensus on issues were cited as another major obstacle to implementing Six Sigma in the hotel. These obstacles seem to be quite generic in nature as every quality initiative had faced resistance from employees. Consensus building can be a major challenge in any situation that involve human beings, and the problem can be more acute when there has to be a convergence of views while introducing a new process, about which employees are likely to be very sceptical to begin with. However, it was surprising to learn that the origin of resistance was not from the frontline employees, but from managerial staff, who are generally considered to be more open to new concepts and initiatives. Interestingly, the frontline employees were more receptive and happy with Six Sigma initiatives, as they experience the benefits of Six Sigma in their daily jobs.An effective system of communication is essential to the success of Six Sigma initiatives. However, the current framework of Six Sigma implementation and deployment lacks communication strategy across the hotel. It is important to adopt a proactive approach to ensure everyone in the organisation truly understands the benefits of Six Sigma initiatives and it might be helpful if every department/unit has its own Six Sigma co-ordinators who could ensure that members of his/her department are updated with all information on Six Sigma through active co-ordination with the Six Sigma black belts and Six Sigma project deployment champions. Such communication initiatives will help facilitate better employee involvement in Six Sigma projects.\nConclusion: This paper set out to consider some of the barriers and fundamental challenges to successful implementation of Six Sigma initiatives in the hospitality industry. The challenges of \"data collection\", \"defining projects\" and \"getting group consensus\" can be considered to be somewhat very challenging in the context of hospitality industry. Issues of \"time management\", \"resistance to change\", etc. can be considered as being specific to the hotel and are in need of management attention. Resistance to change can be overcome by thoroughly convincing people of the real benefits that lie in the process and this can be achieved by involving people in projects.Although management involvement and commitment seemed to be positive in the hotel industry where the case study was carried out, it has to be made known to the employees down the line to convince them of the total commitment of the top management to Six Sigma initiatives, which will contribute to taking the initiatives more seriously, not as just another management gimmick. Even though, certain aspects of culture change exist in the hotel, the change is yet to be instilled in the fabric of the organisation. It can be argued that the hotel's success on this particular factor is only half achieved and it may take another three or four years for organisation-wide culture change to take place. Change management initiatives would, probably, be helpful in the process of transforming organisation culture in line with the philosophy of Six Sigma.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to present some of the fundamental barriers and challenges in the use of Six Sigma as a business improvement methodology in the hospitality industry.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The approach taken was to collate data through observations made by the third author during the execution of the research project within the case study company as well as collating data from company story boards and interviewing relevant and appropriate staff members in the case study company.\nFindings: - The challenges of \"data collection\", \"defining projects\" and \"getting group consensus\" can be considered to be somewhat very challenging in the context of hospitality industry.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Due to limited time constraints, the number of people participated in the study was relatively small. Perhaps a simple survey questionnaire could also be distributed to a number of people at the top management level, middle management level and front-line staff personnel in the case study company.\nOriginality/value: - The paper provides an excellent resource for many researchers and practitioners equally who are engaged in research and applications of Six Sigma in the hospitality industry. Moreover there is a dearth of literature on the use of Six Sigma in the hospitality sector.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Doing "male" diversity research in France: a self-reflective account	[ "Gender", "Work identity", "Career development", "Business schools", "Ethnic minorities", "Academic staff" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Similar to most occupations, diversity studies in academia is gendered, as, to date, women have been the main supporters of equality and, later, diversity and its implementation that marked the rise of the HR function (Dobbin, 2009). It is surprising that interest in men in terms of their attitudes and behaviours towards diversity, in general, and towards diversity work and advocacy, more specifically, has emerged only recently, in the practitioner literature more than in managerial diversity scholarship (Atkinson, 2001; Proudman, 2008; Brackins, 2011; Ashcraft et al., 2013). Articles are generally written by practitioners, consultants or journalists and are prescriptive, advocating male support for diversity, and then moving on to explain how to achieve the desired result. Little voice is given to men's experience in diversity work, what their work consists in and how they became involved in diversity (Ashcraft et al., 2013).\nResearcher's self-reflection: I am a white male, born in France, into an (invisible) ethnic minority family, some of whose members had suffered from totalitarian regimes (be they fascist or so-called communist) and I have always felt concerned about racism and xenophobia. During my childhood, I recall spending evenings watching TV programmes on Second World War, the Stalin regime, concentration camps, and having discussions with my close relatives on this more than dark past. The possibility that such a past might resurrect itself occupies a permanent portion of my conscience. However, as I was growing up through the 1970s and 1980s I became aware that being an ethnic minority was not a valued characteristic in the dominant culture in France. I was also educated into keeping my origins a \"taboo\" when interacting with others and even experienced some form of self-hate, as I could see my own parents display these attitudes and behaviours.\nDiscussion and conclusion: My engagement in diversity research was not a personal, self-determined initiative, but was triggered by a demand formulated by outside stakeholders and takes a (modest) part in a large-scale multi-level social regulation and institutionalization process of equality and diversity in France where Europeans directives, national laws, professional bodies' and individual initiatives interact with each other (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Reynaud, 1979, 1989; Syed and Ozbilgin, 2009) in order to promote equality and diversity. International and national high-level regulative initiatives (adoption of laws and directives in the EU and France) pre-existed my engagement in diversity research and can be considered to have indirectly influenced it. But this externally determined request met with a lot of interest and excitement on my part.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Little is known qualitatively about how men become involved in diversity research. The purpose of this paper is to address a part of the gap in this type of research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper provides a self-reflective account of how the author became involved in diversity work.\nFindings: The author argues that \"doing diversity\" can be said to reflect an implicit \"tempered radical\" (Meyerson and Scully, 1995) approach which triggered deep-level concerns about a particular invisible trait that - up to the present paper -the author had never addressed in the research.\nResearch limitations/implications: The main limitation is that the contribution is based on a self-reflective account and can only be taken as a possibility among many possibilities; not as a representative situation.\nPractical implications: The diversity concept's vagueness which is often criticized for diluting pre-existing concerns about gender (and other) strands, appears to have the potential of helping male researchers to become aware of diversity strands they had never dared to address before, and to become aware of some of the male privileges they had enjoyed unknowingly.\nSocial implications: The paper illuminates that white males can benefit from working on the concept of diversity. Having been induced to work on diversity from social pressures rather than from a personal initiative does not reduce the pleasure, excitement and learning drawn from doing diversity-related work.\nOriginality/value: No paper to the author's knowledge focuses on male diversity research in France, an up-to-now silent area.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Can leader "humility" spark employee "proactivity"? The mediating role of psychological empowerment	[ "Psychological empowerment", "Employee proactive behaviour", "Humble leadership", "Identification with leader" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In a global marketplace where problems are increasingly complex and unpredictable, it becomes more difficult for leaders at the top to figure everything out (Owens and Hekman, 2012). The traditional model, which relies solely on the wisdom of leaders, is already seriously inadequate in the dynamic and uncertain organizational environment. Given this, today's organizations increasingly rely on employees taking initiatives in solving problems, in searching for ways to change work situations, and in making innovations to improve the organization's effectiveness. Understanding how to engender employee proactive behavior has important theoretical and practical significance and will become increasingly critical (Crant, 2000; Parker and Collins, 2010). Research has shown that leaders are a potentially important contextual factor in employee proactive behavior (Crant, 2000). Leaders' support, encouragement, and appreciation have been found to be associated with increased employee proactive behavior (Belschak and Den Hartog, 2010; Pieterse et al., 2010).\nTheory and hypotheses: Humble leadership\nMethod: Sample and procedure\nResults: Confirmatory factor analysis\nDiscussion: In this study, we focused on the effect of humble leadership on employee proactive behavior at work. We posited that psychological empowerment mediated the relationship of humble leadership and employee proactive behavior. To build up the boundary condition, we further proposed identification with leader as a key contingency of the effect of humble leadership on employee proactive behavior through the mechanism. Consistent with our arguments, we found that humble leader behavior could promote employee proactive behavior. Moreover, we found that the positive relationship was mediated by enhancing followers' psychological empowerment. Further, identification with leader was found to moderate the mediating effect of psychological empowerment.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of humble leadership on employee proactive behavior. The authors propose that such effect is mediated by psychological empowerment, and identification with leader moderates the intervening role of psychological empowerment in the humble leadership-employee proactive behavior relationship.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected from 286 subordinate-supervisor dyads from 4 industries in Northern China. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses were applied to test the research model.\nFindings: Humble leadership has a significantly positive effect on employee proactive behavior, and this effect is mediated by psychological empowerment. Furthermore, the identification with leader moderates the mediated relationships between humble leadership and employee proactive behavior via psychological empowerment.\nResearch limitations/implications: One limitation is that the data were collected cross-sectionally. Further research could conduct longitudinal research to retest the hypotheses. The present research has a number of implications. First, the authors extend humble leadership research. Second, the authors also contribute to humble leadership literature by addressing the lack of attention paid to the explanatory mechanism linking humble leader behavior to follower outcomes. Third, the authors provide a new insight into the boundary condition of humble leadership.\nPractical implications: Managers should demonstrate more humble behaviors in their leading process to influence employees' psychological empowerment and proactive behavior. In addition, managers should provide employees with sincere care in relation to work and life issues to produce employees' identification with leader.\nSocial implications: Humility is a modifiable trait that individuals can increase dramatically by practice. Humble behavior is more accessible and easier to cultivate, contrary to the stable trait of humility. Besides, our results confirmed the individuals with the virtue of humility are most likely to succeed. Thus, humble behaviors should be highly advocated and encouraged in our society.\nOriginality/value: This research extends humble leadership research by constructing and verifying the theoretical model of humble leader behavior and employee proactive behavior and by demonstrating the value of humble leader behavior in a non-Western context, and identifies the different roles of psychological empowerment and identification with leader on employee proactive behavior.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A framework for benchmarking product sustainability efforts: Using systems dynamics to achieve supply chain alignment	[ "Sustainability", "Systems theory", "Stakeholder theory", "Qualitative research", "Supply chain management", "Sustainable products" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Sustainability is a focal point for today's decision makers (Fawcett and Waller, 2011; Haanaes et al., 2012; Hahn et al., 2015; Lubin and Esty, 2010; Markley and Davis, 2007). The goal is to leverage sustainability initiatives to improve firm performance and image (e.g. Chen, 2009; Jasti et al., 2015; Winston, 2012). But, what does it truly mean to be sustainable? For most organizations, the sustainability goal can be described as profitably establishing sustainable operations and producing sustainable products.\n2. Product sustainability: the challenge exemplified: The sustainability path many companies have pursued highlights two challenges research must address: defining product sustainability and delineating the parameters of effective sustainable product programs.\n3. Benchmarking product sustainability: a brief background: An extensive, and growing, body of literature on sustainability is emerging (Haugh and Talwar, 2010). Much of the supply chain-related research is focussed on resource efficiency and the environmental impact associated with inefficiencies in the supply chain (e.g. Dubey and Ali Ali, 2015; Florida, 1996; Green et al., 1998; Handfield et al., 2002; Johansson and Sundin, 2014; Mollenkopf et al., 2010; Schvaneveldt, 2003; Upadhye et al., 2010; Veleva et al., 2003; Wu and Dunn, 1995). Several recent publications look into benchmarking sustainability efforts within the four walls of the firm (Deng, 2015; White and James, 2014) and across supply chains (Brindley and Oxborrow, 2014; Shabani and Saen, 2015; Tseng et al., 2014). Additional research emphasizes end-of-life considerations such as remanufacturing, reusing, and recycling (Ferguson et al., 2009; Ketzenberg and Zuidwijk, 2009; Kleindorfer et al., 2005; Vorasayan and Ryan, 2006) as well as concepts like closed-loop supply chains and reverse logistics (Chan et al., 2010; Ferguson and Souza, 2010; Fleischmann et al., 2003; Huang et al., 2009; Jindal and Sangwan, 2015). These are clearly important concepts - focussing on internal company operations and logistics activities across the supply chain - however, they do not establish a clear vision and understanding of what constitutes product sustainability. As such, at least three literature gaps hinder the effective pursuit of aligned supply chain-wide product sustainability programs:\n4. Methodology: The goal is to elaborate existing theories related to sustainability implementation in a supply chain context by \"filling in what has been left out - that is by extending and refining its existing categories and relationships\" (Locke, 2001, p. 103; see also Pratt et al., 2006). Here, we move toward a common conceptualization of what it means to deliver a sustainable product in order to align efforts to efficiently and effectively pursue comprehensive long-term sustainability programs. This need is acute as implementing sustainability in practice is challenging for companies due to the complex and diverse nature of sustainability perspectives and the different theories behind it (Connelly et al., 2011). Given our desire to understand the complexity and unexplored dynamics of sustainability phenomena in real-life situations, we use a grounded inductive methodology (Closs et al., 2010; Glaser and Strauss, 1967).\n5. A framework for aligning product sustainability programs: As the study began, no clear definition existed to answer the question, \"What constitutes product sustainability?\" Although we realized that companies like Walmart were struggling to develop a guiding understanding, the diversity of managers' responses was surprising. Four distinct response categories emerged as follows:\n6. Dynamics of pursuing product sustainability programs: Mapping the interview companies to the guiding framework reveals that 21 of the 28 interview companies (75 percent) had designed and implemented Scope 1 sustainability programs. Their focus was on managing internal activities to improve product and process sustainability. The remaining seven firms had moved into Scope 2, reaching out to suppliers and logistics service providers. Principal efforts focussed on proactively communicating a desire for higher product sustainability. Targets for sustainability compliance and efforts to measure the degree of compliance were being discussed. However, given the ambiguity with respect to a common understanding of product sustainability, these efforts were in an embryonic stage. Among the Scope 2 companies, three were trying to involve the customer, but their efforts lacked focus and coordination. They had yet to develop a system to assure participation and measure its effectiveness. Overall, the requisite alignment and inclusion of key supply chain stakeholders in a well-defined program had yet to meaningfully materialize. This reality raises two fundamental questions:\n7. Conclusions and implications: For close to two decades, sustainability has been a hot topic. Much progress has been made and a common sustainability language has begun to emerge. Today, managers talk comfortably about the triple bottom line and carbon footprint. Companies have documented substantive progress in eliminating waste and reducing emissions. However, as Walmart's Bill Simon noted in 2012, developing a common conceptualization of what constitutes a sustainable product has been much more difficult.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Regulatory pressure, consumer awareness, and the quest for competitive advantage place sustainable products in today's decision-making spotlight. The purpose of this paper is to explore supply chain dynamics as they relate to sustainable product programs and to empirically develop a framework to align efforts across the supply chain to bring sustainable products to market.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Grounded in systems design, stakeholder theory, and the theory of planned behavior, the authors conduct an inductive empirical study of 28 European and US companies.\nFindings: The authors make three contributions. First, the authors identify six dimensions of product sustainability, which map to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol's sustainability scope model. Second, the authors model relational dynamics using systems diagrams to provide a framework that: first, communicates a common understanding of product sustainability; and second, facilitates tradeoff analysis. Third, the authors elaborate behaviors needed to reduce ambiguity and compliance costs.\nPractical implications: Managers can use the framework to assess product sustainability and evaluate tradeoffs across product dimensions and supply chain participants. Using this insight, managers can design sustainable product programs that engage supply chain participants.\nSocial implications: By identifying dimensions, defining costs, and uncovering tradeoffs, managers can more effectively implement sustainable product programs.\nOriginality/value: The framework provides a much needed source of clarity to mitigate role ambiguity, reduce compliance costs, and promote collaborative behavior in bringing sustainable products to market.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Boundary choices in the pulp and paper industry	[ "Outsourcing", "Transaction costs", "Transactional analysis", "Paper industry" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This study explores the extent to which the sourcing, i.e. make-or-buy, decisions of firms operating in the pulp and paper industry (PPI) are rationalized according to the determinants of transaction-cost economics (TCE). Further, we investigate what additional explanatory factors complement or substitute the TCE-based explanations of firm boundaries. Our empirical approach was to conduct explorative interviews with senior managers in pulp and paper companies. We also validated our findings with interview material from other industries. The aim of this paper is to shed light on outsourcing and boundary choices from a perspective that combines traditional TCE reasoning and the more dynamic, capabilities-based approach. Previous studies, such as Argyres (1996), have adopted, at least to some extent, a corresponding research strategy. An alternative theoretical underpinning for TCE could have been found in the literature on operations management (OM) in that the growing importance of supply-chain management has created a strong research stream in the OM discipline (for an overview see, Prasad et al., 2000; Prasad and Babbar, 2000; Frohlich and Westbrook, 2001).We were encouraged by Grover and Malhotra's (2003) work, for example, to take TCE as our starting point. This approach focuses on the conditions under which an activity is better suited to internal coordination than exchange via markets, and there is a need to find the most efficient governance structure for different activities. However, merely minimising transaction costs is not the only driving force that determines the boundaries of firms. On the basis of previous research literature and our discussions with senior management in the PPI we argue that transaction-cost minimisation and risk avoidance constitute only one side of the coin, the other side comprising the benefits related to different sourcing options.We interviewed senior managers in the PPI in order to obtain a general view on decision-making determinants related to firm boundaries. This industry provides a very interesting research setting in that it has historically been intensively vertically integrated: the whole value chain, from raw-material sources to retailing, has been in the ownership of one company. However, in view of the rather poor-financial performance industry-wide, firms operating in PPI are being forced to re-think which activities would be best kept inside the firm boundaries and which are suitable for outsourcing. According to our interviews, the firm's boundary decision is motivated partly by transaction-cost-economics type of reasoning, but the benefits related to internal or external sourcing were also clearly noted. It also seems that the roles of different determinants of make-or-buy decisions are strongly associated with the strategic importance of the activity. This suggests that the explanatory power of the static transaction-cost approach varies depending on the nature of the activity under scrutiny. These findings from the PPI are further compared with results from some other industries.The paper proceeds as follows. In the next section, we introduce the theoretical background, then we describe the context of the study, the methodology and research setting. After that, we present our empirical results, discuss them and give some suggestions for further research.\nTheoretical background: To start from the conceptual level, by outsourcing we mean transferring an internal activity, regardless of whether it is an existing or a new one, to an external producer. According to Gilley and Rasheed (2000), in the former case the activity is substituted, implying vertical disintegration. In the latter case, the decision is based on abstention from producing internally, even though it would be possible. A governance-choice decision, in other words a make-or-buy decision, is thus a choice between the use of markets and the use of the firm's internal production in sourcing a particular activity.The bargaining power of customers or suppliers may enable them to capture the lion's share of the value created in a value chain. Other companies in the same chain may appropriate this value through vertical integration upstream or downstream. Vertical integration may help a firm to lower its supply costs, or to offset some of those related to coping with powerful suppliers or customers. It could also function as an entry barrier if there are cost advantages that can be exploited by the incumbent firm. It is even possible for integrated firms to prevent non-integrated competitors from obtaining certain intermediate products at any price. Vertical integration may give some scope benefits if there are technological inseparabilities. However, the downsides of wide vertical integration include potential efficiency problems due to a loss of variety in working practices and their development (compared to markets with innovation dynamics a la Schumpeterian competitive creative destruction), \"diseconomies of dis-specialization\", and the low-powered incentives inherent in hierarchical governance structures.\nGovernance choice and transaction costs: towards a benefits-catching framework: Previous studies have utilised the transaction-cost approach among other theoretical frameworks in exploring make or buy issues (Canez et al., 2000). Traditional TCE has been criticised because of its static nature, for example. Moreover, it has been perceived as focusing on avoiding the negative consequences of opportunism and neglecting value-creation issues that may also be essential factors explaining the firm's boundary choices (Conner, 1991). When the firm is conceptualised as a value-creating and capability-developing entity, the cohort of potentially relevant factors explaining its governance choices differs from the determinants associated with traditional TCE. As Loasby (1998) points out, the expected benefits arising from new capabilities might justify the transaction costs that may result from the development of these assets. Similarly, according to Zajac and Olsen (1993, p. 132):[...] transaction cost and transaction value may often be correlated such that the pursuit of greater joint value requires the use of governance structures that are less efficient from a transaction cost perspective.Langlois (1992) extended this framework to include so-called dynamic transaction costs (DTC) that are the \"costs of not having the capabilities you need when you need them.\" Correspondingly, Jacobides and Winter (2005), among others, consider transaction costs and capabilities to be essentially intertwined, and Heiman and Nickerson (2002) and Leiblein (2003) suggest integrating the transaction-cost and capability perspectives into analyses of boundary choice. According to an empirical study, conducted by Argyres (1996), capability considerations are significant determinants of the firm's boundary choices. Similarly, Mayer and Salomon (2006) found that it was not only the risks of contractual hazards but also the firm's technological capabilities that had an effect on governance choices. Further, Ettlie and Sethuraman (2002) found evidence that the firm's resource-based factors and transaction-cost-based predictors both explained the sourcing decisions. Hence, when only the determinants of traditional transaction cost theory are taken into account in governance choice considerations, the explanatory framework isolates important relevant explanans beyond scrutiny (Kylaheiko, 1998; Maki, 2004).Blomqvist et al. (2002) introduce a framework that extends the notion of governance choice to include the transaction benefits and dynamic dimensions of make-or-buy decisions, which they then use in their analysis of partnership formation. Instead of focusing solely on the cost side, this extended framework also calls attention to value creation and appropriation. Hence, the overall goal in governance choices is to define the boundaries of the firm in a way that minimises transaction and management costs and maximises the benefits. According to Blomqvist et al. (2002), the main determinants of the choice of governance structure include static governance costs (transaction and management costs), dynamic governance costs (transaction and management costs), and dynamic governance benefits (transaction benefits and management benefits).Static governance costs are the \"costs of running the economic system\" (Arrow, 1969, cited in Williamson, 1991, p. 269) and the costs of using price mechanisms (Coase, 1937). Conditions of bounded rationality and opportunism together with asset specificity, information asymmetry and uncertainty give rise to contractual hazards and have an impact on the governance of activities (Williamson, 1985). Not only is there a risk of opportunistic behaviour, organising an activity using market sourcing also involves search and other transaction-specific costs related to contracting and coordinating, i.e. static transaction costs (STC). Static management costs (SMC), on the other hand, encompass those arising from monitoring and measuring performance and the use of low-powered incentives. Dynamic governance costs stem from teaching, persuading and negotiating with the providers of external capabilities (DTC) or within the firm's boundaries (dynamic management costs, DMC) (Blomqvist et al., 2002). A firm that sources resources or activities from markets is able to exploit high-powered incentives through competition and economies of scale through specialisation, and to maximise flexibility and variation (Blomqvist et al., 2002), thereby bringing dynamic transaction benefits (DTB). On the other hand, if it has internal governance it can utilise the cumulative tacit knowledge that is needed in the development of new capabilities. Furthermore, internal governance makes it possible to exploit economies of scope and, in some cases, monopoly power over other firms (Kylaheiko, 2002). This results in dynamic management benefits (DMB).We suggest that the relative importance of the dimensions of the extended transaction-cost framework varies depending on the nature and strategic importance of the transactions or activities. These transactions and activities have diverging characteristics in terms of their long-term value-creation potential, for example. Simple activities that can be sourced from the markets without incurring a significant risk of opportunism are not as challenging from the governance-choice perspective as those that incorporate significant value-creating potential but also significant risks and dynamic governance costs or notable interrelationships with other activities. Hence, we suggest that in the analysis of governance-choice considerations, taking a contingent view (i.e. by categorising the activities based on their strategic importance to the firm in question) may help to further understand why and when the traditional transaction-cost approach explains boundary choices relatively well and when it does not, and why. We used a 2D framework in our analysis, in which one dimension describes the nature of the activities and the other the costs and benefits related to the choice of governance structure.\nResearch context and methodology: The pulp and paper industry\nResults: Below we present the findings from the interviews. We have grouped them according to the determinants set out in the theoretical framework we utilised, which takes into account both the costs and the benefits of different governance structures.Static transaction costs\nDiscussion and conclusions: This paper explored the boundary choices of global pulp and paper firms within the theoretical framework of the extended transaction-cost approach. Since the operations of these companies traditionally cover the whole value chain from raw materials to the end-user interface, the PPI provides a fruitful context for this type of research. Another reason for focusing on this mature industry concerns the value-creation problems it faces. In this challenging situation, the strategic focuses of the major players are under serious consideration, and any chosen strategic orientation may well have consequences in terms of their efficient boundaries. One could assume that in this tough global situation the traditional strong integration emphasis is only one alternative. Consequently, boundary considerations are now of utmost importance on the strategic agendas of these global PPI firms. Other industries are also actively exploring the value-creation possibilities along their value chains, and conceptual and case studies have been used to this end (Kumar and Arbi, 2008; Fleury and Fleury, 2007; Kylaheiko and Sandstrom, 2007; Karlsson and Skold, 2007).The senior managers we interviewed provided a rich data set concerning how PPI companies reasoned their boundary choices. It was made clear that the decision makers in these companies are actively and consciously looking at both sides of the coin: cost-minimising possibilities are complemented with value-maximising considerations. Boundary choices are indeed currently under active consideration in the PPI, and the extended transaction-cost framework, i.e. the traditional framework complemented with a transaction-benefit side and dynamic dimensions, seems to be a viable approach to analysing make-or-buy issues. Since this study is based mainly on interviews with informants from only a few companies and industries, future research comparing similar boundary considerations in other industries would shed more light on these very relevant and complex issues.The managerial implications of this research are encouraging: deep analytical techniques are often used in deliberations concerning firm boundaries. Efficient use of the extended transaction-cost framework in considering boundary-choice issues requires a clear strategic focus that facilitates identification of the firm's core, supporting and marginal activities. In using markets successfully it needs to know \"what it is outsourcing\", i.e. the position and connections that the outsourced function has in its network of operations. The market option is not a panacea for getting rid of existing problems in the hierarchy. As far as the core PPI activities are concerned, the hierarchy option seems to be justified in terms of the DMB that have their roots in learning and the utilisation of cumulative tacit knowledge. The fear of high STC makes these firms cautious about using markets in their key supporting activities (e.g. maintenance). In sum, it could be said that the PPI is facing two challenges with regard to outsourcing: first, the companies do not have a tradition of outsourcing for historical reasons because the production efficiency of pulp and paper mills stems from the closeness of the raw material (forests). Pulp and paper mills have been built \"in the middle of nowhere\", and this means that all of the operations, including those related to the infrastructure, have traditionally been built into the hierarchy. The second challenge is the general lack of well-developed markets for the strategically most important assets and services. We believe that the extended transaction-costs framework could help management to overcome the first challenge, and once the culture has changed, the markets for the relevant assets will emerge.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the boundary choices of firms operating in the pulp and paper industry.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Explorative interviews were conducted with senior managers of pulp and paper companies, and comparative data on other industries were collected. The theoretical approach was based on extended transaction-cost economics (TCE).\nFindings: - The results demonstrate that when company decision makers consider the governance choice for different activities, i.e. make or buy, the determinants implied in traditional TCE are not the only relevant factors. Transaction or management benefits are also important, and managers also take into account the long-term effects of boundary choices. The determinants of governance choices depend on the nature and strategic importance of the activity in question: when it is a question of outsourcing marginal activities, for example, management costs and dynamic transaction benefits seem to be of most significance. On the other hand, transaction costs and dynamic management benefits have a major role in the definition of boundary choices related to core activities.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This research paper is explorative. Further quantitative research would enhance the generalizability of the findings.\nPractical implications: - This paper demonstrates that the factors managers implicitly take into account when considering firm boundaries could be explicitly assessed through the application of extended transaction-cost logic. This would help to make the decision making more structured and would highlight the relevant factors affecting these boundaries.\nOriginality/value: - Traditional transaction-cost theory has been criticised for neglecting value-creation issues that may also be essential in terms of explaining the firm's boundary choices. This study brings not only transaction costs but also the benefits and dynamic aspects of these choices under scrutiny.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Brand image and consumer satisfaction towards Islamic travel packages: A study on tourism entrepreneurship in Malaysia	[ "Brand image", "Consumer satisfaction", "Tourism entrepreneurship", "Islamic travel package" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Entrepreneurial activities in tourism sector has been known to be one of the most powerful economic strategies for quite some time, as one of the most effective approaches for developing a country's economy and sustaining its competitiveness. The number of Muslim tourists has been snowballing and interesting to be studied. It was assumed that the Muslim population is about 2.14 billion in 2018 and increases to 2.25 billion in 2019 (Muslim Population Worldwide Data, 2019). The increase of 1.84 per cent in the number of Muslim population is advantageous for the market of Muslim consumers. As a result, the Islamic travel packages have become the concern of the Halal tourism market. The information on Muslim behaviours and need can be used to develop the image and offer an Islamic travel package that matches the requirements of the new market. According to Eid (2013), a better understanding of Muslim consumer will allow the tourism activities to expand the Islamic travel package.\n2. Literature review and hypotheses: 2.1 Product quality\n3. Methodology: This study used a cross-sectional design and quantitative method to examine the factors affecting brand image and consumer satisfaction on Islamic travel package. The platform was Google form to collect the data. This platform is chosen due to its features such as linking Google account and Docs editor. Then, the data were imported into Statistical Package Social Science (SPSS) and Smart-PLS for further analysis.\n4. Results: 4.1 Descriptive analysis\n5. Conclusion: The results of this study confirmed that product quality has a positive and significant effect on brand Image. The findings support H_1 and the result was consistent with the findings by previous studies (Ghobehei et al., 2019; Nikhashemi et al., 2017; Sultan and Wong, 2012; Caruana and Malta, 2002; Anderson et al., 1994). For H2, Islamic physical attribute is a factor that can significantly affect brand image. Therefore, H_2 is accepted and the results are consistent with the findings of previous studies (Battour et al., 2014; Ozdemir and Met, 2012; Eid and El-Gohary, 2014). For H4, the result reveals that Islamic beliefs can affect brand image and H_4 is accepted. The result is consistent with the findings of previous studies (Gardiner et al., 2013; Jafari and Scott, 2013; Essoo and Dibb, 2004; Marks and Dollahite, 2001). For the mediating effect of brand image, H_7 is accepted in which brand image has a mediating effect on the relationship between product quality and consumer satisfaction. This result is consistent with the previous studies (Ghobehei et al., 2019; Chen, 2010; Zhu and Sarkis, 2006; Anderson et al., 1994). For H8, brand image has a mediating effect on the relationship between Islamic physical attribute and consumer satisfaction; H_8 is accepted. This study is consistent with previous studies (Eid and El-Gohary, 2015; Rice and Al-Mossawi, 2002; Sweeney and Soutar, 2001). Finally, H10 is accepted in which brand image has a mediating effect on the relationship between Islamic belief and consumer satisfaction. This result is consistent with previous studies (Eid and El-Gohary, 2014; Alam et al., 2011; Ateeq-Ur-Rehman, 2010; Zamani-Farahani and Henderson, 2010).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to examine the factors affecting brand image and consumer satisfaction towards Islamic travel package in Malaysia.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study used a cross-sectional design and quantitative method in examining the factors affecting the brand image and consumer satisfaction on Islamic travel package. This study has chosen Google form as a platform to collect the data.\nFindings: The findings revealed that product quality, Islamic physical attribute and Islamic belief have a significant positive effect on brand image and consumer satisfaction. The findings confirmed that product quality, Islamic physical attribute and Islamic beliefs are the crucial tools for brand image that leads to the satisfaction of Muslim consumers on the Islamic travel package.\nOriginality/value: This paper addresses understudied aspects of brand image and consumer satisfaction towards Islamic travel package in Malaysia. It provided useful insights into the product quality, Islamic physical attribute and Islamic belief on brand image and consumer satisfaction towards Islamic travel packages. Tourism companies should improve and update their package based on the religious perspective to attract Muslim consumers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Value conflicts between local government and private sector in stock public-private partnership projects: A case of China	[ "Stakeholder", "Value management", "Case study", "Project management", "Social network analysis", "Value conflicts", "Stock public–private partnership project" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: As projects are growing larger and becoming more complex, there is a growing concern about value conflicts caused by diversified stakeholders from different contextual settings (Panahi et al., 2017). Public-private partnership (PPP) is characterized by more stakeholders than other types of projects (Tang and Shen, 2013) and fits the context well. PPP has been widely taken as an effective measure to stimulate the general economy and a potential vehicle for achieving sustainable goals (Lenferink et al., 2013). However, accompanying with the boom of PPP projects, there are potential externalities as well as unintended consequences hidden behind. In particular, treating the PPP mode simply as a means of investment and financing for government has led to problems including the irrational allocation of risk, the equity-like debt in a disguised form and the emphasis of project built-up rather than its operation (Shi, 2017). In order to tackle above problems, stock public-private partnership (SPPP) projects were proposed as a special type of PPP project by The State Council (2014), which are defined as projects initiated, financed and constructed by government seeking private sector involvement in financing, managing and operating through project financing modes, including Transfer-Operate-Transfer (TOT), Renovate-Operate-Transfer (ROT), Transfer-Own-Operate (TOO), etc.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Value in projects and value in SPPP projects\n3. Research methods: A mixed method approach was chosen for this study. Research methods include a single case study, interviews and SNA. The mixed method approach recognizes the importance of traditional quantitative and qualitative research and often provides the most informative, complete, balanced and useful research results (Johnson et al., 2007).\n4. Results and analysis: 4.1 Value conflicts between local government and private sector\n5. Discussion: 5.1 Exchange rules adopted by local government\n6. Conclusion: Our exploratory study investigates the value conflicts, exchange rules and situational factors of local government and private sector in SPPP projects, which is a special type of PPP project in China. In total, 24 value conflicts were found between public and private parties, among which 10 were successfully resolved and 14 remained unresolved. For local government, cost, economic and policy are the three main causes of value conflicts against private sector. While for private sector, almost half of value conflicts (11) against local government were caused by economy. Subsequently, six types of exchange rules were identified, which are rationality, altruism, power consistency, reciprocity, group gain and competition. Definitions of the six exchange rules are provided in Table III. These exchange rules are adopted according to two sets of situational factors, namely, urgency and professionality for local government (Figure 3), short-term interests and long-term interests for private sector (Figure 4). A summary of paired exchange rules is provided in Table IV to predict if value conflicts between local government and private sector will be resolved or not.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The complexity caused by conflicting values of stakeholders is a critical issue influencing the performance and sustainability of stock public-private partnership (SPPP) projects, which is a special type of public-private partnership (PPP) project in China. The purpose of this paper is to focus on value conflicts between local government and private sector, which are two major stakeholders in SPPP projects, and investigate exchange rules to resolve value conflicts.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using a mixed method approach, 55 semi-structured interviews were conducted for 15 stakeholders involved in a representative SPPP project. Social network analysis was then adopted to outline the value conflict network based on data drawn from focus group discussions. Finally, 24 value conflicts between local government and private sector were analyzed through another 13 semi-structured interviews in an abductive approach.\nFindings: Results show that value conflicts between local government and private sector are dynamic and intertwined within and across three project phases, based on which six exchange rules, rationality, Altruism, power consistency, competition, group gain and reciprocity, are identified. Two sets of situational factors which potentially influence exchange rules adopted by the two parties are revealed, namely, urgency and professionality for local government and short-term interests and long-term interests for private sector. A summary of paired exchange rules is provided to predict if value conflicts between the two major stakeholders will be resolved or not.\nResearch limitations/implications: Theoretical implications are twofold. First, the results provide a contribution to PPP project management by investigating value conflicts between local government and private sector, which deepen the understanding on the unique characteristics of SPPP projects. Second, the findings contribute to a comprehensive understanding of social exchange theory by suggesting a summary of condition-based and pair-based exchange rules.\nOriginality/value: One strength of the study is in the concentrated analysis of a single case which allows for a deep understanding of value complexity between local government and private sector in SPPP projects from a dynamic and networked perspective. A guideline is provided for both parties when a value conflict is found hard to resolve. Besides, this study is also among the first that addresses value issues in SPPP projects.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Intellectual capital and technological dynamic capability: evidence from Chinese enterprises	[ "Dynamics", "Intellectual capital", "Technology management", "Technological innovation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Intellectual capital as the knowledge carrier has drawn a majority of scholar attention (Dumay and Rooney, 2018; Asiaei et al., 2018; Hussinki et al., 2017). On the one hand, knowledge and intelligence play an increasingly critical role in innovation activities, on the other hand, investment and resources spent on innovation activities strengthen the knowledge and intelligence of enterprises. Therefore, the relationship between intellectual capital and technological capability emerges as an interesting topic for both academia and industry.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Intellectual capital and its sub-dimensions\n3. Theoretical framework: Our study first analyses the inherent mechanism of intellectual capital on technologic dynamic capability by way of a dynamic system model, and then employs empirical data about Chinese listed companies in the manufacturing industry to test the theoretical hypotheses. This combination of system method and empiricism not only matches the internal validity of theoretical developments on intellectual capital, but also guarantees external validity by providing testable, reproducible and empirical evidence.\n4. Research methodology: 4.1 Sample and data collection\n5. Data analysis and results: 5.1 The factor analysis of technological dynamic capabilities\n6. Conclusions and discussions: Technology innovation is widely adopted as a major corporate strategy to enhance a firm's research and development performance, so it is critical to uncover possible significant factors able to improve technological capability. Based on previous research, we constructed a system dynamics model to explain the mechanism of intellectual capital on technological capability from a dynamic situation. By proposing eight related hypotheses, we further verified the relationship between intellectual capital and dynamic technology capability, and the moderating role of ownership type. Using panel data pertaining to Chinese listed companies in the manufacturing industry from 2007 to 2017, we conducted empirical analysis based on theoretical hypotheses and came to the following conclusions.\n7. Contributions and limitations: 7.1 Main contributions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: As the carrier of knowledge, intellectual capital plays a crucial role in technology capability. However, most of the previous studies focus on technological capability from a static perspective, rather than take dynamic technology capability into consideration. Based on this research gap, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of intellectual capital and its sub-dimensions on dynamic technology capability, measuring by the factor scores of five technological input and output variables.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors combine the system dynamic method and empirical study to guarantee the internal and external validity. Specifically, the authors design the system dynamic model and simulation to analyze the system mechanism of intellectual capital and its sub-dimensions on dynamic technology capabilities from four cause and effect feedback loops. Then, the authors propose eight hypotheses based on this system dynamic model. In the empirical test phase, the authors employed a panel data set pertaining to Chinese manufacturing firms from 2007 to 2017, and adopted the fixed effect panel model according to Hausman test.\nFindings: The authors find that intellectual capital efficiency (ICE) and its sub-dimensions (i.e. human capital efficiency, organizational capital efficiency and capital employed efficiency (CEE) have significantly positive impacts on dynamic technology capability. The results also show that the positive effects of ICE and OC on dynamic technology capability would be strengthened in state-owned enterprises compared with non-state-owned enterprises, while this moderation effect is weakened on the relationship between CEE and dynamic technology capability.\nOriginality/value: In this study, the authors first introduce the system dynamic method to explore the relationship of intellectual capital and dynamic technology capability, which is a valuable trial on combining system science and empirical study. Additionally, the authors continue to expand the dynamic technology capability from the intellectual capital perspective, and also find the moderating effect from the ownership aspect. It is beneficial to the theoretical development of intellectual capital and dynamic technology capability. Furthermore, the authors provide significant inspirations and implications for enterprise's managers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Sleep loss among Thai high school students smartphone users affected by smartphone electromagnetic pollution: Time series study	[ "Smartphone", "Electromagnetic radiation", "High school students", "Sleep loss" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Adolescents are sleeping less with recent mean sleeping times in a narrow range of 6.25-7.03 h (SD 1.39-1.04) per day[1, 2]. Sleep loss impacts both health and learning, especially among adolescents growing up in the era of mobile phones[3]. Adolescents experience growth and biological changes during the sleep-wake process controlled by the body's internal clock and hormone secretion for a balanced sleep. Because of increased nighttime activities, the circadian rhythm is delayed in adolescence who now enjoy spending increasingly late nights as \"night owls\" due to the use of modern technology[4]. The majority of systematic review findings indicated that the use of smartphones and their technological features before sleep cause the late onset of sleep and a reduction in the actual sleeping time[5]. Furthermore, increased technology usage has been correlated with sleep disturbances (odds ratio (OR) 1.79; 95% CI: 1.39-2.31) and reduced sleep time (OR 1.53; 95% CI: 1.11-2.10)[6, 7].\nMaterials and methods: Ethical considerations\nResults: The majority of the students in the batch were female, averaging 17.4 years old and of normal health, which was also a criterion for the selection of participants. The study found that most participating high school students went to bed late and woke up late (Table I). The prevalence of sleep loss (<8 h) was found to be 52.9 percent and the average sleep duration was 7.4+-1.7 h, while the findings in the first phase showed 55.4 percent of students slept after 10:00 p.m., causing sleep loss with a mean sleeping time of only 6.88+-1.28 h. The prevalence of sleep latency was only 8.2 percent, inefficient sleep 8.5 percent and poor sleep 32.1 percent. The mean sleep quality score was 3.7+-2.07 and that was lower than the study in phase 1 with a mean score at 4.8+-2.9. Meanwhile, the results showed a prevalence of daytime sleepiness at 73.4 percent; 48.4 percent drank coffee and 27.9 percent used a smartphone before going to bed.\nDiscussion: In the present study, the mean sleep time was 7.4+-1.7 h with a prevalence of sleep loss (<8 h) at 52.9 percent, whereas the mean sleep time was 6.25 +-1.39-7.03 +-1.04 h in a previous study[1, 2]. A study involving the effect of technology use at night on sleep loss showed mean sleep duration was also on a decreasing trend. Smartphone use before sleep in this study was 27.9 percent and concurred with the findings from a previous study where mobile phone use before sleep was at 23.6-62 percent[7, 15]. In addition, the findings concur with the study on the factors related to sleep quality in Stage 1, which found smartphone use before sleep to influence sleep loss (ORadj1.82: 95% CI, 1.10-3.01). Furthermore, smartphone use before sleep frequently involves conversations for entertainment and social media use, meaning that students tend to use smartphones for a long time, and this causes students to sleep later. The result in the first phase showed 55.4 percent of students slept after 10:00 p.m., causing sleep loss with a sleeping time of only 6.88+-1.28 h. Thus, smartphone usage at night was found to pose a risk for sleepiness in the morning after waking up (ORadj1.70: 95% CI, 1.08-2.66). The recent study revealed that the students reported waking during the night to answer text messages was at 47 percent and answering phone calls were at 40 percent[1]. The consequence of daytime sleepiness in this study was found as high as 73.4 percent, which concurs with the findings of other studies at 70-90.4 percent[16]. The present result on coffee drinking was at 48.4 percent, indicating that students who were deprived of sleep drank coffee to help keep them awake.\nConclusion: Adolescents use smartphones for long periods of time and frequently at night. This causes them to be exposed to smartphone electromagnetic radiation and smartphone screen lighting. This, in turn, disturbs brain waves and the nervous system controlling sleep balance mechanisms and wake-sleep cycles related to sleep and abnormalities in biological sleep. Sleep loss in adolescents is an increasing trend and sleep loss has been found to be correlated with the highest SOP group (2.00 x 10-5 mW range). These results confirmed that increased and longer smartphone use results in reduced sleep time. The findings recommend that parents set time boundaries around technology use at home. This will help to reduce contact with electromagnetic radiation and smartphone screen lighting thereby hopefully increasing sleep time in order to create a better sleep quality.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Adolescents being in a stage of growth need good sleep, but, today, they suffer from sleep deprivation due to such extrinsic factor as a smartphone which they enjoy spending time using the device. However, the effects of smartphone output power (SOP) on the duration of good sleep remains unclear. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the correlation of the SOP and sleep loss in high school students.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The time-series study was conducted among 145 high school students in Chiang Mai Province who completed a sleep diary which applied by the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index. The SOP was corrected by a smartphone application and transmitted by e-mail to a researcher every day. The completed data set contains 12,969 entries. Headache, anxiety and depression were also assessed. Data were analyzed using the generalized estimating equation adjusted for demographic data, smartphone use and other factors.\nFindings: Most of the study subjects are female, 17.4 years old on average. The prevalence of sleep loss (<8 h) was 52.9 percent with averagely 7.4 +-1.7 h of sleep duration and poor sleep at 32.1 percent. Anxiety, depression, headache had relationships with sleep loss. The daily dose, evening and nocturnal SOP in the range of >= 2.00 x 10-5 mW had stronger relationships with sleep loss than their effects in the range of <= 1.79 x 10-5 mW (ORadj1.32; 95% CI: 1.26-1.76, ORadj1.34; 95% CI: 1.07-1.17 and ORadj1.41; 95% CI: 1.07-1.17, respectively). Meanwhile, morning Lag_2 and daytime Lag_1 in the range of >= 2.00 x 10-5 mW appeared to have a strong relationship with sleep loss (ORadj1.60; 95% CI: 1.26-1.76, ORadj1.36; 95% CI: 1.07-1.17). The relationship between Lag_4 daily dose and sleep loss took the form of a reverse dose-response.\nOriginality/value: Sleep loss in adolescents has an increasing trend of prevalence and has been found to be correlated with the highest SOP group (>= 2.00 x 10-5 mW range). These results confirmed that increased and longer smartphone use result in reduced sleep time. This causes them to be exposed to smartphone electromagnetic radiation and smartphone screen lighting. This disturbs brain waves and nervous system controlling sleep balance mechanisms. The findings recommended parents setting time and boundaries around technology use at home to reduce contact with electromagnetic radiation and smartphone screen lighting, thereby increasing sleeping time in order to create good sleep quality.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Do not attempt resuscitation orders: the role of clinical governance	[ "Ethics", "Clinical governance", "Patient care", "Quality of life" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: End-of-life healthcare has not been prominently positioned on the landscape of clinical governance. Recent figures from the Healthcare Commission, however, indicate that the majority of currently reported complaints are in relation to end-of-life care (Healthcare Commission, 2007). This finding highlights the growing importance of end-of-life matters and mandates a need for an enhanced profile in clinical governance.\n1 CPR and guidance for DNAR orders: Survival rates following CPR are low with success most likely in younger patients without co-morbidities. Following successful resuscitation almost half of the 14 per cent of patients expected to survive until discharge display new neurological impairment of a moderate to severe degree (Conroy et al., 2006). Those receiving resuscitation in community care settings fare less well, with an expected survival to discharge rate of 0-6 per cent.Accepted guidance (Resuscitation Council UK, 2001) identifies several circumstances when a do not attempt resuscitation (DNAR) order might be considered, for instance where:* a competent patient refuses resuscitation and these wishes are known or ascertainable;* quality of life considerations weigh in favour of a DNAR order, even after human rights considerations;* the likely burdens of resuscitation outweigh the expected benefits;* the wishes of the next-of-kin of an incompetent patient are in support of such a decision and these wishes are known and ascertainable; and* the views of key members of the wider healthcare team support such a decision.In the absence of technical futility or a valid and relevant advance directive, a DNAR order is made by balancing the anticipated burdens (associated risks, complications and low survival) against the possible benefit (quality of life following CPR). Decisions should be taken on an individual patient basis, with due weight accorded to relevant considerations.\n2 The rationale for a DNAR order: 2.1 Futility and quality of life\n3 Clinical governance and DNAR orders: 3.1 Understanding concerns\n4 Conclusion: End-of-life issues are increasingly important as evidenced by the rising number of complaints. Futility and quality of life arguments should be viewed from the patient's perspective and positioned firmly within the fabric of patient rights. We argue for a more sophisticated decision-making framework in the context of governance that engages the competent patient's right to make a self-determined positive choice for CPR. Patient interest groups, such as Age Concern, have expressed disquiet about DNAR orders and the potential for reduced quality clinical care. It would be banausic for the medical profession to ignore such sentinel raw feelings. Patients' perspectives and the right to self-determination are key to patient-centred clinical care within the context of modern professionalism. A shifting emphasis towards a positive choice for CPR in end-of-life decision making should be acknowledged within the configuration of clinical governance.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to provide a viewpoint on decision making in do not attempt resuscitation (DNAR) orders from the perspective of a competent patient who requests cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) when their clinical prognosis is poor. This issue will be examined from the position of patient autonomy and self determination.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The literature is reviewed including academic commentary, case law and statute.\nFindings: - The paper finds that factors such as futility and quality of life that engage in DNAR considerations should be gauged from the patient's perspective. There is a definite argument for supporting a competent patient's positive autonomous choice for CPR. This should feature clearly within the framework of clinical governance.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Presents a viewpoint designed to stimulate debate based on a contemporary perspective of patient autonomy.\nPractical implications: - End-of-life care is assuming a greater importance as evidenced by an increase in reported complaints. Decisions regarding CPR need to form part of the clinical governance agenda.\nOriginality/value: - This paper provides an original viewpoint on the tension between a competent positive choice for CPR against opposing medical opinion, and argues for a resolution on a principled basis to protect patients from arbitrary decision making with regard to resuscitation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Organic wheat products and consumer choice: a market segmentation analysis	[ "Consumer preferences", "Latent class modeling", "Organic food", "Gluten-free", "Market segmentation", "Willingness to pay" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Consumer demand for organic foods in the United States has experienced strong growth: in 2017, sales of organic foods were 13 times that of 1997 level ($3.4bn to $45.2bn) (Organic Trade Association, 2018). Current US demand for organic wheat products, such as bread and snack foods, exceeds the supply of organic wheat. Organic wheat acreage accounted for 6.7% of all organic acreage in 2016, but bread and grains made up 9% of organic food consumption by 2012 (U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2017). Understanding which product attributes are important to current and potential consumers of organic wheat products and what determines or limits their interest in organic foods can allow manufacturers and marketers to make better production and marketing decisions when allocating limited supplies of organic wheat and improve their understanding of market growth potential.Past studies have characterized consumers of organic foods and assessed the determinants of their interest in and willingness to pay (WTP) for organics across a variety of products (e.g. Gil et al., 2000; Krystallis and Chryssohoidis, 2005; Hughner et al., 2007; Aertsens et al., 2009). However, studies disagree in their assessments of which consumer characteristics and factors play a role in determining consumers versus nonconsumers of organic foods. For example, some studies have found that demographics are poor predictors of organic shopping behavior and that attitude and lifestyle factors tend to explain consumer behavior better (Li et al., 2007; Gracia and de Magistris, 2013), while others find significant relationships between demographics and organic food demand (Loureiro et al., 2001; Onyango et al., 2007; Ngobo, 2011). To date, no study has examined determinants of consumer demand for products containing organic wheat in the United States. This study fills the gap.To identify groups of \"very likely,\" \"likely\" and \"unlikely\" consumers of organic wheat products, this study clusters consumers into segments based on their attitudes toward organic products and production systems, their past purchases of organic wheat products and the importance they place on certified organic labels on wheat products. Past studies have found that consumers have different WTP values for organic virtue and vice foods (Van Doorn and Verhoef, 2011) as well as divergent taste and nutritional expectations (Ellison et al., 2016). Thus, the analysis is performed using bread and cookies--a virtue and a vice food item, respectively (Hui et al., 2009). Factor analysis is applied to reduce the number of attitudinal variables used in the segmentation process, and latent class modeling is then applied to carry out the segmentation. Differences in WTP values for certified organic products, preferences for labels and product characteristics, reasons for (not) purchasing organic wheat products and wheat/gluten consumption limitations are examined among the groups and products to identify determinants, motivations and barriers to consumption of organic wheat products.\n2. Background and literature review: 2.1 Determinants, motivations and barriers to organic food consumption\n3. Data: This study uses 1,009 responses from an online survey conducted in 16 US western states in 2017. Qualtrics platform and panelists were used to administer the survey and to source the sample. Respondents were screened so that the sample was representative of the population based on age, gender and state of residence. Only individuals aged 18 years and older were eligible to participate. A total of 1,047 responses were received, but 38 responses --either incomplete or did not pass predetermined checks --were eliminated. The final sample is representative of the population of the US western states in terms of gender, age group, marital status, household size, presence of children and unemployment rate per US Census Bureau data (see Table 1).In addition to the basic demographics mentioned above, survey respondents were asked a variety of questions about their shopping and consumption habits, preferences for bread and cookies, reasons for (not) purchasing organic bread and cookies in the past and attitudes toward organic foods and production methods in general. To examine consumer preferences and WTP values for selected labels, a hypothetical choice experiment was employed. 3.1 Choice experiment design\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Latent class modeling\n5. Results: 5.1 Factor analysis and factor scores\n6. Summary and conclusions: This study attempts to understand the factors that determine consumers' interest in organic wheat products, the product characteristics and labels that matter to current and potential consumers and how potential consumers differ from current organic consumers by examining differences across consumer segments. The analysis is performed for bread and cookies to assess whether the product category (virtue vs vice) has an impact on the findings. Latent class modeling is used to cluster respondents based on their attitudes toward organics in general and their preferences for the organic label on selected wheat products, resulting in three groups: \"very likely,\" \"likely\" and \"unlikely\" consumers, indicating their likelihood of purchasing a wheat product with an organic label.The analysis reveals significant differences across groups that are not product specific: First, WTP values for organic labels differ significantly across groups. Second, as the importance of the organic label increases, the importance of local and natural labels decreases (and vice versa). However, results show that a higher share of \"very likely\" consumers purchased local bread and cookies compared to \"unlikely\" consumers. \"Very likely\" consumers also have higher interest in other labels, as demonstrated by their past purchases, although they rank them equally or less important relative to the other two groups.Third, \"very likely\" consumers of organic bread and cookies rank price and taste overall as less important than the other groups. Among those who had not purchased organic versions of the products, \"likely\" and \"unlikely\" consumers are more likely to believe that organic products are too expensive, organic is not better than conventional, and conventional tastes better. It appears that the higher price of organic wheat products and their expected inferior taste relative to conventional versions may act as a barrier to the consumption of organic wheat products, which is in line with findings by Ellison et al. (2016). However, it is not examined whether consumers' beliefs that organic products are less tasty are based on expectations or actual experiences. Finally, results show the share of respondents who avoid gluten/wheat is highest in the \"very likely\" groups, indicating that they find organic wheat products appealing.Two conclusions are drawn to assist food manufacturers and marketers in production and marketing decisions: First, it may be worthwhile to improve the taste of organic wheat products, particularly vice products such as cookies (consumed for pleasure), which may help justify the higher price tag. All groups rank the \"organic\" label as more important for cookies than for bread, yet a smaller share of respondents had purchased organic cookies than had purchased bread; expected taste is one reason for this discrepancy. At the same time, \"likely\" and \"unlikely\" consumers rank \"taste\" as more important for cookies than for bread. Marketers may also want to conduct organic cookie sample tastings, which will allow consumers to experience and personally evaluate the taste of organic cookies and may help convince \"likely\" consumers (who appear to be more price conscious than \"very likely\" consumers) that organic cookies are worth the extra cost. Lee and Yun (2015) concluded that evaluating the sensory attributes of organic foods as pleasant affects likelihood of purchase; this study's findings suggest that their result holds in particular for hedonistic items. Additionally, advertising could be used to form positive associations between hedonistic foods produced organically and great taste. Second, the results suggest that organic bread produced with whole-grain flour may appeal to \"likely\" consumers, who rank the \"whole-grain\" label on bread as most important.This study confirms that consumer interest in organic products depends on product type. Although organic bread attracts the interest of a broader group of consumers relative to organic cookies, some of these consumers are very price sensitive. As the organic premium for bread increases from 30 to 40%, the number of consumers drops by half. The group of consumers preferring organic cookies is smaller, but they are less price sensitive; an organic premium increase above 30% impacts the number of consumers only marginally. As the results suggest, these differences are likely due to varying quality expectations and preferences associated with these products. Thus, consumer information on organic foods should be extended to emphasize how the quality of organic products may or may not differ from conventional options. Eliminating misconceptions about the quality of organic foods relative to conventional foods, in particular for vice food items (for which previous literature found perceived quality differences), may increase consumer interest in these products. In addition, consumers' gluten/wheat intolerance/avoidance is found to be connected to interest in foods containing organic wheat. Thus, promotional activities for organic wheat products should be targeted at specific consumer groups that will be more responsive to the information.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper examines determinants of consumer interest in organic versions of wheat products by analyzing differences in selected factors among groups of consumers, distinguished by their likelihood of purchasing organic wheat products. The analysis is performed for bread and cookies to examine whether the findings are different for virtue and vice food categories.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A consumer survey was conducted across the western United States in 2017. Latent class modeling is used to identify groups of \"very likely,\" \"likely\" and \"unlikely\" consumers of organic wheat products, based on preferences for organic wheat products and attitudes toward organics in general.\nFindings: Consumer preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for organic foods depend on product type. Additionally, significant differences are found across consumer groups--regardless of product type--in the importance they place on labels and product characteristics, WTP, reasons for (not) purchasing organic products and consumption limitations.\nResearch limitations/implications: The group of organic consumers may be underrepresented in the sample. In addition, since actual behavior was not observed--respondents provided only stated preferences or responses to hypothetical questions--the results should be interpreted carefully.\nOriginality/value: Few studies have examined preferences for organic wheat products across consumer groups. This study is also the first to examine the connection between wheat/gluten intolerance/avoidance and preference for organic versions of wheat products. Finally, this study adds to the limited literature on consumer preferences for organic virtue and vice food products.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Gender, feminization and the MBA: a review of the contribution of Ruth Simpson	[ "Management education", "Gender", "MBA" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroductory remark: I am honoured to be invited to contribute to this special issue to celebrate the enormous scholarly contributions and distinguished career of Ruth Simpson. The editors of this special issue of Gender in Management: An International Journal have kindly given me the privilege to write a short piece to reminisce about my special connection to Ruth and to review her scholarly contributions to management education. I have been touched indelibly by her life and work, and this paper provides an opportunity to go some way to honour the thoughtful guidance, intellectual generosity and warm friendship that she has so generously offered me over the past 15 years. In what follows, first, I will reminisce on my relationship with Ruth and how this has fostered my career development. Second, I will present an overview of Ruth's work on management education which has influenced the field in profound and enduring ways. I will specifically reflect on the central themes of her work and key findings. The final section will highlight her key contributions and call for more work to push forward her inspiring research.\nPersonal reflection: Ruth Simpson, an extraordinary mentor: I have been very fortunate to have worked with and been directly influenced by many world class scholars in the course of my career. However, the person who more than any other has influenced my career trajectory and research agenda is Ruth Simpson. As luck would have it, I came across her work on the MBA, entitled \"Winners and Losers: who benefits most from the MBA?\" (Simpson, 2000a) while I was completing an MBA programme at the University of Leicester in 2001. The work provided me with very valuable insight, leading me to discover Ruth's research on MBA and career development, which I have followed closely ever since. This made me think of how I could draw from her ideas and theoretical lens to explore the career development of highly skilled workers in Nigeria. This prompted my decision to apply to Brunel Business School in 2002, specifically to work with her. I was invited for interview by the then Director of the PhD programme. I was pleased to get an email a few days later offering me a place in the doctoral programme at Brunel Business School to be supervised by Ruth Simpson (as first supervisor) and Nelarine Cornelius (current Editor of Personnel Review as second supervisor). A good pair, what a delight!\nScholarly contributions to management education: A comprehensive review of the entire volume, variety and contribution of Ruth Simpson to the management education literature is not possible in this brief paper. Owing to space constraints, I will focus on a succinct review of two key strands of her work on management education. The first strand concerns the skills and career benefit of the MBA in various national contexts, whereas the second strand focuses on gender and the MBA.\nThe skills and career benefits from the MBA: Ruth Simpson's work in this area contributes to the broader debate on the relevance, learning and outcome of the MBA to the recipient and business world. Her work has examined the extent to which students learn and develop key competencies needed by professional managers and the various outcomes associated with the MBA, a qualification considered the flagship of business and management education in the UK and other parts of the world. For instance, Simpson (2000a) using a sex difference approach examined the impact of the MBA on the career progress of 221 MBA graduates in the UK. The study adopted a mixed method approach involving a survey and semi-structured interviews. Findings indicated that there is a gender divide in the outcomes from the MBA. While women MBA graduates seemed to gain more in terms of intrinsic career factors (e.g. confidence), men MBA graduates gained more in terms of higher pay and occupational status. Simpson's (2000b) study of the personal and career benefits of the MBA highlighted a similar trend. Findings of the study suggest that the MBA course gave women greater intrinsic career benefits (confidence and self-worth), whereas men gained greater extrinsic benefits of enhanced pay and status. Additionally, women were found to enjoy the process of self-discovery they experienced during the MBA course, which brought to them a new awareness of themselves.\nFeminization of the MBA: To appreciate Simpson's contribution, it is important to situate her work in the context of the broader debate on the relevance of the MBA. Although the MBA remains popular, its relevance to meeting business requirements and the needs of modern managers remains a contentious issue. While some scholars highlight the benefits of the MBA to individuals and organizations (Hay and Hodgkinson, 2008), other scholars have argued that the MBA is out of touch with business needs (Mintzberg and Gosling, 2002) and is deeply gendered in terms of course culture, course content and core values (Sinclair, 2000). From this perspective, the MBA programme is viewed as having a masculine bias and privileging \"hard\" skills (quantitatively based analytical techniques), as well as individualism, competitiveness and instrumentalism to the detriment of \"soft\" skills relating to interpersonal skills such as communication, negotiation and leadership (Kelan and Dunkley Jones, 2010). The MBA programmes from these perspectives are critiqued for playing to the rational, quantifiable elements of management. It could also be argued that the need for organizations to project certainty tends to drive behaviours in both men and women towards a \"ruthless\" rationality. This strong masculine ethos is viewed as being problematic, and it is one of the reasons why women in some MBA programmes feel that they are in the awkward position of having to act in the \"right\" way to blend in (Lamsa and Savela, 2014).\nConcluding remarks: This paper has attempted to pay homage to the contributions of Ruth Simpson, a distinguished and consummate scholar. For over two decades, Simpson has been researching and writing on the skills and related outcomes from the MBA - which was the focus of her PhD thesis at the Open University. She has developed an international reputation in this area over the years because of the theoretical and empirical contributions of her work, as contained in the numerous number of publications in major journals in the broad areas of management education and organizational studies. Although her research interest is eclectic, much of her work in management education has explored the personal and career benefits of the MBA in various national contexts and how these match the business and management needs of using organizations and the consequent implications for management education. One of the most important contributions of Simpson's work is the advancement of a credible solution to the key problems facing the MBA. Her proposal on the \"feminisation of the MBA\" has increasingly been applauded by scholars and management educators, as a step in the right direction. As we have seen, Ruth's work has gone a long way to advance theoretical understanding, inform empirical knowledge and influence managerial practices. In addition to her direct contribution to management education research, she has supervised several PhD students who produced significant contributions in their theses and subsequent research.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Ruth Simpson is a leading scholar in management education. This paper aims to provide a succinct summary of her voluminous work on management education, with a particular focus on her work on the relevance and benefit of the Master in Business Administration (MBA) degree, which is generally considered the flagship of business and management education.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The approach taken is a review that introduces the central themes underpinning the work of Ruth Simpson on the MBA.\nFindings: The paper elevates the understanding of the skills development and related outcomes from the MBA.\nResearch limitations/implications: The works reviewed have implications on how to align the MBA curriculum to meet contemporary business requirements in a fast-changing world.\nOriginality/value: This paper highlights the key findings of Ruth Simpson's research on the MBA and her scholarly contribution in this area. The paper also generates insights that are anticipated to stimulate management educators to further extend the field and carry it forward in the coming years.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Establishing an evidence-based 9D evaluation approach for ERP post-implementation	[ "Enterprise resource planning", "ERP evaluation", "Mixed-methods design", "Post-implementation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Enterprise resources planning (ERP) systems are cross-functional information system (IS) packages, which consist of a number of software modules that aim at supporting and integrating all key business processes across all functional divisions of an organisation. Ever since its emergence in the early 1990s, ERPs have been widely implemented by thousands of organisations with any size and in many countries and sectors. However, an increasing amount of research (e.g. Yu, 2005; Peng and Nunes, 2009a; Zhu et al., 2010; Malaurent and Avison, 2015) demonstrates that after very substantial investment, successful completion of an ERP implementation project is in fact not the end of the journey. Very often, the system post-implementation (or exploitation) stage is where the more crucial challenges begin (Willis and Willis-Brown, 2002; Peng and Nunes, 2010). In fact, this phenomenon does not just apply to ERP adoption, but can be observed in IS projects in general. According to the Chaos reports published by the Standish Group in various years, for the past two decades, the success rate of IS projects (including ERP projects) globally was only about 16-39 per cent, whereas the failure rate was at 15-40 per cent. More importantly, even if the system eventually goes live, 33-53 per cent of the user companies still found their projects and situation to be challenged (Table I).\n2. An overview of the literature: 2.1 Two waves of ERP research\n3. The theoretical 9D ERP evaluation framework: Although the researchers considered ERP post-implementation evaluations as different from traditional IS/ERP success studies, we agreed that success measurement studies could serve as a good starting point to construct a theoretical lens for ERP post-implementation evaluation (Gable et al., 2003; Hakkinen and Hilmola, 2008). Therefore, the theoretical framework of the established ERP evaluation toolkit was developed by first looking at existing IS/ERP success models. After an extensive literature review, the updated IS success model of DeLone and McLean (2003) was selected and used to identify initial dimensions to be included in this ERP evaluation framework. The DeLone and McLean model, which was originally developed in 1992 and then updated in 2003, is one of the most widely used and cited models in IS success literature (Gable et al., 2003, 2008; Ifinedo, 2007; Hakkinen and Hilmola, 2008). The updated version of the model (as shown in Figure 1) consists of seven dimensions, namely, information quality, system quality, service quality, net benefits, user satisfaction, intention to use, and actual use of the system (DeLone and McLean, 2003).\n4. The 9D evaluation process based on a mixed-methods design: The ERP evaluation framework, discussed above and presented in Table AI, can potentially be applied in any type of organisation. The next step of the study was to design and propose a systematic evaluation process, which can allow researchers and practitioners to apply this theoretical framework effectively within the specific context of their chosen case company.\n5. Applying the 9D ERP evaluation framework in practice: This section presents and discusses a recent consultancy research project that applied the proposed ERP evaluation approach in a Chinese company. Specifically, by conducting a systematic ERP exploitation evaluation, this project aims to identify and explore the critical business and technical deficiencies associated with the existing ERP package of the case company, as well as to come up with a set of recommendations to help the company to improve its operation and efficiency. The findings of this case-study research are not of crucial importance to this paper and the reason to include it here is just to illustrate how the proposed 9D ERP evaluation framework can be effectively applied in practice. Nevertheless, a small subset of the findings derived from the project will be presented in relevant sections below, in order to illustrate how quantitative and qualitative data can be collected, analysed, and integrated by using the proposed ERP evaluation approach. This section is divided into five parts, namely, introducing the background of the case company, presenting a set of preparation activities prior to the actual evaluation, discussing the two-round (i.e. quantitative+qualitative) evaluation conducted in the company, and finally giving a reflective account to review the efficiency of the evaluation process.\n6. Conclusions and implications: This paper reported on a study that aimed to fill the current knowledge gap of the ERP post-implementation evaluation by developing and proposing a customisable and systematic evaluation framework. The 9D evaluation framework proposed, emerged from a systematic desktop study and was then used in number of case studies. This paper illustrates the use of the framework with a recent evaluation study carried out in a Chinese private corporation group. This application of the 9D framework in practice not only demonstrated how this approach can be applied in context of real business environments but also led to a number of important conclusions:\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose a systematic and customisable framework, titled the 9D approach, aiming to evaluate the enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems as well as to identify potential socio-technical problems, misfits and deficiencies that can cause ERP failure during the system post-implementation phase.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The proposed 9D ERP evaluation framework includes nine dimensions and 85 evaluation criteria. This theoretical framework is then used in a six-step evaluation process based on a mixed-methods design. A case study involving a large-size private company in China was used as an exemplification to illustrate how the proposed 9D approach can be applied in practices.\nFindings: The findings of the study clearly demonstrated that after the ERP \"go-live\" point, companies still experience many challenges and problems in the post-implementation phase. These problems can be located in very diverse organisational, systemic and personnel aspects of the company, as well as across different functional areas and organisational levels. The proposed 9D approach was demonstrated to be an efficient and systematic tool to investigate and explore such ERP problems in an in-depth level within the organisational context.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study contributes to the theory of IS evaluation in general, and provides valuable insights into the ERP post-implementation evaluation in particular.\nPractical implications: The proposed ERP evaluation approach forms a sound base for continuous ERP improvement and contributes to sustain seamless alignment between ERP and its organisational context. The customisable feature of the framework offers flexibility and enables its use by companies of all sizes, any sector, and any country.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the researchers' knowledge, this is the most extensive and comprehensive framework for the post-evaluation of ERPs proposed hitherto. The need for this new framework was grounded on the argumentation of the drawbacks of existing ERP measurement and evaluation studies that simply focus on success rather than the more critical failure factors.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Service process analysis using process engineering and the theory of constraints thinking process	[ "Process planning", "Process analysis", "Systems analysis", "Thinking", "Higher education" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: The thinking process of the theory of constraints (TP-TOC) is a set of tools which enables the identification, analysis, and proposition of solutions for the organizational problems (Antunes et al., 2004). Noreen et al. (1996) bring several study cases of the application of the thinking process for solving specific problems within organizations.However, there is no systematic approach for the use of such instruments in the organization as a whole. Although it is a systemic approach aiming towards the resolution of problems, the theory of constraints (TOC) does not systematize its applicability upon specific areas or organizational processes. An analysis of undesirable effects and their causes in terms of processes may increase the level of knowledge about such effects, as well as the understanding of their linkage to other organizational processes.In this context, process engineering may have an effective role as a guiding element for the organizational analysis in a process level, contributing with the TP-TOC. The process view enhances the analysis of the horizontal activities of the organization, allowing for a better understanding and improvement of the organization as a whole.The main purpose of this paper is, therefore, to present a case of integration between process engineering and the TP-TOC, pointing out the complementary aspects between the two theories and their benefits for the organization. The advantages that can be identified in the application of both theories are:* a better view through the processes;* a systemic view of the problems found in the processes and consequently; and* an improved redesign of the processes.As a means to such an end, a case study was developed in an institution of higher education, through the elaboration of processes and the application of the concepts contained in both theories. The results of the case study displayed an integrated view of the processes and their undesirable effects in the researched organization. Consequently, the processes were redesigned in a more consistent way, so that actions could be taken upon the crucial points of the system.\n2 Theoretical references: The following items present the theoretical grounds for the project.2.1 TP-TOC\n3 Methodological approach: In order to achieve the objective of integrating the TP-TOC and the concepts of the process engineering, this work has opted for a qualitative approach. For this reason, the technique of case study was chosen. This technique is an appropriate method for investigating and understanding a determined phenomenon or organizational behavior, providing a better comprehension of patterns of the researched object. Bryman (1988) considers the capability of giving detailed descriptions of a phenomenon as one of the main characteristics in the qualitative studies. It is important therefore that the object of study should be believable of observation. The object for the case study presented is a learning institution.3.1 Technical procedures and work method\n4 The case: The organization that was object of this research is a learning institution in the southern region of Brazil. This organization provides undergraduate, graduate, and life-long learning education. In addition to that, it also develops research in Master's degree programs. This data collection started in June, 2000 and 11 macro-processes, 80 main processes, 441 subprocesses, and 1,900 activities (business transactions) were found. The process modeling was the work of a team formed by 150 people from different areas in the institution. The architecture of integrated information system modeling methodology was used (Scheer, 1999).Studying all the macro-processes would demand an amount of work that would make impossible, for practical reasons, an analysis of all processes. Owing to that characteristic, a draft was made, in order to pick the processes concerning a specific area of the organization. Therefore, the financial-administrative area was chosen, since it is a critical area within any organization. Many subprocesses were analyzed, but to make the accomplishment of this work possible, only one subprocess and the related indicators were selected among all the mapped processes: the subprocess of budget elaboration.4.1 The AS-IS process\n5 Conclusions: This essay demonstrated the practical application in which process engineering can contribute towards the TP-TOC. Using the concepts and techniques of the process engineering, it was possible to systematize the TOC approach for several areas and processes in the organization.The process engineering, taking the modeled processes as a starting point, enabled the discussion of the diagnosis of the organizational problematic in an academic institution. During the phase of modeling the process, in addiction to the description of the activities itself, a set of perceptions were added for the construction of the current reality tree validating its importance.Another relevant contribution of the process engineering is that it served as the starting point for the construction of the current reality trees. In the theoretical concepts of the TOC, there is no indication where to begin to build the current reality tree. However, the process modeling enables a bottom-up construction, starting from day by day undesirable effects in activities until the consolidation in an organization level, in an integrated way, through the processes.In this specific case, the development of a systemic diagnosis of the processes in the economic-financial area, through the current reality tree, revealed the existence of a small number of main causes that were the reason for most of the undesirable effects seen in the organization that was studied.Local improvement management, based on parts optimization (units, departments, programs, etc.) and individual efficiency maximization, brings along undesirable consequences and negative effects to the organization's global performance. Of major relevance is the fact that current processes and indicators may hold a set of undesirable effects, which, once analyzed, can be systematically redesigned, so that their effects on the organization are altered. This work aims to contribute for the establishment of a link between the process engineering approach and the TP-TOC, through the utilization of a set of procedures that came from those theories.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The paper aims to present a case of integration between process engineering and the thinking process of the theory of constraints (TP-TOC) through the analysis of an organization's processes, pointing out the complementary aspects between the two theories and their benefits for the organization.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper has used an Institution of Higher Education as its case study. The research has started by identifying the processes of the institution and choosing one to model according to the process engineering approach. The process was then analyzed through the elaboration of the current reality tree technique. After the analysis, the evaporating clouds technique was applied in order to breach the assumptions that were avoiding the problems to be solved. Finally, the process has been redesigned based on the results of the previous steps.\nFindings: - The analysis of this case contributes towards understanding and identifying the causes of the current problems in the studied processes, providing a systemic and systematic view through the proposed approach.\nOriginality/value: - The paper proposes an approach that enables a systematic and systemic analysis of organizations' processes through the use of process engineering and the TP-TOC.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]

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