title
stringlengths 6
301
| keywords
listlengths 0
23
| messages
listlengths 2
2
|
|---|---|---|
Environmental management in small and medium enterprises: the role of customer orientation and firm performance
|
[
"Environmental management",
"Firm performance",
"Capabilities",
"Customer orientation",
"Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The world is facing a number of environmental problems such as global warming, the energy crisis, and a decline in natural resources (Lee et al., 2014; Marchi et al., 2013; Dincer and Rosen, 1998; Bose, 2010). If the global community does not get actively involved in reducing the consumption of energy and natural resources by both industry and individuals, the earth will soon face a serious crisis. There are numerous causes of environmental pollution, but companies and factories that use various natural resources and leave pollutants behind contribute greatly to the production of environmental waste (Verma et al., 2012; Liu and Diamond, 2005). To reduce environmental pollution, most governments across the globe regulate companies. For this reason, companies need to consider environmental impact of their operations (Dangelico and Pontrandolfo, 2015; Sarkis et al., 2010). Due to this global situation, the environmental management (EM) of companies - which refers to the management system to achieve a goal of a company to develop and implement policies concerning environmental conservation (Barrow, 2006) - is garnering increased attention from various researchers and companies (Pekovic et al., 2016; Lima Ribeiro et al., 2012; Soo Wee and Quazi, 2005).\n2. Theoretical background and hypotheses development: 2.1 Customer orientation and recognition of environmental management\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Data collection and sample characteristics\n4. Results: Following the measurement assessment, the hypothesized structural model was examined using structural equation modeling (LISREL 8.52) with a covariance matrix. The results of this model reveal that each final item shows significant loads on its respective construct, indicating a high convergent validity of the measurement scale for each construct. The hypothesized structural model provides an acceptable fit (NFI = 0.96, CFI = 0.97, IFI = 0.97, RFI = 0.94, GFI = 0.90, RMSEA = 0.058, and RMR = 0.053).\n5. Discussion: The main purpose of this study is to develop a model to examine some antecedents of EM in SMEs. As expected, the results indicate that when SMEs respond to customers' requests, their EM capabilities lead to positive firm performance. Considering the limited resources and capabilities of SMEs, the best way for SMEs to perform effectively is to understand and respond to the demands of their customers by maximizing their outcomes. In other words, the operations of SMEs depend upon effective management, with the guidance of customer orientation. The results of our model show that to attain a successful EM structure, SMEs must implement and follow the following process: identify the common values or interests of their customers. Some SMEs may have more effective abilities than their competitors for engaging in EM by converting their capabilities and their limited resources into performance (Aragon-Correa and Sharma, 2003; Hafeez et al., 2002). Different performances depend on the effectiveness of EM in individual SMEs. Identifying, building and using effective EM can be the key differentiator for improved outcomes, through which SMEs could obtain a competitive advantage among their competitors.\n6. Limitations and future research: This study contributes to enhancing active EM of companies by presenting the positive relationship between EM and firm performance. However, this study has limitations that require future research.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the antecedents and effects of environmental management (EM) and its related factors on firm performance from the perspective of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Most previous studies have focused on determining the effects of environmental efforts on environmental performance. This study aims to illustrate that effective EM - along with other factors such as customer emphasis, recognition and capabilities - generates positive firm performance for SMEs. Additionally, the stdy aims to show evidence that EM is worth proactively pursuing rather than being viewed as a burden and being subject to reactive task by SMEs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors collected data via a questionnaire from 300 SMEs through a professional research company. They then used the data to assess a model and determine the relationships between the different constructs using structural equation modeling.\nFindings: The results testify to the optimal structure between the study's constructs: customer emphasis on EM, recognition and implementation of EM, capabilities and the performance of SMEs that have implemented EM. The main finding is that EM has a positive relationship to firm performance.\nOriginality/value: This study's findings could likely persuade SMEs and policymakers to more proactively engage in EM. It also contributes to offer evidence that customer orientation plays an important role in SMEs' implementation of EM and its impact on firm performance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Predicting with a small amount of data: an application of fuzzy reasoning to regional disparities
|
[
"Formal concept analysis",
"Fuzzy reasoning",
"Regional disparities",
"Small datasets"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Two types of regional disparities which have received particular attention in the literature are disparities in wages and unemployment. For example, Duranton and Monastiriotis (2002) found significant disparities in average regional earnings in the UK. Fally et al. (2010) find significant disparities in per capita income across regions in Brazil. Combes et al. (2008) find significant wage disparities in France caused by spatial sorting. As for unemployment disparities, Partridge and Rickman (1997) find significant unemployment disparities in US data. Evans and McCormick (1994) find disparities in unemployment rates in data from several OECD countries. In their seminal paper, Blanchard and Katz (1992) analyse and model unemployment disparities in the USA. They show how such disparities can lead to changes in wages, employment growth and migration flows. These adjustment mechanisms can cause or exacerbate other types of disparities, e.g. wage disparities. Elhorst (2003) provides a review of the literature in this area.\n2 The concept of a context: Let P be a non-empty ordered set. If sup{x, y} and inf{x, y} exist for all x, y[?]P, then P is called a lattice (Davey and Priestley, 2005). In a lattice illustrating partial ordering of knowledge values, the logical conjunction is identified with the meet operation and the logical disjunction with the join operation.\n3 The region and the data: The study area is comprised of nine regions in the Southern part of Western Norway. Natural boundaries such as fjords, mountains and the sea coupled with sparsely populated areas between settlements gives rise to a natural delimitation of the geography. These barriers inhibit spatial interaction, allowing regional disparities to emerge. This aim of this paper is implement a way of classifying these regions and then structuring this information in a way which will allow us to make predictions regarding other regions in Norway. Figure 1 shows our study area along with the unemployment rates of these regions. It seems natural to use unemployment disparities as an example, both because such disparities have received considerable attention in the literature and they are of interest to policy makers.\n4 Fuzzy reasoning: Fuzzy reasoning methods are often applied in intelligent systems, decision making and fuzzy control. Some of them present a reasoning result as a real number, while others use fuzzy sets. Fuzzy reasoning methods involving various fuzzy implications and compositions are discussed by many authors, for example Bellman and Zadeh (1970), Carlsson and Fuller (2001), Felix (1994), Fuller and Zimmermann (1993), Mamdani (1977), Sugeno (1977, 1985), Takagi and Sugeno (1985) and Zadeh (1975).\n5 Prediction: One feature of the data is that unemployment is occurring in the employment centres (Stavanger, Bergen and Haugaland) of the study area rather than the more rural, peripheral areas. These areas also have high wages. Such observations are consistent with equilibrium unemployment disparity models presented by Harris and Todaro (1970) or Marston (1985). This suggests that above average unemployment in a region does not represent problem areas and does not necessarily require a policy response. A more worrying development was observed in relation to population development. While the employment centres experienced population growth over the period, the more rural areas experienced population decline. This in spite of the fact that they had very low unemployment rates.\n6 Conclusion: This paper has examined how the functionality of formal concept analysis can be extended by the inclusion of fuzzy reasoning. One of the key benefits of this extended model was that it allowed predictions to be made about the values of different attributes. The prediction method performed well, correctly predicting the outcome in 23 out of the 30 cases examined. Such an outcome seems remarkable given that the dataset upon which the model is based consists of only nine regions and six attributes.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The aim of the paper is to propose a methodology that allows researchers and practitioners to structure a small amount of data in a way which aids understandings and allows predictions to be made.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper explores how formal concept analysis can be combined with fuzzy reasoning to make predictions based on small datasets. A dataset of nine regions in Norway described by six attributes is used. The paper focuses on regional disparities in labour market outcomes such as unemployment and wages.\nFindings: The paper finds that unemployment tends to be concentrated in the most prosperous parts of the study area. These regions have high incomes and experience population growth. More rural regions have virtually no unemployment. The methodology proposed allows these patterns to be seen. The authors made predictions with an accuracy rate of over 75 per cent.\nPractical implications: A common response to high unemployment in urban areas is to stimulate employment growth. The findings suggest that this will simply increase migration towards the cities. The net result will be no change in unemployment but an accelerated depopulation of more rural regions.\nOriginality/value: To the authors' knowledge, this is the first application of fuzzy reasoning to the topic of regional disparities. The methodology aids in the interpretation of small datasets. The methodology should be of interested to practitioners at the local level, who are interested in analysing their own region, even when limited data are available.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Sale with the temporary exclusion of usufruct: A critical examination of its use in financing home purchases
|
[
"Home financing",
"American finance house LARIBA",
"Diminishing partnership",
"Sale with exception",
"Usufruct"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Modern Islamic finance was founded on the Qur`anic distinction between interest-based loans, which are prohibited, and deferred-payment sales with mark-ups, which are permissible (Qur`an, 2:275; 2:282). The mark-up in a deferred-payment sale reflects the difference between the buyer's/debtor's immediate enjoyment of the purchased item and the seller's/creditor's delayed enjoyment of the price.\nResearch objectives: The research aims to achieve the following objectives:\nMethodology: This research is qualitative. It surveys the classical and contemporary fiqh literature that discusses sale with the exception of usufruct. Moreover, it clarifies how the issue fits into the framework of juristic theories about the right of ownership and its subdivisions. It critically analyzes the evidence and arguments put forward by opposing schools regarding sale with the exception of usufruct. It chooses the weightiest view and points out the considerations that make it so. It then explores the numerous related fiqh issues that arise from the implications of the chosen view. On another front, it examines the way LARIBA implements sale with the exception of usufruct by scrutinizing its documents and the order of steps in the process. Due attention is given to financial, legal and regulatory environments in which it operates. Then the risks associated with this financing format are analyzed one by one - first, qualitatively and then by means of numerical weighting. These are compared with the risks of other contracts used in the Islamic finance industry. The aim is to determine the relative fitness of this novel financing format.\nShari'ah issues in sale that excludes the usufruct: The major jurisprudential schools differed over the permissibility of a sale that excludes the usufruct for a stipulated period. The Shafi'is and Hanafis disallow it (Al-Kasani, 1986; Al-Nawawi, 1996), whereas the Malikis and Hanbalis allow it (Ibn Rushd, 1988; Ibn Qudamah, 1997). The weightiest view is that it is permissible in the Shari'ah.\nImplementation of LARIBA's declining participation in usufruct model: LARIBA uses a sale with the exclusion of usufruct in the following manner for home financing: it has negotiated with US Government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to act as agents for them in the home financing process (Abdul-Rahman, 2010). Some jurists have raised this as a Shari'ah issue (Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America, 2014), but that is a hasty judgment. Although these GSEs normally securitize conventional mortgages, they have agreed to the contractual structure proposed by LARIBA for its home financing products. The GSEs do not mind because the effect of the arrangement is a monthly payment that adds up to a larger amount than the original financing amount.\nRisk analysis of LARIBA's declining participation in usufruct model: This risk analysis uses the classification of risks adopted by the Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB), 2005:\nConclusion: Sale of an asset with the temporary exclusion of the usufruct is a promising tool for modern Islamic finance. It is a low-risk instrument that is particularly useful for mitigating operational risks in legal environments where Islamic finance is barely recognized. LARIBA uses this format in conjunction with declining partnership in usufruct. When the usufruct is priced at the market rate for comparable usufruct, the arrangement can be a genuinely Islamic alternative to interest-based financing. The constructive use of this format calls for the development of an international Shari'ah standard on it.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to investigate sale with the temporary exclusion of usufruct, a format debated in classical Islamic jurisprudence. More specifically, it examines the application of this sale format in the diminishing partnership arrangement used by American Finance House LARIBA to finance house purchases. It analyzes the Shari'ah issues and assesses the risks involved.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research is qualitative, surveying and critically analyzing classical fiqh literature and contemporary juristic resolutions, as well as LARIBA's financing documents. Finally, it systematically surveys the associated risk factors, first qualitatively, and then by quantifying them.\nFindings: The research concludes that sale with the temporary exclusion of usufruct is a valid contract in Islamic law. When the usufruct is priced at market rate, the financing arrangement is genuinely Islamic and brings added value. Moreover, it is very effective in addressing risks for Islamic banks, particularly in countries with legal systems not designed to accommodate Islamic finance.\nOriginality/value: This study systematically examines all aspects of a contract that has not received sufficient academic attention, that has been underutilized by the Islamic finance industry and that is more fitting for implementation than many of the contracts currently being used.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Online adjunct higher education teachers' perceptions of using social media sites as instructional approaches
|
[
"Social media",
"Higher education online adjunct faculty",
"Perceptions on using social media",
"Qualitative descriptive design"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nProblem statement: After 2000, the use of social media exploded. This explosion is exemplified by the number of daily social media users. Facebook is now over 10-years old and has over a billion users throughout the world. Moreover, Facebook and YouTube rank in the top 3 websites, and Twitter and LinkedIn are both in the top 15 (Boulianne, 2015). For clarity purposes, social media may be defined as a total of three major components including social interaction, facilitating collaboration and focusing on deliberation among the users and the members. Despite the explosion, social media has not grown at the same levels for use by instructors and students in higher education (Worthen, 2013).\nPurpose of study: The purpose of this qualitative exploratory case study was to explore how online adjunct higher education faculty members perceive the role of using social media sites as instructional approaches. A purposeful sampling was used, and adjunct online higher education faculty members were invited to participate. An adjunct faculty member was defined as a person who taught part-time higher education courses; therefore, the faculty member was not hired as a full-time faculty member. The participants in this study had taught as adjunct higher education instructors for at least two years, and some participants taught at more than one higher education institute in the Northeast. For the purpose of this study, the qualitative method was used. Online adjunct higher education instructors' perceptions as derived from lived experiences of social media sites-based instructional approaches were explored in the proposed research. A case study was used to examine the external events related to the phenomena of using social media as instructional approaches in online classrooms.\nConceptual framework: Educational leaders that fail to prepare faculty members for change tend to face increased challenges and resistance during the change process (Fullan, 2006). Fullan (2006) developed a theoretical model change in education. According to Fullan (2006), before faculty members accept, implement and embrace change initiatives, they must fully believe in principles behind each step of the process. To promote and to willingly and enthusiastically accept the change process, higher education adjunct faculty members must be provided professional development trainings on using social media as a teaching tool.\nResearchers: The researchers are online adjunct dissertation chairs at the same university. During an online faculty discussion, using social media in the online classroom was discussed. Because the researchers wandered how online adjunct instructors use social media as instructional tools, they formed a research team and conducted this study. No conflicts of interests were present, and no personal gains were derived from this study.\nReview of literature: Historical perspective\nMethod and design appropriateness: Qualitative researchers explore phenomena by examining the lived experiences and participants' behaviors (Yin, 2003). In this study, online adjunct instructors' perceptions on classroom instructional social media online approaches were examined. The quantitative method would not have been appropriate for this study. Quantitative researchers use numbers, instead of the examination of phenomena, to investigate the statistical significance of an event (Yin, 2003). Unlike in quantitative studies, numbers or statistics would not be significant when a researcher examines participants' perceptions about an event such as the role of using social media sites in the online classroom. Participants in this study were trained to teach higher education online courses, and these teachers were the experts on the topic. The use of numbers would be appropriate for a quantitative researcher who wanted to begin with a hypotheses and theories to describe a statistically significant comparison or correlation between types of social media sites, such as Facebook, blogs and Twitter (Yin, 2003). The design for this study was an exploratory case study in which the participants were online adjunct instructors who taught at online higher education institutions in the Northeast. The case study approach was the most appropriate. The focus was on the external events in participants' lives rather than on internal events in the participants' mind. Case study researchers examine participants' perceptions on external events, rather than internal events (Yin, 2003). In this study, participants' perceptions on the role of using social media sites as online instructional approaches were investigated.\nResearch question: The central research question was used to guide the study. The qualitative researcher's findings at the end of the data collection and data analysis provided answers to the central research questions and the sub-questions (Yin, 2003). In this study, the central research question was:\nFindings: Themes\nTheme 2: need for justification vs the importance of student engagement: Blogging\nLimitations of the study: One limitation of this qualitative study was the ability to generalize the findings. In most qualitative studies, findings cannot be generalized to a larger group (Yin, 2003). In this study, adjuncts' perceptions expressed and themes found may not be characteristic of other adjunct instructors' views. In qualitative studies, participants are asked open-ended interview questions, which may have been a limitation for this study. Quantitative questions, such as the impact of using social media as an instructional approach, were not asked. In this study, adjunct online higher education instructors were invited to share their views on the study topic.\nSummary: According to the change theory in education model, a process must be in place for change to effectively take place (Fullan, 2006). Without undergoing a structured change process, higher education online adjunct instructors may not fully embrace the concept of using social media sites as teaching tools. Therefore, online higher education adjunct instructors may fail to fully implement social media sites, such as blogging, Twitter and Facebook, as teaching tools in the classroom, and the use of social media site challenges may outweigh digital opportunities to increase student learning outcomes through real-world applications (Fife et al., 2014).\nImplications: The significance of this study is the need for a renewed global initiative in higher education to promote the use of social media training for online adjunct faculty members. Online higher education faculty members' reflections on using social media tend to be recorded from a personal rather than a professional point of view. The inclusion requirements and workshop trainings for the use of social media in online higher education classrooms vary among higher education institutions, and online adjunct faculty members may not have time to attend professional development workshops on best practices for using social media in the classroom (Kim, 2017).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how online adjunct higher education faculty members perceive the role of using social media sites as instructional approaches. A purposeful sampling was used, and adjunct online higher education faculty members were invited to participate. An adjunct faculty member was defined as a person who taught part-time higher education courses; therefore, the faculty member was not hired as a full-time faculty member.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Qualitative researchers explore phenomena examining the lived experiences and participants behaviors; in this study, online adjunct instructors' perceptions on classroom instructional social media online approaches were examined. Participants in this study were trained to teach higher education online courses and these teachers were the experts on the topic. The design for this study was an exploratory case study in which the participants were online adjunct instructors who taught at online higher education institutions in the Northeast. The case study approach was the most appropriate. The focus was the external events participants' lives.\nFindings: Three themes emerged from the analysis of the in-depth interview process. Based on the adjunct online higher education instructors' perception on the use of social media teaching approaches in the classroom, the themes that emerged were uniformity of purpose vs personal beliefs need for justification importance student engagement and facilitation vs direct instruction. Themes reflected online teaching approaches higher education institutional missions and student learning and engagement outcomes.\nResearch limitations/implications: In this study, adjuncts' perceptions expressed and themes found may not be characteristic of other adjunct instructors' views. In qualitative studies, participants are asked open-ended interview questions, which may have been a limitation for this study. Quantitative questions, such as the impact of using social media as an instructional approach, were not asked. In this study, adjunct online higher education instructors were invited to share their views on the study topic. Additionally, qualitative researchers are limited by the data collection method and the data analysis process. Therefore, researchers who would like to repeat this study on adjunct online higher education teachers' perspectives may be unable to duplicate the research.\nPractical implications: The significance of this study is the need for a renewed global initiative in higher education to promote the use of social media training for online adjunct faculty members. Online higher education faculty members' reflections on using social media tend to be recorded from a personal rather than a professional point of view.\nSocial implications: The implication for online higher education leaders is to review mission statements and reevaluate how the use of social media may impact student learning outcomes, student career readiness and student engagement opportunities.\nOriginality/value: The need for a renewed global initiative in higher education to promote the use of social media training for online adjunct faculty evolved as the significance of the study. Because inclusion requirements and workshop training for the use of social media in online higher education classrooms vary among higher education institutions, online adjunct faculty social media classroom practices and perceptions widely vary.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The effects of the global financial crisis on the Colombian local currency bonds prices: An event study
|
[
"Event study",
"GFC",
"Colombian bonds",
"Macroeconomic surprises",
"G1",
"G14"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The impact of financial contagion during the global financial crisis (GFC) has produced a vast body of literature. One strand of the literature has dealt with the effect of the GFC on emerging markets. Of particular interest is the fact that stock markets in emerging markets seemed to be decoupled or insulated from the events that followed the Lehman bankruptcy and subsequent credit crunch phase of the financial crisis (Dooley and Hutchison, 2009).\n2. Data[2]: Bond data in Colombian pesos are from the Colombian interdealer electronic negotiation system (SEN in Spanish). The administrator of the system is the Colombian Central Bank which can also act as a market dealer. The SEN is a two tier market platform. The first tier is limited to the market dealers responsible for providing liquidity to the bond market. In the second tier are all other agents that are approved as market agents but not as market dealers; only the market dealers are able to put bid and ask quotes in both the first and second tier. In order to be a market dealer in Colombia, financial institutions have to meet a set of minimum requirements in terms of capital and liquidity, as well as mandatory participation in the Dutch auctions of Colombian peso government bonds in the primary market. The average monthly exchange rate as at August 2014 was USD/COP 1,899.07, making the total traded dollar value for the 2014 year to date approximately USD 559 billion[3].\n3. Methodology: In line with the event study method, we check if a surprise (macroeconomic news) has a significant effect on asset prices measurable as abnormal returns. In the case of the GFC-sourced events (see Table I) we assume that all events are surprises. We calculate the standardized surprise component in the same way as Balduzzi et al. (2001) as in the following equation:\n4. Results: In Table IV we summarize the results obtained from applying the market model in Equation (2) using hourly and daily aggregated returns.\n5. Conclusion: We use high frequency hourly data to analyze the effects of the events that surrounded the GFC on Colombian bond prices. Our study is one of the few events studies that analyze the effect of the GFC on emerging market bond returns. In order to control for possible confounding effects surrounding the events of the GFC, we analyze the effect of macroeconomic surprises on Colombian bond prices before, during and after the crisis. We find that for all the periods under observation local news related to inflation had the greatest impact in bond prices. In the case of global and regional news, inflation and trade-related surprises had also significant effects on bond prices but to a lesser extent. Our results show that there was resilience (in terms of abnormal returns) in Colombian bond returns to events derived from the GFC. We also find that, on an average, Colombian bonds performed better during the period of the GFC than the period before and after the GFC.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to perform an event study using high frequency data on peso-denominated Colombian government bonds to measure the effects of news during the global financial crisis (GFC).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using standard event study methodology, the authors want to see if a surprise (originating from macroeconomic news and GFC events) has a significant effect on asset prices measurable as abnormal returns. The authors also assume that the US market acted as a transmission mechanism for the crisis in a standard market model framework and control for confounding effects from events that originated from the crisis by taking into account the effect of global, regional and local macroeconomic surprises in the period before, during and after the GFC.\nFindings: The results show that there was resilience and decoupling of the Colombian local currency bond market from the events of the GFC.\nResearch limitations/implications: The results show that there was resilience (in terms of abnormal returns) and decoupling of the Colombian local currency bond market from the events of the GFC. The paper also finds that, on an average, Colombian bonds performed better during the period of the GFC than the period before and after the GFC.\nPractical implications: In the event study using individual bonds the paper finds that, in most cases, negative news had a positive impact in Colombian bond prices during the GFC.\nSocial implications: These results have important policy implications in emerging markets economies in terms of the benefits of substituting foreign currency debt with local currency debt.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides a date and time-specific timeline (Table III) of the most significant GFC events and news. The paper finds that for all the periods under observation local news related to inflation had the greatest impact in bond prices. In the case of global and regional news, inflation and trade-related surprises had also significant effects on bond prices but to a lesser extent.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Participatory culture meets critical practice: Documentary film production in a youth internship program
|
[
"Media",
"New literacies",
"Literacy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Scholars of connected learning (Ito et al., 2013) argue that learning develops across multiple settings, informal and formal, and that both settings are in need of close examination. Gomez et al. (2014) echo this argument and extend this need for examination to technology-mediated spaces, advocating that:\nTheoretical frameworks: This special issue explores the intersections between youth literacies and social justice. Fueled by technology, new literacies have led to new social practices related to producing, representing and consuming knowledge (Knobel and Lankshear, 2007). These social practices occur within complex social settings that shape both the practices as well as the people inside these spaces. Through exploring \"what is possible\" and \"how it comes to be possible\", we can understand how technology-mediated literacies shift into social justice orientations. Therefore, we selected two theoretical frameworks to anchor and guide this study from its conception: participatory culture and activity theory (AT). These frameworks complement our conceptualization of literacies and learning as well as the theme of this special issue.\nParticipatory culture and critical practice: New forms of media and media production require youth to possess contemporary knowledge and literacies to actively participate in their own learning, civic engagement and communication (Jenkins, 2009; Jocson, 2013; Kafai and Peppler, 2011; Peppler, 2013; Rheingold, 2012; Soep, 2014; Soep and Chavez, 2010). Because many young people regularly use digital technologies in their personal and social lives, some educators mistakenly assume that youth already understand and possess the media literacy skills necessary to contribute to society in meaningful ways (Jenkins, 2009). However, this is not the case. Jenkins (2009) states that without adult intervention to guide youth, three important issues related to new media culture are not sufficiently attended to or are missing altogether:\nMethodology: Grounded in AT (Engestrom, 1999), this study uses a qualitative case study design (Merriam, 2009) to respond to our research question:\nCase narrative: the Food Justice documentary film crew: Program snapshot\nFindings and discussion: Our study sought to understand the ways in which this filmmaking internship program nurtured learning and critical practice. On an individual level, Kaycee grew from her participation in the internship program. Her technical skills not only flourished but she also gained confidence and agency in her work with the film crew. Following her experience as one of the four producers of the award-winning Food Justice video, Kaycee went on to apply to and get involved with a yearlong program at SPNN focused on media production. The experience in the summer program was a transformative one for Kaycee, nudging her interests toward a possible career focus and expanding her technical skills. Before the program, she was interested in photography, \"[...] even on my Facebook I have over 2000 pictures in just my mobile uploads and I always put a filter [...] I have a bunch of apps that make it where I have filters on my pictures\". After the program, which she described as \"a fun class at school\", Kaycee shared that she wanted to be a videographer (youth interview, August 14, 2013) and have a long-term career in media and film (fieldnote, August 21, 2013).\nConclusion: In Jenkins et al.'s (2016) re-examination and re-imagination of participatory culture, these scholars distinguish between two different participatory culture models: descriptive and aspirational. The SPNN summer internship program is an example that encompasses both descriptive (\"a set of practices that have centered on accessible and communal forms of cultural production and sharing\") and aspirational (\"it embodies a set of ideas for how these social practices can facilitate learning, empowerment, civic action, and capacity-building\") models (Jenkins et al., 2016, p. 183). SPNN does not simply \"embrace the rhetoric of participation\", but rather it is successful in nurturing meaningful, authentic participation grounded in civic awareness that leads to civic engagement and/or participation (Jenkins et al., 2016, p. 155).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to closely examine the features of an urban community-based learning program to highlight the synergy between its educational technology, literate practices and social justice ethos that impact youths' learning and documentary filmmaking. This examination of a learning setting illuminates the \"what is possible\" and \"how it comes to be possible\" (Gomez et al., 2014, p. 10), illustrating possibilities for youths' tech-mediated literacies to facilitate, support and extend engagement in social justice.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Grounded in the theoretical and analytical concept of activity theory, this study uses qualitative methods and activity systems analysis. Observations are the primary data source coupled with a detailed activity analysis supported by artifacts, images and interviews. Program participants included 12 youth, 2 youth mentors, 1 adult coordinator and 1 adult facilitator.\nFindings: Findings illustrate that all subjects (participants) in the program co-created and shaped the activity system's object (or purpose). Analyses also reveal the ways in which the program enables and empowers youth through its development of participatory literacy practices that \"can facilitate learning, empowerment, and civic action\" (Jenkins et al., 2016).\nOriginality/value: Overall, this study is a contribution to the field as it responds to the need for close examinations of complex technology-mediated learning settings \"through the lens of equity and opportunity\" (Ito et al., 2013).\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Personal values and pro-social behaviour: The role of socio-economic context in fair trade consumption
|
[
"Fair trade products",
"Socio-economic context",
"Ethical consumption",
"Ordered probit model",
"Schwartz Value Survey"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the context of consumer behaviour, ethical or sustainable consumerism is one of the research areas that has aroused growing interest and within this broad field of scientific interest Fair Trade (FT) products have been among the most investigated food categories over the last 20 years. Fair consumption means consuming with reference to fair terms of trade to guarantee poor producers in poor countries fair wages and fair working conditions. Andorfer and Liebe (2012), in their overview on the current state of research on FT product consumption, examined 51 papers and underlined that two main theoretical approaches have been followed in the study of FT products and more generally of the FT movement: the economic perspective and the social psychology perspective. The first one focussed mainly on the estimation of consumers' WTP for FT coffee and chocolate (Loureiro and Lotade, 2005; Maietta, 2005; Didier and Lucie, 2008). Other studies investigated the effect of product information and FT labels on consumers WTP (Howard, 2006; Grankvist et al., 2007) and the effect of social contexts (Maietta, 2005) on the willingness to pay for FT products. However, the largest part of the scientific literature adopted a social psychology approach analysing FT consumption in terms of consumer attitudes and motivations, extending or modifying Ajzen's (1991) basic model on the theory of planned behaviour (Ozcaglar-Toulouse et al., 2006; Chatzidakis et al., 2007; De Pelsmacker and Janssens, 2007). Other studies focus their attention on general aspects of consumer attitudes: Nijssen and Douglas (2008) investigated the effect of international awareness and social concern for others; Goig (2007) studied the effect of consumers' global cognitive orientation on FT consumption; Hertel et al. (2009) highlighted the influence of attitudes towards human rights on FT purchasing intentions. Moreover, Coelho (2015) analysed nine different sociological profiles to verify the relationship between values and lifestyles and to what extent the purchase of FT corresponds to an ideological background and is a way to boycott dominant markets. Finally, Straight (2013) by reviewing 65 articles concluded that FT consumption remains an \"under researched area\" even if three main themes prevail across disciplines: labelling, meaning and identity.\n2. Personal values, socio-economic context and ethical consumption: Since the 1960s personal values have occupied a central position in social science disciplines and many authors have faced the problem of the definition of values and their use (Maslow, 1954; Rokeach, 1973; Becker, 1976; Veroff et al., 1981; Kahle, 1983; Hechter, 1993).\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Sample and data collection\n4. Results: FA are useful in reducing larger data set by extracting very few complex dimensions, that synthesise the information of strongly correlated variables, from the original variables. As previously stated, two FAs have been separately performed: one was implemented on the respondents' Schwartz's value scores, while the other was used for deriving social context measures. Tables III and IV show the FAs results. Factor loading matrices represent the correlation between the extracted components and the original variables and help to understand the component meaning.\n5. Discussion and conclusions: This paper has two main objectives: first, the exploration of Schwartz' value model relevance to FT consumption, second, the investigation of the effect of the socio-economic context on the consumption behaviour and the interaction of such a context with the Schwartz's value system. The results provide evidence that the value system has an effect on the consumption of FT products and confirm some findings of previous studies (Doran, 2009; Ma and Lee, 2012), in particular, the positive relationship between FT consumption and values such as universalism and self-direction. Indeed, results show that the more values such as universalism, benevolence and self-direction characterize people's motivational orientation and the more they are open to change, the higher the expenditure is. Moreover, contrary to Doran's findings (2009), the present work highlights that FT expenditure is positively related to Self-enhancement and Hedonism meta-values. This result is similar to what outlined by Shaw et al. (2005) and underlines how FT consumption is also affected by motivations related to need for variety and gratification for oneself, as well as to power and achievement. With reference to these last values, the positive relationship with FT consumption can be explained following what Shaw et al. (2005) stated in their work. In fact, power value can be rather intended as the power individuals exercise as consumers, while achievement value is relevant in affecting FT purchase because of its \"influencial\" guiding principle, that is consumers buy FT as they consider the impact their purchases have on other people.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of socio-economic context in affecting the relationship between personal values and the purchase of fair trade (FT) products.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study was based on data and information collected by means of a web-administered survey and was performed in two steps. First, an explanatory factor analysis on the Schwartz value system and a confirmatory factor analysis on socio-economic context variables were carried out. Second, the per capita GDP at provincial level and the predicted factor scores were used in an ordered probit model to explain the expenditure level of FT products.\nFindings: The results provide evidence that the value system has an effect on the consumption of FT products, but the economic context, in particular the average wealth at province level, is also relevant and plays a role by either affecting FT product purchasing levels directly or interacting with personal values.\nResearch limitations/implications: Because of the electronic submission and the specific channel used in the survey, the sample cannot be considered as representative of Italian consumers, and thus the analysis has a merely descriptive (non-inferential) function.\nOriginality/value: While several studies investigated how personal values affect consumers' behaviour directly or indirectly, very few studies analysed the way socio-economic context interacts with the value structure and the way both aspects influence ethical consumption. The present study analyses this last aspect and provides evidence of the role economic context plays in affecting the relationship between personal values and FT products consumption.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Bedside vital parameters that indicate early deterioration
|
[
"Association",
"Clinical deterioration",
"Early warning score",
"General ward patients",
"Vital parameters"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Mandatory early warning scoring (EWS), based on respiratory and heart rate, blood pressure, mental status and body temperature, has over the last decade become the structured bedside monitoring practice in many hospitals in Europe (Subbe et al., 2001; Prytherch et al., 2010), North America (Bleyer et al., 2011; Churpek et al., 2013a, b) and Australia (Bellomo et al., 2012). Vital parameters have been found to deviate hours before serious adverse events (Schein et al., 1990; Hillman et al., 2001); consequently, Morgan developed the first EWS system to assist clinicians in detecting deteriorating patients (Morgan et al., 1997; Morgan and Wright, 2007). Hence, the key argument for using EWS was to promote inpatient patient safety by fast-tracking deteriorating patients followed by prompt and appropriate bedside action including emergency medical assistance (Prytherch et al., 2010; Smith, 2011; DeVita et al., 2010).\nDesign and setting: This prospective study, within a non-randomized, interventional clinical project comprising MEWS (Subbe et al., 2001) (Table I) and an algorithm for corresponding bedside action, implemented in a clinical setting, took place in a 750-bed university hospital. Information was obtained for two 4 months period, 6 and 12 months after the clinical intervention were implemented and hospital staff had begun scoring all general ward patients. The 90-bed study setting comprised one medical, two surgical and one emergency admission ward for acute and elective adult patients. The study was approved by the regional Human Research Ethical Review Board (Dnr. H-C-2008-120), the Danish National Board of Health (Dnr. 7-604-04-2/65) and the Danish Data Protection Agency (Dnr. 2009-41-3227).\nFindings: Subjects\nDiscussion: We show that tachypnoea and tachycardia are both significantly associated with severe clinical deterioration in adult general ward patients scoring MEWS levels 2 or 3 at least once during their hospital stay. Since the early 1990s, respiratory rate's ability to predict inpatient mortality has been identified in various studies (Schein et al., 1990; Buist et al., 2004). Our finding that tachypnoea (RR 15-29/min, corresponding to a single parameter MEWS level 1 and 2, Table I), recorded for the first time, is significantly associated with later deterioration in general ward patients is implicitly supported by results obtained in several previous studies, reporting the respiratory rate to be among the first vital signs to deviate in deteriorating patients (Jacques et al., 2006; Harrison et al., 2006). Our results provide additional knowledge about the respiratory rate. Deviations in this vital parameter predict inpatient mortality and gradual bedside deterioration according to systematically obtained MEWS. Despite its clinical value regarding timely respiratory rate measurement - a nursing practice addressed and extensively implemented into clinical practice during the past 10 years (McBride et al., 2005; Hogan, 2006) - there is still a belief that respiratory rate to some extent has remained the most neglected common vital sign (Cretikos et al., 2008). Knowing the respiratory rate has significant clinical value when aiming at detecting deteriorating patients at an early stage. However, this practice remains to be efficiently incorporated into general ward monitoring practice, and despite its obvious simplicity, respiratory rate still seems difficult to deal with in inter-professional inpatient practice (Ansell et al., 2014).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine associations between initially recorded deviations in individual bedside vital parameters that contribute to total Modified Early Warning Score (MEWS) levels 2 or 3 and further clinical deterioration (MEWS level=4).\nDesign/methodology/approach: This was a prospective study in which 27,504 vital parameter values, corresponding to a total MEWS level2, belonging to 1,315 adult medical and surgical inpatient patients admitted to a 90-bed study setting at a university hospital, were subjected to binary logistic and COX regression analyses to determine associations between vital parameter values initially corresponding to total MEWS levels 2 or 3 and later deterioration to total MEWS level 4, and to evaluate corresponding time intervals.\nFindings: Respiratory rate, heart rate and patient age were significantly (p=0.012, p<0.001 and p=0.028, respectively) associated with further deterioration from a total MEWS level 2, and the heart rate also (p=0.009) from a total MEWS level 3. Within 24 h from the initially recorded total MEWS levels 2 or 3, 8 and 17 percent of patients, respectively, deteriorated to a total MEWS level=4. Patients initially scoring MEWS 2 had a 27 percent 30-day mortality rate if they later scored MEWS level=4, and 8.7 percent if they did not.\nPractical implications: It is important to observe all patients closely, but especially elderly patients, if total MEWS levels 2 or 3 are tachypnoea and/or tachycardia related.\nOriginality/value: Findings might contribute to patient safety by facilitating appropriate clinical and organizational decisions on adequate time spans for early warning scoring in general ward patients.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Health promoting schools: initiatives in Africa
|
[
"Education",
"Health",
"Children",
"Schools",
"Evaluation",
"Health promotion",
"Determinants of health"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The health challenges facing children in African countries are recognized to be considerable while the resources available for both their health care and to provide for their education are, in contrast, limited. The gross inequities in health within and between countries present a challenge to the world to address the social determinants of health (Marmot, 2005). For this reason the World Health Organization (WHO) health promoting school (HPS) model is a relevant concept for Africa as a potential means of driving improvement (WHO Regional Office for Africa, 2013), yet a 2004 review found no evaluations of HPS initiatives from Africa (Mukoma and Flisher, 2004). However, the potential of health promotion in the school setting as a flexible, inexpensive and effective intervention in sub-Saharan Africa, and low- and middle-income countries elsewhere, is evident. There is growing recognition by many African governments of the importance of child health for educational achievement (Brooker et al., 2008), and low-income countries are beginning to use their schools as platforms for delivering simple, and cost-effective health and nutrition interventions (Bundy et al., 2006). The activities of the WHO regional office for Africa (WHO/AFRO) are driving change, the Stellenbosch consensus statement on HPS provides a benchmark on HPS relevant to Africa (Macnab, 2013), as are some reports of other global evidence on the effectiveness of HPS. This review summarizes recent literature and the authors' experience related to HPS projects in Africa, and the peer-reviewed papers in the current focus issue based on presentations at the 2011 Stellenbosch international colloquium on HPS.\nExisting global evidence on HPS: There is a great deal of relevant literature addressing the implementation and evidence of effectiveness of HPS in a global context (e.g. WHO, 1997; St Leger, 1999; Lister-Sharp et al., 1999; Moon et al., 1999; West et al., 2004; Young, 2005; Stewart-Brown, 2006; Inchley et al., 2007; Patel et al., 2007; Howerton et al., 2007; Tang et al., 2008; St Leger et al., 2009; World Health Organization (WHO), 2009; Macnab, 2013; Macnab et al., 2014; Lee et al., 2014; Stewart, 2014. In spite of the concept of HPS being international in its development (Kolbe, 1986; Seffrin, 1990), Mukoma and Flisher (2004) reported finding no evaluations from Africa. However, subsequently there have been reports from a number of low- and middle-income countries (Young, 2005; Patel et al., 2007; Paul-Ebhohimhen et al., 2008; Gallant and Maticka-Tyndale, 2004; Garbin et al., 2009; Baros et al., 2009; Macnab et al., 2010; Van Cauwenberghe et al., 2010; Macnab and Kasangaki, 2012), and concepts of relevance to Africa have been included in earlier reviews (Van Palenstein Helderman et al., 1997; Swart and Reddy, 1999). At the Stellenbosch international colloquium on HPS in 2011, participants from South Africa, Uganda and Rwanda described experience with pilot programs. Several elements of the Ugandan program have now been described in the literature, and in this focus issue additional reports reiterate the applicability and relevance of HPS in sub-Saharan Africa (Bardi et al., 2014; Beery et al., 2014; Dietrich et al., 2014; Kizito et al., 2014; Preiser et al., 2014).\nGlobal potential of HPS: Worldwide it is estimated HPS have the potential to positively impact over one billion children (Kwan et al., 2005) by creating a positive environment that fundamentally influences attitudes, beliefs and behaviors. One-quarter of the world\nWHO/AFRO leadership: The WHO/AFRO health promotion cluster provides leadership, guidance and technical support in the formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of health promotion policies, plans, strategies and programs in order to accelerate the response to the determinants of health and address priority public health issues in the African region (WHO Regional Office for Africa, 2013). The focus is on priority public health issues that include: maternal and child health; HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria; diabetes, hypertension, cancer, violence, injuries and other non-communicable conditions; environmental degradation; water, sanitation and hygiene; polio, leprosy and other neglected tropical diseases; and new threats to health (e.g. climate change, pandemic influenza, rapid urbanization).\nHPS in South Africa: Onya (2007) has reviewed health promotion in South Africa. Two reports (Vergnani et al., 1998; Swart and Reddy, 1999) identified the need to establish HPS in South Africa as a means of addressing the major challenge of improving the health status of all citizens, and particularly for their youth and children. Change is urgent, as it is estimated that by the year 2020 between 14 and 17 million young people will be enrolled at schools in South Africa, where the historical cultural divide and disparities in opportunity between low- and high-income families create particularly extreme hardship (Flisher and Reddy, 1995). Importantly, it was established that 87.2 percent of health and education professionals support establishing HPS networks, an advantage in a country where the contribution of teachers is recognized to be central to effective HPS; yet such support has been identified as lacking in other countries. How the HPS networks should be structured and would function was also described, and perceived barriers and strategies to address them outlined (Swart and Reddy, 1999). These reports provide a valuable template for African countries contemplating HPS networks, as well as an articulate review of the way forward in South Africa. In addition, they identify the key tasks critical to achieving HPS (Vergnani et al., 1998). These tasks have relevance for all African countries, and for other also. They include:\nEducation for girls: Africa has great potential to benefit from the promotion of education for girls, as a desire to stay in school and complete secondary education is an attitude demonstrated to be fostered by the concepts central to HPS programs (Christenson et al., 2001). Major social, health and economic benefits have been identified to occur for girls in developing countries who are engaged effectively in education (Sippel et al., 2011). Motivating girls to stay in school longer results in delayed child bearing and thus better obstetric and child health outcomes, and a positive impact on reducing birthrate. The children of educated mothers also have significant advantages. Infant survival is more dependent on the level of maternal education than the income of the household (Fuchs et al., 2010). A mother who can read and write is more likely to have her children immunized than one who is uneducated, and also to understand better the importance of clean water and how to prevent diarrheal diseases. Completion of six years of maternal schooling has been shown to be associated with lower odds of a mother\nInfrastructure and projects: In some instances, infrastructure improvements lend themselves to HPS activities in parallel. Such improvements need not be large; an example is the \"tippy tap\" which facilitates hand washing as an avenue to hygiene education (Zang et al., 2012). Novel sanitation in the form of environmentally friendly toilets links with clean water and environmental education and the prevention of diarrheal diseases. School-based garden projects (Beery et al., 2014) foster a range of skills development in participating children as evidenced by evaluation of the programs in the UK (Royal Horticultural Society, 2012). Learning around nutrition and healthy eating becomes a natural extension of both classroom and \"healthy practice\" activities. Lunch programs providing food grown at school for children known to be poorly nourished or who come without lunch likely improve educational achievement by aiding full attention, greater participation and comprehension in class, as impaired cognitive development and learning is a major consequence of ill health and malnutrition (Taras, 2005; Jyoti et al., 2005). The scale of benefit possible with effective school health and nutrition programs is significant; participation in school can increase by 10 percent and four to six points can be added to a child's IQ (Bundy et al., 2006). Garden planting and maintenance as a means of improving child learning through better nutrition have been shown to be a compelling motivator for parental engagement in a Ugandan school's HPS activities (Macnab and Kasangaki, 2012), and hence school gardens appear especially valuable in African settings. In addition there is growing evidence that fruit and vegetable consumption by children may protect against a range of childhood illnesses, and be protective against cancer in adult life (Antova et al., 2003; Maynard et al., 2003). A systematic review has confirmed the benefit of multi-component interventions to increase fruit and vegetable consumption in children (Knai et al., 2006) and the skill-related benefits observed are the same as those reported from community garden projects in low-income areas of the USA (Armstrong, 2000).\nTopics to initiate HPS in Africa: In addition to familiar and pressing issues of malaria, diarrheal diseases, HIV, nutrition and domestic violence facing sub-Saharan Africa (UNAID, 2001; Gallant and Maticka-Tyndale, 2004; Bundy et al., 2006; Paul-Ebhohimhen et al., 2008; Brooker et al., 2008; WHO Regional Office for Africa, 2013) there are also a number of unique but poorly recognized health problems. Examples are the high incidence, morbidity and mortality of chronic kidney disease (Arogundade and Barsoum, 2008), and the almost universal impact of caries and periodontal disease on the health, well being and quality of life of children (Muwazi et al., 2005). In keeping with other low and middle income countries and the developed world, Africa also faces the increasing emergence of lifestyle-related issues such as obesity and diabetes (Mbanya et al., 2010), hence the relevance of endeavor to promote healthy behaviors, and the need to begin early in life (Lee, 2009).\nFuture directions for the African region: WHO/AFRO have established and published objectives, targets and priorities for the next ten years (WHO Regional Office for Africa, 2013). Their guiding principles are:\nConclusion: Many \"players\" and many \"voices\" need to be involved in Africa to improve the future health and well being of the continent\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the rationale for and potential of World Health Organization (WHO) health promoting schools (HPS) in Africa.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Overview of the related literature and presentations at the 2011 Stellenbosch international colloquium on HPS relating to sub-Saharan Africa.\nFindings: Schools provide the most efficient and effective way to reach large portions of the population; however, no literature reporting evaluations of HPS from Africa existed ten years ago. The WHO now supports HPS strategies in over 32 African countries, recognizing that the burden of disease, disability and premature death is disproportionately high in the region, and that many of the causes are preventable. Novel applications of the WHO model are increasing; those applicable to Africa include: measures to address the widespread problem of poor oral health, hygiene and nutrition among children; a range of \"entry point\" activities to initiate HPS with validated evaluation methodology; initiatives centered on gardening relevant for sub-Saharan Africa; opportunities for cross-disciplinary learning opportunities generated by inter-sectoral collaborative HPS programs; and the use of social media and cell phone messaging to deliver health promotion to at-risk teen populations on the continent. Challenges include the need for multi-sectoral collaboration and Ministry leadership, paucity of human resources and stable funding and limited research and evaluation of best practices.\nPractical implications: Africa faces significant challenges educating the next generation in the context of health. Strong political action, broad participation and sustained advocacy are required to capitalize on the proven potential of novel initiatives now available to disseminate \"knowledge\" and \"healthy practices\" through the WHO HPS model.\nOriginality/value: Use of HPS offers a flexible and inexpensive avenue of relevance where guidelines and process exist, and evidence of efficacy in Africa is accumulating.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Science mapping in industrial marketing
|
[
"Industrial marketing",
"Business-to-Business marketing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The global scientific landscape in the twenty-first century is characterized by an exponential increase in scientific information available on the Internet. This is motivated both by simplicity of dissemination and access, and by the development of new applications to cross-search papers, such as Web of Science and Scopus referential databases. This study is based on a science mapping approach of research papers and other records produced in the industrial marketing (IM) field. It intends to measure the behavior of science produced in IM, taking into account the partial analysis already undertaken for its original category of marketing based on the analysis of major journals: Journal of Consumer Research, Marketing Science and Journal of Marketing and Journal of Marketing Research, thus reflecting the top performance of marketing journals (Seggie and Griffith, 2009; Saad, 2010; Vieira and Teixeira, 2010).\n2. Design of the research: Quantitative and descriptive research using scientometric analysis based on scientific records has information units on citations as impact units, and on authors as production units, considering the power law distribution as trends of science accumulation and not as strict laws of knowledge (Vinkler, 2010). The sample was collected on February 26, 2012 from the Scopus reference database - subject areas: life sciences, health sciences, physical sciences, social sciences and Humanities considered the most comprehensive reference database in the field of economics and management (Pislykov, 2009).\n3. Chronological development of research in IM: The sample dates from 1956 to 2009. The analysis of chronological evolution covers a large time span (53 years), which has been consistently positive since 1990, with over 100 records per year. The sample shows, however, some points of inflection: 1991, 2001, 2007 and 2009 (Figure 1).\n4. Results and discussion: 4.1 Types of documents\n5. Conclusions: The evolution of IM research is consistent with power law distribution in use by scientometrics, namely, Lotka's and Bradford's laws. The sample shows the prevalence of articles (64.6 per cent) and the English language (94.8 per cent) as the most commonly used idiom in papers published, followed by German (1.5 per cent). Regarding authorship, concerning the relation author per records, the large amplitude of the number of authors per record (23) was evident with the interquartile range (1, 2 and 3 authors, respectively).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to map scientific knowledge in industrial marketing.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research was conducted on the basis of a quantitative and descriptive research using scientometric analysis based on scientific records. It analyzes more than 14,000 scientific records on the Scopus database from 1956 to 2009. The sample fits Bradford's and Lotka's power laws of distribution of science in use.\nFindings: The study reveals the existence of four stages: the genesis of this stream of research (1956-1984), the early development (1985-1995), the consolidation of production (1996-2003) and the phase of scientific maturity (from 2004) with an increasing number of records in recent years. Regarding authorship, there is a clear predominance of single authorship and an average increase in the number of authors per record from one to two authors for recent years. The main sources of knowledge are the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing and the Industrial Marketing Management journal. A statistical significance is shown between the number of records and the number of papers per journal, highlighting that Management Science and Industrial Marketing Management journals are the most cited sources.\nPractical implications: Practitioners find in this paper a sound basis for a wide perspective of the key issues addressed by researchers on industrial marketing over the past decades, as well as good insights in terms of the main challenges faced by companies in this field.\nOriginality/value: Evidence was found of the existence of a long tail behavior in scientific literature of industrial marketing regarding chronology, sources, number of records with a single author and number of records cited.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Understanding credibility judgements for web search snippets
|
[
"Credibility",
"Information seeking behaviour",
"Biases",
"Search engine result page",
"Web searchers"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Making credibility judgements in information environments, such as the web, is challenging (Schwarz and Morris, 2011) because, in contrast to traditional print and broadcast media, often no quality control mechanism exists (Rieh, 2002). This places increased emphasis on user information literacy skills, including their ability to evaluate information critically. These are skills, which people, regardless of education level, tend to overestimate (Gross and Latham, 2012). Moreover, information retrieval (IR) research has emphasised that user actions while seeking information as well as their perception of information found is biased in countless ways (e.g. Nickerson, 1998; White, 2013). Although credibility judgements for web pages (Fogg, 2003; McKnight and Kacmar, 2007) and web search engine result page (SERP) listings have been studied (Schwarz and Morris, 2011), we still know relatively little about how such evaluations are made and how they may be affected by user biases. Designing systems to support the critical evaluation of information should be informed by a better understanding of both the processes and biases involved.\n2. Related work: Information Science has a rich tradition of studying how people acquire information (see Case and Given, 2016 for a general overview). It is well understood that this behaviour is complex and context-dependent, that is, the exact action, sequence of actions or strategy employed will vary depending on a larger number of different variables from the type and complexity of the task (Marchionini, 2006; Bystrom and Jarvelin, 1995) to the expertise (Aula et al., 2005; White et al., 2009), cognitive abilities (Brennan et al., 2014) or personality of the user (Heinstrom, 2003). Moreover, information seeking behaviour may be simultaneously shaped by immediate influences, such as friends, family and other trusted small world sources, as well as by wider socio-cultural influences, including media, technology and politics (Burnett and Jaeger, 2011).\n3. Methodology: In our studies, participants provide credibility judgements for web search result listings sourced from Google. The listings relate to three topics: the safety of autonomous vehicles (AV), the legalisation of cannabis (CAN) and the healthiness of a vegan diet (VEG); we believed these topics would be sufficiently controversial as to divide participant opinion and for which participants would exhibit divergent levels of prior knowledge. The controversial nature of the selected topics is confirmed by evidence from official government sources, which demonstrate that strong contrasting opinions exist for all three topics[2]. The choices are moreover vindicated by the empirical data collected (see Section 3.3). For all three topics, we were able to establish large groups of participants who themselves reported having either a pro or contra stance for the topic. The study followed a within-groups design with all participants providing subjective credibility ratings to results associated with all three topics.\n4. Results: 4.1 Accuracy of judgements\n5. Think-aloud protocols: 5.1 Method\n6. Discussion: In this paper, we have reported on two studies investigating how people judge the credibility of search results based on SERP listings. The first study used a quantitative approach and was designed to isolate the influence of various biases on user judgements. We had expected to find patterns in credibility judgements aligning with confirmation bias studies in the literature. That is, we hypothesised that participants would be more likely to incorrectly rate non-credible sources as credible when they confirm their own views and rate credible sources as non-credible when they contradicted their stance. We found little evidence for this in the results of the first study. The only hint of this form of bias was for the topic AV, where, when positional bias is held constant, an increase in knowledge reduces the variance in ratings. Although this is plausible, the fact that only one condition for one topic delivered a significant result makes it difficult to draw any generalisation from the findings.\n7. Limitations and future work: The work presented in this paper represents a small but important building block in a larger research project relating to credibility. Here, we outline some of the limitations of the studies presented and detail our future plans. In the first study, we tested for the effects of different biases, including the influence of participant topical knowledge. We wish to emphasise that this was self-judged knowledge (i.e. participants rated themselves) and the one-item scale may have offered insufficient accuracy to isolate this effect. The qualitative study not only offered some indication that knowledge was important, but also suggested that other factors have a larger effect. Moreover, the fact that we asked for participants' opinion on each topic before listings were rated may have influenced their judgements. We felt this was a better option, however, than asking afterwards, which may have been even more strongly biased due to recency effects.\n8. Conclusion: In this work, two studies of credibility judgements based on web SERP listings were described. Strength of the work is the complementing quantitative and qualitative analyses of the same underlying study design. This allowed us to understand why the rather unexpected findings from the first round of data collection occurred. One study (which was quantitative in nature) was specifically designed to isolate biases that may affect the process. The most notable finding was not how decisions were biased, rather, how inaccurate and uncertain participants were in their judgements. The results of the second study (which was qualitative in nature) help to explain the inaccuracy and uncertainty by informing on why judgements were made. People extract different cues from the same listings and even when the same cues are used, they are often interpreted differently. The findings underline that further work is needed to better understand and support users when critically assessing information they find online.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: It is well known that information behaviour can be biased in countless ways and that users of web search engines have difficulty in assessing the credibility of results. Yet, little is known about how search engine result page (SERP) listings are used to judge credibility and in which if any way such judgements are biased. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Two studies are presented. The first collects data by means of a controlled, web-based user study (N=105). Studying judgements for three controversial topics, the paper examines the extent to which users agree on credibility, the extent to which judgements relate to those applied by objective assessors and to what extent judgements can be predicted by the users' position on and prior knowledge of the topic. A second, qualitative study (N=9) utilises the same setup; however, transcribed think-aloud protocols provide an understanding of the cues participants use to estimate credibility.\nFindings: The first study reveals that users are very uncertain when assessing credibility and their impressions often diverge from objective judges who have fact checked the sources. Little evidence is found indicating that judgements are biased by prior beliefs or knowledge, but differences are observed in the accuracy of judgements across topics. Qualitatively analysing think-aloud transcripts from participants think-aloud reveals ten categories of cues, which participants used to determine the credibility of results. Despite short listings, participants utilised diverse cues for the same listings. Even when the same cues were identified and utilised, different participants often interpreted these differently. Example transcripts show how participants reach varying conclusions, illustrate common mistakes made and highlight problems with existing SERP listings.\nOriginality/value: This study offers a novel perspective on how the credibility of SERP listings is interpreted when assessing search results. Especially striking is how the same short snippets provide diverse informational cues and how these cues can be interpreted differently depending on the user and his or her background. This finding is significant in terms of how search engine results should be presented and opens up the new challenge of discovering technological solutions, which allow users to better judge the credibility of information sources on the web.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A context-centred, root cause analysis of contemporary terrorism
|
[
"Terrorism",
"Root cause analysis",
"PESTEL",
"Radicalization",
"Variation breakdown"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Jordan is a small country in the heart of the Middle East. It is located at the centre of a politically deteriorating region which has turned into war zones: Syria from the North, Iraq from the East, Israel from the West, Lebanon from the Northwest, and Saudi Arabia from the South, in addition to Egypt from the Southwest, which is currently facing unprecedented social unrest (Melhem, 2014) (Figure 1).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Significance and direction of this research\n3. Methodology: Since terrorism itself is context related, counterterrorism strategies have to be context related too. The proposal made by this research is that the development of an effective counterterrorism framework should be made in line with context-related conditions followed by a RCA (Figure 4). Caruso and Locatelli (2014) argued that terrorism cannot be easily diagnosed and treated unless all political, economic, sociocultural, technological, environmental and legal (PESTEL) factors related to it are unfolded. A full consideration of these factors will subsequently help establishing the context (i.e. settings). RCA is then carried out using \"variation breakdown or thought map\", a method used to investigate the root causes and other causal (contributing) factors.\n4. Findings and discussion: 4.1 Observation\n5. Conclusion: Counteracting terrorism requires joint efforts that consist of communications, collaboration, and unity of intelligence systems of all countries involved in fighting this phenomenon. Yet, proposing one international framework for preventing or mitigating terrorism risk is unlikely to be implementable worldwide. Terrorism is a phenomenon that is embedded in the fabric of the environment in which it exists. Different contextual factors therefore are more or less related to the growth of terrorism and hold causal factors and root causes within. As such, every country differs even in defining terrorism, as well as measuring terrorism risk owing mainly to its own environmental characteristics and surrounding conditions.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is threefold: identifying the root causes and other causal factors of terrorism, exploring the recent shifts in terrorist activity, and proposing a context-centred framework for deterring terrorism risk.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The first part of this research is based on extensive up-to-date observations made by the author and extracted from real-life settings and social interactions. The second part is based on a survey questionnaire reflecting public views on terrorism and related issues.\nFindings: The risk of terrorism risk is increasingly becoming a major concern of all societies including Jordanian. The results have shown that terrorism is context related and that there are several and different root causes for this phenomenon. Many other causal factors have the potential to increase the impact or probability of terrorism risk in Jordan. The existing framework(s) for deterring terrorism risk in Jordan is not adequate and need to be reformed extensively.\nPractical implications: This study provides insight to the root causes of the potential terrorist activity in Jordan, as well as other causal factors. It is expected to establish a foundation for policy-makers and decision-makers to start considering the causes of social unrest and subsequently develop appropriate frameworks for mitigating terrorism risk.\nOriginality/value: This study is made in a time of unprecedented political instability and terrorist activity in the Middle East and the Arab World. It reflects genuine observations and public opinions, thus providing authentic findings and better understanding of the concerns of the society. Most importantly, the study proposes context-related framework for counteracting terrorism activity and future evolution of this phenomenon in the Middle East, in general, and Jordan, in particular.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Literature review on the agile manufacturing criteria
|
[
"Agile production",
"Communication technologies",
"Team building",
"Supply chain management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nAgility in manufacturing scenario: Contemporary manufacturing organisations are facing challenges from two directions. In one direction, newer manufacturing philosophies and technologies emerge to make the existing ones obsolete. In the other direction, today's customers are becoming more and more aggressive in demanding new products and services within a short period of time (Maskell, 2001, Tersine and Wacker, 2000; Gunasekaran, 1999; Lau et al., 2002; Helo, 2004; Ho et al., 2005). In order to meet the challenges that invade from these two directions, today's manufacturing organisations are required to act quickly in accordance with the surrounding competitive situations. On realising this trend, during the past few years, the manufacturing arena had been orienting towards the relatively new type of paradigm, under the umbrella name, \"agile manufacturing\" (AM) (Power et al., 2001; Jin-Hai et al., 2003; Crocitto and Youssef, 2003). A considerable number of academicians and manufacturers view AM as a new approach (Rigby et al., 2000, Hormozi, 2001). However, a perspective on manufacturing arena would indicate that, invisibly agility had been positioning its root during the past two decades. As a matter of fact, agility in manufacturing arena had been occurring as the spontaneous responsiveness to high degree of competition (Parkinson, 1999). As evidence to this statement, the performance of today's mobile phone manufacturing companies can be cited. It is a common observation that these companies have been introducing several models to market very quickly. During the recent years, many automobile manufacturing companies have also been evolving new models relatively at quicker speed (Maskell, 2001). In fact, this agility trend has been dominating various types of manufacturing organisations with different levels of its adoption. Therefore, we claim that, practitioners have been imbibing AM concepts without explicit advocation. Whereas, researchers had been examining AM issues explicitly for more than a decade.The study of literature on AM reveals that the birth of AM principles is marked by the constitution of Agility Forum by a group of researchers at Iacocca Institute, Lehigh University in the year 1991(Ren et al., 2003; Jin-Hai et al., 2003). Thereafter a handful of researchers have contributed very valuable AM principles. The major contribution of researchers is the spelling out of its meaning and definition. Jin-Hai et al. (2003) and Dowlatshahi and Cao (2005) have enumerated the definitions of AM given by various authors. The most noticeable is the development of the following Equation (Sarkis, 2001): Equation 1 Although various definitions of AM are available in literature world, these definitions do not contrast with each other. The commonality among most of them is the enunciation that AM is the capability of the manufacturing enterprise to quickly respond to the market requirements. Thus, AM calls for radical changes in the system, culture and management styles being currently followed in traditional manufacturing environment. Meanwhile, the adoption of AM has been established as the need of the hour to face the high competitive market (Vokurka and Fliedner, 1998; Meredith and Francis, 2000). On the other hand, the gradual and spontaneous adoptions of AM principle have consumed long time to enable organisations to attain agility. This situation persists because majority of the manufacturers are devoid of the knowledge on AM criteria. Rather they progress towards agility by attempting to implement various criteria using unfocussed and crude methods. This approach results in retarded pace of attaining agility in organizations (Hoek, 2000). On realising this deficiency, time and again, some researchers brought out certain criteria of AM. These criteria have been evolved for enabling traditional manufacturing organisations to imbibe agility principles at a faster rate. However, these criteria do not comprehensively focus towards attaining agility. Rather these criteria are addressed from different perspectives and views. Moreover, the researchers who have contributed these criteria have failed to evolve an implementation procedure which should be realistic and free from unrealistic assumptions. In this context, we realized the need of bringing out an agile criteria model and its implementation procedure through the review of AM literature. This paper reports the research work carried out to fulfill this imperative.Agile criteria in literature\nRealistic implementation programme: Although the 20 criteria agile model would guide an organisation to propel towards agility, it would not ensure its successful implementation. Therefore, a focused implementation procedure infused with success ingredients is vital to successfully implement 20 criteria agile model in an organisation. For this purpose the implementation procedure shown in Figure 2 is being proposed here. The activities to be undertaken under each step are briefly narrated in the following subsections.Study the top management's perspective on imparting agility in manufacturing\nStudy the organisational structure: The most important change that is required to be effected for creating AM environment is the organisational structure (Maskell, 2001). The manufacturing world had been following hierarchical organisational structure during the past four decades. These structures were formulated by Taylor, which was found to be working well till the 1960s (Vokurka and Fliedner, 1998). When mass production reached a peek during the beginning part of twentieth century, this kind of vertical organisational structures were adopted. However, during the past one decade, there has been a realisation over the need of redesigning the traditional organisational structure. Presumably, this was sensed when Hammer and Champy (1993) brought out business process reengineering (BPR) concepts to the world. According to the requirements of AM, activities are formulated into modules. Then teams consisting of cross-functional members are formed to accomplish activities of each module. An appropriate organisational structure designed to manage teams is an imperative for creating agility in manufacturing environment. There are many situations which exemplify the need of teams for bringing out AM environment (Yusuf et al., 1999; Vokurka and Fliedner, 1998). Consider a situation in which the company has received customers' reaction about one of its product. In this case, in the conventional organisational structure, this information will pass through many non-value adding channels and steps. In fact, these channels and steps would act as hurdles in imparting agility in the company. This deficiency can be easily avoided with no extra investment of any resources if team-based organisational structures are formulated. Hence, it evokes little meaning in case a manufacturing company with traditional organisational structure attempts to create AM environment. Today most of the software developing companies have nourished the benefit of team-based working. Hence, in manufacturing environment too, the management should be consulted and appraised of the team-based organisational structure required for implementing AM concepts. In case, the management hesitates to effect change in organisational structure, then few areas (particularly newly developed sections) are be selected for this purpose and teams are created and their worthiness are explored. This task enables the top management to think favourably towards bringing out the change in organisational structure for creating AM environment.Study the physical set-ups\nUndertake incremental implementation in feasible areas: As pointed out in the earlier sections, careful efforts should be exerted to see that the management does not lose confidence while implementing AM. In order to ensure this requirement, it is suggested that, very few feasible areas are identified for the implementation of vital few activities. The feasible areas shall be identified based on the expected level of reception by the employees, expected favourable outcome, and the guaranteed performance improvement through increased profit. Even in the feasible areas, full-scale and sudden implementation is not recommended for this approach (Hormozi, 2001) would some times create negative performance. Instead, incremental implementation by releasing assignments gradually to the concerned personnel is recommended for increasing the success rate considerably. As a matter of fact, the change should be so progressive that, the receivers (both employees and management) should not so easily sense that the change process is going on.Expand the implementation\nConclusions: The emergence of a considerable numbers of papers reporting AM research leads to an impression that agility has come to stay in manufacturing environment (Vokurka and Fliedner, 1998). As mentioned in one of the previous sections, agility has started to invade in various forms in manufacturing enterprises. However, even today there exist some hesitations among the manufacturing community to adopt AM principles due to various reasons. The following common doubtful views persist in the minds of today's manufacturers (Ramasesh et al., 2001; Sarkis, 2001):* This will not work out in our country* This would not be suitable to our company* The business is currently at a low key. How can we adopt it now?* We have been investing a lot on various manufacturing management programmes. We have not got much in return. How can we trust AM Programme?* During the past five years, the management and employee relationships are spoiled due to strikes and lay-offs. How can we expect enthusiastic participation to create AM environment?Most of our employees are school-drop-outs. How can we expect them to learn continuously?It is suggested that the manufacturers with the above ideas and perceptions can refer to the software developing companies. This is due to the reason that these companies incorporate agility in their operations in spite of the emergence of new technologies and competitors at a rapid pace. At this juncture, it is realised that the valuable contributions on AM are scattered in literature world. The need of the hour is to integrate them. As an attempt to fulfill this imperative, we have brought out this paper in which, we have contributed 20 criteria agile model and its implementation procedure. In order to make AM programme more and more effective, the need of adopting 20 agile criteria by following the implementation procedure presented in this paper is appraised. The contributions of this paper are timely because in spite of the emergence of considerable number of research articles in literature, the practitioners, particularly from the manufacturing arena, are devoid of the knowledge on AM criteria and their systematic and result-oriented implementation. Finally, it is pointed out that, the growing competition and dynamic demands of customers strain the companies and compel them to be agile. Hence, AM is going to be an imperative for manufacturing enterprises of the future (Hormozi, 2001).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - To review on the literature and contribute a comprehensive model that would identify the criteria for attaining agility and suggest a procedure to successfully implement it in manufacturing arena.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The literature dealing with agile manufacturing (AM) criteria were studied. The meaning and definitions of AM were derived. Further, the criteria enunciated in certain papers were identified. These findings were used to design a 20 criteria agile model. Subsequently, its implementation procedure was designed.\nFindings: - While reviewing the literature, the following observations were made: time and again, some researchers brought out certain criteria of AM; these criteria do not comprehensively focus towards attaining agility; the researchers who have contributed these criteria have failed to evolve an implementation procedure.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Contributions of this paper are based on reviewing the literature. Since, no survey in manufacturing arena has been carried out, the 20 criteria agile model and its implementation procedure may suffer from incompatibility problems in manufacturing arena. However, these contributions provide an avenue fro further researching in this direction\nPractical implications: - The customers' dynamic demands and the ever increasing intensity of global competition force the practitioners to adopt agile principles. The 20 criteria agile model and its implications procedure would enable the organizations to focus towards attaining agility. This process will prevent the derailment of AM journey and the wastage of time and money spent while moving towards agility\nOriginality/value: - The study of literature on AM reveals that no researcher has enunciated the exhaustive integration of management and technology-oriented AM criteria and their implementation feasibilities. Hence, the contribution of this paper is original in the literature world.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A decision model for selecting parts feeding policies in assembly lines
|
[
"Cost estimation",
"Kitting",
"Assembly lines parts feeding",
"Just in time",
"Line storage",
"Linear programming optimization"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nNomenclature: a\n1. Introduction: Design and management of assembly lines requires decisions about the way components and subassemblies are delivered to assembly stations. This issue attracted interest from academic researchers in recent times as reviewed by Kilic and Durmusoglu (2015) and Boysen et al. (2015). The main alternative is between kitting and continuous supply. The latter, in turn, may include line storage (LS) and just in time (JIT) supply, so that at least three distinct policies are available. Other specialized solutions, like sequencing, or synchronized parts supply and e-Kanban, as used for instance in Toyota Set Parts Supply System (Jainury et al., 2014), will not be dealt with here.\n2. Line feeding policies: 2.1. Kitting\n3. Review of methods for selecting parts delivery policy: 3.1. Qualitative approaches\n4. Model description: 4.1. Modeling assumption and notation\n5. Case study: In order to show the capabilities of the method a case study from the automotive sector has been considered. The case study refers to a final assembly line for industrial vehicles. The line is composed of 96 workstations. Each vehicle is assembled using 1,785 different part types. The multiplicity of a given part type can change in the 1-34 range, while each station utilizes from 13 to 28 different part types. Part types have a weight range from 5 g to 25.53 kg, and a volume variable between 23 and 560 cm3. Unit cost of parts ranged between 0.1 and 127.7 . The overall component value of an end product is 41,280 and its weight 4,496 kg. Figure 4 shows the frequency distribution of parts weight, volume and cost.\n6. Discussion of model limitation and managerial implications: This work presented a decision support system helping plant designers and production managers in the selection of parts feeding policies for assembly systems, which is a relevant strategic problem when designing assembly systems. The proposed model can be used to plan a material feeding system in new facilities or to redesign an existing one in case of changes to system layout or when production mix and volumes change. This allows to explore trade-offs between alternatives in order to deploy customized feeding policies differentiated on components basis to better fit specific company requirements, simultaneously carrying out sizing of required resources (containers, storage equipment, workforce and vehicles). The methodology has general applicability to any manufacturing context and the model formulation is flexible enough to accomodate changes useful to better represent specific manufacturing systems. At present the model has been developed for the single-line, single-model application. This can be considered a limitation to be overcome by future research extending the model scope. However, the model can be extended to multi-product and multiple-lines cases. The extension of the model to a multiple-lines system is straightforward as the procedure is repeated for each line independently, and results are then aggregated. In case of a multi-model line the components requirements for the average production mix could be used. Nevertheless, this simplified approach would neglect issues related to variability of parts consumption at workstation. In this case a variable number of parts types should be fed to workstation according the production schedule, and safety stocks should be included to accomodate changes to parts consumption rates. Safety stock, used to hedge against demand variability is another factor neglected in this model which assumes a deterministic and constant demand.\n7. Conclusions: In this paper an integer linear programming model has been developed to find the optimal feeding policy for each component to be delivered to an assembly line. Results show that the selection of items feeding modes is not a trivial matter and that given the different characteristics and value of components, to adopt the same feeding policy for all items can be a poor solution. Intuition-based approaches, qualitative assessments, or rules-of-thumbs can lead to unsatisfactory results as well, while the optimal choice resulting from item-by-item analysis allows significant savings provided that the organizational burden to arrange different concurrent feeding systems on the shop floor can be tolerated. Given that an optimal feeding policy allocation can not be obtained following predefined rules, and that optimal allocation usually prescribes different feeding policies to be assigned to items of the same size and value range, then the effectiveness of the suggestes approach respect an arbitrary policy selection is evidenced. It is expected that the proposed approach can represent a powerful and general purpose decision tool for production managers to assist in the selection of proper policies for components delivery to assembly systems at an early decision stage. Further research is needed to further extend the model application scope and capabilities. At first new descriptive models will be developed to account for other material delivery options (i.e. centralized/decentralized kitting or kitting at the supplier or at a third party logistic provider) and to increase their level of detail, also accounting for multiple products and multiple lines with partially common components.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop an optimization model allowing the choice of parts feeding policy to assembly lines in order to minimize total cost.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An integer linear programming mathematical model is developed to assign the optimal material feeding policy to each part type. The model allows choice between kitting, line stocking and just in time delivery policies.\nFindings: The choice of assembly lines feeding policy is not trivial and requires a thorough economic comparison of alternatives. It is found that a proper mix of parts feeding policies may be better that adopting a single material delivery policy for all parts.\nResearch limitations/implications: The model is aimed at single-model assembly lines operating in a deterministic environment, but can be extended to the multi-model line case. While relevant quantitative cost drivers are included, some context-related qualitative factors are not included yet. The model assumes that information about product structure and part requirements are known and that a preliminary design of the assembly system has been carried out.\nPractical implications: Production managers are given a quantitative-decision tool to determine the optimal mix of material supply policies at an early decision stage.\nOriginality/value: Respect previous simplified literature models, this approach allows to quantify a number of additional factors which are critical for successful implementation of cost-effective parts feeding systems, allowing comparison of alternative policies on a consistent basis.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Interactional and procedural practices in managing coopetitive tensions
|
[
"Strategy-as-practice",
"Tensions",
"Coopetition"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This study explores interactional and procedural practices in managing coopetitive tensions. Coopetition, or the simultaneous occurrence of competition and collaboration between firms, has recently gained a lot of interest both in practice and theory. In current literature, two aspects of coopetition strategy surface continuously: first, the possibility to reap coopetition-specific benefits (de Resende et al., 2018; Gnyawali and Park, 2009; Ritala and Hurmelinna-Laukkanen, 2009) and second, the existence of coopetition-specific tensions that need to be managed (Bengtsson and Kock, 2014; Fernandez et al., 2014; Tidstrom, 2014; Fernandez and Chiambaretto, 2016). Both aspects highlight the tension-laden nature of coopetition: such relationships are by nature paradoxical, consisting of two opposing logics of competition and collaboration in a single relationship (Raza-Ullah et al., 2014; Gnyawali et al., 2016; Ritala et al., 2017). In general, paradox is defined as \"contradictory yet interrelated elements that exist simultaneously and persist over time\" (Smith and Lewis, 2011, p. 382). The contradictory elements of paradox - as they persist over time and require attention - lead to tension between these elements (Smith and Lewis, 2011; Schad et al., 2016). Thus, given the paradoxical nature of coopetition relationships, such tensions are bound to arise (Wilhelm, 2011; Gnyawali et al., 2016).\nCoopetition from a strategy-as-practice perspective: Recently, an increasing amount of studies have focused on individuals and their activities in coopetition (Bengtsson et al., 2016; Dahl et al., 2016; Lundgren-Henriksson and Kock, 2016a, 2016b; Pattinson et al., 2018; Tidstrom and Rajala, 2016). Thus, coopetition practitioners consequently confront a multi-dimensional, tension-laden strategic situation where they act as individuals and also as the representatives of their own organization (Bengtsson and Kock, 2000). Both individual- and organizational-level activities or practices are recognized within the strategy-as-practice-approach.\nProcedural and interactional practices in managing coopetitive tensions: Strategizing\nEmpirical illustrations: In this section, we will present two empirical examples of procedural and interactional practices related to tensions in coopetition. These examples are drawn from two previously conducted qualitative case studies on coopetitive business relationships and should be treated rather as illustrations of the developed theoretical insights, rather than full-fledged case studies. In general, empirical illustrations based on qualitative case studies can be considered as appropriate for this study, as we focus on a scarcely studied research topic (Eisenhardt, 1989). Moreover, the focus of our study is related to multiple levels of analysis (Yin, 1984). Finally, qualitative research approach is also recommended when studying strategy-as-practice (Jarzabkowski and Spee, 2009).\nDiscussion: The findings of this study are illustrated in Figure 4, and they are discussed below.\nImplications and future research directions: The study at hand provides useful implications for practitioners and managers working in coopetitive relationships. Our findings show that the management of tensions in coopetition would benefit from a holistic, multilevel approach that recognizes both how tensions are related and how they can be beneficially managed through various practices. Traditionally, coopetition strategy has been treated on a corporate level with a focus on strategy as a fixed plan rather than as a bundle of practices used in the various stages of strategy making. We assert that examining coopetition from a practice-based perspective can shed light on the details of how coopetitive relationships and their related tensions can be managed. At the same time, the practice-based approach illuminates the roles and activities of actual people involved in coopetition, and shows how their work and practices in-use contribute to coopetition. Third, it is important for managers to consider the ways in which contracts and other types of procedural practices can best be used to manage tensions. Companies engaged in coopetition should diligently document both the obligations of the parties and the objectives set for the coopetition from the start, as doing so can deter opportunistic activity. Fourth, one-to-one communication as an interactional practice is not sufficient to prevent opportunistic behavior in coopetition relationships. Instead, all critical and strategic aspects of the coopetition need to be formally documented to harness potential opportunism in the relationship. It is important to set the strategy and terms of coopetition at the beginning of the relationship and to expressly communicate what should be shared and what should remain confidential. These terms should be transparent on both the procedural and interactional levels.\nConclusion: Our study outlines a strategy-as-practice logic for examining coopetition tensions and their management. In doing so, our main contribution is in connecting coopetition practices in two levels directly to the tensions that arise from the coopetition relationship, and on practices that can be employed to manage and alleviate the related tensions, as well as the interplay between these dimensions. Our findings add to the available insights into the practices of coopetition at different levels of analysis, including the individuals involved (a research gap flagged by e.g. Bengtsson and Kock, 2014; Dahl et al., 2016), and it also complements studies that examine the management of tensions in coopetition (Fernandez et al., 2014; Tidstrom, 2014; Ritala et al., 2017). Prior research on managing coopetitive tensions has mostly focused on one level of analysis, such as separation and integration on the company or individual level (Fernandez et al., 2014), the use of contracts on a relational level (Ritala et al., 2009) or the need for open communication between individuals (Fernandez and Chiambaretto, 2016). Our study is the first to suggest an integrative framework for alleviating and managing coopetitive tension via procedural and interactional practices, while taking account their mutual interdependences, synergies and limitations. We argue that adopting the strategy-as-practice approach generates valuable new insights into the practices and the related tensions in coopetition, and illuminates the roles of the actual people involved in managing coopetition relationships in a novel and unprecedented way. While our short case illustrations provide a view on the potential of the approach, we advocate for more in-depth examinations of interactional and procedural practices that will help to understand how tensions arise in coopetition and how they can be effectively managed.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore interactional and procedural practices in managing tensions of coopetition (simultaneous collaboration and competition between firms).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Through an in-depth literature review of prior research within coopetition and strategy-as-practice fields, and by using two illustrative empirical examples, the authors develop a framework for preventing and managing coopetitive tensions through combinations of procedural and interactional practices.\nFindings: The authors identify tensions related to strategizing, task and resource allocation, as well as knowledge sharing. Furthermore, they demonstrate potential ways of how these tensions can be prevented, resolved and managed.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings show that the analysis of tensions in coopetition would benefit from a holistic, multilevel approach that recognizes practices that are interactional (i.e. face-to-face interactions) as well as procedural (i.e. organizational routines). Coopetitive tensions and their resolution are related to the use or neglect of both types of practices. Furthermore, interactional and procedural practices are mutually interdependent and can complement each other in tension management in various ways.\nPractical implications: The findings of this study shed light on the roles and activities of actual practitioners involved in coopetition, and shows how their work and practices in-use contribute to coopetition, related tensions and their resolution.\nOriginality/value: By adopting the strategy-as-practice approach, this study generates valuable insights into the practices and tensions in coopetition, as well as illuminates the roles of the practitioners involved in managing coopetition relationships.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Advanced manufacturing technology implementation: Evidence from Indian small and medium enterprises (SMEs)
|
[
"Advanced manufacturing technologies",
"Small to medium‐sized enterprises",
"Surveys",
"India"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Manufacturing has been evolving over the years as different needs and technologies arise. The customer of the twenty-first century, demands products and services that are fast, right, cheap and easy (Dangayach and Deshmukh, 2001). The quest for lower operating costs and improved manufacturing efficiency has forced a large number of manufacturing firms to embark on advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) projects of various types. AMTs have been heralded as new way for manufacturing companies to gain a competitive advantage (Pagell et al., 2000). The dramatic developments in AMT at various organizational levels can be attributed to numerous benefits that improve the competitive position of the adopting companies. AMT impact not just manufacturing, but also the whole business operations, giving new challenges to a firm's ability to manage both manufacturing and information technologies.The benefits of AMT have been widely reported in the literature and can help classified as tangible and intangible (Kaplan, 1986). The tangible benefits, which are easily quantifiable, include: inventory savings, less floor space, improved return on equity (ROE) and reduced unit cost of production. The intangible benefits, which are difficult to quantify, include: an enhanced competitive advantage, increased flexibility, improved product quality and quick response to customer demand. The potential benefits which can accrue from investments in AMTs, have become increasingly evident with growing global competition (Swamidass and Waller, 1991; Primrose, 1991; Small and Chen, 1995). AMT plays a major role in quality and flexibility improvements in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Many previous studies indicate that investment in AMT would strengthen the competitive edge (Small and Yasin, 1997; Schroder and Sohal, 1999).SMEs cover a wide spectrum of industries and play an important role in both developed and developing economies. India is no exception and SMEs occupy a prominent position in planned development of Indian economy. The SME sector accounts for 40 percent of the industrial production, 35 percent of the total export and provides about 80 percent of employment in the industrial sector in the country. Over the years, SMEs have shown a consistent growth rate, both during protected economy and open economy (Ghose, 2001; Dalu and Deshmukh, 2001).The world of business is changing rapidly. The winds of globalization have pushed SMEs to grapple with the changing needs of their customers. Large enterprises view SMEs as satellites that would rotate around them seeking revenue and possible profit (Raghunath, 2001). In the present era of globalization SMEs should possess the ability to get the organization to innovate quickly and produce an acceptable product and service to capture upcoming business opportunity.SMEs are of major importance to the future economic growth of the Indian community. To sustain this role, they need support in defining their specific technological and organizational needs and in finding the right approach to respond to these needs. The definition of SMEs varies from country to country (Table I). All over the world, numbers of employees or capital investment or both have been used as basis for defining SMEs (Ghose, 2001). In India, a capital investment in plant and machinery has been used as the criteria for definition. As per prevailing definition, small scale industry (SSI) in India is defined as an industrial undertaking in which the investment in fixed assets in plant and machinery, whether held on ownership term or lease or on hire purchase does not exceed Rs10 million (US$0.21 million).The growth process of SMEs follows four basic stages: the pre start-up, the start-up, the pre maturity and the maturity. These stages are based on the time that the firm has been in existence as well as the firm's level of development. For the pre start-up, the company seeks out information on how to get the business started. What products and services does the market that the firm proposes to target require? What resources would the firm need in order to operate the business successfully? From where will he obtain these resources? In the second stage the company gathers all the information that is required in order to start a business. In the pre maturity stage the company gets to know the business that it is in, e.g. based on the business it learns how to use its resources effectively, how to manage staff, how to manage money and generally how to manage the business. At the fourth stage the management has a very good understanding of the firm's market, its customers and the many other areas of the firm that are critical to its overall successful operations.SMEs have shown their presence in nearly all sectors in India. As per an estimate, approximately 7,500 different products are manufactured by SMEs in this country. Some of the SMEs are producing directly for customer market while others are serving as suppliers to bigger industries. Based on products SMEs in India can be broadly classified into following groups by National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC, 2002), which are categorized in four major sectors i.e. Automobile, Electronics, Machinery, and Process (Table II).The SMEs have tended to concentrate in the vicinity of large industries or big cities. Availability of ready market, social and infrastructural facilities and skilled labor contribute to such development. Indian SMEs have been fortunate to build on a local heritage of enterprises, dynamism and renewal. Despite two centuries of colonial rule and a total lack of external support, the SMEs have reestablished themselves and consolidated over the last 50 years. From about 80,000 units in the late 1940s to over 3.2 million units today, this sector has been proving its mettle time again. The last decade of the twentieth century has seen this sector maintain its steady growth (Tuteja, 2001).The role of SMEs has been defined as critical to the future economic growth and job creation within India. AMT provides benefits and advantages in areas that would enable SMEs to maintain quality, operational, organizational and financial performances. AMTs are a source of strategic competitive benefits, such as improved quality, greater flexibility, and cost reduction. To achieve those benefits, SMEs must carefully manage the implementation of these technologies.Evaluating capital investments for the installation of AMTs is a critical task faced by manufacturing management due to the high capital investment and the high degree of uncertainty involved in these investments.The objective of this research is to assess the status of AMTs in automobile, electronics, machinery, and process sector SMEs, to identify AMTs relevant to Indian SMEs, identify competitive priorities, assess the degree of investment in AMTs, and identify AMT implementation steps.\nAMTs: AMT appeared to represent a perfect marriage between technological potential and the manufacturing challenges. AMT refers to manufacturing process technologies that use computers to store and manipulate data (Dean et al., 1992; Zammuto and O'Connor, 1992). AMTs is a term that covers a broad spectrum of computer-controlled automated process technologies. AMT is an umbrella term used to describe a wide range of automation and related technologies, which have emerged during the past two decades as a consequence of developments in information technology (Bessant, 1991). More specifically, AMT can be described as a group of computer-based technologies, including computer-aided design (CAD), computer numerical control (CNC) machines, direct numerical control (DNC) machines, robotics (RO), flexible manufacturing systems (FMS), automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS), automated material handling systems (AMHS), automated guided vehicles (AGV), bar coding (BC), rapid prototyping (RP), material requirement planning (MRP), statistical process control (SPC), manufacturing resource planning (MRP II), enterprise resource planning (ERP), activity-based costing (ABC), and office automation (OA) (Beaumont et al. 2002).Numerous studies have been reported in the literature on AMTs (Swamidass and Waller, 1991; Putterill et al., 1996; Chan et al., 2001; Chen and Small, 1994; Small and Yasin, 1997; Dean et al., 2000). All these studies were in context to developed economies. It seems that no study has been reported in context of developing country like India.These AMTs are classified into Direct AMT, Indirect AMT, and Administrative AMT. It must be mentioned that this set is by no means an exhaustive set of activities. However, it captures the essence of improvement activities as practiced by Indian companies. Hardware base technologies are termed as Direct AMT. Software-based technologies used for product design and scheduling are termed as Indirect AMT, however, Administrative AMTs are used for integration and simplification of business processes:* Direct AMT. Technology used on the factory floor to cut, join, reshape, transport, store or modify materials, e.g. CNC, DNC, robotics, FMS, AS/RS, AMHS, AGV, RP, etc.* Indirect AMT. Technology used to design products and schedule production, e.g. CAD, MRP, SPC, BC, MRP II, etc.* Administrative AMT. Technology used to give administrative support to the factory and integrate its operations with the rest of the organization, e.g. ERP, ABC, OA, etc.\nResearch methodology: Creation of industry database\nMeasures: Competitive priorities\nConcluding remarks: In a world increasingly dominated by global corporation, there is a place for SMEs. SMEs provide a much more focused direction to ensure successful learning and continuous improvement. The main barriers to growth in the SME sector are niche players, management resources, market intelligence and long-term strategy. One of the challenges of the new millennium is the move in management's lack of transformation. Management has tried to change, however, not in a transformational way.AMT appeared to represent a perfect marriage between technological potential and the manufacturing challenges of the twenty-first century. AMT are a source of strategic competitive benefits, such as improved quality, greater flexibility, and cost reduction. To achieve those benefits, companies carefully manage the implementation of these technologies (Saleh and Randhawa, 2001).It is observed from Table V that Indian companies are giving the highest priority to quality and the least priority to flexibility. Flexibility is the competitive priority, which is realized by adoption of AMT. This reflects that Indian SMEs are not emphasizing adequately on AMT, whereas companies from USA and Japan are giving the highest priority to flexibility dimension (Sanchez, 1996; Schroder and Sohal, 1999; Dean et al., 2000). Table VII depicts the \"post-implementation evaluation\" and \"requirement analysis\" AMT implementation steps have attracted least attention from Indian SMEs, which are rather more important to get more yield from AMT investment. It can be observed from Table IX that Indian SMEs are investing more in \"indirect AMT\" and \"administrative AMT\" as compared to \"direct AMT\". Investment in the \"direct AMT\" is the least as its mean value is 1.60 on a five-point Likert scale. However it is the direct AMT which provides maximum flexibility to the manufacturing system.\nImplications of the study: The implications of the findings of this study in the SMEs are several. First, managers of SMEs may adopt best practices to achieve manufacturing performance objectives of company. Second, the focus on four competitive priorities - quality, delivery, flexibility, and cost - present actionable guidelines for managers. Managers may start formulation of manufacturing strategy even with regular demand of products. Third, adoption of AMT will improve infrastructural decision areas of manufacturing strategy such as quality, HR policies, etc.Benchmarking provides an opportunity to merge theoretical principles with an understanding of the social construction of the company in which the employees work. There is a valid need for company members to interact more in order to provide new perspectives and stimulate future inquiry regarding practice experiments. SMEs can utilize the exchange of generic benchmarking to overcome potential restrictions in relation to identification of strategic issues in SME company growth.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This research aims to report the findings of an exploratory survey on advanced manufacturing technologies (AMTs) administered in Indian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of automobile, electronics, machinery, and process sectors. The objective of the survey is to assess the status of AMT, identify AMTs relevant to Indian SMEs, identify competitive priorities, AMT implementation criteria, and assess the degree of investment in AMTs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Responses from 122 companies are analyzed and presented.\nFindings: - It is observed that Indian SMEs are giving the highest priority to quality and the least priority to flexibility. \"Post-implementation evaluation\" and \"requirement analysis\" AMT implementation steps have attracted least attention from Indian SMEs.\nOriginality/value: - This research report is useful to others implementing AMT..\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
New business models in supply chains: a bibliometric study
|
[
"Big data",
"Supply chain",
"Business models",
"Internet of Things",
"E-commerce",
"Blockchain"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: New technologies and better ways to apply information technology have modified the way supply chains work. In particular, new opportunities appear to enable both new actors and incumbents to build new business models to offer final customers a whole new array of services and products in new or different ways (Fjeldstad and Snow, 2018).\nMethodology: Data gathering\nResults and discussion: This systematic review provides us with an exhaustive body of works from which we can obtain new insights. We combine the conclusions that emerge from such cluster analyses and discuss these conclusions below. We hope that this discussion will guide researchers towards new avenues of research based upon the relevant literature sources identified.\nConclusions: In conclusion, we now detail the implications for practice and for theory.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to find and classify the most relevant works in the literature on the latest technologies applied in global supply chains. To help future researchers find the most relevant the authors according to the authors' research interest quickly and to provide insights into the most promising areas.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors provide a bibliometric analysis of 292 documents referenced in the Scopus(r) database clustering by relatedness of works and keywords.\nFindings: The authors present insights and deduce new perspectives in the potential search for new business models. The authors show that in specific fields, some works and authors have a much greater influence than others.\nResearch limitations/implications: Some documents published on the web or in paper form may be missing. The analyses largely depend on the choice of keywords. Another selection might have shown different results.\nPractical implications: This paper provides the basis for new research in applications of the latest technologies in supply chains and corresponding new business models.\nOriginality/value: This work is a first effort to help researchers make sense of the mass of published scientific results on new technologies and their impact on new supply chain business models.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Brand value proposition for bank customers in India
|
[
"Brand value proposition",
"Emotional benefit",
"Functional benefit",
"Self-expressive benefit"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In 2007 the world witnessed a debt crisis and several cases of bankruptcy among banking and financial institutions. This led to a recession in the big economies of the world such as those of the USA and Europe. Amidst this turmoil, however, the Indian banking industry emerged relatively unscathed. While this demonstrates the resilience of Indian banking, there are challenges that lie ahead which merit further study of the customer value proposition forwarding by the Indian banking sector.\nLiterature review: Overview of Indian banking industry\nHypotheses for the study: Six hypotheses have been developed based on the literature on banking and the objective conditions of banking in India.\nMethodology: Based on literature review, the construct of value proposition and its constituent variables were identified. The study used the mixed method wherein both exploratory as well as descriptive approach was used. Exploratory research was used to identify the variables and define the constructs. Descriptive research was undertaken to determine the characteristics of the bank customers and to measure the variables like functional, emotional and self-expressive benefits.\nResults: Reliability\nDiscussion and implications: Despite considerable interest in the concept of branding banks, there have been few attempts to relate their brand value propositions to their customers. Our study points out that the customers of different types of banks in India seek different benefits. Based on this, banks can build distinct brand identities that suit their respective structures and audience. The findings of the study therefore have significant implications for banks. According to Green (2003) determining how your customers feel when they do business with you can differentiate you in the market place.\nLimitations and future research directions: The research has a few limitations. It studies only the perceptions of customers having an account in PVBs, PSBs or FBs. Perceptions of non-customers can be an interesting supplement to this study. Also the perceptions and expectations of customers are limited only to the particular time period of study. A longitudinal study might throw up a different set of results. The perceptions about different benefits offered by banks are also constrained by geography, though the findings are likely to be representative of urban India. Rural India might however reveal a different pattern of choice, given the fact that PVBs are now expanding rapidly there. The results of a wider geographical, longitudinal and customer based survey might give deeper insights into how customers choose bank brands.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to relate the customer value proposition offered by a bank with its structure of ownership.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study adopted a combination of exploratory and descriptive approaches. The attitudes and opinions of bank customers were gauged through a survey. Based on literature, a pool of items was identified to measure the construct of value proposition. It was hypothesized that different types of banks in India are chosen for different benefits offered by them. The relationship between value proposition and its constituent variables functional, emotional and self-expressive benefits was analyzed using multiple regression.\nFindings: Results prove that while self-expressive benefits drive the choice of foreign banks (FBs), functional benefits are important for all types of banks.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research intends to study only the perceptions of customers having an account in Indian public sector banks, private sector banks or FBs.\nPractical implications: The study helps to relate the type of bank (public, private or foreign) a customer chooses, with the value proposition it offers. Using this study, banks can configure the value proposition that is appropriate for their target segment.\nOriginality/value: The paper examines the value proposition offered by the three different types of banks (public, private and foreign) empirically. It links bank choice of the customer to the benefit assortment offered by different types of banks.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Optimization of special cryptocurrency portfolios
|
[
"Portfolio diversification",
"Bitcoin",
"Sharpe ratio",
"Portfolio optimization",
"Cryptocurrencies",
"Markowitz",
"G11"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In early 2019, Bitcoin celebrated its 10th anniversary, proving its position as the largest electronic peer-to-peer currency globally. Hence, Bitcoin exhibits one of the pioneers of cryptocurrencies still dominates the market in terms of market value. However, finally, alternative coins such as Ethereum, XRP or Litecoin have become increasingly appealing to investors. Currently, over 4,400 cryptocurrencies[1] are traded around the clock, 365 days a year.\n2. Literature review: Many cryptocurrencies allow the transfer of virtual money in a peer-to-peer network. To ensure the integrity of the data in a distributed system, cryptographic hash functions are used. Another important feature of cryptocurrency functionality is the consensus protocol, which provides an agreement between anonymous nodes on the current status of the transaction history stored in a distributed ledger, commonly referred to as a blockchain. New blocks are added by certain nodes (miners) on the network and cryptographically linked to previous blocks of data, making the blockchain tamper-proof and accessible to all on the network (Nakamoto, 2008). Given these properties, the need for a centralized and trustworthy third party such as a bank or a state institution becomes obsolete making cryptocurrencies attractive to everyone.\n3. Methodology and data: As with Wu and Pandey (2014), Platanakis et al. (2018), Liu (2018), Brauneis and Mestel (2019) and Kajtazi and Moro (2019), this research is exploratory, however, distinguishes itself in detail by optimizing two distinct portfolios, i.e. of coins and tokens, rather than a well-diversified portfolio including Bitcoin, Altcoins and/or other financial assets. This empirical study applies a slight variation of the traditional mean-variance approach (Markowitz, 1952, 1959) over both portfolios. The optimal weight allocation is generated by maximizing the Sharpe ratio of the constituent cryptocurrency (Sharpe, 1966). Additionally, the optimization process produces efficient frontiers of portfolios, which can be all considered as optimal in terms of the risk-return ratio as for any given level of risk the return is maximized.\n4. Descriptive statistics: Panels 2a and 2b of Table 2 report the descriptive statistics for coins and tokens, respectively, selected in this study over the entire sample period. As for coins, the observation confirms findings by Liu (2018), who also examined daily statistics and correlations of nine coins, but only one token (Tether). Bitcoin reports the lowest risk measures of all coins, specifically, regarding standard, semi and downside deviation, historical VaR and ES. Similar results by Miglietti et al. (2019) indicate that Bitcoin has a rather low-risk profile compared to other cryptocurrencies such as Litecoin. Because of the fact, Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency launched and, thus, making it the most matured of all, investors highly appreciate it as a safe haven, which has also been empirically proved (Bouri et al., 2017; Chan et al., 2019). Besides, Bitcoin still accounts for approximately two-third of the total value of the cryptocurrency market[8] which, in turn, ensures a high level of liquidity for investors. Conversely, Bitcoin cash and Stellar represent the most volatile coins in this analysis with daily standard deviations of above 10%, which is analog to findings by Gkillas and Katsiampa (2018). In general, the coins observed in this study show a standard deviation between 5.5% to 10.7% with Bitcoin the lowest and Stellar the highest, which is consistent with recent findings of Bouri et al. (2019c). The statistics further indicate that XRP (90.59%) and Bitcoin cash (90.16%) experienced the largest maximal draw-down during the sample period. Despite its speculative nature, Stellar shows the best risk-return profile, in particular, for the Sharpe, Sortino and Omega ratios, which are the highest among all coins. Regarding heavy tails of returns, 8 out of 10 coins indicate positively skewed distributions. Occurring heavy tails of cryptocurrencies are empirically confirmed by Chan et al. (2017), who suggest that certain cryptocurrencies require a particular distribution to provide good fits. Great excess kurtosis is monitored with Dash (5.3 - 3) Stellar (5.5 - 3), Litecoin (6 - 3) and XRP (10.7 - 3). The statistics contrast those of Phillip et al. (2018), who assert that Ethereum and Dash have lower kurtosis than Bitcoin.\n5. Results and discussion: In this section, the performance of the different portfolio strategies over the out-of-sample period for various statistical and performance-related measures are analyzed. Additionally, the maximized utility with distinct levels of the risk aversion parameter is calculated, l, to obtain more robust results to validate the findings in the empirical study.\n6. Conclusion: The findings obtained by this empirical study contribute to the literature of cryptocurrencies and portfolio diversification, in particular, aiming at the distinction of coin and tokens portfolios. For portfolio performance evaluation, the GMV, MU(10) and MU(50) model are the best choices for investors when investing in a coin portfolio. On the other hand, as for token portfolios, the GMV and MU(50) portfolio report superior performance measures in unfavorable market conditions. The portfolios optimized by maximizing the Sharpe ratio for both coins and tokens should be disregarded as an investment, as the results exhibit no value-added for these models. However, if an investor has to decide between a pure coin or token portfolio, the MU(10) for coins should be the first choice because of its superior performance ratios. The results obtained in this empirical analysis are robust, as calculating maximized utility for each portfolio strategy validates previous findings. In this context, increasing the risk aversion parameter leads to a lower utility for coins and tokens.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to elaborate on the optimization of two particular cryptocurrency portfolios in a mean-variance framework. In general, cryptocurrencies can be classified to as coins and tokens where the first can be thought of as a medium of exchange and the latter accounts for security or utility tokens depending upon its design.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Against this backdrop, this empirical study distinguishes, in particular, between pure coin and token portfolios. Both portfolios are optimized by maximizing the Sharpe ratio and, subsequently, compared with alternative portfolio strategies.\nFindings: The empirical findings demonstrate that the maximum utility portfolio of coins, with a risk aversion of l = 10, outweighs alternative frameworks. The portfolios optimized by maximizing the Sharpe ratio for both coins and tokens indicate a rather poor performance. Testing the maximized utility for different levels of risk aversion confirms the findings of this empirical study and confers them more robustness.\nResearch limitations/implications: Further investigation is strongly recommended as tokens represent a new phenomenon in the cryptocurrency universe, for which only a limited amount of data are available, which restricts the sampling. Furthermore, future study is to include more sophisticated optimization models using different constraints in portfolio creation.\nPractical implications: In light of the persistently substantial volatility in cryptocurrency markets, the empirical findings assert that portfolio managers are advised to construct a global minimum variance portfolio. In the absence of sophisticated optimization models, private investors can invest according to the market values of cryptocurrencies. Despite minor differences in the risk and reward ratios of the portfolios tested, tokens tend to be more speculative, especially, if the Tether token is excluded, which may require enhanced supervision and investor protection by regulating authorities.\nOriginality/value: As the current literature investigates on diversification effects of blended cryptocurrency portfolios rather than making an explicit distinction, this paper reflects one of the first to explore the investability and role of diversifying coins and tokens using a classic Markowitz approach.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Materialistic, brand engaged and status consuming consumers and clothing behaviors
|
[
"United States of America",
"Students",
"Clothing",
"Brand loyalty",
"Consumer behaviour",
"Materialism",
"Brand engagement",
"Status consumption",
"Involvement"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Researchers have devoted quite a lot of attention to studying the characteristics of clothing buyers because this industry is so large and competitive. Moreover, the apparel market is characterized by frequent style changes and rapidly changing consumer tastes, making the job of understanding why they buy particularly challenging. Apparel marketers have at their disposal extensive information regarding the demographics of different segments of clothing buyers, but more work needs to be done to understand the basic psychology of clothing consumption. This study seeks to contribute to increasing this understanding by testing hypothesized relationships between three basic consumer motivations, materialism, brand engagement in self-concept (BESC), and status consumption, with two important outcomes: clothing involvement and clothing brand loyalty. Evidence for these relationships should help researchers better understand the influence of materialism on these important clothing outcomes and improve clothing mangers' ability to appeal to involved and loyal customers.The study of consumer motivation is important because it provides the basis for understanding many subsequent consumer behaviors. One of the most important consumer motives, or at least one that attracts a great deal of attention, is an exaggerated desire for material goods. Making money, having things, and seeing things as a means to success and happiness in life are at the heart of the concept of materialism, whether it is thought of as a personality characteristic or trait or as a value guiding behavior (Belk, 1985; Graham, 1999; Kasser, 2002; Richins and Dawson, 1992; Rudmin, 1991). Materialism deserves close study because it is a general or broadly conceptualized characteristic (meaning that it is not limited to specific product categories) that motivates consumers to acquire across a wide spectrum of goods, is not limited to a single culture (Ger and Belk, 1996), and is linked to many non-purchasing- as well as purchasing-related outcomes (Kasser, 2002; Watson, 2003). Although materialism is often linked to clothing consumption in general (e.g. Ger and Belk, 1996; Richins and Rudmin, 1994), little research has studied the relationship between materialism and clothing involvement and loyalty specifically.Research in consumer behavior has found two other motivations closely related to materialism. BESC (Sprott et al., 2009) and status consumption (Eastman et al., 1999) are concepts that link fundamental materialistic tendencies with more specific marketplace behaviors. The three constructs form a constellation of motivated behavioral tendencies focussed around the purchase and use of goods to build and portray the self to others. People high in these traits have been shown to consume more, pay more attention to advertisements, and be more interested in products and shopping and thus are of great interest to marketers (Eastman et al., 1999; Rindfleisch et al., 1997; Sprott et al., 2009). There is little research, however, that specifically examines how this group of variables works together to affect clothing consumption. The present study seeks to fill this gap.\nLiterature review and hypotheses: Materialism\nMethod: Procedure and subjects\nResults: Preliminary data analysis\nDiscussion: The purpose of the present study was to examine relationships between materialism, BESC, and status consumption with two clothing-related behavior outcomes: clothing involvement and clothing brand loyalty. The theoretical literature proposes that materialism, brand engagement, and status consumption motivate much consumer behavior (e.g. Belk, 1985; Eastman et al., 1999; Gabriel and Lang, 2006; Graham, 1999; O'Cass and Frost, 2002; Rudmin, 1991; Sprott et al., 2009). Very few studies, however (e.g. Eastman et al., 1999; Sprott et al., 2009), establish positive relationships between materialism and domain-specific marketplace outcomes. Our study used a new, psychometrically sound measure of materialism and a new measure of BESC along with a well-established measure of consuming for status to operationalize the focal constructs. The results of the study confirm and support previous studies that show that the three focal concepts are positively related to each other. In addition, the findings suggest materialism and status consumption have positive relationships with clothing involvement, and brand engagement and status consumption are positively related to brand loyalty for clothing. Taken as a whole, the model shows that these three related motivating constructs are important influences on specific consumer behavior outcomes.Theoretical implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to show how materialism, brand engagement in self-concept (BESC), and status consumption influence clothing involvement and brand loyalty.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The authors use data from a survey of 258 US college students to test a model using structural equation modelling.\nFindings: - The results show that materialism, BESC, and status consumption positively influence clothing involvement and brand loyalty.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The study findings are bounded by the country and sample providing the data. The results strongly support hypotheses derived from the literature and provide important insights into the motives for clothing involvement and brand loyalty.\nPractical implications: - The findings suggest that appealing to these three important motivators can influence some consumers to choose specific brands of clothing.\nOriginality/value: - This study is the first to demonstrate the influence of materialism, especially operationalized by Kasser's scale, and brand engagement in self-concept on these clothing behaviors.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Going global: an international survey of lending and borrowing across borders
|
[
"Interlending",
"International",
"Survey research",
"Surveys"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The Sharing and Transforming Access to Resources Section (STARS) of the American Library Association's Reference and User Services Association is charged with the promotion and improvement of resource sharing (STARS, n.d.a). The purpose of the STARS International Interlibrary Loan Committee is to evaluate trends in international interlending and resource sharing, to develop materials and resources for international interlibrary loan (ILL) practitioners, and to promote international interlending resource sharing efforts(STARS, n.d.b). In 2009 the Committee published the results of a survey of US libraries that participated in international lending and borrowing in an article titled \"Lending and borrowing across borders: issues and challenges with international resource sharing\" (Baich et al., 2009). In an effort to start a global dialogue, David Atkins, as a representative of the Committee, presented a paper at the 11th ILDS Conference in Hannover, Germany. His presentation, titled \"Going global: examining issues and seeking collaboration for international interlending,\" discussed the barriers to international ILL uncovered in the survey of US libraries (Atkins, 2009).Building on these activities the committee conducted an international survey of libraries regarding international interlending issues in 2011. The international survey was created in SurveyMonkey, an online survey tool, and distributed through various electronic resource sharing discussion lists and personal contacts with international libraries. This paper presents the preliminary findings from that survey as well as areas of concern raised by international suppliers[1]. We will compare the 2007 and 2011 survey results and focus on similarities across the world for international ILL and ways to improve resource sharing globally.\nDemographic overview: The 2011 survey was open to participants from both US and international libraries. A total of 632 respondents began the survey, while 404 (63.9 percent) fully completed the survey. Only the first question, which required acknowledgment of the consent document and voluntary agreement of participation in the survey, was required so the number of respondents varies from question to question. The survey garnered responses from a wide variety of countries and from six of the seven continents (see Figure 1). In all, 60 countries are represented by 557 respondents. The USA had the greatest number of respondents (246), with Canada (47), Australia (37), Sweden (36), and Italy (29) rounding out the top five. Of 565 respondents, 377 (66.7 percent) represent college and university libraries. The majority of libraries (83.6 percent) answering the survey participate in one or more resource sharing networks.Data gathered regarding total and international ILL volumes showed that international ILL transactions make up a small portion of the respondents' overall ILL activity. Over 75 percent of respondents receive fewer than 5,000 borrowing requests for returnables and 73.1 percent receive fewer than 5,000 borrowing requests for non-returnables in a 12-month period. In terms of lending, just over 70 percent receive fewer than 5,000 requests for returnables and 75 percent receive fewer than 5,000 requests for non-returnables. When asked \"What is your 12-month international volume for all returnables and non-returnables?,\" 55.7 percent reported fewer than 100 borrowing requests and 63 percent reported the same for lending requests. Complete results of this question are shown in Figure 2.\nInternational borrowing overview: Of the 481 responses to the question \"Do you borrow internationally?,\" an impressive 87.3 percent (420 respondents) borrow materials internationally. In total, 82.2 percent (305 respondents) borrow both returnable and non-returnable materials from international suppliers. Libraries borrowing only returnables or non-returnables represented 7.8 percent and 10 percent of respondents, respectively (see Figure 3).When asked \"What are the countries with the libraries you borrow from most heavily?,\" responses varied widely. European countries were the most frequently cited as international borrowing partners with 61 percent reporting that they borrow from within Europe. Preliminary analysis shows this is due both to heavy European borrowing by US libraries and borrowing between European countries. A total of 84 percent of US respondents identified at least one European country; 95 percent of European respondents identified at least one other European country.Within Europe the countries identified vary greatly, but the most heavily used were the UK (18 percent), Germany (16 percent), Denmark (6 percent), and France (4 percent). North America follows Europe as the next continent where libraries go to borrow materials (21 percent). Within North America both Canada and the USA are requested from by 10 percent of the respondents. Australia was also specified as a heavily used supplier by our respondents. Of the respondents, 10 percent borrow materials from Australia specifically, while overall the continent of Australia and Oceania were used by 12 percent of respondents. The libraries on the remaining continents of Asia (5 percent), Africa (1 percent), and Central and South America (0.4 percent) were much less heavily used. Potential reasons for this are numerous, including language barriers and less visible holdings. With more extensive review, the committee may discover correlations that better explain the differences. Figure 4 shows the representation of continents in the respondents' answers for this question.Even though the survey responses show that many libraries borrow materials internationally, there was still a large percentage of material types identified as difficult to obtain from international resources. In order to gauge what types of materials people had difficulty acquiring, the survey asked \"Which, if any, types of materials are especially hard to obtain from international collections?\" This question allowed respondents to select as many options as appropriate. Copies of rare or older materials are by far the most difficult to get garnering 182 of 323 responses, followed by local dissertations (164 responses). CD/audio media materials (147), electronic books (146), and video/film media materials (141) were practically tied for third position in this ranking. Traditionally difficult to obtain, serials (bound volumes/issues) were identified by 114 respondents as one of their options. Finishing the list were microforms (67 responses) and music scores (63). Some write-in responses added that newer materials, conference proceedings, and technical reports are often difficult to obtain along with materials limited by copyright restrictions. Figure 5 shows the number of respondents who selected each material type.\nInternational lending overview: Of the 444 participants who responded to the question \"Do you lend internationally?,\" 86.9 percent replied yes. While some libraries lend only returnables (3.7 percent of respondents) or non-returnables (11.4 percent), the majority (84.9 percent) supply both. The percentage of libraries supplying both returnables and non-returnables is comparable to the number of borrowing libraries (87.3 percent).The committee wanted to know whether libraries felt the volume of international lending requests received and filled had increased, decreased or stayed the same. The perceptions of requests received and requests filled were almost identical. Approximately 51 percent of 345 respondents believe international ILL requests received and filled have increased by at least 10percent. A total of 39percent think there has been no change, and fewer than 10 percent perceive a decrease of 10 percent or more in international ILL.When asked \"Why do you think the number of filled requests has changed?,\" the top reason was the addition of non-US holdings to WorldCat (25 percent). It is safe to assume this response corresponds to an increase in international ILL. This question allowed respondents to select as many options as appropriate. Many libraries selected \"Other\" in addition to one of the other response options and entered free form comments. Most of these comments provided reasons for an increase in filled international ILL requests. Prominent themes that emerged supporting an increase were visibility of holdings through online tools, new membership in various resource sharing networks, and the ease and speed of electronic delivery. The reasons given for decreases in international ILL mirrored the barriers previously identified by the committee including copyright and licensing issues as well as payment and shipping options.Respondents were asked to identify up to five countries they lend to most frequently as well as those to which they will not lend. Of 386 international lenders, 333 identified one or more countries to which they lend. The 69 countries identified are distributed across six of the seven continents with Europe (51 percent) and North America (23 percent) receiving the greatest representation. As in borrowing, the high percentage of US and European responding libraries accounts for the large number of libraries lending to European countries. The top five countries mentioned were Canada (138 respondents), Australia (112), the UK (112), the USA (99), and Denmark (91). Figure 6 shows countries mentioned ten or more times.Interestingly, only 31 of 386 international lenders identified one or more countries to which they will not lend. The 35 countries identified are again representative of six of the seven continents, but with Asian (33 percent) and European (24 percent) countries mentioned the most. Figure 7 shows countries mentioned two or more times.A number of the survey questions were meant to address real or perceived barriers to international ILL uncovered in the committee's 2007 US survey. Two such questions pertained to turnaround times and copyright restrictions. In response to the question \"Do you deliver non-returnables electronically to international libraries?,\" 279 (79.7 percent) of 350 respondents chose \"Yes, as allowed by license.\" Of those respondents that do not deliver electronically, 4.9 percent are able to fax while 12.9 percent must send paper copies via mail. The high percentage of those that will deliver electronically is a positive step towards reducing one possible barrier to participation in international ILL: lengthy turnaround times.The survey asked if \"copyright restrictions keep you from supplying any non-returnables to international borrowers.\" Of 345 respondents, 146 (42.3 percent) answered yes indicating that copyright still exists as a barrier to international ILL. Part of the challenge of international copyright is the difficulty in understanding the restrictions and rights involved across borders. Currently, libraries may refer to the World Intellectual Property Organization's (WIPO's) 2008 \"Study on copyright limitations and exceptions for libraries and archives\", by Kenneth Crewes, but there have certainly been changes in the ensuing years (Crewes, 2008). Developing an up-to-date international copyright law resource may assist ILL practitioners in determining potential lenders.\nKey findings/conclusion: Overall, it seems there are not great differences between US and non-US international ILL. The committee's 2007 survey findings discovered great demand for and high participation in international ILL. The 2011 survey shows the same. In the 2007 survey of libraries within the USA, the results showed that 94 percent of respondents at that time both borrowed and lent internationally. Only 5 percent of 2007 respondents engaged in only lending, and no respondents indicated borrowing only. In the most recent survey, which was aimed at both US and non-US libraries, 87.3 percent borrow and 86.9 percent lend internationally, and over half of the survey respondents (55.8 percent), were libraries outside the US. The libraries typically used for borrowing international materials were also similar with both surveys having Europe, North America, and Australia listed towards the top.Our findings show that items typically difficult to get through domestic ILL requesting are the same materials difficult to obtain from foreign suppliers. One respondent replied in the notes that \"It's more the place you try to get items from, rather than the type of item.\" This is always the case in ILL. In the previous findings, it was discovered that US libraries rarely modify restrictions on material type for items based on where they are being sent. The challenge is to find a library willing to loan a particular material type rather than the material type itself. The materials designated as difficult to obtain internationally (older/rare materials, local dissertations, A/V, electronic books, etc.) are the same items causing challenges for national ILL. One can only hope that as collections are digitized or as online publications increase, libraries will have fewer obstructions in obtaining materials requested by their researchers. In addition, libraries also need to be aware of protecting their ability to supply internationally as more and more materials are available in only digital format where license terms take precedence over copyright law including provisions for \"fair use\" or \"fair dealing\"[2].As noted above, 51 percent of respondents reported at least a 10 percent increase in international ILL activity. Many provided explanations for increased activity related to the visibility of their collections. It is heartening to see improvements in international ILL thanks to better communication and discovery methods. One relatively simple way to continue the improvement of international ILL is for libraries to post their lending policies online. Surprisingly, only 35.7 percent of respondents currently do this. The committee hopes that more libraries will post online policies in order to facilitate international ILL transactions.The next step for the STARS International ILL Committee is to fully analyze the survey results and make a report to the ILL community. Further analysis will deal with questions regarding shipping methods, payment methods and fees charged, citation verification methods, and more in-depth looks at the issues raised in the preliminary analysis. The committee will also compare the results of the 2011 survey to those of the 2007 survey. This will include an assessment of the changes made to the actual survey instrument including the division of the questions into borrowing and lending sections and the streamlining of questions. The 2011 survey also gathered baseline ILL activity data, which may be helpful in drawing conclusions about the overall role of international ILL in ILL operations. Both surveys focused on questions related to real/perceived barriers to international ILL. The committee hopes to discover whether international libraries have similar perceptions of the barriers to international ILL participation and to use the data to further international resource sharing and create tools to assist ILL practitioners.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to provide preliminary results of the 2011 survey on international interlending conducted by the ALA RUSA STARS International Interlibrary Loan Committee.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - An international survey was deployed using SurveyMonkey, an online survey tool, and distributed through various electronic resource sharing discussion lists and personal contacts with international libraries.\nFindings: - The 2011 survey aimed toward international libraries revealed similar results to those of the Committee's 2007 survey of US libraries. Most international interlending participants both borrow and lend materials internationally. Further analysis will be done focusing on barriers to as well as identification of common practices in international interlending.\nOriginality/value: - This research provides the most recent survey of international interlending practices and will yield potential methods and activities for improving resource sharing globally.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Operations strategy development in project based production - a political process perspective
|
[
"Operations strategy",
"Lean",
"Construction",
"Political process"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A range of industries that includes aerospace, shipbuilding, software and construction (Green et al., 2005; Levering et al., 2013) has for long organised their manufacturing as project-based production, and manufacturing has for some time moved towards engineering and manufacturing to order. This type of production involves closeness to, and demands from clients, criticality of time to market and competition on unclear and complex conditions. A range of competitive strategies need to be employed to keep such companies in business. Here, the focus is on operations strategy (OS) development in production.\nTheoretical framework: The theoretical framework is developed in three steps. First, an understanding of OS is presented; second, a section on project-based organisation; and third, an understanding of change processes is developed.\nMethod: The paper adopts an interpretive approach (Walsham, 1993) to OS innovation processes, using organisational politics as its main lens, combined with contributions on OS processes (Barnes, 2002; Leong et al., 1990; Platts et al., 1998). Organisational politics is chosen because it matches with strategy formulation processes.\nCase: the contractor's development of a new OS: In the following, the main story spanning a decade is told first, and then the two cases of implementing the OS are presented.\nDiscussion: In this section, the political process interpretation analysis of the OS renewal process is carried out. This involves the two production projects. Then, some cross-cutting aspects, such as the role of middle managers, are discussed.\nConclusion: The aim of this paper is to study how OS innovation occurs in a project-based organisation and production, with focus on the strategy process. A call has been made for a more balanced content/process understanding of operations and manufacturing strategy understanding. This paper contributes by studying a project-based organisation with a political process perspective, analysing a case of OS development through implementing Lean Construction.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study how operations strategy (OS) innovation occurs in a project-centred production and organisation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A longitudinal case study encompassing the processes at the headquarters of the company and in two projects using lean.\nFindings: The operation strategy development commences at a middle level in the organisation, is underpinned and embedded in production projects and only after several years becomes embedded in the corporate operation strategy. Projects use lean principles in a differentiated manner.\nResearch limitations/implications: A qualitative case study provides insight into only a single occasion of change in OS. More case studies would probably reveal several paths of OS development. OS development need to be handled as emergent, political and with contributions from several managers and management levels, bridging the vertical divides between projects and headquarter.\nPractical implications: A conscious and systematic vertical integration and interaction is crucial in project-based companies doing operation strategy development, something critically difficult at building contractors.\nOriginality/value: The present study contributes to the small body of studies of OS development processes, by providing insight in how project-based companies renew their operation strategy.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Performance measures of ISO 9001 certified and non-certified manufacturing companies
|
[
"Financial crisis",
"Performance measures",
"ISO 9001",
"Manufacturing companies"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Owing to the globalization of world trade and the escalating demands for better products and services, competition has become intense worldwide (Islam and Karim, 2011). Moreover, nowadays, a financial tsunami has swept across the global economy creating unfavourable and unprecedented economic conditions. Thus, the business environment today is full of turbulence and uncertainties making it unstable. This poses a significant threat to manufacturing companies worldwide which are all struggling to survive (Ho et al., 2010). Lately these circumstances have been more evident in Greece. To cope with these challenges, manufacturing companies need to adapt their management style and strategic perspectives (Chareonsuk and Chansa-ngavej, 2008). Among the several possible strategies, those related to the development of quality management have been favoured by many companies (Trigueros Pina and Sansalvador Sells, 2008; Han et al., 2009). Many organizations consider the ISO 9001 standard as the vehicle to structure and improve their quality management system (QMS) (White et al., 2009). The ISO 9001 standard is also considered as an example of dispositional benchmarking (Moriarty, 2011). Thus, the adoption of the ISO 9001 QMS has proven to be a persistent and growing phenomenon in manufacturing companies (Dick et al., 2008), applied to all business sectors and all sizes of companies (Zeng et al., 2007; Magd, 2008; Al-Rawahi and Bashir, 2011).\nLiterature review: Company performance measures\nMethodology: Questionnaire development\nResults: The company profiles\nDiscussion: The findings of the present study regarding the company size confirm the findings of Psychogios and Szamosi (2007) and Panigyrakis et al. (2009), according to which the size of the Greek manufacturing companies in general is quite small. The small-medium size of the Greek companies may be justified due to their family orientation (Psychogios and Szamosi, 2007). The present study also reveals that the ISO 9001 certified manufacturing companies seem to be larger in size than the non-certified ones. Similarly, the majority of the ISO 9001 certified manufacturing companies studied by Psomas et al. (2011) are more medium to large sized than micro to small sized.\nConclusions: Having in mind the ample experience that the certified manufacturing companies have in implementing the ISO 9001 QMS and the fact that the revised ISO 9001:2008 standard is more oriented to processes, customer satisfaction and continuous improvement, than the old versions, it is a presumable result that the benefits the companies derive from ISO 9001 implementation are significantly high. However, a significant finding that is revealed from the present study is that, nowadays, in a period of economic downturn and financial crisis, the ISO 9001 certified manufacturing companies significantly outperform the non-certified with regard to product quality, customer satisfaction, operational, market and financial performance.\nManagerial implications: Given that the Greek manufacturing companies operate in a business environment that is characterized by an economic downturn and financial crisis, it is worth the managers of manufacturing companies taking into consideration the findings of the present study. In other words, the study findings carry a significant managerial message. The importance of this message is increased by the fact that the current crisis is not only reflected in the Greek business environment but unfortunately all over Europe, or at least in many other countries. The findings revealed from the present study, according to which, even in a period of significant economic downturn and financial crisis, ISO 9001 implementation is indeed a dynamic managerial tool for performance improvement, should make company executives and policy makers incorporate into company policy and culture the principles of quality management and more specifically the ISO 9001 principles. In other words, in case they find themselves facing a financial crisis, managers of manufacturing companies all over the world should pursue ISO 9001 implementation and benefit from the structured organization and the documented procedures provided by the QMS, in order to improve their performance measures. In doing so, the foundations can be laid for a company to withstand the downturn, survive and be more competitive.\nLimitations and future research recommendations: The study presented in this paper suffers from some limitations. The sub-samples of the responding ISO 9001 certified and non-certified manufacturing companies are small and they are limited to SMEs. Thus, large-sized companies are not adequately covered in the study. The subjective character of the data collected through company representatives, involves the risk of receiving biased responses regarding the performance measures.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to compare ISO 9001 certified and non-certified manufacturing companies with regard to performance measures, both financial and non-financial.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A research study was carried out in 140 Greek manufacturing companies by means of a questionnaire. The questionnaire was sent by e-mail and it was requested that it should be answered by a company representative. Exploratory factor analysis is applied in order to extract the latent factors of performance measures. The differences between the ISO 9001 certified and non-certified manufacturing companies are determined through non-parametric tests such as the kh2-test and the Mann-Whitney U-test.\nFindings: The ISO 9001 certified manufacturing companies significantly outperform the non-certified with regard to product quality, customer satisfaction, operational, market and financial performance. This is evident in a business environment where an economic downturn and financial crisis dominates.\nResearch limitations/implications: The sub-samples of the responding ISO 9001 certified and non-certified manufacturing companies are small sized and they are limited to small- and medium-sized enterprises. The subjective character of the data collected through the company representatives involves the risk of receiving biased responses regarding the performance measures. The above limitations suggest future research recommendations.\nPractical implications: The increased performance measures of the ISO 9001 certified manufacturing companies may motivate the non-certified ones to implement the ISO 9001 standard and apply for the certification in order to increase their performance and withstand the current economic downturn and financial crisis. The present study may also stimulate manufacturing companies to adopt traditional and modern benchmarking techniques, in an additional effort to improve their businesses and competitiveness.\nOriginality/value: The present study compares performance measures of ISO 9001 certified and non-certified manufacturing companies operating under unprecedented circumstances due to the current economic downturn and financial crisis.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Mentoring characteristics and functions: mentoring's influence on salespeople
|
[
"Mentoring",
"Challenger sale",
"Salesperson performance",
"Sales force management",
"Salesperson turnover"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The recruiting, training, retaining and developing of new salespeople require substantial investment of a firm's resources. Annually, organizations spend billions of dollars training their salespeople (Training, 2016). The challenger sales model (CSM), which stresses the importance of challenging the customer's thinking when necessary, is a recent approach to increase sales that has received considerable attention in the current competitive sales environment (Rapp et al., 2014). An important step in the adoption of CSM involves providing effective coaching to assure successful adoption of the approach (Dixon and Adamson, 2011). Understanding how CSM creates value for its sales organization and its customers can help managers make decisions that positively affect salesperson productivity (Farias et al., 2017). Previous research indicates that mentoring is one such way to improve salesperson performance via coaching and role modeling (Brashear et al., 2006) while also lowering turnover (Mullen, 1998).\nMentoring: What is mentoring?\nBenefits of mentoring: If mentoring is successful, it should enhance protege work outcomes (Wilson and Elman, 1990). Ideally, mentoring should result in mentors, proteges and organizations all receiving benefits from the mentoring process (Zey, 1984; Ghosh and Reio, 2013). For example, a mentor can receive assistance in doing his/her job, as well as information, loyalty and prestige from the relationship. Protege's receive increased role clarity, political protection and enhanced promotion opportunities. Organizational benefits, derived from the development of employee talent, range from higher performance and job satisfaction to lower salesperson turnover. It should be noted that the context in which mentoring is used in an organization may affect how and who mentoring relationships benefit (Lapointe and Vandenberghe, 2017).\nMentor functions' effects on sales force work outcomes: The theoretical model of sales force mentoring shown in Figure 1 is based on the social exchange theory and the social learning theory, as well as previous research in mentoring and sales management. It depicts effects of perceived mentoring functions on protege role clarity and work-related outcomes.\nMentoring relationship characteristics: The importance of mentor and protege characteristics and mentor-protege relationships can be found both in the conceptualization of the career and psychosocial functions and in social learning theory. According to Kram (1985):\nMethodology: Data collection\nThe effects of mentor functions on job outcome: The first analysis tested the relationships between mentoring functions, role clarity and work outcomes (H1-7). A two-step approached described by Anderson and Gerbing (1988) was used to develop the measurement model and test the structural model's overall fit (Table II).\nCorrelates of mentoring functions: To test H8-14, mentor-protege influences on mentoring functions, four multiple regressions were run. The criterion variables were the career and psychosocial mentoring functions. The predictor variables include the mentor's characteristics, the protege's characteristics, the mentor-protege similarities and the characteristics of the mentor and protege. The results are presented in Table III.\nDiscussion: Training and developing new salespeople are critical and expensive functions of sales management, involving both sales skills and organizational socialization. Mentoring is one management approach that addresses both issues (Brashear et al., 2006). Mentoring's importance can be even greater when there are new processes or new approaches to doing business - such as installing a new sales process and/or learning new skills. The research presented here examines salesperson perceptions of the functions of mentoring and how they affect sales force work outcomes. The proposed model simultaneously tests relationships between perceptions of career and psychosocial mentoring functions and sales force work outcomes.\nFuture research and limitations: This study is based on data collection conducted over a five-year period. While a variety of limitations are associated with the use of this type of data (Vermunt, 1996; Lucas et al., 1987), that discussion is beyond the scope of this paper. The use of secondary data also may add limitations (Churchill, 1987). Furthermore, time periods may mask intervening factors, which could have affected the variables examined in the study.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine a longitudinal study of mentoring functions and their effect on salesperson attitudes and intentions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research is based on a multi-year study of salespeople beginning when the salesperson entered the industry being examined.\nFindings: The level of interaction between the mentor and protege was found to be the only antecedent examined that related to the perceived quality of mentoring functions. Age, education and length of employment for both parties; the degree of age and education difference; and the length of the mentoring relationship were not significant. Successful mentoring appeared to be based heavily on a mentor's willingness and ability to interact frequently with the protege.\nOriginality/value: This study adds to the literature on mentoring, looking at mentoring in a sales context. Research examining mentoring in a sales setting is much more limited than in many other professions, so the findings represent a valuable addition to the sales mentoring literature. Its influence on sales socialization may be very important.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Evaluating the relationship between social exclusion and participation in the informal sector in the European Union
|
[
"Conditions of employment",
"Shadow economy",
"Social exclusion",
"Informal economy",
"Undeclared work",
"Europe"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: For several decades, the dominant view has been that work in the informal sector is disproportionately conducted by populations living in marginalised areas, such as less affluent countries and peripheral rural areas (ILO, 2013), and marginalised socio-demographic and socio-economic groups, such as women, unemployed people, the less educated and those in financial difficulty (Brill, 2011; Slavnic, 2010; Taiwo, 2013). Until now nevertheless, the only evidence supporting this view has been small-scale surveys conducted in particular localities or populations (Kesteloot and Meert, 1999; Leonard, 1994; Stanculescu, 2005). The aim of this paper in consequence, is to evaluate who participates in informal work so as to evaluate whether important causal factors of social exclusion such as age, education, gender and employment status, influence participation in informal work. To do this, an extensive data set is used, namely, a cross-national survey conducted in 28 European countries involving 27,563 face-to-face interviews.\nSocial exclusion and the informal sector: a review of the theories and evidence: Theoretical perspectives\nMethodology: To evaluate these hypotheses regarding who participates in informal work, we here use an extensive data set, namely, Special Eurobarometer No. 402, conducted in all 28 European Union member states in 2013. Using the same sampling method as other Eurobarometer surveys, 27,563 face-to-face interviews were undertaken during April and May 2013, with some 500 conducted in smaller countries and 1,500 in larger nations. In every country, a multi-stage random (probability) sampling methodology was used. The weighting process used ensures that on the issues of gender, age, region and locality size, the sample was proportionate to the universe in each country. For the univariate analysis therefore, we employed the sampling weighting scheme as the literature suggests (Solon et al., 2013; Winship and Radbill, 1994). For the multivariate analysis however, there is a debate over whether such a weighting scheme should be used (Solon et al., 2013; Winship and Radbill, 1994; Pfeffermann, 1993). Given that the vast majority of this literature specifies that weighting is not recommended, we here decided not to use the weighting scheme for the multivariate analysis.\nFindings: the participation of socially excluded populations in informal work: Descriptive statistics\nDiscussion and conclusions: To evaluate who engages in informal work and whether marginal populations are more likely to participate, this paper has used multilevel mixed-effects logistic regression analysis to reveal that in the European Union, younger age groups are significantly more likely to engage in informal work as are those who are divorced/separated, those defining themselves as working class, the unemployed, single-person households, those more tolerant of informal work (who are marginalised in the sense that their values and attitudes do not conform to those of the codes, regulations and laws of the formal institutions) and those who have difficulties paying household bills. However, men are found to be significantly more likely to work informally than women, as are those living in the more affluent EU region of the Nordic nations. No significant relationship exists moreover, so far as the educational level, the number of children in the household or the urban-rural divide are concerned.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate who engages in informal work. The intention in doing so is to analyse whether important causal factors of social exclusion such as age, education, gender and employment status influence participation in informal work in the European Union.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To do this, a 2013 Eurobarometer survey of who participates in undeclared work in 28 European member states is reported.\nFindings: Using multilevel mixed-effects logistic regression analysis, the finding is that although some marginalised groups (the unemployed, those having difficulties paying their household bills, the working class and younger age groups) are significantly more likely to participate in the informal sector, others are not (those with less formal education and living in rural areas) and yet others (women and people in deprived European regions) are significantly less likely to participate.\nResearch limitations/implications: The outcome is a call for a nuanced and variegated understanding of the relationship between participation in the informal sector and social exclusion.\nPractical implications: These results display the specific populations that need targeting when seeking to tackle informal work, revealing for example that the current the allocation of European funds for tackling informal work in poorer EU regions is mistaken, but that the targeting of the unemployed is not and current policy initiatives such as smoothing the transition from unemployment to self-employment worthwhile.\nOriginality/value: This is the first extensive evaluation of the relationship between participation in the informal sector and social exclusion at the level of the European Union\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Banking stability in the MENA region during the global financial crisis and the European sovereign debt debacle
|
[
"Performance",
"Stability",
"GMM in system",
"Conventional banks"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The two main objectives of all financial institutions and especially banks are profitability and stability. Consequently, the study of the determinants of the bank performance-stability appears to be an important task especially after the last global financial crash characterized by the failure of a number of foreign banks (henceforth CvB). The fragility and the vulnerability of these financial institutions, against a strengthen situation of Islamic banks (henceforth IsB) during the global financial crisis of 2007-2008, was considered an important subject that raised a wide controversy (Willison, 2009; Yilmaz, 2009; Parashar and Venkatesh, 2010). Some researchers argued that the CvB have been strongly affected by the subprime crisis, and this is illustrated by the collapse of many banks such as Lehmann Brother as the largest American bank. However, the partisans of the Islamic finance proved that IsB was not only more efficient but also more stable, with a high capacity of absorption of shocks. Also, IsB are able to prevent the occurrence of crises especially based on the interest margin (Ftiti et al., 2013; Beck et al., 2013; Ben Khediria and Charfeddine, 2015).\n2. Literature review: Following the recent financial crisis of 2008, a particular importance is granted to this question: Why the CvB have experienced crises, while the IsB remain sounder, more efficient and more stable? To this end, different technical methods were used in many studies to compare IsB with CvB. Those comparative studies allow analyzing the performance of IsB compared to the CvB. Most of these studies showed that the bank specific and the macroeconomic variables explain the changes in the performance of the bank groups. Generally, there is no agreement in the literature on the superiority of one group to another in terms of performance. All the results are ambiguous and inconclusive (Ouerghi, 2014; Thim et al., 2014; Fayed, 2013; Bourkhis and Nabi, 2013; Onakoya and Onakoya, 2013; Mat Rahim and Roza Hazli Zakaria, 2013; Ben Khediria and Charfeddine, 2015, Louati et al., 2015).\n3. Empirical study: 3.1 Data and models' specification\n4. Conclusion: The aim of this paper is to investigate the effects of the global financial crisis on the performance of both IsB and CvB in the MENA region, and also to identify the main determinants of their profitability. We adopted several ratios from the empirical literature on bank profitability and stability. Using a data set of 13 countries with both of 77 IsB and 101 CvB during the period 2006-2013 and performing the GMM method, our findings provide comprehensive evidence for the bank systems studied which are of interest also to policy makers and practitioners. The main finding is that after the international financial crises of 2008, many worldwide banks have been experienced crises in contrast to IsB which remain more stable and more profitable. Foreign banks had a higher degree of exposure to risk, given their higher number of subsidiaries in the developed economies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to focus on the main determinants of the performance and stability-banking sector in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region during the global financial crisis. Using a data set of 13 countries with both of 77 Islamic and 101 conventional banks during the period 2006-2013, empirical results show that specific variables allow explaining the change in the level of performance and stability for conventional and Islamic banks. However, the effect of some banks' characteristics is not the same for the two bank groups. For the macroeconomic effect, it is observed that inflation exerts a negative effect on the bank performance except for conventional banks when it increases the profitability.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using a data set of 13 countries with both of 77 Islamic and 101 conventional banks (CvB) during the period 2006-2013 and performing the generalized method of moments (GMM) method, the findings provide comprehensive evidence for the bank systems studied which are of interest also to policy makers and practitioners.\nFindings: The main finding is that after the international financial crises of 2008, many worldwide banks have been experiencing crises in contrast to Islamic banks (IsB) which remain Gen more stable and more profitable. Foreign banks had a higher degree of exposure to risk, given their higher number of subsidiaries in the developed economies. As for the determinants of profitability, the bank-specific variables allow to explain the change in the level of performance and stability for conventional and Islamic banks. However, the effect of some banks characteristics is not the same for the two bank groups. For the macroeconomic effect, it is observed that inflation exerts a negative effect on the bank performance except for CvB when it increases the profitability measured by the return on assets (ROA). It is also found that the growth rate acts positively when the dependent variable is the ROA and negatively when the performance is measured by return on equity.\nOriginality/value: The inflation rate exerts a negative effect only on the ROA. This study differs from previous contributions in that it is tested the hypothesis of determinants of bank profitability and stability for both conventional and Islamic banks in the MENA region. It is of great interest to both policymakers and investors, with respect to regional development policies and dedicated portfolio investment strategies in each emerging region respectively. The authors adopted several ratios from the empirical literature on bank profitability and stability. Using a data set of 13 countries with both of 77 Islamic and 101 CvB during the period 2006-2013 and performing the GMM method, the findings have significant contributions to the literature by comprehensively clarifying and critically analyzing the current state of profitability and stability for both banks.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Reducing turn-round variability through the application of Six Sigma in aerospace MRO facilities
|
[
"Six Sigma",
"Reliability",
"Matching supply and demand",
"Repair strategy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Effective asset maintenance and repair is a critical function in the aerospace industry. Aside from the safety implications, the cost of repair and overhaul (especially when an asset has to be replaced before the recommended number of flying hours) is huge and could, if left unattended, place the company under serious financial strain.\n2. Literature review: Both SS and the MCS method have developed over the years to become standard and highly effective business process methodologies/techniques used by both academics and practitioners to systematically identify and resolve specific operational and business problems.\n3. The case study: Defining the problem\n4. Measuring and analysing the issues: An extensive analysis of all DU data based on the number of flying hours that each DU had completed since new was undertaken. The Time Since New (TSN) data were collected for 178 DUs that the company had repaired since new (see Table I). All the DUs in this range had clocked up more than 70,000 flying hours (but >80,000 hours). Over 36 per cent of the DUs had clocked up more than 76,000 hours but in order to ensure correct data analysis, only the failure data from 0 to 70,000 hours for each DU was used. The number of repairs that each DU had undertaken during the 70,000 hours was also collected and categorised in 10,000 flying hour periods. The accumulated failure profile for each DU in relation to it TSN was calculated. For instance, there were no failures seen in any of the 178 DUs between 0 and 10,000 hours whereas 631 failures were logged between 10,001 and 20,000 hours (indicating that DUs were experiencing more than a single failure in one time period). A peak of 840 failures was seen between the range of 20,001 and 30,000 hours. Further analysis of the 840 failure peak highlighted that 16 failures were due to \"double failures\" occurring where units were repaired but failed again in the same way within a 100-hour operating timescale thus necessitating the DU to be returned to the company for additional repair. This issue was seen at other time periods but contributed to <2 per cent of the failure profile.\n5. Integrating the Monte Carlo approach (analyse/improve phases): The MCS method uses pseudo random numbers to generate the potential failure of a component in service and hence can identify a replacement/repair point in the life of a component. However, randomised events need to be confirmed in reality and so there must be a small, but sufficient, quantity of failure data available relating to Asset performance before the simulation can begin.\n6. Towards a SS/AMRO strategy (improve and control): The MCS approach adopted within the SS framework shown in this contribution, allowed engineers to evaluate three DU AMRO strategies. Given cost accuracy, it is evident the MCS method has identified the optimal AMRO strategy is to move towards changing all parts at regular 10,000 hours operating cycles (i.e. strategy 2). This is made easier in this exercise due to the nature of the DU failure profile in that the DU is reliable up to 10,000 hours with no reported failures. Exploiting this level of reliability allows the engineers to consider a strategy that on the face of it seems to be the most costly approach. The identification of the most appropriate AMRO strategy in this exercise relies heavily upon the labour costs (with repair taking considerably longer than replacement in this instance). If the cost profiles were to change then this could have a significant effect on which strategy becomes more cost effective (Sun et al., 2007).\n7. Evaluation and conclusions: This paper has reported on the application of the SS method to the study of DU failure in an application within the aerospace industry. Although the MCS technique which sat within the SS framework has been widely employed in many different application areas over many years, its usefulness and validity in this study, has proven that, simulation tools and techniques still have their place in management science (Thomas et al., 2011; Marquez and Iung, 2007; Dogan, 2007, etc.). In this study the MCS was instrumental in highlighting potentially significant maintenance cost savings whilst the SS DMAIC approach was able to take action for improving the systems by enabling the company to redesign its maintenance system and its stock levels to ensure greater stock turn rounds and better synchronisation of the stock levels with the parts usage. This allowed the company to redesign the sub-contracting system which enabled the supply chain to stabilise and level schedule rather than reacting to spiky demand cycles.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to outline the application of a Six Sigma (SS) methodology as a means of reducing supply chain risk in aerospace maintenance repair and overhaul (MRO) functions. In this contribution the LSS method is used to estimate the economic impact on the selection of the most appropriate maintenance strategy pertaining to aircraft display units (DUs) as well as providing a reduction in turn round time (TRT) variation of the DUs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper develops a SS approach which includes the development of the Monte Carlo technique as a mechanism to identify the most cost effective MRO strategy whilst simultaneously reducing variability in TRT servicing of the DUs. This application enabled the authors to obtain further proof of concept and also to apply a number of focused quality improvement techniques to systematically reduce TRT variation.\nFindings: An effective development of the SS approach is proposed and the effectiveness of the method is subsequently evaluated highlighting the benefits to the host organisation. The SS methodology demonstrates that it is possible to identify the most cost effective MRO strategy and thus suggests a suitable DU replacement policy which in turn allows engineers to develop the appropriate maintenance schedules for the company.\nPractical implications: The design, development and implementation of this SS methodology offers an approach to achieving a more cost effective MRO strategy whilst reducing TRT variability which can lead to greater predictability of operations which in turn enables the company to effectively synchronise supply with demand. The paper offers practicing maintenance managers and engineers a practical example for increasing productive efficiency and output.\nOriginality/value: This SS strategy contributes to the existing knowledge base on maintenance systems and subsequently disseminates this information in order to provide impetus, guidance and support towards increasing the development companies in an attempt to move the UK manufacturing sector towards world class manufacturing performance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Tracing the evolution of purchasing research: future trends and directions for purchasing practices
|
[
"Marketing",
"Decision making",
"Supply chain management",
"Research methodologies",
"Purchasing research",
"Purchasing strategy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nTracing the evolution of purchasing research: To delineate the evolution of purchasing practices and its implications for purchasing research, we highlight how purchasing has transitioned from a single business function to a cross-functional business process. We discuss the integration of purchasing with other business areas, including strategy, decision-making, marketing and supply chain management.\nFuture trends and directions for purchasing practices: Having noted the evolution of purchasing, from a single business function to a cross-functional business process, in this section, we consider future trends and directions of purchasing practices and their likely impacts on academic research. Five main purchasing areas are experiencing relevant changes and could affect the trends and directions for purchasing practices. We highlight research opportunities for each of these areas. We also offer some remarks about trends in purchasing research methodology.\nConclusions: We have traced the evolution of purchasing research, highlighting how purchasing is growing increasingly integrated with other business functions and processes, especially those related to strategy, decision-making, marketing and supply chain management. We also have identified future trends and directions for purchasing practices, emphasising their impact on academic research and their potential for laying out further research avenues. The purchasing trends we identify relate to the following areas: sustainable and ethical purchasing, purchasing in the digital economy, purchasing and supply chain risk management and public sector purchasing. We also provide our perspective on the evolution of appropriate methodology for purchasing research.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This conceptual paper details the evolution of purchasing research and describes the increasing integration of purchasing with other strategic functions to identify key trends in purchasing practices together with their implications for purchasing research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study takes a conceptual approach and reviews prior literature to describe the field and predict future developments.\nFindings: Purchasing is increasingly integrated with different business functions, such as strategy, marketing, decision-making and supply chain management. Key real-world trends include sustainable and ethical purchasing, purchasing in the digital economy, supply chain risk management and public sector purchasing. These trends suggest both avenues for further research and specific methodologies to pursue them.\nOriginality/value: By providing a comprehensive overview of the trends in purchasing practice and research, this study offers unique insights, especially for researchers who seek to continue expanding the field.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The myth of the "good governance code": an analysis of the relationship between ownership structure and the comply-or-explain disclosure
|
[
"Corporate governance",
"Corporate ownership",
"Comply-or-explain disclosure",
"Dominant shareholder identity"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The financial crises of the past decade, accompanied by several emblematic corporate scandals, have highlighted the inefficacy of corporate governance (CG) mechanisms, including good governance codes, causing legislators and financial communities around the world to reinforce both corporate regulations (hard law) and governance codes (soft law) (Cuomo et al., 2016; Mallin, 2013; Zattoni and Cuomo, 2008). CG codes, as a form of soft law, through the comply-or-explain principle, provide firms with a voluntary means for improving CG practices: companies have the option to comply with a code's recommendations or to not comply, disclosing the adoption of recommendations or explaining the reason in cases of non-compliance. The disclosure of compliance with CG codes or the explanation can be mandatory or voluntary. The literature has emphasized that the effectiveness of governance codes increases if the disclosure of governance practices is mandatory because of market disciplinary mechanisms, which can only work well with informative disclosures about adoption and/or explanations: if the disclosure about compliance with the CG code is voluntary, problems with the effectiveness of good governance code could arise when companies do not disclose information about adoption or provide explanations because investors cannot understand if the company does not adopt the best practices or adopts the best practices but does not disclose its adoption. Thus, the external disciplinary mechanisms do not work well (Cuomo et al., 2016).\n2. Literature review and hypothesis development: 2.1 The diffusion of good governance codes\n3. Methods: 3.1 Sample\n4. Findings: 4.1 Descriptive statistics\n5. Conclusions, limitations and future perspectives: In our study, we considered the principle of comply-or-explain as a whole, measuring the degree of disclosure under this principle by companies and testing the relationships between this degree of disclosure and different variables of ownership structure.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to assess the degree of disclosure about compliance with corporate governance code and the explanations provided by Italian firms and second, to analyze the relationships between this disclosure and different variables of ownership structure.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The sample was composed of 75 non-financial companies listed in Italy in 2016. Content analysis of the corporate governance statement and ordinary least squares (OLS) multiple regression models were used to test the hypotheses.\nFindings: Companies tended to comply with the corporate governance code and to disclose this information, but when they decided to not comply, they did not provide adequate explanations. Findings revealed a negative relation between ownership concentration and the disclosure analyzed. Results also highlight that a more equal distribution of shares among larger shareholders is beneficial for disclosure. Moreover, the presence of a dominant financial shareholder at a high level of ownership concentration creates inefficiency of the degree of adherence to the comply-or-explain principle.\nOriginality/value: This study examines in depth the underexplored issue of \"explanation\" and exceeds the issue of ownership concentration, which has already been examined extensively, raising the issues of counterweight power and shareholders' identities, which remain underexplored. In this way, results presented contribute to explaining some causes of the diverse findings that research has found about the relationship between ownership concentration and voluntary disclosure, demonstrating the importance of counterweight power and largest shareholder's identity. Consequently, when self-regulating initiatives are designed and implemented, legislators, regulators and managers should not ignore the characteristics of the firms' ownership structure.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Consumer involvement and knowledge influence on wine choice cue utilisation
|
[
"Consumer behaviour",
"Segmentation",
"Product knowledge",
"Wine",
"Involvement",
"Choice cues"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In everyday life consumers are \"exposed to a seemingly infinite number of cues\" (Berger and Fitzsimons, 2008, p. 2). During the buying decision-making process consumers rely on various characteristics or \"cues\" of products in their evaluations to determine product quality (Jover et al., 2004; Lee and Lou, 1996; Steenkamp, 1990). According to cue utilisation theory, a product consists of an array of cues that serve as surrogate indicators of quality to consumers/shoppers (Richardson et al., 1994). A mere interest in a particular product category, sometimes also referred to as product involvement, does, however, not serve to fully explain how product choices are made, nor explain whether moderating factors such as product knowledge also play a role in the process. Product knowledge in turn, varies between consumers who can be regarded as experts and those who have very little knowledge about product features (cues).\n2. Background and literature review: 2.1 Product choice cues\n3. Methods: 3.1 Data collection and measures\n4. Results: From the list of wine choice attributes, the most important was wine style and the least important was packaging (see Table III). Table VI and Figure 1 present the results of the PLS analysis. Interest shows a significant and positive impact (b=0.42) on the intrinsic buying choice factor. Risk importance has a significant and positive impact (b=0.17) on the extrinsic buying choice factor. Finally, risk probability has a significant and positive impact (b=0.38) on the marketing mix buying choice factor. Furthermore, inspection of the R2 values for each predicted variable suggested that the explanatory power of the model is substantial both for predicting intrinsic (R2=0.20) and marketing mix (R2=0.19) buying choice factors (Chin, 1998b).\n5. Discussion: Consumers do not place the same importance on product choice cues. In the case of wine, our findings show that grape variety and wine style are the most important ones, whereas packaging is perceived to be of least importance. Earlier research provides similar findings (Casini et al., 2009; Chrysochou et al., 2012; Goodman, 2009). Our findings further show that product choice cues in relation to wine fall in three main categories, namely, intrinsic, extrinsic and marketing mix related. Considering the importance of individual product choice cues, we propose that extrinsic factors are those that consumers emphasise more during purchase, whereas marketing mix factors influence them the least.\n6. Conclusions, implications, limitations and future research: 6.1 Conclusions and implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the utilisation of product choice cues in a retail environment and the impact of consumer involvement on this utilisation. It further investigates the impact of product knowledge on product choice cue utilisation and its moderating role on the impact of consumer involvement.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The case of wine as an exemplary product category is considered, given the importance and variability of choice cues that have been found to affect product choice. Analysis is conducted on survey data from a sample of wine consumers in Ontario, Canada. Product choice cues are grouped into extrinsic, intrinsic and marketing mix. The importance of how these cues are influenced from different dimensions of consumer involvement is illustrated.\nFindings: The results show that product knowledge has a positive impact on intrinsic product cue utilisation and further moderates this relationship improving the predictability of the hypothesised model. Implications for theory and practice are also discussed.\nPractical implications: From an industry viewpoint, the focus in the past has mostly been on using packaging to attract attention/create awareness, create an image of desirability, etc., but not nearly as much on the functionality aspects thereof; for example alternative smaller packaging sizes to the standard 750 ml wine bottle.\nOriginality/value: The study uses a multi-dimensional approach to measure the impact of enduring involvement on utilisation of product choice cues.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A "cross-cultural RELQUAL-scale" in supplier-distributor relationships of Sweden and the USA
|
[
"Cross‐cultural studies",
"Suppliers",
"Distributors",
"Supplier relations",
"Sweden",
"United States of America"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: More than 40 years ago, Alderson (1965) posited the importance of positive relationships between organizations and suggested a comprehensive theory be developed similar to the theory of competition. Since then, numerous research streams have included different aspects of inter-organizational relationships in their models and/or empirical studies, including channel behaviors (Anderson and Narus, 1990), relational exchanges (Dwyer et al., 1987), transaction cost economics (Heide, 1994; Heide and John, 1990), and interaction and networks (Hkansson, 1982; Hkansson and Snehota, 1995). One research stream has focused more directly on relationship quality (Crosby et al., 1990; Dwyer and Oh, 1987; Kumar et al., 1995).This study highlights the later concept - relationship quality (RELQUAL). Relationship quality has been shown to be associated with inter-organizational financial performance (Huntley, 2006; Lages et al., 2004; Uzzi, 1997) as well as other important outcomes (Holmlund, 2008) via different advantages depending on the position of the surveyed business as a buyer (i.e. reliability of supply, improved delivery schedules, lower product/production costs, and the ability to resolve conflicts) or as a supplier (price/production stability, enhance marketing efficiency, optimal capacity planning, and customer orientation) (Han et al., 1993). In support, Skarmeas et al. (2008) note that there are different advantages that accrue for both the selling and buying firms as a result of relationship quality. Consequently, the more we understand about relationship quality the better. The objective of this study was to improve the measurement of RELQUAL compared to previous research by representing RELQUAL as a higher order or \"umbrella construct\" (Lages et al., 2004) consisting of a more comprehensive set of first-order constructs. In order to test the new measure for generalizability, it also addresses two different cultural contexts by simultaneously examining relationships in both Sweden and the USA. Few studies have examined relationship quality in an international context (Skarmeas et al., 2008).Based on a review of the literature, the higher-order construct of relationship quality most commonly includes the first-order constructs of satisfaction, commitment, and trust (Holmlund, 2008; Moliner et al., 2007). This study includes these commonly studied constructs and adds three other constructs that measure some type of intent to participate in joint activities or actual behaviors that result in joint activity between organizations. Specifically, this study adds the constructs of cooperation, coordination, and specific assets because the more organizations intend to work together or actually work together the stronger the relationship.Unfortunately, one of the most comprehensive relationship-oriented models in an inter-organizational context - the key mediating variable (KMV) model (Morgan and Hunt, 1994) - only includes three of these six dimensions directly (cooperation in the form of specific joint activities, trust, and commitment). Therefore, the KMV model includes only one construct described and measured as specific joint activities between organizations. In contrast, this study includes three constructs related to working with other organizations: cooperation, coordination, and specific assets. Unlike this study, the KMV model does not directly measure satisfaction and only alludes to it as a dimension of an antecedent labeled \"relationship benefits.\"The six first-order constructs have not been examined in the same empirical study of RELQUAL. The rest of the paper is organized as follows:1. the literature review is outlined;2. the conceptual measurement model is presented;3. the methodology is described;4. the findings of the study are presented;5. the implications are discussed and conclusions drawn; and6. limitations and suggestions for further research are provided at the end of the paper.\nLiterature review: Although research on relationship quality has increased quite a bit over the past three decades, it is relatively unexplored, in part because there is a lack of consensus about the factors that are the foundation for relationship quality (Skarmeas et al., 2008; Holmlund, 2008). In support, Kumar et al. (1995, p. 55) comment that, \"[...] there is no consensus on which constructs comprise relationship quality.\" As alluded to previously, relationship quality is typically conceived as a higher level construct consisting or several key first-order constructs (Holmlund, 2008; Kumar et al., 1995; Lages et al., 2004). This study is consistent with Moliner et al.'s (2007, p. 1394) description of relationship quality \"[...] as a mega-construct made up of other key components that reflect the overall nature of a relationship between two parties.\" Even though research on relationship quality primarily emanates from the service marketing context or deals primarily with a consumer perspective (Holmlund, 2008; Lages et al., 2004), research based on an inter-organizational context is expanding (Skarmeas et al., 2008). The evolution of the research on relationship quality research in inter-organizational marketing is discussed, in brief, as follows.As outlined in Table I, channel of distribution studies that include relationship quality most often include the first-order constructs of satisfaction, trust, and commitment. The studies differ in terms of modeling antecedents or consequents of relationship quality. Regardless of the positioning, there are obviously several variables assumed to play a positive role in channels of distribution that also have a positive association with relationship quality, including the following: decision-making participation and formalization (Dwyer and Oh, 1987), distributive and procedural fairness (Kumar et al., 1995), continuity of the relationship (Johnson, 1999), repurchase intentions (Hewett and Bearden, 2001), channel performance, specific investments, role performance (Skarmeas et al., 2008; Skarmeas and Robson, 2008), and cultural sensitivity (Skarmeas and Robson, 2008). Few of the studies are based on cross-cultural contexts including the USA and the Netherlands (Kumar et al., 1995), the Netherlands and Belgium (van Bruggen et al., 2005), and the UK importing distributors about their foreign suppliers (Skarmeas et al., 2008; Skarmeas and Robson, 2008).In a business to business context (Table I), relationship quality research has recently been more prolific and measures of relationship quality tend to be more diverse than in the channels of distribution context. However, similar to the channels of distribution context, satisfaction, trust, and commitment are the most commonly studied first-order constructs of relationship quality. Only one of the recent B2B studies is cross-cultural (Barry et al., 2008). Several of the studies show the positive association between relationship quality and important performance metrics such as service quality (Woo and Ennew, 2004), export performance (Lages et al., 2004), profitability (Huntley, 2006), and supply chain performance (Fynes et al., 2008).In sum, Table I shows that relationship quality is positively associated with numerous performance metrics important to inter-organizational success, thus supporting the paper's focus on relationship quality. Other researchers have noted that the higher-order construct of relationship quality most commonly includes the first-order constructs of satisfaction, commitment, and trust (Holmlund, 2008; Moliner et al., 2007). The same is true for the representative studies of inter-organizational studies in Table I. Consequently, these three constructs are included in this paper's measure of relationship quality. Also worthy of note is the limited number of cross-cultural research on relationship quality (Skarmeas et al., 2008; Skarmeas and Robson, 2008). There are no relationship quality studies, to our knowledge, that include the cross-cultural context of the USA and Sweden as reported in this paper.\nConceptual measurement model: As with most relationship quality research, regardless of context RELQUAL is presented in this paper as a higher order or \"umbrella construct\" in the conceptual measurement model consisting of the three most commonly studied first-order constructs of satisfaction, trust, and commitment. This study includes these constructs, and based on the research conducted by the IMP Group, adds three other first-order constructs that measure some type of intent to participate in joint activities or actual behaviors that result in joint activity between organizations. Based on 1,000 inter-organizational relationships, the IMP Group model relationship quality as the climate or atmosphere of a relationship including an important dimension of relationship quality - cooperation (Hkansson, 1982). They suggest that cooperation (including joint technical problem solving, reciprocity, and continuity) is essential to a quality relationship. Other inter-organizational researchers also agree that cooperation is an essential dimension of relationship quality (Fynes et al., 2008; Woo and Ennew, 2004). Woo and Ennew (2004) argue that cooperation is a foundation of developing and maintaining a relationship between organizations. It is hard to imagine that a relationship can even exist without two firms working together or intending to work together, justifying the addition of cooperation in this paper. However, the construct of cooperation is often viewed as synonymous with coordination (i.e. joint activities) and similar to specific assets (Payan and Svensson, 2007). Consequently, all three of these related constructs are added as first-order constructs of relationship quality. The following sections discuss the six first-order constructs included in this paper in more detail.Cooperation, coordination, and specific assets\nMethodology: This study's cross-cultural approach provides a challenging context to test a RELQUAL-scale and its impact on satisfaction in business relationships. There are differences and similarities between both countries (CIA, 2008; Hofstede, 1983a, b). Extra efforts were taken to match empirical studies in each country to overcome socio-economic and cultural differences.Research context and sample\nImplications and concluding thoughts: The previous sections of this paper have reported on an international research effort to test a developed RELQUAL-scale instrument in one industry, but across two different countries. We label it as a \"cross-cultural RELQUAL-scale\" (Figure 2). It is \"cross-cultural\" rather than \"international\" (though the research data are international) as the supplier-distributor relationships studied in each country could be either domestic or international. In addition, it goes beyond current RELQUAL-scales in literature that are principally mono-cultural (Callarisa et al., 2007; Lages et al., 2004).The \"cross-cultural RELQUAL-scale\" makes a contribution to theory and practice in the field of inter-organizational research and relationship quality in marketing for various reasons. First, it makes a contribution to marketing theory as it outlines a higher-order construct and scale for the benefit of other researchers and practitioners in the field. Second, it is also of managerial interest to executives as it provides a framework of dimensions to be considered in the organizational effort of maintaining satisfactory levels of relationship quality with suppliers. Third, the items used are common across both countries' cultures that have well developed business systems predicated on the capitalist or market-based systems. The items of the \"cross-cultural RELQUAL-scale\" may be used cross-culturally as a guide for consideration in the evaluation of relationship quality in other kinds of business relationships. Making use of each item and dimension, we believe may lead to an enhanced monitoring and management of some business relationships. Finally, the \"cross-cultural RELQUAL-scale\" has been able to show an impact on the perceived satisfaction in studied business relationships.The statistical analysis indicated that the \"cross-cultural RELQUAL-scale\" consists of four dimensions cooperation, coordination, trust, and commitment. And that relationship quality impacts satisfaction with the relationship. This study is also based on the interface of between the two corporate and national cultures of Sweden and the USA (Figure 2). The introduced \"cross-cultural RELQUAL-scale\" is rather unique as it is based upon a cross-cultural sample frame rarely seen in research literature. Whilst the outcome of the statistical analyses indicated a satisfactory measurement and structural models and satisfactory estimates of validity and reliability measures, there are some research limitations that should be stressed. They provide a foundation for further research in the field and testing of the \"cross-cultural RELQUAL-scale\" in other cultural and corporate settings. These limitations and suggestions for further research are described in the next section.Nevertheless, we pose that there are a few contributions that should be pinpointed based upon this study, for example:* The findings of this study are based upon an international and sample frame in two countries. Accordingly, the findings are based upon two different corporate and national cultures.* In addition, it is based upon five essential inter-organizational constructs to constitute the \"umbrella construct\" of relationship quality in business relationships.* Finally, this study has provided a unique \"cross-cultural RELQUAL-scale\" and its impact on satisfaction in business relationships, to our knowledge, not seen before in research literature.\nLimitations and suggestions for further research: Although this study provides support for the dimensional distinctiveness of cooperation, coordination, specific assets, commitment, trust, and satisfaction, it is not without limitations. Examining the \"cross-cultural RELQUAL-scale\" tested in other industrial and cultural contexts, and countries in inter-organizational settings could help establish the generality of findings beyond Sweden and the USA, and beyond the context of the distributor-supplier relationship of fasteners and specialty tools.There are several suggestions for further research as follows:* replicate the study in other industries or business relationships within the same countries;* replicate the study in other countries or continents;* replicate the study in international relationships;* replicate the study from the perspective of suppliers;* undertake a longitudinal approach of the \"cross-cultural RELQUAL-scale\" in the same industry and countries or a different industry and countries; and* finally, incorporate and test additional constructs in the \"cross-cultural RELQUAL-scale\" such as formalization, dependence, opportunism, and expectations of relationship continuity.In regard to testing the \"cross-cultural RELQUAL-scale\" in other countries/cultures that differ from and/or are similar to the two countries surveyed in this international research effort, Hofstede's (1983a) dimensions of national cultures may be used to target different national corporate samples. It would be of interest to see if there are different results for this measurement model for dramatically different cultures.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to develop a cross-cultural RELQUAL-scale in supplier-distributor relationships in Sweden and the USA.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The Swedish and US sampling frames consisted each of a random sample of 600 owners and managers of distribution firms of specialty tools and fasteners. A total of 161 usable surveys were returned from the US-survey, for a response rate of 27 percent, while 121 usable surveys were returned from the Swedish survey, for a response rate of 20 percent. An overall response rate of 24 percent was achieved across both countries.\nFindings: - The paper provides support for the dimensional distinctiveness of cooperation, coordination, specific assets, satisfaction, trust, and commitment. Four of the dimensions are reflective of relationship quality or the \"cross-cultural RELQUAL-scale\" (cooperation, coordination, trust, and commitment) and relationship quality was found to be associated with relationship-satisfaction with suppliers. A test of metric invariance confirmed the RELQUAL-scale is appropriate for cross-cultural research.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Examining the tested in other industrial and cultural contexts and countries in other inter-organizational settings could help establish the generality of findings beyond Sweden and the USA and that beyond the context of the distributor-supplier relationship of fasteners and specialty tools.\nPractical implications: - The \"cross-cultural RELQUAL-scale\" is of interest to business practice as it provides a structure of dimensions to be considered in the organizational effort of maintaining satisfactory levels of relationship quality with suppliers.\nOriginality/value: - The paper focuses on two different cultural contexts, which is an approach rarely seen in inter-organizational research. The focal constructs are frequently included in inter-organizational research, but have previously not been included in the same empirical study of RELQUAL.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Seeing like a tourist city: how administrative constructions of conflictive urban tourism shape its future
|
[
"Tourism policy",
"Berlin",
"Seeing Like a City",
"“Touristification”",
"Administrative problematizations",
"Visitor pressure"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Conflicts resulting from the growing intensity of urban tourism are becoming more frequent throughout Europe[1]. Contemporary forms of urban tourism government are increasingly challenged by the increasing number of touristic city users[2] (Martinotti, 1999) and by urbanites who use cities \"as if tourists\" (Clark, 2003, p. 292, emphasis added). While tourism government often seems to be substantially based on a \"numerical visitor competition[3]\", we argue that if tourism is to be sustainable in the future destination managers will increasingly have to integrate strategies to deal with conflicts resulting from urban tourism into their agendas. The way in which tourism conflicts are framed today will have a significant effect on both the future of city tourism and cities more generally. Alone the phenomenon of tourist bashing or \"disneyfication\" in residential areas raises urgent questions: what do those trends mean for the future of urban life? What do they imply for the future of \"urban life seeing[4]\" as tourist experience? Are the underlying mechanisms malleable or out of reach for governmental actors (administrations, destination management organisations) involved in tourism governance?\n2. Urban tourism conflicts in Berlin - what is it about and is it a policy problem?: In 2010 in Berlin Kreuzberg heated public debate emerged that focussed on the effects of tourism (Fuller and Michel, 2014a, p. 11). At stake were loud groups taking part in pub crawls, people gathering in public spaces, noise complaints, and the conversion of apartments into holiday flats, largely catalysed by increased tourism (for a more detailed discussion see Holm, 2014). Accompanying the discussion about the effects of tourism - especially the effects of a tourism labelled as New Urban Tourism by social scientists - was the feeling of alienation by some residents who were affected by growing visitor pressure in \"their\" neighbourhood. The term New Urban Tourism was \"originally used by Roche (1992) to entitle [tourism as] a very significant sector and force in the economic regeneration or micro-modernisation of old industrial cities in western society\" (Roche, 1992, p. 563 quoted by Dirksmeier and Helbrecht, 2015, p. 276). Today New Urban Tourists could be understood as tourists who are city users (Martinotti, 1999) interested in urban neighbourhoods off the beaten track. These neighbourhoods can be characterised as edgy, unpolished, creative urban areas (Pappalepore et al., 2014). In other words, in this literature conflicts were discussed mainly referring to heterogeneous places \"where tourists [...] and locals share the same spaces, rub shoulders and the sensescape is more multi-sensuous and unpredictable\" (Edensor, 1998 quoted form Urry and Larsen, 2011, p. 154). The formats people use to articulate discontent with tourists vary, as Johannes Novy (2017) describes: \"Graffiti with slogans like \"No more rolling suitcases\" or \"Tourists F*** off\" as well as stickers saying \"Berlin loves you not\" became a regular sight\" (p. 60). The paraphrase \"The tourist destroys what he seeks by finding it\" is not only depicted in posters (Plate 1), but was also debated in the meetings organised by parties, newspapers, the office for economic development in the borough of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg or by district-offices[9].\n3. \"Seeing like a tourist city\" - the construction of urban tourism conflicts from a theoretical viewpoint: The literature on tourism governance in Berlin indicates that \"the process of defining, conceptualising and measuring tourism is itself [...] deeply political\" (Colomb and Novy, 2017, p. 6). Regarding the issue of conflicts arising from urban tourism, existing literature lacks contributions dealing with the way administrative bodies problematise crowding, (party) noise and rubbish-strewn green spaces. With this research gap in mind we aim to conceptualise the construction of conflicts caused by urban tourism as a powerful political process influencing the future of city tourism. Our fundamental conceptual assumption is that problematisations by governmental and administrative bodies (including DMOs) predetermine their solutions. The link between problematisations and solutions is indicated in a broad range of conceptual approaches dealing with government (Luhmann, 2002; Mayntz, 2001; Scott, 1998). On the basis of this general presupposition and regarding the governmental problematisation of conflictive urban tourism, we aim to adopt the idea of Seeing Like a City (Valverde, 2011).\n4. Methods: Discourse analysis is a valuable approach for scrutinising institutional knowledge that is presented as objective (Keller, 2011 quoted in Fuller, 2014b). Following an interpretative-hermeneutic approach, we explore how governmental bodies construe conflicts connected to tourism within in the documents they publish. We assume that the varying ways of seeing these conflicts like a city find expression within those publicly available documents. We frame the latter as \"formative objects\" (Scheffer, 2013, p. 90) that mobilise bias; some conflicts are organised into politics, while other topics become a-political by being excluded. The initial practical questions we faced were which documents to analyse, and how to analyse them. The focus was official documents that problematise conflicts related to tourism.\n5. Results: The way tourism conflicts are problematised differs significantly between the two \"spheres\" of government analysed in our case study. We argue that particular bodies of \"political knowledge\" (Lemke et al., 2012, p. 20) on conflicts are produced on borough and federal state level. In Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg political-administrative problematisations are articulated in a nuanced manner, with momentum. In comparison, the framing of conflicts by visitBerlin and SenWTF lack vigour. Drawing on the notion of Seeing Like a City, we focus on the way the complexity of urban tourism conflicts is reduced in order to better manage the issues. The political knowledge produced in doing so is \"intimately linked to the availability of [...] solution[s]\" (Li, 2007, p. 7) - where the latter can range from active \"non-decision making\" (Bachrach and Baratz, 1962, p. 952) to calls for action.\n6. Conclusion: future relevance of \"seeing like a tourist city\": The (de-)construction of urban tourism conflicts as a tourism policy problem serves as a lens to explore heterogeneous governmental ways of \"seeing like a tourist city\". We adopted the notion of Seeing Like a City (Valverde, 2011) in order to explore how administrative bodies, which deal with tourism quite differently, see and reduce the complexity of conflictive tourism in order to manage the issues. It would fall short to explain these differences accounting for differing administrative levels. The DMO visitBerlin, the Senate Department for Economics, Technology and Research (SenWTF) and the office for economic development of the borough of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg in fact share the same political aim. Namely, to develop tourism as economically important factor. Nevertheless, they see conflictive tourism in quite disparate ways.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to clarify the administrative problematisations of conflict-prone urban tourism (e.g. noise) as political processes predetermining the future of city tourism. It is shaped by today's administrative ways of knowing increasing visitor pressure as an issue for urban (tourism) development.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The problematisation of conflictive urban tourism in Berlin is used as case study and lens to analyse how administrative bodies see conflictive tourism like a tourist city. Drawing on Mariana Valverde's idea of Seeing Like a City (2011), the paper demonstrates how disparate governmental bodies see and reduce the complexity of conflicts resulting from tourism in order to handle it. The authors use policy documents as the basis for the analysis.\nFindings: The paper provides empirical insights about how political knowledge on urban tourism conflicts is produced in Berlin. The marginalisation of these conflicts on the federal state level seemingly aces out the calls for action on the borough level (Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg). According to these disparate modes of problematisation, older and younger governmental gazes on conflictive tourism and its future relevance interrelate in contingent combination.\nOriginality/value: This paper fills a gap in the existing urban tourism literature, by focussing on the definition of policy problems by governmental bodies as powerfully linked to the availability of solutions.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Doing transformational change in the English NHS in the context of "big bang" redisorganisation: Findings from the North East transformation system
|
[
"Change management",
"Leadership",
"Politics",
"Quality improvement",
"Public sector reform",
"Health services"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Securing transformational change in health systems is viewed as a top priority if they are going to be sustainable financially and able to provide care of high quality that is free at the point of use. Health systems are faced with mounting pressures arising from epidemiological and demographic changes, especially in respect of an aging population requiring integrated health and social care and lifestyle-related illnesses affecting all age groups, as well as from new developments in technology, treatments and other interventions. Given these pressures, it is argued that health systems, even those which are functioning effectively when judged according to existing standards, need to be able to undertake large-scale transformational change if they are to survive (Lukas et al., 2007). This means being ever vigilant about removing waste and improving quality and patient safety (McIntosh and Cookson, 2012).\nNETS: origins and early years: Like many innovations, the NETS was borne out of a combination of multiple factors and influences, some planned and others occurring more by happenstance. Central to the project were two key factors: a determination to improve the quality of care and move services from being mediocre to good to being second to none; and the existence of a strong regional identity which would potentially allow an ambitious change programme to occur with sufficient resources and on a scale that might enhance the chances of success. As noted above, a paradox with the NHS in the North East is that although services are generally considered among the best in the country, exceeding targets and winning awards, the region has some of the highest and deep-seated health inequalities in the UK. Ensuring that services tackle such failings lies at the core of the NETS.\nEvaluating the NETS: The evaluation of the NETS commenced in 2009 and ended in June 2013 (Hunter et al., 2014). It employed the receptive contexts for change framework devised by Pettigrew et al. (1992) for their study of strategic change in the NHS - see Figure 1. Eight interrelated and interacting factors make up the framework: the quality and coherence of policy; the availability of key people leading change; long-term environmental pressure; a supportive organisational culture; effective managerial-clinical relations; cooperative inter-organisational networks; simplicity and clarity of goals and priorities; and the fit between a change agenda and its locale.\nNETS meets \"big bang\" change: The NHS in England (the NHS in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland has proved to be more stable and resilient) has been restructured regularly since 1974 with successive waves of change following each other with increasing rapidity. It should therefore come as no surprise that a new incoming government elected in May 2010 would quickly overturn its alleged distaste for massive \"big bang\" upheaval and impose possibly the biggest bang ever to affect the NHS (Hunter, 2011). Whatever the merits and/or demerits of the changes, and these continue to be hotly debated, it is fair to say that they took those working in the NHS completely by surprise. No one was expecting, or had been prepared for, what appeared in two white papers published in July (this one dealt with the NHS changes) and December (this one focused on the public health changes) 2010, respectively.\nLessons to be drawn from the NETS story: There are four important lessons to emerge from the experience of the NETS. These may apply equally to any major system-wide transformation initiative that is confronted by major structural change of a type which alters the entire landscape and context in which the project has been conceived and prosecuted.\nConclusions: From this review of lessons, a number of critical factors stand out in respect of maintaining a commitment to the NETS or, indeed, to any other similar large-scale transformational change process. None of these is especially novel or unexpected but it is their combination that is especially important since no single factor operating in isolation will be sufficient to maintain progress. We employed the Pettigrew et al. receptive contexts for change framework to guide both data collection and analysis. In the context of this paper and its focus on the impact of the 2013 NHS changes on the NETS programme, four components of the receptive contexts for change framework were especially significant in accounting for what happened. While a supportive organisational culture and key people leading change proved to be pre-requisites for effective change, neither were likely to occur or prove sustainable if the other two factors - environmental pressure and quality and coherence of policy - were not aligned and pulling in different directions. If the general environment is unstable and policy is subjected to frequent shifts of direction for primarily political or ideological reasons, and uninformed by robust evidence, then preserving and sustaining successful change initiatives becomes especially challenging and unpredictable.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine a bold and ambitious scheme known as the North East transformation system (NETS). The principal aim of the NETS is the achievement of a step-change in the quality of health services delivered to people living in the North East region of England. The paper charts the origins of the NETS and its early journey before describing what happened to it when the UK coalition government published its proposals for unexpected major structural change in the NHS. This had a profound impact on the leadership and direction of the NETS and resulted in it taking a different direction from that intended.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research design took the form of a mixed methods, longitudinal 3.5-year study aimed at exploring transformational change in terms of content, context, process and outcomes. The sample of study sites comprised 14 NHS trusts in the North East region chosen to provide geographical coverage of the area and to reflect the scale, scope and variety of the bodies that formed part of the NETS programme. The qualitative component of the research, which the paper draws upon, included 68 semi-structured interviews, observational studies and focus groups. Data analysis made use of both deductive and inductive frameworks. The deductive framework adopted was Pettigrew et al.'s \"receptive contexts for change\" and four of the eight factors stood out as especially important and form the basis of the paper.\nFindings: The fate of the NETS was shaped and influenced by the eight factors comprising the Pettigrew et al. receptive contexts for change framework but four factors in particular stood out as being especially significant: environmental pressure, quality and coherence of policy, key people leading change, supportive organisational culture. Perhaps the most significant lesson from the NETS is that achieving whole systems change is particularly vulnerable to the vicissitudes of politics especially where that system, like the UK NHS, is itself subject to those very same pressures. Yet, despite having an enormous influence on health policy, the political context is frequently avoided in research or not regarded as instrumental in determining the outcomes in respect of transformational change.\nResearch limitations/implications: The chief limitation is the credibility and authenticity of the interviews captured at particular points in time. These formed the datebase for subsequent analysis. The authors sought to guard against possible bias by supplementing interviews with observational studies and focus groups as well as running two dissemination events at which emerging findings from the study were subjected to independent external scrutiny and comment. These events provided a form of validation for the key study findings.\nPractical implications: The research findings demonstrate the importance of context for the likely outcome and success of complex transformational change initiatives. These require time to become embedded and demonstrate results especially when focused on changing culture and behaviour. But, in practice, allowing sufficient time during which the organisation may remain sufficiently stable to allow the change intervention to run its course and become embedded and sustainable is highly problematic. The consequence is that bold and ambitious efforts like the NETS are not given the space and stability to prove themselves. Too often, politics and external environmental pressures intrude in ways that may prove dysfunctional and negative.\nSocial implications: Unless a different approach to transformational change and its leadership and management is adopted, then changing the NHS to enable it to appear more responsive to changing health care needs and expectations will remain a cause for concern. Ultimately the public will be the losers if the NHS remains insensitive to changing needs and expectations. The patient experience was at the centre of the NETS programme.\nOriginality/value: The study is original insofar as no other has sought to evaluate the NETS independently and over a reasonable time period. The research design, based on a mixed-methods approach, is unusual in evaluations of this nature. The study's conclusions are not so original but their value lies in largely confirming and reinforcing the findings from other studies. It perhaps goes further in stressing the impact of politics on health policy and the negative consequences of constant organisational change on attempts to achieve deep change in the way the NHS is organised and led.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Participation behaviour among international students: The role of satisfaction with service augmentation and brand choice attainment
|
[
"Higher education",
"UK",
"Student satisfaction",
"Brand choice attainment",
"Participation behaviour",
"Service augmentation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Recently, interest in understanding and managing the student experience has been growing in order to develop and offer high quality, satisfaction-creating service experiences (e.g. Bowden and D'Alessandro, 2011; Fagerstrom and Ghinea, 2013). This interest appears to be driven by a range of changes in the higher education (HE) sector. Students are becoming more demanding and active information seekers and prefer informal and personal forms of information to formal information (Fagerstrom and Ghinea, 2013). With technology-literate and highly diverse students, universities are increasingly facing pressure to manage students' expectations and offer a high-quality learning experience. Consequently, some universities have developed channels, other than the technical help desks, through which students can access management to discuss complaints or suggestions (Parahoo et al., 2013). These channels include student senates, students' clubs and associations and student representatives in universities' senates, on college boards and in college committees. This pressure is coupled with the introduction of higher tuition fees and constraints on public funding in some countries, such as the UK. In addition, governments have recently been adopting stricter funding approaches that link financial support to the results of HE institutions (Parahoo et al., 2013). For instance, in some European countries the current funding approach for state-owned HE institutions is based to a large extent on student enrolment and graduation rates (Helgesen and Nesset, 2007). Thus, while students constitute a direct vital source of funding for private HE institutions, they represent an important indirect source of financing for state-owned institutions.\nLiterature review: This study investigates the role of students' satisfaction with university augmentation services in generating their overall satisfaction with the university and explores the influence of brand choice attainment and satisfaction on participation behaviour. The following sections present the study constructs and the development of research hypotheses.\nMethodology: Conceptual model\nAnalysis and results: The study followed a two-step SEM approach using AMOS 22. The first step addresses the measurement model's validity and reliability; the second step addresses the hypotheses testing of the proposed conceptual model.\nDiscussion: This study attempted to contribute to our understanding of the role of service augmentation elements in generating students' satisfaction among international students. It also tried to examine the influence of brand choice attainment on satisfaction and participation behaviour. The results of H1a through H1d demonstrate that not all service augmenters are equally important in creating satisfaction for international students. Maintenance augmenters (e.g. housing and food) and campus life augmenters (e.g. classroom instructions, physical safety, recreational facilities and library facilities) are crucial elements in generating student satisfaction. An especially strong significant correlation exists between campus life elements and satisfaction, implying that campus life augmenters are perceived as the most important factor shaping students' satisfaction with non-academic life. This result is consistent with Paswan and Ganesh's (2009) findings that campus life augmentation activities are critical in generating a sense of strong loyalty among international students towards their current university. Several studies in HE have focused on service quality of the core service (e.g. academic content), particularly teacher-student interaction aspects (e.g. Clemes et al., 2008; Parahoo et al., 2013; Voss et al., 2007). However, this study has provided empirical support to this vein of literature by examining the impact of service augmentation elements on student satisfaction.\nConclusions and implications: The results indicate that some specific augmentation elements have the potential to lead to student satisfaction, which in turn affects student participation. International students in the current study were primarily concerned with maintenance and campus life aspects. This gives administrators a fresh perspective on new avenues for establishing international students' satisfaction. From a managerial point of view, university administrations should prioritize their efforts to put more emphasis on elements such as campus safety, leisure facilities on campus, library facilities, availability of affordable accommodations and availability of quality food at reasonable prices. These elements could embellish or deplete the core of education services. Furthermore, as students and parents spend a considerable amount of time and effort evaluating HE institutions (Alwi and Kitchen, 2014) and find it difficult to evaluate the core of education service prior to admission, universities could integrate the key campus life and maintenance augmentation elements into their offerings to influence the final decision choices.\nLimitations and future research: As with any research project, this study has some limitations. First, data were collected in UK; consequently any generalization must be undertaken with extreme caution and in a way that reflect cultural differences. Future research could replicate this study in other countries. Second, data were collected using online surveys through non-probability sampling. This sampling procedure has some limitations as it reaches a specific part of the population. However, the sample was reasonably diverse in terms of students' characteristics (e.g. gender, age, mode of study, college, study level, geographical area). Third, the study employed cross-sectional, self-report data. While the survey design was intended to limit the common method variance problem (e.g. the order of construct measures were mixed), its impact can be eliminated with data collected through a longitudinal study or experiments. Fourth, the focus of this study was on student participation behaviour as a part of co-creation behaviour. Future research could address this by examining other elements of co-creation behaviour such as student citizenship behaviour.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to integrate service marketing and higher education (HE) literature to develop and test a model that links customer participation behaviour with student overall satisfaction that stems from satisfaction with service augmentation elements. It also examines the influence of brand choice attainment on both satisfaction and participation behaviour.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Drawing on an empirical survey of 238 international students in UK universities, the model was tested using structural equation modelling.\nFindings: The findings reveal that not all service augmenters are equally important in creating student satisfaction. Campus life and maintenance augmenters are found to be the crucial elements in generating satisfaction for international students. The results also suggest that satisfied students are more likely to participate actively in co-producing the university services compared to dissatisfied students. The effect of brand choice attainment on participation behaviour is mediated by satisfaction.\nPractical implications: University administrations might need to prioritize their efforts to put more emphasis on some elements especially crucial for international students and could embellish or deplete the core of education services. The study provides a fresh perspective on segmenting international students based on their brand choice attainment. A superior university experience should be created, particularly for those who did not get into their preferred university, to overcome the disappointment of not studying at the preferred university.\nOriginality/value: By synthesizing diverse concepts from research on services marketing, branding and HE, this paper contributes theoretically by extending the research on customer participation behaviour into the HE domain. It attempts to address a clear gap between how service literature and HE literature look at \"service experience\". The study captures some missing aspects of the \"service\" in the HE sector (e.g. augmentation aspects). The study also takes the HE literature one step further by identifying the role of brand choice attainment in both satisfaction and students' participation behaviour.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Empirical investigation on the predictors of career satisfaction
|
[
"Career satisfaction",
"Organizational commitment",
"Boundaryless career",
"External support seeking"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the career research field, career satisfaction has been discussed over the past several decades. In a changed career environment that focused on an individual's responsibility and self-directed career development behaviors, the subjective career satisfaction in the workplace has become an imperative factor for career success. In other words, the turbulent changing modern society, and each individual's perspective and evaluation on career achievement have been the core concepts in career research and practice. However, career satisfaction has not been discussed comprehensively with career development related variables, including an individual's career perspective, organizational behaviors, and career capital (e.g. networking or supervisor's support). Even though these individuals' perspective, behavior, and capital are greatly discussed in the career literature, the relation between career satisfaction and these research variables is limited.\nLiterature review: Career satisfaction is an individual's evaluation of the work environment and setting (Sekaran, 1989). It is a kind of subjective career evaluation in the workplace. For a long time, career success researchers focused mainly on objective career success. However, people may increasingly evaluate their career based on subjectively chosen standards (Dries et al., 2008). People are satisfied in the workplace when their job allows them to achieve a valued career goal. Traditionally, the previous studies identified the predictors of career satisfaction, including communication, stress, social connection, and so on (Bhagat, 1982; Cacioppo and Patrick, 2008). These days, the predictors that are related to organizational behaviors and support have been discussed in career research. Therefore, this study will identify the relationship among career satisfaction, an individual's career attitude (boundaryless career), organizational behavior (career commitment), and career seeking behaviors.\nMethods: Participants\nResults: Before answering the hypotheses, the correlation analysis was conducted (see Table I). With descriptive statistics including means and standard deviations, correlation analysis provided information on Pearson's correlation coefficient for the variables of the current study. The relationships between career satisfaction and independent variables were all statistically significant. Among the relationships, organizational mobility preference has a negative relationship with career satisfaction (r=-0.299). The correlation coefficient of the relationship between career satisfaction and the independent variables ranged from r=0.222 to r=0.619 (boundaryless mindset, r=0.222; affective commitment, r=0.439; external support seeking, r=0.619).\nDiscussion: This study aims to find the effects of boundaryless career, organizational commitment, and external support seeking on career satisfaction. Due to the limitations of the empirical study on career satisfaction and other variables, this study may provide a meaningful foundation for future study and human resource management practice. The study results showed that organizational mobility preference has a negative effect on career satisfaction. Based on my reviews in the previous sections, several studies showed the negative effects of organizational mobility preference on career satisfaction (Igbaria and Guimaraes, 1993; Verbruggen, 2012). This study confirmed the previous study results with the Korean financial company employees. In addition, the study results showed that boundaryless mindset and external support seeking have positive effects on career satisfaction. These results confirmed the previous studies' postulation (Forret and Dougherty, 2004; Wolff and Moser, 2009). In regard to the effects of external career support seeking, the study results also showed the same results, which are expected based on the other previous studies (Batemen and Crant, 1993; Seibert et al., 2001). However, the hypothesis on the influential relationship between organizational commitment and career satisfaction was not supported. The fact that the influence on career satisfaction mainly comes from an individual's career related attitude (boundaryless mindset and organizational mobility preference) and behavior (external career support seeking) is debatable based on the study results.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to find the effects of boundaryless career, organizational commitment, and external support seeking on career satisfaction.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data were collected from 271 South Korean financial company employees through the survey method. Descriptive analysis was conducted, followed by the correlation and multiple regression analyses.\nFindings: The study results showed that organizational mobility preference has a negative effect on career satisfaction. The results also showed that boundaryless mindset and external support seeking have positive effects on career satisfaction.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study showed theoretically that an individual's specific career related behaviors and attitudes have a positive influence on career satisfaction.\nPractical implications: Practically, this study results showed some suggestion for enhancing the employee's career satisfaction by constructing a career support system.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides a better understanding of the influences of boundaryless career, organizational commitment, and external support seeking on career satisfaction with an HRD perspective.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Country of origin branding: an integrative perspective
|
[
"Brand image",
"Brand identity",
"Branding",
"Country",
"Theoretical framework",
"Collective meaning",
"Country of origin (COO)"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Country of origin (COO) branding has developed from matching a favorable country of origin image with products and de-emphasizing unfavorable matches (Roth and Romeo, 1992) and is applied to consumer products, manufactures, tourism destinations and places in economic development (Lopez and Balabanis, 2016). Challenges to this approach suggest that researchers have been investigating the issue in the wrong way (Samiee, 2010; Samiee et al., 2005) and that country cues are no longer needed in a world of global value chains (Usunier, 2006), that consumers do not know the COO (Samiee et al., 2005) or that it plays only a small role in purchase decisions (Diamantopoulos et al., 2011). Further criticism of research in this area is that it is not grounded in strong theory and lacks managerial relevance (Samiee, 2011; Usunier, 2011). Koschate-Fischer et al. (2012, p. 33) argue that \"the theoretical rationale underpinning country of origin effects is often not elaborated\", and furthermore, \"the absence of a theory or sound conceptual frameworks have been the hallmark of a large number of country of origin studies\" (Samiee, 2011, p. 476). However, other researchers suggest that these criticisms are exaggerated (Diamantopoulos et al., 2011; Herz and Diamantopoulos, 2013a, 2013b; Magnusson et al., 2011a, 2011b). What is clear from this debate is that COO research needs to explore new approaches and methods.\n2. Country of origin branding research: Since the 1960s, research has explored the complexity of COO influences in branding (Agrawal and Kamakura, 1999; Bilkey and Nes, 1982; Dinnie, 2004a; Verlegh and Steenkamp, 1999). Schooler (1965) was the first to explore empirically the influence of COO on market participants' product evaluations. Roth and Romeo (1992) point to another early study of COO (by Nagashima, 1970), which defined country image as \"the picture, the reputation, the stereotype that businessmen [sic] and consumers attach to products of a specific country\" (p. 68). Table I gives a brief overview of selected COO research contributions to show the gradual progression of the field over 40 years, which has been by adding and testing more variables. To illustrate the field's development, Papadopoulos and Heslop (2002) identified 720 publications by over 780 authors in the 40 years or so up to 2002, and Magnusson and Westjohn (2011) identified over 100 studies on COO during a 10-year period. However, a wide-ranging evaluation of COO (Bhaskaran and Sukumaran, 2007) has questioned its role and effectiveness as a basis for developing theory and marketing practice. Thus, COO appears to have become diffuse as a concept, to the point where this research area may have reached a stalemate or impasse (Samiee, 2011) as multinational production, global branding and World Trade Organization (WTO) rules \"blur the COO issue and lessen its importance\" (Usunier, 2006, p. 61).\n3. Geographical indicators and country of origin branding: In a critique of COO branding, Samiee (2011) observed that:\n4. A strategic perspective for country of origin branding: Branding research has focused largely on consumer goods and consumer choice (Keller and Lehmann, 2006), leading to a dyadic view where the seller plays the active role of building the brand and the buyer is a receiver of brand communications. Within this dyadic perspective, the emphasis is on the brand as an identity and image. The trademark differentiates the firm's brand from another by its distinctive identity and image. The American Marketing Association (2004) glossary defines the brand as \"a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers\". Underpinning the identity and image perspective of branding are economic and psychological theories. The economic perspective draws on signaling theory (Erdem and Swait, 1998), while the psychological perspective draws on associative network memory concepts to develop theory about consumer brand knowledge (Keller, 1993). Most COO branding research applies either an economic and/or psychological theory and includes a pronounced dyadic buyer-seller (identity-image) perspective (Magnusson et al., 2011a, 2011b; Samiee, 2011).\n5. Theoretical framework for collective country of origin branding: The discussion in the previous section argued the need for a strategic perspective of branding where the COO brand also generates collective meaning in a marketing system which is made up of stakeholder networks. This leads us to develop an integrative theoretical framework that consists of branding in two phases. The first phase recognizes the traditional approach to branding involving an active seller and passive buyers and in which stakeholder interactions are coordinated by an industry marketing organization representing the industry in a country, thereby building the COO brand as identity and image. In the second phase, the emphasis shifts to a relational approach to COO branding, in which the COO branding facilitates an interactive process where collective meaning is developed, enhanced by the firms, trade, consumers and other stakeholders in the industry and market systems. In this second phase, the industry marketing organization orchestrates and facilitates activities within networks around a COO brand to create collective meaning built on a set of value propositions. The branding processes in Phase 2 involve developing the collective meaning around the brand identity and meaning established in Phase 1. This is illustrated in Figure 1.\n6. An illustrative case study: 6.1 Overview\n7. Implications: 7.1 Overview\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: A new conceptualization of the process of country of origin (COO) branding based on fresh theoretical foundations is developed. This paper aims to provide a strategic perspective that integrates extant views of COO branding, based on identity and image, with a relational perspective based on a process approach to developing collective brand meaning.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A systematic review of the literature on COO branding and geographical indicators is undertaken, together with a review of contemporary research on branding. Our framework conceptualizes COO branding as an integrating process that aligns a network of relationships to co-create collective meaning for the brand's value propositions.\nFindings: An illustrative case study provides empirical evidence to support the new theoretical framework.\nResearch limitations/implications: Issues for further research include exploring and refining the theoretical framework in other research contexts and investigating broader issues about how COO branding influences self and collective interests in business relationships and industry networks.\nPractical implications: Adopting a broadened perspective of COO branding enables managers to understand how identity and image are integrated with their business relationships in the context of developing collective brand meaning. Providing a sustained strategic advantage for all network actors, an integrated COO branding process extends beyond developing a distinctive identity and image.\nOriginality/value: Accepted consumer, product, firm and place level perspectives of COO branding are challenged by developing and verifying a new integrated conceptualization of branding.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Factors influencing consumer behaviour towards store brands: evidence from the French market
|
[
"Store brands",
"Store image perceptions",
"SB price‐image",
"SB value consciousness",
"Store familiarity",
"France",
"Brands",
"Brand image"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Store brands (SBs) have been increasingly investigated by marketing scholars and have been the focus of retail managers' interest (Hyman et al., 2010). SBs must be differentiated from private label brands (PLBs); the former indicates products with a retailer name, whilst the latter are not typically endorsed by a retailer. SBs experienced a phenomenal growth in various product categories during the past years (Baltas and Argouslidis, 2007). There are many incentives (e.g. increasing retail margins, building store loyalty, increasing store traffic, enhancing negotiating strength with manufacturers, etc.) for retailers to create SB programs (Baltas and Argouslidis, 2007; Binninger, 2008). In Western Europe, SB penetration exceeds 50 per cent of sales by volume in Switzerland and more than 35 per cent in major markets such as the UK, Belgium, Germany, and Spain (Lamey et al., 2007). Retailers are facing strong competitive pressure, leading them to launch an ever-increasing number of SBs. Today, SBs are growing faster than manufacturer brands (Kumar and Steenkamp, 2007). According to Grewal and Levy (2009, p. 523), \"we saw increasing evidence of store brands with similar quality levels coupled with 10-15 per cent lower prices than those charged by national brands.\" For retailers, the use of SBs is a reliable method to increase sales quickly at a relatively low cost.Simultaneously, consumers are now more willing to purchase SB products (PLMA, 2009) and are delighted to have SB lines available in stores in which they shop (Binninger, 2008). Several factors drive consumer willingness to purchase SB products: socio-demographic factors (Baltas and Argouslidis, 2007; Martinez and Montaner, 2008), economic factors (Lamey et al., 2007), and psychographic factors (Burton et al., 1998; Garretson et al., 2002; Jin and Suh, 2005). Socio-demographic factors include household income, the number of children in the household, gender, age, etc. Previous research showed that income and family size was strong determinants of store brand purchase behaviour (Burton et al., 1998; Martinez and Montaner, 2008). Economic factors are related to the economic cycle, whilst psychographic factors involve variables such as value consciousness, risk awareness, price-quality inferences, self-smart shopper perceptions, etc.Vahie and Paswan (2006) and Diallo (2012) highlighted the increasing importance of image factors in the perception of store brands. Indeed, given the increased improvement of SB product quality (Kumar and Steenkamp, 2007), factors related to image must be taken into account in SB purchase behaviour. However, to the best of our knowledge, no extant research has evaluated the joint impact of image and consumer factors on SB purchase. Consequently, the aim of this paper is to investigate the influence of image factors (store image perceptions and SB price-image), consumer factors (value consciousness and attitude toward SBs), and SB purchase intention on SB choice.The French market has been chosen because of convenience, but also because the retail market is very dynamic and store brands are developing quickly. SBs represent about 36 per cent of product sold by large retailers according to the last PLMA study[1]. Additionally, the French market has been investigated less than other Western markets such as the US (see Burton et al., 1998; Garretson et al., 2002), the UK (see Burt, 2000; Burt and Sparks, 2002), and Spain (see Martinez and Montaner, 2008). Cliquet and Jara (2012) studied SB equity in France, and Binninger (2008) investigated the relationship between SBs and consumer store loyalty in the French context. However, many other variables (e.g. store image, value consciousness, and SB attitude) have been studied less in relationship to SBs in France. This gap may be related to the fact SBs have been long considered as non-brands in France where Carrefour popularised the \"free products\" in the 1970 s.The intended contribution of this paper is three-fold. First, we emphasise both consumer and image factors (store image and SB price-image); previous research focused mainly on perceptual, demographic, and psychographic ones (Jin and Suh, 2005; Garretson et al., 2002). Second, we propose and validate a partial mediation model of consumer choice of SBs in the less-investigated European market, despite the strong presence of mass retailers and SBs in this market. Third, we investigate the influence of store familiarity on SB purchase behaviour; previous studies did not widely address this issue, or were more interested in the effect of brand familiarity on SB purchase behaviour (Richardson, 1997). This study fills a gap in this research area by showing how consumer factors (value consciousness, SB attitude, and SB purchase intention) and image factors (store image perceptions and SB price-image) have significant effects on SB purchase behaviour.The paper is organised by presenting the theoretical framework and the hypotheses development, outlining the study's methodology with a focus on data collection and measurement issues, detailing the results, and discussing the findings, proposing managerial implications, and pointing out limitations and research orientations for future studies.\n2. Theoretical framework and hypotheses development: According to Jin and Suh (2005), most of the consumer factors associated with SB purchase behaviour can be grouped in three categories: personality (Burton et al., 1998), perceptual (Garretson et al., 2002), and socioeconomic (Baltas and Argouslidis, 2007; Martinez and Montaner, 2008). In previous studies, consumer perceptual characteristics such as price-quality perception, perceived quality, value consciousness, price consciousness, smart-shopper self-perception, and general deal proneness were associated with SB purchase (Garretson et al., 2002). In this research, we argue that image factors must be taken into account as consumers use image perceptions to make inference about SB perceived quality (Richardson et al., 1994). SBs have also achieved greater quality improvement in recent years, allowing the enhancement of image factors within SB purchase behaviour.Figure 1 summarises our conceptual model in which store image perception, SB price-image, value consciousness, and attitude toward SB influence SB choice directly or indirectly through the mediation of SB purchase intention. We not only test this model, but we also assess two other competitive models: a full mediation alternative[2] and a model that includes control variables (age, gender, household income, and family size).2.1 Store image perceptions\n3. Research methodology: 3.1 Data collection and sample\n4. Analysis and results: 4.1 Measurement model testing\n5. Discussion and implications: 5.1 Summary and theoretical implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to investigate how consumer and image factors as well as store familiarity influence store brand (SB) purchase behaviour. SBs are now widely offered by European mass retailers. However, consumer behaviour toward SBs is not yet clearly understood in all European markets.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The authors analysed data collected from 266 respondents and used structural equation modelling to test the main hypotheses. They then carried out ANOVA and MANOVA analyses to test the effect of store familiarity on SB purchase behaviour.\nFindings: - Results indicate that store image perceptions, SB price-image, value consciousness, and SB attitude have significant and positive influence on SB purchase behaviour. Store familiarity positively influences SB choice, but not SB purchase intention. None of the socio-demographic variables (age, gender, household income, and family size) included as control variables have an effect on SB choice.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The study is limited because it did not account for the effect of product categories on SB purchase behaviour. Consequently, results cannot be determined for different product categories. It would also be appropriate to measure SB choice in a more concrete way, such as using scanner data.\nPractical implications: - Findings highlight the importance of value consciousness, store image perceptions, and SB price-image on SB purchase behaviour. They also show greater popularity of SB products among consumers, including those with high household income.\nOriginality/value: - There is increased value to retailers in studying how consumer and image factors jointly influence SB purchase behaviour, whilst also accounting for store familiarity instead of brand familiarity.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Mobile device users' privacy security assurance behavior: A technology threat avoidance perspective
|
[
"Awareness",
"Privacy concern",
"Mobile device",
"Information privacy",
"Privacy security assurance behavior"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Mobile devices allow individuals to take advantage of a digital life. A survey showed that 75.8 per cent of users stored personal data on their mobile devices, and 35.8 per cent stored business data (Mylonas et al., 2013). However, privacy security in mobile devices is increasingly facing serious problems. People's data are always at risk if they are unable or fail to secure their mobile devices (Harris et al., 2014). Some users download third-party apps through unofficial channels, the security of which is difficult to guarantee (Li et al., 2014; Mylonas et al., 2013). In addition, an increasing number of users suffer from the privacy threats of malicious information technology (IT), such as mobile viruses, phishing links and malicious apps. Investigation has shown that 82 per cent of malicious apps can collect, send or receive short messages (Websence, 2013), and 31 per cent of phone users have reported receiving short messages with embedded malicious links from strangers (Norton, 2012).\n2. Information privacy and privacy protection: Information privacy is defined as \"the interest an individual has in controlling, or at least significantly influencing, the handling of data about themselves\" (Clarke, 1999). It explains personal willingness to disclose or provide one's information. Privacy concern represents the anxious sense of interest that arises due to various threats to people's state of being free from intrusion (Malhotra et al., 2004).When personal information is illegally collected or used by strangers, users may become concerned about their information privacy (Nowak and Phelps, 1997). Privacy concern can also be triggered when people submit their personal information to Web servers either voluntarily or involuntarily (Dinev and Hart, 2006).\n3. Theoretical background and hypotheses development: TTAT is specially developed for understanding personal motivations when facing IT threats and is useful for explaining voluntary behavior in non-work settings where IT security is not mandated (Liang and Xue, 2010). This theory includes two rational processes: threat appraisal and coping appraisal (Liang and Xue, 2009). Threat appraisal is a judgment of IT threats that consists of two dimensions: perceived susceptibility and perceived severity. Perceived susceptibility captures an individual's perception of the probability that malicious IT can negatively affect them, and perceived severity describes an individual's perception of the gravity of the consequences that they may suffer as a result of malicious IT. When people believe that IT threats are inevitable and/or have serious consequences, they tend to use coping appraisal. People assess effectiveness, cost and self-efficacy to determine whether security measures are worth taking. The usefulness of measures is evaluated by the perceived effectiveness. The perceived cost entails the physical and cognitive efforts that are needed to use security measures such as time, money and energy. Self-efficacy represents the personal belief in taking these measures. When people believe that safety measures are effective and low cost, and they trust in and have the ability to utilize these measures, the problem-focused coping approach is used to mitigate threats.\n4. Research method: 4.1 Instrument development\n5. Data analysis and results: 5.1 Measurement validation\n6. Discussion and conclusion: 6.1 Academic contributions\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Recently, the spread of malicious IT has been causing serious privacy threats to mobile device users, which hampers the efficient use of mobile devices for individual and business. To understand the privacy security assurance behavior of mobile device users, this study aims to develop a theoretical model based on technology threat avoidance theory (TTAT), to capture motivation factors in predicting mobile device user's voluntary adoption of security defensive software.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A survey is conducted to validate the proposed research model. A total of 284 valid survey data are collected and partial least square (PLS)-based structural equation modeling is used to test the model.\nFindings: Results highlight that both privacy concern and coping appraisal have a significant impact on the intention to adopt the security defensive software. Meanwhile, privacy security awareness is a crucial determinant to stimulate mobile device user's threat and coping appraisal processes in the voluntary context. The results indicate that emotional-based coping appraisal of anticipated regret is also imperative to arouse personal intention to adopt the security tool.\nPractical implications: This result should be of interest to practitioners. Information security awareness training and education programs should be developed in a variety of forms to intensify personal security knowledge and skills. Besides, emotion-based warnings can be designed to arouse users' protection behavior.\nOriginality/value: This paper embeds TTAT theory within the mobile security context. The authors extent TTAT by taking anticipated regret into consideration to capture emotional-based coping appraisal, and information security awareness is employed as the antecedent factor. The extent offers a useful starting point for the further empirical study of emotion elements in the information security context.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Library consortium: IITA, Ibadan, Nigeria experience
|
[
"Consortium",
"Libraries",
"Nigeria",
"Resource sharing",
"Agricultural institutions",
"Resource allocation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Libraries in many countries, especially developing countries like Nigeria, are under-funded. It therefore becomes difficult to meet basic needs and provide adequate information access that will help improve economic development in these countries. Even where a library has the necessary financial backing, it is not possible to be self-sufficient. Membership of a consortium can be one approach to addressing the problem of accessing information, compensating for under-funding, cost avoidance and preventing unnecessary duplicate collections among libraries. Consortia enable libraries to be connected to one another for resource-sharing and attaining a stronger position in the national/international information network. Cost avoidance, improved access and increased resource sharing experienced by the IITA library in Nigeria is an example of the significant improvements that can be realised by libraries in developing countries through membership of a consortium.\nLibrary consortium: (Kopp, 1998) traced the origin of the usage of the word consortium and stated that it first began to appear in the library literature as well as in the field of science and education during the 1950s and 1960s. The author concluded that the concept of library consortium was used to characterise libraries cooperating as a group to:* negotiate with providers of information services;* partner to share resources and services; or* lobby their government for better funding.This was supported by Ngwira (2003), Bashirullah and Jayaro (2006) and Anwar and Al-Jasem (2001). In their article on the development of consortia, Nfila and Darko-Ampem (2002) reviewed developments in academic library consortia literature from the 1960s through 2000 and reported that \"the current trend is sharing integrated library systems and computer databases, collection development, purchasing of electronic journals, and staff development\". Their report posits that consortium have been effective at extending resources and, improving service to users and per-unit costs and are now expanding the role of consortia to shared technologies and more formal agreements (Nfila and Darko-Ampem, 2002).Historically libraries have used interlibrary loan and union catalogues as the foundation for successful library consortia. In addition to the now common academic consortia model, subject-specific library consortia, such as agricultural consortia, also aim at ensuring satisfaction of their specialised researchers' information needs. Library consortia can be practised at regional, national and international levels. Cohen (2002) reported that regional sharing of resources made the limited resources of individual institutions into wealthy collections that could serve the information needs of the Pacific region. Consortia can also be operated as associations of schools, colleges, universities (whether federal or state), or research institutions or non-governmental organisations' libraries. Consortia aim at provision of the best services to patrons with minimal cost. Furthermore, such consortia can be established on the basis of the subject backgrounds of the interested bodies. However, a consortium with a joint subscription to electronic resources faces the challenges of fair dealing and agreement on the subjects to be covered for the individual institutions involved (Ramos and Kamsiah, 2005). The advent of information and communications technology (ICT) and electronic publishing (i.e. \"born digital\" information resources) have made it quick and easy to achieve the purpose of a consortium.Availability of infrastructure combined with sufficient capacity of the staff involved can result in an extremely successful library consortium. Resource sharing in the form of cooperation has been a long-standing tradition and a part of libraries worldwide. One of the more well known examples of library cooperation is OCLC, which grew from a shared-cataloguing consortium called the Ohio College Library Center. (OCLC, n.d.) In Nigeria there was the VTLS project funded by MacArthur and Carnegie, and the Mortenson Center for International Library programs, USA. It aimed at automating Nigerian libraries' collections, which eventually would result in improved library cooperative practices. Six Nigerian university libraries (University of Ibadan, University of Jos, University of Port Harcourt, Obafemi Awolowo University, Bayero University and Ahmadu Bello University) participated in the project by using Virtua. Full exploration of VTLS would enhance access by users and information professionals to library collections and services of the six universities virtually. The VTLS project could also lead to networking of more libraries and consortium building to overcome the under-funding problems in attaining richer resources to satisfy users' needs (Mortenson and McArthur, 2005).Prior to automation, interlibrary loan transactions were traditionally processed and sent to the requestor(s) through ground postal service, airmail or through a personal contact, a practice now known as \"snail mail\". It frequently took some days or months before the requestor could receive the document(s). But with the advent of information and communications technology (ICT), users get the information needed within the shortest possible time - hours and sometimes minutes. This also involves the role of librarians/information professionals with the skills to perform these functions (Ashcroft and Watts, 2005). Training and retraining of librarians from time to time to maintain the relevance of their responsibilities in the digital age is essential (Komolafe-Opadeji, 2009). Information technology is dynamic in this digital era; without continual training one's skill set quickly becomes obsolete. Furthermore, individual and centralised online public access catalogues (COPACs) of organisations, available on the internet, assist users as well as librarians from any part of the world to search library collections and make a request if need be. This could also be seen as virtual service to a virtual clientele. Through self-service people can search libraries' holdings remotely, discover the status of the materials they need, place a hold, or request or renew materials already borrowed as the case may be. Users can also print, download, send links, and save copies. This access and ease of sharing requires the information literacy skills essential to ensure the ethical use of library resources by researchers (Angello, 2010).\nLibrary consortium in developed and developing countries: The formation of library consortia is limited to any single continent or library type. This is a worldwide trend. In developed countries for example, the budget of the Canada Library and Archives has been downsized multiple times over the last 20 years, which brought about the Federal Libraries Consortium (FLA) (National Library and Archives Canada, 2009). This spurred their effort to cooperate in order to rationalise services and collections to meet the challenge of serving the diverse user needs in the country. Membership of FLA is voluntary and open to all Canadian federal government libraries. The National Library of Canada gives its support, while funding for the consortium is provided through membership fees. The consortium has grown to include 117 member libraries from different federal government departments and agencies. On the other side of the world in Turkey, the Anatolian University Library Consortium (AULC) was formed in 2000 with 12 members and has grown rapidly to 163 members in 2012 (ANKOS Anatolian University Libraries Consortium, n.d.). Consortium members could access electronic journals, e-references, bibliographic databases, and e-book collections. It was observed that electronic journals were used primarily by graduate students and academic staff of the consortium universities; undergraduates were less likely to need those same resources (Karasozen, 2008). Furthermore, in the UK, a consortium of academic libraries called M25 has been established to share purchase, subscriptions of resources at discounted rates as well as sharing of different integrated library systems to enhance teaching, learning and research (M25 Consortium of Academic Libraries, n.d.).Library Consortium are also gaining ground in the developing countries because of its positive impact on the teaching, learning and development. Ghosh et al. (2006), in their analysis of the Indian Library Consortium (ILC), posited that Indian libraries, in general, were passing through a crucial period of advancement \"where automation and networking have become quite well developed in India's special and academic libraries though such facilities implementation lags far behind in the public libraries\" (Ghosh et al., 2006). Moreover, Bozimo (2011) reported on the formation of the Nigerian University Libraries Consortium (NULIB)[1]. The major challenge among others facing its sustainability is funding. Bozimo (2011) recommended proactive strategies for sourcing fund and, at a conference on Open Access Repositories, the accelerated adoption of an Open Access model for Nigeria (Open Access News, 2008).\nLibrary consortium - IITA experience: The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA)[2] is a non-profit organisation established in the year 1967 with headquarters in Nigeria serving sub-Saharan Africa with 13 stations to alleviate poverty, food security and improve the livelihood of the citizens. (International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, 2009) It is one of Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)[3] centres aimed at taming hunger and poverty. In their article on consortia subscriptions Ramos and Kamsiah (2005) discuss the formation of the CGIAR library consortium when, in 2002, the CGIAR centre directors signed a Memorandum of Understanding in support of the formation of a library consortium with the following objectives:* \"share resources and knowledge\", such as joint journal subscriptions and document delivery;* services, content, expertise, technologies, and processes;* facilitate access to information held at all CG centres by centre staff and partners, particularly those located in developing countries where information access is limited;* contribute to the dissemination of CGIAR research output;* implement the intended collaboration by jointly developing and executing projects within the CGIAR and in collaboration with other institutions and partners (e.g. FAO, USDA-AgNIC, scientific publishers) and through other initiatives;* exchange best practices in knowledge and information management\" (Ramos and Kamsiah, 2005).Centralizing acquisition and collection development of resources, maintenance and sharing of individual independent collections has made the centre libraries a unified entity in support of research for development and its sustainability. As a member of the consortium, an IITA library can access the full text of jointly subscribed journal titles as well as tables of contents via Swetswise, which serves all the IITA stations in sub-Saharan Africa. Moreover, the 16 centre libraries purchased Inmagic web publisher, which they use to manage their individual library collections.The members' use of Inmagic allowed them to create the centralised online public access catalog (COPAC) called the CGV Library[4], which can be accessed online via the internet. The effect of the integrated library catalogue of the CGIAR centres was to enable the 16 libraries to search and discover the resources across the collections of all libraries virtually at any point in time regardless of their location. This also facilitated effective interlibrary loan and electronic document delivery services. As part of this consortium arrangement, the IITA library was registered as a member of the CGIAR libraries listserv. Using CGV Library for discovery and verification and the listserv for communication, IITA places request(s) for journal articles or book chapter(s) that are not among the jointly acquired resources online and receives them in under 30 minutes without additional cost whenever the need arises. The article is then passed on to the scientist or staff member who requested it. While basic, this is an effective form of electronic document delivery.Among the benefits derived by IITA from the CGIAR Libraries consortium is enhanced access to a broader set of resources, which has helped to provide timely service to our clientele regardless of their location. Our improved document delivery raised the visibility of the library while reducing the costs for purchasing content from commercial document services. This automatically reduces demands on the purse of the library. In addition, centralised negotiation and the administration of licensing content and maintenance of the catalogue results in minimal oversight by individual libraries.\nChallenges: As with nearly every library, dwindling budgets, the information explosion as a result of new titles, and the rise in the cost of electronic resources limits our ability to purchase new acquisitions and support subscription renewals. Hence, libraries find it difficult to meet some of the information needs of researchers. Libraries resort to buying single articles from the British Lending Library, publishers' websites and, at times, travel to the University of Ibadan, some ministry libraries or other agricultural libraries in Nigeria. However, we are able to find some resources freely available online, which could be as a result of Open Access initiatives or the author being required to include their content in an institutional repository. Keeping the catalogue current is another challenge; delayed updates by the member libraries of their new acquisitions prevents discovery of those resources by other members of the consortium. There are also ongoing maintenance issues such as upgrading of hardware and software. The resulting downtime renders information inaccessible and disconnects a library from other centres.\nProspects: Because of the ability to see the resources held by other member libraries, the consortium can reduce the number of duplicates across libraries, allowing for more diverse collections and more effective use of materials budgets. The centralised electronic databases of holdings can be accessed and requests placed electronically, as described earlier in this article. Consortium member libraries also save time and money by eliminating the need to acquire and manage individual subscriptions. Moreover, these efficiencies have strengthened the sense of team spirit among libraries and made them more committed to the vision and goals of the consortium. Furthermore, information and portable document files can be transferred across borders electronically. Users enjoy fast delivery of materials for personal and research purposes. In addition, electronic resources can be used by more than one person at a time.\nConclusion: Without doubt, the state of libraries in developing countries such as Nigeria leaves room for development and improvement. IITA Library as a role model of a consortium of agricultural research institutes in Nigeria has contributed to closing the research gap between developing and developed countries and ahs made research collaboration possible. Nigerian libraries - especially agricultural libraries - can tap into its world of experience to make it consortia a reality in the Nigerian context. Automation and networking will continue to increase among Nigerian libraries as consortia continually gain ground. Library consortia, sharing integrated library systems and databases, joint acquisition and collection development of digital libraries, electronic journals, e-books and staff development can all be made possible through cooperation.\nRecommendation: With the present economic crisis in developing countries such as Nigeria, where currency devaluation and budget reductions are an ongoing challenge, the author recommends that Nigerian libraries, be they university, special, research school or public, meet and form a consortium that best suits their purpose. The consortium, when in place, would bring about:* a reduction in the cost of subscriptions;* an easier payments system;* cooperation, promotion of libraries and resource sharing;* optimisation and rationalisation of collection development;* the development of a national/centralised catalogue of library publications with the purpose of reciprocal borrowing privileges;* promotion of national library networking;* training in the form of exchange for information literacy; and* creating pressure on national bodies and ministries for better funding allocations for libraries in Nigeria.When adopted and implemented among Nigerian libraries, a national consortium will go a long way towards the development of a more diverse and rich set of resources for the country. This will further strengthen Nigerian libraries in serving their clientele. It will also foster private public partnerships that will raise higher hopes for international relationships among government and non-governmental organisation libraries within and outside the country.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to describe the library consortium experienced at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Nigeria. Activities involved improving researchers' timely access to resources for research for development.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The approach taken was a librarian interview and observation of library records.\nFindings: - The consortium involves agricultural libraries in both developing and developed countries. Using the library software Inmagic database enhances the web-based centralized online public access catalogue of all the participating institutions, the CGV Library. This enabled access to their comprehensive collections, promoting better library services to agricultural researchers. Hence, it bridges the digital gap between developing and developed countries. They are involved in joint acquisition of electronic journals and timely response to sharing their independent collections through electronic document delivery services.\nPractical implications: - The paper recommends that Nigerian libraries, especially agricultural research institutes, could emulate the IITA library consortium.\nOriginality/value: - The paper provides recommendations to libraries wishing to form consortia in Nigeria and notes the positive impacts that this would have on national development.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Shopping centre image dynamics of a new entrant
|
[
"Shopping centres",
"Consumer behaviour",
"Portugal"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: A new retail operator starts his business in a metropolitan urban area. This structural market modification produces some changes, not only on the existing operators but also on the new one. The strategy formulation, timing of implementation and the intensity of reaction depend on the assessment and the diagnosis of the new competitive environment. Handbooks on \"How to cope with a new entrant\" advise managers firstly to learn from the way customers perceive the new competitive market arena. \"Positioning\" appears as an analytical tool, designed to understand how all competitors manage to gain or lose advantage in that market (Porter, 1980; Hooley et al., 1993). However, the positioning concept emerged in connection with image research long ago. Theoretically, and empirically, image was a \"trendy\" concept from 1950s to 1970s. Researchers like Martineau (1958), Berry (1969), May (1974-1975), Lindquist (1974-1975) and Oxenfeldt (1974-1975) and many others have pressed for making the role of image a popular issue among managers and marketing researchers.This study addresses the competitive context presented above. Specifically, we study the impact on retail image after a change in the competitive market structure. The goal of this paper is twofold: First, we design and present an analytical tool to track and pinpoint the managerial consequences of the image change covering all competitors. Second, we intend to assess whether and to what extent variables such as the degree of shoppers' self-confidence in evaluating image, shopping frequency, degree of the \"halo effect\" and consumers' preferences of retailers affect the magnitude of shopping centres' attribute perception variations.To the best of our knowledge there is no research on the relationship between the level of shopping centre image variation and the factors mentioned above.The remainder of the paper focuses on shopping centre image theory and the description of the analytical tool. The methodology is described and the results, as well as the discussion are shown.\n2 Shopping centre image: 2.1 Image literature\n3 Hypothesis formulation: Attitude is not a static psychological feature, but a flexible one. That's why it is described in terms of degree. Generally, the relative strength of an attitude is positively linked to such factors as affective intensity, certainty, interest in relevant information, direct behavioural experience and affective-cognitive consistency, for example (Fazio and Zanna, 1978; Krosnick et al., 1993; Fazio et al., 2000). Furthermore, those factors intervene directly on the attitudinal stability over time and on resistance to persuasion attempts. Stated differently, attitudinal change is operationally constrained by the affective intensity, certainty (or self-confidence) and direct behavioural experience among other variables (Lavine et al., 1998). Consumer knowledge can be assessed through objective measures and subjective measures. The former, designed to assess a respondent's actual knowledge, uses a test based on a standardised scale and is product-specific. The latter expresses a kind of feeling-of-knowing or the consumer's self-evaluation of his/her own knowledge. Both measures show a convergent validity. The self-reported knowledge is strongly correlated with affect (Cole et al., 1986) and has a more motivational underpinning than the objective measure (Flynn and Goldsmith, 1999). It is very likely that resistance to change (images) is associated both to certainty (self-confidence) about this knowledge and strong preferences. As shopping experiences in the new retail setting enhance the learning process we can expect that the attitudinal attribute evaluation is progressively updated:H1. The degree of self-confidence in evaluating shopping centres' image is negatively correlated with the magnitude of the image variation.The relationship between retail patronage and image is positive. That was one of the conclusions obtained through a meta-analysis research based on an extensive and critical review of retailing literature (Pan and Zinkhan, 2006). Among the determinants of retail shopping choice and frequency of visits several image attributes were found to be statistically relevant, such as atmosphere and service (Severin et al., 2001; Frasquet et al., 2001). Reversing that logic, we can also assume that the process of formation of shopping centre image is a function of consumer behavioural patterns and intensity. Thus, more visits to the shopping centre means engaging in a learning process contributing to a higher stability on image evaluation over time:H2. Shopping frequency is negatively correlated with the magnitude of the image variation.Anselmsson (2006) identified several shopping centre image attributes, which were also a source of shopper satisfaction. If we assume satisfaction or the lack of it as an antecedent variable of preference changes, the consumer shopping centre evaluation can be statistically associated with a shift on both shopping centre and store preference (Dabholkar et al., 2000). Apart from the behavioural aspect, a higher emotional attachment - preference - leads to greater involvement and store/shopping centre's attribute cognitive processing too (Solomon, 2004):H3. The shift on store preferences between those two measurement periods corresponds to changes in the magnitude of the shopping centre's attribute perception.H4. The shift on shopping centre preferences between those two measurement periods corresponds to changes in the magnitude of the shopping centre's attribute perception.Thorndike (1920) coined the term \"halo effect\" to describe the tendency of a consumer's overall image of an object/person to affect the evaluation of individual attributes. The general impression of an object that is being rated influences the judgement concerning the specific traits/attributes in a systematic way, either to inflate or to deflate her/his ratings. For instance, if a consumer/judge has an overall positive attitude, all specific attributes are very likely rated within a superior standard biasing uniformly those individual attributes. Conversely, a negative attitude toward an object leads to an unfavourable rating regardless of the nature or the specificity of the attributes. The existence of the halo effect means that the general impression one has about an object/person misleadingly influences judgements on the individual details or specific attributes in exactly the same direction as the overall impression. Operationally, the dispersion of attributes ratings against their average mathematically captures the halo effect. The higher the dispersion the lower the halo effect degree (Wu and Petroshius, 1987).Wu and Petroshius' (1987) analysis pointed out the internal and external factors influencing the degree of the halo effect measurement. Apparently, not all studies were conclusive, although familiarity with the object seemed to affect the magnitude of the \"halo effect\". The direction of the statistical association between the extent of image change and the degree of halo effect is not predictable. It is expected that if a consumer has a change in her/his image of a shopping centre consistently that change is statistically associated with the dispersion of the ratings of that object's attributes:H5. The magnitude of shopping centre's attribute perception changes between the two measurement periods is correlated with the degree of the \"halo effect\".\n4 Methodology: 4.1 Context\n5 Results: 5.1 Image dynamics: descriptive approach\n6 Conclusions: This paper comprises two contributions. In the first one we presented and applied an analytical tool used to track image change over time and to acquire strategic information regarding the shopping centre performance. Apparently, the type and number of attributes changing over time did not influence the magnitude of that change. That is, the overall intensity of image change and the quantity of variables/attributes contributing to that change are distinct aspects. Therefore, the impact of the new entrant on its own image dynamics depends more on the magnitude than on the number of attributes involved in that change. The second part of this study found that shopping experience and preference engaged on the new entrant is inversely related with image's magnitude changes. An opposite pattern occurred with the \"halo effect,\" which is logically consistent with previous outcome.6.1 Managerial implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to investigate how and to what extent the attributes of a new shopping centre entrant evolve during the first seven months of operation, and the implications this has for the incumbents. To capture the strategic relevance of those changes a consumer image tracking analytical tool is developed and applied.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Qualitative research followed by a longitudinal survey. Hypothesis testing approach and descriptive analysis.\nFindings: - The correlates between the magnitudes of shopping centre attribute perception variations, the level of self-confidence in image evaluation, shopping centre frequency of visits, degree of the \"halo effect\", shopping centre and store consumer's preferences are analysed. Only the self-confidence and store preference did not evolve with the image magnitude changes as hypothesised.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The assessment of shopping centre image changes over time, as well as the factors underlying those changes help managers to plan strategy. Some monitoring procedures are proposed and their implications for both marketing and shopping centre operations are discussed.\nOriginality/value: - By incorporating the time dimension, the true nature of image variation can only be captured if the identification of attributes, and the amount, intensity and direction of changes are obtained, measured and analysed together. The magnitude of image variation is more associated with a shopping centre than with its stores.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Mortgage Securitization System (MSS) (a complementary system of Rastin Banking)
|
[
"Securitization",
"Guarantee",
"Rastin Banking",
"Collateral",
"Mortgage",
"Guarantee certificate"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Rastin Banking (Bidabad, 2014a, 2014b, www.bidabad.com) is a new Islamic banking system that studies theoretical and empirical problems of banking activities and operations and introduces legal and executive solutions according to the latest scientific and technical findings in the fields. Each subsystem of Rastin Banking has been designed to remove specific problems of banking operations. The mortgage securitization system (MSS) was designed to provide necessary arrangements for transforming assets into negotiable papers, namely, guarantee certificates.\nMortgage: Etymologically, mortgage means to be pledged or obliged in something, and it is a synonym for the word \"collateral\". In other words, mortgage is pledging (mortgaging) some assets to obtain a loan until repayment. In Islamic jurisprudence, \"mortgage\" is defined as a contract to assure the creditor to debt to the debtor[1]; moreover, the pledged asset is called the \"mortgaged\" or beholden (rahn or marhounah), the one who gives the asset as mortgage is called the \"mortgager/mortgagor\" (rahin) and the receiver of this asset is called the \"mortgagee\" (mortahin). For the mortgage contract to be juristically correct, it needs the assertion of the mortgager and the acceptance of the mortgagee. Other qualifications of these persons are similar to those necessary for other contracts, including maturity, insaneness, free decision, etc. In Civil Law (www.ghavanin.ir)[2], mortgage[3] is a contract according to which the debtor gives some assets to the creditor as collateral. This contract is revocable for the mortgagee and irrevocable for the mortgager[4]. However, this issue does not mean that other regulations of revocable contracts cover this contract; this is because the mortgage contract is not cancelled by death or insaneness of each party of the contract[5]. Mortgaging any movable and immovable asset is possible if it is a financial asset and has a rational benefit. Accordingly, in compliance to juristic rules, the following elements are to be observed in mortgage contracts (Langaroudi, 2002):\nGuarantee certificate: New and innovative financial instruments such as Rastin Certificates are used in the Rastin PLS[6] Banking system. A \"Guarantee Certificate\" is a named document that shows the guarantee of a certain amount of money and is issued by the notary office upon the mortgaged asset, and if the obligation is not fulfilled, the owner must compensate it; otherwise, the mortgaged asset will be sold through an auction and the claim of the acceptor will be settled.\nMortgage securitization system: By evaluating the value of the assets of the client with a less margin percent and deducting registration, auction, commission and other acceptable costs, the notary office will issue guarantee certificate lots for a certain period. The margin is determined by the Documents and Property Registration Organization. The owners of these certificates can offer their certificates as guarantee or collateral to the banks and the other real persons or legal entities and other institutions on behalf of themselves (personally) or on vice-behalf (representatively).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to define a new system to facilitate obtaining reliable collaterals and guarantees for financial activities from tangible assets through a new financial instrument of \"guarantee certificates\".\nDesign/methodology/approach: This system makes it possible to securitize movable/immovable assets into negotiable paper lots, namely, \"guarantee certificates\". Each lot of these certificates can be used as a guarantee or collateral for any guarantee-backed activity in banks or other activities.\nFindings: The mortgage securitization system (MSS) securitizes tangible assets and provides necessary collaterals and guarantees to be used for different purposes. The operations are carried out through notary offices. This system, as a complementary system of the Rastin Banking system, can also be executed separately.\nResearch limitations/implications: The system is novel and needs to be more elaborated for further practical development and adjustment. Although this paper deals with only securitization of tangible assets, research can also be extended to securitization of intangible assets, through new institutions and rules.\nPractical implications: Many properties and assets can be used as guarantees for observing obligations. The available ways for changing (especially large) properties into small guarantees are not easy and efficient. The MSS was designed to break large assets into many guarantee (certificate) lots and reduce the formalities of mortgaging and its transfer.\nSocial implications: This system provides reliance and security upon collaterals and conditions for fast claim-clearing and low formalities without time-consuming adjudication processes.\nOriginality/value: Complementary systems in Rastin Banking have been designed to solve prevailing problems of banking and financial activities. The MSS was designed to provide necessary arrangements for transforming assets into negotiable papers.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Examining effects of internal public relations practices on organizational social capital in the Korean context: Mediating roles of employee-organization relationships
|
[
"Organization-public relationships",
"Two-way communication",
"Organizational social capital",
"Korean contexts",
"Symmetrical communication"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: As organizational resources, internal publics (e.g. employees) can play a key role in determining organizational performance (Crane et al., 2004). In addition, because they form a communication channel, employees can interact with external publics to deliver positive messages about their organizations (Center and Jackson, 2003) and defend their organizations against scandals (Kim and Rhee, 2011). Those approaches suggest that employees' participation or engagement in organizational behaviors benefits their organizations.\nLiterature review: Effectiveness of internal public relations practices: employee-organization relationships\nMethod: General procedures\nResults: Construction of measures\nDiscussion: This study examined how organizational social capital was created and maintained in the Korean context, exploring the linkages among internal communication strategies (e.g. two-way and symmetrical communication), employee-organization relationships, and organizational social capital. The results of this study showed that two-way and symmetrical internal communication strategies were associated positively with the quality of employee-organization relationships and organizational social capital. Additionally, satisfaction and control mutuality among the quality of employee-organization relationships were associated positively with organizational social capital. By reviewing and testing four conditions of mediation effects (Baron and Kenny, 1986), this study found that satisfaction and control mutuality had mediating effects on the relations between internal communication strategies and organizational social capital.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how internal public relations practices (e.g. internal communication and relationship management strategies) enhance employees' organizational social capital in the Korean context by examining the mediation roles of employee-organization relationships.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The researcher then recruited 23 field research assistants to collect data from 23 organizations in South Korea. For the purpose of this study, the researcher trained each of the research assistants, kept the confidentiality of each research participant, and used common methods of data collection. After this training process, the research assistants distributed an online link and encouraged employees in 23 organizations to participate in this survey. From these 23 organizations, 287 participants completed the survey. However, the authors had to delete 11 invalid responses. Consequently, the authors used a total of 276 responses to analyze the data.\nFindings: The results of this study showed that two-way and symmetrical internal communication strategies were associated positively with employee-organization relationships and organizational social capital. Additionally, satisfaction and control mutuality had mediating effects on the relations between internal communication strategies and organizational social capital.\nOriginality/value: These results contribute to expanding the functions of internal public relations practices into organizational social capital.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A global exploration of Big Data in the supply chain
|
[
"Big Data",
"Governance",
"Effectiveness",
"Relationships",
"Efficiency",
"Integration",
"Global",
"Transparency"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: \"Big Data\" is industry's hottest buzzword (see Waller and Fawcett, 2013). Consultants proclaim that Big Data will revolutionize industry and decision making. Current investments suggest Big Data's importance: International Data Corporation \"predicts that the market for Big Data will reach $16.1 billion in 2014, grow six times faster than the overall IT market[1].\" Still, some practitioners fear that Big Data's value is exaggerated and view it as little more than an extension of forecasting or traditional marketing research. Unfortunately, as is the case with many hot topics and buzzwords, supply chain research with useful implications is lacking. \"[T]here is very little published management scholarship that tackles the challenges of using such tool; or better yet, [that] explores the promise and opportunities for new theories and practices that Big Data might bring about\" (George et al., 2014, p. 321). In fact, there is almost no consistency in defining Big Data, identifying its purpose, or establishing its role in supply chain management. Thanks to a grant from the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals, we seek answers to questions about whether supply chain partners employ Big Data in supply chain strategy, the theoretical origins of Big Data's potential to influence supply chain performance, and the obstacles to developing its potential.\nResearch questions: The discussion of \"what\" Big Data \"is\" remains incomplete. Industry provides no complete and specific definition. Popular literature discusses volume, velocity, variety, and veracity, but gives limited definitions of each. Supply chain managers remain confused about Big Data's creation and sourcing (Richey et al., 2015). This study treats Big Data as both strategic and operational, so our first step was to develop an understanding of what supply chain managers think Big Data is from their perspective. This definition must be confirmed before accurate future research can be performed (Richey et al., 2015).\nResearch method: We used a native category approach in our research methodology. Often used in sociology and anthropology research, the native categories approach avoids interviewer historical bias by sequentially and increasingly removing the interviewer from direction of the interview process (Harris, 2000). The approach is designed to force respondents into open-ended discussions with the interviewer, centering future questioning on the key comments made by the respondent. This method of qualitative research proves especially valuable and appropriate when the phenomena studied are not precisely understood, as well as when the researcher needs to draw perspective from subjects experiencing the phenomena (Corbin and Strauss, 2008). This allows relevant factors to emerge from the data. In line with naturalistic views (Lincoln and Guba, 1985), this study employs purposive sampling (Kuzel, 1992) and reputational case selection (Goetz and LeCompte, 1984), seeking out subjects likely to have a rich understanding of our phenomenon of interest, but with varied perspectives. Purposive sampling is often used in qualitative research when the subjects selected possess experience congruent with the research objective (Guest et al., 2006). Using the CSCMP membership roster and known industry participants, we identified managers from several countries who are known for using information technology across supply chain relationships. We sought to develop a breadth of understanding across several countries.\nSampling and data collection: Subjects in Brazil, Germany, South Africa, and the UK were reluctant to discuss company strategy, so we augmented our sample by using a comparable case approach (Goetz and LeCompte, 1984) and solicited members to volunteer contact information of other executives qualified to participate in the study. The referral approach was positive in Germany (six respondents), but resulted in only single completed interviews in Brazil and South Africa and no responses from the UK.\nQualitative interview questions and analysis: The native category approach allowed us to dig deeply into managers' unobservable and subjective perceptions, while using a naive line of inquiry in order to avoid leading questions that could impact interviewer expectations and answers (Harris, 2000). This approach also allowed us to ask very basic questions in a dynamic way. Table II presents an example of the native questionnaire tool, and the specific questions are provided in the Appendix.\nResults: Following coding completion, the research team examined the results for concepts that surfaced from the data relevant to the three research questions motivating this study. The description of results begins with the definitions that emerged, followed by key success factors and enablers. Finally, we discuss applicable theory as it relates to the value Big Data can bring to supply chains.\nManagerially derived key success factors: We identified several key issues and topics that were most heavily noted in the interviews. We have summarized these in Table IV, which indicates counts and percentages pertaining to the number of respondents who discussed a particular issue within each country category. We provide further support with respondents' quotations in Table V.\nBig Data as a DC: DCs theory defines a DC as \"the firm's ability to integrate, build, and reconfigure internal and external competences to address rapidly changing environments\" (Teece et al., 1997, p. 516). DC Theory embraces the processes that connect technology to market segments, customer needs, and innovation (Teece, 2009), which has been supported as relevant in SCML (Tan et al., 2015). It emphasizes the firm's ability to sense, seize, and adapt competencies by shaping, reshaping, configuring, and reconfiguring assets to respond to challenges (Teece and Pisano, 1994). Such a characterization corresponds to Respondent U9's view of \"making sense of your industry data and taking advantage of it [...] to drive decision-making.\"\nConclusions, limitations, and future research: As a result of our native categories approach and subsequent data analyses, our detailed contribution results in four specific takeaways. First, by analyzing definitions set forth by industry professionals, we establish that Big Data corresponds to four distinct dimensions (volume, velocity, variety, and veracity). Second, key success factors of Big Data use include, but are not limited to, better decision making, operational efficiency, data security, adequate storage, and transparency in partnerships to provide and consume Big Data. Third, as an expansion on the use of existent theory, many of Big Data's characteristics conform to the characteristics that typify DCs. Fourth, human capital ultimately converts mere data into the DC of Big Data.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Journals in business logistics, operations management, supply chain management, and business strategy have initiated ongoing calls for Big Data research and its impact on research and practice. Currently, no extant research has defined the concept fully. The purpose of this paper is to develop an industry grounded definition of Big Data by canvassing supply chain managers across six nations. The supply chain setting defines Big Data as inclusive of four dimensions: volume, velocity, variety, and veracity. The study further extracts multiple concepts that are important to the future of supply chain relationship strategy and performance. These outcomes provide a starting point and extend a call for theoretically grounded and paradigm-breaking research on managing business-to-business relationships in the age of Big Data.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A native categories qualitative method commonly employed in sociology allows each executive respondent to provide rich, specific data. This approach reduces interviewer bias while examining 27 companies across six industrialized and industrializing nations. This is the first study in supply chain management and logistics (SCMLs) to use the native category approach.\nFindings: This study defines Big Data by developing four supporting dimensions that inform and ground future SCMLs research; details ten key success factors/issues; and discusses extensive opportunities for future research.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study provides a central grounding of the term, dimensions, and issues related to Big Data in supply chain research.\nPractical implications: Supply chain managers are provided with a peer-specific definition and unified dimensions of Big Data. The authors detail key success factors for strategic consideration. Finally, this study notes differences in relational priorities concerning these success factors across different markets, and points to future complexity in managing supply chain and logistics relationships.\nOriginality/value: There is currently no central grounding of the term, dimensions, and issues related to Big Data in supply chain research. For the first time, the authors address subjects related to how supply chain partners employ Big Data across the supply chain, uncover Big Data's potential to influence supply chain performance, and detail the obstacles to developing Big Data's potential. In addition, the study introduces the native category qualitative interview approach to SCMLs researchers.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Consumer behaviour and corporate social responsibility: an empirical study of Expo 2015
|
[
"Sustainability",
"Willingness to pay",
"Food security",
"Agri-food company",
"CSR-oriented companies",
"Expo 2015"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Today's agri-food consumers are increasingly inclined to make informed purchasing decisions regarding products which favour environmental, social and economic sustainability, without overlooking economic aspects. What is customarily identified with the term \"critical consumption\" concerns purchases of goods and services based on considerations not only of product quality and price, but also producer behaviour (sustainability of workers' treatment) and production mode (environment sustainability of work process). In the agri-food sector, consumers no longer choose products according to reasons related only to quality/price ratio (Simeone et al., 2015; Shaw et al., 2000). It seems that today's consumers make decisions based on ethics, environmental and job protection (Ferrell and Fraedrich, 2015; Fabris, 2003; Unnevehr, 2003). Recent trends in corporate social responsibility (CSR), which is a concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis (Dahlsrud, 2008), seem to confirm the very dynamic character of this topic that involves all stakeholders with specific reference to consumers and businesses (Creyer and Ross, 1997). Companies have to identify which CSR communication strategies should be adopted and which form of social responsibility will be effective in order to appeal to socially conscious consumers (Carrigan and Attalla, 2001).Therefore the consumer defined as \"critical\", \"responsible\" or \"aware\" can send signals to the world of production, signals that show their attention to food safety, food security and environmental protection issues, justice, human rights and anything related to the ethical content of the commercial activities (Cowe and Williams, 2000). The green consumer avoids products that are likely to endanger the health of the consumer; cause damage to the environment during manufacture, use or disposal; consume a disproportionate amount of energy causing unnecessary waste (Strong, 1996). Companies process these signals from consumers and implement them, implementing CSR strategies through which to pursue the goals of sustainability. An important opportunity to demonstrate to stakeholders its guidance on these issues was the presence of some of the most important companies in the sector at the 2015 Milan World Expo, which focussed on everything related to nutrition and sustainability.\nMaterial and methods: Purposes and participants\nResults and discussion: Attention to food safety and food security\nConclusion and limitations: The results obtained from the empirical study show a positive attitude of respondents towards issues of food safety, food security and sustainability in general. Particularly more focus is placed on food safety rather than on food security because these issues involved the sample's daily food choices. The sample appeared willing to adopt strongly sustainable behaviour and above all, to present a more socially responsible attitude to purchasing sustainable food products. Empirical research shows that the sample shifted its focus onto issues more closely related to health, such as nutrition education, or related to enhancing the food traditions of the various countries present to the Milan Expo 2015. The credibility of firms in a sustainable perspective was in doubt because the attitude that seemed to prevail in the context of the event was interest in the sale of products and not a fair pricing system, or large-scale dissemination of knowledge of CSR instruments. The survey highlighted between the participating companies \"Lindt\" like the only food company more focussed on CSR, more remembered and appreciated by the sample. The sample of visitors did not enrich their knowledge on sustainability or CSR due to shortcomings in the communication strategy of companies attending the event, and the impact of Expo 2015 on future buying behaviour was not impressive. On the basis of these considerations, we made use of cluster analysis in order to divide the sample under investigation into several groups, so as to ascertain the various features of each group in particular as regards their awareness on issues of food safety, food security and sustainability, the willingness to pay for products from any CSR-oriented undertaking and the conditioning of the event on future buying behaviour. This analysis led us to identify four groups (sustainable friends, sustainable timid, sustainable enemies, sustainable distracted) representing visitors, reflecting, their good/bad propensity to purchase CSR products, their greater or lesser event conditioning on future buying behaviour and their greater or lesser propensity to sustainability on whose full achievement much still needs to be done. CSR strategies, especially participation in major social events such as the 2015 Expo of Milan, certainly represent a way to improve food companies' reputations and profitability, enriching public knowledge on the issues of sustainability and CSR and increasing the price of its products, so as to affect the price system within the sector. These strategies must also be handled in the best possible way; otherwise communities may not be able to be fully sensitised with social messages. Consequently, in order to raise awareness on the topic much collaboration is still required between public institutions, local communities, businesses and citizens (Rapisarda, 2015) such that the themes of CSR and sustainability, when it comes to large initiatives or events like the 2015 Milan Expo, will spread and be truly internalised by citizens through the right channels of promotion and appropriate communication strategies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to ascertain the attitudes of people towards issues of food safety, food security and sustainability. For this, an empirical study was conducted on visitors to the event Milan Expo 2015. Particular attention was paid to any greater propensity to purchase products from socially responsible agri-food companies and whether the event might have contributed to enrich the baggage of their knowledge on the issues of sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) and to influence future buying behaviour.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Different groups of visiting consumers were identified through cluster analysis in order to segment and divide visitors into groups based on their approach to food safety, food security and sustainability, their willingness to pay for products from companies practising CSR, and the impact of the event on their future buying behaviour.\nFindings: The results showed a positive attitude of respondents towards issues of food safety, food security and sustainability in general and to the purchase of sustainable food products. However, due to shortcomings in the communication strategy used by companies attending the event, the sample of visitors did not enrich their knowledge on sustainability and CSR. The impact of Expo 2015 on future buying behaviour was far from impressive.\nOriginality/value: The findings are particularly useful for the future development of the reputation and profitability of food companies, for the enrichment of knowledge concerning CSR-oriented food companies and to increase the price of products from socially responsible agri-food companies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Becoming an education provider of choice in Hong Kong: an inquiry into student decision making
|
[
"Collectivism",
"Information sources",
"Partial least squares",
"Strategic",
"College attributes",
"College choice",
"Hong Kong students",
"Chinese students",
"Sub-degree"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: At the national level, Hong Kong faces the challenge of finding strategic means of recruiting higher education students from other countries (Cheung et al., 2011; Cheng et al., 2011); and at the local level, Hong Kong tertiary organizations face keen competition among each other to recruit local students. Those same organizations also need strategies for decreasing the likelihood that Hong Kong students will choose to study in one of the many competitor nations, such as Australia or Singapore. Cheung et al. (2011) argue that Hong Kong HEIs need to obtain better marketing information, and point out that insufficient empirical, systematic marketing research has been conducted in the Asian markets. This study goes part way toward meeting that need because we examine the critical factors that influence decisions of college choice that are made by Hong Kong students.\nLiterature review: When students choose a college in which to enroll, they are making a purchase decision and, regarding any purchase decision, Hawkins et al. (2004) list three types of decision-making process: nominal, limited, and extended. The level of involvement of the consumer in the process increases from nominal to limited and then to extended. Decisions about college choice entail high involvement (Muthaly et al., 2013) because students need to consider a wide range of factors. Moreover, the decision will affect a student's self-image and involves long-term investment and ongoing lifestyle and monetary sacrifices. In addition, there is a significant risk of making a wrong decision.\nHypothesis development: Based on the above review of previous research into the decision-making processes leading to student college choice based upon key influencers and college attributes, the following hypotheses concerning marketer non-controlled influencers (H1 and H2) and marketer controlled attributes (H3 and H4) been derived. A conceptual model has also been constructed to capture and display hypothesized relationships between the various influencers and college attributes which influence students' choice of sub-degree college.\nMethodology: Survey data were collected from respondents in Hong Kong who were sub-degree students. A broad range of variables related to college choice was studied and the main tool employed for data analysis was partial least squares (PLS) which is increasingly being used to test hypothesized relationships (Muthaly et al., 2013). PLS provides explanation of the relationships within a model (Fornell and Bookstein, 1982) and enables a simultaneous analysis of whether the hypothesized relationships at the theoretical level are empirically confirmed (Khalifa and Liu, 2003). Therefore, PLS is deemed effective for analyses of exploratory models such as ours, where an explanation of the construct interrelationship is desired (Ranganathan et al., 2004).\nResults and discussion: Contrary to H1, the results indicated that for non-marketer controlled factors, the impact of academics and/or friends was higher than parental influence. For academics and/or friends the significant loadings in order of importance were secondary school counselors, followed by current college students and previous college students. While for marketer controlled factors, as predicted in H3, the impact of proactive communication factors is stronger than the impact of publications and passive advertising. The significant loadings in order of magnitude were phone calls from admission, followed by open days. In terms of college attributes, the significant loadings in order of magnitude were social life, school fees, and sports.\nImplications of this study: This study found that potential students rated previous students as highly influential in their college choice.\nLimitations: The findings and implications drawn from this study should be used with care due to limitations in the methodology and the sample population. First, although survey research is cross-sectional it only captures perceptions and feelings at a single point in time. Longitudinal studies would deepen the validity of our findings. The impact of changes in specific marketer controllable and non-controllable factors which influence the selection of colleges cannot be examined and tested in a moment-in-time survey such as ours. Second, the respondents were drawn from one division of a particular college. Students from different divisions of the same college may report different results if surveyed.\nSuggestions for future research: As mentioned earlier, we found that the opinions and advice of fathers tends to have a higher impact for female students than for male students regarding college choice. This is a finding worthy of further investigation. If it turned out to be true over time, then colleges would benefit by discovering which college attributes are considered to be important by fathers in Hong Kong, particularly those colleges that offer courses where female students are in the majority.\nConclusions: This study investigated a broad range of information sources and influencers used by Hong Kong students in selecting sub-degree colleges. The PLS analysis enabled identification of the relative impact of various factors, while correlation and regression highlighted significant relationships between variables.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Managers in higher education require cost effective ways to attract the optimal number of students. The purpose of this paper is to address that general problem at the college level, and in doing so, it points toward strategies that could also be relevant at university and at national level. Two crucial issues are whether potential students are more influenced by parents or by peers when it comes to choosing a college; and whether spending money on advertising is more efficacious than spending money on making direct contact with potential students. The findings provide essential market intelligence for strategically managing the scarce resources available for attracting students.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were gathered through a survey instrument and the partial least squares (PLS) technique was subsequently applied to 314 responses.\nFindings: Secondary school guidance counselors, followed by current and previous college students were the highlights in order of magnitude for non-marketing information sources for college choice. Social life received the highest loadings among college attributes and phone calls from the admissions office received the highest loading among marketer controlled variables. The results reflect the nature of Chinese culture, which is regarded as being highly collectivist.\nResearch limitations/implications: The model proposed in this study is applicable to students of sub-degree courses, but may need to be adapted to degree and postgraduate courses students.\nPractical implications: This study helps educational managers to identify which factors most strongly influence choice of higher education provider, and as a consequence enable managers to make more strategic use of scarce resources.\nOriginality/value: This is one of very few studies which employ PLS analysis to discover the key factors that influence student selection of a higher education provider, and one of few studies that focusses on Hong Kong.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Knowledge management metrics in software development companies in Brazil
|
[
"Knowledge management",
"Measurement",
"Computer software",
"Information industry",
"Brazil"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Knowledge management can be defined as a set of processes that includes the creation, utilization, and knowledge dissemination, all aligned with the organization's goals. This collection of processes must consider both explicit and tacit knowledge, which are attained through experiences and personal insights.Companies are implanting KM programs (Bose, 2004), and some organizations are not able to affirm that their KM programs are adding value to the company. Measuring an intangible asset is a challenge and organizations might not be ready or might not have effective tools to perform the measuring activities (del-Rey-Camorro et al., 2003).These challenges should not be a barrier, especially because some companies use knowledge as raw material. Software development activity is quite specialized, and there is a constant need to learn. Effective KM becomes necessary to support and achieve companies' strategic goals. The software industry is increasing in Brazil, and Arbache (2002) pointed out that exportation is over $100m. Extremely competitive, Brazil is an international leader in certain areas such as, for example, banking automation.Considering the importance of KM for software development companies, this research aims to analyze KM metrics in software development companies in Brazil in the opinion of managers and users.This paper is structured as follows: a KM measurement literature review is presented section 2; section 3 presents methodology aspects; the results are analyzed in sections 4-6); and final considerations are presented in section 7.\n2. Knowledge management process and measurement: The KM process approach is presented in section 2.1. The metrics identified in the literature as being associated with the KM process phases are presented in section 2.2.2.1 KM process phases\n3. Method: This was a qualitative research prject. The strategy selected was the multiple case study. Two software development companies in Brazil were selected since both have KM activities in place. The companies are large enterprises when considering the number of their employees and will be referred to as Company A and Company B.A protocol was used as a strategy in order to increase trust in the research with a general view of the case study, procedures, data collection instrument, and the guide for the case study report.The interviews were all semi-structured and the research was composed of three interview stages. All three interview sets were submitted for content evaluation by three post-graduate professors with full knowledge in the KM area. Each set was reviewed and modified according to comments and suggestions from the professors. Every interview was recorded and transcribed.The interviews varied with the interest and availability of participants, with a duration of approximately 45 minutes each. In the first stage in Company A, interviews were conducted face-to-face, while in Company B they were conducted by phone.The purpose of the first stage interview was to validate and complete the list of KM metrics obtained in the literature. The criteria chosen for the interview was experience in KM implementation in the companies. Interviewee no. 1 is a doctor who is a professor in a university in the USA, and is also a KM consultant in the USA and Brazil. Interviewee no. 2, who developed his dissertation in the KM area with several books and papers published, is a company consultant in the area. Interviewee no. 3 is a KM and corporate portal development consultant in Brazil. Interviewee no. 4 is a doctor and also a professor in Brazil.The purpose of the second stage interview was to identify how KM is present in the organization, verifying whether there is a defined process for KM and what the process phases are, and also identifying motivations and difficulties attained through KM implementation. Two project managers who conducted KM implementation along with two collaborators who work with KM initiatives in Company A led the communities of practice and participated in the KM implementation team. In Company B, three collaborators who work in the group that defines the organizational processes were interviewed and, therefore, were responsible for the definition of the KM process for the organization.The purpose of the third stage was to identify the opinions of those interviewed as to the KM process and result metrics. The stage 3 interview set was elaborated based on the former stages and bibliographical research. Interviews in stage 3 were not the same as those in stage 2. In Company A, a total of four employees (two managers and two collaborators) were interviewed. Interviewee no. 1 was a manager in the organizational process definition area. Interviewee no. 2 was in charge of test projects. Interviewee no. 3 was a manager in the software development area. Finally, interviewee no. 4 was a software development technical lead. Four collaborators were interviewed in Company B, being managers of the area responsible for process definition (no. 1 and no. 2), and in charge of software development projects (no. 3 and no. 4).According to Yin (2005), data analysis is the activity of examining, categorizing, classifying, testing, and recombining evidence. Data analysis in this research was done by content analysis. Categories based on the literature were created in order to organize the answers obtained during each interview.In order to verify reliability in the text classification procedure, Krippendorff (1980) suggested that the researcher should repeat the procedure more than once in order to guarantee stability. To check on re-productivity, it becomes necessary that another person should classify the data following the same rules used by the researcher. Such procedures took place in this research. One author repeated the data classification to assure stability while another fulfilled the classification to guarantee the concordance of the results.Data from both companies were individually analyzed and later compared. As a limitation to this research, it has been pointed out that only one organization (Company B) has a structured process; interviews in Company A were conducted face to face while in Company B it was done over the phone due to distance; and only two software development companies were analyzed. The data collected represents the personal opinion of those interviewed.\n4. KM specialists' view: The first observation made by the experts interviewed was that metrics should be created based on the organization's goals. Metrics can be useful, depending on the organization's environment. This can be exemplified by interviewee no. 2: \"They can be used depending on the environment [...] I believe that each metric has its own role\". According to interviewees no. 3 and no. 4, it is possible to carry out a preliminary analysis; however, the metric will be applicable depending on the organization's objectives.All those who were interviewed mentioned metrics that were not in the list obtained in the literature, such as:* participation indicators (demography of KM practice);* number of lessons learned;* portal availability;* user's knowledge;* age group and background or qualification;* degree of participation in discussion forums;* degree of seniority of the participants;* evidence of best practices;* number of innovations produced by the organization; and* number of new products launched.Through the interviews in this stage it was possible to lengthen the list of indicators by adding the suggestions given by KM experts and start the second phase of interviews.\n5. KM process in Companies A and B: Company A is in its initial stage related to the KM process. There is no formal process and there are KM activities in which the company may improve its software development processes. Even without a well-structured KM process, Company A makes use of certain evaluation metrics. The challenge of Company A lies in applying metrics without a structured KM process.Company B has a well-structured KM process that comprises the phases of knowledge creation, storage, dissemination, and utilization. But despite having a specific process for KM, Company B does not have KM metrics. Therefore the challenge of Company B is to improve its KM process without specific metrics.It is possible to conclude that Company B has a better focus on knowledge creation than Company A. This could be due to the fact that Company B has a well-defined knowledge concept, which does not occur in Company A. Company A indicates that the creation of knowledge happens only in the organizational environment (communities of practice, within projects, etc.). Company B, in turn, considers that knowledge can be created inside and outside of the organization (training, other companies, universities, etc.).Company B has a formal process for storing knowledge with well-defined repositories and constant updating. Company A finds itself in a previous stage with several repositories that are not integrated. The lack of integrated repositories impacts the knowledge search.When it comes to the dissemination phase, the organizations are in a similar position, where both have formal and informal exchange. However, it is perceivable that Company A, despite having some repositories, does not use them to disseminate knowledge within the organization, in contrast to Company B. Communities of practice are consolidated in the culture of Company A, contributing to the dissemination phase. This is in accordance with Floriano (2007), who affirms that communities of practice are great allies in the dissemination of knowledge.In the utilization phase, or application of knowledge, Company A also considers process improvement as a way to apply knowledge. Besides aiding software development projects, Company A motivates new knowledge to be created in order to improve organizational processes such as, for example, their own software development process.Comparing Companies A and B, it is possible to conclude that both are looking for productivity increase, an increase in quality, and a reduction of costs by using KM. Company A considers that KM tools can aid in disseminating better practices among the areas, improving productivity and final results. In Company B, through a well-structured process and an organizational repository, lessons learned will be consolidated and reapplied to other projects. Thus, both groups will learn from mistakes made in the past and increase productivity, quality and reduce costs. Therefore the companies possess similar motivations.Company A faces more difficulties than Company B, perhaps due to the fact that it does not have a well-structured process and clear objectives for KM. The difficulties raised by Company A were:* lack of clear objectives;* lack of time for participation;* high turnover rate in the KM group;* lack of alignment between groups;* inappropriate tools to support communities of practice sites;* deficient repositories; and* difficulty in sharing knowledge (culture).The difficulties referred to by Company B were the challenges in sharing knowledge and stimulating people to contribute, as well as the need for a more appropriate tool to support the site. While the difficulties in Company A are structural, cultural and technological, Company B finds its problems in culture and technology.\n6. KM metrics: This section presents both positive and negative points of metrics according to the interviewed. The metrics are presented as process and results metrics. The observations are followed by identifications such as, for example, A1 (Company A, interviewee 1), B1 (Company B, interviewee 1), and so forth.Table III refers to the creation phase metrics, while Table IV refers to the storage phase metrics. Table V refers to the dissemination phase metrics, and Table VI refers to the utilization phase metrics. Table VII refers to the measurement phase metrics, while Table VIII shows perceptions about the KMPI. Table IX shows the perceptions of the interviewees concerning non-financial result metrics.It becomes apparent that all those who were interviewed in both organizations believe that all the listed metrics are influenced somehow by KM initiatives. Interviewees of Company B consider that only the metric that reflects the reduction of customer complaints concerning products and services has restrictions. The effective use of lessons learned and best practices have been mentioned as factors that contribute to improve the result indicators. This is in accordance with what has been observed in stage 2 in this research. The KM process was implemented in Company B not only to improve the software development process, but all organizational areas as well.Table X presents the perceptions concerning the financial result metrics.When asked about financial metrics, all those interviewed in Company B indicated restrictions as to four indicators. This means that despite the fact that the organization is developing a KM process, which might benefit every area in the company, the financial indicators are not always affected. Several indicators are influenced by other initiatives and many times by external variables. All those interviewed in Company A accepted only the operational cost reduction indicator. The fact that there is no clear condition to give an opinion shows that the company does not have evident goals when it comes to KM.\n7. Conclusions: This research associated the metrics identified in the literature with the knowledge management process phases of creation, storage, dissemination, utilization, and measurement. The metrics were analyzed and, in the sequence, a list of metrics was generated as a result of the interviews.The conclusions are based on two case studies of Brazilian IT companies. There could be industry-specific issues as well as national, cultural, and behavioral values that might affect the findings and conclusions.The indicators should be associated with the organization's objectives concerning the adoption of knowledge management. According to the interviewees, the set of process metrics can be linked to the KM process phases and organizations should contemplate both quantitative and qualitative metrics. The financial result metrics are influenced by KM initiatives. Other variables may also have impact on the result. It is not possible to directly associate the results of these metrics with KM. Figure 1 presents the framework of the metrics in the context of the organizations.This framework can be used by organizations that are in their initial stage of implementing KM. Once the metrics are established, companies may visualize them within the context of their enterprise, choosing an approach for implementation, designing the KM process, selecting metrics, and also being prepared to face difficulties.Based on the perception of the interviews, it is possible to affirm that the relevance of a metric depends on the organization's context and the existence of a structured KM process. Company B implemented its KM process in a way that it can be used in all areas in the organization. Thus, the result metrics can be influenced by process improvements. This aspect could not be seen in Company A, which has KM initiatives in a manner that enhances the software development process.The definition of KM metrics is still in its infancy. There is no suggested list in the literature, and the specialists interviewed in the first stage did not have a predefined set of metrics. Compared to other organizational processes, KM is in its initial stages. Its metrics had not yet been utilized and tested by the software development organizations carried out in this research. The entire set of metrics and its observations in this work can be used as a starting point for the selection of the most appropriate metrics for each organization.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The main goal of this research is to analyze knowledge management (KM) evaluation metrics in software development companies in Brazil through the perception of managers and users.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The method applied was a multiple case study in two information technology companies in Brazil.\nFindings: - According to the KM objectives and motivations, each company selects an implementation approach that results in specific challenges. The results show that the differences in Company A and Company B can be related to the KM process adopted. Based on the perception of the interviewees, it is possible to affirm that the relevance of a metric depends on the organization's context and the existence of a structured KM process.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The conclusions are based on two case studies of Brazilian IT companies. There could be industry-specific issues as well as national cultural and behavioral values that might affect the findings and conclusions.\nPractical implications: - According to the interviewees, the set of process metrics can be linked to the KM process phases and the organizations should contemplate both quantitative and qualitative metrics. The entire set of metrics and its observations in this work can be used as a starting-point for the selection of the most adequate metrics for each organization.\nOriginality/value: - The research associated the identified metrics in the literature with the knowledge management process phases of creation, storage, dissemination, utilization, and measurement.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Rethinking Disasters by Design
|
[
"Hazards",
"Economic sustainability",
"Disasters",
"Loss prevention"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Dennis Mileti's well-known method for dealing with hazards, published as Disasters by Design (1999), is a landmark contribution to the analysis of natural disaster mitigation. Mileti's approach has had a substantial impact on research and disaster pedagogy. The major strength of Mileti's book is his promotion of \"greater acceptance of sustainable development in the United States and throughout the globe and to commit to making hazard mitigation and disaster management consistent with it\" (Mileti, 1999, p. 267).Over the past decade, Mileti's work has been highly praised by a number of scholars (Svenson, 2001; Burton, 2000). However, those praising the work may not have examined the overall picture of Mileti's paradigm, and it is precisely specific arguments, omissions and implications of his paradigm that may contain potential weaknesses. With the advantage of a decade of hindsight, much more is known about the potential risk of other hazards and the broad nature of emergency management[1]. It is now clear that alternative versions of/to Mileti's paradigms could and should be developed to highlight broader and more fundamental measures to deal effectively with disasters.Since Mileti's work still has wide currency in our discipline, the time is ripe for a critical analysis of his paradigms and arguments. In this vein, we undertake a four-fold review of Mileti's work. First, we examine the content and arguments analyzed in his book. Second, the contributions of sustainable hazard mitigation are highlighted through the eyes of other scholars. Third, a closer look at the argument in Disasters by Design is undertaken to draw out some of the weaknesses inherent in this work. Finally, we emphasize the implications of Mileti's paradigm and conclude with some thoughts about the way forward in emergency management.\nContent and argument: Disasters by Design: A Reassessment of Natural Hazards in the United States is a follow-up to the first assessment by White and Haas (1975). Mileti's analysis of hazards mitigation is the core aspect of the US second assessment. Drawing on the work of about 140 researchers, Mileti highlighted the intellectual strength of US hazards research as well as the productive and long-standing linkages between research and policy.Prior to Mileti's work, White and Haas (1975) published a pioneering report on the nation's ability to withstand and respond to natural disasters. The result of the first assessment was an effort taking stock of the nation's knowledge regarding natural hazards and disasters (Mileti, 1999, p. 21). In the first report, White and Haas (1975) noted that the nation had concentrated too heavily on technological solutions when what was needed was \"technology in balance\" (Mileti, 1999, p. 2). In other words, White and Haas suggested that the way to reduce disasters was to use programs that provide equitable distributions of costs and benefits of recovery among various economic and social groups.Mileti declares the impact of the first assessment on the hazard management field as an essential work that \"lowered the walls that had separated many of the disciplines involved with natural hazards and paved the way for the interdisciplinary approaches to hazards research and management that the nation enjoys today\" (Mileti,1999, p. 21). In short, White and Haas (1975) point out that \"rather than simply picking up the pieces after disasters, the nation could employ better planning, land-use controls, and other preventive and mitigation measures to reduce the toll in the first place\" (Mileti, 1999, p. 1). This \"publication provided the baseline for much of the world as well as signposts for research and policy that were applied widely, if a little uncritically, almost everywhere\" (Burton, 2000).However, according to Mileti, the research by White and Haas (1975) had inadequately developed explanations for losses from disasters. In addressing these shortcomings, Mileti recognizes that hazards are complex due to overlapping and interacting environments (Mileti, 1999, p.133). The physical systems that give rise to extreme events are complex and changing. Also, the socio-economic characteristics of the nation's people are dynamic, resulting in a larger proportion with low incomes who are more likely to be seriously affected by disasters (Mileti, 1999, p.135).Mileti's principal goal is to foster truly long-term mitigation and loss reduction measures and to avoid burdening future generations with unnecessary hazards (Mileti, 1999, p. 30). In line with this, he explains that communities that carefully mitigate the impact of hazards will improve overall sustainability in addition to community resilience (Mileti, 1999).Mileti defines sustainability as the capacity of a locality to \"tolerate and overcome damage, diminished productivity, and reduced quality of life from an extreme event without significant outside assistance\" (Mileti, 1999, p. 4). He asserts that hazards mitigation must be done in a sustainable way by maintaining and improving environmental conditions, people's quality of life, local resilience, local economies, inter- and-intra generational equity, and local decision-making and opinion. These tasks are then assigned to a \"sustainable hazard mitigation network\" made up of planners, resources managers, environmentalists, and other \"local stakeholders\".Mileti formulated five new approaches for hazards mitigation:1. adopt a global systems perspective;2. accept human responsibility for hazards and disasters;3. anticipate ambiguity and change;4. reject short-term thinking; and5. take a broader, more generous view of social forces and their role in hazards and disasters (Mileti, 1999, p. 26).In this sense, Mileti argues that a change in culture is needed to reduce disasters.However, Mileti acknowledges that the primary mechanism for ensuring sustainable hazards mitigation is land-use planning and management. The broad application of this tool can incorporate the concept of land-use planning, environmental protection, hazards mitigation, and sustainable development to reduce disasters, maintain the natural mitigative qualities of local ecosystems, and enhance the resiliency of the built environment (Mileti, 1999, p. 31). Mileti also states that the use of building codes and standards is another tool of sustainable hazards mitigation that can greatly reduce the damages and losses from natural hazards.Further, Mileti demonstrates that sustainable hazard mitigation can be achieved by society through the adaptation of a consensus-building approach (Mileti, 1999, p. 34). In this regard, Mileti asserts that \"building consensus is a process of seeking wide participation among all of the people who have a stake in the outcome of the decision being pondered, identifying all possible concerns and issues, generating ideas for dealing with them, and reaching agreement about how they will be resolved and what steps will be taken\" (Mileti, 1999, p. 34). In his suggestions to curtail the losses from hazards, Mileti proposes other techniques and practices, which included improved warning and short-term forecasts, engineering, building codes and insurance coverage.While Mileti focused predominately on hazard mitigation and sustainable development, he also looked at the state of knowledge regarding preparedness, response and recovery issues. He views preparedness as the activities of formulating, testing, and exercising disaster plans; providing training, testing, and exercising disaster plans; and communicating with the public and others about disasters and what to do to reduce them (Mileti, 1999, p. 215). He examines preparedness in the context of the household, organizations, communities, states and the nation. Mileti asserts that disaster response activities include emergency sheltering, search and rescue, care of the injured, fire fighting, damage assessment, and other emergency measures. Disaster responders also cope with response-generated demands such as the need for coordination, communications, ongoing situation assessment, and resource mobilization during the emergency period (Mileti, 1999, p. 220). In Disasters by Design, Mileti also examines group emergence, organizational response, local emergency management agencies, the private sector and multiorganizational response (Mileti, 1999, p.226). Mileti defines recovery as the short-term activities to restore vital support systems and long-term activities to return life to normal (Mileti, 1999, p. 23). He also states that \"recovery is not just a physical outcome but a social process that encompasses decision-making about restoration and reconstruction activities\" (Mileti, 1999, p. 230).\nContributions of Disasters by Design: Dennis Mileti and others are correct to note many benefits emanating from Disasters by Design. Among other things, Mileti's work has enriched the research on mitigation in several different ways. For example, Disasters by Design has greatly improved our understanding of the physical processes underlying natural hazards and the complexities of social decision making before, during, and after disasters (Mileti, 1999, p.3). In addition, Mileti's work brings to the fore the need for an integrated accessible database of losses that could create a feedback loop between communities, researchers, regulatory agencies, emergency managers, the insurance industry, and others to improve overall effectiveness in coping with hazards and disasters (Mileti, 1999, p. 104). What is more, Mileti points out that sustainable hazard mitigation will require that future hazard managers be trained across traditional disciplines and in interdisciplinary ways that would enable them to view the world in a more holistic manner (Mileti, 1999, p.259). Furthermore, sustainable hazards mitigation will demand that future researchers work in a world different from that of the past and different even from today (Mileti, 1999, p. 255). For instance, the questions they address and the solution they seek will be more complex; they will work less in disciplinary isolation and more interdisciplinary teams; and they will work with practitioners more frequently and intensively than is the case today (Mileti, 1999, p. 241).Other scholars have similar praise for Mileti's work. The new awareness about the importance of environmental matters reinforced by his book is such that it is difficult to conceive future work in the disaster area that could be completely devoid of such considerations. Schwab and Brower (1999) argue that with hazard mitigation as one of the pillars of sustainable development, we can make our development decisions in such a way as to make the built environment more resilient to the impact of natural hazards. This will decrease the loss of human life and property while bolstering the long-term viability of natural ecosystems and human communities (Schwab and Brower, 1999). These scholars also point out that mitigation can provide a degree of socioeconomic continuity in the community by reducing the social upheaval that often accompanies a hazardous event. Damage to transportation and communication systems, dislocation of people, loss or interruption of jobs, and closing or disabling of businesses, schools and social centers often create personal and family stress for disaster victims in addition to financial hardship. By minimizing the causes of these disruptions, untold repercussions of disasters may be avoided (Schwab and Brower, 1999).Scholars also note correctly that hazard mitigation requires that we plan for today's development while considering the impact of hazards yet to occur in the future. In this vein, the goal of \"sustainable hazards mitigation\" is not just to reduce losses, but also to build sustainable local communities and maintain an eye toward expanding that resiliency to nationwide and international spheres (Mileti, 1999, p.30).Monday and Myers (1999) looked at Mileti's contributions to sustainable development, asserting that communities that incorporate the idea of sustainability into their long-term development plans and actions (both before and after disasters) can curtail disaster losses. Societies can improve their economic viability, preserve the health of their natural environment, ensure the quality of life of their residents and more effectively deal with other community problems as well (Monday and Myers, 1999, p. 10). For this reason, Mileti's work plays a key role in overcoming the damage, diminished productivity and reduced quality of life from an extreme event.\nWeaknesses in Mileti's work: While there are numerous benefits associated with Mileti's \"sustainable hazard mitigation\" concept, other scholars have pointed out some of the problems in Mileti's Disasters by Design. Below we list several criticisms from Aguirre's (2002a) article, \"Can Sustainable Development Sustain Us?\" While we have mixed feelings about Aguirre's criticisms, other weaknesses pertain to Mileti's theoretical position. We also believe the paradigm has practical limitations as well.\nAguirre's criticisms: Discounts prior advancement\nPotential theoretical concerns: Terms\nPractical concerns: Neglect of other hazards\nConclusions: As has been illustrated, Disasters by Design is more than an academic review on sustainable development. It is a very ambitious book and a heuristic guide to explaining natural and environmental disasters. For these reasons, we admire Mileti's reach and we believe his work remains important to this day. It is one of the most frequently cited studies in the literature on sustainable development and disasters.Mileti's work provides scholars and students with significant concerns about hazards and disasters. Disasters by Design made a persuasive case that we must address environmental and economic issues in an effort to head off the continued rise in tolls from disasters (Mileti and Gailus, 2005, p. 493). Although the first assessment of by White and Haas (1975) was a seminal report on the nation's capacity to withstand and respond to natural disasters, Mileti's work \"lowered the walls that had separated many of the disciplines involved with natural hazards and paved the way for the interdisciplinary approaches to hazards research and management that the nation enjoys today\" (Mileti, 1999, p. 21).However, it is our opinion that Mileti ignores important issues pertaining to disasters and in emergency management. Most significantly, his work overlooks technological hazards and terrorist events that appear to be mounting in number and consequences over time. Also, by focusing so much on natural hazards, Mileti may not fully explain the human role in creating disaster vulnerability. There likewise appears to be little explanation to the linkage between \"sustainable hazard mitigation\" and the preparedness and response phases of emergency management. Furthermore, there are at times unclear terms, incorrect assumptions, unspecified variables, and certain contradictions that make it difficult to determine the exact nature of sustainable hazard mitigation.In addition, many of the shortcomings pointed out in Disasters by Design do not stem from new developments in the disaster field; those have existed prior to Mileti's work, and a good assessment of the book must recognize this fact. However, because Disasters by Design still has considerable currency in disaster studies, an unquestioning acceptance of its paradigm may inadvertently lead to the perpetuation of misunderstandings about hazards and disaster studies.Taking these points together, our position is that Disasters by Design richly deserved its decade of intellectual prominence. At the same time, a closer examination of Mileti's paradigm illustrates that it may not be applicable to all types of disaster issues. For Mileti's paradigm to be useful for systematic analysis, it must be more carefully crafted or discarded in favor of a more comprehensive analysis that recognizes the many variables that lead to disasters. Mileti's Disasters by Design is undoubtedly important, but researchers should also look at other ways to solve and deal with our current and future disaster problems.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to reflect on Dennis Mileti's Disasters by Design ten years after its publication and to discuss the book's contributions and limitations. It seeks to uncover how Mileti's work relates to disaster and emergency management policy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper examines scholarly reviews of Mileti's work and explores the theoretical and practical implications of his important research.\nFindings: - Disasters by Design recognizes the importance of environmental protection and poverty reduction in disaster policies. However, this work may not fully capture all the hazards, distinct types of vulnerability, phases and functions pertinent to emergency management.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This review both accepts and questions some of the assessments of Mileti's work. The perspective of this review may help shape the future of emergency management policy.\nPractical implications: - The paper provides a comprehensive view of disasters and offers recommendations to improve the emergency management profession.\nOriginality/value: - The review is one of the few works that examines Mileti's work with a critical eye. It draws concern to his paradigm and suggests the need for continued refinement.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Commercial partnerships and collaborative innovation in China: the moderating effect of technological uncertainty and dynamic capabilities
|
[
"Dynamic capabilities",
"Collaborative innovation",
"Commercial partnership",
"Technological uncertainty"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In recent decades, there has been unprecedented growth in corporate partnering and reliance on various forms of external collaboration (Hagedoorn and Schakenraad, 1992; Morris and Hergert, 1987). And organizations can no longer be isolated entities in the dynamic environment (Santoro et al., 2018). Consequently, collaborations are critical for a firm's innovation (Lin, 2003). The most common rationales offered for collaborative innovation involve some combination of risk sharing, obtaining access to new markets and technologies, hurrying products to market and pooling complementary skills (Eisenhardt and Schoonhoven, 1996; Hagedoorn, 1993; Kogut, 1989).\n2. Literature review and hypotheses: 2.1 Collaborative innovation\n3 Research method: 3.1 Sample and data\n4. Results: The hypotheses were tested using partial least squares (PLS), a structural equation modeling technique adopting a principal component-based estimation approach (Chin et al., 2003). PLS explicitly estimates latent variables and their relationships, does not require any assumptions about data distributions, overcomes identification problems in formative relationships and is more suitable for modeling complex relationships (Henseler et al., 2009). Hence, PLS was appropriate for this study.\n5. Discussion: 5.1 Theoretical contributions\n6. Conclusions: Drawing broadly on the commercial partnership perspective, the influence of dynamic capabilities and technological uncertainty and the extant literature on collaborative innovation, we developed an operating mechanism model for the influence of different commercial partnerships on collaborative innovation. This study represents a first step in developing and testing the commercial partnership perspective for collaborative innovation in China. In this regard, we developed and tested a conceptual framework of two types of commercial partnership (business partner and non-business partner) and their associations with collaborative innovation. We also modeled and tested the role of external technological uncertainty and the moderating effect of internal dynamic capabilities on the process.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the extent to which two types of commercial partnerships (business partner and non-business partner) affect the collaborative innovation of firms in emerging economies. Specifically, the roles of two commercial partnerships are investigated. Additionally, the study explores the moderating effect of external technological uncertainty and internal dynamic capabilities on the relationship between two commercial partnerships and on collaborative innovation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using a sample of 370 high-tech firms in China, the authors applied the partial least squares structural equation modeling approach to model these relationships.\nFindings: The findings reveal opportunities and challenges for companies according to two intensities of commercial partnership for collaborative innovation. The partnership contribution to innovation and competiveness is different within the two routes and ranges. The findings indicate that (1) intense commercial relationships with business partners have a stronger positive significant impact on collaborative innovation than those with non-business partners and (2) non-business partners have a weaker positive impact on collaborative innovation at high external technological uncertainty. It was also found that (3) the positive impact of business partners on collaborative innovation is weakened when a firm has high dynamic capabilities, whereas the positive impact of non-business partners is strengthened.\nResearch limitations/implications: Insight into the roles of two commercial partnerships in achieving collaborative innovation facilitates the advancement of the theoretical understanding of the circumstances under which cooperative innovation can be more effective under different partnerships.\nOriginality/value: A key strategic question is whether comprehensiveness enables firms to make better strategic decisions in various environments. In the process of innovation, companies must choose different types and quantities of partners, and they must regulate their partners' innovative behavior by establishing a corresponding network structure and relationship rules. The current study focuses on analysis of how different intensities of commercial partnerships affect collaborative innovation. This research provides a theoretical framework that creates a new classification of commercial relations with regard to collaborative innovation, and it highlights the difference between the two types of partnerships. This study finds that there are many problems in the selection of innovative partners in China's high-tech companies. Therefore, companies should strengthen their understanding of cooperative innovation, and they should build and manage highly efficient innovation networks. This study helps companies, high-tech industry associations, academia and government to take enhanced, informed actions.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A model for determining the value of patient satisfaction in healthcare
|
[
"Value creation",
"Healthcare capacity",
"Healthcare service gaps",
"Medical procedure",
"Quality improvement micro-projects",
"Quality processes and systems"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Almost all patients with diverse health disorders are in the need of healthcare that exceeds the capacity of services provided by the healthcare units. Healthcare organizations say that it is hard to keep up with the workload in the face of rising costs. True, that some patients require routine procedural solutions while many other situations demand urgent action with utmost care to avoid any mistake can lead to a tragic event. Besides cost, another point is that the healthcare capacity (HC) almost everywhere is far behind the patients' increasing complex needs. Although it is true that a huge progress in healthcare has been made over the years that has resulted in the reduction in mortality, control of many viral diseases extending the life expectancy. But, an increase in the population worldwide has also given rise to an increase in the number of patients.\n2. Literature overview: The features that distinguish the service in healthcare are the client's \"continuous\" nature of participation throughout in the entire process and even beyond the completion of services in most of the cases. It means that the perception of the process and the results in healthcare are judged with customer's perception point of view accompanying service provider's interaction in the processes all the time in real time. This difference is unique. It gets reflected in the description of factors that affect the patients' perception of quality in healthcare for the value received.\n3. The context for value creation: General considerations and the development of concepts on the quality of medical services and healthcare gaps that exist in medical services are the content of this section.\n4. Model development based on healthcare gaps: The four-vector components refer to degrees of freedom such as when a patient asks, I can live with that (safety component); I can function as I wish (functional independence component)); I can function without struggling against some devices (physical comfort component); I can function without pain/fear (mental comfort component).\n5. Value creation to meet and exceed patients' requirements: Quality of service is understood as compliance with the service standards in order to meet or to exceed the patient's expectations. When the expectations are exceeded, values (defined by customer benefits/cost) get improved.\n6. Summary and conclusions: The task of healthcare services is to meet or exceed the customers (patients) satisfaction. It is attempted by reducing or minimizing the size of the healthcare service gaps. Measuring values for patients' satisfaction against the costs incurred for such services has huge advantages. Many of the concepts and tools of TQM apply to value measurement and analysis, for example, FMEA, Pareto analysis, statistical control charting and other problem-solving tools.\n7. Future research directions: With patients becoming more sophisticated, demanding and more knowledgeable these days on medical errors and horror stories that appear in their pocket cell phones every minute, a tougher local and global competition for patient's satisfaction is emerging in healthcare industries. Value demands are shifting at a much faster rate than ever before. Healthcare is no longer a captive market. People now go shopping for best-value healthcare. Advances in market research techniques make the execution of effective dynamic value management easier than ever before.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to find determinants of the effectiveness of the business improvement processes that create value for services offered to patients in healthcare industries. The words patients and customers are used interchangeably throughout without any distinction. The features that distinguish medical services of different types and their inter-related factors are examined. The aim is to come up with a model of value vs cost that can help healthcare managers examine and use this exercise as an example of improvement micro-projects to help reduce cost and eliminate the patient's dissatisfaction gaps.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The list of factors or attributes influencing the creation of value of a given medical process or a single procedure is described. The factors in the value creation are examined that will help in the categories for the risk analysis to determine the value-added benefits for the patient outcome. The cost analysis is approached from two angles to include: the cost of the service, and the costs of poor quality of service.\nFindings: The model describes the value for the patient satisfaction depending on the quality level or grade of the treatment or procedures used and the cost factor. The analysis is done at several levels with special reference to case examples. A search for various analogous models in similar service providing situation used in business process management of other process types is highlighted and discussed.\nOriginality/value: The model is an interesting generic illustration for considering value vs cost in all patient care strategies. It enables the position of various medical procedures that can be applied to the same disease in order to keep the variations as minimum as possible within the quality control specification limits. The importance in different aspects of check-points or hold points for inspection is also discussed.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Research on the role of the "SMR Data" in the comprehensive study of Anti-Japanese War
|
[
"Values",
"Roles",
"Characteristics",
"Anti-Japanese War",
"Composition",
"SMR Data"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: On January 3, 2017, the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China issued the No. 1 letter of 2017 <the Letter on the Full Implementation of the Concept of\" Fourteen Years of Anti-Japanese War\" in the Local Curriculum Materials of Primary and Secondary Schools>. The documents required all levels of education authorities to fully screen and change the wording of \"Eight Years of Anti-Japanese War\" to \"Fourteen Years of Anti-Japanese War\", modify the related content and make sure to set up and highlight the concept of \"Fourteen Years of Anti-Japanese War\"[1].\n2. What is \"SMR Data\": In 1905, after the Russo-Japanese War, Japan had seized from Russia the rights of the Manchuria Railway into China. On June 7, 1906, the emperor of Japan promulgated Decree 142 to set up the \"South Manchuria Railways Co., abbreviated as SMR\" (Liu, 2004). As a \"national policy company\" of Japanese imperialism, SMR set up enormous investigative agencies to collect various aspects of intelligence about China and East Asian countries such as military, political, economic, social, cultural and so on in the 40 years of its existence. Hundreds of thousands of investigation reports, books, documents and archives materials constitute the all-encompassing \"SMR Data\". It is regarded as one of the world's largest sources of information in the first half of the twentieth century, providing extremely valuable historical material in the study of modern Chinese history, the modern world history, history of Sino-Japanese relations and the Second World War.\n3. The composition and characteristics of \"SMR Data\": \"SMR Data\" consists of \"SMR survey data\", \"SMR archive\" and \"SMR books and materials\".\n4. The role and values of \"SMR Data\": 4.1 \"SMR Data\" can provide evidence of Japanese aggression against China\n5. Conclusion: China's Anti-Japanese War is not only a liberation war of the Chinese nation but also an important part of the Second World War. The SMR Data is a historical portrayal of 40 years of the SMR. Its content is integrative, comprehensive and systematic. It covers large areas and a wide range of topics and can reflect the whole process of Japanese militarism's invasion of China from different aspects.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to expound the composition and characteristics of \"SMR Data\", to elaborate the role of the \"SMR Data\" in the comprehensive study of Anti-Japanese War from three aspects.\nDesign/methodology/approach: There are several methodologies included in this thesis, such as literature inquiry, questionnaire survey, field investigation and expert consultation.\nFindings: The SMR Data is a historical portrayal of the 40 years of SMR. Its content is integrative, comprehensive and systematic. It covers a large area and a wide range of topics and can reflect the whole process of Japanese militarism's invasion of China from different aspects.\nOriginality/value: The study of historical subject is not for the historical fact itself, exploring yesterday is looking for lessons for today. Because the imperialism phenomenon still exists and has not completely withdrew from the historical stage, people step into the typical imperialist colonial aggression, mighty and quite rich mysterious \"SMR kingdom\" historic sites, to explore the profound truth, unravel mysteries and find out the warning. Taking history as a mirror, all peace-loving people in the world call for a new international order and realize the harmonious coexistence of mankind.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Eating and emotion: focusing on the lunchtime meal
|
[
"Students",
"Diet",
"Individual psychology",
"Lunchtime meal",
"Emotions",
"Relationships",
"University students"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Food and meals consumed outside the home for both pleasure and in the workplace are now commonplace. In the US, for example, the restaurant industry was expected to provide more than 70 billion meal and snack occasions in 2010 and on a typical day, more than 130 million people were foodservice patrons (National Restaurant Association, 2010). In the UK, spending on eating out overtook that of eating at home in 2006 (National Statistics, 2006) and the latest figures available (2008) show that the average weekly expenditure per person on eating out was PS11.33 ($17.50) (DEFRA, 2009). This is attributed by Andaleeb and Caskey (2007) to a change in family life, as more and more women work: eating out has become a necessity for many people.The nutritional contribution of meals consumed out of the home has consequently become extremely important. It has been suggested that on average, breakfast away from home decreases the number of servings of whole grain and dairy products consumed per 1000 kcal and increases the percentage of calories from saturated and solid fat, alcohol and added sugar in a day. Dinner reduces the number of servings of vegetables consumed per 1000 kcal; breakfast and lunch increases calories from saturated fat, alcohol and added sugar in a day (Todd et al., 2010).In both of these scenarios (under- and over-consumption), a myriad of criteria or \"other factors\", affect what is consumed and how much meals are enjoyed. These \"other factors\", referred to by Meiselman et al. (1988, 1996) as \"situational variables\" are considered to be important for food acceptability and consumption. The notion that \"other factors\" are influential when eating out is not new and references appear to this as early as 1945 when the acceptability ratings of food items were shown to be different when consumed on the ground or on an aircraft flight (Green and Butts, 1945). Since then a relatively small number of studies have explored and tried to develop our understanding of what these factors might be. Maller et al. (1980), for example, showed that hospital patients rated meals higher when served in a dining room setting than on a ward, whilst Filiatrault and Ritchie (1988) examined the influence of three dining situations on the selection of a restaurant.More recently, research output has increased with several authors contributing to our overall understanding. Meiselman et al. (2000), for example, served identically prepared food to customers in both a university training restaurant and a student cafeteria in the UK, and subsequently, in a training restaurant and two student cafeterias in the US. The results showed significant differences in the overall acceptability between different locations. Further studies (Edwards et al., 2003; King et al., 2004; Weber et al., 2004) have produced similar results.A common thread in all of these studies is that identical food was served under conditions appropriate to each scenario. The variable that was not constant in each case was the situation or circumstance under which consumption took place; hence, it could be concluded that the situation, context or circumstance of consumption, rather than the food, have the ability to influence the acceptability of individual foods, beverages and meals, and in some cases, the amount actually consumed.The commonest way in which food can affect behaviour is through changes in mood and arousal that occur before and after eating a meal (Gibson, 2006). The role of emotions is important in the study of eating out and the foodservice industry. Both positive and negative emotions, along with perceived service quality, are the three most important dimensions in customer satisfaction (Ladhari et al., 2008). The study of food and emotions can be classified in two ways: those which focus on the effects of emotions on eating behaviour, and those which focus on the effects of eating behaviour on emotions (Desmet and Schifferstein, 2008). However, no studies have investigated how emotions might change when eating a self-selected meal out of the home.Emotion and mood are terms often used interchangeably although there is no standard definition. Cabanac (2002) and King and Meiselman (2010) state that not only is there little consistency between definitions, but also that many are not sufficiently explicit to give a clear idea of what an emotion actually is. Nevertheless, there is some agreement that an emotion is any short-term evaluative, affective, intentional, psychological state, including happiness, sadness, disgust, whereas mood is a temporary but relatively sustained and pervasive affective state, often contrasted in psychology and psychiatry with a more specific and short-term emotion (Oxford University Press, 2010; Gibson, 2006).Emotions can be viewed from a number of perspectives and affect many aspects of an individual's life including drinking and eating (Rolls, 2007). Emotions have been studied in a number of areas, for example, the effects of colour on emotions (Valdez and Mehrabian, 1994), and emotional responses to odours (Chrea et al., 2009; Porcherot et al., 2010). Food and drink have also of late been the subject of research, but these tend to focus on or use single foods or single groups of products (King and Meiselman, 2010; Desmet and Schifferstein, 2008), such as meat (Rousset et al., 2005), wine (Ferrarini et al., 2010), comfort foods (Dube et al., 2005), chocolate bars and apples (Macht and Dettmer, 2006), or single attributes such as odours in dairy products (Seo et al., 2009).Furthermore, the relationship between eating disorders and emotional state has received much research attention. Indeed, theories on the link between emotion and eating behaviour have their origin in the literature on obesity (Canetti et al., 2002). It is widely agreed that obese people tend to engage in emotional eating, with negative emotions playing a particularly important role (Arnow et al., 1995; Barthomeuf et al., 2009; Dingemans et al., 2009; Fox and Froom, 2009). Inversely, there is a tendency among underweight people to eat less when experiencing negative emotions, contributing further to a low bodyweight status (Gelieber and Aversa, 2003; Nolan et al., 2010).This research is the first to address how emotions might change when eating a self-selected hot, main meal, and thus addresses a paucity of knowledge on the act of dining out. Furthermore, this paper reports findings from the qualitative aspect of a mixed-methods study (the quantitative findings are reported elsewhere), an approach not commonly used by researchers into emotion or meal consumption, despite its value for investigating issues of emotion in depth (Warren and Hackney, 2000; Locher et al., 2005; Brown et al., 2010). Thus, this study is innovative in terms of both content and method.\n2. Methods: It was decided to complement a quantitative study of change in emotions following eating with a qualitative approach to our research because we felt that only in conversation would participants be able to fully articulate the change in mood occasioned by eating their midday meal. The quantitative study, involving a pre- and post-meal questionnaire, captured the food eaten and the change in mood as marked on a self-assessment checklist of 52 emotional attributes but it could not access the meanings associated with food choices, and the emotional reactions to these food choices. Indeed, the probing that the in-depth interview allows was used to maximum effect in order to encourage students to reflect on the feelings elicited by eating the midday meal.Ethical approval to undertake this interview study with university students came from the university's Research Ethics Committee; furthermore, all students were assured of confidentiality and anonymity. The research was undertaken at a university in the south of England, whose refectory is open to students, all members of staff, and visitors to the university. The facility is run as a \"food court\" with a number of separate bars or counters.Interviewees were recruited in the university cafeteria during the quantitative stage of the research through posters asking for volunteers, and offering a small remuneration for their time (PS10). Ten students volunteered by email to participate. The interviewee profile offered below details the various personalities noted in this paper (all names are pseudonyms to protect confidentiality). All participants were British undergraduate students:* Tom: 20, sport psychology;* Michael: 20, film production;* Laura: 20, hospitality management;* Sam: 22, nutrition;* Aaron: 21, tourism management;* Peter: 19, engineering;* Danny: 20, marketing;* Stephanie: 22, computing;* Samuel: 20, sport coaching; and* Sue: 19, retail management.Unstructured interviews were conducted so that the participants' story took primacy and that the interview was as free as possible from interviewer bias. This is particularly important in an exploratory study where there is a research vacuum (Holloway and Wheeler, 2010). Interviewees were asked to tell the researcher how they feel before they eat their lunch time meal and how they feel afterwards. The interviewer probed the responses offered by participants, and avoided asking leading questions. Thus each interview was unique, although common patterns emerged. Each interview lasted between 60 and 75 minutes and was digitally recorded.Digital recordings were transcribed and were analysed through the technique of thematic analysis. Immersion in the data took place through the repeated reading of transcripts and listening to the recordings. This allowed a holistic view of the data before the text was broken up through analysis. This process, known as coding, involved separating data into discrete manageable chunks and labelling them according to content: this was a manual process. Thereafter, codes were sorted into overarching research categories; although some codes overlapped categories. These categories are represented in the main themes of the results section.The final stage involved interpretation, bringing meaning to the data, when a dialogue with the literature related to emergent themes can be undertaken.Qualitative researchers acknowledge that a small sample and the selection of one case makes it difficult to move to general classifications (Mason, 2002). Nevertheless, they often claim that similar settings might produce similar data, such that theory-based generalisation, involving the transfer of theoretical concepts found in one situation to other settings and conditions, is possible (Holloway and Wheeler, 2010). The setting for this research might therefore permit the transfer of the findings to similar settings, namely, higher education institutions and other captive organisations that provide on-site meals.\n3. Results: 3.1 Before eating\n4. Conclusion: Little attention has been paid to emotions and the effects they might have on the overall foodservice experience. This research has, for the first time, addressed some of the issues, filling a gap in the literature in terms of both topic and research approach. A number of interesting findings have emerged, as participants observed a clear relationship between their emotions and eating a meal. Changes were noted in concentration, energy and happiness levels. Furthermore the quality of the food eaten was an issue of concern to participants; access to a healthy meal was seen to be important, given the perceived benefits for emotional and physical health. Finally, eating was deemed to be both a physical and social activity. Eating in company enhanced the emotional experience of dining, as it offered the opportunity to bond with friends: \"conversation\" and \"laughter\" were words used recurrently by participants. A clear link was observed in this study between participants' emotional state and the experience of dining out, which in turn carried implications for their physical and emotional mood after eating.This study helps us to see how the meals consumed on campus plays an important role in the student experience, and how attention must be paid to both physical facilities and food provision. Further research into different settings is called for in order to broaden our understanding of the relationship between eating and emotional state, and to find out whether or not similar findings emerge from alternative settings. The findings of this and future studies is of use to those needing to understand the role played by structured mealtimes in society and the link between consumption and emotions, interaction and eating.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the changes in emotion brought by eating the midday meal. Many aspects of eating out have been studied, yet emotions remain an under-researched area, despite having been shown to play a significant role in food consumption.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper reports findings from a qualitative study, involving semi-structured interviews with British undergraduates about changes in their emotional state after eating their lunchtime meal. Data were analysed through the technique of thematic analysis.\nFindings: - Participants observed a clear relationship between their emotions and eating a meal, with changes noted in concentration, energy and happiness levels. The quality of the food eaten was an issue of concern to participants; access to a healthy meal was seen to be important, given the perceived benefits for emotional and physical health. Finally, eating was deemed to be both a physical and social activity. Eating in company enhanced the emotional experience of dining, as it offered the opportunity to bond with friends. Recommendations for further research are made.\nOriginality/value: - This research addresses a paucity of information on the link between food and emotion, helping to better understand the role of emotions when eating out. Further research into different settings is called for in order to broaden the understanding of the relationship between eating and emotional state, and to find out whether or not similar findings emerge from alternative settings.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The most optimal way to deal with negative consumer review: Can positive brand and customer responses rebuild product purchase intentions?
|
[
"Signalling theory",
"Negative word of mouth",
"Consumer reviews",
"Consumers-based brand equity",
"Online word of mouth",
"Response strategies"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: While most customers' experiences in highly competitive markets are positive, any negative word of mouth (WOM) can be decisive in the battle for market share and revenue (Anderson, 1998; Ullrich and Brunner, 2015). Therefore, the interest in electronic word of mouth (eWOM) has been greatly increasing during the last decade in the industry and research as it has played an important role in moulding consumers' behaviour and their buying intentions (e.g. Herr et al., 1991; Zhu and Zhang, 2010; Bigne et al., 2016; Gvili and Levy, 2016).\nConceptual framework: Signalling theory focusses on a situation in which a sender sends information (a signal) to a recipient in a communication process with asymmetric information (Spence, 1973). The sender must choose whether and how to signal specific information to the receiver, whereas the receiver must decide on how to interpret this signal (Connelly et al., 2011). The theory is often explained with the situation of an employer looking for a new employee (e.g. Spence, 1973; Bangerter et al., 2012). The employer has limited information to genuinely evaluate the actual performance of the applicant. When an applicant, who is unknown to the employer, applies for the job, he/she should be aware of the asymmetric information between the employer and him/herself. Therefore, he/she should try to send appropriate signals to the employer in order to demonstrate his/her competences for the job (Spence, 1973). Hence, he/she might present his/her specific knowledge and abilities (multiple signals) such as educational certificates, work experiences, voluntary engagement, etc., which should demonstrate that he/she is suitable to perform well on the job offered. In this way, the employer would able to register these signals to anticipate the applicant's performance in the future (Bangerter et al., 2012; Feltovich et al., 2002). The higher amount of evidence from the previous performance ratings can help the employer to reduce his/her uncertainty about the sender's actual performance.\nDevelopment of hypotheses: Within the literature, it has been argued that additional signals can reduce the receiver's search costs to evaluate the sender (Connelly et al., 2011). We interpret the receiver's cognitive efforts (Taylor, 1981) to evaluate the quality of the brand's product as \"cognitive costs\", which enables the consumer to decide about the brand's product quality. Reducing \"cognitive costs\" leads to better information quality which has been proven in case of product star rating systems (Chen, 2017). These \"cognitive efforts\" should be lower as the receipt of more positive signals by the recipient simplifies his/her perceived uncertainty and risk.\nMethodology: Research design\nAnalysis and findings: To compare the product purchase intentions from the respondents in the different experimental groups (see Table III), we performed several analyses of covariance (ANCOVA). First, we compared the effects of a single brand response with the effects of the responses from both (in random order) the brand and the customer (see Table IV). The ANCOVA results indicated that the latter lead to significantly higher product purchase intentions (main effect: F1,169=29.730, p<0.01; adjusted R2=0.261). The second main effect was also highly significant: brand equity leads to higher product purchase intentions (F1,169=11.964, p<0.01). There was no significant interaction effect (F1,169=2.630, p>0.1) and the influence of the covariate product category involvement was significant (F1,169=10.599, p<0.01). Therefore, H1 was supported.\nDiscussion: The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of different response scenarios in which a brand and/or satisfied customer(s) respond to NCR, aiming to rebuild the consumers' trust and, consequently, the product purchase intentions. When comparing a weak brand's response with a customer response, our results are in line with findings from Bickart and Schindler (2001), who found that consumers perceive online reviews from other consumers as more trustworthy (and less risky) than those from the corporate channels. This supports the works of Hovland and Weiss (1951), Hovland et al. (1953) and Dutta and Pullig (2011) as well.\nLimitations and suggestions for further research: This study faces several limitations. In the literature, it has been argued that when consumers shop online, the search for online information is crucial (e.g. Rohm and Swaminathan, 2004). However, it is important to know what kind of information motivated consumers to shop online. Christodoulides and Michaelidou (2011) explored the motives for shopping online in great detail. In their study of hedonic products (i.e. fashion items), they found that experiential motives outweigh utilitarian motives, when shopping online (Christodoulides and Michaelidou, 2011). As utilitarian products were considered in our study, showing a negative review that focussed on a cognitive information (the quality of the product) rather than an affective information, in future research, the kind of response (e.g. emotional apology after an NCR or informational apology) could be explored.\nImplications: Our findings offer valuable indications on how to handle an NCR from a practitioner's point of view. Due to the high impact of NCRs, online consumer reviews need to be treated seriously by brand managers and monitored regularly by the company's marketing department. In general, a brand needs to actively engage and respond if there is any doubt about its products on the web. However, it is important for brand managers to know the customer-based brand equity of their own brand. If a brand is well-known by customers, directly responding to an NCR may be helpful in the hope that another satisfied customer will also respond later. Brand equity helps consumers to perceive the response of a strong brand as more credible than that of a weak brand. Due to this, a weak brand can benefit from multiple satisfied customer reviews. Therefore, it is particularly important for the weak brand to encourage customers to write product reviews instead. However, it is crucial that the customer responses are true and not fake. If positive consumer reviews after an NCR are faked, this might lead to the consumers' reactance as such manufactured responses might be easily detected, resulting in backfire effects.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: After a negative consumer review (NCR) has been posted on an online shopping site such as Amazon.com, the immediate concern of a brand holder should be to focus on the steps the brand should take to rebuild the unhappy consumers' trust. The purpose of this paper is to employ the signalling theory to analyse whether a brand response, a customer response or a response that combines both when responding to a NCR leads to better product purchase intentions at the customer end.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In a laboratory study comprising 351 respondents, six different response scenarios are tested, both for a well-known and an unknown brand. The experiment employs a 6 (response scenario: single brand response, single customer response, brand response and one customer response or vice versa, brand response and three customer responses or vice versa)x2 (customer-based brand equity: strong/weak) between-subject design.\nFindings: The findings show that after a NCR, the subjects perceive a customer response as more trustworthy than a response from an unknown brand. However, customer-based brand equity changes the whole story. If a strong brand responds, the purchase intentions of the subjects are similar to those generated by a single customer's response. In addition, after considering multiple responses, it can be seen that a response combining a brand and a customer response has a higher effect than from a single response. Furthermore, the authors demonstrate that perceptions are more favourable if several customer responses are sent in case of an unknown brand.\nOriginality/value: The originality of this paper lies in the fact that it tries to explore how the consumers perceive multiple responses from different sources after a NCR has been posted. The results highlight that a response that combines a brand and a customer response has a significantly higher effect than what is achieved from a single response. It must also be noted that customer-based brand equity plays a key role.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The restauranteurship of Hong Kong's premium Japanese restaurant market
|
[
"Hong Kong",
"Entrepreneurship",
"Japanese restaurants",
"Michelin",
"Restaurateurship"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Hong Kong is currently one of the world's most dynamic restaurant landscapes that is fused with rich history and modern innovations of cuisine (Baldwin, 2017; Lee, 2009). Boasting over 10,000 food and beverage outlets, Hong Kong is making its mark as a culinary haven (Hong Kong Industrial Classification, 2018; HKTB, 2018). The free port city has long been renowned for its unique blend of eastern and western culinary culture, which in turn has spawned an interesting entrepreneurial restaurant environment. Post British occupation, Hong Kong has evolved from fishing and farming to become a center point for finance, trade and internationalization for the region (Cheung and Zou, 2013; Baldwin, 2017). Hong Kong has shown itself to be a critical point of entry for large restaurant corporations and small-to-medium enterprises (SME) for the region and specifically China. This can be seen very well within the Japanese restaurant market of Hong Kong, particularly of the premium and upscale Japanese restaurants within the city. Japanese cuisine and the subsequent restaurants have played a major role in the evolution of Hong Kong's global culinary status as well the culinary culture of Hong Kong. Japanese chefs and restaurateurs are a leading force within the restaurant community (Baldwin, 2017).\nProblem statement: Entrepreneurship is a very hot topic for both academic research and industry application. Within the academic realm, entrepreneurship is well discussed and presented across a variety of industries. Most commonly, the technology sector is the first thought for most that have examined entrepreneurship. As for research within the restaurant aspect of academic research and entrepreneurship, there is a smaller scope particularly for Hong Kong. At present, the Asian wave of hospitality is taking center stage, with restaurants playing a vital role in the region's progression (Chen and Chon, 2016). Wan and Chon (2010) identified the concept of the Asian paradigm of hospitality in that the world was transitioning to a more Asia focused perspective of hospitality. The Japanese and their cuisine are a part of this forefront (JETRO, 2017; InvestHK, 2018). With Hong Kong being Asia's Culinary Capital, the Japanese have found this market good transition stage outside their native market. Previous research has not examined Hong Kong's entrepreneurial standing from a perspective of restaurants, Japanese cuisine or Japanese restaurateurs. From the Japanese side, there is a research that examines entrepreneurship in Japan focused on the migrant population and their motivations by Rahman and Rahman (2012); entrepreneurship within academic institutions focused on science and technology as put forth by Shi and Yonezawa (2012); as well as large-scale aspect of Japanese supermarkets in Hong Kong by Kawahara and Speece (1994) and Nakano (2015). These leaves a very large gap for research specifically focused on Japanese restaurateurship in Hong Kong.\nLiterature review: Entrepreneurship\nInnovation in restaurants: Restaurants are also seen as innovative SMEs. Previous research has seen that restaurant can reduce costs and improve sales through a variety of innovative details not limited to menu development, product differentiation and culinary creativity (Ottenbacher and Gnoth, 2005). These innovations can be examined from all levels of restaurant organizations SME and corporations alike. Most restaurant operations would be classified into the SME category, and therefore aspects of innovation for these restaurants would be likened to service (food and delivery), management and marketing. These among other aspects are needed to break into the market and differentiate themselves from the competition (Hjalager, 2010). Innovation and restaurateurship can be observed in the wide range of restaurant classifications: casual dining, quick service, fast casual and fine dining (Ottenbacher and Harrington, 2007a, b; Harrington and Ottenbacher, 2013). However, in most cases the restaurants with the highest performance tend to go to market first with new products, services and innovations (Jogaratnam et al., 1999). For this paper, the focus will be primarily on premium and upscale restaurants. Previous research has indicated that in the current global restaurant environment, upscale restaurants can be seen as the trendsetters and innovators. Their ability to create a unique character, feel and ambiance gives consumers the sense of having more value for their money spent than most casual or mid-scale restaurants (Sirieix et al., 2011; Lee et al., 2016). This environment becomes an innovative breeding ground, as the changes are constant for these restaurants to remain competitive within the market (Lee et al., 2016). These disruptions within the market have driven upscale restaurants to new heights within the industry (Hallak et al., 2018).\nMethodology: The current range of academic restaurateurship research methodologies is in short supply, and as such, a focus on restaurateurship in Hong Kong is relatively small as well. This exploratory research intends to help expand the current methodological approaches to the topic within the discipline. One of the closest methodologies that examine the Japanese restaurant phenomenon comes Baldwin (2017) focuses on Japaneseness as a measurement of culinary authenticity examining Hong Kong's Michelin rated restaurants. Here, the qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews with the chefs of two sets of premium Japanese restaurants from Japan that expanded in Hong Kong, Sushi Iwa and Sushi Yoshitake. As this paper focuses on the premium and high-end market of Japanese chefs and restaurateurs in Hong Kong, the researcher combined the approaches of Kawahara & Speece and Baldwin to pursue a qualitative methodology using semi-structured interviews. To facilitate the research design, the semi-structured interviews were divided into two parts: sole owner and shareholders/partners. This was done to provide insight into both the Japanese restaurant market and suppliers of Japanese food products. In this particular case, the Japanese food suppliers are Japanese entrepreneurs who do not own a restaurant but are still affiliated with the Japanese restaurant industry in Hong Kong.\nFindings: Table III shows the demographic information of the second stage of interviewees. The interviewees were all Japanese, predominately male, and all above the age of 30 years old at the time of the interview. Their education background varied but only three of them went to University for Baccalaureate degrees while the others (mostly chefs) completed culinary training apprenticeships in Japan. Four of the chefs had completed 3-5 years of culinary training with Michelin starred chefs in Japan prior to coming to Hong Kong. Concerning the majority of ownership for the interviewees, only two were sole proprietors.\nConclusion: Despite some negative aspects of the potential future of Japanese food in Hong Kong, there is room for Japanese food to continue to grow for the near future. Japanese cuisine has the strongest reputation outside of Chinese cuisine in Hong Kong. It is very influential and with the cuisine's strong and rich history in Hong Kong, it has become positioned to be a cuisine on the forefront of innovation and quality. As Japanese cuisine is seen to remain popular, there will be more opportunity for Japanese restaurateurs and SMEs to come to Hong Kong. The challenges discussed will most likely still exist but much like the work done by those in the past, this current generation is paving the way of opportunity for the future.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Hong Kong has a global reputation as an entrepreneurial hub. The Japanese restaurant community has grown and evolved over the last three decades into what many consider as a natural secondary market for Japanese food. As such, several Japanese restaurateurs have come to Hong Kong to enter Hong Kong's premium Japanese restaurant market. The purpose of this paper is to explore this market of Japanese restaurateurship in Hong Kong.\nDesign/methodology/approach: One of the closest methodologies within the topic and discipline from Baldwin (2017) focuses on Japaneseness as a measurement of culinary authenticity examining Hong Kong's Michelin rated restaurants. Here, the qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews with the chefs of two sets of premium Japanese restaurants from Japan that expanded in Hong Kong, Sushi Iwa and Sushi Yoshitake. As this paper focuses on the premium and high-end market of Japanese chefs and restaurateurs in Hong Kong, the researcher combined the approaches of Kawahara & Speece and Baldwin to pursue a qualitative methodology using semi-structured interviews.\nFindings: For this research, the interview process had to be divided into two stages. The first was to speak with long standing members of Hong Kong's Japanese restaurant community. The common thread amongst the restaurateurs was that they were either the sole proprietor or a partner who was financially vested within the company not a form of sweat equity. To respect the privacy of the interviews, questions about exact monetary amounts, number of shares and equity or anything regarding holdings were not asked. The idea was to only examine their responses within the criteria of the research objectives.\nResearch limitations/implications: As the Michelin and premium market of Japanese cuisine is so small, this research can only represent a certain part of the market. Future research could examine other Japanese restaurateurs outside of this market that could be examined to gain a wider perspective of the entrepreneurial strategies they used to start-up their business in Hong Kong.\nOriginality/value: As research in this area is very limited, this paper helps bring restaurateurship in Hong Kong into the academic front. Restaurants are one of the most common entry points for new entrepreneurs in hospitality. This paper may help shed some light on how foreign investment entrepreneurship has been achieved in Asia.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The efficiency of Jordan insurance companies and its determinants using DEA, slacks, and logit models
|
[
"Jordan",
"Efficiency",
"DEA",
"Insurance",
"Logit model"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The efficiency has become an issue that has begun to take an interest in the insurance sector as efficiency helps to identify efficient and inefficient companies in the market, in order to improve competition and profitability and raise the trust of the policyholders. The efficiency of the insurer refers to insurer ability to produce a given set of outputs via the use of inputs (Diacon et al., 2002).\n2. Theoretical background: In microeconomic theory, the production function is defined in terms of the maximum output that can be produced from a specific input, given the existing technology to the firm involved (Battese, 1992). The term economic efficiency means that resources are used in such a way to generate maximum possible output with a given input. In insurance, efficiency refers to the ability of an insurance company to produce a specific set of outputs (such as premium or investment profits) from the use of a specific set of input, such as capital and labor. More specifically, the insurer has two main aspects of its business: the insurance side and the investment side. From the insurance side, output or services provided by an insurer constitute the range of activities an insurer undertakes as its effort to pool risk as premiums reflect the ability of the insurer to market a product, select a client and to accept carrying a risk. And for the investment side, the investment profit captures investment activities by the insurer. Input represents resources that the insurer employs in order to conduct its operation like labor, material and capital. Therefore, the insurer efficiency could also be interpreted as a measure of the insurer's ability to produce outputs from its set of inputs. The insurance company is technically efficient if it can reduce its resources usage without some corresponding reduction in output, given the current state of production technology[1] in the industry[2] (Diacon, 2001). In other words, the insurer uses the optimal amounts and mix of inputs to produce given output levels, and any reduction of input will cause a reduction in the output.\n3. Data and methodology: The study used panel data for 22 out of 24 insurance companies operating inside Jordan covering the period 2000-2016. Two companies excluded from the study due to unavailability of data covering the entire study period. The data were collected from the annual financial statements of the insurance companies.\n4. Data analysis and findings: DEA analysis result\n5. Determinants of efficiency: Slacks-based model\n6. Conclusions and recommendations: This study aimed to evaluate the insurance companies in Jordan during the period 2000-2016 by measuring the technical efficiency of these companies and its determinants. The study uses panel data for 22 insurance companies operating in Jordan, where the technical efficiency and factor that appear to affect its efficiency were estimated by utilizing DEA, slacks-based and logit models.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the technical efficiency in the Jordan insurance market and examine the internal and external determinants that appear to affect the technical efficiency of the insurance companies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study used panel data for 22 insurance companies operating inside Jordan over the period 2000-2016. The author used the data envelopment analysis to evaluate the technical efficiency scores, slacks-based and logit models to examine the efficiency determinants.\nFindings: The study found that there is a slight development of technical efficiency for the Jordanian insurance companies during the study period. In addition, there is a substantial efficiency difference among insurance companies each year, and there is a variation at the level of efficiency for each company in each year. The results also showed that owners' equities are among the most important internal determinants of companies' efficiency, and there is a significant correlation between type, size and return on assets of the insurer and its efficiency.\nOriginality/value: This study provides insurance management with relevant indicators that would guide them to make efficient use of the resource base. The period of study also covers the period following the adoption of the insurance law and the issuance of most of the legislation related to the work of insurance companies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Family culture and organisational systems as antecedents of market orientation and performance among family wineries
|
[
"Australia",
"Germany",
"Italy",
"Critical success factors",
"Regression",
"Survey research",
"Marketing models",
"Family firm",
"Wine business",
"Family culture",
"Organizational system",
"Market orientation",
"Performance"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Business governance comprises a wide set of strategic decisions that are of foremost importance in family firms, given the strong influence of the family on the identity of a business (Carney, 2005; Habbershon, 2006; Pearson et al., 2008). The presence of family management is a meaningful resource in industries where stakeholders maintain close ties with a firm and its products, such as the wine industry (Gallucci et al., 2015). All wineries leverage common factors, such as strong links to local natural and social resources (Banks and Overton, 2010), which provide a unique touch point with the consumer. However, vast heterogeneity also exists among these businesses. Family business research stresses the importance of governance in explaining the vast heterogeneity of family firms (Casprini et al., 2016). Research on the \"governance and financial performance of family firms\" (Sharma et al., 2012, p. 10) has gained significant momentum in explaining this heterogeneity.\n2. Literature review and research hypotheses: Extant literature across research disciplines has identified relationships between firms' financial performance, market orientation and organizational systems (Kirca et al., 2005; Kohli and Jaworski, 1990). Organizational systems, as well as family culture (Cabrera-Suarez et al., 2011), are antecedents of market orientation. Organizational systems include market-oriented training, centralization, formalization and marked-based reward systems, and are considered important antecedents of firms' market orientation and financial performance (Kirca et al., 2005). These systems and family culture are considered to co-found the competitive advantage of a family firm by fostering a higher market orientation, which positively influences firm performance (Carney, 2005; Day, 1994). In addition, Cabrera-Suarez et al. (2011) suggested that family culture affects financial performance by mediation through market orientation. Despite the vast similarities in both outlined research streams (i.e. Cabrera-Suarez et al., 2011; Kirca et al., 2005), to the best of the current researchers' knowledge, no previous studies have undertaken a joint analysis of these aspects.\n3. Research methodology: In consideration of the research purposes and hypotheses, this study conducted a survey through questionnaire among wine businesses located in well-known wine regions of Australia (South Australia), Germany (Palatinate) and Italy (Valpolicella and Lugana), between February and July 2015. The selected wine regions, although located in different countries, were chosen because of the strong diffusion of family businesses, prevalence of traditional structures within the regions and existence of well-known wines linked to regional origin (Menghini, 2015), which implies that these regions markedly influence the national product identity of each country. This is underlined by the fact that the chosen regions rank among the most relevant by production on a national level (Deutsches Weininstitut, 2017; Istituto Nazionale di Statistica, 2017; Wine Australia, 2018).\n4. Results: Table III presents the results of the multiple regression models.\n5. Discussion: The results of this study provide evidence that market orientation partially mediates the relationship between organizational systems - particularly incentives and formal positions - and performance. The findings of this study align with Kirca et al. (2005), who found incentives to be positively related to market orientation. The finding that incentive compensation positively affects financial performance aligns with earlier qualitative evidence in the wine sector (Thach et al., 2005). Incentive compensation schemes in firms can be considered not only as a means to positively affect the market orientation of a company, but also to have a significant and direct positive effect on firm performance. Incentives within a firm may align the interests of employees with those of the firm, and reduce performance losses because of agency cost. While Chrisman et al. (2007) investigated the direct effect of incentives on firms' performance, Kirca et al. (2005) found an effect on market orientation. The current study confirms both of these effects and follows the recent call for research among family wineries by Bresciani et al. (2016). It may be noted that, when considering the partial moderation of incentives through market orientation, significance for the direct effect declined from 5.0-10.0 per cent significance level in the given data set.\n6. Conclusion: This study used an integrative approach to bridge recent advances in family business research (Cabrera-Suarez et al., 2011; Chrisman et al., 2007) with general marketing and business literature (Kirca et al., 2005; Kohli and Jaworski, 1990). This research has quantitatively addressed several recent research gaps in the wine sector through providing the first quantitative confirmation of the hypothesized relationships between organizational systems and family culture with market orientation and performance in family wine firms. The findings have several implications.\n7. Limitations and practical implications: This study is not free of limitations. Although the sample stemmed from three countries, the overall sample size of firms in each country showed limitations, while the geographic distribution of businesses in each country was limited. This may limit the ability of this study to extrapolate results, while larger samples in each country or the replication of this study in other countries may increase the robustness of the results. Moreover, the hypothesized effects of family culture were analysed through multiple regression models. Although this approach has been applied earlier in the field, structural equation models could further advance the understanding of relationships among the variables. However, larger sample sizes are required to conduct a more complex analysis of the variables of interest. Some measures, such as performance, were only reported measures, which showed correlation with the actual ones (Ling and Kellermanns, 2010) without providing the same levels of precision. Future research in different countries and industries will help researchers develop a better understanding of organizational systems in family firms. Larger samples would provide more robust results. Longitudinal studies would also help better understand the dynamics of family culture at a company level. More research on the effects of familiness - particularly investigation into the multiple inherent dimensions of familiness, such as highlighted in Cabrera-Suarez et al. (2011) - and the related effects on organizational performance may provide further insights into the underlying mechanisms. In addition, further research is required to develop an understanding of how family culture, as a component of familiness, can release the hidden potential in a business and potentially substitute other types of organizational control.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to investigate the relationship between organizational systems, market orientation, family culture and the long-term business performance of family businesses in the wine sector in three countries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A survey by questionnaire was undertaken with 123 wineries in Australia, Germany and Italy. Multiple-item measurement scales and multiple regression models were used to investigate mediation effects.\nFindings: The findings indicate a marked influence of organizational systems and family culture on financial performance. Market orientation fully mediates the effect of family culture and partially mediates the effect of organizational systems on financial performance.\nPractical implications: From a managerial perspective, this research indicates the central role of family culture when evaluating a firm's capabilities and potential in the long term. The findings and their implications are of immediate concern for family firms in the wine sector.\nOriginality/value: For the first time, the antecedents of market orientation are investigated through simultaneous application of two key frameworks from marketing research and family business research in a single joint analysis.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Audit committee versus other governance mechanisms and the effect of investment opportunities: evidence from Palestine
|
[
"Audit committee",
"Palestine",
"Corporate governance",
"Investment opportunities",
"Substitution versus complementary effects"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Corporate governance is the bundle of rules and measures, which outlines the responsibilities of a firm's management and provides assurance that the best interests of shareholders are pursued. Corporate governance has been a prominent material of investigation following the numerous events of financial scandal across the globe, which implied how weak governance can lead management to exploit the shareholders (Naser et al., 2013). Consequently, corporate governance regulations and codes have been introduced by many countries to diminish the agency problem and simultaneously preserve the shareholders' rights. A corporate governance system incorporates different internal and external mechanisms that are interconnected in achieving the goal of monitoring management. Although existing literature has shown how each mechanism manages the agency problem, the degree of control that each mechanism adds to the overall firm governance has not been extensively addressed in light of the other mechanisms applied. This gap suggests that further investigation should be directed to study how each mechanism interacts with and affects the work of other mechanisms used in the governance system of the firm. Hence, governance mechanisms should not be examined individually, rather, they should be considered as a group that provides a certain level of control (Ward et al., 2009). It is believed that the interaction of different governance mechanisms in a certain economy is crucial in determining the most advantageous mix of mechanisms that provides the highest level of control over management with the lowest cost possible in that economy (Aguilera and Crespi-Cladera, 2012). Past research has also revealed that different governance mechanisms can either function as complements or substitutes to each other (Hassan et al., 2017). When a mechanism acts as a substitute, an increase in the first mechanism will replace part of the control provided by the second mechanism without increasing the overall level of control exerted by the whole governance system (Ward et al., 2009). Contrastingly, when a mechanism functions as a compliment, an increase in the first mechanism will also increase the control exerted by the second mechanism, and consequently, lead to a higher level of overall control. Therefore, it can be deduced that the governance system is a continuum with weak governance on one end and strong governance on the other; the addition of more monitoring mechanisms increases the strength of the governance system (Hassan et al., 2017).\n2. Study background: Based on the existing literature, two possible standpoints can be presented to describe the relationship between agency costs and the different governance techniques devised to reduce the exploitation of the owners by management. First, it is suggested that complementary effects can be projected by different governance mechanisms (Schmidt and Spindler, 2004; Hoskisson et al., 2009). This perspective specifies that internal monitoring (e.g. board and shareholder control), external monitoring (e.g. the market for corporate control) and management compensation policies collaborate to diminish the potential managerial opportunism. The agency costs will be reduced as a result of the good governance mechanisms implementation. The logic underpinning this standpoint is that the whole governance system aims at alleviating the agency problem and the limited amount of control exercised by any governance mechanism. Consequently, the addition of one mechanism provides the opportunity for another mechanism to address different aspects of the agency problem (Ward et al., 2009). It can be understood that the addition of one mechanism enhances the function of another; the two mechanisms become complements. For example, without the existence of an audit committee, the board is liable for overseeing the management reporting process in addition to ensuring that the reports are of high quality. The establishment of an audit committee will shift the task of monitoring the reporting process away from the board, enabling the focus to be given to other aspects of management monitoring. The second standpoint asserts that different governance mechanisms are substitutes for each other, and it is also costly to apply all of them. Hence, it is suggested that a mechanism should not be added unless it includes more control benefits than the costs (Fernandez and Arrondo, 2005). This stance also highlights that the purpose of the governance system is to lessen the agency problem; when one mechanism is strong enough in achieving this purpose, the need for another mechanism is reduced and vice versa. It is further implied that the two mechanisms are substitutes as the addition of one mechanism will only replace part of the work performed by another mechanism without affecting the overall control (Ward et al., 2009; Naser et al., 2013). For example, when the firm has a low-quality audit firm, blockholders will be forced to increase the effort in monitoring the management. In contrast, a high-quality audit committee that conducts the necessary monitoring can replace the blockholders' efforts. Several important corporate governance mechanisms i.e. audit committee, board structure, ownership structure and quality of the external audit, in addition to the role of investment opportunities are elaborated more thoroughly in the following sections.\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Data\n4. Results and discussions: 4.1 Descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations\n5. Conclusion: The different types of governance mechanisms aim to diminish the agency problem between principals and agents. Whether governance mechanisms are complementing or substituting each other is a debate. The current study has expanded the discussion of the existing literature concerning the interaction between different corporate governance techniques by examining whether the existence of the audit committee complements or substitutes other corporate governance instruments in companies listed on PEX between 2013 and 2017. The data were manually gathered from the annual reports of the companies contained in the sample. Later, logistic regression analyses were implemented to model the interconnection between the existence of an audit committee and other corporate governance mechanisms including board size, board independence, board ownership, CEO duality, ownership concentration and auditor type.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to explore how the presence of an audit committee is associated with other corporate governance mechanisms, i.e. board structure, ownership structure and quality of external audit. The present study evaluated whether the presence of the audit committee complements or substitutes other governance mechanisms in Palestinian companies. Moreover, the effect of investment opportunities on the relationship between the formation of the audit committee and the quality of the auditor was addressed.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The association between the formation of the audit committee and other governance variables was modelled as a binary logistic model. The sample comprising 44 firms listed on Palestine exchange for the period between 2013 and 2017, amounting to 220 firm-year observations.\nFindings: Based on the investigation, the results have indicated that board independence, the distinction between the chairman and chief executive officer function, ownership concentration and audit quality enhance the chance of audit committee formation, implying complementary effect. Contrastingly, board size and board ownership serve as a substitute to audit committee formation. It has also been found that investment opportunities act as an effective moderating factor that strengthens the relationship between audit quality and the formation of the audit committee.\nOriginality/value: The study provides valuable insight into the interaction between multiple corporate governance mechanisms within the economy of Palestine where the external uncertainty is high and investment opportunities are constrained by the decisions of the occupying authority. The findings may help regulators and policymakers in Palestine alongside those of other countries with similar environmental features to revise and update their corporate governance codes to ensure that the best control can be achieved, subsequently attracting more foreign and domestic investments.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Bridges the crowd: rim chain framework
|
[
"Crowd science",
"Knowledge graph",
"Digital-self",
"Rim chain network"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The ant colony effect in the natural world, the formation of a group of birds flying in the sky, the business management process in economics, the coordinated operation of the industrial chain, social organizations and their collective behavior processes, national elections and public discussion of social and public issues, are all based on the collection of many individual wisdoms, which aim to achieve better results. All of these can be attributed to the Crowd Science. As a new paradigm, Crowd Science focuses on the impact regarding the number of individuals involved, the way and depth of interaction between individuals. The development of network and AI technologies is a thrust of enhancing the interconnection among people, things, organizations and enterprises. Crowd Science studies digital-selfs of people, things, organizations and enterprises in the physical world. The digital-self reflects the behavior, consciousness and information of the real-world subject. Crowd Science covers the scientific problem and universal mechanism behind the phenomena above. Interconnected digital-selfs forms the Crowd Network (Chai et al., 2017). Crowd Network explores the basic principles of the interaction among large number of digital-selfs in the three-dimensional fusion space of cyber-physical-psychological space under the large-scale online interconnection environment.\n2. Related works: Crowd Science is a new paradigm. Crowd Science studies digital-selfs of people, things, organizations and enterprises in the physical world. It is based on the System Theory, Information Theory, Cybernetics, Computer Science and Engineering, Management, Economics, Sociology, Psychology and other subjects, and becomes a new interdisciplinary direction (Kutsenok, 2004). The Crowd Science uses the Internet of things, big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and other new technologies to access and analyze the data of public behavior with the ternary fusion system of information physical society and studies the basic principles and laws of intelligent crowds' activities in the new social model. Recent years, intelligence networks or crowd networks have been studied to promote the development of crowd science by exploring crowds' behaviors.\n3. Schema of the rim chain network: In this section, schema of the rim chain network is given. The rim chain network shows the relations and interactions between different individuals in the physical world, especially in provision-demand matching. To better and more clearly describe the social network, the graph theory is used in this paper. The rim chain network is constructed with digital-self node, circle node, the relation link between them and their attributes.\n4. Process of constructing the rim chain network: This section describes the process of constructing the rim chain network. When constructing the rim chain network, the content of the database is first extracted. Then the digital-selfs and circles are formed based on the data. The data in the database also contain the relationship between digital-selfs. The link between digital-selfs and circles comes from these relationships. After the completion of the construction of the relationship between digital-selfs and circles, the construction of rim chain network is completed (Figure 4).\n5. Provision-demand matching in algorithm: The provision-demand matching algorithm is based on the structure of the rim chain network. The rim chain network accurately, simultaneously and comprehensively describes the people, organizations/institutions, things and enterprises in the real world. Moreover, the static structure of the rim chain network is used to achieve a robust social network system. The rim chain network should be able to create the digital-selfs' needs while creating the basic structure. The process of meeting the requirements is cost effective when a new piece of requirement information is sent out from a digital-self. Because when more and more people, organizations/institutions, things and enterprises in the real world enter the rim chain network, its scale will continue to increase. There will be millions of entities (people, institutions, things and enterprises) and their attributes when the rim chain becomes very large. During the provision-demand matching, the comparison has to be done between the requirement and supply information provided by different digital-selfs. However, comparing the supply information one by one is time-consuming because one digital-self can have more than one attributes. Therefore, the matching algorithm has to deal with the rim chain network's size problem.\n6. Conclusion: This paper proposes a new interconnection framework to achieve the provision-demand matching activity in the digital world by using the knowledge graph and the data acquisition methods.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Science of the Crowd is a new paradigm. The research on the relationship between provision and requirement arising from the behavior of the crowd under the interconnected environment is a promising topic. This paper aims at studying a new type of interconnected architecture.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study is a pioneer work on the establishment of a new type of interconnected architecture - rim chain. The rim chain aims at supporting prompt matching between provision and requirements.\nFindings: The analytical results suggest that requirements can be fulfilled in accordance with six degrees of separation. In other words, the matching between the requirements and provision takes place with six hops in the rim chain framework.\nOriginality/value: Knowledge graph is used to implement the rim chain.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Patient satisfaction and an international dental graduate workforce programme
|
[
"Training",
"Qualitative research",
"Patient perspectives",
"Effectiveness",
"Health care quality",
"Rural health"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Globally dental services face several consistent challenges with regards to workforce. Many countries have a concentration of dental services limited to larger cities with considerable shortages often being experienced in smaller rural cities and towns. Australia is an example of a country where such a problem exists. With a land mass of over seven million square kilometres, two-thirds of Australia's population of over 25 million people reside within seven capital cities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study was conducted under full ethics approval from Concord Repatriation General Hospital, Human Research Ethics Committee.\nFindings: In total of 813 participant patient surveys were collected, 726 (89 per cent) of IDGs and 87 of mentor clinicians. The majority of participants were aged between 25 and 64 years (65 per cent). Survey respondents were mostly female (54 per cent), married (39 per cent) or single (30 per cent), with secondary school (49 per cent), tertiary and further (TAFE - 21 per cent) or university degree (12 per cent) education. In total, 46 per cent of participants surveyed, reported their general health as good, 26 per cent very good, 24 per cent fair and 3 per cent poor. In total, 50 per cent had visited the dentist between one and three times in the last 12 months with 29 per cent not having been to a dentist in the same period. In total, 40 per cent reported their dental health as good or very good, 37 per cent fair and 19 per cent poor. Treatment comprised of fillings (28 per cent), extractions (28 per cent), check-ups (10 per cent) and combination treatments (25 per cent) (Table II).\nDiscussion: Previously published dental patient satisfaction surveys use a variety of dimensions, domains or themes within which questions may be grouped. These include information/communication, understanding/acceptance, technical competence (Corah et al., 1984; Hakeberg et al., 2000; Sun et al., 2010), context, content, outcome and facility availability (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2002), and competence, personality and organisation of the dental surgery (Sakalauskiene et al., 2005). The latter were domains preferred by this study, namely, professional competency, personality traits of the clinician and organisation of the surgery including availability, access and equipment. Furthermore, Sakalauskiene et al. used survey questions that had been previously tested and asked patients to further rank them according to perceived level of importance. All questions used in our study had been ranked as either entirely important or important.\nConclusion: This study measured patient satisfaction following treatment provided by IDGs enroled in the N-IDG programme compared to mentor clinicians. Results showed little difference in perceived satisfaction across domains of competence, personality and organisation with an overwhelming shift towards strong satisfaction. IDGs scored more favourably in relation to patient perceived quality, efficiency and in answering patients' questions. In terms of public interest, IDGs under a limited registration programme can provide satisfactory and equivalent acute dental services when measured through patient satisfaction and be used to address rural workforce shortages. Patient satisfaction results may be a useful indicator of dental workforce programme effectiveness.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The New South Wales International Dental Graduate (N-IDG) programme was an Australian state government workforce initiative to support rural public dental services. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate patient satisfaction following dental treatment provided by an IDG workforce.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This cross-sectional descriptive study used a validated questionnaire survey instrument to measure patient satisfaction (n=813) following treatment provided by IDGs enroled in the N-IDG programme, compared to their mentors. Domains included dentists' professional competency, personality and the dental surgery organisation. Analysis of closed and open question responses was performed using domain grouping, frequency and kh2 analysis.\nFindings: Patient satisfaction across the IDG and mentor workforce was similar and very positively skewed with differences detected across perceived treatment quality (p=0.03), clinician efficiency (p=0.05) and answering of questions (p=0.05). These results favoured treatment provided by IDGs over mentors. This study demonstrated few differences between IDGs under limited registration and their mentors in terms of perceived patient satisfaction, suggesting patient perceived parity in care.\nOriginality/value: Patient satisfaction was used innovatively to IDGs as an indicator of dental workforce programme effectiveness.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Linking entrepreneurial orientation and small service firm performance through marketing resources and marketing capability: A moderated mediation model
|
[
"Performance",
"Entrepreneurial orientation",
"Marketing capability",
"Marketing resources",
"Moderated-mediation model",
"Small services"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The literature has reported mixed findings of the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and performance. Some studies have found a positive relationship, some negative, while some even report an insignificant relationship between EO and performance (Rauch et al., 2009). These conflicting findings suggest that the EO-performance relationship is more complex than a simple main-effects-only relationship (see also Wiklund and Shepherd, 2005; Kollmann and Stockmann, 2014). The purpose of this study is to unpack the EO-performance relationship by examining the mediating and moderating roles played by important organizational capabilities and resources within the EO-performance relationship.\nTheory and hypotheses development: EO and performance\nResearch method: To test our hypotheses, we focus on small service firms because small businesses dominate the global economy (e.g. Caniels and Romijn, 2005). In Australia, small business accounts for over 96 percent of all businesses and employs approximately 4.8 million people (Department of Industry Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (DIISRT), 2012). Approximately 84 percent of the total small business sector in Australia is attributable to service-based businesses (DIISRT, 2012). Therefore, promoting the competitive position of small service businesses is important for developing national economies and achieving future growth (Snell et al., 2015).\nResults: A hierarchical regression approach was adopted to test the hypotheses. H1 proposes that marketing capability mediates the relationship between EO and performance. We adopted the procedure recommended by Baron and Kenny (1986) to test this mediation hypothesis in which four conditions need to be met: the effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable must be significant, the effect of the independent variable on the mediating variable must be significant, the effect of the mediating variable on the dependent variable must be significant, and when the mediating variable is included in the model, the effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable must be insignificant for full mediation or reduce in size for partial mediation. As shown in Table II the effect of EO on performance (b=0.47, t=11.19, p< 0.001) and marketing capability (b=0.54, t=13.48, p<0.001) is significant, satisfying the first and second conditions. Marketing capability is also found to have a significant effect on performance (b=0.34, t=7.33, p<0.001), satisfying the third condition. The results also show that when marketing capability is included in the model, the effect of EO on performance becomes weaker (b=0.47, t=11.19 vs b=0.28, t=7.33), thus satisfying the fourth condition for partial mediation. Consequently, H1 is supported.\nDiscussion: Although EO is considered to have a positive impact on performance, the considerable variation in the literature when testing the EO-performance relationship (Rauch et al., 2009) calls for a broader approach in understanding how and when EO contributes to performance. This variation underscores the importance of including both moderators (Covin and Lumpkin, 2011) and mediators (Baker and Sinkula, 2009) in understanding the dynamics of the EO-performance relationship. By examining the underlying process through which EO contributes to the performance of small service firms and the specific condition under which this process is facilitated, we advance the idea that the EO-performance relationship is more complex than a simple main-effects-only relationship (Kollmann and Stockmann, 2014). We also explain why some small service firms might manifest a low performance when the managers show a clear EO attitude: the marketing capability and marketing resources links would be missing in this case.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The literature establishes complex relationships between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and performance, with mixed findings suggesting the variability of the magnitude of the relationship between the two. Some studies report a positive relationship, some negative, while some report an insignificant relationship between EO and performance. These conflicting findings suggest that the EO-performance relationship is more complex than a simple main-effects-only relationship. The literature offers two distinct approaches - integrating moderating or mediation variables in advancing the EO-performance relationship. The purpose of this paper is to extend current knowledge by examining underlying processes through which EO contributes to performance and the specific conditions under which this process is facilitated.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To test the hypotheses the authors chose small service firms in Australia. Industry representation included: accommodation and food services; health care services; rental, hiring and real estate services; transport, postal and warehousing; arts and recreation services; retail trade; construction and training services; and professional, scientific and technical services. The services sector offers a unique opportunity to analyze variances in entrepreneurial engagement and organizational outcomes given the competitive intensity within the service sector which requires firms to engage in venturing, renewal and innovation. The proposed hypotheses were tested through a hierarchical regression analysis.\nFindings: This study finds the support for the mediation effect of marketing capability on the EO-performance relationship. Critically, this study also finds that marketing resources moderates on the indirect effect of EO on performance via marketing capability. The findings supporting both the mediation and moderation effects of marketing capability and marketing resources on the EO-performance relationship (moderated mediation model) suggests that greater insight into how EO influences small service firm performance can be achieved through considering in combination with other firm-level constructs (marketing capability and marketing resources in this study).\nOriginality/value: It addresses the call by prior studies to link the EO construct to theory by embedding marketing resources and marketing capabilities in the EO-performance relationship. Importantly, by accounting for both mediation and moderation effects the authors provide a more complete picture of the EO-performance relationship that highlights the mediating role of marketing capability and the moderating role of marketing resources. This approach helps to reconcile the critical but separate directions proposed by prior studies in advancing the EO-performance relationship.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Organisational learning and export performance of emerging market entrepreneurial firms: The roles of RBV mechanism and decision-making approach
|
[
"Performance",
"Organizational design",
"Delegated ‘professional’ and non-delegated ‘owner’ decision-making approach",
"Foreign venturing exporting",
"Organizational learning theory",
"Resource-based view (RBV)"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Exporting is an important means of foreign market entry (Anderson and Gatignon, 1986; Agarwal and Ramaswami, 1992), through which emerging market entrepreneurial firms (EMEFs) can not only boost sales but also seek new information and obtain updated knowledge (Lages and Montgomery, 2004; Lages et al., 2008; Yang et al., 2012). According to organisational learning theory (Cyert and March, 1963; Levinthal and March, 1981; Sullivan and Nonaka, 1986; Audia et al., 2000), managers of EMEFs often encode inferences from experience and transform them into practices that can be used to guide future behaviour (Levitt and March, 1988; Lant et al., 1992; Lu and Beamish, 2006). In particular, past success was found to increase strategic decision makers' satisfaction, which in turn led decision makers to increase the use of past strategies (Audia et al., 2000). Moreover, firms \"have learned from prior experience to the extent that the experience is associated with an observed change in organizational performance\" (Madsen and Desai, 2010, p. 453). Organisational learning research thus suggests that past export performance is an antecedent of current export performance (Luo and Peng, 1999; Prietual and Watson, 2000; Lages et al., 2008) and past success is positively associated with current performance (Cyert and March, 1963; Nelson and Winter, 1982; Helfat, 1994). Based on previous research on the prior-current performance linkage, this study attempts to shed new light on the following areas.\nLiterature review and hypotheses: Organisational learning\nMethodology: Data overview\nMeasurement: Dependent variable\nResults: Table I presents the descriptive statistics and correlations. All correlations are fairly low. The variance inflation factors (VIF) are well below the acceptable level of 3.0 (Neter et al., 1985), indicating no serious problems of multicollinearity. The mean values of all models are listed in Table II, with the highest VIF values at 1.89. From the base statistics data, we found that about 40.17 per cent of sample firms obtain certification, about 12.22 per cent of sample firms have an intention to make an IPO, and around 33.26 per cent of sample firms adopt a decentralised decision-marking approach. Following previous studies (Elango and Pattnaik, 2007), we also lag all independent variables by two years, taking into account that a firm's learning from prior exporting, the resources obtained and the structure used may take some time to influence exporting performance. Table II reports the results concerning the effects of prior export performance, product certification, intention to make an IPO and the decision-making approach.\nDiscussion and implications: Motivated by the extensive literature, we explore the role of organisational learning theory in explaining EMEFs' export performance and further test whether internal and external resources moderate the relationship between prior and current export performance. Additionally, we try to determine whether the relationship between resource and prior-current performance linkage is associated with the delegation decision-making approach. We used organisational learning theory, RBV and organisational design literature to formulate our research model (Levitt and March, 1988; Cavusgil and Zou, 1994; Burton and Obel, 1998; Beamish et al., 1999; Lages et al., 2008; Chung et al., 2012; Foss et al., 2013). Using a sample of entrepreneurial firms in China, our results confirmed the role of organisational learning theory in the prior-current performance linkage, as well as the moderation effect of the product certification and the intention to make an IPO and the role of the decision-making approach in the framework. Our research has implications for the development of the organisational learning theory, RBV, decision-making and export performance literature.\nLimitations and future research directions: Despite the above contributions, this study also unavoidably suffers from some limitations, which might lead to further research development. First, one limitation of this study is the use of cross-sectional data. Although the explanatory variables are time-lagged, our design does not regard to differences in time. Therefore, future research may adopt longitudinal data, or use experiments, to consider the dynamics between learning, resources, structure and export performance. Second, organisational learning theory was used as our overarching theoretical framework. However, we did not directly measure learning. Potential research opportunities exist in developing the dimension and degree of the various aspects learning in the organisational learning-performance paradigm. Third, our study only focuses on the private exporting firms in China, and we have not considered the effect of organisational learning in other firms in this country (e.g. state-owned exporting firms). This limitation can be improved by including other types of exporting firms in the investigation scope. Only then can the conclusions drawn in this study be more generalisable.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to integrate the resource-based view (RBV) with organisational learning theory by investigating the role of the RBV mechanism in the preceding performance-current performance linkage. The authors further examine the role of the decision-making approach on the RBV-prior-current performance paradigm. Using China as the research setting, they empirically test the theoretical model based on 229 firms selected from a nation-wide survey.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study has used China as the research setting. The authors empirically test the theoretical model based on 229 firms selected from a nation-wide survey.\nFindings: This study reveals that prior export performance is a key determinant of current export performance, and this effect is enhanced by product certification (an internal RBV mechanism) and the intention to make an initial public offering (and external RBV mechanism). Moreover, the internal RBV-prior-current performance paradigm is positively moderated by the delegated decision-making approach, while the external RBV-prior-current performance paradigm is negatively moderated by this decision-making approach.\nResearch limitations/implications: The results related to RBV and prior organisational learning also extends the extant literature and offer implications in two important ways. One, this research advances existing research that has only considered the direct effect of organisational learning on current performance (Lages et al., 2008). In addition to its direct effect, this study suggests that the interplay of organisational learning and resource commitment also provides important determinants of export performance. These new results imply that future research should not only explore the effect of organisational learning theory but also that of firm resource in the research on the prior-current performance dyad (Lages et al., 2008). Two, this study also advances the theoretical development of the export venture resource and management commitment research by revealing two new factors (Cavusgil and Zou, 1994). As a result, when conducting exporting activity from an emerging economy, exporting firms should consider committing their resources on acquiring international certification and seeking external funding. These new findings provide new guidance on the choice of the type of resource commitments and their roles in the prior-current performance conceptualisation when operating in the emerging markets.\nPractical implications: The results also contribute to the conceptualisation of the decision-making literature in the context of emerging economies (Garnier, 1982; Kao, 1993; Redding, 1993; Solberg, 2000), where an owner decision-making approach is associated with a number of negative effects (Kao, 1993; Redding, 1993). This study suggests that an owner decision-making approach can actually help firms to implement the effect of external RBV's influence in the prior-current performance framework. As a result, the findings imply that researchers and managers of EMEFs should now consider including the effect of decision-making governance when exploring the interactive effect of RBV and organisational learning in export performance research (Lages et al., 2008).\nOriginality/value: This three-way interaction results have implications for the development of organisational learning theory, the RBV, decision-making, export performance and emerging market literature.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Enterprise education as pedagogy
|
[
"Business enterprise",
"Education",
"Entrepreneurialism",
"Teaching"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This paper looks at issues around enterprise education and in so doing offers description, explanation and critical analysis of the concept. In discussing the enterprise education debate it teases out the similarities and differences with entrepreneurship education and explores how these concepts might be better understood. The recent World Economic Forum report, \"Educating the next wave of entrepreneurs\" (Volkmann et al., 2009) clearly sets out the case for entrepreneurship education. Whilst the World Economic Forum report looks at entrepreneurship education as a global concept the focus here is primarily on enterprise education in the UK. This is an issue that is particularly current and relevant given the government's recent launch of the National Enterprise Academy, which \"will offer the UK's first accredited courses in enterprise and entrepreneurship\" (Halls, 2009, p. 5).In Britain the last 30 years has seen an increased focus on the introduction of enterprise education to the curriculum throughout all phases of education, in part to help address the need for a trained, skilled workforce able to operate in a more flexible labour market where self-employment, starting a business or working for a small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) are encouraged. This focus has usually been in the form of a recommendation, but most recently it has been introduced as a compulsory element at Key Stage 4[1] of the National Curriculum in England. Scotland has seen the value of introducing enterprise as part of the curriculum in all phases beginning at primary school level (Scottish Executive, 2001, p. 1). Their raison d'etre is \"to identify the next generation of entrepreneurs\", but they also see the need for children to be equipped with \"the creativity and adaptability to thrive in an ever-changing world\" (Scottish Executive, 2001). In primary schools in England there is no compulsion to teach enterprise, although it is looked upon with favour by Ofsted inspectors (Ofsted, 2004), who see it as enriching the curriculum overall. In recent years also a greater emphasis has been placed on introducing enterprise education into universities, perhaps most notably evident in the Enterprise in Higher Education initiative[2]. The value is seen to lie in the way in which young people can be helped to overcome some of the more recent changes in employment structures while at the same time assisting with the building of a strong economy. Enterprising qualities are also viewed as being essential in relieving the stress of some of the social issues that have emerged from the rapid changes in society. This paper adds to the ongoing debate around the meaning, nature and purpose of enterprise (Hytti and O'Gorman, 2004; Rae, 2007) and entrepreneurship (Matlay, 2006; Volkmann et al., 2009) education.The paper begins by setting the context in which enterprise education was introduced to the UK and its origins are traced back to James Callaghan's Ruskin College Speech of 1976. It then touches on and makes brief mention of subsequent salient developments in UK education policy before outlining the rationale and importance of education-business links. The crux of the argument is then presented through an explanation and analysis of the key differences between entrepreneurship and enterprise education. A critical analysis of the enterprise-entrepreneurship education concept is presented and a way forward is identified.\nContext: The origins of enterprise education in the UK\nThe problem: enterprise or entrepreneurship education?: It is contested here that enterprise education is a chimera that can mean all things to all people. Enterprise and entrepreneurship are often used interchangeably and this causes much confusion. Ofsted recommends that \"schools should establish a clear definition\" \"that is understood by all involved\" and suggests \"enterprise education consists of enterprise capability supported by better financial capability and economic and business understanding\" (Ofsted, 2004; Teachernet, 2008). Atherton (2004) has recognised the need to separate or unbundle the terms. The need to differentiate the terms to identify the similarities and differences of purpose between them is evident. There are numerous definitions to be found in various publications, however Price (2004, p. 4) offers the following view of enterprise, entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship:Enterprise is an inclusive concept, which provides both the context in which subject disciplines can be explored, as well as an approach, through skill development, which can be taken to the exploration and discovery of a discipline. In these respects, it can provide a challenging environment within which to explore a variety of teaching areas (the small business context) as well as provide a dimension to learning, that of developing the skills of being enterprising, which provide students with an attitude towards learning, which rewards and supports innovation, change and development.\nThe way forward: Learning through enterprise\nConclusions: The British government's strategic enterprise and entrepreneurial intentions are delivered and realised at classroom level in different education sectors. The government has and continues to promote and encourage the provision of enterprise and entrepreneurship education through a range of initiatives and curriculum developments. This paper has addressed a conceptual ambiguity in how the terminology is used in policy deliberations and developed in terms of practice initiatives. All too often the terms are conflated, with resultant ambiguity of what exactly is being sought, promoted and developed and with consequential failures to assess impact and value. Enterprise and entrepreneurship are most appropriately understood and practised as different; with different goals and different means to achieving these goals. Through greater conceptual clarity, a way forward is offered. This paper has sketched a future agenda in which enterprise as pedagogy offers clarity for policy developments throughout primary, secondary, further and higher education. Of course, to be effective and achieve maximum impact it is important that these different phases of education (primary, secondary, further and higher) employ and utilise enterprise education in ways that are relevant, appropriate and fit for purpose in relation to students' needs at these different levels. Nonetheless, uncoupled from entrepreneurship education, enterprise education can be pursued with clarity and purpose and a basis established from which rigorous assessment of impact can be pursued, thus contributing to the further development of quality \"enterprise\"-based teaching provision.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper seeks to suggest that the most appropriate way to construe the concept of enterprise education is from a pedagogical viewpoint. Enterprise education as pedagogy is argued to be the most appropriate way to think about the concept and serves to demarcate it from entrepreneurship education, which is very much about business start-up and the new venture creation process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Enterprise education is underpinned by experiential action learning that can be in, outside and away from the normal classroom environment. It can be delivered across a range of subject areas throughout different phases of education.\nFindings: - Enterprise and entrepreneurship education are perceived to be conflated terms that for many in the education and business communities mean much the same thing. Adopting an enterprise education approach allows greater pupil/student ownership of the learning process.\nPractical implications: - Enterprise education as pedagogy advocates an approach to teaching where specific learning outcomes differ across and between different educational phases and subject areas but which has a clear and coherent philosophical underpinning.\nOriginality/value: - Enterprise education should not be equated solely with business, as it is a broader, deeper and richer concept. The theoretical import of the paper is in part a plea for a more rigorous, practically informed analysis of the different strands (pedagogy, entrepreneurship, citizenship and civic responsibility) that make up enterprise education. The paper also sets out the case for a more critical analysis of enterprise education.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Modelling energy consumption behaviour using "energy culture" concept for student accommodations in Malaysian public universities
|
[
"Behaviour",
"Facilities management",
"Energy consumption",
"Energy saving",
"Energy culture",
"Public universities"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In achieving the goal of a sustainable campus, one of the options is to assess the perspective of students through their behaviour. This is the cheapest method compared to physical approaches (Muhieldeen et al., 2009). However, a lack of knowledge and information on the energy consumption behaviour among students at Malaysian public universities has become a barrier to these aims and created a vague picture of energy consumption behaviour.\n2. Energy culture concept: Cottrell (2009) cited that energy must be defined in terms of the ways in which it manifests itself. It is variously classified as heat, light, sound, radio, radar, TV, electricity, magnetism, mechanical energy, growth and even \"matter\". It has been difficult for the layman to accept that this range represents different manifestations of the same thing. Hence, to do justice to the concept of energy, it requires treating each of its manifestations as it is treated by experts in that particular field.\n3. Modelling energy consumption behaviour: The topic of energy modelling has been seriously studied since the 1970s and 1980s. Factors which drive the rapid growth of energy modelling were energy policy, as well as demand and behaviour, among others (Azar and Menassa, 2010). The advantage of applying energy modelling can be seen in the logical consistency between inputs and output. Basically, the logical relationships within a formal model are generally clearer and more explicit than with verbal and qualitative arguments. Thus, this research attempts to develop econometric modelling through techniques of multiple regression analysis (MRA) and multinomial logistic of energy consumption behaviour. This regression approach was selected because of both its suitability for the current research requirements and because it has been put forward by literature as an effective tool in the bottom-up technique of modelling energy consumption (Azar and Menassa, 2010).\n4. Methodology: The methodology has two stages. The first stage concerns data collection for this paper, and the second stage focuses on determining the energy consumption level, developing the ECBM and model application. The overall steps of the methodology are explained in Figure 2. The methodology developed is very similar to the method developed by Cramer et al. (1985). Through multiple regression applications, energy consumption is classified as a dependent variable, while independent variables are represented by the element contained in the energy culture framework.\n5. Model development: In total, 1,009 respondent data have been analysed. The respondents consist of 491 males and 518 females from four selected public universities, namely, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Universiti Malaya (UM), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). Based on the calculation, the mean of observed energy consumption is 6.082 kWh with minimum and maximum values of 0 and 70.44 kWh daily, respectively.\n6. Potential energy saving assessment: The developed model [as shown in equation (3)] was tested on 349 students at Malaysian public universities. Based on the test, the amount of energy consumption predicted was in the range of -1.321 kWh minimum and 32.013 kWh maximum. The mean of the predicted energy consumption is 2.46 kWh, compared to observed energy consumption with a mean of 5.84. The difference from the two consumptions is 3.37 kWh, which is equal to 58 per cent difference ([(2.46 - 5.84)/5.84] x 100).\n7. Discussion: Based on the first analysis without combination of the activities and device factor, the model has a high number of variations with 99.2 per cent. The model itself is significant from the viewpoint of the ANOVA test. Based on its coefficient, six factors were found to be of importance in the model, namely, building regulations (b = -0.006, p < 0.05), environmental concerns (b = -0.011, p < 0.05), education (b = -0.006, p < 0.05), activities (b = 4.57, p < 0.05), social marketing (b = 0.004, p < 0.05) and devices (b = 6.201, p < 0.05). However, only building regulations, education, devices and activities were in the expected direction. This left the issues of social marketing and environmental concerns in an unexplained situation. Furthermore, the questions of comfort and social aspiration that were expected to be important to the model were found not to be relevant. ECBM analysis has combined activities and device factors together as a direct factor. The combination has a purpose to eliminate the multi-collinearity problem found in the early findings. The result shows that, through a combination of factors, the problem has been eliminated (VIF = 1.007 < 10; Tolerance = 0.993 >0.1). Furthermore, direct factor data show that it is significant and in an expected direction in ECBM. The combination was proved from the previous studies which were always found to have been significant and in a positive coefficient direction (Cramer et al., 1985; Yust et al., 2002; Yun and Steemers, 2011).\n8. Conclusion: The model was tested against the overall number of students at Malaysian public universities. In future, the model can be tested within hostel accommodations. This assessment will reveal the potential energy savings to be made in the hostel buildings. It also helps to set a target regarding which building has the potential to reduce energy consumption. It also helps the facilities manager to develop a strategy and programme for an energy policy in public universities.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In working towards a sustainable campus of public universities, energy consumption behaviour assessment is one of the several issues that requires attention by the facilities manager. Information on energy consumption behaviour is needed to determine potential energy savings. The purpose of this study is to assess energy consumption behaviour for student accommodations in Malaysian public universities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study focuses on developing energy consumption behaviour models (ECBMs) and assesses the potential energy savings. The \"energy culture\" framework consolidated with multiple regression analysis is used to strengthen the development of ECBMs. A self-administrated survey involving 1,009 respondents in selected public universities was carried out.\nFindings: The result shows that five factors from the energy culture framework contribute to energy consumption behaviour, namely, building regulation, environmental concern, education, social marketing and direct factors (device and activities). These factors are included in the model for predicting energy consumption levels. The results show that there is a 78 per cent difference in energy consumption between the observed and predicted data.\nPractical implications: This study indicates a high potential energy saving among students of Malaysian public universities.\nOriginality/value: The model was tested against the overall students among Malaysian public universities. In future, the model can be tested within hostel accommodations. The present assessment revealed the potential energy saving among the hostel buildings and sets the target regarding which building has a potential to reduce energy. It also helps the facilities managers to come up with strategies for programmes and energy policy in public universities.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Lean manufacturing and operational performance: Interrelationships between human-related lean practices
|
[
"Lean manufacturing",
"Manufacturing performance",
"Human factors",
"Critical success factors"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Lean manufacturing (LM) is a method that levers on a complex system of socio-technical practices to enhance manufacturing performance and create value through waste elimination and continuous improvement of production processes (Shah and Ward, 2003; Dal Pont et al., 2008). The extension of LM to different countries and sectors has shaped this methodology into a model that has become the paradigm of productivity improvement that is associated with industrial excellence worldwide. Under this scenario, the study of the factors that influence the success of a Lean implantation is a relevant topic of study and research.\n2. Review of literature: 2.1 The role of the human factor in LM implementation\n3. Research hypotheses development: The revision of the HRLP listed in Table I suggests that nine of them should be applied primarily by the company's management: training employees, communicating the lean plan, leadership, top management commitment, humane orientation, expert workforce, financial resources, supplier partnership and customer involvement. This set of HRLP is referred as management's HRLP (M-HRLP) and they are expected to have a significant impact on a successful LM implementation and an improved OP due to the evidence found in the literature.\n4. Research methodology: 4.1 Conceptual framework\n5. Results: 5.1 Exploratory factor analysis model\n6. Discussion: The review of the state of the art revealed that there are studies that have connected HRLP with a successful lean implementation. Most of the empirical and exploratory studies found have been oriented to explore the relationship between the LM practices and the variables used to define performance and effectiveness. However, they do not suggest the existence of any deployment sequence that can help maximize the effectiveness of these HRLP. These studies do not take into consideration who is responsible for the application of those practices in relation to management or employees.\n7. Conclusions, limitations and future research: Previous LM research has shown the importance that LM tools and techniques (hard practices) and human-related practices (soft practices) have in the implementation of lean and the OP of a company. This study fills a research gap by exploring the existing causal relationships between specific sets of HRLP used during a LM implementation and a company's OP. To do so, the study employs an inductive analysis that relies on literature review and expert opinion to identify the variables to explore, and deductive analysis that uses EFA, CFA and SEM to find the effects and regression weight between the variables.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Lean manufacturing (LM) constitutes a consolidated alternative that has been successfully used to increase company effectiveness and performance. However, different studies have shown that many companies that attempt to integrate LM into their manufacturing operations fail in their efforts. Recent studies have shown that soft practices are a key factor for a successful LM implementation. The purpose of this paper is to analyze an in-depth review of the different human-related lean practices (HRLP) referenced in the recent literature and to identify which of them are more relevant to a successful LM implementation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The findings presented in this paper are based on the results of a study about the situation of LM in Spain carried out with lean production managers and frontline supervisors of 202 Spanish companies with a high percent (74 percent) of international firms with factories in different countries. The implemented methodology uses factor analysis and structural equation modeling.\nFindings: The results shows statistical evidence of the relationship between management's HRLP (fostering a lean culture, providing support to lean), employees' HRLP (employee involvement and employee empowerment) and operational performance (OP) (waste reduction and flexibility).\nPractical implications: The results have academic and practical relevance for clarifying lean phenomena, helping managers to define a sequence in which a company should implement HRLP to successfully implement LM and increase its OP.\nOriginality/value: This study fills a research gap by exploring the existing causal relationships between a greater number of variables, both dependent and independent in relation to human factors in LM implementations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Consumer preference mapping for rice product concepts
|
[
"Rice",
"Product specification",
"Consumer behaviour",
"Thailand"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Rice consumption per capita in many Asian countries is decreasing steadily, amongst other reasons, due to changing dietary habits. Nowadays the new wealthy Chinese middle class, for example, eschews simple, traditional meals in favour of meat-laden Chinese and Western style food (Roberts, 1996). Rice consumption in Japan has declined from more than 100 kg per capita to about 70 kg in 1993 (The Economist, 1993) and 58 kg in 2001 (Kennedy et al., 2002). Similar developments are taking place in South Korea and Taiwan, where a rise in income is accompanied by a decrease in per capita rice consumption (USDA, 2002); the demand for rice shrinks since western food became popular. The same situation can be observed in major rice eating countries such as Thailand and Indonesia (Chataigner, 1992). The contribution of rice to the energy intake of the consumers show a marked decrease and is replaced by wheat, beans, and other field crops (Inoue, 1996). As a consequence, rice farmers in major rice producing countries will face the problem of a decreasing demand in the near future.By contrast, American and European citizens are eating more rice nowadays (Chataigner, 1992; Weiss, 1993; Suwansri et al., 2002; USDA, 2005, Childs and Livezey, 2006). Moreover, rice consumption is expected to continue to increase. However, the annual consumption growth rate of 3 per cent in Europe is lower than that in the USA (5 per cent) (Chataigner, 1992). USA rice imports have risen sharply over the past 20 years and accounted for 15 per cent of total domestic disappearance compared to 4 per cent in 1985/1986 (Childs and Livezey, 2006). In the USA, rice is moving away from being merely a side dish to a proper meal component, because of the fast growing groups of Asian Americans and Hispanic Americans. Annual per capita rice consumption in the USA rises from 4.7 kg in 1980 to 12.3 kg in 2000 (USA Rice Federation, 2000); people belonging to the Asian ethnic groups consume ten times more rice than the average American consumer (Goodwin et al., 1996; Childs, 1993). Within Europe, rice consumption increases most in the Northern European countries, such as the UK, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. The highest rice consumption per capita is in Portugal, Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands (Eurostat, 1990). The growing popularity of rice is attributed to several factors, e.g. its popularity in ethnic cuisine, healthy image due to the existence of gluten free products, appealing flavour, ease of preparation, menu versatility, the fact that it is relatively cheap, and many restaurants serve rice dishes (Weiss, 1993; Childs, 1993). In the UK, the growth of rice consumption is partly because consumers move away from the traditional meal to more exotic dishes such as Indian, Mexican, or Asian foods (Hogg and Kalafatis, 1992). In contrast, total carbohydrate foods remained stable for many years at around 45 per cent of total energy intake. Only 50 per cent of the UK respondents recognized the increased intake of complex carbohydrate such as bread, pasta and rice as general health guidelines to achieve dietary goal recommended by the UK Department of Health (Cannon, 1992; Goode et al., 1995). Starchy foods are generally viewed as a \"boring but filling\" and do not help weight control (Stephen et al., 1995). As a consequence, the overall perceptions to increase starchy food are low. Most consumers believed that starchy food intake has to reduce to achieve healthier diet. Stubenitsky and Mela (2000) studied the consumer attitudes toward starchy foods in the UK. Results showed that those who have positive attitudes toward increased starchy food diets thought that starchy food was good for health, nutritious, easy to prepare and cook, help control weight and not high in energy. But the negative attitude consumers were less convinced in health and nutritious status, energy and weight control.The increase in rice consumption mentioned above leads to new promising markets for Thailand. These can compensate for the decrease in demand of rice eating countries. This study investigated consumers' attitudes toward rice and rice products. It aimed to seek opportunities to substitute rice with their everyday starchy foods and increase background knowledge for future rice product development.\nResearch methodology: The research was based on both secondary and primary data collection. The secondary data included exploratory surveys of rice and its products which were conducted in some of Thailand's potential rice export markets, which were Taiwan, China, Japan, the USA, France, Italy and the Netherlands. Survey places were supermarkets, Asian grocery stores, and trade fairs, which were FOODEX JAPAN 2002 (Tokyo, 12-15 March 2002), IFT Annual Meeting and Food Expo 2002 (California, USA, 15-19 June 2002), Anuga 2005 (Cologne, Germany 8-12 October 2005). The market products' characteristics from the exploratory research was collected as a set of product attributes that represented various ideas such as features, utility, health/nutrition, taste etc.Exploratory primary data were collected through qualitative focus group research. Focus group provided insights in consumer decision-making and attitude towards rice and rice products. Focus group studies were moderated following the focus group moderating training procedure of the Burke Institute (1993). Panels participated in this study were the natives of target rice export countries that we were able to access namely:1. Japanese housewives (ten persons age 28-40);2. Chinese students (ten persons age 27-32);3. Taiwanese students (ten persons age 27-32);4. two groups of French working people (six persons age 22-44 and 24-52); and5. one group of French elderly (eight persons age 62-68).The participants in each focus group knew each other and were encouraged to give their opinions on selected topics, such as their everyday meal, how they prepared foods, types of rice they preferred, what they thought about Jasmine rice and about selected rice market samples etc. The purpose of this study was to collect a comprehensive view of eating and cooking behaviour and attitudes towards rice and rice products. Data from the focus group studies helped understanding rice-eating preference of each target country. And the product ideas from market survey were used to form product concepts that could represent their preferences and attitudes in rice. Both sets of information were then applied for developing a questionnaire to use in a larger follow-up study in a quantitative survey.A quantitative questionnaire was designed to access consumer attitudes and preferences with respect to rice and rice products. Respondents were preliminary screened. Those who ever eat rice and rice products were selected using a quota sampling method with age and gender as quota control variables as shown in Table I. The target age was between 20-50 years old and the proportion of women was comparatively higher since they were mostly responsible for the household food purchase. The questionnaire was translated into five languages by native speakers, which were Thai, Chinese, Japanese, English and Dutch (other nationalities were asked to use English version). After translation it was tested with people of the same nationality until the same perception was achieved. Questionnaires were distributed by means of person-to-person contact. Target persons were Thai, foreign expatriates living in Thailand, Asian expatriates living aboard, and consumers from target countries. Data were collected from target export countries (Taiwan, Japan, UK, USA) and within Thailand (Bangkok International Airport, International School in Bangkok for expatriates living in Thailand).Questionnaires consisted of 23 questions using a five-point Likert scale. First, respondents were asked to indicate their cooking and rice eating frequency together with their attitudes towards natural/processed food. Second, attitudes and preference in all market products concepts were asked to rate according to their interest in those rice products. Purchase decision criteria for rice products were rated by their view of importance. The questionnaire was pre-tested and modified before starting the field survey. Questionnaires were coded, data were analysed with SPSS version 10 (SPSS Inc., USA.) The analysis included comparison of means using analysis of variance and t-test. Since consumers usually think in more general evaluative dimension rather than specific items, factor analysis with Varimax rotation was then applied aiming for data reduction and concepts formation.Filled-in questionnaires were obtained from 1,128 consumers. Consumers were then grouped into nine groups according to our previous study using consumers' sensory preference and habits in rice (Suwannaporn and Linnemann, 2008). These nine groups were Thai, North Chinese/Taiwanese, Japanese/Korean, Australian/New Zealander, British/Irish, American/ Canadian, South Chinese/Southeast Asian, South Asian/Middle East and European. Demographic details of the respondents were presented in Table I.\nResults and discussion: Rice products concepts\nConclusions and recommendations: Consumers' rice preferences differed greatly among nationalities. Rice exporters have to understand these different preferences in order to offer the right products to their customers. Assuming consumer preferences to be comparable to one's own country's preference can cause new product failure. This research confirmed existing differences and presented details and backgrounds of these differences. Traditional rice grain was still among the most accepted and preferred products for all consumers. However, preferences in terms of eating quality and cooking method may not be similar and require further investigation. Product differentiation should focus on offering more diversity such as Aromatic rice, Basmati rice, wild rice, American rice etc., more convenient cooking methods and attractive packaging designs. Higher value-added rice products such as seasoned rice grain, which represented the grain variety concept, can be introduced to the variety seeking Asian consumers. Highly processed rice dishes, which represented the convenience concept were more accepted by consumers in non-rice eating countries and the modernized Asian countries. Suitable target groups were young to middle aged singles, students and company officials. New rice product design should take consumers' eating and cooking habits and their perception of health into account.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Rice consumption per capita in many Asian countries is decreasing constantly, but American and European citizens are eating more rice nowadays. A preference study among consumers was carried out with the aim of determining new rice product characteristics in order to support export of Thai rice. This paper aims to report the results\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research was based on both secondary and primary data collection. The secondary data included exploratory surveys of rice and its products which were conducted in some of Thailand's potential rice export markets. Exploratory primary data were collected through qualitative focus group research. A quantitative questionnaire with 1,128 consumers of target nationalities was conducted to access consumer attitudes and preferences with respect to rice and rice products.\nFindings: - Rice products were grouped with factor analysis and could be characterized by convenience (explained variance 33.9 per cent), grain variety (21.2 per cent), and tradition/naturalness (12.8 per cent). Rotated factor score plot of the preference for rice products among different nationalities showed a similarity in the preference for the tradition/natural products. Convenient products were preferred in higher income Asian countries and the non-rice eating countries. These three product categories were correlated with consumers' ideas concerning the health-supporting character of processed food.\nOriginality/value: - Consumers' rice preferences differed greatly among nationalities. Rice exporters have to understand these different preferences in order to offer the right products to their customers. Assuming consumer preferences to be comparable to one's own country's preference can cause new product failure. This paper confirms existing differences and presents details and backgrounds of these differences.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Representation of indigenous cultures: considering the Hawaiian hula
|
[
"Classification schemes",
"Controlled vocabularies",
"Indigenous culture",
"Hawaiian Hula Dance",
"Knowledge representation and organization",
"Representation of indigenous knowledge"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nKanaka Maoli (Hawaiian) Hula Dance: Hawai'i[1] is considered synonymous with paradise for its pristine and beautiful nature, its unique culture and hospitality, and the love or aloha of the Kanaka Maoli (Hawaiian) people. Throughout its modern history, Hawai'i has been personified through the figure of a female Hawaiian dancer or Kanaka Maoli hula dancer (Imada, 2012). As Imada points out, in pre-contact Hawai'i and up to the late nineteenth century, hula was a \"highly venerated, selective, and restricted form of religious and political praxis\" (p. 11). Hula dancers were guardians of Kanaka Maoli historiography, cosmogony, and genealogies, undergoing ritualized training to reproduce and transmit knowledge for high-ranking chiefs (Imada, 2012). Religious forms of hula also honored akua or gods (Stillman, 1998). Imada (2012) also explains that in the late 1880s, the Hawaiian monarchy revived and enshrined hula as an \"anti-imperial, state-sponsored form of national revival in defiance of haole [foreign] missionary settlers\" (p. 11). After Christian missionaries arrived, however, a dualistic perception emerged as hula was either vehemently condemned as a primitive ritual (Keawe, 2008) or passionately praised as a sacred celebration. In modern times it is likely to be viewed as erotic entertainment.\nIndigenous knowledge: Hawaiian epistemology: Denzin and Lincoln (2008) have proposed a conversation between indigenous and non-indigenous discourses to build connections and explore ways to dismantle, deconstruct, and decolonize traditional ways of doing science. Achieving these goals requires recognizing the agents of colonial power, such as Western scientists, who \"discovered, extracted, appropriated, commodified, and distributed knowledge about the indigenous other\" (Denzin and Lincoln, 2008, p. 5). In so doing, they excluded indigenous persons from their own representation and distribution and misrepresented their knowledge as \"discovered.\" The researchers called for a decolonizing project than seeks to make \"Western systems of knowledge the object of critique and inquiry\" (Denzin and Lincoln, 2008, p. 6).\nIndigenous knowledge representation and organization: From the perspective of cognitive psychology, Palmer (1978) defines representation as \"something that stands for something else\" or as \"some sort of model of the thing (or things) it represents\" (p. 262). Palmer further clarifies that representation comprises two separate worlds: the represented world and the representing world. Neither \"all aspects of the represented world need to be modeled\" nor \"all aspects of the representing world need to model an aspect of the represented world;\" however, there must be some corresponding aspects between the represented and representing worlds (p. 262). Palmer characterizes representation as a system that should satisfy the following five aspects to be classified as a complete representation: what the represented world is, what the representing world is, what aspects of the represented world are being modeled, what aspects of the representing world are doing the modeling, and what the correspondences between the two worlds are (p. 262). Applying Palmer's conceptualization of representation, knowledge organization systems, such as the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) and the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) are representational systems that aim to capture or denote a particular body of resources. However, this representation is not isomorphic to the represented world or in Barsalou's (1992) terms to the target domain; it is, rather, a representation of specific characteristics of the target domain, specifically the subject representation.\nRepresentation of Hawaiian Hula: In order to analyze the controlled and natural language vocabularies employed for the representation and organization of Hawaiian culture, in particular Hawaiian hula, the most widely accepted and used systems were examined: classification systems (DDC and Library of Congress Classification (LCC)), subject heading systems (LCSH and authority files (Library of Congress and OCLC Authority Files)), and citation indexing systems (Web of Science (WoS) Social Sciences and Art and Humanities databases). The search terms \"Hawaii\" and \"hula\" were used to retrieve all relevant controlled and natural language terms utilized across all the above mentioned systems.\nConclusion: In line with previous studies suggesting biases in knowledge representation and organization systems (e.g. Furner, 2007; Green, 2015; Metoyer and Doyle, 2015; Olson and Schlegl, 2001), this study has revealed a major disconnect between various tools of representation and organization in the representation of Hawaiian Hula and its indigenous significance. Representation of Hawaiian hula in classification schemas as a folk dance and/or recreational activity, as opposed to a sacred celebration, point to a biased viewpoint of traditional systems of representation and organization. Yet, it is crucial to understand the inner processes that have defined indigenous knowledge not just for regaining what is lost in conventional representations but, most importantly, \"to sustain vibrant Native futures\" (Goeman, 2013, p. 3). In this regard, Mahealani Rowe (2008) argues that there is need to respect cultural context and \"not project upon it, wittingly or unwittingly, terms that move through us from our own cultural backgrounds, terms whose meanings and implications create a framework in which hula will only be distorted\" (p. 41). As Bowker and Star (1999) contend, a valorization of some point of view over another is inescapable, but \"it is an ethical choice, and as such it is dangerous-not bad, but dangerous\" (pp. 5-6). To avoid such danger in knowledge representation and organization systems, it is an ethical imperative to take on the task of making resources both accessible to different groups and cultures and well-represented to users outside of those cultures (Olson, 2001).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the representation of Kanaka Maoli (Hawaiian) Hula Dance in traditional systems of representation and organization.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This exploratory study analyzes the controlled and natural language vocabularies employed for the representation and organization of Hawaiian culture, in particular Hawaiian hula. The most widely accepted and used systems were examined: classification systems (Library of Congress Classification and Dewey Decimal Classification), subject heading systems (Library of Congress Subject Headings and authority files (Library of Congress and OCLC Authority Files), and citation indexing systems (Web of Science Social Sciences and Art and Humanities databases).\nFindings: Analysis of various tools of representation and organization revealed biases and diasporization in depictions of Hawaiian culture. The study emphasizes the need to acknowledge the aesthetic perspective of indigenous people in their organization and presentation of their own cultural knowledge and advocates a decolonizing methodology to promote alternative information structures in indigenous communities.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to the relatively limited scholarship on representation and organization for indigenous knowledge organization systems, in particular Hawaiian culture. Research suggests that access to Native Hawaiian cultural heritage will raise awareness among information professionals in Hawai'i to the beauty of Native Hawaiian epistemology.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
How 3D printing technology changes the rules of the game: Insights from the construction sector
|
[
"Environmental impact",
"3D printing",
"Supply chains",
"Disruptive technology"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Technology has often been regarded as both panacea and root cause of society's problems from the perspective of sustainable development (e.g. Davidson, 2001; Dunn, 1979; Goldsmith, 1972; Lau, 2010). Proponents focus on the role technology plays in solving sustainability problems humanity is faced with. For example under the umbrella of eco-efficiency, many technological advancements have been realized that provide improved eco-performance compared to the technologies they substitute. Opponents zoom in on the undesired ecological and societal side effects of technologies currently in place. They also see the problems of eco-efficiency solutions, only providing an improvement instead of a real solution. Eco-efficient solutions still depend on the use of limited natural resources, and do not structurally change the way these are depleted or the way raw materials are (not) regained from waste material. Furthermore, a focus on technology solely is considered to be insufficient to come to actual solutions. A change in the way society, and in particular production chains, are organized is needed.\nBackground: The key concept of this paper is the term disruptive technology. Yet, what a disruptive technology encompasses remains unclear. Is it the technology that presents a large step forward when compared to other technologies? Or, do we need to judge its disruptiveness on the possibilities the technology creates for applications? Or, does a technology only receive the predicate \"disruptive\" based on its use? And, does it concern a singular technology or is there more to it? In order to provide clarity on the term we deem it necessary to address these questions first, and provide our stance, before we are able to explore the implications a disruptive technology might have in relation to the transformation toward sustainable supply chains.\nIllustrative case: 3D printing in construction: To illustrate the potential effects of a disruptive technology, we present a case on 3D printing of concrete in construction, developed in a two-year research program on this technology. As the technology behind 3D printing is further developed, engineers and designers come up with new ways and materials to use in a 3D printer. Today, many materials can be \"3D printed,\" or used in an \"additive production process\" as it is formally known (Gibson et al., 2010). Examples range from various kinds of plastics, metal, glass, ceramics and food to even concrete. At this moment, 3D printing of concrete is going through rapid developments, from proof-of-principles several years ago to the first five-story apartment complex 3D printed using concrete by the Chinese company Winsun early 2015 (Sevenson, 2015). There is still a long way to go before 3D printing of concrete will be considered common household technology, but it holds the promise of changing the landscape of construction.\nDiscussion: Disruptive technologies are technologies that bring about a leap in performance, in comparison to technologies they aim to replace or complement. Even though such technologies may consist of a collection of technologies that by themselves only provide an incremental increase in performance. In the light of sustainability we deem such leaps in performance improvement necessary, in order to make the changes that are needed to turn around the problems of sustainability that global society faces. It is the disruptiveness that allows or even forces companies to alter their methods for design, manufacturing and the associated supply chains simultaneously. When given the opportunity to improve eco-performance without too many limitations of existing systems and methods, companies can move closer toward sustainability.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present several insights on how disruptive technologies potentially impact the eco-performance of entire supply chains, by providing performance improvements compared to existing technologies, enabling more efficient manufacturing methods and affecting the entire structure of the supply chain.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To illustrate the authors' position, a case from the construction sector is presented, for which the feasibility and impact of 3D printing technology has been studied. The empirical study focuses on the effect of the use of 3D printing technology on the building supply chain, aimed primarily at manufacturing companies in construction, but including suppliers, architects and designers as well.\nFindings: 3D printing of concrete potentially provides several improvements in manufacturing performance, such as a shortening of lead times, integration of functions and allowing for reduced material usage, therefore possibly turning production steps within the construction supply chain obsolete while also reducing logistical and production efforts.\nResearch limitations/implications: Whether disruptive technologies other than 3D printing have a similar potential is unknown. Though the case study shows the potential of disruptive technologies in impacting supply chains, the authors realize that more empirical work is needed to understand the underlying mechanisms.\nOriginality/value: The originality of this paper lies in relating disruptive technological advancements to manufacturing technologies and transitions of supply chains' eco-performance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Data is different, and that's why the world needs a new approach to governing cross-border data flows
|
[
"Data",
"Digital trade",
"E-commerce",
"Data protection",
"Trade",
"Global governance",
"Cross-border data flows"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The founders of Stitch Fix and Strava understood something basic about people. Humans like to use data to connect with other people and to compare ourselves to our peers. Based on those insights, these entrepreneurs were able to build two new digital service firms.\nThe peculiarities of data and the role of data in trade: Data and information have long been a key component of trade, but as noted above, data has created new forms of trade. However, cross-border data flows are quite different from trade in goods or other types of services:\nNew uses for data require new ways of thinking about data: When individuals try to describe how data are reordering markets, they often compare data to other longstanding inputs to the provision of goods and services. In so doing, they hope to create greater understanding of the import and value of data. As example, the World Economic Forum (and others) describes data as the oxygen of digital life (Sonmez, 2018; GN Bureau, 2017). In contrast, the Economist describes data as a new type of raw material such as oil, on par with capital and labor (The Economist, 2010). However, law professor Lauren Scholz notes this analogy is not helpful because the supply of oil is limited and only one actor can use a given portion of oil at one time. On the other hand, if you have access to data, then you can use it to create information and value (Scholz, 2018).\nThe current state of rules governing cross-border data and the rise of data realms: Policy-makers have been trying for years to create global rules to govern cross border data flows both at the WTO and in bilateral trade agreements. The most international trade agreement (the World Trade Organization or WTO) includes several agreements that address issues affecting data and digital trade. They include the Information Technology Agreement; the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights; and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The GATS is the most relevant to the new data-driven services; it has chapters on financial services, telecommunications and computer services. But it predates the invention of the internet and World Wide Web and says nothing explicit about cross-border data flows. Nonetheless, dispute settlement bodies have interpreted the agreement as applying to various computer and telecommunications services.\nA path forward: Humans have long exchanged data between borders, but never have they traded so much data or benefited from so many new services built on data. These new services may make us smarter, richer, more flexible and more efficient. But not all countries or people are ready to participate in this brave new world.\nConclusion: The world is awash with data and there is no consensus on how to regulate these flows. The five steps outlined above can help nations prepare for future negotiations and build value from data.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Companies, governments and individuals are using data to create new services such as apps, artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT). These data-driven services rely on large pools of data and a relatively unhindered flow of data across borders (few market access or governance barriers). The current approach to governing cross-border data flows through trade agreements and has not led to binding, universal or interoperable rules governing the use of data. The purpose of this article is to explain the new role of data in trade and to explain why data in trade is different from trade in other goods and services. We then suggest a new approach at the national and international levels.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The author uses a mixed methods approach to examine what the literature says about data as a traded good and or service, examines metaphors regarding the role of data in the economy, and then examines whether or not data is really \"traded.\"\nFindings: Many countries do not know how to regulate data driven services. There is no consensus on what the appropriate regulatory environment looks like, nor is there a consensus on what are the barriers to cross-border data flows and what constitutes legitimate domestic regulation.\nOriginality/value: This is the first article to explain both the unique nature of data and the ineffectiveness of the trade system to address that distinctiveness.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Transformational leadership and autonomy support management behaviors: The role of specificity in predicting employees' psychological health
|
[
"Leadership",
"Self-determination theory",
"Autonomy support",
"Management behaviours",
"Psychological control",
"Psychological health at work"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Leadership has been one of the most popular research subjects in social and behavioral science over the last century (Barling et al., 2011). Transformational leadership (TL) (Bass, 1985; Burns, 1978) has received a great deal of attention in the past 20 years (Judge and Piccolo, 2004) and is linked to a wide range of positive outcomes (e.g. Judge and Piccolo, 2004). Several studies have demonstrated the beneficial impact of TL on employees' psychological health at work (PHW) (e.g. Arnold et al., 2007; Kelloway and Barling, 2010).\nTheoretical background: PHW\nMethodology: Research design\nAnalytical strategy: Following preliminary analyses, the hypothesized model was tested using Amos 19.0 (Arbuckle, 2010) with the maximum likelihood estimation method. We used two-step modeling as recommended by Anderson and Gerbing (1988). First, we tested the measurement model through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). We then tested the structural model. The following criteria were used to assess model fit: path coefficients had to be statistically significant, plausible and coherent with theoretical frameworks (Kline, 2005). Comparative fit index (CFI) scores had to be above 0.90, and the Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) score had to be above 0.95. The standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) had to be below 0.05. The root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) value had to be below 0.08 to indicate a good fit and below 0.05 for an excellent fit, and confidence intervals were contained within a 0.05-0.10 range (Byrne, 2009). For model comparisons, we analyzed kh2 difference. The parameter estimates and statistical significance of the indirect effects were determined through a bootstrapping procedure with the bias corrected percentile method (Shrout and Bolger, 2002).\nResults: Measurement model testing\nDiscussion: The objective of this study was to better understand how managers influence employee PHW. To do so, we investigated the direct and indirect relationships between TL, autonomy support and psychological control management behaviors, and employees' positive and negative PHW. The hypotheses were partially supported. TL did not have a direct effect on PHW in this study (H1 and H2). However, more tangible manifestations of leaders' behaviors and actions, captured in this study through autonomy support and psychological control management behaviors, appear to be directly related to PHW. Autonomy support management behaviors proved to have a direct effect on both PWBW and burnout (H3 and H4): the more autonomy support behaviors managers employed, the healthier their employees reported being. Psychological control management behaviors appear to have a direct effect on burnout (H5): the more psychologically controlling managers behaved, the more burned out their employees tended to be. However, these behaviors had no effect on PWBW (H6).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between transformational leadership (TL), autonomy support management behaviors and employees' psychological health.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A total of 512 Canadian workers assessed their immediate supervisor's level of TL and autonomy support management behaviors. Participants also assessed their own psychological health through measures of psychological well-being and burnout at work.\nFindings: Results from structural equation modeling indicate that TL is related to employee psychological well-being and burnout. This effect is fully mediated by more specific autonomy support and psychological control management behaviors. These results suggest that autonomy support and psychological control management behaviors may have a more proximal effect on employees' psychological health than TL does. Also, managers' leadership and behaviors appear to better predict employees' psychological well-being at work than employee burnout.\nPractical implications: Managers with a TL style employ more autonomy support and fewer psychological control behaviors, which makes employees happier and less burned out. Based on these results, leadership training programs would gain to focus on the development of more specific management behaviors among leaders, such as autonomy support, to enhance employees' psychological health, especially their well-being.\nOriginality/value: This research expands understanding of the relationship between TL and the psychological health of employees by shedding light on the mediating role of autonomy support management behaviors in this relationship.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Consumer profiles of apparel product involvement and values
|
[
"Consumer research",
"Consumer behavior",
"Product management",
"Fashion industry",
"Product identification"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The concept of product involvement has been studied by numerous researchers in consumer behavior and offered as a useful way to understand characteristics of various consumer groups as well as their behavioral tendencies. Product involvement refers to feelings of interest and enthusiasm consumers hold for various product categories (Goldsmith and Emmert, 1991). These feelings may be evidenced in consumer tendencies to attach more importance to specific products, have more knowledge about specific product attributes and brands, and be attentive to information or advertisements concerning the product class of interest. Thus, the degree of consumer involvement in a product category has become a major factor relevant to advertising and promotional strategies. More current research examines consumer involvement under the working assumption that different types of product involvement trigger different behavior (e.g. Laurent and Kapferer, 1985). For example, different types of product involvement may emanate from the importance of purchasing the \"right\" product for a particular usage situation (Houston and Rothschild, 1977) or when certain product characteristics are symbolic of one's identify (Laurent and Kapferer, 1985). Such differentiation of consumer involvement with a product category allows researchers to translate product involvement to different types of processes related to information acquisition and decision making.Apparel has been recognized by scholars to be a product category likely to induce high involvement (e.g. Bloch, 1986; Goldsmith and Emmert, 1991; Kapferer and Laurent, 1985/1986). Scholars have commonly used a single dimension \"fashion involvement\" to indicate interest with the apparel product category (e.g. Fairhurst et al., 1989; Rhie, 1985; Shim et al., 1989). However, research by Gurel and Gurel (1979) and O'Cass (2000) provide evidence of multiple dimensions that explain clothing interest. Recognizing that a single indicator of apparel involvement may not represent or completely explain consumer involvement with apparel products, a multidimensional product involvement measure developed by Laurent and Kapferer (1985) is applied to apparel products in this study. By doing so, we attempt to provide a conceptualization for segmenting consumer groups who hold varying levels of involvement dimensions for apparel products. The first goal of this research is to test how consumers of apparel products may be segmented using a well-known marketing scale that has been widely applied in research.Another goal of the present study is to validate consumer groupings by examining whether consumer groups profiled by dimensions of product involvement may be uniquely explained by values. Zaichkowsky (1985a, p. 342) defines involvement as \"a person's perceived relevance of the object based on inherent needs, values, and interests\". As such, values play a critical role in forming one's involvement with products. In turn, consumer tendencies to attach more importance to specific products or engage in particular product acquisition activities vary based on involvement levels. Personal characteristics such as values and involvement influence consumer behavior in various ways. Involvement influences consumer information search patterns and decision-making processes. In addition, different aspects of involvement may be more influential in decision making depending on the apparel product category, its planned utility, and advertisement message. For example, the personal importance consumers put on function and practicality (e.g. comfort, care, and cost) may have a different effect on how one evaluates an apparel product compared to consumers who are more attuned to brand image and fashion. Thus for marketers, it is important to know the dynamics of the product as well as personal characteristics of consumer segments.This study examines different types of apparel product involvement. The goal is to explore how consumers may be segmented based on their levels of apparel product involvement. This study uses consumer involvement profiles developed by Kapferer and Laurent (1985) and applies it exclusively to apparel products. In addition, exploratory analysis examines whether consumers within each profile group can be differentiated by their personally-held values.\nConsumer involvement: Rothschild (1979) defines involvement as a motivational state of arousal and interest, evoked by external factors (e.g. situation; the product; the communications) and internal factors (e.g. ego; central values). In other words, the consumer will become involved when the object of interest (product, service, or promoting messages) is perceived as being important in meeting one's needs, goals, and values (Engel et al., 1993). The involvement construct is based on a hierarchical conceptualization in that general involvement with certain activities, interests, or issues lead to involvement with related products and services (Day et al., 1995).Consumer involvement with products refers to feelings of interest and enthusiasm toward product categories (Goldsmith and Emmert, 1991). Product involvement has been found to be positively associated with awareness or knowledge of product attributes, perceptions of product importance, brand perceptions and preferences, advertisement perceptions, and consumer risk perceptions (Antil, 1984; Auty and Elliott, 1998; Dholakia, 2001; Howard and Sheth, 1969; Quester, 1998; Zaichkowsky, 1985b; Zhao, 2003). Due to its abstract nature, researchers have operationalized involvement using antecedents treating involvement as a latent or a hypothetical construct (e.g. Kapferer and Laurent, 1985/1986). For example, Kapferer and Laurent (1985/1986) compiled a list of antecedents that may trigger product involvement across product categories: interest, perceived risk, perceived pleasure, and perceived sign value (self-expression or self identity). Also, theoretical modeling by O'Cass (2000) suggests involvement to be a higher order construct than simple descriptions of importance, relevance, or interest. On the other hand, Jensen et al. (1989) share evidence that involvement dimensions cannot unilaterally be considered applicable to all products. Thus, it can be presupposed that individual product categories hold unique combinations of involvement dimensions or antecedents that explain consumer interest in or response to a specific product.\nApparel product involvement: Apparel has frequently been cited as a product category likely to induce high involvement (e.g. Bloch, 1986; Goldsmith and Emmert, 1991; Kapferer and Laurent, 1985/1986). Scholars have commonly used the abstract term \"fashion involvement\" to indicate interest with the apparel product category. This assumption was validated by the finding that people who scored high in fashion involvement were more likely to be heavy clothing buyers (Rhie, 1985; Fairhurst et al., 1989). Fashion involvement may be viewed as one dimension of clothing interest when understood within the context of apparel products, however it is insufficient in understanding the dynamics of consumer attitude and behavior toward apparel products or other clothing-related stimuli. Some efforts by scholars to study various dimensions of apparel involvement can be evidenced through such study constructs as awareness and knowledge, early adoption, and interest in appearance (Gurel and Gurel, 1979; Tigert et al., 1976). In a more recent study, O'Cass (2000) found consumer involvement in fashion clothing to be explained by product involvement, purchase decision, advertising and consumption involvement.\nProduct involvement and values: Personal values or needs that motivate constant interest in products have been linked to involvement (e.g. DeBruicker, 1979; Lastovicka and Gardner, 1979; Li, 1997; Tyebjee, 1979,). Values are general representations of the basic needs and goals individuals use to guide beliefs about and evaluations of products. Consequently, values guide one's attitudes toward a product and the importance of the product to the self. In addition we use products such as apparel to express and communicate our values to others (Kaiser, 1997). Thus, linkages among values, the product, and product-related attitude influence one's level of involvement (cf. Laaksonen, 1994).In clothing research, several studies show the linkages between values and clothing interest and behavior (e.g. Browne and Kaldenberg, 1997; Creekmore, 1963; Gurel and Gurel, 1979; Sharma, 1980). For example, Sharma (1980) found values associated with discovery of truth or search for knowledge were related to concern with clothing comfort. Also, economic and aesthetic values can be linked to the personality traits of buyers (Sharma, 1980). Also, clothing has been used to achieve social goals such as be accepted by or receive approval from group members (e.g. Lapitsky, 1961). As such, values serve to generate consumption goals as well as guide consumer decision-making processes.\nPurpose: The purpose of this study is twofold. First, Kapferer and Laurent's (1985/1986) consumer involvement profile is tested to identify consumer profiles for apparel products. Using Kapferer and Laurent's (1985/1986) instrument and conceptualization of involvement, this study assesses how consumers vary in their involvement with apparel products. The second purpose is exploratory and attempts to examine potential linkages between values and dimensions of consumer involvement. That is, the paper aims to study how specific values may drive certain dimensions of consumer involvement. Consumer involvement profiles are useful managerial tools in describing the relationship between products and consumers, segmenting market segments, and developing a deeper understanding of target markets (Kapferer and Laurent, 1985/1986). Findings from this study may allow marketers and advertisers to build strategies that better reach their market segment by creating the \"right appeal\" based on core values that motivate various consumer involvement segments for apparel.\nMethods: Sampling and data collection\nData analysis and results: Segmenting by involvement profile\nConclusion and discussion: This study segmented consumers based on their levels of involvement with several dimensions of apparel measured by Kapferer and Laurent's CIP. Previous studies by Kapferer and Laurent (1985; 1985/1986) break down market segments for individual product classes (e.g. dress, perfume, bras) using five dimensions of involvement. This study segments the female consumer market for the general apparel product category using four dimensions of involvement.Five different types of consumers were identified based on a combination of responses (comparative) to four dimensions of involvement. In examining the consumer types, consumers who took pleasure in and were interested in apparel products (enthusiast), considered purchasing apparel products to be important but varied in their levels of confidence in making the right decision. Consumers who did not derive pleasure from apparel products (moderate) varied in their response to the other two dimensions (perceived product importance/risk and probability of mispurchase). Interestingly, the cautious moderate type showed to be a conscientious and confident shopper, but did not use apparel as a vehicle for symbolism or pleasure.Another interesting finding was values could be used to further define differences between the enthusiast and moderate consumer types. Enthusiast types, compared to moderate types, felt more strongly about the extent various values were important in their daily lives. Enthusiast types may use clothing and other commodities to fulfill many values for which they consider to be of importance. Results suggest that value-laden advertisements and product appeals may be more effective on enthusiasts. Future research might examine the effects of advertisements that generate value-oriented feelings.In general, for the overall consumer market, findings suggest associating brands and products with different values could generate stronger perceptions of status and pleasure. This might explain the wide spread tendency for advertisement of nationally recognized brands to be \"image-focused\" rather than \"product focused.\" However, results show that it is uncertain whether value-laden advertisement appeals or product promotions might impact consumer's perceptions about the importance of apparel or help alleviate tension related to uncertainty in the purchasing process. There is some evidence that the importance one assigns to apparel is related to values sense of belonging and security and uncertainty in the purchase decision making to warm relationships with others and self-respect. However, the low correspondence among the two dimensions and other values indicate the possibility that these dimensions are not as much related to individual values and interests developed and sustained over time, but by other personality traits inherent in consumers and purchase decision-making skills. Future research might investigate how marketers may use promotional strategies to build consumer confidence in consumer as well as develop persuasive techniques to promote apparel product involvement and perceptions of product importance.Finally, further examination of product involvement measures is recommended. Current findings varied somewhat from prior study results using the CIP scale by Kapferer and Laurent. For example, original product involvement dimensions of pleasure and interest were found to be similar. Also, the reliability score for perceived product importance/risk was not strong. Further examination of the dimensionality of product involvement and reexamination of individual items are suggested. The researcher notes that, overall, the CIP scale was found to be a useful tool in measuring product involvement for apparel.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This study sets out to explore how consumers may be segmented based on their levels of apparel product involvement using Kapferer and Laurent's consumer involvement profiles (CIP). It also seeks to examine whether consumers within each profile group could be differentiated by their personally-held values.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Questionnaires were mailed to female consumers, ages 18 and over, randomly selected from a consumer database. Responses from 757 female consumers were used. The response rate based on delivered questionnaires was 30 percent. Laurent and Kapferer's CIP was used to measure consumer involvement and Kahle's list of values (LOV) was used to measure consumer values.\nFindings: - Five consumer involvement types were identified based on four dimensions of involvement: challenged moderate, knowledged enthusiast, indifferent moderate, challenged enthusiast, and cautious moderate. This study found that values could be used to further explain differences between the enthusiast and moderate consumer types. All nine value items showed significant relationships with dimensions perceived/sign and pleasure interest. Knowledge enthusiast and challenged enthusiast types perceived many values to be significantly more important then challenged moderate types.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Current findings varied somewhat from prior study results using the CIP scale. Further examination of the CIP scale in terms of dimensionality, validity and reliability are suggested.\nOriginality/value: - This research segments consumers based on their levels of product involvement and profiles each group by personally-held values.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Do economies of scale exist in the Atlantic City casino industry?
|
[
"United States of America",
"Casinos",
"Financial analysis",
"Casino management",
"Economies of scale",
"Replication research"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Current conditions present numerous challenges to the casino industry, both in the USA and internationally. The worldwide financial crisis has impacted gaming jurisdictions across the USA. Commercial casino gambling revenue in the USA peaked at $34.13 billion in 2007. However, this total declined to $32.54 billion in 2008 and then to $30.74 billion in 2009 (American Gaming Association, 2010). Demand is soft, year-to-year performance figures have declined in many casino jurisdictions, and employees have been laid off. The availability of credit, or more precisely, the lack of available credit has put many expansion plans on hiatus. Complicating these tough economic times is the arrival of new gaming jurisdictions. The expansion of gambling jurisdictions during economic downturns has been a prominent feature of the last 40 years as states have repeatedly turned to legalized gambling as a revenue source when other revenue streams have been stressed (State Legislatures, 2009).These challenging economic conditions have perhaps eliminated the claim that gaming is a recession proof economic engine. Furthermore, a recent (2009) American Gaming Association sponsored survey of gaming professionals suggests that the industry's worldview may have been altered by the events of the last few years. Over three-quarters of the survey's respondents believed that recent economic downturn will forever alter the gaming industry (Lehman, 2009). This newly emerging view point about the casino industry forces casino researchers and practitioners to closely re-consider many issues including responsible gaming, customer retention, employees' job satisfaction, and loyalty programs (for example, McCain et al. (2010)).Among the consequences from this changing gaming landscape may be a renewed emphasis on using the gaming firm's resources efficiently. For example, one of the suggested strategies for gaming firms to survive this economic downturn involves the evaluation of performance measures and the reallocation of underperforming assets. Taking this perspective forces the firm to critically evaluate many of the basic aspects of how it does business (Kale, 2009).In light of these concerns, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate efficiencies related to the allocation of casino size (when measured by floor space) in one of the gaming jurisdictions badly hit by the current economic downturn, Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA. This study will replicate and extend past work (Gu, 2001; Marfels, 1995) regarding economies of scale issues in the Atlantic City casino industry. Specifically, this study extends Marfels' study by introducing an important control variable (macro-economic conditions) to the regression model and includes more recent years of data observations. This study also replicates Gu's study by performing a vertical analysis and compares findings to his study results.\nBackground: The regulatory environment in Atlantic City\nData and methodology: The data were collected from New Jersey Casino Control Commission annual reports spanning 1978 through 2009. From the annual reports, data for total revenues, costs, operating income, and casino floor size were recorded for each of the Atlantic City casinos each year they were in operation, which provides for a sample size of 320 observations. Because 1980 was the first year to have full data available for more than one property, that year serves as the first year for which observations were analyzed in this study, paralleling the logic of Marfels (1995). This study collected an additional data series of gross domestic product from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics' web site.All performance observations within the data table were adjusted in two ways. First, all revenue, expense, and income have been assigned a ratio to the casino floor size in square feet for the corresponding property and year. Dividing all of the financial values by the casino floor size in square feet provides variables such as Total Revenue per Square Foot. These values allow comparisons across properties of differing sizes. Also, all financial values have been adjusted for inflation by bringing each into 2009 dollars using the Consumer Price Index.Following Marfels' method, this study performed a regression analysis to accomplish the study goal. However, this study introduced an additional control variable of economic conditions to the regression model because casino performance may vary by different economic conditions. With this control variable, the proposed regression model is: Equation 1 where OI represents operating income per square foot, adjusted for inflation; REV represents total revenues per square foot, adjusted for inflation; COST represents total costs per square foot, adjusted for inflation; SIZE represents a firm's size, measured by log of total square foot; EC represents economic conditions, measured by gross domestic product; e is the residual term, and subscripts, i and t, represent each casino operator and time period, respectively.As a further extension to Marfels (1995), this study analyzed a second set of data. This second data set aggregated observations that qualified as multiple unit operators, such as Trump, Harrah's, Caesars and Bally's in years when the companies operated at least two casinos in the Atlantic City market. This data manipulation was done based on the notion that operators of multiple units existing in the same jurisdiction may strategically share their customers or centralize purchasing, possibly to maximize benefits of the company as a whole, not the individual property. This data set was analyzed with the same methods previously described to measure the impacts of size on total revenue, cost and operating income.In addition to replicating Marfels' study, this study also replicated and extended Gu's (2001) analysis of economies of scale in Atlantic City. As discussed in a previous section, this study manipulated data to replicate two analyses (appearing in Tables 4-6 of Gu's study):1. vertical analysis on income statements to examine percentages of income and cost items; and2. correlation analysis between revenues and percentages of income statement items.\nResults: Descriptive summary\nConclusions: This study examines whether economies of scale exist in Atlantic City casinos at the property level and whether multi-unit operators in the market achieve benefits compared to single unit operators. To achieve the study's goals, analyses from two previous studies were replicated and extended: a regression analysis by Marfels (1995), and vertical and correlation analysis Gu (2001). In general, regression analysis findings suggest that economies of scale exist in Atlantic City casinos for the period of 1980 to 2009. Replication of Gu's work indicates the presence of economies of scale both before and during the current recessionary period.The findings generally suggest that an increased floor size tends to decrease total costs more than it decreases total revenues, thus in the end, increases operating income which becomes an important evidence of economies of scale. These findings are inconsistent with Marfels' findings that argued against economies of scale for Atlantic City casinos. Findings from the analyses that replicated Gu's (2001) study also support the existence of economies of scale which is consistent with Gu's findings. This part of the analysis showed superior performance by larger casinos compared to smaller ones and by multi-unit operations compared to single unit operations for years of 2007, 2008, and 2009 in terms of income from operations. Interestingly, when considering income before taxes and extraordinary items in 2008, single unit operators appeared to perform as well as multiple unit operators since the difference between the two groups mean performance was not statistically significant. This phenomenon seems to be driven by a huge increase in other non-operating expenses from multiple unit operators (i.e. 23.4 percent in 2008 compared to 4.6 percent in 2007 and 18.5 percent in 2009). While recognizing the importance of operating numbers (e.g. operating income), this particular finding in a major relation to non-operating numbers may have a somewhat limited implication. However, further studies may reveal more interesting findings on the matter.New Jersey gaming regulations have shaped the industry in Atlantic City to include a relatively small number of large casino properties. Yet even within this restricted range of business models, there is some evidence that size matters and our findings support such economies of scale. However, findings should be cautiously interpreted and applied. Considering other success factors impacting financial performances of Atlantic City casinos that are not examined in the current study, our findings should be counted as only one empirical support for advantages of casino size. Designing a property to optimize casino floor space is one thing; designing operational processes that reduce costs and generate high levels of profit may well be a more daunting, but important task. Certainly, an examination of such issues is strongly encouraged for future research.This study's results also emphasize some of the benefits from replication research. Updating and extending studies helps to distinguish between situation and time-period specific results and more robust results that can be generalized across settings and eras. For example, in comparing this study to Marfels' earlier work, a control variable (economic conditions) was added to the regression analysis and the analysis was extended to include the case of multiple unit versus single unit operations and the time frame over which relationships were considered was substantially increased. Consequently, our findings are not consistent with Marfels' findings. Implications of these inconsistent results have to be conditioned on at least two points. First, changes in NJ CCC reporting practices meant that departmental level data available for the time period of the earlier study was not available for the full 1980-2009 time period. Second, the time series of data investigated in this study was considerably longer than that available to Marfels. A longer time series represents both more data and more statistical power as well as more opportunity for changes in the context in which the operations of Atlantic City casinos are framed. For example, during most of the time period covered by Marfels Atlantic City faced little direct competition from casinos east of the Mississippi River. The competitive environment had changed substantially by the late 1990s and 2000s. These differences are a reminder that, as noted by Madden et al. (1995) replication typically involves approximation rather than duplication. Researchers are strongly encouraged to continue the examination of this topic with more rigorous and sound approaches to better understand the generalizability of Marfels' and our findings.Findings of this study may provide some practical implications. The regression analysis suggests that large casinos in Atlantic City enjoy significant cost (per square feet) reduction while revenues (per square feet) either decrease less than cost reduction (based on the main regression analysis with economic conditions variable) or statistically do not change (based on the sensitivity regression analysis with 29 year dummy variables). Casino managers and executives may consider these findings when they develop strategies regarding new properties or expanding existing ones. When casino operators plan growth projects, our findings may provide positive tips in evaluating the operational nuances of those projects so that they can reduce costs to drive economies of scale. Casino executives may choose an expansion project over other riskier or unpredictable projects during recessions; our findings suggest that economies of scale tend to exist even during recessionary periods. Also, casino managers may develop concrete and constructive plans on how to bring in revenues when considering an expansion project because it seems that revenues decrease as a casino in Atlantic City grows in size.More likely than new construction or even expansion projects in the current economic climate are mergers and/or acquisitions of existing properties. The failure of some casinos to generate net gains during turbulent economic times has devalued them and has made them ripe for acquisition. This study provides information to operators regarding what they can expect in terms of performance when they add properties to their existing portfolios. Top-line revenues continue to suffer in Atlantic City as they do in Las Vegas. However, operators that have cash or can secure financing in order to purchase existing properties, especially if they can do so at a bargain, may realize a high rate of return on that investment. This study has shown that multi-unit operators, like large casinos, are able to drive operating income increases by exploiting economies of scale. While many variables exist, not the least of which are management and marketing, multiple unit operation can position the operator to generate greater operating income through the decrease of costs even if the acquired casino's revenues stay about the same.Another interesting finding from our study is about effects of economic conditions on casinos in Atlantic City. Our findings show that economic conditions - measured as adjusted GDP - have a negative relationship with costs and revenues. However, this negative effect tends to be greater on revenues than costs, thus it has a negative effect on casinos' operating income. It is not difficult to understand that costs decrease during good economic periods, but it is somewhat puzzling to see why revenues decrease during periods of economic growth. A possibility that should be investigated as to why Atlantic City's revenues may fall during periods of economic boom and perform better during hard times is that Atlantic City, as a destination, is an inferior good and people may choose to go to Atlantic City and gamble in Atlantic City casinos when other (superior good) options are not available or are too expensive. As the economy improves and consumers are more confident and have greater disposable income and a bigger gaming wallet, they may likely choose to go elsewhere (i.e. Las Vegas). And when times are more difficult and consumers cannot afford a vacation in Las Vegas, they may do their gaming closer to home perhaps in Connecticut, Pennsylvania or in Atlantic City. To date little work has been done on the status of casino destinations as inferior or superior goods. These results suggest that this may be a fruitful line of future inquiry.Furthermore, opportunities for future research include testing hypotheses related to casinos' revenue and income in environments not as strictly regulated as Atlantic City. In addition, there are opportunities to research impacts of the 2008 and 2009 economic decline in the USA on casino markets across the country. Comparing the vertical analysis results for 2000 to those for operations in 2008 and 2009 illustrated some of the areas hardest hit by economic conditions (e.g. other operating expenses at some small operators) and indicated some ways that casinos may be attempting to cope with these more challenging conditions. Replicating this study across other jurisdictions may help to identify best practice and may help to quantify the role that the different regulatory regimes play in shaping casino performance.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine evidence indicating the presence of economies of scale among Atlantic City casinos at the property-level and between multi unit and single unit operators.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study extended two previous studies by performing a vertical analysis of financial performance data and by using multiple regression analysis to study costs and revenues over time. The study collected 320 annual property observations for the main analysis for the period of 1980 to 2009 and used detailed financial performance data for the 2007-2009 period.\nFindings: - Findings from both forms of analysis support the existence of scale economies in Atlantic City at both the property level and for multi unit operators.\nOriginality/value: - Results of this study suggest that there are economies of scale for casinos in Atlantic City. Additionally, larger size was associated with better performance even during the current economic downturn. Managers or owners of casinos in Atlantic City may consider developing large physical size of their casinos when it is feasible. Additionally, the success of multi unit operators compared to single unit operators has implications for acquisitions while property values are depressed. Replication as a tool to aid generalization of results across time and situation contexts is illustrated and a number of future research lines are suggested.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
RBS-sponsored Sprint as Springboard for women undergraduates
'
success
|
[
"Development",
"University",
"Women",
"Springboard",
"Programme",
"Sprint"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Atraining programme built on work carried out with the University of Cambridge and further developed in collaboration with the University of Oxford is helping to address undergraduate women's study and career issues.\nSprint and Springboard: The programme - named \"Sprint\" - is the brainchild of The Springboard Consultancy (SBC), an international training company with a track record in work and personal development training. In particular, SBC's training programmes address women's development issues - especially via its award-winning \"Springboard Women's Development Programme\". SBC's core business is training and licensing trainers to deliver award-winning development courses - to people of both genders and all ages - via an international network of professional licensed trainers in locations around the world. In this way, over 240,000 people have used its programmes and over 1,300 trainers have been trained in 43 countries around the world.\nSurveys: Every year the University's Careers Service surveys all undergraduate and postgraduate alumni some six months after they leave Oxford. This is done as part of the UK Government's Destination of Leavers from Higher Education survey. The Careers Service collects these results from over 80 per cent of its UK-domiciled undergraduate leavers, 50 per cent of EU-domiciled leavers and 40 per cent of internationally domiciled leavers.\nResults: Having carried out its analyses and taken into account data from other sources - notably the Office for National Statistics' \"Graduate Earnings 2011\" report, along with data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, 2011 - the Careers Service realised that:\nOxbridge: \"Being a client of SBC - for its flagship 'Springboard Women's Development Programme', which enables women to identify the clear, practical and realistic steps that they want to take to make a better world for themselves at work and home, while building the practical skills and confidence to take these steps - Oxford University shared these findings with us,\" said SBC joint-CEO Jenny Daisley OBE. \"Previously, another SBC client, the University of Cambridge, had noticed similar trends with their female undergraduates. The University of Oxford asked us to take an already successful programme that was running for their staff - the Springboard Women's Development programme - and re-research and redesign it for this different group of participants, who have different needs and issues.\"\nAdd value: \"The resulting training programme - named Sprint - was developed, in 2013, to address all these issues, help close this gender gap and end the disparity,\" Jenny added. \"Sprint aims to add value to the overall student experience at university, improve employability and help to ensure that each undergraduate - regardless of her subject, department or career aspirations - can develop to her fullest potential.\"\nCorporate sponsors: To help overcome these budgetary constraints - at least to some degree - the University of Oxford suggested finding corporate sponsors to take the programme to a wider audience.\nTrainers: RBS continues to be a major sponsor of the Sprint programme and has enabled six of its staff to become fully licensed Sprint trainers. Part of the bank's Early Career team, this group of RBS Sprint trainers is now running Sprint programmes for undergraduates in 12 universities around the UK - and has already reached more than 1,500 students so far. Getting RBS trainers to take Sprint to the universities grew from the universities' reaction that they liked the idea of Sprint but had no budget to run it. However, once the universities that offer Sprint see its benefit they are getting their own trainers qualified to run the programme in-house - allowing the RBS trainer team to blaze a trail around Britain's university campuses for Sprint.\nInspirational: RBS's \"Sprint\" project leader - and RBS's Head of Marketing and Attraction for Early Career - Kate Llewellyn-Cripps, commented, \"RBS not only helped to fund the development of Sprint but also found other corporate sponsors for the programme, too. Then, having helped to get the Sprint programme off the ground at Oxford, we approached other universities with the concept.\nChallenging: Kate commented that the timing of Sprint is the most challenging aspect of the programme because it can be difficult, given the length of the programme, to make it fit in with a university's timetable. So programmes tend to run during \"reading weeks\" in November and December, and continue in January before the term begins. Trainers can also make use of time at the end of the summer term when students are \"off timetable\".\nThe right thing to do: Kate continued, \"RBS is involved with Sprint for two main reasons. First of all, it's the right thing to do. It helps these women develop - and, as a country as well as a bank, we need a more diverse workforce. Second, it helps us with our resourcing and careers pipeline - and it's more helpful to everyone than attending a traditional 'careers fair'. However, we're most careful that Sprint is not a recruitment event but one of the key messages of the programme is that you need to build - and then use - your support network. It is in that context that any recruitment might happen - and it happens as a by-product of the programme.\"\nHugely effective: Sarah added, \"The Springboard Consultancy programmes - including Sprint - are a hugely effective way to address a wide range of such issues. Sprint participation has an incredible impact on the female students. The feedback is always overwhelmingly positive. Our Sprint participants move on from the programme with a new-found confidence, clear goals, and enhanced self-awareness to continue their personal development. Sprint gives them the best possible foundation to fulfil their highest potential in their careers - and this can only be a benefit to their future employers.\"\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to set out the results of research which showed the gender pay gap among graduates and outline some of the steps being taken to combat this. In particular, it outlines the Sprint programme, developed for women undergraduates. This programme aims to add value to the overall student experience at university, improve employability and help to ensure that each undergraduate - regardless of her subject, department or career aspirations - can develop to her fullest potential.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper comprises results of research carried out by Oxford University's Careers Service. It also contains the results of interviews with the developers, deliverers, sponsors and users of the Sprint programme - a programme which was developed as a response to these research findings.\nFindings: The Sprint programme helps women focus on their studies at university, achieving results such as improved visibility and effectiveness in tutorials, better time management, less study stress, a boost in confidence and self-esteem. They also use Sprint to sharpen their career goals, raise their aspirations, explore possibilities and to take advantage of the work shadowing, internships and mentoring often offered by corporate sponsors. Participants in the Sprint programme also tend to find it also helps them to achieve results in their personal lives - such as sorting out difficult relationships, improving fitness and gaining a better study/life balance.\nResearch limitations/implications: It is possible to bridge the gender pay gap as well as benefit women in other ways via learning and development activities, such as those promoted via the Sprint programme.\nPractical implications: With help from programmes such as Sprint, women can achieve improved work visibility and effectiveness, better time management, reduced stress, increased confidence and self-esteem. This helps them achieve their career goals, raise their aspirations and generally develop their careers.\nSocial implications: Women can be helped to compete effectively with men in the workplace as well as be successful in their personal lives (in terms of sorting out difficult relationships, improving fitness and gaining a better study/life balance). This offers many benefits for women - and for the well-being of society in general.\nOriginality/value: The Sprint programme, along with the approach of The Springboard Consultancy, is unique. Although the Sprint programme is relatively new - having started in 2013 - it is already bearing positive results.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
An investigation of mission drift in Indian MFI
|
[
"India",
"Microfinance",
"Equity",
"Loan size",
"Mission drift",
"Operating efficiency"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Microfinance institutions (MFI) have been perceived as pursuing development goals while concomitantly providing financial services. They have been defined in relation to the users rather than the services provided (Copestake, 2007). The target group is the poor and vulnerable and microfinance has been identified as a \"powerful tool to fight poverty\" (CGAP, 2004). However, the defined user group is neither homogenous nor unidimensional. Some studies make a distinction between better off poor and starkly poor, suggesting that the former might be benefitting from microfinance (Hulme and Mosley, 1996; Coleman, 1999; Copestake et al., 2005). The prime characteristic of MFI is the availability of small loans to poor with lesser complexities than the traditional banking system. However, smaller loans are difficult to handle as they increase the operating cost and cut down the profitability of MFI. Conversely, larger loan sizes bring down the average costs of the loan as evidenced in Cull and Morduch (2007) in their study of 124 MFI across 49 countries. However, it was observed that the institutions could not accomplish mission driven activities in most cases.\n2. Review of literature: We divide the literature into three sections. In the first section, we discuss the lender vs borrower driven approach in microfinance to give a glimpse of the origin of mission drift when microfinance evolved from a borrower centered welfare activity to a lender centered institutional activity. The next section deals with an increase in loan size in microfinance that gave the first indication of mission drift. In the last section, we discuss how evolution of microfinance in its current form may require institutions to raise capital from the market and its possible effect on mission drift.\n3. Data and methodology: The objective of our study is to trace evidence of mission drift using multiple proxies in Indian microfinance firms. The multiple proxies are used to add robustness and avoid the complexities in the interpretation of an individual variable to explore divergence from mission driven activities. We use operating expenses to assets ratio as an indicator of operating efficiency, average loan balance per borrower as a measure of loan size and equity to assets as the measure of the increase in equity. We measure mission drift as a function of profitability measured by ROA, return on equity (ROE) and profit margin. ROA and ROE as twin measures of profitability is used in Pedrini and Ferri (2016). We also use lending rates, write off ratio, number of active borrowers, borrower retention rate and borrower per loan officer. The detailed definition of variables is provided in Table I. There were a total of 1,344 observations for 211 firms for which descriptive statistics is reported in Table II. Table III shows correlation matrix for the variables used in the study.\n4. Results and discussions: 4.1 Operating expense to asset\n5. Conclusions: In conclusion, this study contributed to literature by identifying additional proxies in the form of operating efficiency and equity infusion that can help interpret the phenomenon of mission drift along with the existing proxy of loan size. Our studies indicate that firms seeking to recover operating costs also charge higher rates of interest to be sustainable. While higher interest rates are indicative of poverty premium, they do not give conclusive evidence of change in borrower profile. Change in equity, however, gives clearer signals of mission drift. It causes lending rates to reduce, changes the borrower profile and brings down the incidence of loan losses indicating a movement toward safe borrowers. Firms need to improve operating efficiency and lending portfolios to be able to raise capital from the market. Access to capital and increase in scale will no doubt increase reach and improve scale economies, but such a change also could cause firms to move away from the poorer borrowers. We see clear signs of mission drift induced by improved efficiency and equity infusion suggesting that microfinance has moved away from the needs of the poor.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate empirical evidence of drift from social goals (mission drift) among Indian microfinance institutions (MFI).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study used multiple proxies, namely, loan size, operating efficiency and equity as dependent variables to avoid the complexities in interpreting mission drift solely through loan size. The study uses data from 211 Indian MFI for the period of 1985-2014. The dynamic panel data estimation method of Arellano and Bond (1991) is used for the analysis to avoid endogeneity issues in the data estimation.\nFindings: The study finds that efficiency and change in average loan balance are characterized by higher lending rates and higher profitability to firms. Higher lending rates imply poverty premium which means that poor pay more for the same services than their rich counterparts. Equity results in movement toward safer borrowers and a consequent mission drift.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study uses self-reported data from organizations provided through Microfinance Information Exchange.\nSocial implications: Access to credit to the poor is an important poverty alleviation goal and present study will contribute toward policy formation in institutional provision of credit and banking services to the poor.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, present study is the first to use alternative proxies in the form of operating efficiency and equity to explore relationships between the variables that can help to better understand the phenomenon of mission drift.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Robust approaches for monitoring logistic regression profiles under outliers
|
[
"Statistical process control",
"Outlier",
"Logistic regression profiles",
"Robust approach",
"Weighted maximum likelihood estimation",
"Model parameters"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In some statistical process control (SPC) applications, a relationship between a response variable and one or more explanatory variables known as profile describes the quality of a process. Note that, selecting the type of profile depends on the response variable. If the response variable is binary, then we use the logistic regression profile to model the relationship. Profile monitoring can be considered in Phases I and II. In Phase I, a control chart is applied on a set of historical data to check whether a process is in statistical control or not. The goals of Phase I are to understand the variation of a process, to evaluate the process stability, and, after omitting any assignable causes, to estimate the in-control values of the process parameters. Phase II is concerned with process monitoring using online data to quickly detect shifts in the process from the baseline established in Phase I analysis. In the previous decade, there has been an increasing research interest on profile monitoring. Kang and Albin (2000), described the monitoring of simple linear profile in Phase II. They proposed the T2 and exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA)/R control charts for monitoring the parameters and the residuals of simple linear profile, respectively. Also, many researches have been conducted for monitoring simple linear profiles such Zou et al. (2007); Woodall (2007); Saghaei et al. (2009); Zhang et al. (2009); Soleimani et al. (2009), Zhu and Lin (2010); and Huwang et al. (2014). Process capability analysis of simple linear profiles is also considered by Hosseinifard and Abbasi (2012).\n2. MLE for estimating the logistic regression profile parameters: In the literature of profile monitoring, the logistic regression models have been considered more than the other GLM. The logistic profiles have three types such as binary, ordinal and nominal. In this paper, we develop some robust methods for monitoring logistic regression profiles in the presence of outliers. The MLE approach is used to estimate the logistic regression parameters. The steps of this approach are as follows:\n3. Problem definition and proposed approaches: As aforementioned, the presence of outliers in collected data leads to inaccurate estimation of parameters and consequently poor statistical performance of the control charts. The main question of this paper is which methods can be used to decrease the effects of outliers on the estimation of the parameters in logistic regression profiles and as a result improve the performance of control charts in detecting out-of-control conditions. To answer this question, we develop the robust approaches to decrease the effects of outliers on estimating the regression parameters as well as performance of control charts. These proposed robust approaches by decreasing the effect of outliers on parameters estimation of the logistic regression profile can lead to better performance of monitoring schemes. As a result, out-of-control conditions can be detected as soon as possible, and corrective actions can be taken to remove assignable causes and turn back the process to in-control state. This procedure leads to decreasing costs because the rate of producing defective items decreases. In addition, the quality of the process in producing conforming items improves. These are the main advantages of the proposed approaches. However, when there are many outliers in the process, the performance of the proposed robust approaches deteriorates. This limitation is also illustrated through simulation studies in Section 4.\n4. A numerical example: In this section, we use the numerical example presented by Yeh et al. (2009), to evaluate the proposed robust estimators. In the following subsections, first we estimate the logistic regression profile parameters under the clean and outlier data using the MLE and the robust estimators. Then, we evaluate the performance of the proposed robust schemes under different shifts in the intercept and slope parameters of the logistic regression profile in Phase II in terms of average run length (ARL) criterion.\n5. Conclusion and future researches: In this paper, three robust approaches including WMLE, RM and combination of these two approaches (WRM) were proposed to estimate the parameters of logistic regression profile under the presence of local and global outliers in Phase I. We showed the MLE approach is affected by the outliers. However, the proposed robust approaches decrease the effect of outliers on parameter estimates. In addition, the performance of the\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop some robust approaches to estimate the logistic regression profile parameters in order to decrease the effects of outliers on the performance of T2 control chart. In addition, the performance of the non-robust and the proposed robust control charts is evaluated in Phase II.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this paper some, robust approaches including weighted maximum likelihood estimation, redescending M-estimator and a combination of these two approaches (WRM) are used to decrease the effects of outliers on estimating the logistic regression parameters as well as the performance of the T2 control chart.\nFindings: The results of the simulation studies in both Phases I and II show the better performance of the proposed robust control charts rather than the non-robust control chart for estimating the logistic regression profile parameters and monitoring the logistic regression profiles.\nPractical implications: In many practical applications, there are outliers in processes which may affect the estimation of parameters in Phase I and as a result of deteriorate the statistical performance of control charts in Phase II. The methods developed in this paper are effective for decreasing the effect of outliers in both Phases I and II.\nOriginality/value: This paper considers monitoring the logistic regression profile in Phase I under the presence of outliers. Also, three robust approaches are developed to decrease the effects of outliers on the parameter estimation and monitoring the logistic regression profiles in both Phases I and II.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Teacher agency in English language arts teaching: a scoping review of the literature
|
[
"Scoping review",
"English language arts",
"Teacher agency"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Teachers' work today, more than ever before, is shaped and constrained by education policies that insist on standardization of instructional input and measurability of output. As a result, teachers are being asked to work in ways that reduce autonomy due to increased administration around testing and uniform requirements of teaching with mass produced plans. However, interest in teacher agency is gaining traction globally as educators speak back to the proliferation and intensification of the aspects of teachers' work that take them away from creative planning that is responsive to their own sense of teacher identity and their learners' experiences, needs and interests. As Tao and Gao (2017) note, \"(t)eacher agency has become an important construct in the literature on educational change, because it affects the implementation of educational policies at the institutional and national levels\" (p. 346). We argue that agency is also important because it allows researchers to shed light on how teachers act to speak into and potentially change the constraining conditions of their work that are created, to a large extent, by these policies. This research is critical in times when teachers are often constructed in education and media discourse in deficit ways; as technicians who are in need of top-down training programs and external and commercially-produced resources in order to do their job. Agency is an increasingly significant concept for teachers as they straddle the tension between professional[1] decision-making on the one hand and the de-autonomising architecture of standardization on the other (Hadar and Benish-Weisman, 2018). This scoping review, therefore, addresses a gap in the literature, illuminating contexts, consequences and conundrums of English language arts (ELA) teachers' agency. Simultaneously, it throws into high relief how \"agency\" is being construed in ELA research.\nTheoretical perspectives on teacher agency: Theorizing agency is clearly an ongoing and somewhat problematic project as educators and researchers grapple with its \"messiness and non-linearity.... requiring complexity and multiple layers and lenses\" (Loutzenhesier and Heer, 2017, p. 330). In the general literature on teacher agency (not from the papers in this review), a range of definitions of agency can be observed and serve as a backdrop to this paper's investigation. At one end of the spectrum, agency is derived from the view of individual capacity as a personal attribute. In this traditional sociological view of human action, agency has been seen as:\nMethod: Scoping reviews of literature \"aim to map rapidly the key concepts underpinning a research area and the main sources and types of evidence available\" (Mays et al., 2001, p. 194). They are different from narrative reviews in that they chart the landscape of literature in under-researched areas and are especially helpful for exploring definitional issues and establishing conceptual clarity. Scoping reviews are exhaustive systematic searches, transparent (searches, screening, and selection of studies is carefully documented), and replicable from the amount of detail provided. We adopted Arksey and O'Malley's (2005) methodological framework for conducting the scoping reviews to identify the extent, nature and range of studies on ELA teacher agency. This review summarizes and disseminates research findings regardless of definition of agency or study design, following five stages: Stage 1: Identifying the research question; Stage 2: Identifying relevant studies; Stage 3: Selecting the studies; Stage 4: Charting the data; Stage 5: Collating, summarizing and reporting the results. (p. 22). Additionally, we consulted recent scoping reviews (Fray and Gore, 2018) and the wide range of documented approaches to literature reviewing (Grant and Booth, 2009) to inform our methodological decision-making for each stage described below[2].\nFindings and discussion: Descriptive analyses from Stage 5 of our methodological framework revealed the following:\nConclusion: In a context in which the metrification of teachers' work continues to gain traction in education systems, we highlight in this paper the tensions inherent in the conditions, ways and purposes wherein which agency can be exercised. In this scoping review, we documented the range of structural, cultural, and material conditions within which English teachers exercised agency. Enabling conditions included: quality collaboration, administrative support, access to resources and expertise. Constraining conditions included: curriculum mandates, testing/reform culture, limited access to resources, and lack of expertise. Despite or perhaps because of the constraining conditions, teachers exercised subversive, collective, and small- and large-scale agency across the studies surveyed. As literacy researchers illuminate work that disrupts the marginalization of teachers' agency, this scoping review maps the field's knowledge base in ELA teaching over the past decade and sets up a future research agenda to promote the professionalization of teaching and advocacy for English teachers.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine ways in which English language arts (ELA) teachers have exercised agency in response to policy changes that have been shaped by neoliberal education agendas that seek to further advance standardization and the primacy of measurability of teaching and learning.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors posed the following research questions of related literature: Under what conditions, in what ways and to what ends do teachers exercise agency within ELA classroom teaching? Through five stages of systematized analysis, this scoping review of 21 studies maps the evidence base.\nFindings: Structural, material, interpersonal and pedagogical issues both constrained and supported agency. Teachers covertly exercised agency to be responsive to students' needs; in some instances, teachers' agentive practices reinforced institutionally sanctioned methods. Teachers' agentive action aimed to combat the deprofessionalization of the field, foster innovative curriculum approaches and challenge stereotypes about students. The authors also found a range of definitions of agency in the research, some of which are more generative than others.\nOriginality/value: This paper addresses a gap in the research literature by illuminating contexts, consequences and conundrums of ELA teacher agency. The authors documented the range of structural, cultural and material conditions within which teachers exercise agency; the subversive, collective and small- and large-scale ways in which teachers realize agency; and the potentially favorable or unfavorable consequences to which these efforts are directed. In doing so, the authors also problematize the range of definitions of agency in the literature and call for greater attention to conceptual clarity around agency in research. As literacy researchers illuminate work that disrupts the marginalization of teachers' agency, this scoping review maps the field's knowledge base of agency in ELA teaching and sets up a future research agenda to promote the professionalization of teaching and advocacy for English teachers.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The complexity of innovation: an assessment and review of the complexity perspective
|
[
"Innovation",
"Open innovation",
"Complex adaptive systems",
"Innovation process",
"Complexity theory",
"Complexity perspective"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The ability of organizations to innovate is a fundamental requirement for organizational renewal and survival (March, 1991). Throughout its relatively short academic history, innovation has been institutionalized as the end product (i.e. output) of a linear process that starts with basic research, followed by applied research, and ends with production and diffusion (Godin, 2006). However, recently scholars have begun to take a much more complex view of innovation: namely, as a dynamic, non-linear, evolutionary process in which an invention becomes an innovation (Link and Siegel, 2007), and in which both internal and external sources of knowledge can be used (Chesbrough, 2003a). These novel approaches render the linear \"stage-gate model\" of innovation obsolete. Indeed, during the past decade, the term \"open innovation\" has emerged as a new paradigm to extend the innovation thought, and to highlight the social, institutional, cultural, and spatial contexts and the relational, interactive and adaptive nature of the innovation process (e.g. Dahlander and Gann, 2010; Durst and Stahle, 2013; Pellissier, 2011).\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1. From closed to open innovation\n3. Method of the literature review: This research is motivated by seeking an answer to the question, how has CT been applied to explain the dynamic and networked characteristics of an innovation process, and what added value does it bring from open innovation perspective? To this end, we have conducted two rounds of literature reviews on innovation and open innovation, with the complexity perspective in mind. The first round started by identifying academic articles taking an explicit \"complexity\", \"complexity theory\" or \"complex adaptive systems\" perspective on innovation. The articles were selected based on the snowballing strategy, which was used in order to find the most relevant and applied sources of CT in the field of innovation research. In practice, this process began by identifying articles with the search terms \"innovation\", \"complexity\", \"complexity theory\", and \"complex adaptive systems\". Next, we followed the most relevant references from these articles and included them in our review. The purpose of this round was to identify and define the complexity perspective and how it is understood and adopted by innovation scholars. This preliminary search yielded 11 articles and one book chapter for further analysis.\n4. Findings: 4.1. Studies included\n5. Discussion: One of the interesting observations revealed by this literature review is the lack of significant difference between the \"innovation\" literature and the \"open innovation\" literature adopting the complexity lens. We found that the complexity perspective does not attach much value to the term \"open\" before \"innovation\". A complex system does not differentiate between internal or external sources of knowledge; it simply adapts (innovates). A complex system coevolves with its environment and other systems embedded within the environment (Kauffman, 1993). In this sense, \"openness\" is an inextricable feature of the system. In other words, without \"openness\" there is no innovation; and therefore the term \"open innovation\" is unnecessary tautology.\n6. Practical implications: Charles Darwin has been quoted as saying, \"it is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one that is most responsive to change\" (O'Reilly and Tushman, 2008, p. 186). This is very much true of organizations as well. It is well known that the vast majority of organizations die young; only a percentage of less than 0.1 per cent actually make it to celebrate their 40th anniversary (O'Reilly et al., 2009). Some of them were once-big-as-life, but today they are struggling to remain in business. Examples include Polaroid[6], Kodak[7], and Blockbuster[8]. Others have been able to navigate through hardships and to survive by reinventing themselves. Examples include Samsung (Schmitt et al., 2010) and 3M (Garud et al., 2011). If there is one thing that those who survive have in common, it is adaptability. Adaptability, probably the most important survival skill of them all, should be thought of as a competence that can be learned. Our literature review provides a number of valuable lessons that could help modern managers steer their organizations through the turbulent waters that we discuss next.\n7. Conclusion: In this study our aim was to explore the applicability of CT in innovations studies, to clarify the concept of complexity, and to identify possible points of relevance and \"added value\" to the study of innovation. We have reviewed the literature that takes a CT perspective on both innovation and open innovation.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the innovation literature, with special focus on studies applying a complexity perspective. As a contribution in its own right to the innovation literature, the review clarifies the concept of complexity, explores possible points of relevance and the \"added value\" gained from complexity theory (CT) to the study of innovation, and identifies some of the applications of the theory.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A literature search was conducted which yielded 20 relevant articles. These articles were analyzed by focusing on the key concepts of complexity and studying their applications in the context of innovation research.\nFindings: Based on the approach adopted, the literature was divided into three categories, namely research focusing on microdynamics, macrodynamics, and leadership and management. The key complexity concepts identified in the innovation literature were \"edge of chaos\", \"phase shift\", \"emergence and self-organization\", \"(co)evolution\", and \"complexity regulation\". The articles reviewed differed in terms of their perspectives on complexity and, accordingly, their operationalization of the complexity concepts. Key areas of development suggested by the authors include forging a stronger link with existing innovation theory and giving greater weight to empirical evidence.\nResearch limitations/implications: While a systematic review strategy was adopted to identify all relevant research on \"open innovation\" and complexity, a selective snowball strategy was deemed the only feasible approach to cover research conducted on \"innovation\" and complexity.\nPractical implications: Practitioners can learn to put CT-based research in context and also learn to recognize the value of CT for innovation management. The authors distilled three important lessons for practice from the research done: embracing complexity, embracing ambidexterity, and embracing failure.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge no review has as yet been undertaken to encapsulate the current state of applications of CT to innovation research.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Inter-organizational network configurations for ski areas innovations
|
[
"Innovation",
"Service industries",
"Networks"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Innovation is a powerful strategic tool for not just technology firms but also service providers (Mothe and Nguyen, 2012; Ordanini and Parasuraman, 2011). Through innovation, service firms seek to differentiate themselves from their competitors, conquer new markets, or retain existing customers. However, service innovations are not patentable, so such innovative firms must find other ways to protect their ideas. One method is to deploy inter-organizational networks. Through inter-firm cooperation, these service providers can benefit from complementarities with their partners, achieve economies of scale (Calia et al., 2007), share the costs and risks associated with developing an innovation, and ultimately make it easier to exploit their competitive advantage (Dyer and Singh, 1998). Moreover, cooperation can create barriers to entry and make it difficult for others to imitate the innovation, because exactly reproducing a network of inter-organizational relationships designed to innovate is nearly impossible (Borgatti and Foster, 2003).\nInter-organizational networks as innovation vectors in services industries: In addition to acknowledging the specificities of services innovation, we characterize inter-organizational networks according to four dimensions: nature of the relationship, regulation mode, architecture, and geographical scope.\nInnovation networks implemented by two ski areas: We begin by explaining why we examine the winter sports tourism sector in this study and the specificities of this service activity. We then present the methodology we used to collect and process the study data.\nNetwork analysis of innovation types: results and discussion: After we present the main characteristics of the 12 networks we studied, we analyse their differences and how they developed new offers, front-office innovations, or back-office innovations.\nConclusion: Two main contributions emerge from our research. First, we characterize service innovation networks in the winter sports industry, a little studied service context. This study of 12 innovations implemented by two ski areas highlights the link between the type of innovation deployed and the type of network formed. Networks that seek to produce new offers, front-office innovations, and back-office innovations differ in the partners involved (competitors, suppliers, distributors, or actors outside the industry) and geographical scope (local, national, or international). However, a central player is always in charge of orchestrating the exchanges among partners, regardless of the type of innovation. This pivotal role is often provided by a public organization (tourist or local institution), with some local legitimacy (Kumar and Das, 2007).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Unlike industrial innovations, service innovations cannot be protected by patents or designs. Thus, the implementation of innovation networks is often crucial to generate a sustainable competitive advantage. The focus in this paper is the main forms of inter-organizational networks that have led to service innovations. More precisely, the purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the characteristics of inter-organizational networks and the type of service innovations developed.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A typology of service innovations and a network analysis framework allowed us to examine the innovations implemented by two major French ski areas: Portes du Soleil and Paradiski. In total, the authors analyse the structure of 12 innovation networks.\nFindings: The results show that, depending on the type of innovation implemented, networks differ in terms of type of partners involved and geographical scope. However, regardless of the innovation developed, it seems necessary to have a central actor to orchestrate the various partners and to use an economic regulation mode.\nPractical implications: This paper gives advice to managers involved in touristic innovations management about the network they may build. For example, ski resorts that want to develop new offers must be open to external partners (companies that do not belong to the tourism industry and/or are not geographically localized in the resort).\nOriginality/value: The research documents characteristics of services innovation networks, a type of industry little studied as innovation researchers focused mainly on manufacturing firms.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Gender diversity in management: curvilinear relationships to reconcile findings
|
[
"Corporate governance",
"Senior management",
"Women",
"Equal opportunities",
"Organizational performance"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: The continuing reliance on male CEOs for board members is increasingly less practical and potentially dilutes quality. Smith et al. (2006)) state that if only male individuals are potential candidates for corporate boards, the selection of board members will take place from only this selected distribution of qualifications. On average this implies a much lower quality than if the candidates are selected among the best from the distribution of both men and women.Given the emphasis being placed on board (and top management) diversity as a part of good corporate governance, the relationship between board diversity and shareholder value creation deserves both theoretical and empirical investigation. One stream of research has found that gender diversity on boards has positive impacts on firm performance, whereas another stream finds that increasing gender diversity may be dysfunctional and result in lower firm performance. To reconcile the inconsistent and non-conclusive findings from previous studies, we theorise competing curvilinear relationships between gender diversity on boards and firm performance based on different theoretical backgrounds.The paper is built upon this contribution and structured as follows. The second section reviews the theoretical considerations to study the relationship between gender diversity on boards and firm performance. The third section develops research hypotheses upon these theories and previous findings. Finally, the paper concludes and suggests future avenues for research.\n2 Theoretical considerations about gender diversity on corporate boards: There are few descriptive papers that study associations between gender diversity and firm performance. The conclusions from this type of studies are ambiguous. Some of them find positive associations between firm performance and the representation of women on executive boards and top management teams (Adler, 2001; Erhardt et al., 2003; Catalyst, 2004; Veleva, 2005) whereas others find negative associations (Ryan and Haslam, 2005) or no association whatsoever (Kochan et al., 2003).Adler (2001) collected data for an average of 215 Fortune 500 companies for every year from 1980 to 1998, and found that companies with a high number of women executives outperformed their industry median companies on three measures of profitability: profits as a percent of revenues, assets, and stockholders' equity. In another study, Erhardt et al. (2003) found a positive significant relationship between the percentage of women on boards of directors for 127 large US companies (two-year average from 1997 and 1998) and two financial ratios of firm performance: return on assets and return on investment. Catalyst (2004) examined 353 Fortune companies between 1996 and 2000, and found that, after controlling for industry and company differences, the group of companies with the highest representation of women on their top management teams experienced better financial performance (return on equity and total return to shareholders) than the group of companies with the lowest women's representation. Veleva (2005) found a positive association between the percentage of women on top management and corporate boards in a sample of 300 US firms and the firm's stock performance (stock price, pay-out). Contrary to these findings, Ryan and Haslam (2005) found a marginally significant negative correlation between the percentage of women in leadership positions in the UK FTSE100 companies and performance as measured by change in share price. However, there was no significant difference in performance in the year 2003 for those companies that appointed a woman compared to those companies that appointed a man. On the other hand, Kochan et al. (2003) in their case study of four large Fortune 500 firms did not find any association between management gender diversity and organizational performance.In order to understand the ambiguous results of these studies, it is necessary to review the theoretical frameworks that can be constructed to analyse the relationship between gender diversity on executive boards (and top management) and firm performance. We argue that different theoretical perspectives are needed to understand the relationship between gender diversity on executive boards (and top management) and firm performance. The next paragraphs review the contributions of several perspectives that can extend our theoretical understanding of the impact of women on boards for firm performance.2.1 Agency theory\n3 Research hypotheses: There are empirical studies that find mixed relations from gender diversity to firm performance because they depend on the measures of performance and women on boards and top management. Schrader et al. (1997) in their study of 200 US large firms found that the percentage of women managers (in the year 1992) was positively and significantly related to financial performance measures (ROS, ROA, ROI, and ROE in the years 1992 and 1993), but the percentage of female top managers and the percentage of women on board were not significantly related. Smith et al. (2006) used panel data for the 2,500 largest Danish firms during the period 1993-2001 and conclude that, after controlling for characteristics of the firm and direction of causality, the relationship is ambiguous and depends both on the measure of performance and the measure of the proportion of women in management. Regarding women in top management positions, the positive effect of female top CEOs is only significant for gross value added/turnover. However, extending the definition of top management to include vice-directors, the estimated coefficients turn significant for three out of four firm performance measures. Turning to the female representation on boards of directors, the results are more mixed. When including a variable measuring the proportion of women among all board members, there is only one positive and significant coefficient found (profit on primary operations/turnover) while the coefficient for some performance measures is negative, though insignificant. Furthermore, the authors demonstrate that the positive performance effects are mainly related to female managers with a university degree while female CEOs who do not hold a university degree have a much smaller or insignificant effect on firm performance. Next, female members of boards of directors elected by the staff seem to have positive effects on firm performance, but this positive effect does not carry over to other female board members, where the effect is negative - a result, which the authors think may be explained by the fact that a significant part of the women on boards have family ties to the owners.Other studies only use single measures of firm performance and female representation on boards and top management but their conclusions are also ambiguous. Rose (2007) did not find any significant relationship between the percentage of women on the boards of directors of the largest listed Danish firms and firm performance (measured by Tobin's Q). Du Rietz and HenreksonHenrekson (2000) did not find a significant relationship either after controlling for firm size and industry in a sample of Swedish firms. On the contrary, Krishnan and Park (2005) found that the proportion of women on top management teams explained positively firm performance (return on assets) in a sample of 679 Fortune 1000 firms.According to the theoretical arguments explained in the previous section, we may have two different curvilinear relationships between gender diversity on boards (and top management) and firm performance. Although there are arguments in favour of a positive impact of women on boards for firm performance, the resource-based view of the firm would argue for a greater impact of more gender-balance boards (Figure 1a), whereas the social identity and group competition theories would argue for a greater impact of more gender homogeneous boards (Figure 1b). These opposite theoretical relationships could contribute to understand the non-conclusive and ambiguous evidence found in the literature. In consonance with the contrasting theories and empirical findings, we propose two competing hypotheses to test the direct effect of gender diversity on firm-level performance. Testing competing hypotheses is critical for the development of theoretical foundations that subsequently guide both theory and practice (Wright and McMahan, 1992). Competing hypotheses are particularly appropriate, in fact, when prior knowledge leads to two or more reasonable explanations:H1a. There is a curvilinear, inverted U-shaped relationship between gender diversity boards (and top management teams) and firm performance: performance increases as the number of women increases until an optimal point of gender balance at intermediate levels of female representation, and after that performance decreases as more women are added.H1b. There is a curvilinear, U-shaped relationship between gender diversity boards (and top management teams) and firm performance: performance decreases as the number of women increases until an optimal point of gender balance at intermediate levels of female representation, and after that performance increases as more women join boards and top management teams.\n4 Conclusion and suggestions for future research: In this theoretical study, we resolve previously inconsistent findings by proposing curvilinear relationships between the extent of gender diversity on boards (and top management) and firm performance. The propositions of the paper indicate that the impact of gender diversity on firm performance may be more complex than previously thought. Thus, the curvilinear inverted U-shaped relationship suggests that there may be a crucial threshold in the extent of gender diversity beyond which the benefits of additional gains in firm performance are not accrued. Although this interpretation warrants further research, it does provide a plausible resolution to the contradictory claims voiced by researchers.The proposed inverted U-shaped relationship may also suggest that the positive impact of gender diversity requires the concurrent contribution of more gender-balanced executive boards and top management teams. Thus, both measures of female representation may be equally important: firms that simultaneously have greater gender diversity in executive boards and top management teams may perform better than firms with lower diversity in just one of the two groups of executives.These propositions provide a strong argument for having more women on top management positions that will be promoted later through the \"glass ceiling\" to more gender-balanced boards. They also point to some new avenues for research. First, and besides testing empirically the proposed hypotheses, it would be interesting to explore how high-performing gender-balanced firms manage to transcend the stereotypical \"battle of the sexes\" and create the sorts of productive alliances that may be more operative among high-performing firms. And secondly, future research could also explore the relationship between gender diversity and the level of management skills and competencies and its influence on firm performance.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of gender diversity (in executive boards and top management) on firm performance. To reconcile the inconsistent and non-conclusive findings from previous studies, competing curvilinear relationships are theorized between gender diversity on boards and firm performance based on different theoretical backgrounds.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper comprises a literature review and development of theoretical propositions.\nFindings: - Curvilinear relationships were developed that may integrate different theoretical perspectives.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This paper provides theoretical support to reconcile the inconsistent and non-conclusive findings from previous theoretical perspectives and empirical studies by proposing that competing recommendations from theoretical perspectives could be tested through curvilinear relationships.\nPractical implications: - The propositions provide a strong argument for having more women in top management positions who will be promoted later through the \"glass ceiling\" to more gender-balanced boards.\nOriginality/value: - The paper reconciles inconsistent and non-conclusive findings from studies about gender diversity on boards and firm performance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The beauty of boosting collaboration with paired learning programmes: Building empathy between clinicians and managers
|
[
"Knowledge sharing",
"Managers",
"Collaboration",
"Clinicians",
"Paired learning programmes"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Looking across the myriad of roles and responsibilities of National Health Service (NHS) employees, it's understandable that opposing forces can culturally segregate managers and clinicians as they navigate the challenges of their professional worlds. Managers can easily become viewed as lacking the knowledge taken for granted by medical specialists, resulting in groups that do not mix or share beneficial knowledge.\nThe root issues: Paired learning is a learning-centered method of dissolving barriers between peers. It aims to elevate the relationship between participants and their views of one another, while simultaneously adding to their knowledge. This concept becomes valuable to NHS managers and clinicians in the context of an historic mild distaste for one another and confusion about one another's roles, both of which form barriers to effective collaboration. A motivation to improve relationships was, therefore, at the root of PLP participation for the managers and clinicians who shared their experiences throughout the study. One clinician, for example, commented how their insight into what NHS managers do was only theoretical, as they were not aware of how managers arrive at decisions, or of their budgeting practices.\nSpreading the benefits: The results of the study revealed, through participant comments, that a PLP journey increases empathy between the two groups by building an understanding of each other's professional realities. For example, through one-to-one buddy sessions a manager can come to realize and accept that clinicians are not trained in finance, even though a manager might assume all professional people to be skilled in this area. It was of value for participants to uncover the causes of the role-based communication barriers existing between them. These barriers included, for example, the perception that clinicians and managers were engaged in a perpetual power struggle, with bureaucracy-wielding managers limiting the freedom of clinicians to practice their profession in a natural way. From the manager's perspective, the clinician's use of medical jargon can seem threatening and overly superior. Perceptions of this nature were reinforced by the fact that clinicians and managers rarely came into contact with one another, which served to reinforce a culturally antagonistic view about the other group.\nActing to improve: The general consensus of this NHS-based study was that extending PLP schemes more widely throughout the organization would benefit everyone involved, providing the benefits were clearly communicated. This is because of the barrier-eroding positive effects that paired learning stimulates when colleagues are given a route to be able to naturally appreciate one another's efforts within the same organization. Certainly, for clinicians and managers the act of repeated one-to-one knowledge-sharing sessions around each other's work was a fruitful use of time, making the participants feel happier in their work through the collaborative essence of fresh connections being formed.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.\nFindings: This research paper concentrates on how paired learning programmes (PLPs) involving clinicians and managers in the National Health Service (NHS) can dissolve barriers to collaborative action. PLP helped managers and clinicians form shared goals, communicate more effectively, and empathize with each other's position in the organization.\nPractical implications: The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.\nOriginality/value: The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Trust development and transfer in social commerce: prior experience as moderator
|
[
"Trust",
"Electronic word of mouth",
"Social commerce",
"Social networking sites",
"Trust transfer"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Social commerce represents a new form of doing online business which is mediated by social media. Companies are increasingly exploring the potential of the social commerce web site (SCW) to transmit their promotional information to customers and improve brand awareness using electronic word of mouth (eWOM) principles (de Vries et al., 2012). The social interactions and information exchanging in SCWs are recognized as rich sources to create eWOM marketing effects (Jansen et al., 2009). Customers can make better-informed purchasing decisions by viewing the opinions, experiences, and product-related information shared by others in SCWs. On the other hand, companies can also improve business performance by attracting potential customers through positive recommendations by existing consumers (Stephen and Toubia, 2010). Prior studies point out that trust in the online environment is a crucial antecedent of consumers' intention to spread eWOM (Gummerus et al., 2012). Zheng et al. (2013) also indicate that trust should be enhanced in business-centered social networking communities in order to encourage more helpful WOM communications.\n2. Literature review: 2.1. The SCW\n3. Research model and hypotheses development: In this section, we derive the hypotheses based on theoretical base and propose our research model as shown in Figure 1.\n4. Research methodology: 4.1. Research setting\n5. Results: This study adopted structural equation modeling tool Smart PLS 2.0 for data analysis to systematically examine the measurement and structural model. PLS is employed in this study because it makes minimal demands on sample size and normal distribution, and can be used for analyzing second-order formative constructs (Chin, 1998).\n6. Discussion and implications: With the rapid development of SCWs, understanding user trust in this new context is one of most important and yet-to-be solved issues. This study has investigated the distinct role of social commerce trust, company trust, and eWOM intention in a nomological network. Results show that the two dimensions of social commerce trust (information-based and identification-based) can be transferrable to company trust, which in turn influences eWOM intention. This confirms that, customers generally perceive relatedness between the SCW and concerned companies. Therefore, in our study, customers' trust developed in certain brand pages in the SCW can be transferred to their trust in companies that host those brand pages. In addition, we found that the effects of information-based and identification-based trust on eWOM intention are partially mediated by company trust. It implies that company trust, as a mediating attitude, plays a significant role in predicting users' behavioral intentions in SCWs. In addition, identification-based trust in a brand page directly influences users' eWOM intention. This finding is consistent with previous studies arguing that eWOM communication depends largely on the connection and trust among people (Jansen et al., 2009). However, contrary to our hypothesis, information-based trust in social commerce does not directly predict eWOM intention. One possible explanation may be that, since the band pages usually post some other information besides brand promoting, users who trust in the information on a brand page may not necessarily develop trust to the products of the brand, thus they may not convey eWOM to others. Moreover, based on our results, trust in a company is a salient factor influencing eWOM intention. This finding is also consistent with many previous studies such as Palvia (2009) and Mukherjee and Nath (2007).\n7. Conclusion: This study is one of a very few emerging works to have empirically investigated user trust and its impacts on eWOM intention in social commerce context. This study has broadened the understanding of consumer trust in the SCW by specifying it as including information-based and identification-based trust. These two dimensions of social commerce trust better predicts users' trust in a company and eWOM intention in the social commerce context. We further applied the trust transfer theory to investigate how users' trust in a SCW may be transferred to their trust in a related company. The results support the proposed model and highlight the mediating role of company trust between social commerce trust and eWOM intention. In addition, we examined how customers' prior experience impacts social commerce trust development and trust transfer process. The results suggest that consumers' prior experience does not influence their trust development in the SCWs. However, consumers with a higher level of prior experience with a company tend to rely less on information-based social commerce trust to form their company trust. This study may serve as catalyst for research in social commerce, and provide a stepping-stone for deeper understanding in user attitudes and behaviors in the SCWs.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nature of social commerce trust, and how it impacts company trust and electronic word of mouth (eWOM) intention based on trust transfer theory. The authors also examine how customers' prior transaction experience could impact their social commerce trust development and the trust transfer process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The proposed research model is empirically examined using a survey method consisting of 375 users of a social commerce web site (SCW). The statistical analysis applies a method based on variance using partial least squares.\nFindings: The results confirm positive impacts of social commerce trust on company trust, and their subsequent influences on consumers' eWOM intention. Also, consumers' prior experience is found to moderate the trust transfer process from information-based social commerce trust to company trust.\nOriginality/value: The present study is one of the first few studies that attempts to explain trust development and transfer with SCWs with a theoretical foundation as well as examine the role of consumers' prior experience during trust transfer. It provides practical guidance for the improvement of trust and eWOM in social commerce.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Learning with the market: A market approach and framework for developing social entrepreneurship in tourism and hospitality
|
[
"Tourism",
"Market",
"Social value",
"Social entrepreneurship",
"Hospitality",
"Social transformation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The decreasing public spending and the inability or failure of the public and private sectors to meet social and environmental needs (Nicholls, 2006) have increased the importance of social enterprises, as the latter are generally perceived as a process involving the innovative use and combination of resources for pursuing opportunities to address unmet social needs and/or catalyze social change (Mair and Marti, 2006; Dees and Economy, 2001; Peredo and McLean, 2010).\nSocial entrepreneurship: research approaches and limitations in explaining the generation of social value and change: Social entrepreneurship is widely defined as \"individuals, organizations or initiatives engaged in entrepreneurial activities with a social goal\" (Baco et al., 2013, p. 42), which reflects the following assumptions about social entrepreneurship: it includes entrepreneurial activities (such as discovering, evaluating and pursuing opportunities); it does not have to involve new venture creation; it includes formally constituted and informal organizations and activities initiated and launched by individuals or teams; and its raison d'etre is the address of a social goal, which in turn does not exclude the pursuit of other objectives such as financial ones.\nEntrepreneurial approaches: The entrepreneurship literature is heavily used for defining the social \"entrepreneur\", as social entrepreneurs are one species of entrepreneurs (Dees, 1998) who apply the principles and tenets of entrepreneurship for developing social ventures that aim to alleviate socioeconomic and/or environmental problems and catalyze social change (Ormiston and Seymour, 2013; Dees, 1998; Alvord et al., 2004; Haugh, 2005; Mort et al., 2003; Pearce, 2003). In other words, the societal mission is found to be the driving force of social entrepreneurship (Schaltegger and Wagner, 2011; Zahra et al., 2009). However, this entails a very deterministic role of social entrepreneurs in continually sensing the market environment for identifying and satisfying social needs (Haugh, 2005; Dees and Economy, 2001; Mort et al., 2003; Pearce, 2003), while it also limits the conceptions of social entrepreneurship to those that capture opportunities through superior alertness. On the other hand, the entrepreneurship literature (Buchanan and Vanberg, 1991; Schumpeter, 1934) identifies three approaches for generating entrepreneurial opportunities:\nEnvironmental/sustainable entrepreneurship approaches: Social entrepreneurship is also studied from an environmental/sustainable entrepreneurship approach (that is based on environmental and welfare economics), as both approaches share various commonalities in terms of the entrepreneurial goals and processes. For example, the former also highlights that sustainable entrepreneurs have to adopt both proactive and reactive environmental strategies for identifying and creating new market opportunities or responding/restructuring existing market forces, conditions or new regulations, respectively (Hall et al., 2010). As Schaltegger and Wagner (2011, p. 229) advocated, sustainable entrepreneurship aims to shape and change markets and the society by \"[...] destroying existing conventional production methods, products, market structures and consumption patterns, and replacing them with superior environmental and social products and services\" and by changing \"[...] institutions such as market regulations despite pressures towards stasis\". Thus, the environmental entrepreneurs are assumed a proactive and transformational market role, as they are viewed as responsible for developing the (new) economic institutions required to overcome the market failures (Dean and McMullen, 2007; Cohen and Winn, 2007).\nSummarizing the research limitations and the need for a new approach: All approaches identify the dual role of social entrepreneurs to continually sense and be alerted of the market needs and conditions, while simultaneously being creative and constructing new opportunities for shaping new market conditions and change. However, research is not specific, detailed and analytical enough on how (new) markets are formed/changed, and how social entrepreneurs can identify and create new market opportunities and initiate market change. This is because the traditional approaches to social entrepreneurship make the following assumption about the nature and operations of the markets (Schaltegger and Wagner, 2011): social institutions and markets simply exist, are given and function effectively at a given equilibrium point, and so, when gaps and failures create market imbalances (malfunctions and failures), social enterprises aim to correct them by bringing societies and markets back to the given and desired equilibrium point. This conventional rational also entails that to deliver social value, social entrepreneurs need to conduct market sensing for learning \"about the market\", so that they can identify and exploit \"already existing\" market gaps and opportunities. Economic and welfare economics also adopt a narrow economic understanding of the markets that does not challenge how the market equilibrium point is set, why it is fixed, whether market actors can challenge/change its position and whether markets can also effectively work at another market equilibrium. The implications of the traditional approaches also echo debates related to market-driven (reactive strategies responding to market forces) versus market-driving (proactive strategies changing the market equilibrium point) entrepreneurial strategies.\nA market approach for studying social entrepreneurship: The conceptualization and nature of markets\nLearning with the market: three market capabilities for developing social entrepreneurship: Network structure: practical and research implications for social entrepreneurship\nLearning with the market and social entrepreneurship in tourism: To demonstrate the usefulness of the \"learning with the market\" framework in the tourism context, its three market capabilities were applied on various social tourism enterprises. Specifically, the practices of five social enterprises operating in different tourism sectors (i.e. intermediaries, accommodation providers, destination - community-based tourism operators and tourism institutions) which also aimed to solve different social problems were investigated to get insights from the varied, rich and multi-dimensional tourism context. The social enterprises' websites were used for collecting data that could provide examples showing how the social enterprises develop various practices for engaging with, influencing and forming (new) markets with the aim to generate social value and transformation. Table II summarizes these findings by grouping the enterprises' practices based on the three market capabilities that are required for co-creating social value and transformation with the market. Analytically, these practices enable the social tourism enterprises to develop their:\nConclusions: Despite the flourishing research on social entrepreneurship, there is still very limited understanding on how social value and transformation can be created. This is also true in the tourism literature, although the number and type of social tourism enterprises continuously mushroom. As it is widely accepted that the social entrepreneurship is driven by and it aims to alleviate market failures by re-establishing (new) market equilibriums, this paper adopted a market approach for identifying ways that the social enterprises can generate social value and transformation. Two market concepts (namely, market plasticity and \"learning with the market\") were identified and used for developing a framework that proposes three market capabilities that the social entrepreneurs need to develop for creating social value and transformation: network structure, market practices and market pictures. Several other theories and concepts were also reviewed and discussed for further justifying the framework and providing theoretical underpinnings but also practical implications of its three market capabilities. Moreover, the applicability and the usefulness of the framework were also discussed by investigating the market practices of five social tourism enterprises.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Although the generation of social value is the focus of social entrepreneurship, little research attention is paid on how social value and transformation can be created. By adopting a market approach, this study aims to develop a framework showing how social enterprises in tourism/hospitality can generate social value and transformation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A thorough literature review revealed that a market approach is an appropriate lens for understanding social entrepreneurship. Consequently, a framework based on \"learning with the market\" is proposed as a useful tool for identifying, managing and also creating (new) opportunities for social ventures. The justification and the theoretical underpinnings of the market-based framework are further supported by discussing various other theories and concepts.\nFindings: The framework identifies three capabilities that social entrepreneurs need to develop for generating social value and transformation: network structure, market practices and market pictures. Several examples from tourism and hospitality social enterprises are analyzed for showing the applicability and usefulness of the framework.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper proposes a conceptual framework as well as several research directions for further testing, refining and expanding it.\nPractical implications: By applying the framework on several tourism and hospitality social enterprises, the paper provides practical implications about the capabilities that social enterprises should develop for engaging with other market actors to identify and exploit (new) market opportunities for social value co-creation, and influence market plasticity for forming new markets and driving social change.\nSocial implications: The suggested framework identifies the capabilities and the ways in which (tourism/hospitality) social enterprises can engage with and form markets for co-creating social value and escalating their social impacts through social transformation.\nOriginality/value: The paper provides a new marketing approach (that overcomes the limitations of traditional economic theories) for understanding how social enterprises can shape, manage and engage with social markets for generating social value.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Back to the future: progress and trends in hotel loyalty marketing
|
[
"Marketing",
"Brand loyalty",
"Commitment",
"Hotel management",
"Customer loyalty",
"Loyalty schemes"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Shoemaker and Lewis (1999) declared customer loyalty as \"the future of hospitality marketing\". Prior to that time, research on hospitality loyalty was rare; so much of our knowledge came from the traditional marketing literature and other disciplines such as psychology. Loyalty programs, although common in hospitality businesses, were still developing. In fact, many were just frequency programs. Shoemaker and Lewis made the distinction between frequency programs, whose goal is to build repeat business, and true loyalty programs, which seek to create emotional brand attachment. In their analysis of the top hotel reward programs, they classified benefits into three categories: financial, procedural and psychological. They suggested that the key to successful marketing was to move from transaction-based tactics such as discounts to strategies centered on building brand relationships. Shoemaker and Lewis (1999) introduced the loyalty triangle, which evolved into the loyalty circle (Shoemaker, 2003), as a framework to develop these strategies.\nFifteen years of loyalty research: The loyalty circle is only one framework within which to evaluate customer loyalty. Many hospitality researchers adopted models from other disciplines such as marketing and psychology. The two-factor model of Dick and Basu (1994) depicts loyalty as a joint function of attitudinal and behavioral components. This framework has been used to identify loyalty segments for casino reward program members (Baloglu, 2002; Tanford and Baloglu, 2013) and hotel customers (Tanford and Malek, 2015). The theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991) has been applied in numerous hospitality studies to explain the process whereby attitudes and other antecedents lead to loyalty intentions and behaviors (Cheng et al., 2006; Han and Kim, 2010; Han et al., 2010). Zeithaml et al.'s (1996) model established the importance of service quality and provided the composite loyalty index consisting of revisit intentions and positive word-of-mouth [WOM] that became the dependent measure in many hospitality loyalty studies. The loyalty circle is unique in that it was developed within hospitality and reflects a continuous, dynamic process. It provides an organizing framework within which other investigations can be classified, regardless of their origination. However, it lacks elements such as statistical predictability and separation of attitudinal and behavioral components, which can be addressed through alternative approaches.\nProgress in hotel loyalty programs: One of the primary value-added strategies for hotel chains is loyalty programs. A distinction is made between frequency programs, for which the goal is to cultivate repeat business, and loyalty programs, for which the goal is to build relationships and develop emotional brand attachment (Shoemaker and Lewis, 1999). These objectives form separate dimensions termed as behavioral loyalty and attitudinal loyalty, which together produce the loyalty matrix (Tanford and Baloglu, 2013). There are four quadrants of the loyalty matrix, which are labeled true, spurious, latent and low loyalty (Baloglu, 2002; Tanford and Baloglu, 2013). Research indicates that reward program benefits play a key role in determining customers' placement within a quadrant (Tanford and Baloglu, 2013; Tanford and Malek, 2015). An effective reward program should produce true loyalty, that is, loyal attitudes and behaviors, whereas a frequency program may produce only spurious loyalty, that is, frequent visitation without accompanying emotional attachment. However, less than half of reward program members were classified as truly loyal in research applying the loyalty matrix. Of the four quadrants, spurious loyalty is most susceptible to competitive offerings, because the benefits alone are driving behavior (Tanford and Baloglu, 2013). As most people belong to multiple programs (Xiong et al., 2014) and perceived program value is a primary determinant of loyalty behavior (Hu et al., 2010; Mattila, 2006a; Tanford et al., 2011, 2013), it is essential to offer value-added benefits that do more than stimulate repeat business.\nIndustry perspectives: To obtain a richer view of loyalty program trends, in-depth telephone interviews were conducted with industry executives involved with hotel loyalty programs. The objective was to identify developments in relationship marketing and reward programs and illustrate how these fit within the loyalty circle. Rather than specifying a sampling frame, we sought to sample from a broad range of perspectives and leadership roles. As we were targeting high-level executives and requesting a substantial time commitment, a purposive approach was followed whereby interviews were requested from executives with whom the researchers had a previous connection. Of 11 people contacted, 6 agreed to participate. Three respondents were senior executives in charge of loyalty programs for the world's ten largest international hotel chains. They included a vice president of loyalty marketing, whose job entails overseeing the company's global loyalty program, an executive vice president who led the company's reward program for more than a decade and a senior vice president of sales and loyalty. Two were executives of companies that launched multi-branded loyalty programs within the past year. One respondent was the CEO and founder of a loyalty program for independent boutique and lifestyle hotels. The other was senior manager of partner marketing and loyalty for a company with a portfolio of distinctive properties that had been in operation for over 15 years, but only recently formed a loyalty program. One respondent was president of a consulting group for loyalty and relationship marketing with over 15 years of consultation for clients that included airline, hospitality and financial services.\nImplications and future research suggestions: Looking back to the \"future of hospitality marketing\" as envisioned by Shoemaker and Lewis (1999), we see that customer loyalty has indeed taken center stage. When considering the state of the literature, rather than shifting from tactical to strategic as suggested by Shoemaker and Lewis (1999), the tactical approaches have remained as a foundation for research focusing strategically on brand relationships. In terms of loyalty circle components, the emphasis has been largely on process and value-added dimensions, with less focus on communication or value recovery. There is limited emphasis on the financial valuation of loyalty programs and program members. Although the current investigation focused on hotels, the loyalty circle could be extended to other hospitality and service industries.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In 1999, Shoemaker and Lewis declared customer loyalty as \"the future of hospitality marketing\". This paper aims to evaluate the state of research and practice in hotel loyalty and reward programs in the subsequent 15 years to determine if the tenets set forth have occurred. The loyalty circle provides a conceptual framework within which to evaluate progress and trends in hotel loyalty marketing.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Three approaches were used: a comprehensive review of hotel loyalty and reward program literature from 2000 to 2015, a classification and analysis of program benefits for major hotel companies and in-depth interviews with industry professionals.\nFindings: The literature shows a progression from process-focused research to a greater emphasis on brand relationships. Communication is neglected compared to the other loyalty circle components. Reward programs still depend largely on financial benefits but have added greater flexibility and customization of rewards.\nResearch limitations/implications: The literature search was limited to hotels and did not consider other hospitality segments. The sample of interviews was small and may not represent the opinions of all loyalty professionals.\nPractical implications: The findings have practical implications for developing more effective loyalty programs and theoretical implications for expanding research horizons.\nOriginality/value: Shoemaker and Lewis (1999) was a landmark article that led to a period of prolific research on hospitality loyalty. During that time, loyalty programs were progressing and permeating the industry. This study applies the loyalty circle to provide a framework within which to evaluate both research and practice in hotel loyalty marketing.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Non-executive directors and the UK's new combined code on corporate governance
|
[
"Corporate Governance",
"Non‐executive directors",
"Boards"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Corporate governance is concerned with the duties and responsibilities of a company's Board of Directors in managing the company and their relationship with the shareholders of the company. In recent years concern has been expressed at the way the directors of some companies have seemingly pursued their own self-interests often to the neglect of value creation for shareholders (for example, expensive takeovers and mergers, \"excessive\" pay increases and option awards etc.). This concern has led to the financial authorities and the government commissioning various reports on corporate affairs which has resulted in the introduction of a number of Codes of good corporate governance practice. (Cadbury Committee, 1992; Greenbury Committee Report, 1995; Hempel, 1998; Turnbull Report, 1999; Smith Report, 2003; Higgs Report, 2003). The latest Code, the Combined Code on Corporate Governance (2003), came into effect on the 1 November 2003 and its main provisions have been incorporated into the Listing Rules for companies quoted on the London Stock Exchange. A key feature of the new Code is the greater prominence and empowerment it gives to a company's non-executive directors on the Board of Directors and its main Committees - the Nominations, Remuneration and Audit Committees - with a particular emphasis on non-executive directors being \"independent\" according to criteria laid down in the Code. The rationale behind this is the view that independent non-executive directors can bring greater impartiality and objectivity to a company's decision - making processes and can serve to keep in check any tendency for the executive directors to over-indulge in strategies and policies which are likely to compromise shareholder interests.This paper examines and discusses the main provisions of the Code relating to non-executive directors highlighting a number of controversial issues with respect to the Codes \"comply or explain\" philosophy. Consideration is then given to the broader issues of whether the Code is expecting too much of non-executive directors by looking at some of the factors likely to affect the effectiveness of their contribution.\nThe combined code: Governance structures and the independence of non-executive directors\nThe Code's \"Comply or Explain\" philosophy: The Code continues the UK tradition of companies being \"expected\" to conform to good corporate governance practice but without the backing of legal sanctions. Specifically, the Code puts companies under an obligation to disclose in their Annual Report how they apply the principles of the new Code and to confirm that they comply with the provisions of the Code. Where they do not comply they are required to provide an explanation as to why not. The Code gives guidance on this matter as follows: \"While it is expected that listed companies will comply with the Code's provisions most of the time, it is recognized that departures from the provisions of the Code may be justified in particular circumstances. Every company must review each provision and give a considered explanation if it departs from the Code provisions\" (p. 1). In practice, a substantial number of companies have chosen to proffer \"explanations\" to justify non-compliance (Pass, 2006). Mostly these explanations have revolved around a provision in the Code which enables the Board of a company to argue that despite a non-executive director being technically \"not independent\" according to the independency criteria noted above nonetheless they can be considered to be independent by their opinions and behaviour, that is, as the Code puts it - they can be shown to be \"independent in character and judgement\" (p. 7).If a company does not comply with the provisions of the Code it has two options: it can either take appropriate action to ensure compliance or, as indicated above, proffer an 'acceptable' explanation in lieu of. Taking action is the most clear-cut and transparent way of resolving non-compliance. By contrast, an explanation which is provided by the Board inevitably involves an element of subjectivity and ambiguity. It is up to the shareholders then to decide whether the explanation is convincing or not; in the last analysis if shareholders, for example, feel that a \"not independent\" non-executive should be removed from office they can oppose their re-election at the Annual General Meeting.A survey undertaken by Pass (2006) has shown that mostly companies proffering an \"acceptable\" explanation have done so by claiming that a technically \"not independent\" non-executive director (according to Code criteria) was nonetheless \"independent in character and judgement\". The following two examples are typical:1. In the case of the UK utility company Scottish Power's Remuneration Committee the \"not independent\" non-executive will continue to remain a member as the Board considers his position as an executive director of Pacific Corp (a subsidiary company) \"does not in any way compromise his independence\" as regards the work of the Committee (Annual Report, 2005, p. 85).2. In the case of the UK electronics company FKI's Audit Committee the \"not independent\" non-executive (9 years service) will continue to remain a member: \"The board has determined that he is independent in character and judgement in accordance with guidance as set out in the Combined Code\" (Annual Report, 2005, p. 29).The independency issue has proved to be controversial in a number of respects. Leaving aside the pros and cons of longevity of service (the 9 years provision) discussed in the next section - in the writers opinion there must be serious reservations about the impartiality of someone who has a current business connection with the company. In these cases it could be recommended that they should be excluded from serving as a non-executive director to remove any ambiguity. The biggest sticking point, however, has been the attempt by some companies to justify the continuing membership of the company's chairperson of the Remuneration and Audit Committees. These companies have refused to accept the legitimacy of the Code's dictum that chairpersons are strictly \"not independent\" - the chairpersons role is to lead the Board not run the company's Committees (provision A.2).\nThe role and effectiveness of non-executive directors: The new Code places great faith on the valuable contribution which non-executives can make to a company's decision-making processes: \"As part of their role as members of a unitary board, non-executive directors should constructively challenge and help develop proposals on strategy. Non-executive directors should scrutinize the performance of management in meeting agreed goals and objectives and monitor the reporting of performance. They should satisfy themselves on the integrity of financial information and that financial controls and systems of risk management are robust and defensible. They are responsible for determining appropriate levels of remuneration of executive directors and have a prime role in appointing, and where necessary removing executive directors\" (provision A.2).But is too much being expected of them? What then are some of the main pros and cons of non-executive directors? On the positive side:Integrity\nConclusion: The Combined Code introduced new corporate governance provisions relating to the composition of the Board of Directors and its main Committees. These provisions are aimed at giving a greater empowerment to the non-executive directors of the company with a view to enhancing the objectivity of decision-making, limiting executive director empire-building tendencies and ensuring adequate attention is given to shareholder interests. The Code emphasizes the desirability of non-executives being \"independent\" according to criteria specified in the Code.The new Code requires companies to fully comply with the provisions of the Code or provide an \"acceptable\" explanation as to why they not done so. A recent survey of 50 large UK companies has shown that a high proportion of companies are fully compliant with a minority proffering an acceptable explanation and only a small few still being in breach of the Code (Pass, 2006). Full compliance with the Code's provisions is preferable since this is clear-cut and unambiguous. Explanations have mainly revolved round companies attempting to claim that a technically \"not independent\" non-executive according to Code criteria can be nonetheless considered to be \"independent in character and judgement\". Sometimes this matter can be controversial since such explanations reflect the subjective view of the Board and thus open to question, particularly in the case of non-executives who also have an outside business relationship with the company.As to the broader issue of the role and effectiveness of non-executive directors the UK supermarket company Wm Morrison famously stated in its 2002 Annual Report: \"The board is made up entirely of executive directors as the board is currently of the view that there is no commercial benefit in the appointment of non-executive directors\". This decidedly minority view reflected the opinion of the company's executive chairman (the son of the company's founder and largest shareholder) who had become accustomed to \"bossing\" the board. All of this was to change when in 2004 the company took over a rival group, Safeway, and was \"forced\" by institutional shareholder pressure to appoint non-executive directors.Generally, however, companies and their shareholders have welcomed the Code's provisions as a force for good. Much of the work undertaken by non-executives is done quietly and discreetly behind the scenes and in the context of a harmonious relationship with the company's executives.This said, it is the shareholders who \"own\" the company. In recent years major institutional shareholders such as the pension funds and insurance companies have become much less tolerant of underperforming companies and have become more interventionist. For example, dissatisfied institutional investors were instrumental in breaking-up Six Continents (the UK hotel and pub-restaurant group) into two separate companies, while Vodafone has been under pressure from its shareholders to pull out of Japan where it has languished. This situation has been compounded by the rise of hedge funds and private equity groups who regularly pick-off underperforming companies as take-over opportunities. Often there is little that the incumbent directors can do whatever the soundness of their corporate governance systems.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - A revised Combined Code on corporate governance was introduced in the UK in 2003 which set out a number of new provisions relating to the composition of the company's Board of Directors and its main Committees. The Code gives greater prominence to the role of non-executive directors in a company's corporate governance structures and decision-making processes. This paper examines the main provisions of the Code relating to non-executive directors and the emphasis it places on the importance of non-executives being \"independent\".\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper discusses the main issues concerning the effectiveness of non-executive directors, drawing in part of the evidence provided by a sample of large UK companies.\nFindings: - Most companies \"comply\" with the Code's requirements relating to non-executive directors and endorse the positive contribution they make to Board and Committee work.\nPractical implications: - Considers the pros and cons of the role of non-executives and the issue of what constitutes \" independency\".\nOriginality/value: - This is one of the first papers to examine the provisions of the new Code relating to non-executive directors.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
An investigation of gender and generational differences in attitudes toward the importance of a college degree in the UAE
|
[
"Gender",
"Higher education",
"United Arab Emirates",
"Socioeconomic status",
"Attitudes toward higher education",
"Transgenerational values"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Over the last several decades, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has made remarkable progress in human development. The 2015 Human Development Index (HDI) places the UAE in the very highly developed category, with an overall rank of 41 out of 187 countries. Similar to other developed countries on measures such as life expectancy and maternal mortality rates, women surpass men on education achievement measures such as literacy and educational attainment. At the same time, the UAE has challenges in gender equality. The female labor force participation rate is only 46.5 per cent, and while comparable to other countries, the percentage of parliamentary seats held by women is 17.5 per cent (vs 19.4 per cent for the USA; HDI, 2015). Likewise, considering wage equality and participation rate, the World Economic Forum gives the UAE a much lower ranking for gender economic participation and opportunity (130 out of 144; The Global Gender Gap Report, 2014).\nBackground: In recent years, the education sector in the UAE has gone through major changes. Traditionally, the only form of formal education entailed gaining knowledge about religious texts and interpretation. The instruction was carried out by religious scholars in the mosques. Oil revenues in the 1970s pushed for secularization of higher education in the region, including the UAE (Davidson, 2008). Since then, colleges and universities in the country have been internationalized and developed partnerships with educational institutions in Western countries. In 2016, there were 79 higher education institutions in the UAE with 30 of them located in the capital, Abu Dhabi (Higher Education, 2015-2016, 2016). Several universities, including those sampled in this study, are globally recognized with accreditation from Western organizations such as the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) and Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE).\nLiterature review: The education effect\nMethodology: Survey development\nAnalysis: Descriptive statistics\nResults: The present study investigates the effect of generation and gender in determining the value of higher education for Emirati youth. Based on the existing research on higher education and the preceding exploratory factor analysis, each hypothesis was tested for three attitudes: belief in education, family values and importance of education.\nDiscussion and conclusions: Consistent with previous studies, the findings of the present study show that gender role attitudes between male and female students were patterned according to gender and not by age or generation. The results indicate consistent, positive effects of higher levels of education and income on attitudes about education and gender roles.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study examines attitudes toward higher education for men and women among male and female students and parents in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and demonstrates gender differences in parent and student expectations about the importance of higher education.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This quantitative study examines attitudes toward higher education among 461 matched students and parents (total sample size 1442 respondents) in six higher education institutions in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and demonstrates gender differences between parent and student perceptions.\nFindings: In general, attitudes about the importance of a college degree were high and stable, except that younger, more recent female graduates were more likely to disagree that family traditions were threatened by women completing a college degree. Socio-demographic variables were associated with more favorable attitudes about the value of education for global leadership, the importance of a college education for both men and women and gender equality.\nResearch limitations/implications: Six higher education institutions were represented in the sample so external validity can be improved by studying these variables in other sample groups across the nation, region and globe. In addition, including additional types of universities, e.g. distance learning, technical, research and military, would indicate if the findings are generalizable to a broader range of institutions of higher education. There are opportunities for future comparative studies to examine the relevance of these findings across cultures and government initiatives to build national human resource capital and to consider other aspects of intergenerational relationships, attitudes and behaviors.\nOriginality/value: The authors examine perceived implications of the value of higher education on different arenas of men and women's lives among the Emirates. Additionally, we focus on whether their attitudes vary by gender and generation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Modelling online user behavior for medical knowledge learning
|
[
"Text mining",
"Machine learning",
"Factor graph",
"Latent variable",
"Medical knowledge",
"Transfer learning"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: According to a 2012 survey by the Pew Research Center, 77 percent of people searching online for health information start their search by using a search engine (Fox and Duggan, 2013). In China, people are spending more and more time searching online for information about healthcare resources. At a conference in 2016, Robin Li, the CEO of Baidu (the most widely used search engine in China), indicated that, every day, users carry out over 60 million searches for health-related information. Up to 40 percent of these searches are related to disease symptoms, causes and treatments (Li, 2016). Searchers using generic search sites will often be referred to medical websites. One such site that is popular in China is the professional medical website, xywy (www.xywy.com/), which, since 2005, has built up a collection of 300 million Q&A exchanges between online users and professional doctors (Shiji Wenkang (Beijing) Technology Development Co., Ltd., 2017).\n2. Related work: 2.1 Knowledge-based information retrieval\n3. Feature construction: 3.1 Data sets\n4. Model description: Table II describes all the symbols used in the model.\n5. Experiment: In this section, we present experimental results to demonstrate the performance of the proposed TLLFG model. We randomly pick 90 percent QA data, combine it with the whole KD as training data, then use the remaining QA data for testing. We repeat the experiment ten times and use the average score as the final result.\n6. Conclusion: In this paper, we propose a novel probabilistic model based on TLLFG. The model maps experts' knowledge and patients' lay descriptions of their ailments (from an online Q&A data set) into a unified latent space. The model was tested on a large collection of real medical records. Experimental results showed that the proposed model substantially outperforms the baseline methods. In addition, we applied the model to ten days of data from an online service. The results show that it significantly outperforms the other models tested. The methodology proposed in this paper is suitable not only for Chinese search engines, but also those using different languages in other countries. The common problems addressed here is one of knowledge mapping, which involves the identification of both semantic patterns context-based sequences. By using TLLFG, the model was able to learn from a large set of doctor-patient communication records, and improve users' online experiences. However TLLFG is limited to the extraction of semantic features from medical texts and by the accuracy of labels in the QA data. These limitations may cause significant noise, which will affect the model's performance. Consequently, improving the capability of medical text parsing and accuracy of labeling for QA data are priorities in future research directions aimed at improving the performance of TLLFG.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Internet technology allows millions of people to find high quality medical resources online, with the result that personal healthcare and medical services have become one of the fastest growing markets in China. Data relating to healthcare search behavior may provide insights that could lead to better provision of healthcare services. However, discrepancies often arise between terminologies derived from professional medical domain knowledge and the more colloquial terms that users adopt when searching for information about ailments. This can make it difficult to match healthcare queries with doctors' keywords in online medical searches. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To help address this problem, the authors propose a transfer learning using latent factor graph (TLLFG), which can learn the descriptions of ailments used in internet searches and match them to the most appropriate formal medical keywords.\nFindings: Experiments show that the TLLFG outperforms competing algorithms in incorporating both medical domain knowledge and patient-doctor Q&A data from online services into a unified latent layer capable of bridging the gap between lay enquiries and professionally expressed information sources, and make more accurate analysis of online users' symptom descriptions. The authors conclude with a brief discussion of some of the ways in which the model may support online applications and connect offline medical services.\nPractical implications: The authors used an online medical searching application to verify the proposed model. The model can bridge users' long-tailed description with doctors' formal medical keywords. Online experiments show that TLLFG can significantly improve the searching experience of both users and medical service providers compared with traditional machine learning methods. The research provides a helpful example of the use of domain knowledge to optimize searching or recommendation experiences.\nOriginality/value: The authors use transfer learning to map online users' long-tail queries onto medical domain knowledge, significantly improving the relevance of queries and keywords in a search system reliant on sponsored links.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A head in the clouds
|
[
"Information strategy",
"Computer software"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: As I look back on the last year, we covered a variety of topics from what was then an emerging recession to synchronization. As we now navigate one of the most severe recessions of the last century, it is worth asking what comes post-recession. During this trying time, a quiet revolution is underway in computing. It is a revolution that promises to shake the foundations of information industries and potentially all companies. Cloud computing and application widgets promise to reshape the knowledge economy.\nWhat is cloud computing?: Cloud computing is a way of providing computing services that is dynamically scalable and virtualized. Basically, users employ a web browser to access computing services provided remotely by a third-party. The users do not have to know the details of how the computing infrastructure is provisioned. They just need a few simple interfaces to connect. Cloud computing incorporates the ideas of software as a service and may also utilize open source software and web 2.0 principles of co-creating content.Popular cloud computing examples include Salesforce.com, Google Apps, Amazon web services and even Facebook. What makes these applications powerful is that we can access sophisticated software services and data through a simple web browser and an Internet connection.\nWhy is cloud computing important?: Cloud computing is important because it allow companies to reduce the capital costs of information technology by allowing them to buy computing literally by the drink - converting the cost of computing primarily to an operating expense. Secondly it allows companies to scale resources with ease. As they need more storage or use of an application such as a customer relationship management system, they just pay for more storage or users as they consume more. As the resources in the cloud are shared among multiple tenants, there are added benefits such as lower costs from greater economies of scale enabled by this sharing. On top of that, as all users may not utilize resources at the same time, a company can more efficiently deal with expanding to peak load capacity. There are also potential reliability benefits as shared redundant servers and resources are more cost effective than provisioning backups and security on a single company basis. All of these features make cloud computing attractive for companies as a new paradigm of delivering software and information services.What are the business implications of this shift to cloud computing? First, it dramatically lowers the barriers to entry into the software business. In the past, the cost of distributing software, installing it on local machines in a company, and maintaining the software was high. Now, when the software sits in the Internet cloud, a very small company can offer the service worldwide and scale it up as needed. This opens up the possibility for more software services innovation.Second, by moving to the cloud, the old paradigm of packaged software receives one more nail in its coffin. Instead of pay-for-purchase of a software installation the model moves more closely to purchase a particular level of use of the software. This challenges the traditional business model of software providers.Third, it provides new ways for companies to earn revenues. For example, Amazon makes money by selling a variety of retail items from books to electronics. But look more closely at the business model and one finds Amazon also earns substantial revenue from providing a cloud to many users, who use its platforms for storing data or undertaking complex computations without having to make costly capital investments in infrastructure. In addition, Amazon allows others to provide services to online retail outlets running on its efficient computing platform. We can expect a number of companies to move their computing infrastructure into a cloud architecture just as Amazon has done. The architecture will be open for others to access on demand and utilize for a fee, reducing costs for all users through economies of scale. It also provides a new way to monetize the intellectual property of a company.\nHow will companies use cloud computing in the future?: The availability of cloud infrastructures can be disruptive to traditional software companies as well as to how corporations run IT systems. For software companies it extends the transformation of software as a service. Software applications for a variety of things we do will sit somewhere in the clouds and be available anywhere regardless of location as long as there is an Internet connection. This model of computing creates dramatic new efficiencies for software service providers. By having their resources on a cloud they gain tremendous efficiencies in costs and shared resources. They can charge by the drink and serve software services to more customers both large and small.I expect clouds to create a whole new cycle of software and business innovation. Many applications that sit on corporate servers today will have to migrate to the clouds. These applications will increasingly be accessed by widgets that lurk on desktops or a mobile phone. Widgets allow for varied platforms to access a valuable service in a cloud. These widgets will be a very small piece of code close to where the customer is and on a device they are using. Widgets allow users to invoke and utilize specific applications and resources in a cloud. Widgets will also be more context-aware, invoking themselves and being available to the user as they do specific things. For example, when I am driving, my cell phone senses that and brings up a widget. This widget accesses a cloud and provides a map and instructions on how best to get to my destination given current traffic data that is monitored and stored by other applications in a cloud. Innovators will create new applications that reside and scale from clouds and others innovators will integrate applications and use data from clouds to create new insights and experiences. In short, we should see a burgeoning of new services created by entrepreneurs in this new model.For IT departments, cloud computing will mean a rethink of what is done in-house versus in the clouds. More and more applications will migrate to the clouds. Given the efficiency of clouds, those companies wed to the wrong infrastructure will have an inherent cost disadvantage.\nWhat are the downsides?: Most of those considering cloud computing are concerned today about security and lock-in. Will the provider of my cloud services do a better job at computer security and data privacy than my own in-house IT staff and systems? If I migrate my software or data to a cloud hosted by a specific vendor how much will I be locked-in to that vendor? Are there easy ways to migrate from cloud to cloud? Given that clouds are relatively new, these questions are still being answered, but many of us already use a form of a cloud without knowing it for personal data. From our use of gmail for e-mail to Apple idisk for storing backup files on an Apple Mac clouds are already becoming pervasive.\nAhead in the clouds: The quiet revolution in computing toward clouds shows considerable promise for unleashing innovation and efficiencies in computing. In addition to the software industry, for those industries where computing costs are significant, this trend has the potential to disrupt the status quo as some companies adopt this model of computing to outstrip their peers. Looking ahead, the next few years should unleash an interesting competition among traditional software vendors and innovators. Companies will also compete to be the leading cloud providers as they design a new landscape for information industries and services.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - There is a quiet change going on in computing that can alter the landscape of the software and information industries. Cloud computing promises to provide various information services at a lower cost and change the model of capitalizing IT investment for software entrepreneurs and businesses. What are the implications of this trend?\nDesign/methodology/approach: - As a viewpoint this article is based on personal reflection and analysis of trends in computing.\nFindings: - This article outlines the key advantages of cloud computing and its likely implications on corporate IT strategy, software innovation and pricing. Increasingly IT will migrate to clouds, software innovation will burgeon as new vendors find less barriers to enter software businesses and pricing will be by use of applications.\nOriginality/value: - This reflective viewpoint provides pragmatic critical thinking on a key business and technology transformation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Conceptualising and enacting the critical imagination through a critical writing pedagogy
|
[
"Embodiment",
"Performance",
"Critical literacy",
"Critical imagination",
"Critical writing pedagogy",
"Recontextualizing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In educational discourse, imagination is frequently conceptualised as the binary opposite of rigorous, critical intellectual work. This is particularly the case in higher education where students are expected to master academic discourse(s). At the undergraduate level, training in academic discourse focuses on the traditional academic essay genre which frequently operates as:\n2. Conceptual framework: 2.1 Conceptualising imagination\n3. Methodology: This is primarily a conceptual paper in the area of the critical imagination and the central argument of the paper is illustrated by empirical data generated from a qualitative, case study of a writing intervention in a first year teacher education course.\n4. Analysis of assignment data: embodiment and recontextualising/critical creative writing: 4.1 Diverse topics, gendered writing and critical moves\n5. Conclusion: In this article, I have problematised the position of imagination in educational discourse in teacher education institutions, in critical literacy research and in school literacy classrooms. I argue that critical literacy researchers have not paid sufficient attention to the role of imagination even in a reconfigured, more embodied version of critical literacy. My intention has been to highlight the power of the imagination as a way of knowing and to demonstrate how the imagination, criticality and critical writing pedagogy can be brought together in a teacher education class. What has emerged from the theoretical overview and empirical data, is that a crucial aspect of the critical imagination entails creating pedagogical spaces that mobilise affect and empathy alongside criticality. Embodied literacy work across different genres and modes, can play a significant role in facilitating the critical imagination (both the poetic and the social) by enabling students to enact, perform and immerse themselves in different discourses, ultimately generating new ways of seeing. Writing plays a crucial role in consolidating these gains that otherwise might get lost once the performative moment has passed.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Imagination in critical literacy research is usually referred to as a taken for granted concept that is seldom theorised, leaving the assumptions unchecked that everyone has a shared understanding of imagination. This paper aims to challenge critical literacy researchers to rethink the relationship between criticality and imagination and its implication for a critical writing pedagogy. It aims to synthesise the imagination and criticality in the context of critical literacy, both theoretically and empirically and in doing so to illustrate what form a critical writing pedagogy that foregrounds the critical imagination might take.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This argument is illustrated through analysing two sets of data that contain embodied enactments of contested gender issues across different modes and genres. Data from student teachers' embodied enactments of contested gender issues and from their writing on these issues were analysed thematically.\nFindings: A crucial aspect of the critical imagination entails creating pedagogical spaces that mobilise affect and empathy alongside criticality. Embodied literacy work across different modes and genres can play a significant role in facilitating the critical imagination by enabling students to enact, perform and immerse themselves in different discourses, ultimately generating new insights and ways of seeing.\nResearch limitations/implications: Data was drawn from a relatively small sample of 30 assignments in the context of teacher education in South Africa. More empirical research needs to be conducted across a wider range of contexts.\nPractical implications: The paper provides a theoretical framework and practical ideas for implementing a critical writing pedagogy that foregrounds the critical imagination and thus could be used in both teacher education contexts and school literacy classrooms.\nOriginality/value: This paper challenges critical literacy researchers to rethink the relationship between criticality and imagination and its implication for a critical writing pedagogy.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The engagement with business ethics: An Australian journey 1995-2010
|
[
"Ethics",
"Codes",
"Engagement",
"Longitudinal",
"Evolution",
"Australia"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Australian-based businesses had not deemed it necessary to give any real and meaningful consideration to business ethics until the latter part of the 1980s and early 1990s (Kaye, 1992, 1996). The stock market crash of 1987 precipitated the need and desire for Australian companies to look for answers to explain their tawdry performance at that cataclysmic moment of Australian corporate history (Wood, 2000). The revelations of impropriety that surfaced as the result of corporate collapses and the fall from grace of high-profile entrepreneurs brought ethical practices into sharp focus for investors, the community in general and the government (Milton-Smith, 1995; Small, 1993). Corporate figures fell from grace as they moved from being famous to now infamous, as their dealings in the marketplace left a trail of destruction not seen in Australia since the Great Depression of the late 1920s as companies went bankrupt and investors lost their life savings.\nMethodology and response rates: To evaluate the use of codes of ethics, an iterative and multi-mode research procedure (consisting of both qualitative and quantitative data collection) was used and conducted across 1995/1996. The process was replicated in 2000/2001, again in 2005/2006, facilitating refinement of the questionnaire design and scale development to enable an entirely quantitatively based data collection in 2010/2011. This paper relates the results of the seminal and most recent iterations of the study to provide an efficient and concise picture of the evolution over the period. The seminal data collection consisted of a questionnaire that was sent to all the public relations managers of the top 500 Australian companies (based on revenue) operating in the private sector. This population was selected for several reasons (i.e. size of turnover, employee numbers and business profile), as they were more probable to have developed a formal code of ethics. Companies were asked to answer up to 30 questions and to supply a copy of their code of ethics. This paper is based on a comparison of the findings of the initial 30-question survey conducted in 1995 and the latest 2010 iteration based on and developed from it.\nThe incidence of codes: Question 1 is focussed on the frequency of code usage amongst large private sector firms. The primary evidence in 1995 indicated moderate usage with a large minority of survey respondents (45.7 per cent or 121 of 265), indicating that their company possessed a code. In 2010, 95.3 per cent of respondents indicated that their company possessed a code (Table II). In the past 15 years in corporate Australia, the reported incidence of codes has now more than doubled. The artefact of the code of ethics has become de rigueur for the organisations of corporate Australia, but the real test will be to see if the processes that are needed to be in place to make the ethos of a code come to life have been embraced in the same manner.\nInvolvement in developing the codes: The introduction of the \"Principles of Good Corporate Governance and Best Practice Recommendations\" by the Australian Stock Exchange in 2002 and the resultant focus on corporate governance in Australia underlines the importance of the involvement of boards of directors and senior managers with codes of ethics in companies operating in Australia (Callaghan et al., 2008). Regulatory requirements and the global growth of an interest in corporate social responsibility should mean that the incidence of board and senior management involvement in the development of codes of ethics has increased significantly (Table V).\nImplementing the codes: The implementation of codes can occur in two ways - first the adaption of existing processes, and second, the creation of special processes. Reliance on the former is most likely fundamental to any real commitment to a code; however, \"high\" commitment is most clearly signalled by the second (Wood and Rimmer, 2003).\nConclusion: The aim of any organisation is to ensure that the organisation's philosophy is consistent with its practice and that the company's core values are perceived to be congruent with its actions in the marketplace. The company's commitment to ethical business practices should be directly reflected in the impact that its actions have on the consumer and the society.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The aim of this research was to determine the evolution of engagement with business ethics in the top 500 Australian corporations operating in the private sector from 1995 to 2010.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Primary data were obtained via a non-sponsored and unsolicited self-administered mail questionnaire distributed to a census of the top 500 Australian companies operating in the private sector administered in both 1995 and 2010. This paper examines and compares the responses of the companies that possessed a code of ethics at those times.\nFindings: This paper finds that business ethics has continued to evolve over the period of the study and that, in most cases, such an evolution has been positive, with the majority of companies exhibiting high levels of engagement.\nResearch limitations/implications: While the responses provided a rich picture of the evolution of Australian corporate engagement with business ethics, further longitudinal research exploring international and cross-cultural contexts would add to this understanding of organisational engagement.\nPractical and social implications: It would seem that codes of ethics have evolved beyond a regulatory requirement and are now considered an integral component of the corporate culture and commercial practice in the majority of Australia's top 500 companies.\nOriginality/value: Despite a history of business ethics research, longitudinal studies seeking to understand the evolution of corporate engagement to business ethics are exceedingly rare. This paper, unique and original in its focus on an Australian context, provides a basis for future studies focused on exploring international and cross-cultural contexts. This paper makes a substantive and valuable contribution to the literature as it quantifies the evolution of corporate engagement over a 15-year period.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Welfare implications of minimum wage increase in Nigeria
|
[
"Nigeria",
"Welfare",
"Minimum wage",
"Informal sector"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The central motive of a minimum wage policy is to provide a living wage to poorly paid workers thereby enhancing their welfare and closing the wage gap. This was the rationale for the creation of the minimum wage in the late nineteenth century (Cunningham, 2007). However, early studies on the impact of minimum wage on welfare and employment found that it resulted in job losses and as such it may not be welfare-enhancing[1]. These results are in consonance with the classical model of minimum wage in a perfect competitive labour market.\n2. Minimum wage and welfare in Nigeria: Table I shows the nominal and real minimum wage between 1974 and 2011 on a five-year average[3]. Despite the upward trend recorded in the nominal wage, the real wage declined continuously except for a temporary increase from N20.09 in 1994-1998 to N77.11 in 1999-2003.\n3. Literature review: Discussions of the effects of a minimum wage policy on the economy have been a long-standing debate in the literature. Despite the volume of empirical evidence on this topic in the developed economies, there are still divergent views on its economic impact. Stigler's (1946) seminal article dubbed a minimum wage policy as being a weak tool in reducing poverty since its setting does not take into account employment level, family size and number of earners in a family. Others studies have corroborated this evidence either from a negative employment or poverty effects, induced by a minimum wage policy (see Browning and Johnson, 1983; Conradie, 2004; Meer and West, 2016).\n4. Methodology: Minimum wage policies have indirect and economy-wide effects. Feedback effects resulting from changes in disposable income when minimum wage rises are not accounted for in partial equilibrium methods (DPRU, 2008). These effects are relevant in investigating the welfare effects of minimum wage policies. The choice of the CGE method in this paper is therefore premised on its ability to fully account for the transmission mechanism through which minimum wage affects welfare. It also has the advantage of accounting for the indirect effects of policies, thus making it relevant in this kind of study in which both formal and informal sector workers are considered.\n5. Policy simulations and analysis: Four sets of simulations are carried out. They examined the impact of a 20 per cent (Sim1), 35 per cent (Sim2), 50 per cent (Sim3) and 140 per cent (Sim4) increases in the minimum wage, respectively, from N7,500 per month which was initiated in 2000. Simulation 4 represents the current minimum wage of N18,000 in Nigeria.\n6. Conclusion: Minimum wage policies are intended to protect poorly paid workers. This was the rationale behind the setting up of this welfare programme. It should be noted, however, that when minimum wages are increased, it has indirect effects on employment and wages of other workers. This has significant welfare implications for both minimum wage beneficiaries and those who are not covered by the policy.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The primary motive of a minimum wage policy is to provide a wage floor for poorly paid workers and improve their welfare. In Nigeria, real minimum wage declined by 60 per cent between 1974 and 2011, thus reducing the welfare of workers. The wage gap between low skilled and high skilled workers have also widened over the years in favour of the latter. There are concerns that the series of minimum wage increase in Nigeria may not be welfare-enhancing. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study examined the welfare effects of minimum wage increase in Nigeria using a computable general equilibrium model. The model was calibrated using a 2006 Social Accounting Matrix and four sets of scenarios (20, 35, 50 and 140 per cent wage increases), were simulated.\nFindings: The findings show that employers substituted other labour categories for minimum wage workers. This increases the wage rates of other labour. The consumer price index also increased as firms partly pass-on increased labour cost to consumers. Generally, the simulations show that minimum wage policies worsen the welfare of its intended beneficiaries, due to negative impact on prices and employment.\nOriginality/value: This study deviates from existing studies on minimum wage in Nigeria, by providing a proper disaggregation of the labour market that represents the Nigerian economy. In this regard, the informal sector was accommodated and the potential impact of the minimum wage on this sector determined. It also adopted the equivalent variation welfare measure which incorporates price and consumption effects in measuring welfare.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Service value optimization of cloud hosted systems using particle swarm technique
|
[
"Cloud Computing",
"Particle Swarm Optimization",
"Business driven IS management",
"SaaS management",
"Value as a service"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: From a business perspective, Cloud Computing, which presents a new paradigm for distributed computing, is about improving organizational efficiency and reducing operational cost, often coupled with the objective of achieving a faster time to market (Hauck et al., 2010). Cloud Computing delivers three defined models: Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).\n2. Related works: Different available service models of Cloud Computing paradigm have made it more feasible for service providers to deliver their services as a utility to the customers in different methods. This is mainly and specifically due to: virtualization and SaaS model.\n3. Research methodology: A procedure has been created to manage the research progress starting from an extensive search of the high-related keywords over the most important search engines and repositories like IEEE Xplore, Science Direct, Google Books and Google Scholar. A set of more than 65 academic papers have been collected, a short list of the most related 35 papers have been reviewed. It mainly included sources from books, journals, conference proceedings and available working papers related to Cloud Computing, Management of Cloud Computing, Business Driven Management and other related topics. The research is also based on the review of the functionality of the major cloud systems including Amazon EC2, Salesforce and Microsoft Azure.\n4. Business value maximization: The application owner serving many customers may have multiple objectives to achieve. Total profit and customer satisfaction are example of these objectives. Focusing on one of those objectives may affect the value of one another, i.e. giving more priority to profit will decrease the customer request value. It could be undesired to influence those values for all of the customers to the same degree. Therefore, specifying the severity of the customer, according to the SLA signed between the two parties, is a critical factor that could be considered and defined by the provider when processing the clients' requests.\n5. Evaluation and experiments: An evaluation of our model and algorithms has been conducted based on Amazon EC2 (2014) instances, using CloudSim which is a framework for modelling and simulation of Cloud Computing infrastructures and services (Calheiros et al., 2011).\n6. Research implications and limitations: Our simulation results provide several theoretical contributions in the area of management of information systems within Cloud Computing environments. For researchers, this study provides a useful literature, which can help them in relevant subject. It shows the effectiveness of the PSO-based model by optimizing the business value for the service owner.\n7. Summary and future work: The adoption of Cloud Computing services results in new relations between the service providers and consumers as new business models and system architectures appear. Driven by their business needs and objectives, the providers require managing and controlling their applications in alignment with their most important KPIs. Consumers, on the other hand, have to specify their own needs per processing request. As an application owner, I need to set a decision-making structure that permits to manage my service driven by set of metrics considering those different requesters. In this work, we presented a PSO technique coupled with a value-based approach to optimize the selection process of infrastructure service provider resources, considering a set of defined business metrics of the application owner.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Cloud Computing has become a more promising technology with potential opportunities, through reducing the high cost of running the traditional business applications and by leading to new business models. Nonetheless, this technology is fraught with many challenges. From a Software as a Service (SaaS) provider perspective, deployment choices are one of the major perplexing issues in determining the degree to which the application owners' objectives are met while considering their customers' targets. The purpose of this paper is to present a new model that allows the service owner to optimize the resources selection based on defined metrics when responding to many customers' with various priorities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: More than 65 academic papers have been collected, a short list of the most related 35 papers have been reviewed, in addition to assessing the functionality of major cloud systems. A potential set of techniques has been investigated to determine the most appropriate ones. Moreover, a new model has been built and a study of different simulation platforms has been conducted.\nFindings: The findings demonstrate that serving many SaaS customer requests, with different agreements and expected outcomes, would have mutual influence that impact the overall provider objectives. Furthermore, this paper investigates how tagging those customers with various priorities, with reflection of their importance to the provider, permits controlling and aligning the selection of computing resources as per the current objectives and defined priorities.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study provides researchers with a useful literature, which can assist them in relevant subject. Additionally, it uses a value-based approach and particle swarm technique to model and solve the optimization of the computing resource selection, considering different business objectives for both stakeholders, providers and customers. This study derives priority of a number of factors, by which service providers can make strong and adaptive decisions.\nPractical implications: The paper includes implications on how the SaaS service provider can make decisions to select the needed virtual machines type driven by his own preferences.\nOriginality/value: This paper rests on the usage of Particle Swarm Optimization technique to optimize the business value of the service provider, as well as the usage of value-based approach. This will help model that value in order to combine the total profit of the provider and the customer satisfaction, based on the agreed budget and processing time requested by the customer. Another additional approach has been charted by using the customer severity factor that allows the provider to reflect the customer importance while making the placement decision.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Corporate dividend decisions and dividend smoothing: New evidence from an empirical study of Turkish firms
|
[
"Turkey",
"Dividend policy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Dividend policy has attracted a significant amount of attention in the corporate finance literature. Miller and Modigliani (1961) assert that, under the conditions of a perfect capital market, a managed dividend policy does not affect the firm value and therefore it is irrelevant. However, many scholars argue that real world capital markets are subject to various market imperfections (e.g. information asymmetries, differential taxes, transaction costs and agency problems) and suggest that dividends may be used as a very important mechanism to minimise such imperfections. Indeed, Lintner (1956) observes that US managers follow extremely deliberate (managed) dividend policies, contrary to Miller and Modigliani's prediction. In his pioneering study, Lintner detects that US managers tend to smooth dividends relative to earnings; they only increase their dividend payments when they believe that earnings can sustain higher dividend levels permanently, and are reluctant to cut dividends unless adverse circumstances are likely to persist, since dividend cuts are bad signals to the market.\n2. Institutional setting and dividend regulations in the Turkish market: Turkey had a very late start in the liberalisation of its economy and the establishment of its stock market, namely the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE), whose history only dates back to 1986, compared to the developed stock exchanges with hundreds of years of historical development (Adaoglu, 2000; Aksu and Kosedag, 2006). Public corporations listed on the ISE were subject to the first mandatory dividend policy, which was put into effect by the Capital Markets Board (CMB) of Turkey[1], when it first started to operate in 1986. According to the first regulation on dividend payments, the ISE-listed firms were obliged to distribute at least 50 per cent of their distributable income as a cash dividend - this was known as the first dividend and other types of payouts or maintaining profits as retained earnings were not legally possible without paying the first dividend.\n3. Prior studies and research hypotheses: In a pioneering study, Lintner (1956) develops a mathematical model based on his extensive in-depth interviews with US managers to test for the stability of cash dividend payments. His model reveals that firms set current dividend payments in line with their current earnings and previous year dividend payments, and they make partial adjustments to a target payout ratio and do not match immediately with the earnings changes. In fact, various researchers from developed and developing countries have been strongly supportive of Lintner's findings and reported consistency of results across many markets and different periods of time. For example, early studies such as Darling (1957), Brittain (1964) and Fama and Babiak (1968) re-evaluate and extend the Lintner model, by adding supplementary variables or undertaking more comprehensive approaches, and they all confirm the original findings of Lintner that US companies follow stable dividend policies.\n4. Data and methodology: 4.1 Data\n5. Empirical results and discussion: 5.1 Univariate analysis\n6. Conclusion: Using a sample of ISE-listed firms over the period 2003-2012, we examine the impact of regulations, reforms and legal environment on firm-level dividend policy, since this period witnessed various major economic and structural reforms implemented by the Turkish government and experienced significant changes in regulatory framework of cash dividend policy rules imposed by the CMB. Early studies conducted in Turkey showed that cash dividends were not used to signal favourable insider information nor were they used as a disciplinary device. The ISE firms concentrated on the first mandatory dividend payment requirement of distributing at least 50 per cent of earnings as a cash dividend and thus did not much care about setting stable dividend policies. After the implementation of major reforms and the significant regulatory changes regarding dividend policy, our study, however, reveals that a number of important implications on cash dividend behaviour of the ISE firms in the post-2003 period.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of regulations, reforms and legal environment on dividend policy in a different institutional setting. Particularly, it examines the firm-level cash dividend behaviour of publicly listed firms in Turkey in the post-2003 period, since there were major economic and structural reforms as well as significant regulatory changes of dividend payout rules imposed by the supervisory bodies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper focuses on a recent large panel data set of 264 Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE)-listed firms over a ten-year period 2003-2012. First, it employs a modified specification of Lintner's (1956) partial adjustment model for analysis regarding target payout ratio and dividend smoothing. Second, it performs a logit model for analysis in identifying the link between financial characteristics and the likelihood of paying dividends.\nFindings: The results show that ISE firms now follow the same determinants as suggested by Lintner. They, indeed, have long-term payout ratios and adjust their cash dividends by a moderate level of smoothing, and therefore adopt stable dividend policies (although less stable policies compared to their counterparts in the developed US market) as a signalling mechanism over the period 2003-2012. Moreover, the results also report that ownership structure concentration affects the target payout ratio and dividend smoothing in the Turkish market. In addition, the results further show that more profitable, more mature and larger sized ISE firms are more likely to pay cash dividends, whereas ISE firms with higher investment opportunities and more debt are less likely to distribute cash dividends in the post-2003 period.\nOriginality/value: To the best of authors' knowledge, this paper is the first major research that examines the implications of reforms and regulations on cash dividend payments and dividend smoothing over time in Turkey during its market integration process in the post-2003 period.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Impression management and self-presentation dissimulation in Portuguese chairman's statements
|
[
"Portugal",
"Financial reporting",
"Impression management",
"Social psychology",
"Chairman statement"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Impression management (IM) has been defined as the \"attempt to control images that are projected in real or imagined social interactions\" (Schlenker, 1980, p. 6). It is the \"field of study within social psychology studying how individuals present themselves to others to be perceived favourable by others\" (Hooghiemstra, 2000, p. 6).\n2. Literature review and hypotheses development: Merkl-Davies and Brennan (2007) and Brennan et al. (2009) present an extensive literature review on IM strategies and identify seven discretionary narrative disclosure strategies carried out by disclosure choices and the presentation of information, by means of bias (conveying information in a very positive/negative way) and selectivity (omission or inclusion of some items of information). Table I show the definition for each discretionary narrative disclosure strategy.\n3. Research method: 3.1. Sample\n4. Results: 4.1. Descriptive analysis\n5. Conclusions: Our results confirm that Portuguese non-finance companies do not adopt IM strategies to present a self-presentational dissimulated impression. The levels of organisational outcomes (measured by earnings before tax growth rate) do not influence the adoption of IM strategies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Drawn on social psychology theory of impression management (IM), the purpose of this paper is to assess the way Portuguese managers build their narratives in chairman's statement (CS) to manage stakeholders' perceptions on corporate image, in a period of time of scarce resources.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper's theoretical framework draws on elements of social psychology theory of IM developed by Leary and Kowalski (1990). Through the use of the two-component model of IM (impression motivation and impression construction) the 45 CSs of Portuguese non-finance companies were content analysed to understand how managers build their voluntary communication strategies.\nFindings: Results indicate that organisational outcome does not influence the adoption of IM strategies. But public visibility and consumer proximity are crucial factors in explaining them. Larger companies with high consumer proximity present themselves in a favourable way, but consistent with an overall reading of the annual report. These companies show a higher level of verbosity, consistent to the argument of retrospective rationality.\nOriginality/value: The present study goes beyond Merkl-Davies et al. (2011) work and obtains insightful knowledge on the influence of goal relevance of impression in three different perspectives: company's public visibility, company's dependency from debtholders, and consumer proximity. Moreover, the analysis uses a period of scarce resources and a European Latin country, with no tradition in publishing CSs, but that recently has changed its financial reporting practices from an institutional code-law logic to an institutional common-law logic. A research setting like this has not been studied hitherto.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Corporate governance and accountability of state-owned enterprises: Relevance for science and society and interdisciplinary research perspectives
|
[
"Corporate governance",
"Accountability",
"SOEs"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Reforms in the provision of public services with new institutional arrangements have made state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and their activities significantly increase in many countries over the past decades. They now represent approximately 10 per cent of global gross domestic product with joint sales of $3.5 trillion (Bruton et al., 2015). For this reason, the field is important yet understudied.\n2. Rationale and research opportunities: In order to understand the rationale for research on the governance of SOE's and their role in recent public sector reforms, we begin by confirming the importance of the field and then attempt to circumscribe the link between SOE's and public/corporate governance.\n3. Overture to eclectic SOE governance research: The special issue includes a selection of articles presented during the Euram-Mini-conference held at Leipzig University in February 2015 and submitted in an open call for papers. The seven articles included in the IJPSM special issues have different disciplinary backgrounds (political science, public management, management control and organization studies) and theoretical foundations. The majority of papers (five out of seven) were based on qualitative methods and data (interviews, observations and content analyses) and two articles were built on research hypothesis, correlations and regressions based on national and international data. In line with the spirit of the journals, all selected articles were based on innovative experiences in SOEs at different levels of governments (central and local), and different sectors (i.e. public transportation, water services, public utilities, universities, etc.).\n4. Lessons for policy makers and perspectives for future research: The transfer of responsibilities between traditional government institutions on one hand and private networks engaged in the development and the promotion of expert systems, on the other (Giddens, 1991; Latour, 2004) has mainly occurred under the slogan of NPM and the alluring promise of higher efficiency resulting from practices used in the private sector. Such a movement has nevertheless prompted reservations from those who worried about the weakening of state power in favour of a creeping privatization of the ideals of public service (Lapsley, 2009).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue and outline its major themes and challenges, their relevance and the research opportunities the field presents.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper reviews prior literature and outline's the need to analyse challenges for corporate governance and accountability of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) as a precursor to introducing the contributions to this special issue.\nFindings: Corporate governance, accounting and accountability of SOEs are crucial and growing topics in public management and other research disciplines. Public service provision and budget consolidation cannot be realized effectively and efficiently without powerful governance and management of SOEs. However there are significant corporate governance challenges and important empirical research gaps in comparison to other fields. Broader theoretical perspectives, methodological approaches, accountability mechanisms and sector/context are identified and discussed and encouraged in future research.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper aims to stimulate interdisciplinary research on emerging issues affecting governance and accountability of SOEs considering their growing importance in the society and their changing nature.\nPractical implications: Effective mechanisms and good practices may contribute to better performance of SOEs. Findings may help politicians, administrations, board members, auditors, consultants, scholars and the media striving for improvements around the world.\nOriginality/value: The paper condenses theoretical and empirical findings to highlight the relevance of this field and important research gaps. The special issue offers an empirical examination of interdisciplinary literature and innovative experiences of SOEs to strengthen public service motivation, board composition and roles, trust and control, transparency, public value and to enhance the ability to manage, steer and monitor contracts, performance and relationships.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Explaining the emergence of hedonic motivations in enterprise social networks and their impact on sustainable user engagement: A four-drive perspective
|
[
"Workplace",
"Technology acceptance",
"Enterprise social network",
"Enjoyment",
"Hedonic motivation",
"Social influence"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: As public social media like Facebook and Twitter grew in popularity (Larosiliere et al., 2017), so too have enterprise social media (Akoumianakis and Ktistakis, 2017; Karasti et al., 2018; Li, Tung and Chang, 2015; Li, Guo, Chen and Luo, 2015; Limaj et al., 2016; Meske and Amojo, 2018; Tan and Kim, 2015). Set within the boundaries of an organization, especially enterprise social networks (ESNs), such as Yammer, IBM Connections, Jive, Slack, Chatter, Socialcast or Tibbr, provide employees with the ability to connect with fellow employees, ask questions, share news or promote best practices - irrespective of roles, business units or geographies (Riemer et al., 2015). Just like their counterpart in the personal space, ESNs are said to change how individuals nurture relationships, communicate in the workplace and, similar to corporate wikis, for example, ESNs provide a unique opportunity to build digital repositories with searchable content (Riemer et al., 2015). They are often used to supplement ongoing corporate knowledge management (Newell, 2015; Mantymaki and Riemer, 2016) and internal crowdsourcing initiatives (Zuchowski et al., 2016; Sharma and Bhatnagar, 2016) or to reduce the amount of e-mail traffic that gets stuck in individual inboxes (Argyris and Ransbotham, 2016).\n2. Normative and hedonic motivations to use enterprise social networks: According to traditional management theories, and as reflected in the term homo economicus, humans are rational beings (Brzezicka and Wisniewski, 2014). They are primarily interested in their own benefit and in maximizing materialistic values (Brzezicka and Wisniewski, 2014). They are also believed to decide and function with only few emotional needs. However, a gradual change has taken place in management education that shifted perspectives from a mainly mechanistic to a more humanistic one (Pirson and Lawrence, 2010), distancing itself from a fictional homo economicus and seeking to uncover the real \"conditio humana\" (Dierksmeier, 2015). This shift in perspectives also seems to be apparent in IS research. Aspects, such as fun and pleasure, were not part of the originally specified IS adoption model, including the technology adoption model (TAM) (Davis, 1989) or the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) (Venkatesh et al., 2003); only later were they added, for example, to TAM 3 (Venkatesh and Bala, 2008) or UTAUT 2 (Venkatesh et al., 2012). The fact that experienced or expected pleasure was not part of the originally specified models is not surprising as IS in work contexts were almost exclusively mandated, and hedonic motivations were viewed as insignificant for predicting human behavior (Brown et al., 2002). With the commoditization of IT, however, users have a choice over which IT tool to use in the workplace. The premise of a mandate is no longer applicable.\n3. Research design: 3.1 Context information\n4. Data analysis and results: 4.1 Descriptive statistics\n5. Discussion and research synthesis: Multiple findings can be drawn from this study. First, we learn that hedonic motivations take on the majority of explanatory power for sustainable engagement in ESN; normative motivations, such as social influences, in contrast, explain only half of what hedonic motivation is able to do. Hence, the study found that an individual's urge to act - as triggered by reasons outside the individual - plays a less significant role than innate factors. Since ESNs are typically not incentivized, for example, through monetary rewards or as part of annual performance objectives, this finding makes sense. The case company did not mandate the use of Yammer, just promoted its use.\n6. Conclusion and outlook to further research: In this paper, the importance of hedonic and normative motivations and their effects on employees to continue using ESN were compared. Furthermore, it was investigated how hedonic motivations emerge in ESN. In the following, we summarize the key lessons learned, contribution to knowledge and implications for theory, implications for practice, limitations and recommendations for future research.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Enterprise social networks (ESNs) in organizations have become an increasingly important technology to support the exchange of information and knowledge. Many ESN projects fail due to insufficient engagement in the long run, leading to the high risk of sunk costs. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how hedonic motivations, along with normative motivations, play an important role in determining an employee's intention to continuously participate in ESN. Based on the Four-Drive Model and hence borrowing from behavioral economics, it is investigated how such hedonic motivations emerge in organizational ESNs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study is set within the context of a global enterprise of the logistics and courier industry. The authors first derived hypotheses from the Four-Drive Model to build the research model on the emergence of hedonic motivation. Then, the authors derived hypotheses from existing adoption literature regarding the impact of hedonic motivations and normative motivations on ESN use continuance. Following, a quantitative survey was conducted to test these hypotheses. In the study, structural equation modeling is applied, based on partial least squares.\nFindings: The results show that the extent to which an ESN supports the drives to comprehend, acquire, bond and defend starkly influences an employee's hedonic motivations. In addition, it is shown that hedonic motivations have a much stronger influence on use continuance than normative motivations.\nOriginality/value: Research on hedonic motivations in the work context is still underrepresented, in management science as well as information systems (IS) research. Hence, theoretical approaches to explain and predict the emergence of hedonic motivations in IS usage are missing. With the study, the authors will close this theoretical gap. The study contributes to IS research not only by evaluating the role of hedonic motivation for ESN usage, but also by providing an approach to explain key drivers behind it. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to empirically test the Four-Drive Model in a voluntary IS context, adding valuable knowledge about human behaviors in digital work environments.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Risk and culture: the case of typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines
|
[
"Risk perception",
"Evacuation behaviour",
"Social memory",
"Socio-cultural contexts of disaster evacuation",
"Typhoon Haiyan"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Background: On November 8, 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, locally known as typhoon Yolanda, made landfall in the Philippines. The super typhoon carried sustained winds that exceeded 185 kph and caused storm surges that reached six to seven meters, hence, it was considered as the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines and the deadliest disaster in Philippine modern history (Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, 2014). As of April 2014, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council has recorded around 6,300 deaths, 1,061 missing, and 28,689 injured persons. In addition, there were 12,000 shelters destroyed and 47,000 nearly damaged. According to Department of Social Welfare and Development, an estimated 14.8 million people were affected and 4.1 million people displaced because of the typhoon (Commission on Audit, 2014).\n2. Conceptual framework: This study was guided by the following conceptual model.\n3. Methodology: This is a multi-sited ethnography that made use of data collection methods including focus group discussions as well as episodic interviews as described by Flick (1997) and in-depth interviews among women and men residing in one barangay each in Tacloban City, and San Francisco, Cebu and two barangays in Guiuan, Eastern Samar. Purposive sampling was used in identifying the 90 informants in the three sites. Criteria in the identification of informants included being residents of the study sites, having experienced Haiyan in the study sites, and, willingness to participate in the study. To cover various perspectives, interviews were done among those who had evacuated and those who had not. Key informants from government agencies and private organizations who worked with the Haiyan affected communities were also interviewed. Participatory risk mapping as described by Cadag and Gaillard (2012) wherein people's perspective on what constitutes safe and unsafe spaces in the communities was also done.\n4. Social and cultural contexts of risk: Understanding people's notions of risk in relation to hazards particularly, how such notions define their evacuation decisions entails an understanding of the social and cultural contexts that shape such decisions. These contexts frame the way people perceive risk and the decisions they make. This study particularly focused on evacuation decisions during Haiyan - whether to evacuate or not to evacuate and where to evacuate. In many instances people who refused to evacuate are often seen as hard headed or ignorant of the risks they would face. Data from this study suggest that this is not exactly the case. People had considerations and priorities that shaped their risk perceptions and these could be gleaned from the social and cultural contexts in communities. Such contexts are keys to understanding the interplay of physical (i.e. hazard) and societal (i.e. people) factors that contribute to people's vulnerabilities in the face of hazards.\n5. Summary, conclusions, and recommendations for building resilient communities: The study has shown that disasters result not from the occurrence of hazards in the environment. Risk perception appears to be a vital aspect that contributes to people's vulnerability to hazards.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to look into the socio-cultural contexts that shaped people's evacuation decisions during typhoon Haiyan in three affected areas in the Philippines.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This is a multi-sited ethnography that utilized interviews, focus group discussion and participatory risk mapping among selected women and men in areas affected by typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.\nFindings: Coastal communities encounter threats from storm surges as brought about by typhoons. During such periods, disaster evacuation programs are implemented. In some instances, evacuation programs are met with resistance from community members. Such resistance has been attributed to the people's hard headedness and ignorance of the potential impacts of living in hazard prone areas. This paper argues that it is not solely for these reasons that people refused to evacuate. Results showed that hesitance may also be due to other considerations and priorities vital to people. It is also because people had faith in the knowledge and strategies that they were able to develop by engaging with hazards through time. Furthermore, previous experiences with disaster evacuation programs cast doubt on their value in saving their lives. Life in the evacuation areas can be as dangerous if not more compared with living in their coastal homes. Some of the informants believed that they were being moved from hazard zones to death zones. This paper ends with recommendations for the development of evacuation programs that build people's resilience while taking into consideration the local moral world in identified hazard zones in the Philippines.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study focused on three areas affected by typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, namely, Tacloban City, Guiuan, Eastern Samar, and San Francisco, Cebu.\nOriginality/value: Most research on disaster mitigation looked into the engineering and technology aspects. This paper looks into the socio-cultural contexts of disaster evacuation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Learning capability and performance in later working life: towards a contextual view
|
[
"Older workers",
"Learning capability",
"Performance",
"Motivation",
"Managerial support"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the European Union, older workers are beginning to outnumber their younger colleagues. By 2050, the number of workers over 55 years old is predicted to increase by 60 per cent (Carone and Costello, 2006). At the same time, the number of younger worker entering the workplace contracts (Piktialis and Morgan, 2003; Dychtwald et al., 2006) and an increasing number of people work past traditional retirement ages (e.g. Alley and Crimmins, 2007; Harkonmaki et al., 2009; Noone et al., 2010). This demographic change increases the need for training and development (T&D) in the modern workplace. In addition, technological developments and a constant demand for innovation change the workplace continuously (Teece, 1992; Torraco and Swanson, 1995). In sum, it follows that older workers will increasingly become the target group of T&D programmes (Allen and Hart, 1998; Fouarge and Schils, 2008).\nMethods: We conducted a selective literature search to identify the most relevant literature that best exemplifies both the cognitive and contextual view we present in this paper. The aim of our literature search was to locate relevant peer-reviewed articles, utilising various databases including Proquest, PsycINFO, Web of Science (Social Science Citation Index). As our area of interest was to examine the relationship between age, learning and training amongst older workers, we focused on literature that examined (cognitive and training) performance amongst individuals or group of working age (preferably with samples aged 18-65 years, the general age range for employees). We focused on research reports of performance similarities and differences as observed in the applied psychological and training literature, also considering research that examined user differences and resources. We considered sample-specific effects and hence excluded samples that included military personnel, athletes, older drivers, research with individuals with special needs or disabilities. Finally, as our goal was to provide an overview of the most pertinent findings for the cognitive or contextual view, we only selected laboratory and applied training examples which we felt were most appropriate for the discussion of cognitive and contextual perspectives.\nThe cognitive view: The general tenets of the cognitive view on learning capability are straightforward. This view is essentially based on findings from cognitive ageing research and posits that learning performance is adversely affected by age because inevitable neural degradation impinges upon the cognitive processes that underlie learning. Robust laboratory evidence is available on age-related decline in cognitive performance (see Baltes et al., 2006) that is mainly driven by three related processes. First, general processing speed reduces with age, to the extent that, for instance, older study participants take up to three times longer than their younger counterparts in mental calculation tasks (see Salthouse and Babcock, 1991). Slower processing is closely related to a substantial decline of working memory capacity such that older people, relative to younger people, maintain on average around 25 per cent less information for ongoing processing in immediate memory (Zacks et al., 2000). Finally, older participants' performance is more easily affected in complex environments as their ability to inhibit the processing of irrelevant information also declines (Hasher and Zacks, 1988; Spieler et al., 1996); thus, older people assign their reduced cognitive capacity to a wider array of stimuli, which further diminishes processing performance.\nThe contextual view: The contextual view on T&D participation and performance is an extension of the cognitive view, rather than its alternative. The contextual perspective certainly acknowledges that cognitive decline affects learning to some degree. However, at the core of the contextual account lies the notion that these effects are not linearly and \"inevitably\" linked to performance decline as learners in work settings usually have access to learning resources that they cannot use in laboratory settings.\nPractical implications: The essence of the contextual view is that age differences in T&D performance are influenced by the availability of job and personal resources for learning (i.e. the learning context) as well as the interaction of these with cognitive changes across the life span, rather than due to cognitive decline alone. Through the provision of such resources, T&D participation and performance is in principle relatively malleable. Three primary intervention tools and strategies can be deduced from the contextual perspective. These are briefly outlined next.\nConcluding remarks: We propose that a deeper understanding of age-related changes in learning capability might serve as a platform in the design of adequate measures and interventions to foster T&D participation and performance. Broadening employers' views on learning could help to challenge age-related learning decrements being taken \"for granted\" and encourage supervisors and personnel managers to take more contextual information into account when assessing and developing training to increase workers' learning performance.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The authors contribute to the literature by contrasting the cognitive with a contextual view on learning and development to address preconceptions about aging in order to broaden employers' views on learning and performance across the working life and careers of their employees. The authors furthermore identify a number of opportunities that exist to support and sustain learning capability and performance in older workers. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors conducted a selective literature search to identify literature that best exemplifies both the cognitive and contextual view.\nFindings: Age-related declines in performance are observed on very specific and limited tasks, unlikely to be encountered in the workplace. Due to its focus on assessing limits and age differences, such studies will not normally take experience, job and personal resources into account - these are more likely to be present in the workplace. The authors find that much of the more applied evidence suggests older workers can perform at a similar level to their younger colleagues - when the workplace or training context does not restrain them from using their own strategies and resources to complete tasks.\nResearch limitations/implications: The current overview of research that is more representative of the more cognitive view outlines a number of issues regarding the transferability as well as generalisability of these well publicised findings. Many of the laboratory-based cognitive ageing research focuses on \"testing the limits\" of cognitive processing and efficiency. This paradigm is not compatible with the specific tasks and learning that takes place in the workplace, which led us to a more contextual view.\nPractical implications: The authors provide several starting points for broader and more inclusive training and development, particularly the role of supervisory practices, climate, self-efficacy and learning competency, resources and strategies.\nOriginality/value: Taking a more contextual view may foster a re-evaluation of how inclusive current managerial practice, policies and current development initiatives are. Distinguishing job and personal resources can help in identifying the aspects that can be influenced by workers themselves and those aspects that are the primary responsibility of organisations and their managers.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The concept of modularity: diffusion from manufacturing to service production
|
[
"Modula",
"Distribution management",
"Operations and production management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Although modularity has been a popular concept especially in operations research and management rhetoric for decades, no universal definition of modularity seems to exist - not even for manufacturing of physical goods, let alone services. Also, although the relationship between product or service level modularity and the organization and process level has evoked discussion over the years, no consensus has been achieved (Campagnolo and Camuffo, 2009). Thus, although it has been argued that modularization brings many advantages, it seems that as a term modularity is still fairly vague when used in a business environment.Hence, our objective in this paper is to identify the key themes of modularity discussed in the literature. There is growing interest in how issues related to modularity can benefit service research and service providers in their practical service development and implementation. However, there seems to be only limited literature available on modularity concerning services and service operations. Consequently, we also illustrate how the theoretical definitions emerge in practical business cases.The contribution of this study to a definition of modularity in services is to categorize existing studies under key themes and reflect on what they might mean in service operations. This has been done with a systematic review of journal articles. We illustrate current applications of modularity in services by presenting some practical implications for modularity in the logistics services. We believe that formulation of definitions of modularity in service operations will contribute to an understanding of the concept and that illustrating them will provide insight into how service modularity can be implemented in practice.The structure of the paper is as follows: first, we present the methodology of the systematic integrative literature review. Then, we define and describe the key themes that arise from earlier research on modularity in, e.g. physical products and services. We then turn to issues related to modularity in the logistics services and the implications for practice. Finally, we discuss conclusions and further research topics.\nMethodology: A review of earlier literature is an important part of any research project. This paper is based on a systematic integrative literature review of the key modularity-related themes. We also discuss the implications of the modularity approach for service industries, particularly logistics.For this paper, we selected the methodology of integrative research review presented by Cooper (1989) and systematic review presented by Tranfield et al. (2003). The systematic review approach has been previously used, e.g. by Bontekoning et al. (2004) and Pittaway et al. (2004). Based on Cooper (1989), an integrative research review summarizes past research by drawing overall conclusions from separate studies. In the integrative review, reviewer(s) aim to present the state of knowledge regarding the topic and to highlight important issues that research has left unresolved.Based on Cooper (1989) and Tranfield et al. (2003), the stages of the systematic review are the following:1. planning the review (identification of the need for a review, preparation of a proposal for a review, and development of the review protocol);2. conducting the review (identification of research, selection of studies, evaluation of retrieved data, and data synthesis); and3. reporting and dissemination.We have performed integrative literature review for several reasons: first, to familiarize us with the methodology of the systematic literature review; second, to identify the relevant concepts related to the modularity theme and to gain a better understanding of these issues; and third, to form an up-to-date database from this relevant topic. Based on our data collection strategy, we conducted three searches and used two journal databases; we used the search term \"Modularity\" in Emerald, \"Modularity\" in ProQuest, and the search string \"Modularization OR Modularisation\" in Emerald. These particular journal databases and search terms were chosen to obtain a wide perspective on the themes. The searches resulted, respectively, in 546, 118, and 329 articles. We selected 12, 15, and 11 - i.e. the most relevant articles - for further inspection. Five of the last 11 articles were already included in the earlier selections. Altogether we read and summarized 33 articles. (The articles selected are presented in Table I.)Five of the 33 articles selected were published in the International Journal of Operations & Production Management, three in the Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, and two each in the Industrial Management & Data Systems, Industry and Innovation, and the Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing. The other articles selected were published in various journals. The issues dealt with in the articles were more varied in the first years of our sample - they dealt with product and product development, manufacturing, and organizational and supply chain issues. Since 2005, the most popular themes have been the supply chain and since 2007 service-related modularity.To improve the quality of the research, we extended the literature base with a few first-class articles about service modularity that were for some reason not included in our searches and/or selections. We included a few \"classics\" of the field and also a few more recent, but highly relevant articles.\nFour key research themes in modularity: To systematize our examination of literature, we collected the article summaries. The most relevant issues in these articles can be included under four key themes, namely:1. modularity of product, including modularity of product development;2. modularity of production/manufacturing and processes;3. modularity of organization and supply chain; and4. modularity of services, including modularity of service product; modularity of service development; modularity of service production/process and service organization/supply chain.Next, we analyze these themes more closely.To obtain an extensive perspective on the concept of modularity, we have collected different types of definitions related to modularity from the articles selected, including the definitions from other articles and sources used in them.Definitions and concepts of modularity generally include many aspects. Among the most commonly referenced definitions of a module in the selected articles is Baldwin and Clark's (2000) definition \"A module is a unit whose structural elements are powerfully connected among themselves and relatively weakly connected to elements in other units\" (Arnheiter and Harren, 2005, 2006; Lau et al., 2007; Ernst, 2005; Schilling and Steensma, 2001; Fredriksson, 2006). Baldwin and Clark's (1997) definition of modularity is also used frequently: \"Building a complex product or process from smaller subsystems that can be designed independently yet function together as a whole\" (Asan et al., 2004; Jose and Tollenaere, 2005; Doran, 2003, 2004, 2005; Fredriksson, 2006). Other often referenced definitions are Ulrich and Tung's (1991) and Ulrich's (1995) definitions of modularity:Modularity is the relationship between a product's functional and physical structures such that there is a one-to-one or many-to-one correspondence between the functional and physical structures and unintended interactions between modules are minimized (Lau et al., 2007; Jiao and Tseng, 2000; Jose and Tollenaere, 2005; Brusoni and Prencipe, 2001; Fredriksson, 2006).Several concepts have been associated with modularity. They include architectures and platforms, interchangeability or loose coupling of components, standardization of interfaces, and one-to-one matching of module and function (Jacobs et al., 2007; Arnheiter and Harren, 2005; Asan et al., 2004; Jose and Tollenaere, 2005). Commonly mentioned benefits of modularization include larger product variety, improved flexibility, simplification of complex systems, cost savings, etc. (Jose and Tollenaere, 2005; Liere et al., 2004; Pekkarinen and Ulkuniemi, 2008).In the following sections, we proceed to analyze the selected articles more closely under the four themes mentioned earlier in order to identify the central issues and definitions in them.Product modularity\nHow to apply modularity principles to services - some examples from logistic services: Modularity, particularly modular product structures, facilitate different strategies in manufacturing and supply chain management for offering the large variety of products needed to fulfill the needs of different customer segments. The strategies in manufacturing and supply chain management have been analyzed, e.g. by Pagh and Cooper (1998), Johnson and Anderson (2000), Bask (2001) and Bask and Juga (2001). Similar strategies should also exist in services. However, there are few frameworks for analyzing the impact of modularization on service strategies, business models, and processes (Bask et al., 2009). In service literature many matrix type analysis tools for strategic positioning have been presented (for a review, see Tinnila, 2009), but service modularization is not specifically recognized as a tool for repositioning services.We define service process modularity as the usage of reusable process steps that can be combined (\"mixed and matched\") to accomplish flexibility and customization for different customers or situations in service implementation. For example, the delivery process, being one of the core competences of logistics service companies, encompasses activities ranging from placing orders to receiving products and services. An organization's delivery process might include activities such as order handling, procurement and production planning, production, testing, warehousing, and transporting to the customer. Business model modularity can be defined as combining a more stable business model platform with customer- or situation-specific and interchangeable business model modules to accomplish flexibility to serve different customers and offer different services in the most efficient and profitable ways (Bask et al., 2009).Service industries are currently looking for tools for greater efficiency, and modularity has been recognized as a way to meet differing service requirements efficiently. Logistic services are often related to manufacturing operations, providing warehousing services for raw materials and components, transportation between manufacturing operations, providing final assembly services for products or final delivery operations, and even after sales services for products. Consequently, they can be used to illustrate the impacts of modularity in services.As modularity facilitates variety in manufacturing structures, similar effects can be recognized in logistics services. Networked operations underline the importance of modularizing services; they facilitate the division of tasks within the network, rather than each player doing the operations by themselves. This is connected to the trend of outsourcing, as service modules can be outsourced to network partners. This requires greater attention to service interfaces than in integrated services. New logistic services have been introduced based on modular structures such as express carriers, value-added logistics (VAL) centers, and third and fourth party logistics services. Next, we analyze some of the impacts of modularity on logistic services. We illustrate the changes in two types of logistic operations: effects of modularity on warehousing and modularity in value added services. We use electronic business (e-business) as a context where new services have emerged and which provides opportunities for different types of both business-to-business and business-to-consumer services.Warehousing\nConclusions and further research topics: In this paper, we discuss definitions and concepts related to service modularity as well as the impacts of the modularity approach for service industries, particularly for logistics services. We also illustrate current applications of modularity in services by presenting some practical implications of modularity for example in e-commerce logistics. Modularity is discussed in the earlier literature mostly from the product perspective. PM is closely connected with production, organizational, and supply chain modularity. However, there are relatively few analyses of modularity focusing on services. It can be maintained that the impact and possibilities of service modularity are not fully understood or used. There is growing interest in what the issues related to modularity can offer service research and service providers. Useful definitions of modularity are needed both in research and for service providers. In this paper, we have explored concepts that help us to find definitions for modules and modularity that are useful in service-related research and in practical service and service operations development. We have reviewed and analyzed the literature related to modularity, keeping in mind logistic service viewpoints in particular. We contribute to bridging the gap between theory and practice by discussion of modularity concepts found in the literature and providing illustrations of modularity in logistics services.It can be maintained that product and production modularity have greatly influenced today's types of manufacturing industry structures and networks. Similar impacts can be seen in supply chains and delivery structures where regional service centers, VAL, and postponed manufacturing are used regularly. The trend of outsourcing is also to some extent facilitated by modularity, and has given rise to new types of logistics services. In the future, we aim to carry out in-depth case studies of service providers that will further illuminate the significance, benefits and disadvantages of the modularity approach for managerial practice in logistics services.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Modules and modularity have been popular concepts in operations research and management rhetoric for decades. Nevertheless, it seems that there is no single universal definition of modularity for classical research themes such as modularity in physical products or modular manufacturing. The purpose of this paper is to describe the current state of modularity research and to clarify the concept and impacts of modularity by means of a literature review. The paper discusses whether the modularity concept originally developed in the context of physical products could be applied in the context of product-related services.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In this paper, the authors use a methodology called systematic integrative literature review to describe the current state of modularity research and to define - based on the findings of the review - the themes that are most commonly related to the modularity concept. As service modularity research is a relatively new topic, the authors look for definitions and themes related to modularity from other areas of modularity research.\nFindings: - The paper presents four key themes and definitions associated with modularity in different perspectives. To illustrate how modularity can be comprehended in the service context, the paper presents examples related to logistics services.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The use of an integrative literature review has its limitations and a more thorough review of service literature is needed for more in-depth understanding of how modularity is actually manifested and conceptualized in the service context. In the future, in-depth interviews of service providers will be needed for a more thorough understanding of whether the modularity approach can be used in services today and in the future and if so, how it can be applied in practice.\nPractical implications: - The findings may be useful particularly for manufacturers and logistics service providers in improving their service offerings and processes.\nOriginality/value: - There is growing interest in issues related to modularity. The paper discusses the key themes related to modularity in the contexts of product, production and processes, organization and supply chain, and service. In addition, the paper illustrates some practical implications for modularity, particularly in the logistics services context.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Women's wear sizing: a new labelling system
|
[
"Clothing",
"Fashion",
"Garment industry",
"Labelling",
"Mass customization",
"Standards"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Faust et al. (n.d.a, b) demonstrated that apparel order givers and manufacturers do not adhere to established national standards. A literature review identified a number of causes for this situation ranging from standards obsolescence (based on a population survey conducted more than 60 years ago and updated irregularly for different purposes) to niche marketing (adapting sizes to please a specific group of consumer) or vanity sizing (using larger measurements than a given size calls for to appeal to the consumer's vanity). The ready-to-wear industry has clearly chosen not to respect size standards; on the other hand, it has not yet acquired the tools to offer tailor-made in the most price sensitive market segments. This has created a nightmarish situation for the consumer who can no longer rely on the size label to identify a fitting garment and must therefore spend an undue amount of time finding the right one.This paper contends that a viable choice exists between the tailor-made and imposed size standards extremes of the mass customization versus total standardization spectrum: allow order givers and manufacturers to size their products however they wish yet propose or impose a labelling system precisely reporting garments' specific measurements. This approach recognizes that order givers may target and fit specific consumer segments while ensuring the provision of pertinent information to the consumer. It also improves supply chain management by allowing distributors and retailers to order garments fitting their target market. This size label should include:* three key measurements: waist, hips and inseam; and* a pictogram of a forward-facing female silhouette (H, X or A) identifying the measurement points to account for style variations.To better visualize the look of a possible \"new\" label, a mini-survey was conducted with women participating in an apparel sizing pre-test and validation test: results showed that 87 per cent of the women participating in the pre-test and 78 per cent of those participating in the validation phase voted in favour of a particular visual presentation of the above mentioned information.\nLiterature review: Measurement in the ancient regime, referred to a particular physical standard held in local hands and safeguarded by local officials ... It was the obligation of local officials - these aldermen, guildmasters, seigneurs, and abbots - to enforce these standards, ensuring that exchanges in the marketplace were fair. In return, they were entitled to extract a small fee for their services. Not only did the physical standards differ from community to community, but the technique of measurement depended on local custom (Alder, 2003, p. 134).Moreover:Many ancient regime measures - especially those that related to the world of production - had at their origin an anthropometric meaning derived from human needs and human interests (Alder, 2003, p. 136).One only has to think of the pied (foot), the pouce (thumb), the pas (yards). Since mandatory use of the metric system (in 1794 in some countries) and the availability of tools such as rulers and scales inspectors are rarely seen:Only in case of extreme controversy are the inspectors actually obliged to check the calibration (Alder, 2003, p. 134).In the apparel industry, measuring methods, standard sizes, grading systems, and size labelling have been the object of discussions on their own for a number of years yet more specifically in relation to fit (O'Brien and Shelton, 1941; Diffrient et al., 1974; Workman, 1991; Beazley, 1997-1998; Ashdown, 1998; Winks, 1997; Anderson et al., 2001; McCulloch et al., 1998; Gould-Decauville et al., 1999; Turner and Bond, 1999; Workman and Lentz, 2000; Yertutan, 2001; Istook and Hwang, 2001). For researchers such as O'Brien and Shelton (1941), national surveys based on anthropometric data were the solution of choice to arrive at standard sizes ensuring that all females were fitted. Anthropometric measurements are defined as the measurement of lengths, widths, depths and circumferences of various parts of the human body (Chamberland et al., 1997). They were first used in an attempt to distinguish among races and ethnic groups of humans and then supported product design in several industries (Roebuck, 1995). Yet more and more authors believe that standards emanating from national surveys were of limited use in their time and are now obsolete (Schofield and LaBat, 2005a, b). They justify their point of view on the fact that women have different body measurements and body shapes (Hamel and Salvas, 1992; Rasband, 1994; Yu et al., 2006).Glock and Kunz (2000) state that, in order to ensure the best fit, it is an order giver's responsibility to consider its target customer when developing specifications. Accordingly, order givers often prefer grading their garments according to their target market's needs rather than a prescribed size chart (Burns and Bryant, 2002). Some feel that the garment industry is moving toward more diversity, providing more choice for petite and large (plus) sizes (LaBat and Delong, 1990), developing sizing charts to satisfy their consumer's needs (Schofield and LaBat, 2005a, b).Faust et al. (2006) confirmed that order givers, considering the obsolescence of standards and their wish to satisfy their clientele, do not adhere to national size standards and, in a subsequent paper (Faust et al., n.d.a, b), that they target women of specific silhouettes (either H, X or A shape). In Faust et al. (2006) they also showed that manufacturers do not respect the measurement specifications provided by the order givers yet respect the intended silhouette (Figure 1).Consumer acceptance and production models of mass customisation in the apparel industry have been the object of recent academic papers (Caldwell and Workman, 1993; Fiore et al., 2001, 2002, 2004; Anderson-Connell et al., 2002; Istook, 2002; Ogawa and Piller, 2006; Blecker and Adbelkafi, 2006). Several apparel manufacturers and retailers have moved toward this new paradigm without difficulty. One needs only think of Levi's Adaptable Standards, Nike with Customize with NIKEiD, Lands' End and many other online distributors using My Virtual Model, etc. Ogawa and Piller (2006) suggest that, to avoid failure, businesses should integrate customers into the a priori innovation process, i.e. before entering the final development and manufacturing stages. Applied to the apparel industry, this means that the order givers should be familiar with its target consumer size and silhouette before designing, grading, cutting and sewing its collection.Yet some believe that it is reacting too slowly to specific segments (Lennon, 1992; Goldsberry, et al., 1996a, b; Campbell and Horne, 2001); that order givers oftentimes request, and retailers distribute, either one size fits all or a limited number of size labels (Kinley, 2003; Faust et al., 2006). In the last decades, the apparel industry has also more and more perceived the world as a global market: global competition among global companies for global customers (Kerin et al., 2007).That order givers or manufacturers do not adhere to size standards is not a problem in itself. It can even be viewed as a first step toward mass customisation: slicing the market in very narrow market segments or niches. The problem arises when they all use the same numerical sizing codes (such as 6, 8, 10 ... 24) to label garments of varying measurements (Workman, 1991). This begs the questions: do size labels convey adequate information? Do they fulfil the primary function that led to their creation: to assist consumers in selecting the best fitting garment (Chun-Yoon and Jasper, 1996)? Are size label appreciated by consumers Gould-Decauville et al. (1999)? \"How is that a 5' 8'', 150 pound woman, a 5' 6'', 135 pound woman and a 5' 9'', 125 pound woman all claim to wear a size 8?\" ([TC]2, 2004). What can a size \"00\" mean? From the consumer's point of view, the result is confusion, dissatisfaction, waist of time and high product returns and exchanges. They have to guess the actual garment size or try them on to identify the best fit. Faust et al. (2006b) observed that more than 50 per cent of women take two or more identical garments of different sizes when heading for the fitting room.The objective of the current research is to develop a new \"silhouette and size\" apparel labelling system based on the analysis of the data collected by [TC]2 Size USA, Let's Size up America presented in earlier papers (Faust et al., n.d.a, b). The alternatives, to the present sizing system, most often discussed, revolve around some form of mass customisation hinging on the industry's ability to tailor-make all garments. As mentioned earlier, that the industry is yet there, especially at the price sensitive end of the market. Yet size labels currently affixed to garments present three major weaknesses:1. they only carry a numerical code assigned to standard measures which the consumer does not really know;2. they do not reflect the adaptations to the standards that order givers or manufacturers make; and3. they provide no information on inseam length.\nMethodology: In order to address these weaknesses and convey useful information to the consumer, it is proposed that the apparel industry use a label presenting:* three key measurements: waist (along top edge of waistband from edge to edge or side to side), hips (about one inch from the crotch) and inseam (from crotch to bottom), (see Figure 2); and* a pictogram of a forward facing female silhouette (H, X or A) identifying the measurement points to account for style variations (see Figure 3).The research was conducted in two parts. The first part focused on the identification of the key measurements required on a size label for lower apparel. The second part looked at the pertinence of introducing a new label.The research is based on data gathered by [TC]2 (2003-2004) (through Size USA Let's Size up America ... The National Sizing Survey, Body Measurement and Data Analysis Reports on the US Population conducted in 2003) as well as apparel specifications and sales information provided by a large Canadian retailer (which will simply be referred to as the Canadian retailer in this paper).\nFindings: The data gathered by [TC]2 was used to identify the body measurement points required to adequately inform on the potential fit of female lower body apparel (i.e. pants).Key measurements required on a size label\nConclusion: This research has shown that, although they use the existing size standards to label their garments, order givers cover the full spectrum of female silhouettes and sizes. The immediate effect of this state of affairs being that size labels provide the consumer with no useful information. It then demonstrated that inseam varies from individual to individual and that the existing tallness standards (petite, regular, and tall) do not reflect the reality as women in either one of the existing categories may need a different inseam. As expected, this research has also validated the hypotheses that individual women consistently choose same size and silhouette pants. It has also shown that women consistently prefer a tight, regular or loose fit.Accordingly, one can conclude that a size label identifying inseam, waist, and hips measurements and providing a female silhouette identifying the measuring points would not only convey better information but that it would also be highly predictive of the garment (pants in this case) that women would find fitting.Not only would this information prove useful for the consumer by reducing he shopping time (or returns and exchanges in the case of distance shopping) but it would also improve distributors' and order givers' effectiveness and efficiency in enabling them to better target and serve a specific market with reduced inventories. Modifying the appearance and information provided by the size label definitely offers an inexpensive foray into mass-customisation as order givers and manufacturers currently offer a number of variations on size although they do not inform the general consumer population of such.A number of further research avenues exist. As observed in the discussion other information such as the rise could be of use to the consumer and should therefore be tested. Likewise the exact visual presentation of a new size label should be further tested. This research is limited to the woman's lower body (pants): it would certainly be of interest to look into the possibility to replicate it with the full body or with the male or child population.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to show that a new size labelling system based on the data gathered by [TC]2 in the Size USA, Let's Size up America survey would better serve the female population than the system currently in use.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Based on previous research conducted on [TC]2 data and on pants measurements in the Canadian market, a new labelling system is proposed where size information is provided with three specific body measurements along with a female silhouette pictogram.\nFindings: - The paper demonstrates that a size label showing three pants measurements: pants waist, approximate hips, and inseam length, accompanied by a silhouette identifying where these measures were taken, is highly predictive of fit.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The study was limited to lower body (pants) for female.\nPractical implications: - A change to such a size-labelling system would allow the apparel industry to move towards mass customisation at minimal costs. It would be more effective for the apparel order givers and retailers, enabling them to target whichever market they wish yet convey the necessary fit information in a generally accepted format. This system would also be more efficient as it would reduce the consumer time spent in fit identification and merchandise returns, in the case of internet or catalogue sales. As a corollary, it would increase both consumer shopping experience satisfaction and industry profitability.\nOriginality/value: - The study proposes a new labelling system.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Modeling customer equity, SERVQUAL, and ethnocentrism: a Vietnamese case study
|
[
"SERVQUAL",
"Automotive industry",
"Customer relations",
"Ethnocentrism",
"Vietnam"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: We're not in the transaction world anymore. The key now is building profitable relationships with customers. The winners will be those people and companies that focus their resources on the areas that will generate financial return (Rust, 2004).\nIntroduction: As Asian economies continue to expand their service sectors, an increasing number of Asian firms will need to shift from creating marketing strategies based on product-centered thinking to those that incorporate customer-centered thinking. Consequently, Asian managers will need to invest corporate resources in the design, implementation, and control of customer-based strategies, which require the development of unique initiatives to reach specific target markets (Rust and Zahorik, 1993).To institute customer-based marketing strategies in the twenty-first century, managers should consider applying the return-on-marketing framework (Rust et al., 2000, 2001, 2004; Zeithaml et al., 2006) to their strategic planning endeavors. This framework encourages managers to distribute valuable resources to marketing strategies that maximize customer equity, which refers to the total discounted lifetime values of a firm's customers. In other words, managers are encouraged to engender strategies that allocate varying amounts of resources to marketing programs that pertain to three customer equity drivers - namely, value-, brand-, and relationship-related drivers - and to do so in a way that maximizes financial benefits from a specific target market.Challenge: applying the return-on-marketing framework in Vietnam\nCase study background: understanding Company X's customers: Company X operates an automobile manufacturing facility in Vietnam and assembles four models for the domestic market. Company X assembles these models from complete knocked-down kits that are imported from a Southeast Asian country. In addition, the firm has 24 authorized dealerships in Vietnam.Since its commencement of operations in 1996 in Vietnam, Company X has achieved impressive recognition. The firm has won awards in Vietnam, stemming from its product quality and commitment to its support of community events. However, given the growing economic prosperity in Vietnam, which is fueling new car sales and the Westernization of the rising middle-class, a concern of Company X's management is whether it needs to alter its marketing strategies to encourage customers to purchase a Company X vehicle on their next purchase. More specifically, senior managers are concerned that as Vietnamese consumers become less impassioned about helping the Vietnamese economy and local employment by purchasing locally manufactured automobiles, the company may lose a competitive advantage over imported vehicles.Given these concerns, Company X's management sought input regarding four questions. First, why do some customers express loyalty to the firm and engage in positive WOM while others do not? Second, how can Company X inspire its customers to purchase their next automobile from the company? Third, how can Company X encourage its customers to return to the original Company X dealership to purchase their next automobile? Fourth, how does consumer ethnocentrism influence how Company X's customers respond to these previously mentioned questions?To answer these questions, we drew on Rust et al.'s (2001, 2004) return-on-marketing framework and the SERVQUAL framework (Zeithaml, 1988; Zeithaml and Parasuraman, 2004). Figure 1 shows the hypothesized relationships between the theoretically driven antecedents and the managerially relevant behaviors, as well as the moderating influence of ethnocentrism. We now define the framework's concepts.\nLiterature: Customer equity drivers\nProposed structural model and relationships: This discussion supports the proposed framework, as shown in Figure 1. In this model, we hypothesize that value equity, brand equity, relationship equity, and perceived SERVQUAL of Company X's automobile dealerships positively influence three behavioral outcomes. The first outcome is a customer's likelihood to spread positive WOM about Company X and to demonstrate loyalty to the firm. The second outcome is a customer's likelihood to purchase his or her next automobile from Company X. The third outcome is a customer's likelihood to return to the original Company X dealership.We conceptualize perceived dealership SERVQUAL as a second-order latent factor and dealer assurance, empathy, reliability, tangibles, and responsiveness as first-order factors. We further hypothesize that consumer ethnocentrism moderates the relationships between the independent and the dependent relationships. We posit that high-ethnocentric customers will be less influenced by customer equity and dealership SERVQUAL than low-ethnocentric customers because they are more willing to support Company X's local manufacturing. In the next section, we turn our attention to analyzing the fit of the proposed structural model.\nMethod: Sample\nFindings: To explore Vietnamese ethnocentrism as a moderator, we exposed the four ethnocentrism items to two-step cluster analysis (for methodological review, see SPSS, 2008a; Kakati, 2003; Rosenbaum and Wong, 2007). This cluster analysis is ideal because it provides researchers with either a Bayesian information criterion (BIC) or an Akaike information criterion (AIC) to select the number of unique clusters that are present in a continuous and/or categorical data set. Based on the lowest BIC (3238.11) and AIC (3150.92), the data show that the respondents could be classified into two groups. After analyzing the means of the scale items between the groups, we classified 1,024 (60 percent) respondents into a high-ethnocentric group and 659 (38 percent) respondents into a low-ethnocentric group. Of the respondents, 36 (2 percent) could not be classified into either group. About 60 percent of the respondents were male, and the average age was approximately 35 years in both groups (low M=34.85 years, SD=9.49; high M=35.64 years, SD=9.85, ages ranged from a low of 17 years to a high of 82 years). Neither gender nor age statistically differed between the groups.Path analysis\nPromotional recommendations: The results show that consumer ethnocentrism positively affects Company X because high-ethnocentric customers act as partial employees for the firm (Rosenbaum and Massiah, 2007) by demonstrating future behavioral intentions through expressed loyalty and the spread of positive WOM to family and friends. However, by definition, ethnocentric customers are aware of Company X's domestic manufacturing capabilities and seem to have a committed, personal interest in the firm's continued prosperity by discussing the firm with their social network. Therefore, it is intuitive that high-ethnocentric customers are more likely than low-ethnocentric customers to state that they plan to purchase their next car from Company X.High-ethnocentric customers keenly support Company X's domestic production and, consequently, are less reactive than low-ethnocentric customers to the firm's value drivers of product quality, price, and convenience. However, this finding does not mean that Company X can rest on its laurels when courting high-ethnocentric customers, because these customers tend to place increased importance on dealership SERVQUAL. In essence, when formulating their decision to purchase another Company X automobile, high-ethnocentric customers counterbalance value equity deficits with augmented expectations of dealership SERVQUAL. In contrast, low-ethnocentric customers consider value equity when deciding whether to purchase another Company X vehicle and are willing to forgo some dealership SERVQUAL.A pending problem for Company X is that its customers are neutral about returning to the original dealership to purchase their next automobile. Ethnocentrism offers Company X some protection from defection, but all customers consider both dealership SERVQUAL and value when deciding whether to return to their original dealers. Thus, Company X should consider developing a relationship program at the dealership level to create some type of emotional connection between customers and dealers, not simply between customers and brand X.As a whole, when Company X targets high-ethnocentric customers with a \"Made in Vietnam\" campaign, it should emphasize its dealership SERVQUAL. Although these types of customers are willing to relinquish some product value, they place enhanced importance on dealership SERVQUAL. In contrast, when Company X targets low-ethnocentric customers, the firm should emphasize its products' value-equity drivers, including quality, price, and convenience, which may include attributes such as time costs, search costs, and effort (Zeithaml, 1988).\nConclusion and limitations: The purpose of this case study was to explore a \"how-and-why\" problem (Perry, 2001). The problem focused on addressing whether one of the world's largest automobile manufactures can employ the return-on-marketing framework in Vietnam. That is, can the framework, with its customer equity drivers, be combined with SERVQUAL measures to help Company X' marketing managers develop marketing strategies for various target markets in Vietnam? We solved this problem by demonstrating how the firm can create strategies to target high- and low-ethnocentric customers in Vietnam and by explaining why ethnocentrism would influence a Vietnamese customer's response to a proposed marketing mix.Given Vietnam's recent history, which is fraught with nationalistic aspirations, it is rational that ethnocentrism would represent a powerful driver of consumption in Vietnam. However, we encourage researchers who plan to expand on this case study to consider factors other than consumer ethnocentrism that might affect behavioral outcomes, including automobile guarantees, personalized services, complaint management capabilities, e-service offerings, and so forth (Rust and Chung, 2006).Rust et al. (2004) did not conceive of the return-on-marketing framework for use in a structural equation format; doing so confounds the influence of sub-drivers while placing importance on latent drivers (e.g. value equity). As a result, we suggest that Company X should conduct focus groups to better understand both the specific sub-drivers (e.g. price) that are important to low-ethnocentric customers and the SERVQUAL sub-drivers that are important to high-ethnocentric customers. By understanding the drivers that encourage positive responses, managers can lead purposeful focus groups that yield insights at the sub-driver level to aid in the development of marketing strategies.Another limitation of this case study, which is inherent in case research, is the external validity of the findings, which, in this paper, pertains strictly to Vietnam. Despite this limitation, the benefits of this case study to the discipline are that it offers academics and practitioners a rich description of an actual managerial situation, problem, and solution that can be employed both in theoretical development and in a classroom setting for training. Indeed, case studies are ideal tools for moving marketing scholars closer to marketing managers because they show the many extant theoretical frameworks that may be adapted for real-world practice (for a discussion, see Bonoma, 1985).Finally, given the nature of this special issue on marketing in Asia, this study illustrates how Asian managers in developing countries with nationalistic tendencies, such as China, Cambodia, and Laos, can employ consumer ethnocentrism in their marketing initiatives. Essentially, nationalism provides automobile manufacturers with some leeway in price strategies; however, they must counterbalance this advantage with outstanding SERVQUAL. Perhaps, this statement is the root cause of current problems the USA's Big Three automobile manufacturers are experiencing. Although Americans may be willing to pay more for locally manufactured products, without enhanced SERVQUAL, high-ethnocentric customers may have an incentive to switch to foreign-manufactured automobiles. Finally, as Asian economies become increasingly enmeshed in the global economy and relish their economic prosperity, their local consumer base might become less inclined to support domestic manufacturers and workers, resulting in the ever-increasing importance of value equity to the automobile customer.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to explore how the return-on-marketing framework and its customer equity drivers (value, brand, and relationship) can be combined with service quality (SERVQUAL) measures to help managers develop strategies for high- and low-ethnocentric Vietnamese customers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The services literature is employed to propose a framework. The structure of the framework is evaluated from data obtained from self-administered questionnaires, which are mailed to an automobile firm's customers. To explore the moderating affect of ethnocentrism, the model's proposed relationships and fit statistics are tested by employing multi-group comparisons (high- and low-ethnocentrism) through structural equation modeling.\nFindings: - Ethnocentrism encourages customers to express loyalty and to spread positive word of mouth about Company X, which is a local automobile manufacturer. High-ethnocentric customers are also less reactive to Company X's value drivers, including product quality, price, and convenience, than low-ethnocentric customers. However, high-ethnocentric customers place greater importance on dealership SERVQUAL than low-ethnocentric customers.\nPractical implications: - The findings indicate that Southeast Asian managers should consider consumer ethnocentrism a factor that influences marketing planning, as well as ways they can use the return-on-marketing and SERVQUAL frameworks for strategic planning. In addition, managers should understand that ethnocentric customers counterbalance their willingness to forgo product quality with augmented expectations of dealership SERVQUAL.\nOriginality/value: - This paper combines the product-focused return-on-marketing framework with the SERVQUAL-focused SERVQUAL framework to show how these elements influence consumers' future behavioral intentions under the moderating influence of ethnocentrism.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Media reputation: a source of banks' financial performance
|
[
"Financial performance",
"Commercial bank",
"Media reputation",
"Vietnam"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In recent decades, greater impetus has been given to the contribution of intangible resources on firm performance. Kaplan and Norton (2006) estimate that intangibles determine 75% of a company's market value. Corporate reputation is one of firms' crucial intangible asset that may lead to competitive advantage (Fombrun and van Riel, 1997; Black et al., 2000; Tracey, 2014; Han-Min Wang et al., 2016). The literature revealed mixed empirical evidences regarding the impacts of reputation on firm performance. While there is a substantial amount of research which affirms the positive impacts of corporate reputation on subsequent financial performance (Deephouse, 2000; Roberts and Dowling, 2002; Eberl and Schwaiger, 2005; Anderson and Smith, 2006; Alvarado-Vargas, 2013; Hall and Lee, 2014; Raithel and Schwaiger, 2015; Chen, 2016; Castilla-Polo et al., 2018; Kaur and Singh, 2018; Santiago et al., 2019), the inverse impacts are also well-documented (Liu et al., 2014; Hassan et al., 2015; Phillips et al., 2015). Meanwhile, others found no significant reputation-performance link (Rose and Thomsen, 2004; Inglis et al., 2006; Tischer and Hildebrandt, 2014).These mixed findings are resulted from different approaches in measuring corporate reputation through information signals transmitted by a firm or other information intermediaries (Fombrun and Shanley, 1990) or the stakeholders' own perceptions and interpretations of the firm's actions (Fombrun, 2001). Nowadays, the increasing prominence of social media and the internet (Lee et al., 2015; Scott and Walsham, 2005), where bad news spread faster, has placed corporation reputation at higher risks (Gatzert, 2015). Moreover, the perceptions of stakeholders are directly influenced by the information signals sent by the firm and the information intermediaries (Van Riel, 1997). Media reputation management, therefore, should be an important aspect of marketing communication strategies. In the context of banking service industry, research on bank reputation mostly focus on the development of measurement scales for bank reputation upon customers' perception (Wang et al., 2003; Cintamur and Yuksel, 2018; Ruiz and Garcia, 2019). Based on customer surveys, those research give the focus on the impacts of bank reputation on customer relationship quality such as customer selection (Narteh and Braimah, 2019) or customer loyalty and worth of mouth (Bontis et al., 2007; Ruiz, et al., 2016; Manohar et al., 2019; Ozkan, 2019). Meanwhile, Deephouse's (1997, 2000) are the only two researches which examine the impacts of media reputation on bank performance. However, these studies ignore to neither control for the endogeneity of media reputation nor explore any moderators in the media reputation-performance relationship. Moreover, these studies are both conducted in the US, a country with developed institutional settings. Given the fact that corporate reputation is a market signal while the institutional settings may influence the costs and effectiveness of signaling activities (Hardin, 2002; Sosis, 2005; Buskens and Raub, 2013; Przepiorka, 2013; Diekmann et al., 2014), there is a lack in the literature regarding the impacts of media reputation on financial performance in the context of low quality institutions.In this paper, we revisit the study by Deephouse (2000) to test the relationship between media reputation and bank performance in the context of the Vietnam banking industry based on the resource-based view and signaling theory. We employ the method proposed by McCombs and Shaw (1972) for the agenda-setting function of mass media. We select and conduct branch coding of articles written on 33 commercial banks and published in columns such as investment, finance, securities and enterprises of five newspapers during the period of 2007-2018. Financial data of listed banks are obtained from the Hochiminh Stock Exchange and Hanoi Stock Exchange, whereas that of non-listed banks are collected from vietstock.com - a website specialized in banking and finance.This study contributes to the literature regarding the consequences of media reputation in several ways. First, this is the first paper that studies the effect of media reputation on the financial performance of commercial banks in a transitional economy with underdeveloped institutions, namely, Vietnam. Therefore, this study may shed light on the nature of the media reputation-performance relationship in a low-quality institutional setting. Second, this study expands the existing literature by testing the moderating roles of banks' risk management and financial capacities in the relationship between media reputation and financial performance. Third, we further examine three channels to seek possible explanations for the media reputation-performance relationship: the asset channel, risk-taking channel and income diversification channel. Fourth, this research controls for the endogeneity of media reputation that is ignored in Deephouse (2000) and, therefore promises more reliable findings. Based on the findings, this research will provide insightful implications for bank managers to how they could leverage the impacts of media reputation in improving financial performance, especially in countries with low-quality institutions.The empirical results reveal that media reputation had a positive effect on the ROE of commercial banks in Vietnam in 2007-2018. This effect is more pronounced when banks are large, listed or recognized as good at risk management. This result is robust when we take into consideration the endogeneity bias. In addition, the effect of media reputation on financial performance is transmitted through the non-performing loan (NPL) channel.The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 provides the literature review and hypotheses. Section 3 describes the methodology. Section 4 reports the empirical results. Section 5 gives some discussion, implications and concluding remarks.\n2. Literature review and hypothesis development: 2.1 The resource-based view\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Data\n4. Results: 4.1 Main results\n5. Discussion and conclusion: This paper investigates the effect of media reputation on the financial performance of commercial banks in Vietnam for the period 2007-2018. The empirical results show that media reputation has a positive effect on bank performance. This result is particularly strong when the bank is large, listed, or compliant with Basel II requirements or when we control for the endogeneity problem. The research findings further endorse that the positive impact of media reputation on financial performance as suggested in Deephouse (1997, 2000) is significant even in the low-quality institutional settings. Moreover, these findings expand the existing knowledge regarding the relationship between media reputation and financial performance (Deephouse, 1997, 2000) by affirming two moderators which could be used to leverage the contribution of media reputation. First, building more customer trust through risk management capacities help intensify the effectiveness of media reputation, as a signal, on stakeholders' behaviors and therefore, positively influence financial performance. Second, strong financial capacities enable firms to take advantages of favorable media reputation to conduct more profitable business activities.This paper also presents the first study which explains the media reputation-performance relationship through three channels: the asset channel, risk-taking channel and income diversification channel. The empirical results indicate that media reputation does alter NPL. Having a good media reputation increases the bank's asset quality as the more reputable bank's manager faces a higher pressure to keep a low NPL. The silent effects transmitted through asset and diversification channel can be explained as follows. In the transitional economy, low information transparency and quality may distort the media reputation and therefore mislead the stakeholders' behaviors. As the customers and investors know that the media news may not reflect the truth, they may disregard this information. Consequently, the decisions to deposit, borrow, or invest are not based on media reputation but on other factors. The more reputable banks are not better than those with a lower reputation at attracting good customers and diversifying income activities. In this sense, the incomplete formal institution alters the reputation-performance relationship by lowing the stakeholders' trust in the media.The research findings provide some important implications for both academia and bank marketing practitioners. Specifically, in the underdeveloped institutional settings, media reputation is still a crucial intangible asset and market signal that positively contribute to financial performance. However, when a bank has strong financial capacities and truly demonstrates good quality of risk management, this could magnify the effects of media reputation on bank performance. This implies an important strategy for bank managers in leveraging the benefits of media reputation. Specifically, maintaining favorable media reputation should be implemented simultaneously with other strategies to strengthen and signal financial capitals and risk management capacities. In fact, being listed in the open market and recognized as being compliant with Basel II are also types of information signals. Therefore, the finding also indicates the interaction between different sources of information signals in influencing bank performance through increasing trust among stakeholders. Moreover, while media reputation positively influences financial performance that further strengthens future financial capacities. Strong financial backup, in turn, magnifies the contribution of media reputation on subsequent financial performance. The strategic combination of media reputation, an intangible asset, and financial capacities, a tangible resource, can ensure long-term business development for commercial banks.This research may have some limitations. First, as we use the contents of only five newspapers for analytical coding, they may not capture adequate coverage for media reputation. It is essential to catch a bank's full coverage of the media publicity. This requires substantial efforts to collect and deal with a huge number of coding units. In addition, the large number of newspapers make it difficult to control for the coverage of each newspaper as a weighted measurement of media reputation.Second, our findings may be related to the incomplete formal institution, captured by lack of information transparency and low information quality, that is specific to transition economies such as Vietnam. The institutional constraints that vary over time and are specific to banks may change our result. This study may have implications for the direction of future research, which may use panel data with a higher number of banks and longer years, cover media reputation on social networks, or find a moderator of the relationship between media reputation and financial performance.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Based on the resource-based view (RBV) and the signaling theory, this paper examines the effect of media reputation on financial performance as well as the moderating role of bank characteristics (risk management and financial capacities) in this relationship, using Vietnamese commercial bank data for the period 2007-2018.\nDesign/methodology/approach: We rely on the agenda-setting theory to measure the media reputation of banks. Return on average equity (ROE) is used as a proxy of financial performance. We regress financial performance on media reputation with fixed effects to control unobserved variables. In addition, the instrumental variable (IV) method is applied to deal with the endogeneity problem. We use the change in bank logo as an IV for media reputation.\nFindings: We find that media reputation has a positive effect on financial performance. This effect becomes prominent for large banks, listed banks or banks that demonstrate good risk management capacities, and is particularly strong when we control for endogeneity bias. The effect of media reputation on financial performance is transmitted through the non-performing loan (NPL) channel.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research findings further endorse the positive impact of media reputation on financial performance in the low-quality institutional settings. Moreover, these findings expand the existing knowledge regarding the relationship between media reputation and financial performance by affirming two strategies which could be used to leverage the contribution of media reputation including improving banks' risk management capacities and raising financial capital.\nOriginality/value: This is the first known paper to examine the effect of media reputation on financial performance in commercial banks in an underdeveloped institutional setting while exploring the moderators in this relationship. This study, therefore, provides insightful implications for different bank segments in managing NPL and taking advantage of media reputation as a potential resource of financial performance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Mobile technology in field customer service: Big improvements with small changes
|
[
"Mobile communication systems",
"Customer relations",
"Action research",
"Baltic States"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Mobile technologies have been seen as a panacea for solving problems of the mobile work force, and field customer service is a classic example of this (Beulen and Streng, 2002; Chiu et al., 2002; Kakihara and Sorensen, 2002). Mobility in field sales work can be interpreted either as being independent of time or location (Lee and Sawyer, 2002). The advent of new technologies, such as 3G services is seen by many researchers to profoundly change the way mobile workers can perform their tasks.Mobile technologies are expected to enhance business efficiency by distributing information to the workforce, and by offering new communication channels with customers (Leung and Antypas, 2001). In earlier studies, mobile applications have been seen suitable for truck drivers, service teams, travelling salesmen and so forth (Bruegge and Bennington, 1995; Berger et al., 2002). There are, however, limitations in each case, related to the technology-based changes: resources, timetable, acute need, current infrastructure, such as, IT equipment and software, development of mobile technology, the pace of the change, organisation culture and, in particular, old habits and resistance to change (Lee and Clark, 1997; Caron et al., 1994). Furthermore, mobile fieldwork makes it challenging for management to coordinate sales people, particularly in terms of information transfer (Watson-Manheim and Belanger, 2002).In this action research study, we looked at the re-engineering of field sales processes of Amer, a Finnish tobacco company operating in Estonia until the end of 2004, when the change of the owner of Amer's business unit in Estonia took place. Importance of increased focus on mobilising the workforce, adopting mobile technologies and providing mobile information access integrated into the enterprise IT systems as well as applications for field force professionals is highlighted by Gupta and Moitra (2004), who picture this as an initial stage of evolution from traditional enterprise IT towards pervasive enterprise IT. The case company, Amer, employed mobile field sales personnel that worked in remote locations most of their weeks and some of them needed to come to the central office only once in a month. The challenge was that while the sales and delivery of the goods took place during a single client meeting, there was no possibility of checking the status of the customer with the back-office systems.To solve the problems of document delivery and to enhance customer support, the company decided to launch a project to solve the problems of work and document flows and to empower the field sales staff. It was decided early on that the work processes of the field sales personnel have to be modelled so that the processes could be supported by advanced information technology. The main objective was to create a solution to document production in the field, which would result in faster document flow, while keeping in mind the dispersion of work in terms of time and place. The initial approach taken was based on process re-engineering. Furthermore, a decision was made early on to employ mobile communications technologies based on cellular phone networks. There were two main reasons for this: firstly, the mobility of the workers and the need to cut down the document cycles forced the company to seek solutions that can be used anywhere; and secondly, a real-time process was seen essential to overcome the process inefficiencies that disturbed client service.As there was no previous experience with applications of this kind of technology in any reasonable scale, we found it natural to follow an explorative research approach, where prototypes were employed. We focus in this study on re-engineering Amer's order-delivery process for increasing efficiency in reporting of field sales by using wireless mobile technology. The objective was to implement a new mobile solution to support field sales by using available packet solutions and standard mobile services provided by telecom operators.The implemented solution shows that mobile technology has a lot of potential for simplifying field sales processes as both the network and mobile terminal technology mature. In this study, the company was able to reduce its billing cycle and number of steps in its invoicing process so that the billing cycle was cut from a week into one day. Furthermore, the mobile solution provides much more visibility into the inventory and invoicing, for both the field sales workers and their managers in the back office.The paper is organized following the action research cycle. In the second section, we describe the research problem and methodology, in the third section we explain the case situation and in the fourth section we develop the solution to the problem. In the fifth section, we discuss the implications of the process for practice and research and we finally conclude with our findings in section seven.\nResearch problem and objectives of the study: An action research approach was used on a project with an aim to re-engineer the ordering and sales processes of the case company. The goal of this project was to streamline and shorten the ordering and billing cycles of the company's field sales. Efficiency gains were sought through recording information at its source and delivering it immediately to the back-office systems of the company. The starting point was to be able to use mobile technologies by mobile employees in such a way that the data created in the field could be entered in real time to the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system of the company, thus replacing several error-prone manual steps with one data-entry procedure.Thus, the initial objective of the study was to answer the following questions:* How can mobile technologies be used to change the order-delivery process of field sales?* Which efficiency gains and other effects can be realized when mobile technology is implemented in the order-delivery process of field sales?* How can the mobile technologies be chosen and implemented in such a way that the systems are reliable and easy enough for day-to-day operations by field sales persons?These research questions arose from the case company's specific problems in the field sales process.Research method\nDiagnosis: the problems of the field sales process: The case company: Amer Tobacco\nAction planning: the mobile sales solution: Basis of the IT solution\nAction taking: developing a mobile field sales system: After a careful analysis of the available technical options (both, network and user interface), a solution was designed. The decisions were made so that the risks of and learning curve for the new technology were minimized. Thus, it was decided that the solution would be based on a spreadsheet interface for invoicing on a mobile terminal, and on SMS messaging-based communication between the mobile client and the ERP systems at the back-office.The mobile messaging solution\nEvaluation and learning from the project: The order-delivery process was the most important and critical process for the case company. The reported process re-engineering project took into account process risks, and the old model was maintained in case the results of the re-engineering would turn out to be unsuccessful. The focus in the project was solely on increasing the efficiency of invoice documentation, but it also enhanced the process transparency and overall performance. This is largely in line with what, for instance, Schierholz et al. (2006) propose with their method for mobilization of CRM: focus on the analyses of business processes and the corporate benefits which can be realized by their mobilization.Lessons learned about the process change\nConclusions: The objective of this study was to explore the possibilities of increasing the efficiency of sales reporting that forms part of the order-delivery process and relevant documentation flows by using mobile technology. The study aimed at answering the question of how implementation of mobile technology changes the operating processes of a company and what impacts it has on these processes. We claim that in the Amer case the company was able to have efficiency gains through simplified processes and at the same time the company could serve the customers better through more transparent stock and sales information.As mobile operators have focused their efforts mainly to consumer markets, there are still relatively few business-to-employee mobile solutions. The few applications that have been reported on are typically related to integrating e-mail and calendar systems. The operators also like to promote the latest innovations, even if they have little field experience on them. In the Amer case, the operators recommended the use of service packages that were based on mobile internet services, an area that had not been tested in production environments. There are risks in changing critical processes, and changing technology used at the same time increases the risk level further. To lower the risk level, the solution was based on popular, tested and reliable technology and packaged solutions that integrated wireless mobile solutions into the organisation. In spite of radical efficiency gains, it was possible to keep the operating model largely the same.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The paper aims to look at the development of a mobile information system for a tobacco wholesaler in the Baltic region, focusing on understanding the issues involved in deploying a new system into a traditionally operating work force in a transition economy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - To overcome the problems in billing cycle in the case company, an action research approach was used to develop a new process for sales documentation and employed advanced mobile technologies in the process. The research approach followed an action research cycle of diagnosis, action planning, action taking, evaluation, and specifying learning.\nFindings: - The findings highlight the importance of the change in the mind-sets of the employees when using a new technology, and the obstacles of the use of advanced mobile technologies. They also stress the problems encountered while considering more or less experimental technologies for day-to-day operations of a business. The key finding is that new technology is much easier to take into use, when it is accompanied with a small but visible enhancement in both the work routines of individuals and the operations of the organization.\nPractical implications: - The Amer case highlights the importance of considering technological implications of mobile technology already in planning stage of the new solution. Furthermore, there are special features related to mobility including, for instance, usability of advanced mobile technology, reliability, transmission mode, level of auxiliary devices and user adaptability.\nOriginality/value: - This paper describes a unique case of business use of mobile technology in connection to re-engineering field sales processes, and can be of use both to practitioners as well as researchers and students in the field.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.