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Discussing employability: current perspectives and key elements from a bioecological model	[ "Equal opportunities", "Employability", "Labour market", "Unemployment", "Conceptions", "Bioecological model" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The employability in the socio-labor current context is a key concept. The transformation of capitalism during the late twentieth-century, the globalization of economy and the current global economic crisis entailed the end of full employment and led to new career models (De Cuyper et al., 2011). These phenomena are based on the importance of the workers employability. Employability becomes a central element; it is so important that it is one of the four pillars of the European employment strategy (McQuaid et al., 2005).\n2. Approaches to the concept of employability: Originally, the psychological literature conceived the employability in response to the need for employment. Employability focussed on finding the first job (training and acquiring the qualities needed to enter the labor market) and it refers to the ability some individuals have to gain employment (Formichella and London, 2005). This one-dimensional approach labels people as employable or not based on their ability to get a job (Van der Heijden, 2004). It highlights the need to invest in increasing the individual's employability in order to decrease unemployment due to the lack of qualified workers (Weinberg, 2004) through customized interventions that combine training and job search (McQuaid and Lindsay, 2005). This study focusses on the difficulties of labor insertion of disadvantaged population sectors, at risk of social exclusion, as the most disadvantaged have fewer opportunities to acquire employability skills (Feintuch, 1955). In the 1980s, employability has been studied both from the viewpoint of organizations and more recently from the individual perspective (De Vos et al., 2011).\n3. A framework for the analysis of the concept of employability: This overview has shown how employability reflects the complex combination of individual and external factors contributing to labor market dynamics, or the tension between agent and structure, in words of Forrier et al. (2009). However, each of these general perspectives responds to basically incompatible ideological assumptions. The individual perspective takes a person-centered view of employability whereas the critical perspective, in its extreme, claims to go \"beyond employability\" and abandon this narrow concept (Peck and Theodore, 2000). On the other hand, the organizational perspective doesn't really occupy an intermediate position: it considers employability as opportunities associated with career individual mobility, while recognizing that there is also a distinct organizational need related to increase organization's functional flexibility. From this point of view, \"employability thus represents an HR practice to optimize the deployment of staff\" (Nauta et al., 2009, p. 236). A more moderated critical stance defends the use of a more differentiated concept of employability to avoid stigmatizing the unemployed and \"transcend the orthodoxies of the supply-side versus demand-side debate\" (McQuaid and Lindsay, 2005, p. 215). One way to move forward in this direction is to define a \"common area\" where all dimensions outlined by these perspectives can be identified and compared. The focus is going further of interactionist' models. Therefore the final section endeavors to put this into practice by providing a conceptual framework based on a comprehensive Bronfenbrenner's (2005) bioecological model.\n4. Conclusions: Employability has a variety of meanings and the concept is subjected to debate due to the diversity of theoretical approaches and confusion arising from popularization of the term and its use (i.e. social integration, transition to first work, HR practices, managers competencies, entrepreneurship, etc.). Employability is seen as a multidimensional concept referring to, on one hand, an individual's responsibility on his own career; on the other hand, it is referred to an organizational level; and, finally, it is seen as a macro-level serving to legitimize the labor inequalities in Neoliberalism. This highlights the need for a holistic vision of its elements.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the concept of employability. It reviews and systematizes the two main current perspectives about employability, the individual and the critical. The individual perspective is dominant and currently determines the term; its basic premise is that an individual is responsible for his/her socio-professional career. By contrast, the critical perspective deconstructs the former concept and analyzes its role in maintaining the status quo.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Through a review of literature about employability this paper analyses the different conceptions and the consequences of the assumption of each perspective nowadays.\nFindings: This paper provides an analytical framework of all the key elements involved in the notion of employability based upon the bioecological model (Bronfenbrenner and Morris, 2006). This model offers a vision that encompasses the different explanatory elements of the employability concept.\nOriginality/value: The ultimate goal of this paper is to rekindle the debate on employability and to do so, it is necessary to explore the origins of the concept, the contexts it affects, who it benefits and, conversely, who it jeopardizes.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Determinants of visual analytics adoption in organizations: Knowledge discovery through content analysis of online evaluation reviews	[ "Evaluation", "Decision making", "Technology adoption", "Content analysis", "Web 2.0", "Disruptive technology", "Information visualization" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: With the increasing demand for data-driven decision-making coupled with fast-growing data volumes, visual analytics is increasingly becoming a prominent technology for organizations seeking to gain knowledge and actionable insights from complex and big data sets (Kasemsap, 2017). Visual analytics has been heralded as an effective means that can exploit the cognitive and perceptual abilities of users to synthesize information from heterogeneous data sources in ways that support assessment, analytics, and decision-making (Booshehrian et al., 2012; Keim, Andrienko, Fekete, Gorg, Kohlhammer and Melancon, 2008). The literature on visual analytics has already emphasized the improvement in decision-making based on the insightful information and knowledge provided by visual analytics tools, particularly with organizations operating in highly dynamic and competitive environment (Adagha et al., 2017; Savikhin et al., 2009). Visual analytics has also a positive impact on the organizational performance and management when aligned with process orientation initiatives (Samek et al., 2016). The key question is thus whether, after the implementation of visual analytics tools, users actually accept, adopt, and take full advantage of their capabilities. The business value of visual analytics should, therefore, be shown in an improved business process and hence improved business performance (Basole, 2014). Generally, visual analytics technologies have the potential to increase the competitive advantage of organizations (Sharda, Durus and Turban, 2015). However, their benefits can only be fully realized in situations where these promising innovations are successfully and broadly adopted to support the analytics and decision-making needs of business users across the organization.\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 Specifics of visual analytics\n3. Methodology: The main objective of this study is to identify the main factors that influence the acceptance and adoption of visual analytics technology in organizations. To this end, a qualitative content analysis approach was applied to extract, analyze, and categorize the textual content of online evaluation reviews generated and posted by IT and business professionals on their perceptions and experiences with using visual analytics platforms. Qualitative content analysis is a research methodology that involves \"the subjective interpretation of the content of the text data through the systematic classification process of coding and identifying themes or patterns\" (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005). According to Hsieh and Shannon (2005), three distinct approaches of content analysis are commonly applied by academic researchers: conventional content analysis, summative content analysis, and directed content analysis. Conventional content analysis is generally applied when existing theory or research literature on a phenomenon is limited. Summative content analysis focuses on the discovery of underlying meanings of a textual content or words and explores their usage via counting their instances in text. Directed content analysis is a deductive approach which is usually used to validate or extend a theory or relevant research results.\n4. Findings: Grounded on the DOI and TOE frameworks, 34 factors emerged as determinants of visual analytics adoption through the content analysis of online evaluation reviews used in this study. Table III presents the category code, sample description of the factor, frequency, and rank of each factor identified. All factors were ranked by frequency, where a higher frequency implied a higher level of perception and appreciation by practitioners in relation to the influence of each factor on visual analytics adoption. For example, the interactive visual exploration was ranked first as presented in Table III, which indicates that visual analytics capability of exploring corporate data via the manipulation of chart images, with the color, brightness, size, shape, and motion of visual objects for discovering trends, patterns, and insights was perceived as the most important factor driving practitioners to adopt visual analytics platforms. The highest frequency also implies that the interactive visual exploration of data has been highlighted as an important factor by different types of organizations, industries and IT and business professionals. Other specific features of visual analytics such as analytics dashboards, data source connectivity, ease of learning, ease of use for content authoring, ease of use for content consumption, ease of use to publish analytic content, ease of use to install and administer, self-service data preparation, governance and metadata management, self-contained extraction, transformation & loading (ETL) and data storage, and flexibility of deployment on a cloud environment were also highly ranked and perceived by visual analytics practitioners as important factors. Conversely, factors such as regulatory environment, competitive pressure, and firm size were perceived to be less influential in the adoption-decision process of visual analytics technologies in organizations. It is noteworthy to mention that most of the factors presented in Table III have received limited attention in the visual analytics adoption literature.\n5. Discussion: 5.1 Implications for research\n6. Limitations and future research: Despite the significant contribution of the research findings, this study involved a number of limitations that should be considered when interpreting the results, and planning for future research. First, the factors influencing visual analytics adoption are primarily identified based on online evaluation reviews of visual analytics platforms that are authored by practitioners and posted on only one website, namely Gartner.com. Further, this study focused primarily on practitioners and enterprises that had experience with commonly used visual analytics platforms, such as Tableau Desktop, Microsoft Power BI, QlikView, Sisense, Alteryx Analytics, and TIBCO Spotfire. This limitation may restrain the generalizability of the findings as there may have been some bias in response not shared by business users familiar with other products in the market. Hence, future researchers should interpret the current findings with caution. Indeed, there are many other factors that could influence the adoption-decision process of visual analytics technologies in organizations. Future research should be devoted to understand these factors from theoretical perspective and should be examined in different industries.\n7. Conclusions: In the current dynamic and turbulent business environment, visual analytics has emerged as a technological innovation offering data exploration and analytical capabilities to provide organizations with actionable knowledge and insights for their decision-making (Daradkeh, in press). While the vast amount of prior research on visual analytics has focused on the design and evaluation of visual analytics artifacts, limited research has examined the critical phenomenon of visual analytics adoption in organizations and the factors underlying its acceptance and widespread adoption among business users.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Visual analytics is increasingly becoming a prominent technology for organizations seeking to gain knowledge and actionable insights from heterogeneous and big data to support decision-making. Whilst a broad range of visual analytics platforms exists, limited research has been conducted to explore the specific factors that influence their adoption in organizations. The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for visual analytics adoption that synthesizes the factors related to the specific nature and characteristics of visual analytics technology.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study applies a directed content analysis approach to online evaluation reviews of visual analytics platforms to identify the salient determinants of visual analytics adoption in organizations from the standpoint of practitioners. The online reviews were gathered from Gartner.com, and included a sample of 1,320 reviews for six widely adopted visual analytics platforms.\nFindings: Based on the content analysis of online reviews, 34 factors emerged as key predictors of visual analytics adoption in organizations. These factors were synthesized into a conceptual framework of visual analytics adoption based on the diffusion of innovations theory and technology-organization-environment framework. The findings of this study demonstrated that the decision to adopt visual analytics technologies is not merely based on the technological factors. Various organizational and environmental factors have also significant influences on visual analytics adoption in organizations.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study extends the previous work on technology adoption by developing an adoption framework that is aligned with the specific nature and characteristics of visual analytics technology and the factors involved to increase the utilization and business value of visual analytics in organizations.\nPractical implications: This study highlights several factors that organizations should consider to facilitate the broad adoption of visual analytics technologies among IT and business professionals.\nOriginality/value: This study is among the first to use the online evaluation reviews to systematically explore the main factors involved in the acceptance and adoption of visual analytics technologies in organizations. Thus, it has potential to provide theoretical foundations for further research in this important and emerging field. The development of an integrative model synthesizing the salient determinants of visual analytics adoption in enterprises should ultimately allow both information systems researchers and practitioners to better understand how and why users form perceptions to accept and engage in the adoption of visual analytics tools and applications.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Document supply and open access: an international survey on grey literature	[ "Grey literature", "Document delivery", "Archives management", "Institutional libraries" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: One characteristic of grey literature is that it is \"often difficult to [...] acquire through normal bookselling channels\" (British Library)[1] because it lies \"outside of commercial circuits of publication and dissemination\" (AFNOR)[2]. For those professionals and scientists who wish to gain more information, the search for and acquisition of this kind of \"underground literature\" can be a time-consuming, sometimes expensive and even a frustrating experience - see, for example, Hartley (2004) for conference proceedings.Because of the importance of grey resources for scientific research and teaching, all major public document suppliers invest in collections and delivery services for theses, conference proceedings, reports and unpublished working papers. Some of them offer additional help for the identification and location of these often poorly recorded documents.These special collections and their bibliographic controls are costly and \"grey supply\" is often more expensive than the traditional supply of items from \"white\", commercial publications.Today, libraries and document supply services are confronted with the open archive initiative (OAI) movement and have had to adapt to it. The following paper gives an overview of the grey holdings and delivery services of five major document suppliers, and it describes their reactions and projects in the OAI environment.\nSome remarks on open access and grey literature: The origins of the short history of open access (OA) are known: free peer-reviewed journals like Harnad's Psycholoquy or Guedon's Surfaces and preprint repositories such as Ginsparg's ArXiv or Harnad's CogPrints have started to challenge the traditional model of scientific communication. These and other initiatives were the scientists' and academics' reaction to the pricing policy implemented by the publishers of journals and reflected their intention to re-appropriate the channel of the communication of and to improve the dissemination of research results with the help of the new information and communication technologies (see Crawford et al., 1996). The general impact on intellectual property and the \"value chain\" has been well documented by (Roosendaal, 2004); its effect on document delivery has already been conceptualised (see Rowse, 2003 or Brown, 2003).We won't add another review to the rather abundant literature on the theory, history, structure and software of the open access movement. The reader will find comprehensive introductions to the European and more specifically to the French initiatives on the Southampton[3], URFIST Paris[4], CNRS[5] or Max-Planck[6] websites or through textbooks such as Gruttemeier and Mahon (2003) and, for the French readers, Aubry and Janik (2005).Yet, the relationship between OA and grey literature is just in its first stages - see, for example, Sondergaard et al. (2003), Banks (2004), or Stock and Schopfel (2004). Do the \"green\" or \"gold\" roads (Guedon, 2004) transform white into grey documents because they leave traditional commercial control and dissemination channels? Or, on the contrary, do open archives promote the shift from grey to white documents by increasing their availability and access? It is obvious that the boundary between white and grey is shifting, and that we need more empirical evidence on grey literature and open access systems in order to update our understanding of what is grey.Compared to article repositories, open archives for grey literature are more recent and less numerous. One of the first, most important initiatives (if not the first) was the 1996 creation of the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) by Virginia Tech. Other totally or partly grey realisations are the French-Canadian Cybertheses for electronic theses and dissertations (ETD), developed by the Montreal and Lyon 2 universities, Grisemine from the University Lille 1 (Claerebout, 2004), Archimer from the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea (IFREMER), the French national portal in mathematics Mathdoc (preprints, course material, proceedings and ETD together with commercial resources and archives) and the open archives of the CNRS Centre of Direct Scientific Communication at Lyon (CCSD), like ArchiveSIC and MemSIC (publications, dissertations and working papers in information and communication sciences) or TEL (for ETD, see Paillassard et al., 2005).In spite of their great variety, all these archives and repositories have in common the increased value awarded to grey resources and the improvement of their availability and dissemination. Nevertheless, the majority of them are small-scale projects compared to the existing print holdings of grey literature. Up to now, reports, proceedings and other non-traditional types of grey literature (educational materials, working papers, etc.) have been rather under-represented compared to dissertations and preprints (Banks, 2006).But what exactly is the impact of the OA movement on the former suppliers of theses, reports and proceedings? How are they reacting in response to the development of institutional repositories; how are they involved especially in the domain of grey literature? There is very little evidence on this topic but for the North American context and the role of the physics preprints archive, ArXiv.org (see Jackson, 2004), so we decided to undertake an empirical study based on information available on the web or published elsewhere and on interviews with the leading managers of the cited institutions.\nQuestions and methodology: The main questions concerned the existing holdings of grey resources, supply conditions and pricing, involvement in digital and in more specific OA projects, and on approaches and attitudes towards the OA movement. Five major institutions were selected for this study:1. The British Library (BL)[7];2. The Canadian Institute of Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI)[8];3. The French Institut de l'Information Scientifique et Technique (INIST)[9];4. The Korean Institute of Scientific and Technical Information (KISTI)[10]; and5. The German National Library of Science and Technology of the University of Hannover (TIB)[11].These \"traditional suppliers\" have in common a public mission to collect, preserve, archive and disseminate scientific information through a non-profit ILL and document supply service that is based on a mixed economic model with their income supplied both by public funding and their customers' fees. In a certain way, they all share the \"belief that collecting world knowledge and making it available for investigation generates new ideas and advances society\" (British Library, 2005).ILL and document supply networks such as Subito, IMPALA or AutoDoc were excluded because they have neither their own holdings nor a specific acquisition policy. For similar reasons, we excluded corporate, profit-based suppliers such as Infotrieve.First, we gathered information about collections and supply conditions - services, prices, activity reports, etc. - from websites or from other sources. Based on this information, we contacted the leading supply managers of the five institutions and proposed a semi-directive, oral or written survey on the following topics:* figures on their grey document supply and ILL in 2004;* comparison of these figures to the overall supply and ILL (percentage);* the recent evolution compared to previous years;* their projects in the area of grey literature;* their OA projects;* the impact on the collection of grey literature;* the impact on document supply (service offer, pricing);* the impact on the bibliographic control of grey literature (cataloguing, record data); and* the impact on the information system.Data synthesis and interpretation were communicated to the institutions for comments and validation. Our underlying hypotheses are:H1. The part of grey literature in overall supply activity is rather small.\nConcluding remarks: The following conclusions are based on an analysis of web-based and published information, amended and completed by the feedback on our survey on document supply and OA projects. They are presented along with the six underlying hypotheses.H1. The part of grey literature in overall document supply activity is rather small\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This article seeks to investigate the impact of the open archive initiative on the document supply of grey literature.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The article is based on a comparative survey of five major institutions: The British Library (UK), CISTI (Canada), INIST-CNRS (France), KISTI (South Korea) and TIB Hannover (Germany).\nFindings: - All major document suppliers are more or less deeply involved in the open archive movement, and this involvement has an obvious impact on the policy of acquisition, archiving and supply of grey literature (dissertations, reports, conferences, etc.).\nOriginality/value: - Even if the impact of increased access to digital resources on document supply is relatively well documented, little is known about the specific effect on grey literature, especially in the OA environment. This study provides some evidence concerning this effect.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Surviving in the digital era - business models of digital enterprises in a developing economy	[ "Digital economy", "Developing economies", "Digital business models", "Digital business strategy", "Digital enterprises" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The economic contributions from enterprises in general, especially those situated in developing economies, have been well established. However, these firms tend to face several challenges, which stifle their formation, growth and sustainability. The 2007 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor asserts that most new enterprises do not survive beyond 42 months after their establishment (Allen et al., 2007). A phenomenon that is also prevalent in most developing economies. Similarly, a follow up report in 2012 further indicated that only 38 per cent of enterprises survive beyond the 42-month survival threshold in Ghana, whereas only 31 per cent survive in Uganda. In general, only 13 per cent of enterprises survive beyond 42 months after inception in Africa. Therefore, the report concludes that Africa has a higher business discontinuation rate of 16 per cent when compared with that of the European Union and the USA who have 4 per cent in total. The causes of this phenomenon have been attributed to the nature of ownership of these enterprises, managers with limited formal education and managers with limited access to market information (Mensah, 2004). Politicians, academics and other agencies have made calls for governments in Africa to avert this trend of business discontinuation and under performance. The foregoing discussions call for a new path toward the survival of these enterprises.\n2. Review of digital enterprises literature: This section reviews literature pertaining to digital enterprises. A definition of digital enterprises will be provided, which will form the basis for categorizing the various types of digital enterprises. The review will lead to the development of a research framework, which was used in the data collection and analysis to generate a model for digital enterprises in Ghana.\n3. Research framework: Spieth et al. (2014) assert that research on business models should be underpinned by three objectives: explaining the business, running the business and developing the business. Based on this premise, this study carried out the mapping out of the digital enterprises in Ghana. Studies on business models have used frameworks of previous studies and this current study is not an exception. Weill et al. (2005) and Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010) are a few of the authors who have developed typologies for modeling digital enterprises. Weill et al. (2005) developed a typology, which has already proven to be useful and was applied to analyze the performance of the top 1,000 enterprises in the USA. Remane et al. (2016) applied the typology developed by Weill et al. (2005) to investigate the changes in the Digital Business Model types of digital enterprises in the mobility sector. The typology classifies the enterprises based on the rights being sold and also the types of assets involved in the business. The rights being sold are categorized into:\n4. Research methodology: The conduct of this study was therefore guided by the Critical Realism Paradigm, which offers an exciting view in moving the attention of researchers towards real-world problems and their underlying causes and also away from a focus on data and methods of analysis (Mingers et al., 2013). As such, it offers a robust framework for the use of a variety of methods to gain a better understanding of the meaning and significance of information systems in the contemporary world. The study adopted the exploratory survey design. Survey research, particularly provides a quantitative or a numeric description of trends, attitudes or opinions of a population by studying a sample (Neuman, 2011). The researcher is therefore able to make claims and generalize about a phenomenon from the results of a selected sample. The justification for selecting a quantitative approach as against a qualitative or mixed approach is that aside from being best situated for this study, it also provides for the unearthing of definite evidence rather than just providing information (Zikmund, 2003).\n5. Analysis and discussion of findings: The statistical analysis of the survey data are presented in this section. The enterprises' revenue models served as a guide in categorizing their business models, an analytical schema adopted by Weill et al. (2005). We conjectured that many companies would have more than one business model, hence such models were classified separately for each revenue stream the company reported. Nonetheless, it is worthy to note that a company with multiple revenue streams did not necessarily have multiple business models. In addition, like the study of Remane et al. (2016), an established coding scheme from Weill et al. (2005) was used to categorize the business models of the enterprises identified for the study. A total of 91 digital enterprises were selected and reviewed in this study.\n6. Conclusion and recommendations: The study sought to map out digital enterprises in Ghana based on their business models and to explore some economic and technological enablers that facilitate their growth and development.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to explore the business models and strategies of digital enterprises in a developing economy context to understand the nature of their operations, as well as their survival tactics.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A review of literature on digital enterprise models led to the adaptation of a 16 business model archetype for analyzing digital enterprises in Ghana. Using a critical realism perspective, survey data from a sample of 91 digital enterprises were used for the study.\nFindings: The findings suggest that among human, physical and intangible assets, financial assets were the least used assets in the operations of the digital enterprises. This stems from the fact that the online financial business sector is still in its nascent stages in most developing economies. The findings further suggest that all digital enterprises leverage on accessible and low-cost social networking services as part of their operations and use them as an avenue to engage with their target customers.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings from this study provide guidelines to entrepreneurs who wish to venture into the digital ecosystem of Ghana, particularly with regard to the economic, financial and technological factors that enable digital enterprises to survive in the competitive digital economy.\nPractical implications: The findings suggest that it is important for governments to realize that there is an increasing rise in digital enterprises in the developing economies and these enterprises are creating jobs and providing business solutions locally that would hitherto be sought from developed economies. There is therefore the need for the requisite legal infrastructure and financial support that will cushion these enterprises from the fierce competitions that stagnate their growth.\nOriginality/value: The study provides a mapping of the digital business models of Ghanaian digital enterprises. This knowledge is arguably the first of its kind in the context of a developing economy. Hence, it serves as a stepping-stone for future studies to explore other areas in the digital economy, especially from a developing economy perspective.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Amplifying the practicality of contemporary building information modelling (BIM) implementations for New Zealand green building certification (Green Star)	[ "Building information modelling (BIM)", "BIM tools", "Green building certification" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The construction industry plays an important role in the national economy. In New Zealand, it is the third largest industry with over 500,000 enterprises (Statistics New Zealand, 2009). Its activities contributed around 4.3 per cent to GDP and employed one in every 12 New Zealanders in the workforce, roughly 178,000 people, over the year 2010 (Building a Better New Zealand (BaBNZ), 2013). However, it is also considered as one the primary sources consuming significant natural resources, energy, along with producing carbon emissions. According to Forsyth et al. (2014), the industry is responsible for around 40 per cent natural resources, 30 per cent energy consumption and 30 per cent greenhouse gases.\nThe review methodology: A literature review is a crucial part to develop the conceptual framework (Boons et al., 2011; Seuring and Muller, 2008). It is \"a systematic, explicit, and reproducible design for identifying, evaluating, and interpreting the existing body of recorded documents\" (Fink, 1998). Therefore, this research approach was carried out in two main stages, the extensive literature review and the formulation of a conceptual framework for complimentary BIM and Green Star implementation (see Figure 1). In the former stage, the extensive literature review was conducted to gain understanding of the existing problems in construction industry, the potential benefits and challenges of BIM application and the Green Star tool in the context of New Zealand. The subsequent stage of the conceptual framework focussing on the benefits of BIM and Green Star implementation is then developed.\nLiterature review: The literature review provides a critical overview of the green assessment tools, their benefits and uptake in New Zealand, focussing on the New Zealand Green Star tool and its benefits and challenges. It goes on to review the benefits and challenges associated with the implementation of BIM in New Zealand. It concludes by examining the relationship between Green Star and BIM for effective simultaneous implementation.\nConceptual framework development: The literature review examined the range of Green tools available and the lack of widespread uptake of Green Star in New Zealand, it also introduced the Green Star system and lack of specific research on the tool. It has examined the key benefits and challenges associated with BIM and the current uptake of BIM. The relationship between BIM and Green Star has been examined, reviewing similarities of both systems in terms of benefits and challenges. The conceptual framework of potential benefits and challenges of BIM and Green Star implementation was developed and is illustrated in Figure 5.\nConclusion: The construction industry plays and important part in the national economy and it is considered as one the primary consumers of natural resources, and energy. New Zealand as a developed country is expected to significantly improve its environmental performance. Given the simultaneous introduction of Green Star and BIM in New Zealand, this research attempts to improve the practicality of BIM implementations for delivering Green Star certification in New Zealand.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Green Star is becoming a broadly accepted mark of design quality and environmental sustainability. Compared to other green tools, Green Star is considered as one of main streams green assessment tools, which cover almost sustainable criteria. Simultaneously, building information modelling (BIM) has also been introduced into the industry. BIM is expected to aid designers to shift the construction industry towards more environmentally and economically sustainable construction practice. Whilst the aspirations of Green Star rating and BIM implementation are broadly aligned, in the context of New Zealand this has led to some disconnects in design strategy and process. The purpose of this paper is to improve the practicality of BIM implementations for delivering Green Star certification in New Zealand.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The extensive literature review is conducted through a series of incremental steps. A conceptual framework focussing on the relationship between benefits and challenges of BIM and Green Star is then developed.\nFindings: BIM supports practitioners to achieve the majority of Green Star criteria (75 per cent). Energy efficiency criterion is the key factor affecting the assessment process of Green Star and National Australian Built Environment Rating System in New Zealand. Research questions about lessening the challenges which can be encountered during the BIM and Green Star implementation are developed.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper is limited to a conceptual research. Further empirical research should be conducted to validate and modify the conceptual framework and the propositions presented in this paper to provide an initial insight into BIM and Green Star connectivity within the context of New Zealand.\nOriginality/value: This paper provided a clear picture for investors, developers, practitioners about benefits and challenges of BIM and Green Star implementation. The outcomes are anticipated to deliver visions for shifting the country further towards development of sustainable future cities.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A kaleidoscope career perspective on faculty sabbaticals	[ "Careers", "Theory of planned behaviour", "Career development", "Authenticity", "Balance", "Faculty development", "Boundaryless", "Challenge", "Kaleidoscope career model" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Research on the academic career has typically focussed on the early career stages of faculty members, studying why individuals join the profession (e.g. Lindholm, 2004) and the education, socialization (Huisman et al., 2002; Mitchell, 2007), academic job search (e.g. Bedeian et al., 2010; Flynn et al., 2011) and mentoring (e.g. Kirchmeyer, 2005) of doctoral students. A large number of articles has also explored how the quality of journal publications influence career outcomes, including the selection of job candidates, tenure and promotion decisions (Fiedler and Welpe, 2008; Osterioh and Frey, 2012; Parker et al., 1998; Van Fleet et al., 2000), salary (Gomez-Mejia and Balkin, 1992; Mittal et al., 2008; Vikas et al., 2008), job perks (e.g. increasing travel funding) (Manning and Barrette, 2005), nominations to editorial boards (Hardin et al., 2008) and job stress (Miller et al., 2011). Despite the research on early academic careers and the impact of journal publications on career success, relatively limited research has focussed on how important career decisions are made by faculty members in mid and late career.\nReview of research on faculty sabbaticals: Much of the literature on faculty sabbaticals is comprised of first person, anecdotal accounts (e.g. Beckman, 2002; McClain, 2005, 2006) or suggestions for improving the sabbatical process (e.g. Hubbard, 2002). There have been few empirical studies of faculty sabbaticals.\nProposed framework for examining faculty sabbaticals: Figure 1 provides a pictorial representation of our proposed framework for studying faculty sabbaticals from a careers perspective. This framework is a multi-theory approach; it is based upon the integration of the TPB (Ajzen, 1991) and the KCM (Sullivan et al., 2009). Specifically, we choose to integrate these two approaches because the KCM permits us to expand upon and substantiate the psychological aspects of TPB, such as what makes a sabbatical desirable to an individual. Moreover, research on the KCM has found that important career decisions, such as taking on a new job assignment, changing jobs or developing a new career focus, are influenced by an individual's need for authenticity, balance and challenge within the context of the individual's work and nonwork environment (see Sullivan and Baruch, 2009 for a review). The KCM provides a career lens by which we can see how contextual variables impact an individual's career choices and how the individuals subsequently enact these choices. In the following sections we detail the use of TPB and the KCM to examine the sabbatical process.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Although the sabbatical leave is an integral part of academic life, there has been relatively little empirical, theory-driven research of the process. The purpose of this paper is to integrate the limited research on faculty sabbaticals with the careers literature to offer a new approach for the study of this important tool for faculty development.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A review of the empirical studies on faculty sabbaticals was performed and used in conjunction with the kaleidoscope career model (KCM) and the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to develop a model to guide future research.\nFindings: The decision to take a sabbatical is complex and may have long-lasting implications for an individual's career. It is important to examine how factors that impact the perceived feasibility of the sabbatical (e.g. organization, country social norms) and desirability (e.g. need for authenticity, balance and challenge) influence the decisions, goals and outcomes of the sabbatical.\nResearch limitations/implications: The use of the KCM, the TPB and the careers literature provides a theoretical foundation to study faculty sabbaticals as a distinct event in an individual's career development.\nPractical implications: The proposed framework can be used by faculty members to determine the feasibility and desirability of taking a sabbatical as well as what factors which may encourage or limit sabbatical opportunities.\nOriginality/value: This conceptual paper uses a careers lens to provide a theory-driven framework which can be used to conduct much needed research on faculty sabbaticals.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Psychosocial factors in retirement intentions and adjustment: a multi-sample study	[ "Retirement", "Structural equation modelling", "Well-being", "Retirement satisfaction", "Trajectories" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The worldwide economic crisis, the modification of labour legislation and specially, the global process of aging in developed and developing countries (Phillips and Siu, 2012), with the resulting delay in retirement age, are some of the factors that have recently introduced profound changes into the nature of retirement. These global change patterns have become retirement in an area of general transcendence that can substantially influence the sustainable economical and social development of countries and societies around the world (Wang, 2013). In the current socio-economic context, the life course and careers are less predictable, and the experiences of transitions - variable, complex, contingent - tend to characterize what was traditionally a well-defined stage within the life course and careers (Van der Heijden et al., 2008). In this sense, Elder and Johnson (2003) have proposed substituting the concept of trajectory for that of transitions to define people's labour-life course. Today, researchers agree to conceptualize retirement like as a process rather than a single event (Beehr and Bennett, 2007; Beehr and Bowling, 2013), a complex process that can evolve over time and can even take a variable period of years to be concluded (Shultz and Wang, 2011) during which people must make a number of decisions about their participation in the labor force (Dingemans and Henkens, 2014). As such, instead of viewing retirement as a full career exit, it can be conceptualized as a late-career development stage that recognizes the continued potential for personal growth and redefinition of careers in people's retirement life (Wang and Shi, 2014; Wang and Shultz, 2010).\nFactors predicting retirement transition and retirement adjustment: Life course perspective stated that people who have developed capacities that facilitate a smooth transition will be better prepared, will engage in transition at the right time and will achieve better outcomes. Researchers in this field stated that retirement is a concept referred to several distinct phenomena (Szinovacz, 2003), so it is necessary to adopt a multilevel perspective (Szinovacz, 2013). At least, retirement should be conceived as a personal experience, as a process and as societal institution. As personal experience, retirement implies the necessity of different skills which allow the person to cope with multiple changes brought by retirement. As a process, retirement implicates decisions on work withdrawal. And as a societal institution, retirement influences both expectations that older workers should leave to provide job opportunities for younger workers and shared perceptions about the older persons as less competent and efficient. This conceptualization of retirement allows us to conceived three spheres of influences on retirement transition and adjustment: personal variables, retirement factors and contextual factors (Szinovacz, 2003). Among the personal variables, psychological resources influence the individual's reactions to the changes associated with retirement, stressing the relevance of agency in the retirement adjustment process (Van Solinge, 2013). In this regard, perhaps the most important is the sense of personal mastery, or retirement self-efficacy. Retirement self-efficacy is the belief that one has the knowledge and skills necessary to deal with the changes associated with retirement (Taylor-Carter and Cook, 1995), and it has been developed through prior experiences to deal with other transitions. A general premise hypothesized that positive levels of retirement self-efficacy will enhance the positive effects of retirement planning on general adaptation to retirement (Taylor and Schaffer, 2013).\nRetirement intentions and retirement adjustment outcomes: The conceptualization of retirement as an adjustment process allows us to explain why people make the same decision to retire, but their chosen pathways to exit from work lead them to very different outcomes. In this sense, this work proposes to explore the impact of the diverse above-mentioned psychosocial factors on the choice of the diverse pathways to exit from work. Considering the possible pathways to exit, most authors have used various categories that summarize the broad range of retirement intentions in full retirement - in the sense of a \"cold turkey\" or abrupt retirement (Calvo et al., 2009) - partial retirement, gradual or phased retirement, late retirement, bridge employment and re-entry (Alcover et al., 2014; Cahill et al., 2013).\nStudy 1: The first study investigated the influences of retirement self-efficacy, low work involvement, low job involvement, older worker identity and relative deprivation on retirement intentions. Based on the literature reviewed, we propose the following hypotheses (see Figure 1):\nMethod: Participants and procedure\nResults: In order to apply the post hoc Harman one-factor analysis (Podsakoff et al., 2003), we examined the results of preliminary exploratory factor analysis which showed that a single factor only accounted for 24 per cent of the variance. Hence, a single factor cannot account for the variance in the data, and we cannot consider the common method variance to be a serious deficiency in this data set.\nBrief discussion on Study 1: Study 1 successfully confirmed the proposed hypotheses. First, retirement self-efficacy and older worker identity showed powerful positive influences on full retirement intention. Second, late retirement has been negatively influenced by all the psychosocial factors. Finally, partial retirement and bridge employment showed a more complex pattern of relationships, according to the percentage of variance accounted for the model. A general discussion in deep will be offered later, comprising Studies 1 and 2.\nStudy 2: The second study investigated the influences of retirement self-efficacy, low work involvement, older worker identity and relative deprivation on retirement adjustment. Based on the literature reviewed, we propose the following hypotheses (see Figure 3):\nMethod: Participants and procedure\nResults: The results of preliminary exploratory factor analysis showed that a single factor only accounted for 23.5 per cent of the variance (Podsakoff et al., 2003), supporting that we cannot consider the common method variance to be a serious deficiency in this data set. Table III show the means, standard deviations and inter-correlations. Psychosocial factors showed a complex pattern of relationships. Retirement self-efficacy was negatively related both to older worker identity and to relative deprivation but had a negligible relation with low work involvement. Older worker identity had a positive relationship both with low work involvement, low job involvement and relative deprivation, as expected. Consequences were significantly related, showing an expected pattern: retirement satisfaction had a negative relationship both with feelings of anxiety and of depression, whereas feelings of anxiety and depression were positively intercorrelated. Contrary to our hypotheses, relative deprivation showed a negative relationship with depression.\nBrief discussion on Study 2: Study 2 provided evidence for the proposed pattern of relationships between retirement self-efficacy, low work involvement, older worker identity and relative deprivation and retirement adjustment among retirees. Despite the absence of a significant association between low work involvement and feelings of anxiety and depression, it was shown that retirement well-being was significantly explained by the hypothesized antecedents. Generally speaking, our data confirmed the proposed pattern of relationships between psychosocial factors, on the one hand, and retirement adjustment, on the other hand, despite the fact that some of the pathways did not reach sufficient statistical power.\nGeneral discussion: This work had two goals, pursued by two empirical studies with two samples: workers over 60 years, and retirees. Study 1 was aimed to analyse the impact of psychosocial factors on retirement intentions. Study 2 was conducted to confirm the impact of the same psychosocial factors on retirement adjustment. In general, we can state that both goals were achieved. Specifically, we contend that the availability of two different sets of data increases the generalizability of our findings. On the basis of these data, it was shown that conceptualizing retirement as an adjustment process provides a more comprehensive approach to understanding the phenomena. As Wang and Shultz (2010) emphasized, this conceptualization views retirement as incorporating both the pathways from employment to retirement and a post-retirement trajectory, which includes efforts to achieve psychological well-being in retirement. As Beehr and Bennett (2007) have mentioned, although much information on the decision to retire is available, there is less information, particularly in terms of an underlying framework, on what happens to individuals after they retire (Taylor-Carter and Cook, 1995) and, especially, years after they have retired. In this sense, our study contributes to bridge this gap.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Retirement adjustment is the process by which aged workers become accustomed to the changed facts of life in the transition from work to retirement and develop psychological well-being in their post-working life. The purpose of this paper is to explore the psychosocial factors that significantly explain retirement intentions and retirement adjustment, using two separate empirical studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Retirement self-efficacy, low work involvement, older worker identity and relative deprivation significantly explained retirement intentions (bridge employment engagement, part-time retirement, late retirement and full retirement) of workers over 60 years (Study 1, n=157). Retirement adjustment indices (retirement satisfaction, feelings of anxiety and depression) were associated with psychosocial factors for retirees (Study 2, n=218).\nFindings: The findings highlight that retirement self-efficacy and older worker identity positively and significantly explained both full retirement of aged workers and retirement satisfaction of retirees. Relative deprivation negatively significantly explained partial and late retirement intentions and retirement satisfaction of retirees.\nResearch limitations/implications: The implications of these studies are discussed for understanding retirement planning and counselling practice.\nPractical implications: Retirement adjustment conceptualized as a process has important implications for retirement planning, and consequently can influence the project of the life course, as well as career's decisions.\nSocial implications: Social contexts should consider all factors that can negatively affect self-efficacy, work involvement and identity of employees in the mid and late-career stages, and thus contribute to reinforce and strengthen personal and psychosocial resources involved in planning and adaptation to retirement, and to increase the insight into the planning and decisions older workers make to face retirement.\nOriginality/value: This work had two goals, pursued by two empirical studies with two samples: workers over 60 years, and retirees. The authors contend that the availability of two different sets of data increases the generalizability of the findings.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Motivations of Facebook Places and store atmosphere as moderator	[ "Location-based services", "Facebook Places", "Store atmosphere", "Uses and gratifications theory" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: With the wide dissemination of smartphones and the exponential growth of social networking sites (SNSs), firms are striving to turn this phenomenon to their advantage (Teh et al., 2014). Facebook, the fastest growing SNS in the world, has grown with the support of the diffusion of smartphones (Zhou et al., 2010). Furthermore, with the rapid development of GPS, Facebook is implementing applications using location-based services (LBSs), reflecting the mobility of modern life. Currently, the Facebook Places \"check-in\" service is the most frequently used LBS in the world; approximately 1.8 million Facebook Places check-ins occur globally every day (Socialbakers, 2012a), while Facebook itself has 1.15 billion active users each month (Facebook, 2013). The use of Facebook Places constitutes a natural advertisement for the locations from which users check-in. These postings are not intended as advertisements, but locations' names and other information are inadvertently exposed to users' friends. Prior reserach has used the term electronic word of mouth (eWOM) to refer to the natural exposure of product, service, brand, or company that occurs when consumers post information on the internet (Shiau and Chau, 2012).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Facebook Places\n3. Research model and hypotheses development: Based on previous research applying U&G theory, we use four types of motivation: socializing, entertainment, self-expression, and information seeking. We also draw three factors of store atmosphere: ambience, design, and social factors (Baker et al., 1994). An individual's impression when visiting a store can influence behavior (Sherman et al., 1997). Therefore, we assume that perceived store atmosphere is likely to influence motivation to use Facebook Places. This research model examines the relationships among motivations for using the Facebook Places and the influence of store atmosphere on relationship between the motivations and Facebook Places in Figure 1.\n4. Research methodology: 4.1 Measurement items\n5. Results: 5.1 Data analysis\n6. Discussion: 6.1 Discussion of findings\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to derive and empirically test a theoretically grounded model of motivations (socializing, entertainment, self-expression, and information seeking) that lead to the use of Facebook Places. Store atmosphere factors (ambient, design, and social factors) were also investigated as moderators of the relationship between the motivation and use of Facebook Places.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on a survey of 504 South Korean Facebook users, this research applies a structural equation modeling approach to test the research hypotheses.\nFindings: The analysis revealed that motivations such as socializing, entertainment, and self-expression influence the use of Facebook Places, and design factors moderate the relationship between the motivations and the use of Facebook Places.\nPractical implications: This study provide insights that can help Facebook and store owners develop effective marketing strategies that could increase revenue. When users check-in at a location it creates free word of mouth advertising. Thus, identifying the factors that motivate users to check-in at a particular location will be an important way to advertise.\nOriginality/value: While uses and gratification theory has mainly been used to study mass media, this study applied the theory to Facebook Places, a type of social networking sites-based location-based services. Additionally, this study added store atmosphere elements as moderators, which is an appropriate concept in the context of the Facebook check-in service.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Promotion and evolution of sustainability performance measurement systems from a perspective of business process management: From a literature review to a pentagonal proposal	[ "Sustainability", "Business process management", "Corporate strategy", "Measurement of performance", "Pentagonal framework", "Promotion of sustainability" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The concept of corporate sustainability has taken on importance in recent years (Hahn and Figge, 2011; Linnenluecke and Griffiths, 2010). The term sustainability has been used in reference to an organization's skill at maintaining and concomitantly demonstrating positive economic, social and environmental performance over the long term (Jamali, 2006). This approach is also named \"Triple Bottom Line\" (TBL) concept, as proposed by Elkington (2004). There is a gap between the concept and practice of sustainability because many organizations work with the three dimensions of TBL, but they do not explore their interconnections (Venkatraman and Nayak, 2010).\n2. Sustainability and BPM: Sarkis et al. (2006) affirm that it is possible to evaluate business processes from an environmental sustainability perspective, which consists of evaluating costs and analyzing multi-criteria to evaluate improvement alternatives in business processes. Nowak et al. (2011) present a taxonomy of parameters for measuring the sustainability of business processes according to the following aspects: first, organizational structure and customer needs (social dimension); second, reduced gas emissions in processes, software, hardware and infrastructure (environmental dimension); and third, organization competitiveness (economic dimension). They also underscore that the restructuring of business processes, with a focus on sustainability, can guarantee the conception of business processes based on ecological indicators, integration of processes and infrastructure, evaluating the trade-off between ecological indicators and performance indicators, and finally, valorization of human factors and optimization of energy consumption.\n3. Method: This study is divided into two phases. The first phase of the study consisted of a literature review. The study question was \"Which aspects need to be considered for promoting and evolving SPMS with a focus on business processes?\" Based on that question, a generic search string was elaborated, which was later adapted to the two databases used in the study (ISI/Web of Science; Scopus). The generic string used for the literature review was as follows: <Sustainability Performance Measurement Systems> OR <Sustainability Performance> AND <\"process orientation\" OR \"business process\" OR \"management by process\">. English was used for the search.\n4. Measurement of sustainability performance: Organizations try to improve their performance in relation to sustainability, collecting measurable and traceable data with the purpose of, according to Olsthoorn et al. (2001), generating and disseminating relevant and accurate information for decision making. To this end, the indicators should permit an analysis of the cause and effect relationship tendencies and thus go a step beyond primary data (Farrell and Hart, 1998).\n5. Conceptual proposal: The five aspects identified in the theoretical foundation and in the discussion should be explored to create a performance measurement system aligning sustainability and business processes. For the strategy aspect, the following points should be valued: associate indicators to strategic objectives and uncover inconsistencies and conflicts between stakeholder visions; gain agreement through criteria for evaluating alternatives, prioritizing the allocation of resources and removing personal bias in search of a solutions project; balance the strategic direction with stakeholder criteria and analyze the products and services through exchanges with stakeholders, which should occur in the future with each external stakeholder.\n6. Conclusion: In recent years, corporate performance measurement systems that consider sustainability have been the focus of many studies. However, few studies address corporate SPMSs considering business processes. This is a significant gap because any corporate SPMS should evolve continuously in face of the quick change that occurs in organizations.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to create a conceptual proposal that considers the relevant aspects to guide the promotion and evolution of corporate sustainability performance measurement systems (SPMSs) from a perspective of business process management.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study is divided into two phases. The first phase is a literature review with the study question was, \"Which aspects need to be considered for promoting and evolving SPMS with a focus on business processes?\" The second phase involved comparing these approaches and presenting a conceptual proposal with the relevant aspects for promoting and evolving a corporate SPMS.\nFindings: In the literature review, the following aspects were considered relevant to promoting sustainability: strategy, integration, stakeholders, evolution over time and business processes. The conceptual proposal found each aspect relevant and complementary presented consideration for each, forming one SPMS pentagon.\nResearch limitations/implications: The comparison between the approaches is conceptual.\nPractical implications: This study can help organizations address the evolution of their measurement systems systemically.\nOriginality/value: The summaries of the main considerations and evaluation issues provide starting points for organizations, researchers and students involved in sustainability-related matters. The discussion presented here can help organizations identify the strengths and weaknesses of their measurement systems and provide a basis for the promotion and implementation of improvements.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A collaborative process for evaluating new educational technologies	[ "Computer software", "E‐learning", "Conferencing", "Training evaluation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This paper describes a collaborative process for piloting, evaluating and selecting new and emerging e-learning and m-learning technologies. This process has been developed and piloted through the evaluation of the effectiveness of online collaboration software (OCS) to enable lecturer-to-student and student-to-student collaboration in a variety of teaching and learning scenarios at The University of Queensland, Australia. The evaluation process is inclusive of stakeholders with a wide range of perspectives including multidisciplinary teaching staff, educational support staff, and campus-based and remote students who collaborate on learning design and evaluation decisions at a number of points throughout the process. Pilot participants engaged with the evaluation process over a number of months. It is proposed that this process may be usefully applied for the evaluation and selection of other e-learning and m-learning technologies. The paper begins with a description of our evaluative process and then describes our OCS project to provide a concrete example of the process.\nEvaluation methodologies: Evaluation in an educational setting is the process whereby the evaluation methodology seeks to demonstrate that the communication and learning experiences enabled by the educational software are effective. Typically evaluations of educational technology focus on comparisons of feature checklists and on costs, often narrowly defined as license fees (Hanson and Robson, 2003, p. 2). Rather than starting with lists of features, the evaluation should start with the question \"how well does the technology enable the learning goals of the collaborative activity?\" The evaluation methodologies of this project have been informed by evaluation frameworks from the EDUCAUSE Centre for Applied Research (Hanson and Robson, 2003) and the Learning-centred Evaluation of Computer Facilitated Learning CUTSD project (Phillips et al., 2000). The Product Evaluation Report and Tool Kit (Foster, 2007) also provided some useful project management and data-gathering pro-forma documents.\nIdentification of stakeholders: Any pilot needs to start with the identification of existing university programs, events and activities that could be enhanced by the use of the educational technology under investigation. Personal knowledge of contacts in both teaching and student support roles can be used as starting points in addition to targeting established networks of educational technology experts within the institution. Interviews with faculty staff and administrators involved in these activities is a useful starting point to establish an interdisciplinary stakeholder group who bring a variety of interests and perceived barriers related to the technology.\nConsidering the context: It is crucial to consider the following administrative, technical and physical environments of the institution and stakeholders in the early stages of the activity design and the prioritisation of the evaluation criteria (Bates, 2005):* The learning management system (LMS). Many educational software products are now developed as building blocks or plug-ins to these systems as it is convenient if the LMS is the main portal via which all e-learning technology is accessed.* The content management system (CMS). This has implications on how learning objects developed using the pilot software can be catalogued and re-used.* Teaching spaces. The design and available technology within the institutions' teaching spaces impacts on the usability of the pilot software.* Stakeholders' internet access and hardware and software capabilities. This information should be gleaned via surveys at an early stage.\nThe main evaluation process: The evaluation process which is mapped out in Figure 1 has the three following phases:1. Design of learning activities and evaluation criteria in a collaborative setting with educationalists working with teaching staff and students, supported by vendor technical advice and demonstrations, and informed by initial research into other universities' use of the educational software.Initially stakeholders are identified by considering who will most benefit from the application of the technology. Teaching and learning activities are then developed according to the needs and contexts of these stakeholder groups, and from this point it is possible to start developing the evaluation criteria used to assess the technology's implementation while considering the existing technologies, systems architecture and teaching spaces in which the technology will be deployed.The evaluation criteria, which include all the features required of the technology, are then prioritised according to the needs of the stakeholders and the contextual factors. Using the evaluation criteria vendors are then selected and invited to either demonstrate or deploy the software in the local testing environment. Finally two or three products, which best meet the criteria are chosen to pilot; a necessary limit because of the financial and time-consuming costs of piloting educational technology.2. The reiterative pilot process begins with training in both the pedagogical applications of the educational technology and the technology itself and includes continued evaluation of the technology's ability to enable the learning activities.At the start of the each pilot the teaching and learning activities are refined and participants attend a software training session. Continued staff development and support are provided throughout the pilot which is supported by the dissemination of research, training materials and technical advice from the project manager and vendors. At the end of the each pilot the software is assessed according to how well the product has met evaluation criteria within the teaching and learning framework and within the institutional infrastructure. This is also an opportunity to revisit the evaluation criteria and reflect on lessons learned from the pilot. Criteria may need to be re-prioritised, added or deleted. There may be a need to re-focus the context of subsequent pilots to ensure that the second product is tested within teaching and learning scenarios that may have been problematic in the previous pilots but important to the stakeholders.3. The evaluation feedback from the pilots is compared in a collaborative setting, licence, hardware, training and support costings are negotiated and calculated and the product decision is made.At the end of all the pilots the evaluations of products are compared in a collaborative session involving representatives of all stakeholder groups. This has the advantage of fostering communities where teaching staff can talk about their own experiences of teaching with technology (Siemens, 2006). Costing implications are considered and a product is selected. Both phases (2) and (3) can be supported by a web site (such as Blackboard or SharePoint) which allows pilot participants to access and share project documents, research, and technical tips.\nEvaluation instruments: User evaluation instruments employed throughout an evaluation process can include focus group interviews, user observations, online and paper-based surveys and confidence logs. Throughout the pilots, participants and moderators can be invited to complete online surveys immediately after each session to capture their initial feelings of the experience. At the end of the semester, when students can best judge how the learning activities impacted on their learning, learners can be asked to evaluate how the new technologies (and their associated learning activities) affected their understanding of the course material. Generally, users are asked for their feedback on the technical experience of using the software immediately and their feedback on the pedagogical implications of using the software is best sought at the end of their learning period (i.e. at the end of semester).Remote participants can be asked to keep confidence logs that seek reflective qualitative feedback. For campus-based students and staff, user observations can be employed during initial pilot activities. The observer remains silent during these because prompting users to talk whilst observing them complete a user-testing task can divert their attention away from the task at hand and can also interfere with the validity of the data, for example, leading questions can bias findings (Nielsen, 2005). Observations about the quality of the user experience are also guided and informed by the prioritised list of evaluation criteria. For example, the judgement of the software's ease of use can be informed by the number of hours of training and ongoing user support required by individual participants.At the end of each pilot interdisciplinary focus group interviews, which expose participants to multiple perspectives, divergent views and completing values, can be conducted as a way of gathering qualitative data and to seek more reflective feedback (Nesbit, 2002).Table I outlines the evaluation methodologies used at various stages of the OCS project.\nThe online collaboration software project: The OCS project began with a process of brainstorming collaborative learning activities. By supporting only those teaching and learning activities that are best suited to the communication modes and affordances of the software and that best meet student needs, support for pilot participants can be better focused. Because synchronous communication software can lend itself easily to conventional \"stand and deliver\" teaching, pilot projects were carefully selected (Coghlan, 2005). Activities based on a constructivist approach to learning that enable interactivity by employing tools such as breakout rooms and application sharing were prioritised as they exploit the most pedagogical possibilities inherent in OCS (Keegan et al., 2005). The following case study summaries (Table II), which are a representative sample of the range of activities undertaken during the software pilots, exemplify the wide range of learning experiences afforded by OCS.The stakeholders identified a variety of advantages and barriers to the successful use of OCS and agreed that the software should increase opportunities for:* campus-based and remote students to collaborate outside the classroom;* student-centred active learning;* rich and rapid feedback; and* equity of access and catering for diverse learning styles.These key priorities informed the development of the evaluation criteria. By \"defining what your organisation needs the product to do puts the trial in context, and measures it against your own processes and desired outcomes\" (Foster, 2007). What is significant is that this disparate group from a range of disciplines independently reached the same conclusion: learning is a complex collaborative process based on constructivist philosophies and active learning methodologies.Students who participated in these trials were notified that they were part of the OCS pilot and that their feedback would be used to evaluate the efficacy of the software and inform the implementation of OCS in other courses. This awareness motivated them to respond to online surveys and other evaluation instruments.The following qualitative feedback was elicited in an online survey delivered immediately after the first five online tutorials as part of a second-year plant pathology course that had a blend of campus-based and remote students:Fantastic to be able to make contact with other students and have formed a bond with them before Residential school. It gave me a personal feeling to the course instead of being a self-motivated student working full time with a family. I really looked forward to the interaction at night and made the sacrifices to my family, however I came away smiling each night when the component was completed. Would highly recommend continuing this facility to other courses. Great idea.The following feedback, which was elicited in a survey that was delivered at the end of semester, also recognises the students' role in piloting software that may be used in other university courses:We have been able to contribute ideas in an online tutorial with instant feedback. This enables students to have their questions answered and have immediate gratification ... This has been the most interesting style of learning I have ever participated in at university and I hope more programs take up its style.\nSelection of vendors: The huge number of educational technologies makes the process of selecting the right products to pilot a challenge and is best approached by considering how the technology will be used in the teaching and learning scenarios. In the OCS project the selection of vendors was based on how well their software enabled the four key priorities that were discussed above. Some OCS products only do voice-over IP (VoIP) and text chat, some do video-conferencing but some tools are designed purely for the corporate context or a transmission-based pedagogical approach that does not afford true collaboration. For example, corporate products do not usually have advanced participation management tools which aid lecturers' tracking of student participation.Those products that are designed specifically on constructivist teaching and learning principles to enable true collaboration generally have most of the following features:* advanced participant management and social presence tools;* application sharing, interactive whiteboard, co-browsing abilities and remote desktop access;* session recording and play-back control;* break-out rooms for small group work;* polling and quizzes; and* universal support: participants take part using a range of different internet connection speeds and alternative communication channels.\nStrategies for an effective pilot: In interviews with those involved in similar software evaluation projects at other Australian universities it was discovered that some OCS pilots had been unsuccessful due to lack of participation because of academics' workload, and a lack of pedagogical and technical support to reduce the burden of piloting new software. In the initial OCS pilot at The University of Queensland few of the trained participants actively engaged in the pilot. To avoid this in the second pilot the following strategies have been employed by the project manager to maintain the project's momentum:* targeting lecturers who are most likely to need to communicate with the main student stakeholder group (i.e. remote students);* providing training for participants who were late to start the pilot;* ongoing support for all pilot participants, this includes participating in their initial sessions, customising help documents and slideshows used in the student sessions, collating pedagogical research and technical advice and disseminating this via a project website;* advice in developing and support in deploying customised evaluation instruments; and* liaising with the product representative on all technical issues.The OCS evaluation project began in mid 2005 and has involved three semester-long pilots. A drawback to running a lengthy evaluation is that products tested at the start of the project can be upgraded during the evaluation period. This may require a brief re-pilot of the upgraded product with a small user-group. However, these inconveniences do not outweigh the benefits of a thorough evaluation. Pilot participants who use the software over a number of months provide more comprehensive evaluation feedback than data collected from novice users. Furthermore, the process of evaluating educational technologies within a course context generates a host of case studies that can contribute to future staff development in the use of the new software. UCLA's Office of Information Technology began their Common Collaboration and Learning Environment project, an investigation into a learning management system (LMS) for the University, in 2002, piloting several open-source LMSs and only making a decision (to use Moodle) in late 2006. By spending several years collaborating with stakeholders in a process that emphasised educational quality, student satisfaction and staff productivity the university has laid a foundation for a successful implementation process (Austin et al., 2007).\nOutcomes and implications: The evaluation of any educational technology is an iterative process that requires an interdisciplinary team to regularly review the evaluation criteria. At the early stages of the project pedagogical research and consultancy into the development of teaching and learning activities with clear learning objectives is a valuable investment. Ongoing support for all participants is vital in maintaining momentum of the pilot projects and this has implications for the staffing and resourcing of any software evaluation project. Finally, the pooling of evaluation feedback from multidisciplinary stakeholders in a collaborative environment enriches the decision making process.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper seeks to propose a collaborative process for evaluating, piloting and selecting, new and emerging educational technologies. It aims to promote discussion about how such an evaluative process can be inclusive of interdisciplinary stakeholders and envision the actual application of these technologies in real teaching and learning contexts across disciplines.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The methodology applied in the piloting and evaluation of new educational technologies involves the design and identification of learning activities, the development of evaluation criteria which map to the goals of the learning activities and stakeholders' needs, and the incorporation of the technology-enabled activities into the total course design.\nFindings: - Evaluation methodologies that involve interdisciplinary stakeholders collaborating on a software pilot expose participants to multiple perspectives and divergent views. The evaluation of new educational technologies within a teaching and learning context is more effective in exposing the benefits and weaknesses of the technology than a conventional software pilot.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The new educational technologies evaluation methodology proposed in this paper has only been fully applied in three product pilots and is still in its developmental stage. The research is limited to the evaluation of educational software, not the implementation of new educational technologies.\nPractical implications: - The re-iterative and time-consuming process of piloting and evaluating new educational technologies within a course context is one in which academics require pedagogical, technological and administrative support. This paper presents a methodology that ensures each of these varieties of support is included.\nOriginality/value: - With the rapid expansion of new, sometimes costly educational technologies, universities can benefit from employing evaluation techniques based within an educational context, and ensure that their investments in these tools make an effective contribution to the enhancement of teaching and learning.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Evaluating performance of national R&D organizations using integrated DEA-AHP technique	[ "Performance measurement (quality)", "Process efficiency", "Data analysis", "Analytical hierarchy process", "Research and development", "India" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the era of globalization and tough competition, national R&D organizations in India are under pressure to perform not only efficiently but also effectively. Moreover, national policy makers in India have realized that the R&D performance of India has not been up to the benchmark. India's share of global scientific output in 1998 was only 1.58 per cent of the world's total. Out of 500,000 new patent applications filed globally each year, China accounts for 96,000 and Korea accounts for 72,000, while India accounts for only 8,000 (India Vision 2020, 2002). As public money is invested in these organizations, they are accountable to the society for their performance (Coccia, 2001). It is a responsibility of the policy makers and the top management to periodically evaluate and compare the performance of these organizations more comprehensively. Performance measurement systems should provide quality information to decision makers so that they can determine whether their efforts are on course (Cook et al., 1995).But evaluating and comparing the performance of national R&D organizations is a complex task as it requires a fair multiple output measurement criteria that matches with the multiple objectives of each R&D organizations and also a technique that could provide the correct and required information to the decision makers. The information provided should not only be in terms of quantity but also be in terms of the quality of the output. The objective of this research is to develop a simple and effective model to evaluate the performance of national R&D organizations in terms of their relative efficiencies comprehensively not only based on the quantity of the output but also the quality of the output.In this study, the integrated model has been developed for a group of Indian national R&D organizations belonging to Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). CSIR is an autonomous body, constituted in 1942 by a resolution of the Central Legislative Assembly with a mission \"To provide scientific industrial R&D that maximizes the economic, environmental and societal benefits for the people of India\". CSIR has 38 R&D laboratories all over the country and 80 centers. It has a human resource of more than 20,000 people, which constitute around 5100 scientists (Group IV), around 3300 Technical (Group III), around 7000 Technical (Group II +I) and around 5600 total administrative & non-technical people. Government allocates budgetary support of approximately 1,000 crores of rupees per year. But now the budget allocations to these organizations would be linked to their performance as determined by a set of agreed output performance parameters with time dependent weightages (CSIR Vision, 2001). To begin with this research, a literature review has been done to understand the important factors to be considered in the context of R&D, while developing the performance measurement model for R&D organizations.\nLiterature review: In R&D, it is difficult to measure and compare the performance in absolute terms because of the nature of R&D being complex, risky, uncertain, long gestation period, difficult to identify tangible output (Chiesa and Masella, 1996; Bremser and Barsky, 2004; Loch and Tapper, 2001) and having multiple output parameters (Brown and Svenson, 1998; Jain and Trinidas, 1997). But the performance of R&D organizations can be compared in terms of their relative efficiencies. A few studies have been done on performance measurement of R&D in different contexts and at different level or unit of measurement. Kim and Oh (2002) have done a study on designing an effective R&D measurement system for Korean R&D researchers. Roy et al. (2003) have developed a model to measure the effectiveness of research units (RU) functioning in Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India. Wang et al. (2005) have developed extensive evaluation criteria for multidisciplinary R&D projects in China for ranking and rewarding. Coccia (2001) has used a mathematical model and given a research laboratories evaluation (RELEV) function with k-indices for evaluating the performance of national R&D laboratories in Italy. Coccia (2004) in another study, has developed two performance functions, created using discriminant analysis with direct and Wilks method. Chen et al. (2004) have used data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique in 31 computers and peripherals firms in Taiwan by taking selective input and output measures. CSIR, India has also done an internal study, to assess the effectiveness of it's select six R&D organizations on the basis of cost-benefit analysis and have given an exhaustive list of performance measures for its all total 38 R&D organizations.Literature on performance measurement of R&D has suggested multi-dimensional measures as no single measure can capture the multi-objectives and are unable to give complete and relevant information to the management or the stakeholders about the performance of the R&D (Werner and Souder, 1997; Brown and Gobeli, 1992; Kim and Oh, 2002; Roy et al., 2003; Karlsson et al., 2004; Wang et al., 2005). For selecting the appropriate type of measures, Brown and Gobeli (1992) suggested that quantitative measures have certain advantages over qualitative measures. Quantitative measures are easily understood and readily compared. The logical framework for the quantitative analysis can provide a better understanding of the R&D performance. The subjective or qualitative measures are considered as potentially unreliable because of which the results lack comparability. Whereas, the structured or quantitative measures are more accurate and can be compared (Brown and Gobeli, 1992). There are also a number of qualitative and quantitative techniques and methods developed by researchers for evaluating the performance of R&D organizations like ratio analysis, financial analysis, project return on investment, project matching to company strategy, check-list, scoring, balanced scorecard and DEA.From the literature, it has been observed that only a few studies have been done on performance evaluation and comparison of R&D at organization level all over the globe and also in India. Some studies are done at researchers and multidisciplinary R&D projects level (Kim and Oh, 2002; Wang et al., 2005). Some studies have given the performance measurement functions for national R&D organizations like Coccia (2001); Roy et al. (2003) and Coccia (2004). Chen et al. (2004) have used the DEA technique by taking only selective input and output measures but have not used the weighted data. The results are based only on the basis of the quantity of the output, which may not provide the actual picture of the performance. The results would be highly skewed. Similarly, in the internal study done by CSIR, India to assess the effectiveness of the CSIR R&D organizations by using cost-benefit analysis have not assigned any priorities to the different measures of performance. Moreover, in the study done by CSIR, select six national R&D organizations in different disciplines of R&D have been compared on a set multiple criteria and that too in the absolute terms not in the relative terms. The performance standards for organizations in different disciplines of R&D may differ. They may not be compared on the same criteria. The need has been felt to develop a model that can evaluate and compare the performance of national R&D organizations in terms of their relative efficiencies and suggest the benchmark organization. Moreover, the model should provide the results not only on the basis of quantity of output but also the quality or importance of the output measure. In this paper, DEA integrated with AHP technique have been used for evaluating the performance of national R&D organizations in terms of their relative efficiencies more comprehensively by taking multiple output measures and incorporating the quality of each output measures.\nResearch methods: DEA model (CCR model)\nApplication of integrated DEA-AHP model to CSIR R&D organizations: A comprehensive conceptual DEA framework was developed by the authors (in the previous work) for performance measurement of CSIR R&D organizations as shown in Figure 2. In the conceptual model various possible input and output measures have been shown which could be taken while actual implementation of the model. But some of the measures are highly subjective in nature and collection of accurate data is difficult.In this paper, to make the model more applicable and simple to use, only select objective quantitative output and input measures have been taken shown in Figure 3, which are discussed in later part of this paper.Selection of output and input measures\nIllustration: To demonstrate the developed model, an illustration is taken to evaluate the performance of taking six DMUs as DMU 1, DMU 2, DMU 3, DMU 4, DMU 5, and DMU 6. The data taken are not the actual data of any R&D organization. Let us assume the data taken are from the year of their establishment of different DMUs to year 2006. The performance has been evaluated in terms of relative efficiency by applying the integrated DEA-AHP model and also by applying only DEA. The results have been compared and discussed discussed in the next section. The performance data of the six DMUs shown in Table II do not represent the actual data of any national R&D organization. The different output measures are measured in different units as some are in numbers and some are in monitory units (Indian Rupees). The data are transformed into dimensionless values by computing the respective relative scores of each output measure for all the six DMUs as shown in Table III. In Table IV, relative weighted scores are computed by multiplying the relative scores with the respective weight of the respective output measure. In Table V, the relative weighted score of sub-measures are aggregated under their respective measure. Relative efficiency scores are computed by using CCR (output-oriented) model with the help of DEA-Solver, learning version 1.0 software, results shown in Table VI. Projection of output measures for each DMU has been shown in Table VII. The relative efficiency scores has also been computed only by using DEA on the performance data of the DMUs, without incorporating the weights of the output measures given by AHP described in the next section (Table VIII).\nResults using DEA model without integrating AHP: The relative efficiency scores of all the six DMUs, taken in the illustration are computed by using DEA model without integrating the AHP with it. The following evaluation is done by taking the output measures without finding the relative scores and without computing the relative weighted scores as shown in Table IX and Table X.\nResults and discussion: Integrated DEA-AHP model has given DMU 6, DMU 4 and DMU 2 as the most relative efficient DMUs with efficiency score of 1 as shown in Table VIII, whereas the application of only DEA model has given DMU 5, DMU 4 and DMU 2 as the most efficient DMUs with relative efficiency score of 1 as shown in Table X. If we compare the results, DMU 6 has not come out to be relative efficient when we apply only DEA model and instead DMU 5 has become the relative efficient DMU with relative efficiency score of 1. If we analyze, DMU 5 has come out be relative efficient only because of the quantity of the output not the quality. As shown in Table II, DMU 6 has more number of publications in International journals which have got the highest priority among paper published in international journal, national journal and conference proceedings, whereas the DMU 5 have maximum number of paper publications in conference proceedings and also very high in numbers, which has the least priority. Also, number of patents filed by DMU 5 is very high but the patents granted and licensed are comparatively very less than the DMU 6. This shows that DMU 5 has come out to relative efficient only because of the quantity but DMU 6 is has come out be relative efficient from the results of Integrated DEA-AHP model on the basis of quantity as well as the quality of the output measure.\nPolicy implications of the research: The performance evaluations and comparison of national R&D organizations is more complex than the private organizations as they have different multiple objectives and are spread in different disciplines (Coccia, 2004). The model developed provides a framework and a system to develop the performance evaluation exercise of the national R&D organizations to the national policy makers and the evaluation committee. The results of the model provide the relatively efficient and inefficient national R&D organizations on more comprehensive performance criteria and tell the respective benchmark organization for each inefficient organization. The national policy makers can allocate the annual budget to these organizations on the basis of their performance. Moreover, the results as shown in Table VI, provides the insight on what output measures, the inefficient organizations are lacking and need to produce. The policy makers can restructure the national R&D organizations. The model evaluates the end results or the output of the organizations giving the direction to also evaluate the processes being adopted by these national R&D organizations. The processes adopted by the benchmark organization can be adopted by the inefficient organizations. The policy makers may redesign the processes like project selection, project management, human resource development, environment scanning and performance measurement system of the national R&D organizations in order to get better results.\nLimitations of the research: The model has been developed based on a small sample consisting of only five national R&D organizations specifically in chemical and botanical sciences, in India. The results may not be generalized for large-scale model of DEA. The Model has taken only the objective performance measures. The subjective measures can also be included in the model in further research. Moreover, this model only evaluates the end results not the processes of the organizations.\nConcluding remarks: Integrated DEA-AHP model has provided a fair and useful technique to evaluate the performance of national R&D organizations in terms of their relative efficiencies not only on the basis of quantity of output but also the quality of the output. The results obtained by applying this technique are more fair and useful to retrieve information about the performance of different organization. This technique has provided more realistic results in giving the benchmark organizations and the relatively inefficient organizations to the policy makers and the performance monitoring committee and also specifies the weak areas, which need to be looked upon for improvement. This model can be extended to all the R&D organizations of CSIR as well as other national R&D organizations in India as well as in other countries. The output measures and the weights for the output measures may vary from type of R&D i.e. basic research to applied research and from department to department. This model can further be extended in evaluating the performance of national R&D organizations from four perspectives using balanced scorecard approach.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and compare the performance of national R&D organizations in India in terms of their relative efficiencies using a multiple output measurement criteria incorporating the quality of the output measures.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - An integrated data envelopment analysis (DEA) and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) has been used.\nFindings: - The relative efficiency for national R&D organizations is obtained not only based on quantity of output, but also on the basis of quality of the output and provides more comprehensive and realistic results to the decision makers in identifying the benchmark national R&D organizations and inefficient organizations.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Owing to difficulty in approaching all the departments, the application of the model is limited to a small group of Indian national R&D organizations. This model can be extended for various departments/agencies heading various national R&D organizations in India as well as in other countries according to their requirement and suitability.\nPractical implications: - This model provides a more comprehensive method to the policy makers for evaluating the performance of national R&D organizations in terms of their relative efficiencies also incorporating the quality of the output measures. The results provide the indicators to the policy makers for redesigning the R&D processes in the inefficient national R&D organizations.\nOriginality/value: - In the context of R&D, an integrated DEA-AHP model is applied for the first time to evaluate the performance of national R&D organizations in terms of their relative efficiency obtained not only on the quantity of the output taken, but also on the quality of the output.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Physical-internet-enabled auction logistics in perishable supply chain trading: State-of-the-art and research opportunities	[ "Physical internet", "Auction logistics", "Perishable supply chain trading", "Planning", "Scheduling and execution" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: A perishable supply chain is a network of enterprises that typically involves stakeholders of suppliers, auctioneers, wholesalers, retailers and logistics service providers for perishable products whose value diminish over time (Lambert et al., 1998; Van der Vorst et al., 2005). Perishable supply chain trading (PSCT) is the process of buying, selling, transferring or exchanging products, services, and/or information across a perishable supply chain (Cheng et al., 2016). Auction is the main selling method in PSCT. This trend remains strong in the floriculture sector of the Netherlands with transactions for 12.4bn plants and flowers each year (The New York Times, 2014). Perishable produces auction is also increasingly popular in China due to its fair and fast pricing determination mechanisms (Qin et al., 2010).\n2. Review methodology: Literature searches in this study have been conducted on the specific research areas of AL in PSCT, covering most of the relevant journals, the websites of leading research groups and related research projects using keywords. In a review of 220 publications from 1990 to 2017, the distribution of these papers pertaining to PSCT, auctions, logistics and AL represent 5, 36, 44 and 15 percent, respectively. This initial collection of references was screened first for their relevance to key themes of auction mechanisms, AOM and coordination methods for perishable products auction and then for their significance for the purpose of this review. Our emphasis was then placed upon publications in the last two decades. To control the length of this paper, a collection of roughly 100 representative publications were short-listed in this review. Significant disparities were observed among the short-listed publications in terms of the methodologies, the domain problems and level of decision-making issues, etc. The short-listed publications were then investigated in more detail to unravel the research issues and questions, and the extent to which these questions and issues have been addressed. Out of around 100 representative publications included in this survey, Figure 1 gives a rank to indicate which journals published the most of them according to the number of articles published in proportion. In addition to a structured review, the methods of field investigation and focus group discussion were used to explore the factors influencing AL performance. A brief taxonomy of the related key projects is given (see Table).\n3. Auction logistics: 3.1 Concept of AL\n4. Research frontiers of PIAL: This section attempts to survey the latest research developments of PIAL in terms of auction mechanism dimension decision-level dimension and coordination dimension.\n5. Opportunities for future investigation: Figure 4 illustrates four research domains with highlighted research questions for future PIAL research. It was found that these research perspectives are not only concerned with technology issues like most IoT-based/data-driven studies addressed in the literature, but especially also with organizational and operational issues. These new research perspectives are still not mature and related articles are currently limited in research community; however, it is worth having an in-depth examination to specify valuable research questions for further studies. Meanwhile, it is critical to achieve implications through investigating these multi-dimensional research aspects. We, therefore, classified these research perspectives into: omnichannel fulfillment model, method of auction logistics synchronization (ALS), data-driven analytics and impact of automation technologies on AL.\n6. Conclusion: This research is motivated by the largest flower auction trader in China. Although they have solved technological problems of dealing with millions of simultaneous biddings, logistics chaos still happen often. Most studies nowadays separately consider auction mechanisms and logistics management for perishable products trading. The consensus has not yet been reached on how best to integrate effective logistics practices with auctions. This position paper thus aims to address this gap, not only by summarizing key themes of current research dimensions, but also indicating existing deficiencies and potential research directions.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: While significant efforts have been made to study auction and logistics theories in the context of perishable supply chain trading (PSCT) over the last few years, the consensus has not yet been reached on how best to examine the impact of physical-internet-enabled auction logistics (AL) decisions and processes on dynamic perishable products transactions. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap by investigating the existing situations and identifying future opportunities for both academic and industrial communities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The relevant literature was sort out along with three dimensions, namely auction mechanism, level of decision and coordination. The methods of field investigation and focus group discussion were also used to explore the factors influencing AL performance.\nFindings: A number of key findings presented. First, there is an emerging paradigm shift from offline auction to online auction. Robust and resilient AL are needed to fulfill the massive number of orders from different channels while considering dynamic decisions. Second, three-level decisions in AL have been explicitly classified and defined. Various mathematical techniques used in literature vis-a-vis the contexts of AL were mapped. Third, a coordination mechanism that dynamically balances trade-off between logistics efficiency and transaction price was discussed. Lastly, several opportunities for future research were distinguished with coherent connection of research domains and open questions.\nOriginality/value: This paper not only summaries key themes of current research dimensions, but also indicates existing deficiencies and potential research directions. The findings can be used as the basis for future research in PSCT and related topics.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How peers' updates on social media influence job search	[ "Social interaction", "Retention", "Employee turnover", "Social networks" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In view of labor market trends and volatile economic conditions, employed individuals increasingly view the job search as a career management tool (Boswell et al., 2012). Being in contact with potential employers allows employees to properly evaluate their chances in the labor market (Arthur and Rousseau, 2001), identify missing competencies and skills (Trusty et al., 2019), and time their career steps to the needs of the potential employer. Consequently, research has found that 51 percent of employed individuals who are satisfied with their jobs would be open to a new opportunity if it arises (Jobvite, 2016). In addition, as many as 19 percent of employees change jobs as a result of unexpected job offers (Kulik et al., 2012). Given that satisfied individuals engage in job search and potentially change employers, the turnover process is often initiated by factors other than job dissatisfaction (Lee and Mitchell, 1994).\nTheoretical background and hypotheses: Impact of career advancement updates on SNSs on job search\nMethods: Sample and procedures\nResults: Table I presents the means, standard deviations and correlations among the study variables.\nDiscussion: This study investigated the effects of career advancement updates on SNSs on job search. We argued that individuals who received a career advancement update would be more likely to engage in job search; however, we found no support for this hypothesis. A possible explanation for the lack of a direct effect comes from both SCT literature and research conducted on social media. Specifically, there are significant individual differences in the way people process information derived from social comparisons in social media (de Vries et al., 2017; Gibbons and Buunk, 1999; Lee, 2014). As a result, career advancement updates do not have a single unique effect on job search but, rather, a range of effects that differ depending on the level of the moderator variables, such as, for example, employability or job embeddedness.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ways in which social media content via social contagion may affect the job behaviors of employed individuals. Specifically, by integrating the unfolding model of voluntary turnover and social comparison theory, this paper explores whether receiving an update about a peer's career advancement on professional social networking sites (SNSs) increases an individual's propensity to engage in job search.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this analysis, the authors matched individuals' survey data (n=125) with information received from a recruiting agency on employees' subsequent job search behavior (i.e., sending a resume to the agency).\nFindings: The results indicate that the relationship between career advancement updates on SNSs and job search behavior was stronger for employees with higher perceived employability and, contrary to our hypothesis, for those more embedded within the organization.\nPractical implications: More employable and more embedded individuals perceive social cues from social media, and these cues positively relate to their job search behaviors. To address this trend, organizations could develop a social media strategy and implement retention measures to prevent the job search (and thus potential turnover) of employable and embedded individuals.\nOriginality/value: This research contributes to the job search literature by examining the role of professional SNSs in driving job search behavior among employed individuals.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The impact of institutional processes, social networks, and culture on diffusion of global work values in multinational organizations	[ "Globalization", "Organizational culture", "Social networks", "Multinational companies" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: In a review of multicultural and international business research, Leung et al. (2005, p. 359) noted that \"although the argument that the world is becoming one culture seems untenable, there are some areas that do show signs of convergence.\" Recent studies have started to identify global work values endorsed by individuals across multiple nations and various cultures. For example, Shokef et al. (2007) identified three global work values - customer orientation, competitive performance orientation, and openness to cultural diversity1 - exhibiting high level of agreement among employees of a large multinational corporation (MNC) with subsidiaries located in four different cultures. The GLOBE project investigating leadership attributes in 62 different national cultures (Chhokar et al., 2008; House et al., 2004) revealed two universally endorsed leadership characteristics: charismatic/value-based leadership and team-oriented leadership. According to Dorfman et al. (2004), these leadership dimensions are accepted by members of organizations around the globe because they emphasize values that have universal appeal, such as performance oriented, team oriented, inspirational, and high in integrity.Shokef and Erez (2006) posit that global work values (e.g. customer orientation, competitive performance orientation, openness to cultural diversity) are work values transpiring the global work environment. Values generally refer to beliefs and desirable goals transcending specific actions and serving as standards to guide the selection and evaluation of behavior, people, and events (Schwartz, 1992, p. 4). Work values are assumed to reflect the features and functions of basic values (Ronen, 1994), but by implication, have a more specific meaning pertaining to work environment (Roe and Ester, 1999; Ros et al., 1999). Global work values emphasize the more specific meaning pertaining to multicultural global work context (Shokef and Erez, 2006).Multinational organizations (MNOs) are argued to play an important role in emergence and diffusion of global work values (Shokef and Erez, 2006). These organizations include international governmental organizations, MNCs and multinational enterprises, transnational civil society associations, and international non-governmental organizations operating in the geographically dispersed and culturally diverse environments (Erez and Drori, 2009). Being at the center of globalization, MNOs learn to integrate diverse value systems and espouse shared global work values to create an environment, where workers are able to communicate and coordinate their activities to reach common goals (Erez and Drori, 2009; Ralston et al., 1997).Identification of global work values calls for an understanding of interfaces and processes supporting their diffusion in context of MNOs (Gelfand et al., 2007). While Shokef and Erez (2006) have suggested that global work values emerge directly from the environmental characteristics of the global work context, the interfaces and processes engaged in the diffusion of these values within and among MNOs require further elaboration. Broadly, diffusion means the spread of something (e.g. values, beliefs, behaviors, technology or practices) within a social system (Strang and Soule, 1998).Taking Scott's (1995, 2001) neo-institutional theory as a base framework, this contribution combines concepts from neo-institutional (Scott, 1995, 2001) and network theories (Burt, 1997; Coleman, 1988; Granovetter, 1973) with perspectives of cross-cultural management and organizational behavior to theoretically explore the processes of diffusion of global work values in the context of MNOs. I argue that regulative and normative institutional processes, said to be the pillars of institutions and institutionalization (Scott, 1995, 2001), contribute to the diffusion of work values on a global scale. Regulative institutional processes support diffusion through rules, codes, sanctions, enforcement, and monitoring. Normative institutional processes contribute to diffusion by means of installment of normative expectations through such mechanisms as formal and informal training, accreditation, personnel selection and filtering. Further, following Scott's (1995, 2001) argument that institutional processes are sustained and influenced by institutional carriers, which among others encompass social structures (e.g. interpersonal, group, interorganizational social networks) and culture (e.g. values, beliefs, symbols), I posit that the diffusion of global work values through regulative and normative processes is affected by the structure of social networks (e.g. dense networks full of closures, sparse networks full of structural holes) and cultural values of individualism and collectivism. Figure 1 shows the arguments presented in the following sections.This work lays ground for future empirical investigation of processes and interfaces involved in globalization-driven diffusion of work values. Also, these viewpoints are expected to be useful to managers working on the implementation of global corporate culture and values programs within MNOs, who are looking for ways to structure units, workflows, training programs, and systems aimed at increasing coordination, communication and, ultimately, performance across units spanning multiple national borders and cultures.The following sections first review the concepts of global work values and global culture in the context of MNOs and globalization. Then, drawing on Scott's (1995, 2001) neo-institutional theory, I present a set of propositions capturing the role of regulative and normative institutional processes and supporting institutional carriers in the diffusion of global work values among members of MNOs. I conclude with implications for research and practice.\n2 Globalization, global culture, and global work values: According to Albrow (1996), globalization entails worldwide diffusion of practices, values and technologies. Operating beyond national borders, MNOs are at the center of globalization (Bartlett and Ghoshal, 1994), actively contributing to global diffusion of practices (Kostova, 1999; Kostova and Roth, 2002), innovations (Ghoshal and Bartlett, 1988), knowledge (Minbaeva et al., 2003; Singh, 2005), and organizational culture (Jaeger, 1983). According to Shokef and Erez (2006, p. 327), to facilitate communication and coordination of activities, MNOs advance a macro-level global work culture, defined as \"the shared understanding of the visible rules, regulations and behaviors, and the deeper values and ethics of the global work context.\" Building on the logic that culture represents shared values and norms of societies and is often expressed and transmitted by its values (Schwartz, 1992), Shokef and Erez (2006) argue that global work culture is composed of global work values.Following an ecological perspective that treats values as facilitating adaptation to the environment (Berry et al., 1992), Erez and Shokef (2008, p. 289) suggest that while some global work values may be found in existing organizational culture typologies (e.g. competitive performance orientation, quality orientation), others (e.g. openness to cultural diversity, organizational social responsibility) have emerged directly from characteristics of the global work context. Erez and Drori (2009) provide an account of how cultural processes of rationalization, professionalization and actorhood support the emergence and expression of global work values and their imprinting on activities and behaviors in work situations.To represent how work values found in existing organizational cultures become part of the global work culture, and how global work values emerging in global contexts become part of organizational cultures of MNOs around the globe, Erez and Gati (2004) propose a dynamic multilevel model of culture encompassing structural and dynamic dimensions. The structural dimension presents the hierarchy of nested individual, group, organizational, national, and global cultures. Global work culture with supporting global work values represents an outer macro culture level. The dynamic dimension consists of top-down and bottom-up processes through which different levels of cultures dynamically interact and reciprocally influence one another.What mechanisms are involved in top-down and bottom-up processes facilitating the interaction of global work culture with the lower levels of culture? How do organizational work values prominent in existing organizational culture typologies diffuse among other organizations, becoming an integral part of the global work culture? How do global work values emerging in a global context transpire organizational cultures of MNOs? Gelfand et al. (2007, p. 497) suggest that in an interconnected world shaped by globalization, organizational behavior research requires understanding of not only the interfaces between national cultures, but also the interfaces connecting the global work context with all nested levels, including national, organizational and individual. Following this call, in the subsequent sections, I investigate the interfaces involved in the diffusion of global work values.\n3 Global work values and dynamic cultural interfaces: I approach the topic of diffusion of global work values from the neo-institutional theory perspective (Scott, 1995, 2001). Institutionalists argue that organizations incorporate institutionalized components such as values and practices in order to increase legitimacy and survival prospects (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Meyer and Rowan, 1977). Institutionalized organizational components are those that \"become widely accepted, as both appropriate and necessary\" (Tolbert and Zucker, 1983, p. 25). According to Parson and Shils (1951) institutionalization encompasses internalization and distribution of common values by members of collectives, supporting their integration.Scott (1995) described three institutional processes, operating at multiple levels of analysis, that support institutionalization. Regulative institutional processes are rooted in formal and informal systems of rules supported by surveillance and sanctioning (e.g. rules and operating procedures, organizational codes, coercive requirements, restrictions, authorization and approval processes). Normative institutional processes emphasize conformance to social norms encompassing prescriptive, evaluative, and obligatory aspects (e.g. training, education, professional accreditation, filtering and selection of personnel). Cognitive institutional processes stress the importance of symbolic systems and common frameworks of meaning (e.g. imitation, social categorization and typification, social construction of actors and context through rationalization and sensemaking). According to Scott (1995), regulative, normative, and cognitive institutional processes are embedded and dynamically interact with institutional carriers, such as social structures and culture. Social structures can be represented by social networks of individuals or organizations. Cultures encompass codified patterns of shared meanings, such as values and beliefs.The institutional framework emphasizes the importance of regulative, normative, and cognitive processes and associated carriers in diffusion of organizational practices and structures (Scott, 1995, 2001). Building on Scott's (1995, 2001) arguments, Peterson and Smith (2008) believe that cultures, together with associated values and norms, spread from one part of the world to another as a result of the regulative, normative, and cognitive institutional processes.Following Scott (1995, 2001) and Peterson and Smith (2008), in the next sections, I propose that regulative and normative institutional processes actively contribute to the diffusion of work values across organizations throughout the world, playing an important role in the development and support of the global work culture. In this work, I focus on the regulative and normative processes, because cognitive institutional processes are thought to manifest at much deeper levels as outgrowth of regulative and normative processes (Peterson and Smith, 2008).Furthermore, I argue that two institutional carriers, social structures and culture, influence the diffusion of global work values via the regulative and normative institutional processes. Particularly, I posit that certain types of social structures, which characterize relationships of MNO members in a global context, and cultural values, endorsed by members of MNOs, may be more conductive than others to the diffusion of global work values through regulative and normative institutional processes.3.1 Diffusion of global work values and regulative institutional processes\n4 Conclusion and implications: This work investigates the impact of the institutional processes, social networks, and culture on the diffusion of global work values in MNOs. The following sections review the arguments and contributions, discuss limitations, and consider implications for future research and management practice.4.1 Summary of theoretical arguments and contributions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Previous research has documented emergence of global work values and an important function of multinational organizations (MNOs) in their diffusion. However, studies on the processes supporting the diffusion of global work values have been limited. This study seeks to conceptually explore the roles of institutional mechanisms and moderating functions of social network structures and cultural values in diffusion of global work values within the context of MNOs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Adopting a multilevel approach and grounding the arguments in the neo-institutional framework, this work synthesizes cross-cultural research with organizational theory research to present a conceptual model of the diffusion of global work values in the context of MNOs.\nFindings: - It is proposed that the level of diffusion of global work values by members of MNOs is positively related to the level of institutionalization of these values within and between MNOs by means of regulative and normative institutional processes. The arguments also suggest that regulative and normative institutional processes are likely to diffuse global work values more efficiently among members of MNOs with collectivistic value orientations and tight dense social networks with closures.\nPractical implications: - The findings may be useful for managers looking to implement global corporate culture and values programs, searching for the right mechanisms to diffuse values among units with certain cultural backgrounds, social network structures and institutional contexts.\nOriginality/value: - This paper combines diverse research streams to elaborate on the dynamic interfaces of global work values diffusion and lays groundwork for future empirical investigations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Career interruptions and current remuneration: The role of interruption type, compensation component, and gender	[ "Gender pay gap", "Bonus payments", "Career interruptions", "Fixed salaries", "Stigma effects", "Total compensation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Many people experience interruptions to their occupational careers at some point of time due to parental leave, unemployment or other reasons. Subsequent employers may take these interruptions into account in terms of compensation decisions. Expected or actual productivity may have suffered because of career interruptions in terms of human capital depreciation (Mincer and Polachek, 1974). Besides, they may lead to some kind of stigma effect in the sense of Gibbons and Katz (1991) if employers use career interruptions as signals of a lack of ability or a lack of career commitment. Hence, career interruptions may lead to lower subsequent wages.\n2. Theoretical considerations, previous empirical studies and hypotheses: Two theoretical frameworks can mainly explain possible negative effects of career interruptions on subsequent earnings: human capital theory in conjunction with the skill depreciation hypothesis and stigma considerations. According to human capital theory, workers' remuneration depend positively on their stock of human capital, since the level of acquired skills and knowledge determines workers' productivity and therefore their value to the employer (Becker, 1964; Mincer and Polachek, 1974; Mincer, 1958). During career interruptions, employees will defer investments in on-the-job training until they re-enter the labor market. As a result of a shorter payoff period after the return, rational employees will provide less investments in training activities than workers with continuous career paths (Corcoran, 1979; Mincer and Ofek, 1982). During periods of inactivity, human capital may even depreciate - as long as people do not use periods of career interruptions for further education or training measures (Mincer and Polachek, 1974). Employees may forget accustomed operating processes as they are no longer using them or they may fail to adopt new techniques or to keep up with technical progress during their absence from work and may therefore be confronted with technical as well as economic obsolescence of their human capital (de Grip and van Loo, 2002; Beblo and Wolf, 2002a; Edin and Gustavsson, 2008). Even if we assume that no depreciation of human capital occurs during the absence, we may still observe a roughly similar negative effect on earnings due to foregone experience, because human capital has still decreased relatively compared to workers without career interruptions, who have increased their stock of human capital during that period (Neuman and Weiss, 1995).\n3. Data, variables and descriptive statistics: We now present the data and the descriptive statistics for the dependent and explanatory variables used in the analysis.\n4. Results: In this section, we present the estimation results. We first examine the relationships of career interruptions and compensation in general, before we differentiate between compensation components and interruption types. Then, we turn to gender differences in interruptions and compensation and how they relate to one another. Finally, we address heterogeneity issues by exploring wage increases and discuss limitations and resulting consequences of our approach.\n5. Conclusion: In this paper, we have used individual panel data of managers from the German chemical sector to examine the link between career interruptions and subsequent compensation and its components. We examine a rather homogeneous and high-qualified group of employees working in the same sector and show that former interruptions are indeed associated with lower current earnings, which is in line with previous research. We also show that the type of career interruption matters: earlier unemployment spells have a greater effect on earnings than non-employment periods that stem from parental leave or other reasons. Our results may be partly driven by varying depreciation rates of general and firm specific skills across the types of career interruptions and partly by some kind of stigma effect associated with them. Besides we even find hints for catch-up effects subsequent to parental leave spells in terms of higher wage increases compared to individuals without career interruptions indicating a positive selection effect of this group. The average interruption gap these employees are facing is just equivalent to the missed wage increase during their interruption spell, whereas individuals with unemployment spells suffer much more.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Career interruptions of employees imply important issues for both firms and individuals, including a possibly lower compensation after returning to a job. Different compensation components are explored, as bonus payments frequently complement fixed salaries for many employees, making various channels of lower compensation possible. This paper aims to discuss this issue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study is based on a yearly salary survey among a rather homogeneous group of professionals and middle managers from the German chemical sector, which contains detailed information on compensation components next to individual and job characteristics. The incidence and duration of past career interruptions act as the most important independent variables. Mincer-type wage regressions are complemented by estimations on wage increases.\nFindings: The results show that career interruptions are more related to lower subsequent bonus payments than they are to fixed salaries. Furthermore, interruptions caused by unemployment are associated with higher interruption pay gaps than those resulting from other reasons such as parental leave. The results even hint for catch-up effects following parental leave with regard to higher wage increases compared to individuals without interruptions. Career interruptions are more prevalent for female managers offering an explanation for a considerable part of gender pay gaps. Wage losses after career interruptions are more pronounced for male employees than they are for females, though.\nOriginality/value: This study extents the literature by disentangling the relation of career interruptions and different compensation components, bonus payments next to fixed salaries in particular. The role of interruption type and gender are also taken into account so that the paper deepens the understanding of the role of past career interruptions for employees' remuneration.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Data networks and sustainability education in African universities: A case study for Sub-Saharan Africa	[ "Sustainability education", "Climate change in Africa", "Data networks", "Internet in Africa", "Research and education networks" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The purpose of this paper is to provide a case history study of the development of data networks in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and the subsequent linkage of various African universities and university networks. Here, we summarize key milestones in the development of these research and education (R\n2. Outline of methods: The descriptions, results and reflections in this paper are based largely on oral history interviews with NSRC personnel and written email correspond exchanges with various on-the-ground key personnel in Africa. Many of the activities described below (Section 4) are based on internal white papers and reports written by the various agencies that have been assisting in Internet development on the African continent over the past 20 years. Effectiveness of these programs is largely evaluated by including personal testimonies of some US scientists that are now able to actively collaborate with their African counterparts precisely because of this improving network infrastructure. Future predictions about the development of sustainability curriculum and research areas related to sustainable development come from time history analysis of the situation in the USA. That is, one can build networks, but the development of academic content and research partnerships that leverage these networks is never done in parallel. There is a significant lag time between the infrastructure development and application development. This was the case for the USA and is currently the case for SSA. The single biggest source that informs this paper occurred in 2005 via a conferenced titled: Workshop for Enhancing Collaborative Research on the Environment in Sub-Saharan Africa - January 24-26 Arlington VA.\n3. The evolution of research and education networks in SSA: The following organizations have played a significant role in catalyzing the early development of the Internet for R\n4. History of major NSRC activities in Africa: Initial network startup in Africa occurred in 1991. Figure 1 shows the location of all 32 SSA startups since late 2013.\n5. Current status of higher education efforts in sustainable development in SSA: In May 2011, survey results (GUNi, 2011) from 73 higher education institutions in SSA were published by the AAU with respect to a questionnaire that focused on five areas of sustainable development within the context of higher education:\n6. Reflections: In a very broad sense, academic institutions have an obligation to be the leaders in the generation and transmission of sustainability knowledge and best practices. Declining environmental, economic and social conditions worldwide require a steadfast and reliable response from the academic community. This places a great deal of responsibility on higher education to move beyond its current sphere of academic influence and assume responsibility for becoming a catalyst for regional change and better sustainable development practices. However, whether in the USA or SSA, the development and delivery of curriculum and courses in sustainability remains quite challenging. This challenge was addressed in detail in a 2010 study (AASHE, 2010) by the Association of Sustainability in Higher Education, and the discussed obstacles are largely ubiquitous in higher education.\n7. Summary: Underlying network and information infrastructure is a necessary, but not a sufficient element to support global research collaboration. High-speed Internet access is now a sine qua non of a modern university. Researchers expect to be connected, to be able to access resources anywhere in the world and to be accessible to others. While this is certainly true for the USA and Europe, without support for network development, African universities were at risk of becoming completely marginalized, bypassed by research funders and ignored by up and coming researchers who would choose a connected institution over an unconnected one. Internet access has allowed African universities to avoid certain challenges, such as the massive cost of maintaining an up-to-date research library. Faculty and students in connected institutions can now access up-to-date resources and journals, which positively contribute to educational quality.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a case study report of the development of data networks and initial connectivity in the Sub-Saharan African (SSA) region and how that development evolved into the formation of research and education (R\nDesign/methodology/approach: This case study is presented through the past 20 year's operations and field activities of the Network Startup Resource Center (NSRC) at the University of Oregon, who in partnership with the National Science Foundation has worked together to significantly train network engineers in Africa on how to develop regional R\nFindings: The author shows how the development of these networks have fostered improved collaboration between African and US scientists, particularly around issues that relate to climate change. This paper contains testimonials from both scientists and on-the-ground key directors in Africa about the value of these improved networks. The expansion of regional R\nPractical implications: The current state of network-driven curriculum and curriculum exchange between African universities is assessed and compared that to that in the early days of academic network penetration (1990-2000) in the USA to find similar rates of evolution. Since 2015, SSA has sufficient network access and connectivity to now enable a wide variety of new collaborative research and collaborative academic programs.\nOriginality/value: The experience and operational competence of the NSRC at the University of Oregon needs to be detailed and espoused. No other American university has had such an impact on Africa in terms of improving its overall network infrastructure enabling new kinds of collaborative research on real-world problems, such as climate change and resource depletion in Africa.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Absorptive capacity, cluster linkages, and innovation: An evidence from Bengaluru high-tech manufacturing cluster	[ "Manufacturing industry", "Technological innovation", "Dynamic capabilities", "Buyer-supplier relationships", "Global manufacturing networks" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Innovation is regarded as the driving force of economic development which provides a firm with a competitive edge over others (Schumpeter, 1934; Becheikh et al., 2006). Innovation in general is defined as \"the creation, development and introduction of new product/service or product/service components, or a new procedure or process for the benefit of the stakeholders in an organisation\" (Birchall et al., 1996). In the context of India, NKC (2007) defined innovation as \"a process by which varying degrees of measurable value enhancement is planned and achieved, in any commercial activity.\" This process may be radical or incremental, and it may occur continuously or intermittently in a company; it may be achieved by: introducing new or improved goods and services and/or, implementing new or improved operational processes and/or, implementing new or improved organizational/managerial processes (NKC, 2007).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Innovation and industrial cluster\n3. Conceptual framework: The varied levels of firms' absorptive capacity constituting internal and external factors give rise to differences in the degree of intra-cluster and DECL of firms in a cluster. Ultimately, these differences in the degree of cluster linkages contribute to varying levels of innovation of firms in a cluster. The objectives of the proposed research study are set in the context of this conceptual framework (Figure 1).\n4. Research objectives, scope and methodology: 4.1 Research objectives\n5. Results and discussion: 5.1 ACAP and DICL\n6. Conclusion: This paper has ascertained the internal and external factors determining the absorptive capacity of a firm. Further, based on the standardised weights derived from importance rating of variables and dimensions, and actual scores of these variables and dimensions, index numbers of internal (iACAP) and external factors (eACAP) of absorptive capacity, and innovation performance (INI) were computed for each sample firm. In addition, the influence of iACAP and eACAP on both DICL and DECL was determined. Furthermore, the impact of both DICL and DECL on INI was ascertained.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to outline the key determinants of innovation performance of a firm in a cluster. This paper probes the role of absorptive capacity in furthering the cluster linkages and thereby enhancing the innovation performance of a firm.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study adopts stratified random sampling technique to choose sample firms from the identified population of firms in a cluster. Further, it employs primary data collection method to collect data from sample firms through a semi-structured questionnaire based in-depth interviews with the top level management of sample firms. It uses multiple linear regression (MLR) techniques to ascertain the influence of absorptive capacity on degree of cluster linkages (both intra-cluster and extra-cluster linkages), and degree of cluster linkages (both intra-cluster and extra-cluster linkages) on innovation performance of a firm.\nFindings: On the one hand, internal factors of absorptive capacity of a firm have a significant positive influence on the degrees of both intra-cluster linkages and extra-cluster linkages. On the other hand, external factors of absorptive capacity of a firm significantly impact the degree of intra-cluster linkages (DICL). But, they have no significant influence on the degree of extra-cluster linkages (DECL). Further, both the DICL and the DECL drive innovation performance of a firm in a cluster. Notably, subsidiaries of externally based firms exhibit superior innovation performance compared to those firms based in a cluster.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to the extant literature in two ways. First, it empirically validates the effect of absorptive capacity of a firm on its degree of cluster linkages (both intra-cluster and extra-cluster linkages) taking into account both internal and external factors of absorptive capacity. Second, it ascertains the influence of degree of cluster linkages (both intra-cluster and extra-cluster linkages) on the innovation performance of a firm in a cluster.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Evaluating the effectiveness of maintenance strategies	[ "Maintenance", "Measurement" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Intense competitive pressure is triggering many companies to look for every possible source of competitive advantage. To achieve this, the ingenuity of each company lies in understanding the potential of each function - say, for example, manufacturing or maintenance. Once understood, it requires a proper strategy to exploit such potential. Strategy at any level - say at a business or functional level - will provide the company with a sense of direction, integrity and purpose. It guides in making a series of unified and integrated decisions in achieving the objective. Also, strategy with respect to each function needs to be evaluated for its effectiveness on a regular basis. This will allow knowledge of the competitive position of any business unit against its competitors, with respect to the given function. In the past few years manufacturing, coupled with new technologies, has placed the need for maintenance effectiveness clearly on the radar screen. The effectiveness of maintenance can be known only if one is able to identify and evaluate a given maintenance strategy. Since maintenance is an essential business support function, its objectives are mainly derived from manufacturing and business strategies. Hence, to be effective, maintenance strategy should be consistent with manufacturing and business strategies. In addition, it should be more proactive in contributing to the competitive advantage of a company. Recently a survey was conducted within Belgian industries (Pinjala and Pintelon, 2004). Out of 46 respondents, 71 per cent considered that maintenance could be used as a tool for enhancing the competitive advantage of the company. However, they do not have the knowledge as to how effective is their maintenance strategy in achieving this objective. Hayes and Wheelwright (1984) suggest two groups of criteria for evaluating the appropriateness of a given manufacturing strategy. The first group concerns various types of consistencies: between manufacturing strategy and overall business strategy, and between manufacturing and other functional strategies within the business. The second group concerns the degree to which the manufacturing strategy contributes to enhancing the competitive advantage of a company. Based on these criteria they develop a four-stage framework for evaluating the effectiveness of a given manufacturing strategy.In this paper, Hayes and Wheelwright's four-stage framework is applied in identifying and evaluating the effectiveness of a given maintenance strategy. Furthermore, with respect to maintenance, each stage of the framework is illustrated with real-life case examples. The framework can be very helpful in the strategic management of maintenance function. Using this framework, the consistency between different functional strategies can also be evaluated. This means that the framework serves as a generic measuring tool to evaluate all strategies. This also indicates the robustness of this framework. The remaining part of the paper is organized into three sections. Recently, the term \"maintenance strategy\" has been used quite often in both industry and the academic field. Hence, in the first section, the concept of maintenance strategy and its effectiveness is reviewed. Subsequently, the authors' perspective on the concept is elaborated. In the second section, the methodology is presented. Using the four-stage framework of Hayes and Wheelwright as a guideline, a framework for evaluating a maintenance strategy is presented. This is followed by real-life case examples to illustrate each stage of the framework. Finally, in the last section conclusions are presented.\nMaintenance strategy and its effectiveness: In the literature, the definition of the term \"maintenance strategy\" is either too narrow or too vague. In general, it is viewed from the perspective of maintenance policies like corrective or breakdown maintenance (CM), preventive maintenance (PM), and predictive maintenance (PDM). Sometimes, maintenance concepts like total productive maintenance (TPM) or reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) are also included in the above list. For instance, Swanson (2001) explains three types of maintenance strategies:1. reactive strategy (CM);2. proactive strategy (PM and PDM); and3. aggressive strategy (TPM).Bevilacqua and Braglia (2000) consider each maintenance policy as a separate strategy. On the other hand, Kevin and Penlesky (1988) consider maintenance strategy as a mix of elements like maintenance policies, backup equipment and equipment upgrades. Tsang (1998) gives some examples of maintenance strategies as maximizing asset utilization, improving responsiveness and focus on developing core competencies. Further, Tsang (2002) identifies four strategic dimensions of maintenance:1. service-delivery options;2. organization and work structuring;3. maintenance methodology; and4. support systems.Kelly (1997) views maintenance strategy as the identification, resource allocation and execution of repair, replacement and inspection decisions.While most of the above definitions can be correct, they focus only on a few of several elements of the maintenance strategy. This often leads to the simplification of the maintenance function just as corrective and/or preventive maintenance, thus ignoring the dynamics of the maintenance function as a whole. This could be one of the reasons for the top management of a company often ignoring maintenance by just considering it as a part of manufacturing overheads. However, Tsang and Kelly view maintenance from a broader perspective. In this paper, the maintenance strategy is defined at a functional hierarchy level similar to manufacturing or any other function. It is defined as a series of unified and integrated pattern of decisions made in four structural and six infrastructure decision elements (Pinjala and Pintelon, 2004). The definition is based on Hayes and Wheelwright's decision elements of manufacturing strategy. The decision elements with respect to maintenance strategy are shown in Table I.The first four decision elements in Table I can be viewed as the maintenance resources. They are termed as structural, because decisions made in those areas are generally assumed to be fixed. For instance, a company outsourcing its entire maintenance activities cannot revert immediately to in-house maintenance. The majority of the maintenance budget is consumed by these structural elements. The last six infrastructure elements can be viewed as maintenance management elements. These structural and infrastructure elements are interrelated. For instance, effective utilization of maintenance resources depends upon the decisions taken in the infrastructure elements. Over a period of time decisions must be made in all of these maintenance strategy elements. The way these elements are managed or utilized can have a major impact on the maintenance function's ability to implement and support the company's manufacturing and business strategies.Companies mainly differ in their maintenance strategies by the combination of decisions taken in these elements. Several operating aspects and business requirements influence these decisions. For instance, Swanson (1999) analyses the impact of advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT) and just-in-time (JIT) production concepts on some of the maintenance strategy elements shown in Table I. Further, Kelly (1997) views that maintenance strategy springs from, and is driven by, the identification of operating aspects and business objectives. This means that the decisions made in all of the elements of maintenance strategy should be consistent with manufacturing and business strategies. An effective maintenance strategy is one that fits the needs of the business. Its performance is judged based on certain measurable criteria. Cholasuke et al. (2004) studied the status of maintenance management in UK manufacturing organizations based on a pilot survey. They categorized the maintenance effectiveness measures into nine areas based on a literature study. Most of these measures fall under the structural and infrastructure elements shown in Table I. The measures constitute:1. policy deployment and organization;2. human resources management;3. financial aspects;4. continuous improvement;5. contracting out maintenance;6. maintenance approach;7. task planning and scheduling;8. information management and CMMS; and9. spare parts management.Based on these measures they identify three levels of maintenance performance. Similarly, Campbell and Jardine (2001) propose five levels of maintenance excellence:1. novice;2. foundation;3. apprentice;4. journeyman; and5. mastery.In that respect this paper may have some similarities with these studies. However, our study mainly considers the consistency and contribution criteria suggested by Hayes and Wheelwright. It shows that these criteria are also much more relevant with respect to maintenance strategy. The study also shows how world-class companies use maintenance capabilities to enhance their competitive advantage. The framework used in this study is more generic. Hence, it can be used as a common strategic audit tool in identifying and evaluating the appropriateness of all functional strategies on common measures of effectiveness.\nMethodology: The process of formulating an effective maintenance strategy for a company can be a difficult task of quite daunting complexity. Furthermore, evaluating such a strategy can be much more complex. The criteria for evaluating a manufacturing strategy as proposed by Hayes and Wheelwright are simple, generic and straightforward. Hence, they can also be extended to evaluate a given maintenance strategy. These criteria generally fall into two groups. The first group examines two types of consistencies, namely internal and external. For instance, one maintenance strategy is considered better than another to the degree that it displays more internal consistency and/or external consistency. The internal consistency is within the maintenance function and across functions in the business unit. The external consistency is between the maintenance function and the environment of the business unit. The second group of criteria concerns the degree to which the maintenance strategy enhances the competitive advantage of a company. These criteria include setting priorities, directing attention to opportunities and providing maintenance capabilities. Based on the consistency and contribution criteria, Hayes and Wheelwright develop a four-stage framework for manufacturing's strategic role in a company. The characteristics of each stage in the framework are shown in Table II.The appropriateness of a given maintenance strategy mainly depends upon the manufacturing and business requirements. Hence, it should be internally consistent with the business and manufacturing strategies. Moreover, there should be an internal consistency among the strategy elements (structural and infrastructure elements shown in Table I) that make up the maintenance strategy. It should also be externally consistent with the business environment (for example governmental restraints on safety and the environment). The ability of the maintenance function in contributing to competitive advantage can be judged on the basis of its support to manufacturing, engineering and material purchase functions. It can also contribute directly to competitive advantage by developing new tools, techniques and through equipment design modifications. For example, maintenance can play a critical role in reducing the set-up times of equipment. Moreover, the maintenance function plays a critical role in a company's ability to compete on the basis of cost, quality and delivery performance (Swanson, 1997; Pintelon et al., 2000). Based on Hayes and Wheelwright's four-stage framework, the strategic role of maintenance can be understood. The degree of maintenance strategy effectiveness can be evaluated on a continuum from stage one to stage four. The characteristics of each stage with respect to maintenance are presented in Table III.Stage 1 companies regard maintenance mainly as a manufacturing overhead and do not realize its full potential. They consider maintenance as a necessary evil and nothing more than a mere inevitable part of production. They outsource majority of their maintenance activities and rely heavily on either original equipment manufacturers (OEM) or outside maintenance service providers in solving complex equipment problems. In general, stage one companies do not manage maintenance professionally. They just try to minimize maintenance's negative potential.Stage 2 companies differ slightly from stage one companies. They intend to improve maintenance but lack internal expertise. Hence, they try to acquire and follow their competitors' maintenance best practices. To gain maintenance cost advantages they even replace some equipment or components by following their competitors. They even carry out a reasonable level of preventive maintenance activities to improve their performance. They consider their competitors as a benchmark and try to follow them. They strive for competitive neutrality on the maintenance function rather than internal neutrality.Stage 3 companies incorporate maintenance considerations in the overall business and manufacturing strategies. However, they do not consider maintenance as a potential source of cost savings and competitive advantage. They equip maintenance with necessary expertise, skills and training to perform complex maintenance tasks. They carry out more proactive maintenance policies like preventive and predictive maintenance. They plan and schedule their maintenance activities efficiently through high CMMS use. However, they do not integrate maintenance into engineering. They consider maintenance only as a service function. They address long-term maintenance developments and trends systematically. They formulate maintenance mission statements in structuring and guiding maintenance activities over an extended time horizon. However, they do not carry out continuous improvements and equipment design modifications to a great extent. In general, stage three companies do not give equal attention to maintenance in comparison to other functions. Hence, they cannot recognize the full potential of the maintenance function.Stage 4 companies foresee maintenance as a potential source of cost savings and competitive advantage. They often integrate maintenance into engineering and actively involve maintenance in major capital investment decisions. By integrating maintenance with engineering, long-term maintenance requirements can be considered beforehand while acquiring the assets. This foresightedness enables the maintenance function to gain vast amounts of time and money in dealing with reliability problems (Moubray, 2003). Stage 4 companies regard the maintenance function as an equal partner in the company, capable of providing input to others as well as managing itself. They realize the potential of the maintenance function and its ability in enhancing the competitive advantage of the company. Stage 4 companies carry out continuous improvements, equipment design modifications, and develop new maintenance tools and practices to maintain world-class excellence in maintenance. Hence, best maintenance practices and techniques mostly originate from these companies. They manage maintenance more effectively than stage 3 companies. Hence, they maintain plant safety and environmental requirements at world-class standards. Apart from buying outside, they also develop and produce substantial amounts of their own manufacturing equipment. This enables them to gain sufficient cost advantages in maintenance through reduced spare parts costs. This also enables them to train their maintenance staff and crew quickly. In short, stage four companies try to seek a balance of excellence in maintenance by pursuing an externally supportive role.\nCase examples: Stage 1: internally neutral\nConclusions: This paper mainly represents an attempt to explore the operationalization of Hayes and Wheelwright's four-stage framework with respect to maintenance strategies. The framework has helped to identify the effectiveness of a given maintenance strategy through case examples. From the case examples, it is shown that the fourth stage, \"externally supportive\", can be used a benchmark to evaluate the effectiveness of a given maintenance strategy. Further, the framework can be used as a strategic audit tool. It helps to highlight to practising managers the kind of strategic thinking and mindset they could adopt. The strategy in stage four shows a basic shift in the maintenance role and self-image. Perceiving maintenance just as a secondary function can create inconsistencies between maintenance and overall business strategy, and between maintenance and other functional strategies - especially manufacturing - and finally amongst the decision categories (structural and infrastructure) that make up the maintenance strategy. This traditional thinking also prevents companies from recognizing the full potential of the maintenance function. The framework takes into account the interrelating factors between maintenance and different strategies. The consistency and contribution criteria help to take into account those interrelating factors. Given its current positioning, the framework also suggests the direction to progress in terms of long-term effectiveness. The case examples indicate that maintenance, if managed properly, can also contribute to enhancing the competitive advantage of a company. This study shows that companies that seek a balance of excellence in all of their functions perform better.In terms of future research work, the framework of Hayes and Wheelwright with respect to maintenance strategies can be further tested through empirical studies. Studies of this kind will help us to devise appropriate maintenance strategies in different contexts.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To provide a framework that can identify and evaluate the effectiveness of a given maintenance strategy in a company. This can help in the strategic management of maintenance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The framework is developed using Hayes and Wheelwright's four-stage framework on manufacturing strategy as a guideline. To gain a clearer understanding of the framework and its usefulness the subject topic is elaborated in two phases: definition of maintenance strategy, framework description and operationalization using case examples. The scope of the paper is limited to performance measurement of maintenance strategies.\nFindings: - It is found that the framework is applicable and useful for the strategic management of the maintenance function. The case example depicting the fourth stage shows that maintenance can also contribute to enhancing the competitive advantage of a company.\nPractical implications: - Given the current position of maintenance, the framework used in this paper also suggests the strategic direction to progress for long-term effectiveness. It helps in stimulating practising managers to manage maintenance with a strategic thinking and mindset. It also helps them to visualize the capabilities of maintenance in enhancing the competitive advantage of a company.\nOriginality/value: - Unlike other functions like manufacturing and business, the strategic literature on maintenance is meagre. Many tools and techniques have been developed and applied in other fields. However, the applicability of those tools to maintenance function has never been tried. In that respect this topic is new. It helps in managing maintenance more effectively, given its growing technical and technological complexity.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Motivation for behavior change in patients with chest pain	[ "Heart", "Diseases", "Lifestyles", "Motivation (psychology)" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The risks of coronary artery disease\nMethods: Participants\nResults: Autonomy orientation, response and loss to follow-up\nDiscussion: The current study examined the relevance of self-determination theory for predicting long-term change of health-risk behaviors in patients were undergoing diagnostic testing for CAD. Results confirmed that change in autonomous motivation over the three-year period was significantly positively related to diet improvement and exercise, and was marginally related to smoking cessation, over the same period. Thus, change in autonomous motivation for a healthy lifestyle was a predictor of these difficult-to-change health-risk behaviors. It is worth noting that in this study, the measure of autonomous motivation concerned the general goal of living a healthy lifestyle, whereas in previous studies the measure has focused on specific health behaviors such as smoking cessation. This may provide an explanation for why a previous study of continuous smoking cessation over 30 months (Williams et al., 2002) reported stronger relations between autonomous motivation and smoking cessation than did the current study.Further, diagnostic probability of CAD affected motivation and behavior-change variables. First, in general, patients became less autonomously motivated over the three years following their chest pain incident and diagnostic testing. However, those patients whose test results indicated that their probability of CAD was higher were able to maintain the relatively high level of autonomous motivation for healthier living that they reported at the time of the work up. In other words, receiving results indicating a higher likelihood of CAD led patients to maintain autonomous motivation for lifestyle improvement. Second, with respect to the improvement in diet over the three years, diagnostic probability contributed as a main effect, indicating that those with a higher probability of CAD were more likely to improve their diet. This finding is consistent with previous research showing greater reduction in risk behaviors following a coronary event (Dornelas et al., 2000). Third, diagnostic probability and change in autonomous motivation interacted with respect to diet improvement, indicating that the diet improvement attributable to change in autonomous motivation occurred primarily for patients with a high probability of CAD.A second hypothesis was that patients' autonomous orientation (or personality) and their perceptions of their primary care providers being autonomy-supportive would contribute positively to change in autonomous motivation over time. This was supported, as both variables contributed significant independent variance to change in autonomous motivation. The positive effect of autonomy support is a particularly important finding because it indicates that when primary care physicians are able to take the patient's perspective, hear and convey an understanding of what they are saying, and offer choice of treatment where possible, their patients are likely to be more autonomously motivated to live in a healthier way. In fact, we did this analysis separately for patients with high and low probability of CAD and perceived autonomy supportiveness of the physician positively predicted a change in autonomous motivation for both groups. Furthermore, with respect to diet, perceived autonomy support had a direct effect on reported improvements over the three-year period, and as hypothesized by self-determination theory, this relation was mediated by change in autonomous motivation.The clinical and health services implications of these findings are first, that one of the important roles of diagnostic testing may be for physicians to utilize the contact time around diagnostic testing with patients to motivate lifestyle change, because those patients who received indication of a high likelihood of CAD were more able to maintain motivation and improve health behaviors. Chest pain patients with low probability of CAD, in contrast, lost a significant amount of their motivation for change. Nonetheless, the results also showed that those with a low probability of CAD were more able to maintain their motivation for change if their physicians were autonomy supportive. It is well known that lifestyle improvement is extremely difficult to promote and that the health care implications are monumental (Orleans, 2004). More than a third of all American deaths each year are attributable to poor diet, lack of exercise, and smoking (McGinnis and Foege, 1993; Mokdad et al., 2004; Woolf, 1999). The current study is consistent with the view that it is important for physicians to be both autonomy supportive and to provide clear diagnostic information as suggested by the National Cholesterol Education Program (Expert Panel on Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Cholesterol in Adults, 2001; Grundy et al., 2004), although further research is necessary to gain a more exacting indication of the health services consequences (i.e. the cost effectiveness) of pairing health behavior counseling with diagnostic tests to motivate health-related behavior.Clinical interventions that are likely to increase autonomous motivation are ones that fully inform patients of their health risks and the potential health benefits from lifestyle change and medical treatments. In order for people to initiate change and then sustain it means that they have to be able to integrate their motivation for health with their values related to other life domains (e.g. work and family). Thus, research might examine whether patients perceive greater autonomy support (i.e. become more fully informed) when they are provided with an accurate assessment of their current cardiovascular risk, and the expected benefits of lifestyle change and medications compared to what typically happens in primary care. Another clinical intervention might focus on determining the specific components of the intervention that is most effective in increasing patient autonomous motivation and behavior change, and in maintaining it over time.Analysis of participants who failed to complete the study versus those who did complete it is interesting in terms of research on the change of smoking, diet, and exercise behaviors. Studies of health behavior change routinely lose a large percentage of participants, and the present study suggests that dropouts tend to be less autonomously motivated and to engage in more risk behaviors. This has two important implications. First, the phenomenon restricts the range of the autonomy variables, making it more difficult to obtain statistically significant relations to health outcomes. Second, less motivated individuals may not only drop out more but may also be less likely to enter programs and studies, in which case the success rates reported by many programs may represent overestimates of what the success rates would be if the less autonomously motivated individuals participated in the programs and studies.Limitations of this study include that its observational nature and the self-report measures of health behaviors preclude making conclusions about autonomous motivation causing health-related improvements in diet, exercise, and smoking. Also, the relatively high rate at which smokers dropped out of the study and the small number of participants, render the smoking analyses only suggestive.Together, the findings from this study with the results of previous studies relating autonomous motivation to other important health outcomes support the self-determination model for behavior change. This model suggests that autonomy supportive providers tend to facilitate patients' greater autonomous motivation for a healthy lifestyle, which in turn leads to positive health behavior change. Further research is called for to develop interventions that facilitate people's autonomous motivation for healthier living when they are being presented diagnostic information as well as when they are simply being counseled about their lifestyle.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To assess the effect of diagnostic testing for coronary artery disease (CAD) on motivation for change, and on lifestyle change for patients with chest pain.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This observational study followed patients with chest pain suggestive of CAD for three years. Constructs of autonomous and controlled motivation for lifestyle change, autonomous orientation, and autonomy support from self-determination theory were assessed. Self-reported tobacco use, physical activity, and diet were assessed at baseline and three years later. Physician rating of pre- and post-test probability of CAD were also assessed. CAD diagnosis was established after three years.\nFindings: - Physicians' autonomy-supportive style and patients' autonomous orientations both predicted greater patient autonomous motivation, which in turn predicted improved diet, more exercise, and marginally less smoking. High probability of CAD also led patients to become more autonomously motivated for lifestyle change.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The observational nature of the study and the self-report measures of health behaviors preclude causal conclusions from this study. Findings from this study suggest that patient motivation and risk behavior are affected by results of cardiac testing, by physicians' support of autonomy, and by patients' personalities.\nPractical implications: - Physicians may be effective in motivating behavior change around time of testing for CAD.\nOriginality/value: - The self-determination theory model for health behavior change accounted for change in patient health risk behavior change around the time of testing for CAD. Physicians and researchers might use these results to design and test interventions for practitioners to effectively motivate behavior change around the time of medical tests.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Strategy execution in public sectors: empirical evidence from Belgium	[ "Case study", "Participatory action research", "Strategy execution", "Public sector organizations", "Public sectors", "Total strategy execution capacity" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nStrategy execution in social organizations: The appropriate strategy execution is of great value in virtually all social and corporate organizations. While formulating a strategy is critical, it is not as vital as execution in realizing the overall strategic objectives. Studies have demonstrated that the capability to implement a strategy is more important than the quality of the strategic plan itself. For business practitioners, it does not matter how well thought through a strategy is if it is not carried out in such a way as to realize the potential benefits. Accordingly, an increasing number of studies attempt to determine the nature of the relationship between strategy formulation and execution. However, the execution of well-formulated strategies continues to be problematic.\nDissimilarities between the public sector in developed and developing countries: The issue is the degree to which the public sector differs in various countries. A few contrasts between countries have been featured in LinkedIn (2013) discourses. Although not viewed as a legitimate academic source, LinkedIn discussions nonetheless provide global points of view in addition to the contextual studies in the public sector, where the research was conducted. The perspectives from LinkedIn (2013) include the following.\nStrategy execution components: Leadership\nMethodology: This research was conducted between June 2018 and July 2018 in Ghent City, Belgium, involving nine public sector organizations. The main intention of this study was to examine the extent to which the public sector organizations execute their strategic plans. This research was conducted because Ghent city launched a strategic plan in 2006, dubbed \"Ghent 2020\". To date, little has been achieved in terms of what was anticipated in the strategic plan. The primary research objective is to develop, test and improve a conceptual framework or management model that is appropriate for narrowing the strategy execution gap in public sector organizations. The issue of delivering efficient and effective social/welfare services is a continuous process so that organizations must embark on several institutional reforms to bring about efficient and effective service delivery.\nImplications for managers at public sector organizations: The implications of the model were daunting to most managers to implement. Leadership is a critical factor, as it is ultimately responsible for effective strategy, i.e. for motivation, direction and changing organizational behavior. Excessively broad and poorly defined targets, connected to insufficiently described or clashing values and priorities, can slow down implementation. When there are many stakeholder views and lots of information to be considered, the public sector managers often find it difficult to make sense of decision-making.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Many public sector organizations have shown a consistent lack of capability to execute their strategic plans compared with private sector organizations. This failure explains why most public sector organizations are grappling with the dynamics of the twenty-first century in service delivery. Further, the strategy execution gap is vast in the public sector organizations than in the private sector organizations. The purpose of this paper is built based on the curiosity to develop a conceptual model that can close the strategy execution gap in public sector organizations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research adopted a qualitative research design, particularly, a case study research design approach as an ideal tool to conduct a holistic and in-depth survey of the trends in strategy execution in the public sector.\nFindings: From the findings of the study, it has been found that five out of the nine strategy execution components that were investigated showed higher scores. These strategy execution components perceived to be vital by this study and were integrated into the MERIL-DE model, which will significantly contribute to closing the strategy execution gap in the public sector.\nOriginality/value: This research was built based on the curiosity to develop a conceptual model, the MERIL-DE model that can close the strategy execution gap in public sector organizations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Cost accounting for rational FCIM investment analysis	[ "Flexible manufacturing systems", "Investments", "Cost allocation", "Depreciation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Faced with the need to raise productivity to survive, especially against low-cost competitors in nations such as China, companies are pushing toward and attempting to justify increased investment in highly computer-automated production processes (Aeppel, 2002). Flexible computer-integrated manufacturing (FCIM) systems are collections of numerically controlled machines, each designed for a broad range of functions, connected by a material handling system and controlled by a central computer system. The benefits of FCIM - increased production capacity, improved quality, reduced inventory, reduction in labor, improved cycle time and safety, and increased flexibility - are, at best, difficult to quantify (Kaplan, 1986).FCIM investment is critical to the long-term welfare of the organization. However, FCIM investment is discouraged by performance measures such as return on investment (ROI) that focus managerial attention on short-term results (Johnson and Kaplan, 1987; Kaplan, 1984). Indeed, the predominance of the ROI measure is such that Porter (1992) identified it as a significant factor in United States industry's low rate of capital investment in comparison to Japan or Germany.In theory, FCIM investment decisions are driven by a sterile assessment of discounted after-tax cash flows. In practice, these decisions are heavily influenced by the accounting measures used to articulate the future profitability of the investment (Parker and Lettes, 1991; Edwards et al., 1987). A key cost component affecting the accounting measures of profitability of FCIM is depreciation. If a FCIM system is depreciated on a basis that is incongruent with the realities of the manufacturing environment, then projected book income will be distorted over the life of the investment. In the most common incarnation of this problem, time-based depreciation methods generate projected income figures that are unrealistically low in the early years of production. Managerial decisions may be influenced by these distorted projections of income, particularly if they are under high pressure to meet short-term profit goals and attainment of those goals directly affects their pay, promotion, recognition, future assignments, and even the continued employment relationship with the company[1]. Thus, the dilemma is as follows: long-term corporate survival requires companies to generate economic profits. Managerial investment decisions are influenced by projections of traditional accounting-based performance measures, though most researchers consider these measures to be weak and perhaps misleading indicators of economic profitability (Edwards et al., 1987; Green et al., 2002; Fisher and McGowan, 1983; Harcourt, 1965) supported by methods of depreciation that often lack theoretical justification (Grinyer, 1987).Thus, what managers need is an accounting measure of asset cost/consumption that reflects the underlying economic cost/consumption of the technology assets in a fair and logical fashion to support an informed investment decision. Previous researchers have employed principles associated with the measurement of earned economic income (Grinyer, 1985) to create measures of \"economic depreciation\" (Edwards et al., 1987; Grinyer, 1987). Economic depreciation adjusts annual depreciation to generate a constant IRR over the life of the investment. This technique, while conceptually strong and useful for generating reasonable and consistent accounting rates or return, suffers in that it has no relationship to any measure of the actual utilization of the asset that makes the products. Consequently, it will create projected costs estimates that cannot be reasonably linked to budgeted product costs. Further, economic depreciation measures may be untenable for books of record which, however maintained, eschew the notion of depreciation as an income account (which may occur in this model). In a world of shrinking margins and increasing global competition, managers would benefit from a depreciation methodology that reflects FCIM resource consumption patterns, providing greater insight into and understanding of product profitability. The importance and magnitude of this issue is growing dramatically as technology investment become a larger percentage of total product cost and a key component of competitive strategy (Brimson, 1986, 1989).The purpose of this paper is to examine how accounting cost measures affect FCIM investment. Specifically, the paper reviews accounting practice with regard to the calculation and attribution of technology costs (i.e. depreciation) to products, evaluates the impact of expected depreciation charges on FCIM system investment, and proposes an alternative depreciation method that is congruent with FCIM resource consumption patterns and better enables rational managerial analysis of the FCIM system investment decision.\nDepreciation and investment in FCIM systems: The measure of FCIM system resource consumption and the method of allocating the consumption among products are choices organizations make within accounting, legal, and regulatory boundaries. There are numerous ways by which depreciation can be measured - financial accounting rules only require that the method by which resource consumption is measured be rational and systematic (i.e. consistently applied across time periods). Historically, most organizations (both in the US and across Europe) have employed the same depreciation methodology for internal decision making as they do for financial reporting in order to maintain simplicity in accounting for capital assets and to avoid reconciliations between multiple sets of records (Johnson and Kaplan, 1987; Brierly et al., 2001). While advancements in information technology and relational databases are undermining the rationale for unitary measure of depreciation for a given asset, there is scant evidence that organizations have changed their practices associated with the measurement of depreciation.Until recent times, the measurement or allocation of depreciation charges to products typically was an immaterial issue. Today, it is common for technology costs to be a significant component of total product cost, having a multi-period influence on organizational performance. Brimson (1989) notes that traditional time-based depreciation methods used to charge depreciation to products distort the impact of technology on cost of the products. Thus, he encourages companies to use a depreciation method that does a better job of capturing the relationship between the technology asset and the manufacturing process, such as depreciation based on machine hours. However, it is the contention of the authors that no single-factor depreciation method adequately addresses Brimson's concerns. The problems with the use of a single-factor method of depreciation, whether based on time or a measure of input or output volume, are discussed below.Time-based models of depreciation\nThe proposed model: Figure 1 presents a multiple-factor depreciation model that reflects the impact of the diversity of FCIM system operations, the complexity of the products, time, production volume, and the intensity of machine usage. The model is prescriptive in nature and not all facets need to be employed in every production context. Rather, manufacturing investment decision makers should calculate and evaluate the anticipated cost of FCIM resource consumption according to the nature of expected machine utilization. The causal factors of technology resource consumption are identified and described in Figure 1.Diversity of machine operations\nCaveat: Recommendations that entail additional complexity to internal record-keeping systems are rarely welcome in the marketplace, and the willingness of companies to bear the additional costs of a multi-factor depreciation model - computer programming, data collection, and data analysis - is questionable. However, utilization of the proposed model can be justified on the basis of several important facts. First, technology costs are extremely high in many industries. At organizations such as computing hardware manufacturers, technology cost allocations decisions make or break product profitability and encourage or discourage technology investment. Second, product margins in globally competitive manufacturing are thin and likely to get thinner. With the advent of business-to-business internet auctions, the need for companies to understand their technology cost drivers has never been higher. Third, the cost of computerized data collection continues to drop. Many of the commentators that identified the need for better technology cost allocation in this article lived in the pre-computerized manufacturing world. The ability to gauge technology consumption was non-existent. That problem is slowly dissipating with increasingly sophisticated manufacturing tools. Fourth, the implementation a multi-factor model is easier to accomplish in advanced manufacturing environments inasmuch as the human element of resistance to change is minimized in highly automated contexts.\nConclusion: The purpose of this paper was to review accounting allocations of technology costs, assess their impact on FCIM system investment, and propose an alternative depreciation model that is congruent with the FCIM resource consumption patterns and, consequently, better enables rational analysis of FCIM system investment options. Some years ago, Grinyer observed that the choice of a defensible method of depreciation appears to be \"one of the most intractable problems of accrual accounting\" (Grinyer, 1987). This paper analyzed the myriad weaknesses of single-factor depreciation models and proposed a new model designed to connect the expected costs associated with technology resource consumption to products that are to be produced in a more precise manner, resulting in a more accurate prediction of income and product line profitability attributable to FCIM system investment. Managers whose projects are evaluated on the basis of more reasonable cost figures will be less hesitant to recommend and commit resources to FCIM equipment acquisition. Further, a better understanding of how to match technology costs to production will also enable an organization to make better decisions regarding product pricing, product mix, budgets, and capacity utilization.Ultimately, the logic embodied in this paper should be employed to further the development of more refined models of technology cost attribution. Simulations of machine use and maintenance by engineers, analogous to that presented in this paper, could provide a useful estimate of FCIM system exhaustion. For purposes of depreciation estimation, accountants and managers may one day defer judgment to these engineering simulations, much as they do now with geologists estimating the oil and gas \"reserves\" still in the ground. Provided the depreciation methodology is consistently applied on a uniform basis, such an accounting mechanism would pass muster for financial statement purposes and create no more additional work than is commonly found reconciling financial statement income to tax income.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Aims to review accounting practice with regard to the calculation and attribution of technology costs (i.e. depreciation) to products, to evaluate the impact of expected depreciation charges on FCIM system investment, and to propose an alternative depreciation method that is congruent with FCIM resource consumption patterns and better enables rational managerial analysis of the FCIM system investment decision.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Reviews and extends existing models to propose a new model of cost accounting for rational FCIM investment analysis.\nFindings: - The proposed model better enables rational analysis of FCIM system investment options, resulting in a more accurate prediction of income and product line profitability attributable to FCIM system investment.\nOriginality/value: - The logic embodied in this paper should be employed to further the development of more refined models of technology cost attribution. Simulations of machine use and maintenance by engineers, analogous to that presented in this paper, could provide a useful estimate of FCIM system exhaustion.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Consumers' evaluations of fitting rooms in retail clothing stores	[ "Privacy", "Customers", "Clothing stores", "Fitting room", "Shopping environment" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Studies in service marketing have explored the critical influence of store atmospheric attributes on customer evaluations and behavioural responses and categorised the elements of the physical store environment for places, such as department stores, supermarkets and restaurants (Baker, 1986, 2002; Yildirim et al., 2007a; Ghosh et al., 2010). First, Kotler (1973) treated physical environmental factors in research studies on an environment that enhances shoppers' buying possibility. Actually the term consists of the design elements and all the stimuli, such as music and crowding. After Kotler, research studies focused on experimental studies conducted on the atmospheric variables that affect customer satisfaction and shopping behaviour. Baker (1986) provided a framework for examining the effects of specific stimuli on emotional states in the store atmospherics. Accordingly, atmospheric attributes for interior spaces consist of three components: ambient factors (temperature, noise, scent, music and lighting); design factors (architecture, colour, materials, pattern, texture and layout of the store); and social factors (customers and employees). Besides, Turley and Milliman (2000) added the human variable to this category and classified each category as follows: exterior of a store including attributes, such as building size and shape, marquee, exterior windows, parking availability and surrounding area. The general interior of a store constitutes atmospheric variables, such as lighting, music, interior colours, ambient scents, temperature and general cleanliness of a store. Layout and design of a store are comprised of variables, such as merchandise groupings, traffic flow and aisle placements, department locations, racks and fixtures and placements of cash registers. These research studies have demonstrated that changes in the interior design of a store directly and significantly affect consumer perceptions and shopping decisions related to store patronage (Ghosh et al., 2010).\n2. Methodology: This research focuses on determining customer evaluations for characteristics of fitting rooms/dressing rooms, such as size, levels of illumination, number of hangers, materials and opening types of doors in retail clothing stores. The relationships between design characteristics of fitting rooms and age, gender and educational level of consumers were analysed with the statistical methods given below.\n3. Results: The study focuses on customers' problems with fitting rooms and their preferences for designs of fitting rooms. Furthermore, the study analyses customers' evaluations on the interior organisation of fitting rooms, the door materials and the way fitting room doors are locked.\n4. Conclusions and discussion: The main focus in retail stores is on selling products. In this context, elements that constitute the interior atmosphere of stores are vital for conducting this purchasing activity. As designing store environment is a design problem, these researchers act as a communication tool for effective solutions (Strickfaden and Devlieger, 2011). Especially, fitting rooms are places where decisions for this purchasing activity occur. Consequently, fitting rooms are important places for retail activity that have to be designed according to preferences of customers. This study focuses on consumer evaluations of fitting rooms among persons of different gender, age and educational level. These evaluations were made on the design of fitting rooms and privacy dimensions. Design of fitting rooms was evaluated for the dimension of interior design elements, such as material used in the room, hangers, mirrors, sitting units, shelves, sizes of rooms, level of illumination of rooms, etc. The privacy dimensions were evaluated for the dimension of doors of the rooms, door materials of rooms, shapes of doors and closing mechanisms.\n5. Managerial implications and future research: In the light of the major conclusions from these findings, it was determined that there are differences in thoughts and behaviours of customers with different genders, ages and educational levels on the evaluation of the interior design elements of clothing stores. According to these findings, the design of fitting rooms can be considered as an important part of the interior design of retail stores. All of these variables should be considered during the design process. One essential point is to design these interior spaces according to the customers' profile, their demographic background, gender, age and educational level. Results of the study clearly demonstrated that evaluations of customers on fitting rooms change according to their gender, age and educational background. Consequently, if the differences in customers' life stages are taken into account in store designs, then it can positively affect their shopping decisions, such as store entry and product purchase. For instance, the positive perceptions of lower educated customers were more influenced by the design of fitting rooms than were the higher educated customers. This suggests that retailers and marketers may be able to easily attract lower educated customers by perceiving the store atmospheric attributes. Similarly, the same can be said as well for male and younger customers.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to ascertain the effect of age, gender and educational level on customer evaluations of the design characteristics of fitting rooms/dressing rooms, such as size, levels of illumination, number of hangers, materials and opening types of doors in retail clothing stores. In the light of these results, the study aims to increase the satisfaction of the customers in retail stores.\nDesign/methodology/approach: These evaluations were analysed according to the demographic characteristics of consumers, such as age, gender and educational level. Since activities in fitting rooms require a certain level of privacy, the features that affected privacy were also considered in this study. The analysis was carried out with research designed for users of fitting rooms in Ankara, Turkey.\nFindings: Results indicated that demographic characteristics of the customers affected their evaluation of fitting rooms. The statistically significant results between evaluations of customers and their demographic backgrounds were determined. In these analyses, problems emerged due to usage of fitting rooms. Most of the problems complained about were an insufficient number of hangers, lack of mirrors, lack of sitting units, small-sized rooms and poorly illuminated rooms. Moreover, the results showed that customers preferred a totally closed panel door for privacy.\nOriginality/value: This paper reveals a significant relationship between design characteristics of fitting rooms and customer evaluations of fitting rooms. The results of the study suggest that retailers and designers may be able to easily make stores more attractive for customers when installing fitting rooms.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Legislation, standards and diagnostics as a backbone of food safety assurance in Serbia	[ "Food safety", "Standards", "Laboratories", "Harmonization", "Legislation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Background: Global food industry of today faces several challenges such as the development of new products and technologies, changes in consumers' demands and consumption patterns, development of tourism, environmental pollution and liberalization of food market (Varzakas et al., 2006). However, food safety remains an issue of major concern. This is a direct result of increased consumer awareness of developments in science and epidemiology and series of food safety scares worldwide. The global nature of food chain requires national efforts in international context, namely in harmonization of compulsory and voluntary food safety frameworks. The modern structured food safety regulatory systems are increasingly comprehensive but not always more stringent, which is a consequence of the risk assessments nature of modern food law. Worldwide, different vertical and horizontal approaches exist when defining the food safety frameworks, but what seems to be general principles are desired simplification, shift of responsibility towards the food business operators (FBO), built-in flexibility and freedom for FBOs to meet defined requirements (Turner, 1999). Key drivers for structured food safety assurance are reform of legislation, increasing consumers' interest for food safety and globalization of food supply (Henson and Humphrey, 2009). The development of new legal requirements aims at protection of the consumer's health, increase of the economic viability, harmonization of the well-being and engendering fair trade. The law defines the role and the responsibility of stakeholders related to food such as industry, government (inspection services), scientific committees and consumers.\n2. Material and methods: This research is based on a quality analysis of Serbian and European food safety legislation. Using descriptive approach by comparing respective requirements, the analysis of the legislation governing Serbian and European food safety has been conducted. The research was performed in the period of September 2012 up till November 2013 and covered legislation as outlined by Ministry of agriculture, forestry and water (in further text Ministry of Agriculture).\n3. Serbian food industry: The agricultural production and food processing industry have been a large and indispensable part of Serbian economy. Some production indicators show that the annual production of meat and meat products is around 72,000 t, production of cheese is around 20,000 t, flour 527,000 t, fruit and vegetable beverages 215,745 t, beer 5,289,000 hl and over 39,000 t of confectionery products. In 2010, the sale of food products within Serbia participates with 19.2 percent of the total turnover (Serbia, 2011d). According to the Serbian Chamber of Commerce, in the gross domestic product (GDP), agriculture and food processing participate with 10.6 and 6.4 percent, respectively. Agro-processing accounts for about 80 percent of total agricultural exports. The key trade partners are the EU and neighboring countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia). The Serbian processing and preserving industry has already undergone significant privatization and is overall more commercially orientated and competitive than the primary sector. Nevertheless, the large fragmentation, under-capitalization and slow progress towards EU certification have hampered overall competitiveness and export. Moreover, over the last 25 years, agrifood sector has been facing both positive and negative changes depending on the sector. For example, Serbian livestock husbandry declined in the volume of production of around 1.5 percent each year, resulting in marginalization of livestock product exports. Compared to 1990, in 2005 total meat production was 30 percent lower. The meat processing industry itself has started to invest in increasing capacity, technology and standards, but only a few private processing companies have achieved EU standards and comply with legal requirements. At the moment, only six Serbian meat processing plants have the approval to export meat products to the EU.\n4. Food safety legislation: A strong driver for change in the Serbian food safety legislation comes from its political decision to apply for EU membership. Intention of this legal harmonization is to allow subjects in the food chain to perform their activities according to European regulatory structure. Although many changes have been made, there are specific areas associated with the food chain that require further efforts and improvements. According to the EU Commission these include movements of goods, agriculture and rural development and food safety, veterinary and phytosanitary policy (EU, 2011). Additionally, Serbia needs to continue to build institutional capacity that will enable adopted legislation to be correctly implemented and to achieve the purposes of their adoption. The progress in harmonization was achieved in 2009 and 2010, when the greatest number of laws and secondary legislations (Ordinances) regulating agriculture and food were adopted.\n5. Food safety control: 5.1. Food safety inspection\n6. Food safety standards: In concurrence with the development of various food safety standards, the Serbian food legislation introduced a requirement within its regulations requiring implementation of a HACCP based food safety systems. FBOs who mainly exported food to the EU, were the first to start implementing HACCP system, but they were confronted with a dilemma who should verify its effective implementation. In most countries, the national or local inspection services are responsible for verification of HACCP system. Due to lack of competence of the inspections services in Serbia, certification bodies started providing third party HACCP audits and certification (Barnes and Mitchell, 2000; Djekic et al., 2011; Gagnon et al., 2000). All HACCP audits offered by domestic and foreign certification bodies in Serbia fall under unaccredited scheme. Recognized global certification bodies were performing this type of audit in line with guidelines for auditing HACCP based food safety systems issued by the Dutch Accreditation Council.\n7. Conclusion: Along with harmonization and updating with the EU regulations, it is important take into account issues typical for the country. It is of particular importance to improve inspection procedures, knowledge and expertise of state inspectors, governmental officials, food safety consultants and auditors, through continuous training. The risk assessment (and the complete risk analysis) and precautionary principle should serve as a basis for food safety legislation, and own circumstances in which the overall food law needs to exist, The transparency and risk communication between all stakeholders must be improved.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the current situation of multidimensional food safety assurance in Serbia, as an official candidate for European Union (EU) membership, in relation to its EU food law harmonization efforts.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Serbian assurance scheme was covered in this paper included food safety legislation, control and standards.\nFindings: The food safety system in Serbia needs improvements in the area of effectiveness and efficiency of food safety control and inspection services, knowledge and expertise of state inspectors, governmental officials, food safety consultants and auditors. Additionally, problems related to the overlapping responsibilities of various legal authorities and inspection services have to be solved, with an improved transparency and communication between legal authorities, customers, consumers and food business operators.\nOriginality/value: An overview of current situation in food safety assurance in Serbia is shown.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Maintenance strategies for used equipment under lease	[ "Leasing", "Contracts", "Preventive maintenance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Businesses need equipment to produce goods (products and/or services). When equipment is in a non-operational state due to failure, it affects revenue generation. Corrective maintenance (CM) actions restore the equipment from non-operational to operational and preventive maintenance (PM) actions control equipment degradation, and thus reduce the likelihood of the occurrence of failure. This implies that maintenance costs money. There is a vast literature dealing with optimal maintenance policies. Many models have been developed since the early 1950s (Pierskalla and Voelker, 1976; Sherif and Smith, 1976; Thomas, 1986; Valdez-Flores and Feldman, 1989; Cho and Parlar, 1991; Dekker, 1996; Murthy and Hwang, 1996; Vatn et al., 1996; Aven and Dekker, 1997; Scarf, 1997; Vatn, 1997; Dekker and Scarf, 1998; Park and Jung, 2000; Blischke and Murthy, 2000; Park and Jung, 2002; Wang, 2002).Since the 1970, there has been a trend towards outsourcing. This has been driven by two factors:1. equipment has become more complex and requires specialists to maintain it; and2. most businesses viewing maintenance as not being a core competency.As a result, an external agent carries out maintenance under a service contract (Asgharizadeh, 1997; Martin, 1997; Murthy and Asgharizadeh, 1998, 1999; Asgharizadeh and Murthy, 2000).Due to rapid changes in technology and equipments getting more expensive, there is a growing trend towards leasing rather than owning equipment. This implies that businesses need less investment capital and have the freedom to upgrade the equipment more easily, and thus avoid facing obsolescence. In this case, the equipment is owned by the lessor and leased to the lessee under a lease contract. The maintenance of the equipment is carried out by the lessor. The contract usually incorporates penalties for equipment failures and recovery not being done in a reasonable time. This means that the lessor needs to devise maintenance policies that take these into account.An earlier paper (Jaturonnatee et al., 2003) deals with a model that looks at the optimal preventive maintenance strategy for the lessor, taking into account the penalties associated with equipment failures in the contract. The model assumes the lease of new items. In this paper we extend the results to the lease of used equipment. Here, we have an additional option - namely, to upgrade the equipment prior to it being leased. This implies an additional decision variable that the lessor needs to select optimally to minimise the total expected cost of maintaining the equipment over the lease period.\nModel formulation: The equipment is of age A and is leased for a period L. The lease contract requires the lessor to rectify all failures occurring during the lease period at no additional cost to the lessee. The lease contract also includes penalties if the number of failures over the lease period exceeds e (>=0) and if a repair is not carried out within the specified time limit t (>0). e and t-[?] correspond to no penalty.The lessor can use an upgrade action prior to leasing the equipment and/or carry out preventive maintenance during the lease period to reduce the costs associated with corrective maintenance and penalties due to equipment failures. However, these preventive actions involve additional costs and are worthwhile only if the benefits exceed the additional costs. In other words, upgrade and optimal preventive actions need to be selected so as to minimise the total expected maintenance cost over the lease period.Equipment failures\nModel analysis: First, we define (Murthy, 1991): Equation 14 Then, from equation (4) we have: Equation 15 where L0(t)=tb. Since failures over the lease period occur according to a NHPP with intensity function given by equation (4) we have: Equation 16 and Equation 17 From equation (7), we have: Equation 18 From equation (8), we have: Equation 19 From equation (9), we have: Equation 20 When e=0 (the lessor incurs penalty even with one failure over the lease period), then: Equation 21 Using equations (13)-(19) with e=0 in equation (11) results in: Equation 22 Optimisation\nNumerical example: We first consider the case with no penalty (Cn=0 and t=0) so as to study the relative impacts of PM and upgrade actions on the total expected maintenance cost. We discuss the optimal upgrade and preventive maintenance actions, and the effect of model parameters on these optimal strategies of the lessor. Later, we look at the case where the two types of penalties are included and study their effects on the optimal maintenance strategies.The nominal values for the model parameters are as follows:* L=5 (years);* A=5 (years);* Cf=100 ($);* a=100 ($);* b=50;* w=10;* ph=0.01;* b=2;* Cn=200 ($);* Ct=300 ($); and* t=2 (days).No penalty\nConclusions: For the lease of used equipment, the lessor has an extra option of upgrade before lease in addition to PM actions. The upgrade action makes the equipment younger and PM actions lower the ROCOF. In this paper, we have studied the optimal upgrade and PM actions taking into account two kinds of penalties:1. repair time limit penalty; and2. penalty for failures over the lease period.The policy for PM actions studied in this paper is one of several policies that can be used. Some of these have been defined in Jaturonnatee et al. (2003), and are currently being studied by authors in the context of used equipment.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The aim of this research is to determine the optimal upgrade and preventive maintenance actions that minimize the total expected cost (maintenance costs+penalty costs).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The problem is a four-parameter optimization with two parameters being k-dimensional. The optimal solution is obtained by using a four-stage approach where at each stage a one-parameter optimization is solved.\nFindings: - Upgrading action is an extra option before the lease of used equipment, in addition to preventive maintenance action. Upgrading action makes equipment younger and preventive maintenance action lowers the ROCOF.\nPractical implications: - There is a growing trend towards leasing equipment rather than owning it. The lease contract contains penalties if the equipment fails often and repairs are done within reasonable time period. This implies that the lessor needs to look at optimal preventive maintenance strategies in the case of new equipment lease, and upgrade actions plus preventive maintenance in the case of used equipment lease. The paper deals with this topic and is of great significant to business involved with leasing equipment.\nOriginality/value: - Nowadays many organizations are interested in leasing equipment and outsourcing maintenance. The model in this paper addresses the preventive maintenance problem for leased equipment. It provides an approach to dealing with this problem.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Work engagement and turnover intentions: Correlates and customer orientation as a moderator	[ "Internal marketing", "Hotel management", "Human resource management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Frontline employees (FLEs) serve as a critical link between an organization's internal operations and external customers and play a crucial role in the implementation of organizational strategies. As seamless implementation of organizational strategies requires FLEs who are engaged and want to remain in their organization, it is imperative to understand those factors that impact employees' work engagement (WE) and turnover intentions (TI) (Karatepe, 2013a, 2013b).\nTheoretical background and hypotheses: Antecedents\nMethod: Sample and procedure\nResults: Psychometric properties of the measures\nDiscussion and conclusions: Conclusions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to gauge the effects of challenge and hindrance stressors as well as three high-performance work practices (HPWPs) such as training, empowerment and rewards on work engagement (WE) and turnover intentions (TI). This study also tests customer orientation (COR) as a moderator of these relationships.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data gathered from frontline hotel employees in Northern Cyprus in two time periods with a time lag of two weeks were used to test the relationships.\nFindings: The results suggest that both challenge and hindrance stressors heighten TI and empowerment fosters WE. Rewards alleviate TI. More importantly, COR acts as a moderator of the effects of challenge and hindrance stressors as well as training, empowerment and rewards on WE and TI.\nPractical implications: Management needs to hire employees high on COR and develop training programs that boost employees' customer-oriented behaviors. Employees should also be allowed to craft the level of job demands and resources as long as the work is congruent with management expectations.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to the extant hospitality knowledge by testing COR as a moderator of the effects of challenge and hindrance stressors and HPWPs on WE and TI.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Achieving digital health sustainability: Breaking Free and CGL	[ "Sustainability", "Implementation", "Substance misuse", "Healthcare", "Digital interventions" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Although the digital health sector has grown in the past decade, there are still challenges facing digital health innovators (NHS, 2011; Kierkegaard, 2015; Abbott et al., 2014; Van Limburg et al., 2011). The most fundamental are how to create a self-sustaining digital health innovation through generating adequate resources for research and development (Van Limburg et al., 2011) and, providing a novel technology solution that service users and staff are motivated and able to use (Elison, Ward, Davies, and Moody, 2014; Chaudoir et al., 2013; Mair et al., 2012). Unfortunately, there is a paucity of published guidance for these aspects of the development process, meaning that the matter of making digital health innovations translate into standard clinical practice (NHS, 2011; Glasgow et al., 2014) would currently appear to be the \"black box\" of the sector. Indeed, implementation and sustainability of healthcare innovations more generally, not only in the digital health sector, are challenges that prevent promising treatments being translated into standard practice (Damschroder et al., 2009; NHS, 2011; Pluye et al., 2004). Therefore, it may now be timely to grow the published evidence base around the barriers and facilitators of implementation of digital health innovations and optimal usage of them, in order to move beyond these early phases of diffusion and translate these innovations into sustainable aspects of standard clinical practice (Wiltsey-Stirman et al., 2012). This is especially pertinent given the existing literature identifies that healthcare staff, and those receiving healthcare support from them, may have some reservations about such digital health innovations (Becker and Jensen-Doss, 2013), and that there may be organisational barriers such as lack of appropriate IT infrastructure and funding for digital innovation (Ramsey et al., 2016).\nAims of this paper: This paper describes the evolution of the partnership between Breaking Free Group and CGL as a case study, and focusses on the development of Breaking Free Group's solutions to the challenges of implementation and sustainability through its partnership with CGL. This paper synthesises findings from a series of original, collaborative qualitative studies conducted by Breaking Free Group and CGL, to report on barriers and facilitators of implementation and sustainability of BFO at CGL to the wider digital health community, and highlight the importance of partnership working in this endeavour. Though, it is outside the scope of this paper to examine clinical and cost-effectiveness of BFO, or CAT more generally, it is hoped that the principles outlined in this paper can help other digital health enterprises to make their innovations available to users through effective implementation approaches, in order to potentially meet their healthcare needs. It is through successful implementation and usage of such digital interventions that outcomes data can be generated to allow examination of clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness, and sustainable growth can be achieved as such clinical and cost benefits are demonstrated.\nIntroduction to Breaking Free Group and \"BFO\": Breaking Free Group was created in 2010 as an independent enterprise following two years of work to develop the BFO CAT programme for substance misuse. The BFO programme was developed to widen access to evidence-based treatment for those attempting to overcome their substance misuse and targets 39 different substances, including novel psychoactive substances, substitute medications and prescribed medications of abuse. In the UK treatment system there can often be a lack of structured, evidence-based psychosocial treatment approaches such as cognitive-behavioural therapy (Beck, 1993; Beck et al., 2011), which, despite their potential to help people achieve recovery from substance misuse (McHugh et al., 2010; Pilling et al., 2010; National Treatment Agency, 2007), can be expensive to deliver when facilitated by highly trained practitioners, particularly on a one-to-one basis (Brown et al., 2011; Barrett et al., 2005).\nThe importance of examining implementation of CATs: The BFO programme is currently implemented by some of the largest treatment providers in the UK, such as CGL (Elison, Ward, Davies, and Moody, 2014; Dugdale, Elison, Davies, Ward and Dalton, 2016; Dugdale, Elison, Ward, Davies and Dalton, 2016), in addition to Increasing Access to Psychological Therapy mental health services (Elison, Ward, Davies, Lidbetter, Dagley, and Hulme, 2014) and also in criminal justice settings (Elison et al., 2015, 2016). However, reaching this level of implementation has taken several years of work to understand how to effectively implement, diffuse, and normalise BFO as a standard treatment offering within services. Central to this has been working alongside partner organisations that commission BFO and work with Breaking Free Group to find their preferred way to implement the programme based upon their specific requirements.\nImplementation of BFO at CGL: In order to optimise benefits from introduction of BFO into the existing treatment system, Breaking Free Group has undertaken consultation with all stakeholders, including stakeholders at CGL, to gain insights into how BFO could most effectively meet their needs. For example, in the early phases of development, treatment elements from the International Treatment Effectiveness Project (ITEP: National Treatment Agency, 2007), such as node-link mapping, and terminology such as \"mind traps\" to convey thinking errors, were incorporated into BFO because ITEP had recently been adopted by the sector. Additionally, in 2013 an interactive outcomes dashboard was launched to enable services to monitor impact of BFO in real time, with the design of this dashboard being informed by views from commissioners and service managers. In 2014, in response to suggestions from multiple stakeholders, a smartphone app was released to enhance the relapse prevention capabilities of BFO, and in 2016, the programme was rebuilt to make it a fully mobile-enabled cloud-based web application. As time has gone on, the collaborative partnership between BFO and CGL has become central to generating transferable learnings to inform such programme developments.\nExploring initial diffusion of BFO using diffusion of innovations theory: One theory which attempts to describe this process is \"Diffusion of Innovations\" theory (Rogers, 1995, 2002, 2004), which conceptualises the ways in which members of a system determine whether an innovation is diffused into it. The theory also describes a number of characteristics of innovations demonstrated to influence rate of diffusion (Rogers, 1995), including the advantages of adopting the innovation, how compatible it is with the current system, how complex it is, how easy it is to trial it, and how observable advantages to adoption might be. Diffusion of Innovation Theory was used to conceptualise initial adoption of BFO throughout CGL, via a qualitative study with 18 stakeholders (Elison, Ward, Davies, and Moody, 2014). The study revealed a number of barriers to diffusion, including lack of IT resources and insufficient time for staff to familiarise themselves with the programme, which would indicate initial lack of compatibility between the innovation and the system, according to Rogers' characteristics.\nExploring normalisation of BFO using Normalisation Process Theory: To examine how these measures may have encouraged normalisation of BFO throughout CGL, a qualitative study was conducted with 25 members of staff (Dugdale, Elison, Davies, Ward and Dalton, 2016), with \"Normalisation Process Theory\" (May et al., 2007, Murray et al., 2010) used to conceptualise findings. Normalisation Process Theory describes later stages of implementation, including how an intervention becomes normalised as a standard part of clinical practice (Mair et al., 2012). Interviews revealed staff recognised the benefits of BFO and the role peer mentors could play in supporting service users to use the programme. However, some staff reported they still preferred traditional, face-to-face interventions, as they felt more familiar with these kinds of offline interventions. Therefore, the findings from this study indicated that although there had been some normalisation, there was still some work to be done in order for the programme to become a fully normalised, standard treatment.\nUsing the transtheoretical model (TTM) to explore peer mentor delivery BFO: At CGL, peer mentors are trained to deliver BFO and support service users to use the programme, by helping them set up an account, work through the content of the programme and discuss this content in relation to the service users own experience, and encourage service users to practice the strategies in the programme. The transtheoretical model (TTM) (Diclemente et al., 2004, 2008; Prochaska and Diclemente, 1982; Prochaska et al., 1992) was used to understand peer mentors' recovery journeys, from their time as service users, through to becoming peer mentors. The TTM describes six stages of behavioural change that characterise the processes that occur during substance misuse recovery. Interviews revealed that peer mentors' perceived that their delivery of BFO facilitated their own recovery maintenance, and acted as a means to continue accessing psychosocial techniques to maintain their own recovery, as well as helping them to support service users to gain optimal benefit from the clinical content of the programme.\nImplementation of CATs and the \"virtuous cycle\" of digital health: The qualitative research described has revealed barriers and facilitators of implementation and normalisation of BFO throughout CGL, leading to strategies being developed through the partnership to enhance implementation, and thus, generate vital clinical outcomes data. It is only through implementation of a novel intervention that clinical outcomes data can be generated, and ultimately, clinical effectiveness can be demonstrated. For example, initial outcomes data provided by CGL indicates that when service users accessed BFO alongside standard treatment, in comparison to standard treatment alone, BFO may be 50 per cent more likely to facilitate successful treatment completion, and 60 per cent less likely to result in service users re-presenting to services due to relapse (CRI, 2015). These data would indicate that implementation of BFO throughout CGL may provide a novel intervention that could contribute to achieving promising clinical outcomes.\nConclusions: This early piloting work has led to the co-production of effective means of implementation of BFO throughout CGL, informed via the collaborative qualitative studies describing barriers and facilitators of this (Elison, Ward, Davies, and Moody, 2014; Dugdale, Elison, Davies, Ward and Dalton, 2016; Dugdale, Elison, Ward, Davies and Dalton, 2016). Effective implementation approaches have generated vital clinical outcomes data to allow effectiveness to be demonstrated, contributing to the nation-wide availability of BFO throughout CGL and further research and development. These developments include not only refinements to the clinical content, but also developments of the technology platform. Close partnership working, with all stakeholders in adopting organisations, including services users, staff and commissioners, is vital in order to understand all perspectives. It is through this understanding that collaboration with all stakeholders can result in co-produced implementation and sustainability approaches that can lead to further clinical and technological development, and ultimately long-term sustainability of a digital health innovation.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Multiple challenges remain in achieving sustainability of digital health innovations, with many failing to realise their potential due to barriers to research, development and implementation. Finding an approach that overcomes these challenges is important if society is to derive benefit from these new approaches to healthcare. Having been commissioned by local authorities, NHS Trusts, prisons, charities, and third sector providers across the UK, Breaking Free Group, who in 2010 launched Breaking Free Online (BFO), a computer-assisted therapy programme for substance misuse, have overcome many of these challenges. This has been possible through close collaborative working with partner organisations, to overcome barriers to implementation and sustainability. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper synthesises findings from a series of qualitative studies conducted by Breaking Free Group in collaboration with health and social care charity, Change, Grow, Live (CGL), which explore barriers and facilitators of implementation and sustainability of BFO at CGL. Data are analysed using thematic analyses with findings conceptualised using behavioural science theory.\nFindings: This partnership has resulted in UK wide implementation of BFO at CGL, enhanced focus on digital technologies in substance misuse recovery, and a growing body of published collaborative research.\nOriginality/value: Valuable lessons have been learnt through the partnership between Breaking Free Group and CGL, which will be of interest to the wider digital health community. This paper outlines those lessons, in the hope that they will provide guidance to other digital health developers and their partners, to contribute to the continued evolution of a sustainable digital health sector.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Qualities of effective cruise marketing strategy: Cruisers' experience, service convenience, values, satisfaction and revisit intention	[ "Cruisers’ experience", "Service convenience", "Perceived value", "Cruisers’ satisfaction", "Revisit intention", "Cruise marketing strategy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Cruise tourism is characterised by a relatively limited amount of academic research like other areas of tourism and hospitality (Brejla and Gilbert, 2014; Larsen et al., 2013; Han et al., 2016; Alvarez-Garcia et al., 2017) despite the rapid growing sector in the global tourism market (Alvarez-Garcia et al., 2017). Cruise tourism contributes $2tn towards global economic development (Korbee et al., 2015); even though the number of studies is limited, cruise tourism is considered to have a main economic effect on the prosperity of nations and destination specifically (Singh, 1999). While this industry continues to be a main global growth sector, the qualities of an effective cruise-marketing strategy are unknown (Xie et al., 2012; Kwortnik, 2006). The most preferred types of setting for holidays are cruise ships, which continuously obtain top market. Cruise tourism pertains to a delight journey on a cruise ship, and the cruise ship's services and mildness, along with the different ports of call are significant aspects of the experience (Han et al., 2016; Kwortnik Jr, 2006). Cruise travelling is no longer an option for rich, high-income families and retirees but the cruise industry has also tried to penetrate to several market segments, budgets as well as geographical areas. Therefore, cruise tourism marketing strategy is the most globalised, progressing and vital segment of the global economy which is trying to develop its source markets.\n2. Theoretical background and hypothesis development: The notion of intention to revisit is adapted from behavioural intention theories and it has grabbed critical observation in the tourism scope. Revisit intention is the tourist willingness to visit the particular destination or cruise again in the future. According to Filo et al. (2011), tourist willingness to revisit a destination demonstrates a significant attitudinal attribute. Tourism researchers and scholars increasingly discussed and debated the concept of intention to revisit and its antecedents, for instance, establishing the positive word of mouth as well as obtaining better cost-effective by repeat visitors. Similarly, Lin (2013) noted that understanding tourists' revisit intentions is important because repeat visitation is more cost-effective than the first visitation and tends to produce positive word of mouth recommendations.\n3. Methods and results: To conduct the statistical analysis and test theoretical model, the cross-sectional data collection with quantitative method was employed. Data were collected via personal interaction with cruise passengers (paper and pencil questionnaire) from various countries across a variety of cruise lines (e.g. Princess Cruises, Costa Cruises and Star Cruises) and cruise centres in Malaysia. The Port Klang is well known for its cruise terminal which is one of most visited capitals in the world. The global cruise lines such as Royal Caribbean, Princess Cruises, Carnival Cruise Lines, Cunard Lines, Costa Cruises, and Star Cruises and other regularly use Malaysian port terminals. Because the sample required experience or knowledge of cruise passengers concerning the qualities of cruise satisfaction and revisit intention, a judgmental sampling which is non-probability sampling technique was used to approach respondents in this study. The target of the population is from cruise passengers who had just debarked for cruises embarkation from September and October 2015. From the total estimated number of cruise vessels, the selection was made for the ships embarked and debarked. A-priori sample size calculator for Structural Equation Models (Soper, 2015) was used to calculate the sample size sufficiency. In addition, Roscoe (1975) claimed that for specifying sample size, sample sizes larger than 30 and less than 500 are suitable. Thus, a total of 500 questionnaires were distributed among cruise passengers. Respondents were successfully approached by trained researchers requesting them to participate in this study, and the response rate was 57 per cent (287 respondents out of 500). Table I shows the demographic profile of respondents.\n4. Discussion: This current research is among the few prospective studies assessing the impact of cruisers' experience, service convenience and perceived value on cruisers' satisfaction and revisit intention. With the prospect of cruise hospitality, tourism expects to enhance Malaysia's competitiveness as a cruise destination, and there has been a very small amount of research attention paid in the marketing of cruise sector (Brejla and Gilbert, 2014; Larsen et al., 2013; Xie et al., 2012). In addition, this study proposed several factors comprising perceived value, service convenience and cruisers' experience as the drivers of cruisers' satisfaction and cruisers' revisit intention. Revisit intention has grabbed critical observation in the tourism context. A tourist willingness to revisit a destination illustrates significant attitudinal characteristics which are highly shaped by cruise marketing tactics and strategy. The findings indicate that tourists' revisit intention is important because repeat visitation is more cost-effective than the first visitation and tends to produce positive word-of-mouth recommendations. Theoretically, as satisfaction concept has been originated from Oliver (1980), in order to satisfy and delight the tourists, it is clearly required to expand the business, to obtain a large market share as well as to gain repeat business, therefore; these can lead to strengthening profitability. Satisfied travellers have more willingness to revisit the destination and also recommend it to their friends, relatives, and colleagues as compared to others. Moreover, the likelihood of returning to the same destination to visit or travelling to other destinations is impacted by individual's visitation to one particular destination.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the qualities of delighted cruise travelling experience and proposed cruisers' experience, service convenience and perceived overall value as the drivers of cruisers' satisfaction and revisit intention. Thus, the attributes of an effective cruise-marketing strategy in formulating consumer's recreational experiences are examined.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A total of 287 questionnaires were collected and structural equation modelling technique was used to analyse data obtained from cruise travellers.\nFindings: The empirical results indicated that service convenience and cruisers' experience significantly influence perceived overall cruisers' satisfaction and revisit intention, whereas perceived overall cruise value influences perceived overall cruisers' satisfaction but not cruisers' revisit intention. Furthermore, empirical assessments support that service convenience is a higher-order model (reflective-reflective) consisting of decision convenience, access convenience, transaction convenience, benefit convenience and post-benefit convenience.\nOriginality/value: This research is among ongoing attempts that have been carried out regarding the qualities of cruise satisfaction and revisits intention and uncovers recreational experiences to propose an effective cruise-marketing strategy.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Evaluation of a school-linked program for children with cancer	[ "Schools", "Cancer" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Children with chronic conditions experience lengthy periods of absence from school (Vickers et al., 2004). As a result they may fall behind in their studies and lose touch with their friends (Thies, 1999; Shiu, 2001; Mukherjee et al., 2002). Such children report feeling that they are often struggling to keep up with their schoolwork, culminating in feelings of stress or depression and resulting in high levels of school refusal (Thies and McAllister, 2001). The literature suggests that programs which seek to keep students in touch with their studies and their peers, whilst they are absent from school result in more successful transitions back to school (Vickers et al., 2004; Bessell, 2001).Several studies suggest that children with chronic conditions are more at risk of poor social adjustment and lower peer acceptance (Dockett, 2004; Bessell, 2001; McMaugh and Debus, 1999). McMaugh and Debus (1999) found students with chronic conditions indicated that their satisfaction with their return to school after lengthy absences is closely related to the quality of their relationship with their peers. The students expressed strong concerns about the reaction of their peers to their condition and physical appearance, which may have altered as a result of their condition or treatment. Peer rejection is also associated with absenteeism (Bessell, 2001). Dockett (2004) argues that programs which promote and support peer contact during lengthy absences, and which provide or support peer education about the student's treatment and condition, enhance the continued relationships between a student with a chronic condition and their peers, promote social development and reduce absenteeism once the student returns to school.Lightfoot et al. (1999) and McMaugh and Debus (1999) suggest that students with chronic conditions also valued having an understanding and supportive teacher who assisted them to keep up-to-date with their schoolwork and in touch with their classmates during their absence from school. Programs which encourage teachers to maintain contact with their students during extended absences due to chronic conditions, and which provide teachers with professional development and quality, detailed, up-to-date information about the child's health condition, its treatment and educational and social impacts, support teachers in building a student's capacity to keep up to date with schoolwork, resulting in a smooth transition back to school (Larcombe et al., 1990; Shiu, 2004a).Programs that have assisted teaching staff to feel adequately prepared to support a student's return to school also empower schools to develop appropriate modifications to the student's learning program that are responsive to their needs (Thies and McAllister, 2001; Palfrey et al., 1992). However, Shiu (2004b) found that schools are often given minimal information about the health status of their students with chronic illnesses. In part, this is due to health professionals feeling that privacy legislation prevents them from sharing information about the health status of a child with education providers. As a consequence, schools may rely on parents or guardians to share information about the health status of a child (Shiu, 2004b; Kleibenstein and Broome, 2000). However, this information may not always be accurate, as some parents may not fully understand the condition or its treatment. Also, some parents and children may not wish to fully disclose information to avoid teasing or bullying by peers. Parents often want their child to be treated as \"normal\" and not to be differentiated from other students, particularly once they return to school (Ashton and Bailey, 2004).Morgan (2004), Newman (2002), and Dalheim (2000) found the use of emerging communication technologies may assist students with chronic conditions to keep in touch with their schools and peers while absent from school, and may also assist the flow of information between education and health professionals working to support the students and their families during periods of absence from school. However, the broader literature on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) also suggests that such initiatives need to proceed with due consideration of potential problems sometimes associated with ICT innovations in education. These include:* cost and accessibility of ICTs;* stability, reliability, connectivity and security of platforms and software;* timeframes needed to develop appropriate responses at the local level;* training and support needs of the various user groups, including students, their families and school staff; and* increased workloads associated with the use of ICT innovations, which often require considerable cultural shifts in implementation environments (Dalheim, 2000; Berge, 1998).Programs which utilise ICTs to enable students with chronic health conditions to maintain contact with their schoolwork and peers, and which respond to these considerations, are more likely to succeed (Dalheim, 2000; Berge, 1998).\nThe Back on Track Program: In the Victorian context, hospital schools have generally operated on the premise that patients would spend lengthy periods-of-time in hospital during their treatment and recovery cycles. However, improvements in medical knowledge and technologies have resulted in a reduced need for lengthy periods of hospitalisation for children and young people with chronic conditions, such as cancer. Consequently young people spend much of their treatment and recovery period at home rather than in the hospital. This shift has necessitated the development of new models for providing educational support for young people experiencing long absences from school as a result of chronic health conditions. The Back on Track Program was developed as an alternative model to hospital schools, seeking to support students in maintaining contact with their schools and peers in order to facilitate a seamless return to school when they are well. This paper now describes the program and its evaluation.The Back on Track Program was funded by the Bone Marrow Donor Institute (BMDI) and delivered in Victoria, Australia by the Royal Children's Hospital Education Institute. The Program was designed to support students diagnosed with cancer. It aimed to:* provide educational and social support to children and young people who experience prolonged absences from school whilst receiving treatment for and in recovery from cancer;* foster collaboration between the families of children and young people with cancer, their schools and the hospital and health networks supporting them;* empower schools to meet the educational and social support needs of children with cancer whilst they are absent from school and following their return to school; and* use ICTs to increase the capacity of children and young people receiving treatment for cancer to maintain contact with their schools and educational programs, and to foster contact with their peers.Students are accepted into the Back on Track Program if they meet specific selection criteria. These include:* being diagnosed with cancer and requiring lengthy stays in hospital followed by a recuperation period at home lasting a total of three months or more;* being well enough to participate in the Program; and* medical reports indicating that participation in the Program would enhance their emotional well-being.Once the child is recruited, Program staff1 work in consultation with hospital staff to develop a Personal Needs Plan (PNP) for each student. Program staff discuss the educational and social implications of the child or young person's condition and treatment with clinicians and record this information on the PNP. To complete the initial PNP, Program staff meet with students and their families to identify each student's personal goals, health, educational and social background, and any other support services that may be needed.Program staff then liaise with the child's school and teachers. A critical component of the Back on Track Program is that teachers agree to contribute to the development of the student's PNP. Their contribution involves providing learning activities to meet the student's identified needs and arranging for the child's peers to maintain contact with them via hospital/home visits, phone, email, post, or other means whilst they are absent from school. Therefore Program staff need to make sure that teachers fully understand the nature of the commitment needed as it usually means additional preparation for them.Once the PNP is established, Program staff provide students with one-to-one tuition of about one hour per week whilst they are receiving treatment in hospital, recovering at home and when in transition back to school. They also maintain regular weekly contact with the nominated school teachers to discuss each student's progress and make any adaptations to learning plans as the need arises.Thus, Back on Track Program staff play an important role in assisting students and their families to maintain a degree of \"normal life\" and control in their lives as they move through the medical system. In this sense, they are a navigational and communication channel, not only for students and families but also for schools and other educational support services, including the Visiting Teacher Service, volunteers and local service providers who assist students in meeting their educational and social goals.A wide range of communication strategies are used in the Back on Track Program to promote contact between students, their homes, schools and the hospital. These are:* an internet-based virtual classroom;* student portal web sites;* video conferencing;* email, instant messaging and chat room programs;* telephone;* fax;* post;* hand delivery of learning materials and homework by friends, neighbours and other family members; and* home and school visits by Program staff.When the student is well enough to return to school, Program staff also coordinate another meeting with the student's teachers and family to plan an appropriate transition strategy. After the student has returned to school full-time and the school appears to have suitable educational, physical and socio-emotional support strategies in place, the student is formally withdrawn from the Program.\nEvaluation methodology: As the Back on Track Program was a new intervention, the Program Manager and the Executive Director of the Royal Children's Hospital Education Institute, and the evaluation team negotiated a focus for this evaluation on clarifying the processes and frameworks for the Program. Within this context, an important aspect of the evaluation was to ascertain to what extent the delivery model was working and what elements needed to be modified in order to achieve the desired program aims.A clarificative evaluation was regarded as the best use of limited evaluation resources to provide information that would be of real use to Program staff at this early stage of the Program's development (Owen, 2006). This form of evaluation involves gathering data about the elements of a program's design and delivery that enables the logic of the particular program to be made explicit. It is a formative type of evaluation with a clear purpose of providing evidence which can be used by program managers and staff to make decisions about further development. Also, as Owen (2006) argues, \"the product of the enquiry contains fully developed and explicit program specification\" (p. 215). This provides a sound conceptual basis for any monitoring or impact evaluation that might be done when the program is settled. For the Back on Track Program, this was an important consideration because the funding body (the Bone Marrow Donor Institute) was keen to expand the program to a national level.In order to explicate the program logic of the Back on Track Program, the evaluation comprised three stages. These were:1. Documenting the program design.2. Gathering stakeholder feedback about their experiences of the program.3. Reviewing the program logic of the Back on Track Program design and delivery strategies.Throughout all stages, the evaluation also incorporated an action research approach. This involved the evaluation team meeting with the three program staff every three or four weeks over approximately six months to discuss emerging findings, check the evaluation team's interpretations and refine the embryonic and developing program logic. This approach builds on Patton's (1996) argument that evaluators can help program staff to shape interventions through \"discussion of the presumed linkages between program activities and expected outcomes [and articulating them] into a formal theory of action\" (p. 162).Each of these three stages is now briefly described.Documenting the program design\nResults and discussion: The stakeholder feedback data identified four broad dimensions of the Back on Track Program that were critical to it achieving its ideals and that required further consideration. These are:1. Developing and maintaining commitment.2. Utilising ICTs to support learning and communication.3. Providing teaching support with an empowerment focus.4. Supporting school transition and program withdrawal.Developing and maintaining commitment\nConclusion: The evaluation has been about an innovative educational program for children with cancer. It shows how the Back on Track Program staff engaged with stakeholders to negotiate implementation strategies that take into account the diverse and sometimes complex settings in which students, families and schools have varied capacities to participate.The diverse data sources for this clarificative evaluation of the Back on Track Program provide the basis for concluding that the initiative produced outcomes, which were highly valued by the range of stakeholders interacting with the Program. These evaluation results are consistent with national and international trends (Barrett, 2000; Thies and McAllister, 2001; Dockett, 2004; Shiu, 2004b).The Back on Track Program is a new strategy requiring schoolteachers to adapt or review their teaching practices in order to meet the educational support needs of students with chronic health conditions. The change process takes time and acceptance is not always instantaneous. Nevertheless, stakeholders appreciated the constancy, flexibility and openness to negotiation of the Back on Track Program staff and saw this as necessary to the development of their own commitment to the Program's goals. Some improvements can be made to the design and delivery of the program and these have been incorporated into a revised Back on Track Program logic. The main additions were:* a preparedness to remain open and flexible regarding the range of communication media used by families and schools to maintain a student's involvement with their studies and peers;* development of a partnership with a mainstream virtual classroom provider to overcome security and connectivity concerns experienced by families and schools when utilising public domain internet based educational programs;* development of learning templates for teachers to complete when describing classroom activities for use by absent students;* development of a communication strategy with hospital staff to increase their understanding of, and involvement, with the Back on Track program; and* development of formal links with Department of Education and Early Childhood personnel to foster increased understanding, by school personnel, of the support needs of students with chronic health conditions.Such adjustments have been found to be necessary to increase plausibility of the program achieving its ideals and to provide a sound conceptual basis for future monitoring and impact evaluation as the Back on Track Program matures.Other issues which need to be considered by funding authorities and those who implement the next iterations of \"Back on Track\" and similar programs are:* the ways computers can be easily placed in homes that do not have access to the necessary information technology and the supporting infrastructures;* ensuring the costs and benefits of the implementation of \"Back on Track\" are made explicit to funding authorities and both the health and education sectors; and* assessing both the health and education benefits for the students involved in the \"Back on Tack\" program.Information on these issues should also provide a richer data source to assist policy makers and funding authorities to support children with cancer to maintain contact with their school education studies and peers, whilst undergoing hospital based treatment.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to show that the \"Back on Track\" program is designed to support students with a chronic illness (usually cancer) to maintain contact with their school and peers whilst undergoing treatment, to promote socio-emotional wellbeing and to facilitate the ease of return to school when they are well. An evaluation of the program occurred in its first year.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A clarificative evaluation approach was used. This involved collecting data about the elements of the program design and implementation to understand and make explicit the logic of the program. It comprised three stages: documenting the program design; gathering stakeholder feedback about the experiences in the program; and reviewing the program logic of the design and implementation approaches.\nFindings: - The program (\"Back on Track\") actively engaged teachers, parents, students and Program staff in negotiating strategies to keep the students (patients) connected with their school and peers whilst undergoing hospital-based treatment for their chronic condition, in this case cancer, and when recovering at home before a full return to school. Difficulties emerged with the use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) as one of the key program components in keeping the students connected. There were also differences in views between the Program staff, schoolteachers and some of the students and their parents about the ongoing role of the Program once students had returned to school.\nOriginality/value: - The paper indicates what is needed to enhance the implementation and success of programs such as \"Back on Track\" for this group of young people who have significant chronic illnesses, which necessitate prolonged absences from school and separation from peers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The influence of relational competencies on supply chain resilience: a relational view	[ "Relational competencies", "Supply chain management", "Risk management", "Supply chain resilience", "Supply chain agility", "Supply chain robustness" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Coping with change - either proactively or reactively - is the essence of management, as Chakravarthy (1982) outlines in his seminal article. With respect to the field of supply chain management (SCM), this has been brought into full view, for example, through the 2010 Eyjafjallajokull volcano eruption in Iceland, the 2011 Tohoku earthquake in Japan and the 2011 Thailand floods. This is paralleled with the observation by Christopher and Holweg (2011) that managers consistently perceive their business environment as inherently unstable and find supply chains to experience the \"age of turbulence\". To cope with such turbulences and the changes inherent in today\nTheoretical foundations: Resilience\nHypotheses: Antecedents of agility\nResearch methodology and analysis: Data collection and measurement\nDiscussion: Our research takes a relational view and has two major implications for the relationships between resilience and the supply chain\nLimitations and future research: In this research, the aim was to minimize possible limitations, although some of them may still remain. First, the data was based on same-respondent replies; hence, it is subjective in nature. However, on average, the respondents - mainly high-level managers - have been working for more than 14 years in their respective companies, which indicates that they are key informants and their assessments can be relied upon. Second, the unit of analysis is an industrial company and its external interfaces upstream and downstream in the supply chain. Therefore, statements can be made for vertical relationships but not for internal or horizontal ones. Finally, drawbacks of the cross-sectional nature of the research may still exist, but their minimization was initially assured by carefully hypothesizing the directions of causal effects. The results reveal an ambiguous observation for the impact of cooperation on resilience, as H1b is supported while H2b is rejected. This calls for further examinations of influences that specific aspects of cooperative relationships (e.g. commitment, trust, benevolence or kindness) can have on resilience.\nConclusion: The contribution of this research is twofold. On the one hand, it widens our conceptual understanding of resilience; on the other hand, it improves our knowledge about the relational competencies recommended for supply chains in a risky environment. Based on the relational view, these findings provide valuable theoretical supplement to the existing literature on SCRM, resilience and relationships. A literature review was conducted in order to conceptualize resilience. Consistent with Wieland and Wallenburg (2012), resilience can be both proactive and reactive in nature. Most importantly, managers will learn from the results that, in order to positively influence resilience, relationships between supply chain members are beneficial. However, the effect of integration on resilience turned out to be other than expected. In particular, relationships that rely on the close integration of processes and systems between supply chain members do not reduce vulnerabilities to a larger extent than could be achieved by loose types of relationships. This can, in part, be explained by referring to the role of resource dependencies. Therefore, it is all the more important for managers to acquire communicative and cooperative competencies to be applied in relationships, or to implement integration in a way that does not create dependencies. As the system \"supply chain\" is an intermediate form between the focal company and its environment, the findings of this research underline the importance of a coordinated approach amongst supply chain members to achieve resilience; however, it also shows the limits of such an approach.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this research is to explore the resilience domain, which is important in the field of supply chain management; it investigates the effects relational competencies have for resilience and the effect resilience, in turn, has on a supply chain\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research is empirical in nature and employs a confirmatory approach that builds on the relational view as a primary theoretical foundation. It utilizes survey data collected from manufacturing firms from three countries, which is analyzed using structural equation modeling.\nFindings: It is found that communicative and cooperative relationships have a positive effect on resilience, while integration does not have a significant effect. It is also found that improved resilience, obtained by investing in agility and robustness, enhances a supply chain\nPractical implications: Some findings contrast the expectations derived from theory. Particularly, practitioners can learn that integration has a limited role in enhancing resilience.\nOriginality/value: The study distinguishes between a proactive and reactive dimension of resilience: robustness and agility. The relational view serves as the theoretical basis to explain the effects between three types of relational competencies (communication, cooperation, and integration) and the above-mentioned two dimensions of resilience.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Interview with Linda Holbeche and Mee-Yan Cheung Judge, authors of Organizational Development	[ "Organizational development", "Diagnostics", "Leadership", "Organizational capability", "Strategy", "Corporate strategy" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Organizational Development is concerned with using planned and systematic approaches to help develop more effective organizations. This is done by taking an objective look at how an organization is operating, gathering information and then deciding on the most appropriate action to help that organization change and develop.\nWhy do you think OD is such an integral part of workplace culture?: Linda\nWhat are the core characteristics that define the field of OD?: Humanistic values.A systemic approach which is also strategic.Participative methodologies.Working with both the formal and informal aspects of organization.Both top-down and bottom-up.Geared to organizational improvement and health.\nIn what ways can OD help organizations to more effectively adapt to change?: Linda\nWhat is the role of managers in facilitating OD within their organization?: Linda\nHow can businesses go about changing the culture of their organization to incorporate OD?: Linda\nHow do you feel about the recent debate regarding the fading value of OD?: Linda\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to provide an interview with Mee-Yan Cheung-Judge and Linda Holbeche, co-authors of Organizational Development.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The authors provide practical advice on using diagnostics techniques to identify an organization's needs and explain how to use them across a range of areas.\nFindings: - Mee-Yan Cheung-Judge is the founder of Quality & Equality Ltd and the author of many organizational development articles. She speaks, writes and delivers most of the organizational development (OD) training programmes in the UK and was voted one of the 25 most influential thinkers in human resources (HR) by HR Magazine in 2008. Linda Holbeche was previously Research and Policy Director at the CIPD and is currently an independent consultant and researcher in the fields of leadership, human resources, change management and sustainable high performance. Both authors use their expertise to advise companies who are looking to implement OD strategies within their business.\nPractical implications: - In this ruthless downsizing cost cutting environment, OD is an indispensable field for leaders and internal change agents because OD can provide tools and processes to help leaders to navigate through complex disturbance changes with sustainable outcomes.\nSocial implications: - Workplace culture is all-enveloping, so much so that it can become invisible to people working in the organization. It affects how people feel and work. OD can be a means of stimulating new practice and knowledge-sharing across the sub-cultures so that organizations are more than the sum of their parts.\nOriginality/value: - Written by two of the leading experts in the field, Organizational Development defines OD and describes how it can be used effectively in today's economy to create organizations which maximize organizational capability.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The human factor in SCM: Introducing a meta-theory of behavioral supply chain management	[ "Supply chain management", "Systematic literature review", "Psychology", "Behavioural research", "Humans in supply chains" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Many studies within supply chain management (SCM) research have taken a positivist perspective, promoting theoretical optimal solutions and best practices (Sweeney, 2013), while substantial empirical evidence exists that people in supply chains behave differently than theory predicts. Numerous examples underline the assertion that research on SCM has often overlooked the effect of human behavior (Tokar, 2010). In practice, theoretical optimal contracts or universal negotiation strategies rarely exist. In this context, Kalkanci et al. (2014) showed that simpler contracts - despite being theoretically suboptimal - are commonly preferred in practice, and Wallenburg et al. (2011) and Ribbink and Grimm (2014) found that cultural differences have a significant impact on trust and its effect in supply chain business interactions.\nMethodology: As BSCM involves a fragmented landscape of research streams and spans the boundaries of different disciplines, articles related to this topic have appeared in a relatively dispersed set of journals. Therefore, to fulfill the research objectives, the systematic literature review methodology was applied, which has been recommended to be used for rigorously mapping out the current state of research (Durach et al., 2014), as contributions are searched, analyzed, and synthesized based on a pre-determined explicit procedure (Pilbeam et al., 2012). This procedure ensures a transparent and objective research approach that covers studies across the entire research domain. Based on guidelines from the general management (Briner et al., 2009; Denyer and Tranfield, 2009; Tranfield et al., 2003) and SCM literature (Durach et al., 2014), the following methodological steps were taken.\nResults: Current state of research\nConclusion: It is certain that BSCM has gained impetus. Still, compared to the extensive theoretical and methodological breadth of the broader SCM discipline, BSCM - recently with no more than 36 publications per year - represents a small niche, although human behavior is indeed a factor in nearly every supply chain setting. Behavioral assumptions and arguments are simply not explicitly stated in traditional SCM research. This is why it needs further effort to support BSCM in becoming more important. This study offers a comprehensive overview of past BSCM research but also provides pathways that support this desired development. The descriptive analysis of the research field, the comprehensive meta-theory and the formulated research opportunities are helpful in identifying research gaps and providing answers to the pending research questions in this important field. Also, it is hoped that the forward-thinking approach that was applied when developing the meta-theory will help the BSCM field in opening up new perspectives by engaging in new and critical dialogues in order to grow and prosper[1].\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to advance supply chain management by describing the current state of behavioral supply chain management (BSCM) research and paving the way for future contributions by developing a meta-theory for this important field.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The results are generated by applying the systematic literature review methodology and an iterative theory-building approach involving a panel of academics.\nFindings: This review provides a comprehensive overview of the BSCM research landscape. Additionally, a meta-theory of BSCM is presented that encompasses all central elements of the research field and introduces the concept of emergence to the field of BSCM. Furthermore, five promising future research opportunities are formulated.\nResearch limitations/implications: The critical discussions and the formulated research opportunities will help scholars in positioning their research to enhance its contribution.\nPractical implications: Results from this research indicate that supply chain decisions benefit from explicit consideration for cognitive and social phenomena.\nOriginality/value: This review is the first to provide a comprehensive overview of the field of BSCM research and facilitates BSCM in advancing further.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A review of theoretical models of health information seeking on the web	[ "Health information seeking", "Theoretical models", "Internet", "Review", "Health", "Information searches" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The internet has become an increasingly important source of health information for the general public. There are supply and demand forces driving this move. On the one hand, the internet, particularly the web, has become a ubiquitous part of our information lives, so that most people have access to and are comfortable with using it to look for health information. On the other hand, health and government organizations are using the web to make available health information to the general public, while healthcare practitioners and consumer health librarians are encouraging the participation of informed patients in clinical encounters. Given its growing importance, there is a need to deepen our understanding of internet health information seeking as a mode of information behavior with its own unique characteristics. This paper is an initial attempt to take the pulse as it were of the theory-driven empirical research that has been done on this topic. There are four sections following this introduction: a review of the literature; an overview of the studies selected for detailed analysis; a detailed examination of each study; and a discussion of the common themes that emerge and suggestions for future research.\nLiterature review: To gain a broad understanding of the research that has been done on health information seeking, we draw on three recent reviews of the literature by Anker et al. (2011), Renahy and Chauvin (2006), and McMullan (2006).Anker et al. (2011) conducted a review of the general health information seeking literature. Their search of the PsycInfo database identified 648 articles of health information seeking. Full text articles were selected and screened to produce a final set of 129 papers that were published between 1978 and 2010, with PsycInfo returning no records before 1978. Other journal literature databases were not searched, a methodological limitation.The review found that in terms of the focus and measures used, most studies employed general health information seeking measures (n=53; 41 percent) that asked respondents to self-report if they had engaged in a search for information in the past. Measures of health information seeking content (n=30; 23 percent) were the next most frequently used, and these looked at the topics of the search (e.g. health/fitness, symptoms, treatment). Again these studies predominantly applied self-report scales (e.g. Likert-type responses, checklists of topics), although several studies used an open-ended question and/or content coding scheme. Next most common were measures of preference for health information (n=23; 18 percent) that examined participants' general tendency towards engaging in health information seeking behavior. The next two measures focused on sources: health information sources/channels utilized (n=21; 16 percent) and frequency of source/channel use (n=22; 17 percent), which examined, respectively, specific information channels referenced by seekers and how often each information source was consulted. Roughly as common were measures of satisfaction with health information seeking (n=21; 16 percent) that evaluated the source or information obtained as useful, satisfying, or helpful. Measures of outcomes of health information seeking (n=17; 13 percent) were concerned with the actions that information seekers took as a result of their search. Another source measure assessed information/source credibility (n=11; 9 percent) in terms of attributes such as quality, comprehensiveness, or trust. The least frequently used measures included barriers to seeking health information/self-efficacy (n=10; 8 percent), intentions to seek health information (n=8; 6 percent), and reasons for seeking health information (n=5; 4 percent) (Anker et al., 2011).In terms of methods, studies mainly relied on cross-sectional designs (n=94; 7 percent), employing a survey or structured interview to document health information seeking experiences. Thirteen studies (10 percent) utilized a retrospective review or cohort design. Twelve studies (9 percent) relied on naturalistic interventions/observations that took place in a natural setting and often involved time-intensive methods. Far fewer studies used experiments (n=5; 4 percent), longitudinal designs (n=4; 3 percent), or solely qualitative designs to examine health information-seeking behavior (Anker et al., 2011).McMullan (2006) and Renahy and Chauvin (2006) focused their literature reviews on internet health information seeking. McMullan (2006) identified three main health application areas of the internet:1. as communication channel (e.g. e-mail);2. as community (e.g. bulletin boards, mailing lists); and3. as content (e.g. websites that provide health information).She concluded that patients do not see the internet as a replacement for the health professional. For example, a study of 1,322 British internet users (Nicholas et al., 2003) found that people went online after seeing the health professional for confirmation of the information given and to gather additional information. In that study, 97 percent accessed the internet for information about a specific condition, 57 percent were searching regarding a visit to the doctor, and 52 percent had looked for information about nutrition, exercise or weight control. These findings are consistent with those of a study of American internet users, where the majority of those surveyed (91 percent) searched for medical information about a specific condition rather than for information about healthy lifestyles or healthcare services (Fox and Rainie, 2000).In their review, Renahy and Chauvin (2006) found that the majority of studies examining the prevalence of internet health information seeking by the general population were carried out in the USA. Similar statistics in other countries were fewer and older. For example, in 2000 or 2001, 10 percent of Swiss, 50 percent of Germans, and roughly 26 percent of Australians had conducted this form of internet search (Renahy and Chauvin, 2006). In terms of the content of health information searches, the most common topics concerned specific diseases (23-63 percent of the health information seekers, depending on the study); nutrition and diet; physical condition and sports; and mental health information. Moreover, several studies noted that the end beneficiary of the online information was not the searcher but a relative or friend (see, for example, Fox and Fallows, 2003).Renahy and Chauvin (2006) also reported that users perceived the internet as a fast way of getting health information, where they could compare information on different websites, and look for information on sensitive topics with apparent \"confidentiality\". Although a significant proportion of users felt that the Internet was a reliable source (72-87 percent depending on the study), Fox and Fallows (2003) reported that about one-third of their respondents were concerned about information quality. The issue of the quality of the information disseminated on the web is one of health professionals' main concerns.Renahy and Chauvin (2006) noted that numerous studies examined what users' demographic traits were associated with health information seeking on the internet. Nearly all quantitative studies reported more women were searching for health information on the internet than men. The other two most studied demographic variables were education level and income, where higher levels of each were associated with health information seeking.Large-scale, primarily survey-based studies continue apace. In the UK, a significant body of work examining health information seeking has been produced by David Nicholas, Paul Huntington, and associates at the Centre for information Behaviour and the Evaluation of Research (CIBER) (see, for example, Huntington et al., 2004; Nicholas et al., 2003). In France, Renahy et al. (2010) continue to survey online health information seeking in the general population. In the USA, large-scale telephone polls are conducted by the Pew Research Center and published online as the Pew Internet and American Life Reports. A recent Pew report (Fox, 2011) stated that health information remains one of the most important subjects that users research online, with 80 percent of internet users gathering health information online. Symptoms and treatments continue to dominate internet users' health searches, but food safety, drug safety, and pregnancy information are among new topics identified in the survey. In Canada, an Ipsos Reid survey on internet usage (Ipsos Reid, 2002) revealed that searching for health information was the foremost online activity in Canada. Most commonly visited websites were:* sites on diseases, prevention, and cures: 81 percent;* sites on nutrition: 51 percent;* sites on prescription drugs: 35 percent;* sites on exercise: 29 percent; and* sites on support groups: 13 percent.Lemire et al. (2008) conducted an online survey of 2923 users of an established Francophone health information website based in Quebec. They found that frequency of site use was directly associated with: perceived usefulness, importance given to written media for health information, concern for personal health, importance given to opinions of physicians and health professionals, and the trust of site information.\nTheoretically grounded studies of health information seeking on the web: The studies reviewed in the last section are useful in identifying factors that influence health information seeking on the web, including demographic variables, health conditions, and website attributes. Data analysis in these studies consisted primarily of producing descriptive statistics that portray the extent and nature of Internet health information seeking, although a number of academic researchers have analyzed the survey data further using inferential statistics and other quantitative methods. Notably, Rice (2006) analyzed several major Pew datasets and found that the strongest influences on health information seeking were gender, employment, specific health reasons, and helping others with health issues.While descriptive statistics are useful, we suggest that in order to advance our theoretical understanding of the subject, we also need studies that are anchored in a conceptual framework, possibly derived from theories that have been successful in accounting for health, information, or communication behaviors. Within a well-articulated conceptual framework, variables and relationships may then be postulated and defined. By collecting and analyzing empirical data (from surveys or experiments, for example), these relationships may then be investigated using quantitative methods that test hypotheses and identify causal paths. Such statistical techniques would also allow us to determine the strength and predictive power of the relationships as a model of health information seeking.For this paper, we searched for studies that met the criteria of being theoretically driven and empirically based in the sense we discussed above. Three databases were searched for items that appeared between 2000 and 2011:1. Scopus;2. Web of Science; and3. Dissertations & Theses.As well, the open web was searched using Google, to find unpublished or in-publication studies. Search results were retained if the studies featured a theoretical framework; examined Internet use as a study variable; employed survey methodology, and tested hypotheses and models. Excluded were studies that focused on health conditions or patient groups. Thus, studies that were qualitative or reported only descriptive statistics; studies of people with cancer, mental health conditions, or other specific health conditions; and studies that focused on age (young or elderly) were excluded.Using the above search and selection procedure, we identified four survey studies for our analysis. The four were two population survey studies of Korea (Yun and Park, 2010) and Hong Kong (Leung, 2008), and two dissertation-based studies on the gendered use of health information seeking on the web (Marton, 2011; Yoo and Robbins, 2008). Women are the predominant seekers of health information online (Fallows, 2005; Fox, 2005, 2006; Fox and Fallows, 2003; Rice, 2006). Asians are a dominant internet user population demographic in the USA and Asian countries have high rates of adoption of internet use (Spooner, 2001; Zhu and Wang, 2005; Zhu and He, 2002a, b; Rhee and Kim, 2004). Our selection of studies is not intended to privilege one methodological approach over another; rather, by grouping studies of large internet use population groups that employ quantitative approaches and report statistical measures, we hope to be able to attempt some level of comparative analysis of predictive power.Table I provides background information on the four theory-based quantitative studies that will be examined in this paper. All used survey methodology, with several survey designs represented, specifically, print, telephone, and web. Convenience sampling is most common. All four survey studies had a sample size of over 200 respondents.In these studies, variables influencing online health information seeking were formally defined and measured. Relationships between variables were postulated and tested using correlation and multiple regression or path analysis. Two sets of statistics were analyzed to assess the strength and power of the relationships. First, effect sizes were examined using standardized regression coefficients. This coefficient measures the amount of change in the dependent variable when an independent variable increases one standard deviation while other independent variables are held constant, regardless of how they are scaled. Second, predictive power was examined by considering the reported model's coefficient of multiple determination (or R2), which measures the proportion of variance in the dependent variable explained by the independent variables collectively.We look at each of these four survey studies in the next section in order to identify the theoretical foundations and empirical findings that could further our understanding of health information seeking on the web.\nFour theoretically grounded quantitative studies of health information seeking on the web: Study 1: middle aged women seeking health information on the web (Yoo and Robbins, 2008)\nDiscussion: In general, the approach adopted by the four reviewed studies was able to produce interesting, significant research results. All reviewed studies found support for at least one significant relationship based on testing hypotheses. However, relationship effect sizes and significance levels varied considerably both within and across studies. Model R2, where reported, achieved a minimum value of 0.23 (Leung, 2008), indicating that approximately one quarter of the variance was accounted for by the study variables, and a maximum of 0.49-0.50 (Marton, 2011; Yoo, 2004; Yoo and Robbins, 2008), indicating that half of the variance had been accounted for by the study variables. The studies also identified race, income, and employment as key demographic variables. In this section we compare and critique the theoretical frameworks and research methods adopted.Theoretical frameworks\nSummary: Taken collectively, the studies reviewed underscore the usefulness of a multidisciplinary approach to advance our understanding of online health information behavior. The results of these studies suggest that the conceptual models and analytical methods they adopted are viable and promising. Many relationships tested showed large effect sizes, and the models evaluated had good predictive power. The results establish the importance of individual cognitive determinants of health information seeking, but these determinants are mediated by or act in concert with other important sets of variables pertaining to perceived source characteristics, Internet use efficacy or experience, and socio-demographics. Looking ahead, we would suggest augmenting our conceptual toolbox to include social factors, affective responses, and situational contexts that influence health behavior, and expanding our measurement apparatus to examine not just intention to use, but the actual use of the web for health information.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - By selectively reviewing theory-driven survey studies on internet health information seeking, the paper aims to provide an informal assessment of the theoretical foundations and research methods that have been used to study this information behavior.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - After a review of the literature, four theory-driven quantitative survey studies are analyzed in detail. Each study is examined in terms of: theoretical framework; research variables that form the focus of the study; research design (sampling, data collection and analysis); and findings and results of hypothesis testing and model testing. The authors then discuss the theoretical models and analytical methods adopted, and identify suggestions that could be helpful to future researchers.\nFindings: - Taken as a whole, the studies reviewed point strongly to the need for multidisciplinary frameworks that can capture the complexity of online health information behavior. The studies developed theoretical frameworks by drawing from many sources - theory of planned behavior, technology acceptance model, uses and gratifications, health belief model, and information seeking models - demonstrating that an integration of theoretical perspectives from the health sciences, social psychology, communication research, and information science, is required to fully understand this behavior. The results of these studies suggest that the conceptual models and analytical methods they adopted are viable and promising. Many relationships tested showed large effect sizes, and the models evaluated were able to account for between 23 and 50 percent of the variance in the dependent variables.\nOriginality/value: - The paper represents a first attempt to compare, evaluate, and to a degree synthesize the work that has been done to develop and test theoretical models of health information seeking on the web.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Post termination interaction in international joint ventures (IJV)	[ "Interdependence", "International joint ventures", "International joint venture termination", "Interaction post international joint venture termination", "Emerging markets", "Multinomial logistic regression", "Bargaining power", "Purpose of international joint venture", "Complementarity" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: International joint venture (IJV) are extensively used by foreign firms to enter emerging markets and exploit fortune at the bottom of the pyramid (Beamish, 1994; Luo et al., 2001; Meschi and Riccio, 2008; Mesquita, 2016; Prahalad, 2006; Dhir and Mital, 2013). IJV allows foreign firms to minimize risk of failure and also acts as platform investment to check viability of business in the target market (Parkhe, 1993; Stuart, 2000; Reuer and Leiblein, 2000). IJV provides domestic firms an opportunity for technology and knowledge transfer (Saggi, 2002; C. Park et al., 2015). However, IJVs are considered as inherently unstable form of organization (Nemeth and Nippa, 2013; S.H. Park and Ungson, 1997; Contractor and Reuer, 2014; Dhir and Sushil, 2017) with a termination rate of 20 to 70 per cent (Harrigan, 1988; Makino et al., 2007; Perkins et al., 2014). IJV in emerging markets are further challenged by unique characteristics of the market-like institutional voids (Palepu and Khanna, 2013; Khanna et al., 2005; Parameswar et al., 2017) and cultural differences between parent firms (Pothukuchi et al., 2002; Li et al., 2001; Sirmon and Lane, 2004). They add on to inherent instability of IJV and lead IJV to termination. Thus, IJV termination rate in emerging markets could be even higher.\nLiterature review and hypothesis development: Extant IJV literature spanning across four phases of IJV - pre-formation, formation, process and termination - was thoroughly examined and four factors were identified that influence the lifecycle of an IJV. Further, type of IJV termination was also included as the fifth factor to take into account characteristics of IJV termination that could influence dynamics of post-IJV termination interaction.\nSample and method: Sample\nResults: Correlation between the variables is moderate and in acceptable level (Table I). In MLR model fitting criteria, the final model's Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) is lower than the AIC of intercept only, which signifies that the variables entered in the model have substantial influence on the dependent variable (Table II). Further, -2 log-likelihood measures the extent to which unexplained variance is observed in the model and the change in log-likelihood between intercept only and final model denotes the level of variance being explained by the model. In this study, the log-likelihood decreases considerably denoting the high level of variance being captured by the variables (Table II). The final model is significant at p < 0.01. Each variable's significance could be individually looked up and inferences on hypothesis acceptance or rejection could be made based on likelihood ratio tests (Table III). MLR does not provide an R2 output; instead two pseudo R2 values, i.e. Cox and Snell as well as Nagelkerke, are provided. R-statistic calculates the partial correlation between the dependent variable and the predictor variables; this may vary between -1 and 1 (Field, 2009). The pseudo R2 measures the proportional reduction in log-likelihood measure and looks at the improvement in the model by addition of the predictor variables (Field, 2009). Both Cox and Snell and Nagelkerke's pseudo R2 measure represent decent effect (Table III). All variables except for domestic partner's purpose of IJV are significant. Therefore, all hypotheses except H3b are accepted. Amongst the control variables, tenure of terminated IJV and industry characteristics are significant.\nDiscussion and conclusion: This study attempts to examine the role of important IJV factors that influences lifecycle of IJV and have an influence on the choice of post-IJV termination interaction between IJV partners as supplier, complement or competitor. Post-IJV termination interaction is observed across different markets in the world. However, literature is scant in this area. This study is conceptualized from real business examples of parent firms interacting as supplier, complement or competitor post termination of their IJV in emerging markets. Post-IJV termination interaction is an important addition to extant IJV literature considering the high IJV termination rate as well as increasing liberalization of FDI norms across the world.\nLimitations and future work: The results of the study may not be generalizable to other emerging markets as our study included terminated two-partner IJVs headquartered in India only. Future work could try to conduct this study in a different market context. This study limits itself to use of MLR for empirical analysis; future studies could look to examine the factors using other techniques as well as take into account interaction effects between factors.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to explore dynamics of post termination interaction between international joint venture (IJV) partners and empirically examines IJV level and dyad level factors that influence the choice of post IJV termination interaction as supplier, complement or competitor.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In-depth literature review is undertaken to identify IJV and dyad level that could influence the choice of post termination interaction between terminated IJV partners. Hypotheses are empirically validated using multinomial logistic regression on data collected on terminated IJV headquartered in India.\nFindings: The results denote that the choice of post-IJV termination interaction between IJV partners as supplier, complement or competitor is influenced by interdependence, bargaining power, foreign partner's purpose of IJV, complementarity and type of IJV termination.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper explores an under researched area in extant IJV literature that could be taken up for study by academicians. The paper upholds and strengthens the dynamic capabilities view of strategic management in IJV context.\nPractical implications: This paper examines a practice adopted by businesses in emerging markets and determines important factors that influence the choice of interaction post IJV termination between partners. Practitioners will be encouraged to understand and plan post termination dynamics with their terminated IJV partner.\nOriginality/value: The paper undertakes examination of a practical business phenomena, i.e. interaction post termination between terminated IJV partners.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Evaluation of dry port implementation in Ghana	[ "Transport", "Ghana", "Dry port", "Gravitational model", "Inland port" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The movement of goods/products from the producer to the consumer is referred to as transportation. It is the cause of most cost incurred in the supply chain. Because products are not produced and consumed at one place, transportation becomes an integral part of every supply chain (Chopra and Meindl, 2007). The emergence of global trading has resulted in the increase in global cargo tonnage. Thus, one of the most important part of globalization, freight distribution and seaborne transportation is the inland distribution (Notteboom and Rodrigue, 2005). This explains the emergence of dry ports in most supply chain networks around the world. The dry port concept emphasizes rail transport from seaport to inland intermodal terminals widely referred to as inland port. The concept is geared toward improving the cost-efficiency and the capacity of the transportation system. It is also environmental friendly and decreases the external cost of the road transport system. It will also help to reduce accidents, congestion and noise throughout the transportation system (Roso, 2009a, 2009b; Roso et al., 2008).\nLiterature review: Transportation in Ghana\nPorts in Ghana: Tema Port\nData and methodology: The gravitational method was used to research how the location of Boankra Inland Port will minimize cost of transportation compared to the two main seaports in Tema and Takoradi. Data for the gravitational model are distances from the main seaports in Ghana and Boankra Inland Port to major hinterland destinations and population of the destinations. The distance between the ports and the hinterland destinations was multiplied with the population of the destinations. Thus:\nResults and discussion: Results of gravitational model\nConclusion: The main purpose of this research was to assess the potentials of integrating Boankra Inland Port into the supply chain in Ghana. The findings suggest that Boankra inland port will serve as a more efficient solution to the congestion at the ports than building container terminals at the seaports. The economic effects of the implementation of the inland port are reduction in the total transportation expenses and the external costs, strengthening of the role of the main seaports in transport chains, as well as multimodal solutions. It will also facilitate a greater level of international trade with landlocked countries, industrial growth in the hinterland and economic boom in Boankra and the surrounding towns. Again, environmental problems and traffic bottlenecks at the seaport cities will be reduced, as volumes of containers will be moved to the inland port for clearance. The study also revealed that Boankra has a good location to serve as a transit point for hinterland bound cargo. Based on the gravitational model, Boankra's position as a distribution center is a critical competitive tool for the seaport (Roso, 2009b). Also, the assessment of the warehousing capacity of Boankra shows that there is adequate space available to handle containers. There is also enough land available at the inland port area to cater for an increase in container traffic and future expansion.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Congestion at Ghana's main seaports is a problem that has received much attention recently. This is as a result of continuous increase in containerized cargo. To increase the capacity of Ghana' seaport, the Ministry of Transport through the Ghana Shippers Council initiated the Boankra Inland Port Project. The aim of this paper is to assess the feasibility and economic effects of implementing the Boankra Inland Port as a solution to reduce congestion at the main seaports, as well as reduce transportation cost.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The location of the inland port was assessed using the gravitational model. Data for the gravitational model are distances from the main seaports in Ghana and Boankra Inland Port to major hinterland destinations and population of the destinations. Also, 210 respondents were selected and interviewed on contribution of the dry port concept to the economy and transportation management in Ghana.\nFindings: The results of the gravitational model support the location of Boankra as an inland port. A further comparison between Tema and Takoradi shows that Tema has a better location as a distribution center than Takoradi.\nPractical implications: Although Tema and Takoradi are the main seaports in Ghana, the implementation of the Boankra inland port will reduce the transportation cost for cargo with hinterland destinations, therefore making it a rational and cost-efficient location for transit transportation.\nOriginality/value: This paper is among the first significant attempts to evaluate the suitability of inland port implementation in Ghana.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
International-market-information use across new-product-development stages: Antecedents and performance implications	[ "Firm experience", "New-product-development performance", "Innovation culture", "Market information use" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The story of the cold reception of Kellogg's Corn Flakes in India is told in business circles as a classic example of how firms fail to develop new products that cater to the specific needs of customers in international markets (IMs) (Bijapurkar, 2007; Bloomberg, 2006; Bolton, 2012; Cayla and Penaloza, 2012). By 2010, after being present in India for 16 years, Kellogg's Corn Flakes had captured less than 1 percent of the Indian market, with a meager revenue of $70m, while on home soil in the USA, Kellogg's is a market leader with a huge 40 percent share of the ready-to-eat cereal market and revenues of $3.8bn (Bolton, 2012). This disparity is attributed by observers in the business press and academia to Kellogg's inability to develop breakfast meals for the Indian market by considering local tastes, preferences, habits and dietary needs (Bijapurkar, 2007; Bloomberg, 2006; Bolton, 2012; Cayla and Penaloza, 2012).\n2. Conceptual background and research framework: 2.1 IMI use in NPD\n3. Hypotheses: 3.1 IMI use and international NPD performance\n4. Methodology: We used a survey to test our hypotheses. We drew our sample from a variety of large German manufacturing firms from both business-to-business (B2B; 75 percent) and business-to-consumer (B2C; 25 percent) industries. Germany, as one of the world's top exporters (World Bank, 2014) relies heavily on products developed to meet IMs demand. We used the Hoppenstedt database to identify internationally active firms and confirmed, through an extensive internet search, that all these companies were headquartered in Germany. We focused on German companies to have a homogenous sample and avoid potential biases caused by differences in national culture (Nakata and Sivakumar, 1996). All selected firms were predominantly developing products at their domestic premises to sell abroad. We contacted all the companies by phone and requested their participation and asked for an appropriate contact person, i.e. most knowledgeable about the firm's international operations and its NPD activities. The informants had been with their respective firms for several years and typically held senior management positions in R&D, international marketing and business development departments[1]. To increase the response rate, we made follow-up phone calls and sent two reminder e-mails approximately two and four weeks after the first mailing. In line with previous research, we used the SBU as our unit of analysis (Calantone et al., 2004; Kleinschmidt et al., 2007). Respondents were therefore asked to assess a typical NPD project aimed at IMs.\n5. Results: 5.1 Reliability and validity assessment\n6. Summary and conclusion: This study enhances our understanding of how to best develop new products for IMs. Developing such products has become increasingly important over recent decades as numerous firms have increased their international commitment (Ernst et al., 2015; De Brentani and Kleinschmidt, 2004; Kleinschmidt et al., 2007). Our initial example of Kellogg's Corn Flakes in India vividly shows how crucial and non-trivial developing new products for IMs is, even for established multinationals. Critics say that Kellogg's should have taken Indian market information more seriously and used that information during its NPD process to develop new cereal products more in tune with the tastes, preferences, habits and dietary needs of Indian consumers (Bijapurkar, 2007; Bloomberg, 2006; Bolton, 2012; Cayla and Penaloza, 2012). Such IMI use during NPD would have significantly increased Kellogg's chances of success in India.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how firms can better manage new product development (NPD) for international markets (IMs). This is not a trivial task as, for most firms, NPD still tends to be rooted in domestic operations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study proposes IM information (IMI) use across three stages of the NPD process (concept development, product development and commercialization) as a key driver of international NPD performance. This study also examines two antecedents of such usage: international firm experience; and international innovation culture. A conceptual framework is tested using structural equation modeling, based on data from 137 strategic business units of German firms.\nFindings: The use of IMI during commercialization has a U-shaped (positive quadratic) relationship with international NPD performance, whereas curvilinear relationships in the concept and product-development stages cannot be confirmed. Having an internationally oriented innovation culture increases the level of IMI usage in all NPD process stages, while a firm's international experience only does so in the commercialization stage. Thus, international experience does not necessarily impact access to and understanding of IMI in the early NPD stages.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study furthers understanding of NPD phenomena in an international context. However, future studies might consider exploring the mixed patterns of IMI use and NPD performance by looking at new forms and tools of market information management. Moreover, they may uncover more drivers of IMI use and test their frameworks in different contexts.\nPractical implications: Managers should emphasize IMI use throughout the whole NPD process, even in the traditionally more R&D-focused product-development stage. Managers should strive to establish a corporate culture that views IMs as opportunities rather than liabilities.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study both to examine the relative impact of IMI use across all distinct NPD stages simultaneously on international NPD performance and to use quadratic effects to explain the relationship.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Living with paradoxes of corporate strategy: A complexity perspective	[ "Corporate strategy", "Organizational change", "Complexity theory", "Telecommunications", "Norway" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: To consider how organisations survive in increasingly dynamic environments, leading scholars have introduced the concept of patching (Brown and Eisenhardt, 1998; Eisenhardt and Brown, 1999; Galunic and Eisenhardt, 2001; Helfat and Eisenhardt, 2004). Kauffman (1995) first introduced patching as a means of solving complex problems. Eisenhardt and Brown (1999) outlined patching as the strategic process in which business units are mapped, and remapped, by adding, splitting, transferring, exiting, or combining businesses in order to adapt to changing market opportunities.Studying reorganizations in a large Norwegian telecommunication corporation, we explore how organizing similarities and differences in the corporate portfolio create different dynamics of stability and chaos, managed through different degrees of centralisation and decentralisation. The tension created by these organisational dynamics has usually been considered unintended and unwanted. The purpose of this paper is to challenge the understanding of paradox in corporate strategy as unintended and unwanted consequences that must be overcome.The subsequent section starts by discussing the concept of patching. Central in this discussion is the introduction of varying degrees of dependencies related to the diversity of patches and divergent views on organizing. After a brief outline of the methodology, we describe how Telenor, the leading Norwegian telecommunications company, was organised and reorganised in a time span of four years from 1999 to 2003. We ask why Telenor was reorganised the way it was. We found that for organisations to produce novel patterns of interaction they need to strike a balance between similarity and difference, and between centralisation and decentralisation.\nComplexity and corporate strategy: the concept of patching: Kauffman's (1995) concept of patching was introduced as a means to solve complex, conflict-laden tasks in which many parts interact. When broken into a quilt of non-overlapping patches, the system still constitutes equally many parts and equally many interactions. However, because parts comprising each patch are not interconnected to all other parts, as they were when they were all part of the same large patch, the number of connections is reduced throughout the system. Instead of thinking of optimising the whole task, or system, optimisation is now reduced to each individual patch.As soon as one part, or patch, changes its state, it immediately changes the optimisation problem for all its neighbouring patches. When the patches are too few and large, the system is in danger of settling into a regime which is too stable and ordered in which it will never escape; that is, it freezes into poor compromises. In the other extreme, where all interacting parts are divided into patches, the system never settles down. Hence, it displays the behaviour of a disordered or chaotic regime. So, when the patches are too numerous and too small, the total system is in a disordered and chaotic regime.Kauffman (1995) argues that the interdependencies between a patch and its neighbouring patches provide the local key to global solutions. He finds that a patch does not have to take into account its own effect on other patches. To the contrary, such an approach would yield a highly unstable dynamic in interaction. All the patch has to do is to optimise its own local problem. As opposed to a non - or one - patched system, neighbouring parts constrain, but do not simultaneously enable, the system to alter its dynamic once it has settled into a local optimum.The counterintuitive insight is this: when all patches are locally optimising, the overall solution will become an excellent state for the whole system as well. This happens despite the fact that patches do not take into account how their local behaviour affects the overall system. Single-patch behaviour in isolation could, if allowed to persist, harm the overall performance of the whole. For example, decreasing the energy in one patch could then lead to an overall increase of energy level for the system. When in interaction, however, the behaviour of the individual patches collectively comprising the system effects good solutions for the whole. Each constrains the others' behaviour and so internally changes the dynamic of the system from within the system itself.Though Kauffman argues that interdependency is a key to optimisation in the system, he does not distinguish between varying degrees of dependencies. The research generated in this study suggests that varying not only the size and number of patches, but also the degree of dependency between patches is the key to understanding how corporations produce novel patterns of evolution. We show that the connections between the patches vary according to whether the patches are similar or different and whether there exist competing views on centralisation and decentralisation within the company.Varying degrees of dependencies\nMethodology: We conducted a case study of the leading Norwegian telecommunications company, Telenor. The aim was to study how Telenor, as a corporation, managed complexity. This was a relatively broad and ill-defined research question, and we, therefore, used a case study approach. Moreover, the case study was suitable because it opens for understanding social processes in their organisational and environmental contexts (Hartley, 1994).Data for this paper are drawn from the interviews we conducted between late 2000 and early 2001 of 12 managers at high levels of the organisation: Five were members of the top management team, two had been recent members and were key advisors to the CEO, four were heads of corporate staff units, and one was a manager of one of Telenor's key international businesses. The interviewees were identified based on a purposeful sampling procedure (Miles and Huberman, 1994) in which we selected the managers most likely be able to provide information about organizational structuring (Van de Ven and Huber, 1990). King (1994, p. 15) recommends that one have \"a low degree of structure imposed on the interviewer, a preponderance of open questions, a focus on specific situations, and action sequences in the world of the interviewee rather than abstractions and general opinions.\" In our interviews we found that most of the interviewees had difficulties in responding to very general questions, such as \"How do you understand the concept of complexity.\" Instead, we asked them to describe concrete experiences placing the concept of complexity in a context.To ensure the richness of data, the interviews were recorded and transcribed. As has been suggested, recording procedures also included a protocol to organise thoughts and log information learned during the interview. Both authors were present during all interviews; thus, we could reflect and discuss the data after each interview, analysing and collecting data simultaneously. The analysis of data was done in three stages. First, we used an open coding procedure (Strauss and Corbin, 1990) to organise the data into:* the environmental and organisational factors that generated complexity; and* the factors that described how the management tried to deal with complexity.Second, we established relations between the different categories, looking for patterns in the managers' responses to drivers of complexity. The third phase examined management's efforts to deal with complexity. Of particular interest were managers' attempts to deal with complexity in terms of patching. Drawing on insight from complexity theory, we looked for new ways to understand the evolution of corporate structures, focusing on the paradoxical nature of corporate organising.\nThe paradoxical nature of reorganising Telenor: Telenor has been a central part of the national heritage in Norway since the establishment of national telecommunications services in the middle of the 19th century. The corporation has had a key role in the development of new and future technologies, and has been the centre for innovation in telecommunications in Norway. In the 1980s, Telenor was a regulated monopoly providing telecom services to the Norwegian population. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the telecom market was deregulated, and the new CEO of Telenor started a process whereby Telenor's corporate structure was fundamentally changed. The substantial part of the company that sells hardware and communication services to corporate customers was separated from the regulated business to prepare for a more competitive market. New ventures, in particular the mobile and internet ventures, were spun off into autonomous entities, giving the business managers a large degree of control over their own businesses. Telenor's top management had a strong belief in decentralization with few mandatory central policies, limited central functions, and few centre-directed coordination initiatives.Patching in Telenor\nThe paradox of interdependency: implications and conclusion: Our findings from the Telenor case suggest that a dynamic close to chaos is displayed if the system is divided into too many different patches under a centralised regime, and a dynamic of stability is displayed if the system is divided into too many different patches in a decentralised regime. These dynamics are shown in Figure 2.So, what patterns of evolving corporate structure do these different dynamics represent? In a centralised regime with similar patches, patches will be optimising the same global problem within a single, or a few, large patches. This pattern will, according to Kauffman (1995), ultimately lead to rigidity and stability for a long time. This regime is directed at controlling the complexity of the organisation, advocating that the linkages have to be mended from the top. This approach does, however, lose sight of the productive interactions that take place between the individual businesses through allowing them to co-evolve.However, in a centralised regime where patches are very different, the result will be the opposite, creating chaos and complexity, as was the case with Telenor's corporate business area. Hence, to make centralisation work, patches must not be too different as expressed by a senior executive:To make centralisation work you need reasonable homogeneous organisational entities in predictable markets where the development does not evolve very fast. We don't have that.In a decentralised regime, patches are optimising their own local goals. Contrary to Kauffman (1995), and Eisenhardt and Brown (1999), who argued that the system never settles down in such a regime, we find that the organisation displays a behaviour close to stability when patches are different. A decentralised regime advocates independence, and thus, few connections between patches. Hence, patches are isolated, removing the \"neighbouring effect\" of patches in interaction. Even though patches in isolation move in novel ways, it is rather unlikely that patches are co-evolving. As patches are now independent, such a move does not enable the company to move and display novel patterns. The problem of decentralisation in a diversified regime is that an individual patch's move does not influence neighbouring patches. The result is operations in isolation, and thus, stability for the whole. This latter is what is referred to as the paradox of interdependence; for a diversified company to move in novel ways, patches have to constrain each other in interaction. However, for the company to avoid the destabilising effect of fragmentation, combinations of governance structure and diversification should display a dynamic close to the edge of chaos.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to challenge the understanding of paradox in corporate strategy as unintended and unwanted consequences that must be overcome.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper builds upon the concept of patching and holds the paradoxical nature of multi-business firms as essential for corporate evolution. It presents an inherent contradiction of corporate organising, closely related to interdependency between patches. These interdependencies vary according to whether the patches are similar or different and whether there exist competing views on centralisation and decentralisation within the company.\nFindings: - Studying reorganizations in a large Norwegian telecommunication corporation, we explore these interdependencies and find that for the corporation to move in novel ways, combinations have to display a dynamic close to the edge of chaos.\nOriginality/value: - This paper presents new research on organizational \"patching\".\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Social information landscapes: Automated mapping of large multimodal, longitudinal social networks	[ "Online communities", "Big Data", "Longitudinal network", "Multimodal network", "Social network analysis", "Social information landscapes" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: What is social information landscapes (SIL) and how will it be useful for studying social networks? Here, SIL can be defined as \"the automated mapping of large topological networks from instantaneous contents, sentiments and users reconstructed from social media channels, events and user generated contents within blogs and websites, presented virtually as a graph that encompasses, within a timescale, contextual information, all connections between followers, active users, comments and conversations within a social rather than a physical space\". The key phrase \"automated mapping\" is essential here as the mapping of very large networks is essential as network behaviour may differ in massive networks in relation to their emergent behaviour and the way they tend to self-organise. Larger networks are also ideal as subjects for studying geodesic distance, centrality, and density. SIL was first mentioned in an article dealing with a Big Data funnelling approach (Ch'ng, 2014), and subsequently in corresponding articles on the study of online community formation and decline when research results were published (Ch'ng, 2015b, c). In comparison to traditional networks, SILs carry much more information. SILs encapsulate activities, which complements the traditional follower-followee network format, which contains only human nodes as opposed to activity nodes that are multimodal, e.g., contents and context. As the mapping is novel, so therefore the \"landscapes\" created will be new in the context that they contain a higher resolution of, and broader context of information.\n2. Background: The limited presentation of the sequential nature of content listings within social media, as viewed on Web browsers or on mobile devices, do not necessarily reveal nor make obvious an unknown nature of the medium; that every participant, from content producers, to consumers, to followers and subscribers, including the contents they produce or subscribed to, and the context they are in, are intrinsically connected in a hidden but massive network. Such networks when mapped, could be quantitatively analysed using methods in social network analysis (e.g. centralities), and the semantics and sentiments could equally reveal valuable information with appropriate analytics. Yet that which is difficult is the tediousness of collecting, cleaning, collating, and mapping such data sets into a data structure that could yield important insights into the community structure and the directional, and polarity of interaction on diverse topics. It seems that the majority of research that investigate social networks have not looked beyond the traditional approach of manually collecting and mapping such networks, to a Big Data approach where mapping processes are automated. The research community that invariably focused their attention on social networks should genuinely consider the fact that any online activity is a sample of a population, and that manual data collection, due to its tediousness, will perhaps harvest a tiny sample and, as a consequence, yield a minor percentage of the full online content - a sample of a sample of a population. Unfortunately, such data sets will invariably be biased. A Big Data approach using scalable technologies is a viable approach in the era of Big Data, using machines to collect machine-collated contents.\n3. Methods for mapping SIL: Two basic types of social network analysis exist. The first is the ego network analysis, the second is complete network analysis. Ego network analysis is conducted via surveys where the \"ego\" responds to questions asked about the ego's immediate network. Each ego is sampled from a large population in order to assess the person's network size, diversity, etc. The second type of analysis views the complete networks, such as all existing relationships between a set of nodes. The research here is posited in the latter type, although data from large-scale surveys used for collecting ego networks can also be automatically mapped.\n4. Visualizing mapped SIL: This section demonstrates the feasibility of the Big Data architecture and the algorithms used for mapping SIL. The first subsection looks at the capability of the methods in managing the volume and velocity of topical data sets, followed by samples expressions of SIL retrieved from the topical data sets. The final subsections inspect the details of some of the graphs.\n5. Discussion: Social media certainly increases our range of communicable activities. Social media also, collectively in the global sense, extends the human connectedness beyond the boundary of a participant's geographical location. The time of interaction between participants and communications sent now may be retrieved and responded to, much later by other participants due to Information Technology infrastructures. Thus, the distance between time and space has been greatly shortened in the age of social media. This invariably opens up a broad range of opportunities as space and time, in the eye of a user are \"compressed\" to within a digital display, allowing diverse communications from extremely large demographics groups. Participants interact without thinking much about the information networks that they are helping to build, and users reading social media are oblivious to the fact that hidden networks exist. This is due to the fact that the limited presentation of the sequential nature of content listings within social media, as viewed on web browsers or on mobile devices do not necessarily reveal nor make obvious an unknown nature of the medium; that every participant, from content producers, to consumers, to followers and subscribers, including the contents they produce or subscribed to, are intrinsically connected in a hidden but potentially massive contextual network. These hidden networks are a valuable source of information for scientific inquiry. Such networks when mapped and analysed using appropriate methods could reveal valuable information. These multimodal networks, together with information about the nodes, direction of edges, the polarity of interactions, the structure of the graph and secondary data captured longitudinally form a SIL. SIL have become an important aspect of contemporary scientific inquiry, and the importance will only increase in the future when all things both men and machines are digitally connected.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a Big Data solution as a methodological approach to the automated collection, cleaning, collation, and mapping of multimodal, longitudinal data sets from social media. The paper constructs social information landscapes (SIL).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research presented here adopts a Big Data methodological approach for mapping user-generated contents in social media. The methodology and algorithms presented are generic, and can be applied to diverse types of social media or user-generated contents involving user interactions, such as within blogs, comments in product pages, and other forms of media, so long as a formal data structure proposed here can be constructed.\nFindings: The limited presentation of the sequential nature of content listings within social media and Web 2.0 pages, as viewed on web browsers or on mobile devices, do not necessarily reveal nor make obvious an unknown nature of the medium; that every participant, from content producers, to consumers, to followers and subscribers, including the contents they produce or subscribed to, are intrinsically connected in a hidden but massive network. Such networks when mapped, could be quantitatively analysed using social network analysis (e.g. centralities), and the semantics and sentiments could equally reveal valuable information with appropriate analytics. Yet that which is difficult is the traditional approach of collecting, cleaning, collating, and mapping such data sets into a sufficiently large sample of data that could yield important insights into the community structure and the directional, and polarity of interaction on diverse topics. This research solves this particular strand of problem.\nResearch limitations/implications: The automated mapping of extremely large networks involving hundreds of thousands to millions of nodes, encapsulating high resolution and contextual information, over a long period of time could possibly assist in the proving or even disproving of theories. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the feasibility of using automated approaches for acquiring massive, connected data sets for academic inquiry in the social sciences.\nPractical implications: The methods presented in this paper, together with the Big Data architecture can assist individuals and institutions with a limited budget, with practical approaches in constructing SIL. The software-hardware integrated architecture uses open source software, furthermore, the SIL mapping algorithms are easy to implement.\nOriginality/value: The majority of research in the literature uses traditional approaches for collecting social networks data. Traditional approaches can be slow and tedious; they do not yield adequate sample size to be of significant value for research. Whilst traditional approaches collect only a small percentage of data, the original methods presented here are able to collect and collate entire data sets in social media due to the automated and scalable mapping techniques.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The internal predictors of business performance in small firms: A logistic regression analysis	[ "Small to medium‐sized enterprises", "Business performance", "Hospitality services", "United Kingdom" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This study aims to provide a better understanding of how internal factors influence the performance of small firms by building on the author's earlier work into the determinants of performance in tourism and hospitality small firms (Wood, 2002). The data used were gathered as part of a national survey into the performance and operation of small event firms (Wood et al., 2003).\nThe importance of small firms in the events sector: The small events firm category has been chosen for a number of reasons. In the UK economy there are, annually, more new firms in the service sector starting up than in manufacturing, largely due to lower barriers to entry. Their survival therefore has implications for employment, productivity and long-term growth in the economy. Events firms are defined, for this study, as any organisation with fewer than 50 employees whose main business involves organising, hosting or promoting any type of event. This rapidly growing sector therefore includes a wide range of organisations whose operations are distinct from but closely related to those of tourism and hospitality firms. This allows for comparisons to be made with previous research undertaken and also provides a better understanding of this under researched industry sector.Research undertaken by Travel, Tourism Services and Events National Training Organisation (TTENTO) estimates that small firms make up approximately 85 per cent of the events industry and therefore, despite the prominence of large-scale events, it is these smaller companies who dominate the sector.Although there exists a substantial amount of research on small firm performance linked to a number of determining factors it has tended to focus on a key area, such as TQM, market orientation or leadership style. Several studies have researched the service sector but very little research exists specifically on small firm performance within the dynamic and expanding events sector. Therefore, considering the high proportion of small firms within this sector, its volatility and its potential importance to the UK economy, further clarification of the determinants of success should make a useful and practical contribution to business practice in this sector.\nBusiness performance: The economic business performance factors (external to the organisation) and the organisational business performance factors (internal firm behaviour and environment fit) have been shown in previous research to operate independently with the organisational factors more significantly and positively associated with business performance (Appiah-Adu et al., 2001). Indeed Tvorik and McGivern (1997) suggest that internal factors may explain up to twice as much variance in performance as the external economic factors.Similarly research undertaken by Hansen and Wernerfelt (1989) concluded that 38 per cent of performance variance was accounted for by organisational factors (goal emphasis and human resources), whereas only 18.5 per cent of variance was accounted for by economic factors (industry variables, market share and firm size).Past research has found that internal factors such as marketing orientation, entrepreneurial personality, and locating and retaining customers are key determinants of small firm success (Chaston, 1996) although it is recognised that factors such as the age of the firm will affect the importance of each.Other small firm studies have shown a strong link between quality management and success (Yusof and Aspinwall, 2000; Anderson and Sohal, 1999; Rahman, 2001) and human resource management issues and performance (Jameson, 2000). However, a substantial amount of recent research has concentrated on the concept of market orientation and its link with business performance (Van Egeren and O'Connor, 1998; Chang and Chen, 1998; Pitt et al., 1996, Sin and Tse, 2000; Fyall and Singh, 1999).There is, therefore, existing justification for focusing business performance measures on the controllable internal factors although it is recognised that many factors external to the organisation (for example, economic, competitive and social forces) will have an effect on business performance. However, as these factors are largely beyond the control of the business manager, and that their effect should be recognised and understood, they cannot be manipulated to improve performance. The internal factors, which are the focus of this study, are within the direct control of the owner/manager and an understanding of the effects of these factors will be of more practical use. These are consequently the basis for the measures used in this paper.Business performance is assessed by measuring the success or failure of an organisation in achieving its goals and can therefore be defined in a number of ways. Performance measures may be based, for example on return on investment, profits, turnover or number of customers.A comparison of the variety of methods used to quantify business performance in previous research suggests that the relationship between a given independent variable and performance is likely to depend on the particular performance measure used (Murphy et al., 1996). Performance measures used in further studies, therefore, need to be clearly defined and justified to allow for comparisons and to avoid apparent contradictions in findings. Murphy et al. (1996) also argue that further research should use where possible several dimensions of performance and allow for control variables such as firm size, age and industry membership.Financial criteria on their own do not adequately cover the varied goals followed by the owner-managers of small firms nor capture the complexity of the models that owner-managers construct for managing their businesses (Jarvis et al., 2000). Other goals pursued by small firms often include survival and business stability but also more personal aims related to status and pride (Curran et al., 1997). A combined organisational performance measure using revenue, profit and number of customers is likely, therefore. to be more appropriate (Rahman, 2001).\nThe research data and analytical methods: The primary data used were collected for The National Survey of Small Tourism and Hospitality Firms: Small Firms in the Events Sector undertaken in 2003 (Wood et al., 2003). The raw data from the survey provided a variety of business performance measures and a cross-section of internal influencing variables collected from 597 small events firms based in the UK.The variables covered by the survey included:* organisation characteristics and event activity;* performance measures;* marketing activity;* employment and training;* quality management; and* outsourcing and finance.In order to meet the objectives of the research a number of stages were followed. First, the original number of variables was reduced so as to leave a manageable number without losing too much information. This was achieved by eliminating variables which were of little or no relevance to business performance and by the combining others.There are various techniques available for modelling business performance in terms of the remaining independent variables, however, these were limited by the variables being categorical and non-normally distributed. These data characteristics mean that logistic regression is the most appropriate technique and is method preferred when the dependent variable (business performance) is discrete.Two methods (binary and ordinal logistic regression) were used to allow for the cross-checking of results and a better assessment of the validity of the resulting model.\nAnalysis of the data: Cluster analysis and variable reduction\nConclusions: Summary\nAreas for further research: The use of a combined business performance measure has been justified, however, regression using separate measures of business performance may have provided further complementary information on the determinants of performance. Fyall and Singh (1999) found that marketing variables affected customer-based measures of performance and that operational efficiency and information systems had greatest impact on financial-based measures. It may, therefore, be useful to separate the measures for profit and turnover from the customer-based measures.The study should be repeated focusing on a sub sector of the industry as the variety of firms included in the definition of the \"events sector\" may have a detrimental effect on the ability to generalise from the findings. A focus on event organisers, for example, is likely to lead to the identification of different factors from those found in a study of event venues and will result in recommendations of more practical use to those firms.The inclusion of variables that measure the entrepreneurial nature of the owner/manager and their characteristics is also likely to provide evidence of other significant factors affecting performance not covered in this study.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - In order to provide a deeper understanding of small business performance the study aims to analyse data from a national survey into small firms in the events sector.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The analysis used logistic regression to determine a model which best predicts the performance of these firms. The data used were part of a larger scale and previously published survey into the business activities of small events firms in the UK. The resulting model identifies those organisational variables which greatly influence performance as well as identifying the business activities which have little or no effect on performance.\nFindings: - The greater influencing factors were found to be related to the age of the business, the variety of promotional methods used and the sources of finance employed. The more significant factors appeared to be those of a shorter term more operational nature whereas those factors having little effect were those that related more closely to areas of strategic planning.\nPractical implications: - The findings suggest that small firms in the event sector are likely to perform better if they use a variety of promotional methods, make use of quality tools, and use grants rather than family and friends for funding. The use of marketing planning and research and investment in training is unlikely to improve performance, although this may be only in the short term.\nOriginality/value: - The paper highlights the areas of business operations which can significantly affect performance and is, therefore, of practical use for smaller firms operating in this industry. The analysis also uncovers aspects where further research is required if a more comprehensive understanding of small firm performance determinants is to be gained.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Optimal burn-in time for general repairable products sold under failure-free renewing warranty	[ "Warranties", "Failure (mechanical)", "Costs" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Acronyms\n1. Introduction: Warranties for durable products provide peace of mind for consumers. A written warranty states that the manufacturer of the product will provide labor and parts to repair or replace the defective product as required. Consumers feel more comfortable when the product they have purchased comes with a warranty.Failure-free and pro rata rebates are two common types of warranty policies. A failure-free policy obligates the manufacturer to maintain the product free of charge during the warranty period, while a pro rata rebate policy obligates the manufacturer to refund a fraction of the purchase price if the product fails within the warranty period. Failure-free policies can be further divided into two categories, i.e. renewing and non-renewing:1. renewing policy - if a product fails within the warranty period, the product is replaced and a new warranty is issued: in effect, the warranty begins anew with each replacement; and2. non-renewing policy - replacements of a failed product do not alter the original warranty.Manufacturers offer many types of warranties to promote their products. Thus, warranties have become an important promotional tool for manufacturers. Warranties also generally limit the manufacturer's liability for out-of-warranty product failure. The discussion of various issues related to warranty policies can be found in Murthy (1990), Blischke and Murthy (1992, 1994), Murthy and Blischke (1992a, b) and Mitra and Patankar (1993). A brief introduction to the concepts and problems related to warranty analysis was presented by Chukova and Hayakawa (2004).Although warranties are used by manufacturers as a competitive strategy to boost their market share, profitability and image, they are by no means cheap. Providing a warranty creates additional costs for the manufacturer. Usually the cost of the warranty involves the cost of the failure of the product during the initially high failure rate period (infant mortality). Since the cost of fixing failed products during the production process is usually lower than that during the warranty process, burn-in is considered as a means to reduce the warranty cost. The effect of a burn-in program is to eliminate the infant mortality region so that the finished product will be operating in the region of near constant failure rate. Such a burn-in program, however, has associated costs and adds directly to the product manufacturing costs. Therefore, it is important to determine the appropriate length of this procedure.Mi (1994) took burn-in and maintenance into consideration simultaneously for both repairable and non-repairable devices; Mi (1996) also determined the optimal burn-in time for minimizing various additive cost functions related to both burn-in and field operation. He obtained the properties of optimal burn-in time and replacement policy under the bathtub-shaped failure rate assumption. Nguyen and Murthy (1982) separately considered repairable and non-repairable products sold under various warranty policies, and determined the optimal burn-in time to minimize the expected total cost (manufacturing plus warranty costs).The conditions required for effective burn-in were derived for these two warranty policies:1. failure-free non-renewing; and2. rebate.Chien and Sheu (2004) also discussed the same theme (Nguyen and Murthy, 1982) by considering a general repairable product having three possible warranty policies:1. failure-free renewing;2. non-renewing; and3. rebate.Additionally, Cha (2001, 2003) considered the burn-in and replacement problem similarly to Mi (1994) under a general model. Sheu and Chien (2004) extended the problem of Mi (1996) by introducing a generalized model.In this paper, we consider a general repairable product sold under the failure-free renewing warranty, and determine the product's optimum burn-in time before it is sold to the consumer. In the general repairable model, occurrences of minimal repair and replacement are age-dependent. The optimal burn-in time is selected to minimize the expected total cost, i.e. manufacturing plus warranty costs. The conditions required to make burn-in beneficial are also derived. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: section 2 describes our assumptions and develops the cost model, section 3 provides the main results of the optimal burn-in time, section 4 demonstrates a numerical example to evaluate the performance of optimal burn-in time under various parameters, and conclusions are presented in section 5. Detailed proofs of the major results are presented in the Appendix.\n2. Model development and assumptions: 2.1 Assumptions\n3. Main results: The optimal b* can be found by solving equation (6) or by directly minimizing equation (5) using numerical methods. Theorem 1 gives the conditions for b* to be zero or non-zero, and these conditions help in computing b. The proofs for Theorem 1 are given in the Appendix.Theorem 1\n4. Numerical example: Jensen and Petersen (1982) and Nguyen and Murthy (1982) presented an example of a bathtub-shaped failure rate, where product failure time is assumed to have a mixed Weibull distribution, i.e.: Equation 12 with l1,l2>0, 0<b1<1, b2>1, and 0<=th<=1. This model can be interpreted intuitively as representing a mixture of two kinds of units, with proportion th of defective units and proportion (1-th) of normal units. Since the defective units fail prematurely, the failure rate of this population decreases over time, making a Weibull distribution with shape parameter b1<1 appropriate for describing such failures. On the other hand, since the normal unit fails due to wear out, the failure rate of this population increases over time, and so a Weibull distribution with shape parameter b2>1 is appropriate for describing such failures. Combining the two failure models yields the mixed Weibull distribution, which has a bathtub-shaped failure rate. Methods for estimating the model parameters have been studied by Falls (1970) and Kao (1959). Moreover, other failure models that may yield a bathtub-shaped failure rate were described by Dhillon (1979), Hjorth (1980) and Mann et al. (1974).From equation (9), the failure rate function r(t) can be obtained by r(t)=f(t)/F-(t), where f(t)=-([dF-(t)/dt]. Furthermore, the SF of RVs Y and Yb can be obtained, respectively, by: Equation 13 and Equation 14 For the present example, th1=0.1, l1=4, l2=0.08, b1=0.5 and b2=3, and the cost parameters are cm=20, cb0=0.2, cb=5/unit of time and cr=2, which is the same as the numerical case in Nguyen and Murthy (1982). The type II failure probability function is considered as p(t)=1-0.8 exp(-0.1t). The parameters W and ce are varied to take different values in order to see their influence on the optimal solution. Using these data we solve the optimal burn-in time b* considered in this study. Furthermore, in order to study the variation in the magnitude of saving in the expected total cost with changing W, the following is defined: Equation 15 An algorithm for solving this problem is given as coded for the IBM RISC System/6000 POWER station at the National Taichung Institute of Technology.Algorithm\n5. Conclusions: In this paper, burn-in for a general repairable product sold under warranty was considered. In the general repairable model there are two ways in which product can fail:1. type I failure (minor) which can be rectified through minimal repairs; and2. type II failure (catastrophic) in which the product must be replaced.The probability of type II failure is age-dependent. We investigated optimal burn-in time from the perspective of minimizing the expected total cost (i.e. manufacturing plus warranty costs) per unit of product sold under a failure-free renewing warranty policy. The conditions indicating when burn-in becomes beneficial were derived. A numerical example was given to illustrate the changes in optimal burn-in time b* and optimal cost with respect to the warranty period W under various values of the extra cost ce. We found that if failures which occurred during the warranty period were costly (i.e. ce was large), then appreciable savings could be realized by using the optimal burn-in policy.It must be stressed that burn-in is not necessarily suitable for every kind of product. Its main use is for products with an initially high failure rate. Moreover, the failure-free renewing warranty is special type of warranty policy. It is rarely seen in practice and is often only applied to specific products - even then it will create additional costs and responsibilities for the manufacturer. Nevertheless, it is an excellent competitive strategy for promoting a product in the marketplace and attracting consumers. In Taiwan, for example, some local brand companies of 3C products have provided such warranties in order to compete with international global brands and gain a share of the market. People feel more confident when they purchase a product that comes with a failure-free renewing warranty. This is the main reason we adopted this warranty policy for this study.The main contributions of this investigation are summarized below:* the product considered in this study is an age-dependent general repairable product: no such study has yet been conducted;* this is the first study that has applied the failure-free renewing warranty to a general repairable item: this topic is relevant for IJQRM;* by using the principle of geometric distribution and Wald's equation, the expected burn-in and warranty duration times were determined: the proofs corroborating the main results of this study are mathematically solid; and* it can be seen that the present model is a generalization of the model considered by Chien and Shieu (2004).In brief, a burn-in program not only reduces the cost but also increases the goodwill associated with the product, since fewer failures will occur during the warranty period.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To investigate the optimal burn-in time from the perspective of minimizing the expected total cost (i.e. manufacturing plus warranty costs) per unit of product sold under a failure-free renewing warranty policy. The conditions indicating when burn-in becomes beneficial were also derived.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - An age-dependent general repairable product sold under a failure-free renewing warranty agreement was considered. In the case of such a general repairable model, there are two ways in which the product can fail: type I failure (minor) can be rectified through minimal repairs; while in type II failure (catastrophic), the product must be replaced. Then optimal burn-in time is then examined in order to achieve a trade-off between reducing the warranty cost and increasing the manufacturing cost.\nFindings: - The optimal burn-in time depends on the failure/repair characteristics, length of warranty, cost parameters and the probability of failure type II (catastrophic). A burn-in program is beneficial if the initial failure rate is high or product failures during the warranty period are costly. Moreover, the optimal burn-in time is always less than the infant mortality period.\nOriginality/value: - The product considered in this paper is an age-dependent general repairable product: on which no such study has yet been conducted. This is also the first study to apply a failure-free renewing warranty to a general repairable item. It can be seen that the present model is a generalization of the model considered by Chien and Sheu.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Prospective games for defence strategic decisions in Brazil	[ "Decision making", "Armed Forces", "State security", "Scenario planning", "Defence policy", "Strategic simulation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The current global crisis, which in different ways somehow affected all countries during the past two decades, requires a series of urgent and radical key decisions about world security. Otherwise, Booth pointed out that \"then by mid-century, human society faces the prospect of a concatenation of global turmoil unlike anything in the past\". But \"the heads of the powers-that-be are stuck in the past, as we speed into an increasingly threatening future\" (Booth, 2007, pp.1, 2). Changes in the international security environment and its relationship to strategy and several transnational issues are fostering a new agenda for security and strategy (Wirtz, 2002).\n2. The Brazilian defence challenge: 2.1 The concepts of security and defence regarding Brazilian stance\n3. Participation and defence strategic decisions: After reviewing and putting in parallel the processes of foresight in defence of six countries (The Netherlands, France, UK, USA, Spain and South Africa), Freitas (2013) pointed out that they were conducted with the participation of experts and other individuals and institutions in society.\n4. Brazilian institutions as benchmark for strategic decisions in defence: In the Brazilian Congress Committee on Foreign Relations and National Defence, Amorim (2012) addressed key issues related to national strategic thinking. These considered the current global scenario, the Brazilian geostrategic neighbourhood, the relations between defence and society as well as whether a clear understanding of these issues related to the Brazilian defence policy will result in a transparent exchange between the State and society.\n5. Proposed model: Prospective games bring about the idea of fast and flexible prototyping that enables adaptation to the environment or to possible futures, and bring together the possibility of collective learning through simulated scenarios, built in collaboration (Fahey and Randall, 1998; Johansen, 2012).\n6. Discussions: 6.1 Model advantages\n7. Conclusions: In the quest to project itself towards the international environment and to play its role both in Latin America and globally, the Brazilian Government must increase the nation awareness in the defence field.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to propose a model, based on strategic simulation and scenario planning, to improve the decision-making process in the Brazilian defence area.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Participants are disposed in three levels: decision-makers team - which goes beyond the Ministry of Defence (and military services) alone and includes other representatives of the executive and legislative branches; political and strategic advisory team - civilian representatives with a broad understanding of the national and international contexts that can contribute to developing insights and shaping the forces that may contribute to the nation's future; and experts database-- experts in fields of interest to national defence, comprising representatives of several sectors and broad areas of knowledge, including scholars, scientists, politicians, military, industry, among others.\nFindings: The planning and preparation of national defence strategies require a long-term approach, which is multidisciplinary, participatory and contextualized to the geopolitical and institutional frames of the country.\nResearch limitations/implications: However, despite many policy papers intentions, defence issues have always been considered a matter for the military arena due to the country's cultural background.\nPractical/implications: Because decisions about defence have long-range impacts and political implications, policy-makers should shape them bearing in mind a complex and politically shared foresight process.\nSocial/implications: This proposed planning process enables a participatory engagement with some civil organizations and individuals as well as amplifies their commitment in national defence issues.\nOriginality/value: The proposal is innovative in South America, considering that it encompasses integrated simulations on participatory foresight processes as well as broadened the civilian-military dynamic relationship and the diverse viewpoints in defence implications analysis to include a wider share of the Brazilian society.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Enhancing hospital care of patients with cognitive impairment	[ "Service delivery", "Clinical effectiveness", "Empowerment", "Service quality", "Partnership", "Organizational culture" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Rising rates of dementia and other cognitive impairment have a significant impact on service delivery and healthcare costs in acute care settings, including an increased need to implement interventions to effectively manage challenging or non-compliant behaviour, such as the use of one-on-one nursing care, or physical or pharmacological restraints (Ang et al., 2015; White et al., 2017), and an increased risk of adverse outcomes such as falls (Jorgensen et al., 2015). With the demographic changes associated with an ageing population, dementia is an increasingly common condition in Australia and health care costs associated with this condition are significant. At a personal level, hospitalisation can also be a challenging experience for both the patient with cognitive impairment (Edvardsson and Nay, 2010) and also for the carer, who often responds to the challenge and disruption of hospitalisation by trying to become involved in the care and support of the patient during the hospital stay (Clissett et al., 2013a). Loss of control and feelings of powerlessness are common (Boudioni et al., 2015). At the same time, caring for patients with cognitive impairment can be challenging for healthcare staff, who often identify a lack of appropriate management strategies (Foreman and Gardner, 2005; Clissett et al., 2013b), making it difficult to consistently provide optimal patient-centred care.\nMethods: Location\nResults: Participants\nDiscussion: Cognitive impairment is a challenging, demanding, and costly condition in the health care setting. It is well established in the literature that a collaborative partnership involving the person with cognitive impairment, their carer(s) and health staff is the most effective approach to improving care (Murray, 2014) and that specific hospital-based interventions can improve outcomes for people living with cognitive impairment and their family carers (Handley et al., 2015). Jurgens et al. (2012) suggest that people with dementia and their carers should be considered as a unit, with carers provided the opportunity to give and receive information as well as participate in the hospital care of their loved one. Similarly, Bloomer et al. (2016) describe the carer as the \"expert\" in the care of the patient with dementia and recommends considering the patient and carer as a dyad. Support from the health care facility in providing appropriate education for staff and in valuing person-centred care is also vital to the process of continued improvements in providing quality care and health service delivery (Nayton et al., 2014; Clissett et al., 2013b). The results presented in this report indicate that a deliberate strategy to include carers in the healthcare team managing patients with cognitive impairment can have positive outcomes for the patient as well as the potential to improve the service delivery of a hospital.\nLimitations: This study has several limitations. Because of the difficulty in collecting individual patient information relating to falls and use of intensive nursing over the study period, the data presented in this paper reflect the accumulated outcomes for each phase of the study for the two wards. Further, the facility's current incident information management system does not allow for breakdown of data to specifically identify the patient with cognitive impairment. This system is currently under review and enhancements are planned. Additional research to identify outcomes for only those patients who received the intervention would yield more accurate information about its impact.\nConclusion: The TOP5 initiative allows health professionals to effectively engage with carers to gain valuable non-clinical information to help personalise the care of their loved one (Luxford et al., 2015). The preliminary data reported here demonstrate the potential of this intervention to improve health outcomes for patients with cognitive impairment who are admitted to a large hospital, as well as reduce their associated costs of hospitalisation, and improve carer experiences and staff satisfaction. However, more robust data acquired over a longer time period, and more accurate collection of patient and carer data and experiences are required to determine the true potential of the TOP5 initiative.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The patient-centred management of people with cognitive impairment admitted to acute health care facilities can be challenging. The TOP5 intervention utilises carers' expert biographical and social knowledge of the patient to facilitate personalised care. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether involvement of carers in the TOP5 initiative could improve patient care and healthcare delivery.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A small-scale longitudinal study was undertaken in two wards of one acute teaching hospital. The wards admitted patients with cognitive impairment, aged 70 years and over, under geriatrician care. Data for patient falls, allocation of one-on-one nurses (\"specials\"), and length-of-stay (LOS) over 38 months, including baseline, pilot, and establishment phases, were analysed. Surveys of carers and nursing staff were undertaken.\nFindings: There was a significant reduction in number of falls and number of patients allocated \"specials\" over the study period, but no statistically significant reduction in LOS. A downward trend in complaints related to communication issues was identified. All carers (n=43) completing the feedback survey were satisfied or very satisfied that staff supported their role as information provider. Most carers (90 per cent) felt that the initiative had a positive impact and 80 per cent felt that their loved one benefitted. Six months after implementation of the initiative, 80 per cent of nurses agreed or strongly agreed that it was now easier to relate to carers of patients with cognitive impairment. At nine-ten months, this increased to 100 per cent.\nOriginality/value: Actively engaging carers in management of people with cognitive impairment may improve the patient, staff, and carer journeys, and may improve outcomes for patient care and service delivery.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Consumer confusion in the Chinese personal computer market	[ "Consumer behaviour", "Consumer research", "Computers", "China" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Consumer confusion is likely to become increasingly problematic for a variety of reasons: consumers are subjected to greater amounts of information, the number of products available is proliferating rapidly, product imitation strategies are increasing and technology is becoming ever more sophisticated. These factors, when combined, can make purchasing products, particularly technical products, very confusing.Much of the research into consumer confusion has been carried out in Western cultures such as the United Kingdom (e.g. Balabanis and Craven, 1997; Mitchell and Bates, 1998; Turnbull et al., 2000), The Netherlands (e.g. Poiesz and Verhallen, 1989), France (e.g. Kapferer, 1995a, b) and the USA (e.g. Loken et al., 1986; Sproles and Kendall, 1986; Foxman et al., 1990). However, Leek and Chansawatkit (2006) carried out research on confusion in the mobile phone market in Thailand and found that the same aspects of the industry (i.e. handsets, services and tariffs) caused confusion as in the UK. In terms of confusion reduction, it was found that Thai consumers rely on friends and family to a greater extent to reduce confusion, which would be expected in a collectivist culture. Further research on confusion in collectivist, Eastern cultures is necessary to provide further understanding and validate the existing findings (Triandis, 1982; Hui and Triandis, 1985; Lee and Green, 1991).China is a logical choice of country for investigating consumer confusion. Its economy has grown steadily over recent years, with GDP growth in the region of 8-9 per cent (World Bank, 2005). Its technological capabilities have contributed significantly to this growth, with Chinese consumers seeking to purchase the advanced technological products they are producing not only in Beijing and Shanghai but throughout the entire nation. For example, from 1999 to 2004 DVD ownership doubled from 26 per cent to 52 per cent, mobile phone ownership increased nearly five times from 10 per cent to 48 per cent, and personal computer ownership tripled from 4 per cent to 13 per cent (McEwen, 2005a).The aim of this research is to determine what aspects of confusion are most pertinent to Chinese consumers and what strategies they employ to reduce confusion when purchasing a personal computer. As a number of computer companies operate internationally, this information will enable them to adjust their marketing strategy to overcome the specific problems encountered by Chinese consumers.The definition and causes of consumer confusion\nResearch objectives: The general aim of this research is to investigate confusion in the Chinese computer market and the confusion reduction strategy of searching for information.The specific aims of this research are:* to determine what aspects of confusion and the extent to which they are present in the Chinese computer market; and* to ascertain what sources of information are most useful to Chinese computer purchasers for reducing their level of confusion.Methodology\nResults: Sample\nDiscussion: It is apparent from the results that confusion is a significant problem in the Chinese computer market, and that all three facets of confusion are present.The most confusing aspect of buying a personal computer is the technology. One of the strategies consumers may use for reducing confusion is establishing criteria for narrowing down the consideration set of products: for example, the consumer may decide they need a specific memory capacity. If, however, the consumer does not have sufficient technological knowledge, they will find it very difficult to accurately evaluate the positive and negative qualities of the different attributes, brands and models and establish meaningful criteria for narrowing down their consideration set. Companies need to provide information explaining the function and importance of each attribute and how it affects other computer components so consumers can determine which ones are important to them. The knowledge questions address issues that are essential for consumers to know when purchasing a computer. However, very few respondents were aware of the fact that they should be selecting the software prior to selecting the hardware, or that the three most important attributes to consider when purchasing a computer are the CPU clock frequency, memory capacity and the width of the databus. The importance of these basic factors needs to be highlighted and clearly explained by companies so consumers can evaluate them even if they cannot evaluate more sophisticated features.Technological complexity may be contributing to increasing similarity confusion in consumers. If people do not have the knowledge to be able to differentiate between products they may well perceive them to be essentially the same. In this study a third of the sample believed there to be little difference between the brands. If the consumer is unable to narrow down the number of products to choose from, they may experience overchoice confusion. In the Chinese computer market, not only are there domestic brands of computer to consider, such as Great Wall, Tongfang and Haier, but there are also imported brands, such as Apple, Toshiba and Sony. Computers have various components that may be assembled in different combinations, which will also increase consumers' feelings of having too much choice. The links between the three facets of confusion can be observed in Figure 1. If none of the three aspects of confusion are addressed then should the consumer decide to proceed with the purchase he/she may be using very simple heuristics to narrow down their consideration set and make his/her final purchase decision. This is highlighted in the results by the fact that a number of respondents perceive the technology in computers to be similar but perceive the brands to be quite different, and it is this attribute which they may be using to make a purchase decision. Duncan and Olshavsky (1982) found that brands are often used to simplify the search process. However, it may not be the optimal way of deciding which computer to purchase.Confusion reduction strategies\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The paper seeks to identify the sources of confusion in the Chinese personal computer market and the confusion reduction strategies used.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A self-completion questionnaire with a sample of 140 respondents was used.\nFindings: - Technological complexity is the major source of confusion. Word of mouth is the most common source of information used to reduce confusion due to its credibility and reliability.\nPractical implications: - Technical confusion leads to similarity confusion and overchoice confusion. Manufacturers and retailers need to address technical confusion to reduce the overall level of confusion in the PC market.\nOriginality/value: - The paper examines confusion in an Eastern culture, whereas previously it has been predominantly investigated in Western cultures.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
We've come a long way! Maybe! Re-imagining gender and accounting	[ "Accounting", "Gender", "Feminism", "Accountability", "Women", "Neo‐liberalism", "Violence", "Social construction" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nSection 1: Introduction\nSection 2: The thrill is gone?\nSection 3: Vive la difference or indifference?\nSection 4: The F word: are we ghetto?\nSection 5: A long way, maybe: markets and myths in the USA\nSection 6: Valuation and accounting openings\nSection 7: Values, violence and neo-liberalism\nSection 8: Conclusions and a small wall\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Transforming gender research in accounting is possible, desirable, and promising: the past few decades have included prescient work and expansive theories. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the legacy of the 1992 special issue \"Fe[men]ists' account\" and urge new linkages and contexts for a continuation of visionary inquiries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - By reviewing pioneering feminist research in various disciplines, the author opens the margins and boundaries of gender-in-accounting research. Innovative multidisciplinary works from different regions of the globe reveal methods for challenging entrenched premises and recasting new meanings.\nFindings: - Reflecting on our embedded ideas, expanding boundaries, and imagining new areas of inquiry are not only plausible, they are essential, for contesting repression and discrimination and advancing social justice.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Tying the current rhetoric of global neo-liberalism to contemporary feminist struggles, the paper illustrates the significant consequences of economic globalization on women, and accounting's connection. As there is no single story regarding gender, research exploring the unexplored has precedent in accounting literature, providing a foundation for new insights and enhanced possibilities for advancing and transforming the field.\nOriginality/value: - The paper re-imagines the accounting-gender dilemma, offering practical yet expansive research concepts regarding values, class, the construction of gender, and the impositions of economic structures.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Teachers interpreting data for instructional decisions: where does equity come in?	[ "Teacher learning", "Decision making", "Accountability" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Test-based accountability policies place pressure on teachers and schools to increase test scores, particularly for students from historically marginalized groups. Educators and policymakers use results from standardized assessments to identify potential problem areas - content that students have not mastered, students who are underperforming, schools and teachers deemed ineffective, and so forth. In theory, the purpose of these policies is to detect such problems and find solutions, thus creating more equitable outcomes in schools.\nA critical take on test-based accountability policies: Data-driven decision-making (DDDM) is a common strategy for school- and district-level improvement in many countries (Ah-Teck and Starr, 2014; Datnow and Hubbard, 2015; Lynch et al., 2016). In the USA, DDDM is shaped largely by test-based accountability policies. Beginning with the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001, US states have implemented annual high-stakes standardized assessments in mathematics and reading; similar policies have continued through the Race to the Top initiative of 2009 and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015. Under these policies, schools and districts are held accountable to students' performance on end-of-year exams that primarily feature multiple-choice questions. Students' scores are disaggregated by subpopulations (including categories for race, ethnicity, poverty, language, and special education status). This allows policymakers, educators, and the general public to identify and monitor differences in performance of subpopulations (\"achievement gaps\"). To avoid sanctions, schools must demonstrate sufficiently high passing rates for each subpopulation as well as the overall student body. By specifying achievement goals for students from various groups, accountability policies seek to encourage \"continuous and substantial academic improvement for all students\" (NCLB, 2002).\nData use in practice: Under NCLB and ESSA, schools are required to administer state assessments at the end of each school year. Results from these tests often arrive over the Summer or even at the beginning of the following school year; they are therefore not useful for informing routine instruction of teachers' current students. To monitor students' progress toward end-of-year assessment goals, interim benchmark assessments have become a common practice in US schools (Datnow and Hubbard, 2015; Jennings, 2012). Districts develop or purchase assessments meant to mimic state tests in format and content; teachers administer them periodically throughout the school year. Whether locally developed or purchased from vendors, these assessments are problematic in different ways: locally developed benchmark assessments lack the (costly) psychometric validation of published tests, while purchased benchmark assessments are often poorly aligned to local curricula. Nonetheless, the quantitative results they produce - the data referred to in this paper - become consequential in teachers' and students' lives, almost to the exclusion of other forms of data (e.g. student work or classroom talk). Despite the exhortations to do so, educators have few guidelines for using these data to inform their instruction. Accountability policies do not, for instance, specify how one might organize, synthesize, and summarize multiple data points, either within or across students. For this reason, there has been much variation in how teachers and administrators use assessment data in schools (Datnow and Hubbard, 2015; Jennings, 2012; Marsh, 2012).\nThe misalignment between test-based accountability and equitable teaching: While various scholars have examined educators' data-use practices, few have done so from a critical perspective. Critical analysts accept race and power as part of the fabric of life in modern society (Milner, 2013) and work to challenge and change racist policies that disenfranchise certain groups in an effort to maintain the status quo (Tate, 1997). This paper employs such a stance, recognizing that intersections of race, class, teaching, and learning should be considered in examining teachers' interpretations of standardized testing, the resulting data, and the broader data-driven educational climate. This paper thus considers the broader social context and longer histories that are captured in assessment data and in educators' use of these data under accountability policies. This represents a move toward reconciling educators' data use with calls to develop culturally responsive pedagogies, which seek to redress broader inequities by building on students' cultural strengths and resources. By applying a critical lens to data-use practices, this paper articulates the misalignment of the techno-rational vision of educational equity and the culturally responsive vision.\nMethods: Research context\nFindings: influence of accountability policy in data use for teaching and learning: The analysis revealed three primary ways that techno-rational accountability policy logics were reflected in the Riverview teachers' data-use practices:\nImplications: bringing in a critical lens: Recall that a goal of this analysis is to bring a critical lens to teachers' data-use practices, reflecting on the meanings created in light of broader social-historical processes. Given the purported equity goals of accountability policies - which largely drive teachers' use of benchmark assessment data - there ought to be space to consider equity in teachers' data-use conversations. Yet this critical examination of accountability policy's influences on the Riverview teachers' data-use practices reveals that their approach leaves little room for considerations of students' agency, experiences, or funds of knowledge, which are important building blocks for more equitable instruction.\nDiscussion: This inquiry into the Riverview teachers' data-use practices, which are consistent with the structures of accountability policy and its underlying techno-rational logic, suggests that student data from state- and district-mandated standardized tests do not necessarily support meaningful considerations of diversity and equity in the classroom. The teachers focused on content - namely standards and related test items - in their discussion of data, almost to the exclusion of student thinking. Their patterns of conversation presented students as monolithically interacting with test items in static, one-dimensional ways. Indeed, the representations of data that the teachers had available encouraged this sort of analysis. Students' mathematical knowledge and ways of thinking were reduced to responses on multiple-choice items. This limited opportunities for teachers to discuss who students are, how they think mathematically, and what forms of knowledge and experiences they may bring to bear in mathematical contexts. Consequently, students' cultural identities, experiences in schools, and funds of knowledge had no weight in the data analysis or impact on plans for future instruction.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Though test-based accountability policies seek to redress educational inequities, their underlying theories of action treat inequality as a technical problem rather than a political one: data point educators toward ameliorative actions without forcing them to confront systemic inequities that contribute to achievement disparities. To highlight the problematic nature of this tension, the purpose of this paper is to identify key problems with the techno-rational logic of accountability policies and reflect on the ways in which they influence teachers' data-use practices.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper illustrates the data use practices of a workgroup of sixth-grade math educators. Their meeting represents a \"best case\" of commonplace practice: during a full-day professional development session, they used data from a standardized district benchmark assessment with support from an expert instructional leader. This sociolinguistic analysis examines episodes of data reasoning to understand the links between the educators' interpretations and instructional decisions.\nFindings: This paper identifies three primary issues with test-based accountability policies: reducing complex constructs to quantitative variables, valuing remediation over instructional improvement, and enacting faith in instrument validity. At the same time, possibilities for equitable instruction were foreclosed, as teachers analyzed data in ways that gave little consideration of students' cultural identities or funds of knowledge.\nSocial implications: Test-based accountability policies do not compel educators to use data to address the deeper issues of equity, thereby inadvertently reinforcing biased systems and positioning students from marginalized backgrounds at an educational disadvantage.\nOriginality/value: This paper fulfills a need to critically examine the ways in which test-based accountability policies influence educators' data-use practices.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The "hero-leader": a case of leadership in Brazil	[ "Corporate social responsibility", "Transformational leadership", "Organizational change", "Brazilian culture" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers to management's duty to consider and respond to issues beyond the organisation's economic and legal requirements, in order to align the company's social and environmental activities with its business goals and values (Duarte, 2010; Kasturi Rangan et al., 2015). CSR is a growing area of interest in both theory and practice (Angus-Leppan et al., 2010), since CSR initiatives mitigate risks, enhance organisations' reputation and contribute to their business goals (Kasturi Rangan et al., 2015). However, literature on CSR lacks research on external and internal organisational antecedents that might help create and shape CSR activities (Campbell, 2007). Empirical studies have particularly ignored the significance of the leader in the implementation of CSR initiatives (Angus-Leppan et al., 2010; Groves and LaRocca, 2011; Waldman and Siegel, 2008).\n2. Transformational leadership: Organisational leadership is the use of influence to direct and coordinate subordinates towards organisational goals (Kotter, 1990). Since Max Weber (1947) first proposed the concept of the charismatic leader, as one who has the devotion of his followers and is recognised by his heroism or exemplary characters, a number of change-oriented trait-based leadership models and practices have emerged in the literature. These different leadership frameworks have led research in this field for the past 30 years (Groves and LaRocca, 2011).\n3. Culture and change: Organisational culture is a system of shared meanings and values as reflected in the discursive and behavioural norms typically displayed by organisation's members (Schnurr, 2009). It is represented in organisational symbols, heroes and rituals (Hofstede, 2001). Organisational culture originates from the beliefs, values and assumptions of the founders; the learning experiences of group members and the beliefs, values and assumptions introduced by new members (Schein, 1992). Leaders thus play a crucial role in the constant enactment and reinforcement of the values and assumptions that characterise their workplace (Schnurr, 2009). They are responsible for the creation of the company's tangible and rational processes, policies and norms, and they are also responsible for the establishment of symbols, ideologies, languages, beliefs and myths (Schein, 1992). However, the formation and change of organisational culture is also strongly influenced by the environment (Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978), especially by characteristics of the industry or sector in which the organisation operates. Because change is usually driven by the interpretation of signals received from the market and stakeholders (Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978), customers, competitors and society also serve as a springboard to influence and adapt company's culture.\n4. Methodology: Qualitative research has a specific relevance for the study of social relations because it is a method that allows some sensitivity (Flick, 2006, p. 12). As an interpretive and interactive approach (Creswell, 2007), qualitative research allows for systematic in-depth holistic examinations of individuals' experiences in their natural settings, with participants' voices at the forefront of the study (Creswell, 2007; Denzin and Lincoln, 2005). Thus, a qualitative research approach gives appropriate significance to aspects that are subjective in essence but need to be investigated and comprehended in order to answer the research questions (Flick, 2006). In this study, these aspects refer to participants' experiences in the organisation under study as well as their perceptions regarding their leader and the organisational change process.\n5. Findings and discussion: Findings from this case study are broken into sections, first, to portray a picture of the change, and then, to analyse both the leadership mechanisms of the CEO and the role of the Brazilian culture in which this case is embedded. In light of the literature reviewed in this paper, and using the quotes from interviews with CFT's employees and CEO, P1 and P2 are discussed.\n6. Limitations, implications and conclusions: While the use of a qualitative case study design was justified by the objectives of this research, two limitations were intrinsic to the methodological approach adopted. First, the small size of the sample must be considered, despite it being representative in relation to the organisation studied. Second, because of the issue of generalisation in case studies (Stark and Torrance, 2004), the findings of this work must be understood in light of the specific conditions in which the case is embedded. Nonetheless, the study makes a number of contributions to extend our understanding of the relationship between leadership and CSR.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore what mechanisms a leader uses when promoting change towards a corporate social responsibility (CSR) framework in the particular context of the Brazilian culture.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This is a qualitative case study undertaken at a private forest management company located in the South of Brazil, which draws on in-depth interviews with employees (n=12) and analysis of secondary data. Content analysis supported by Atlas TI software.\nFindings: First, this study illustrates the importance of transformational leadership as an internal organisational antecedent for successful organisational change towards CSR practices and policies. This is particularly because this transformation was grounded in moral values, which were used by the leader to build trust, inspire and motivate followers. Second, this case study provides a glimpse into the implementation of CSR practices in a Brazilian organisational setting, suggesting that characteristics that are typical of the national culture reinforce the importance of the leader as a role model, inside and outside the firm, in various realms of the employees' lives.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study makes a contribution in extending the understanding about the relationship between leadership and CSR in the context of Brazilian culture. However, as a qualitative case study, findings from this research should not be generalised. Results must be understood in light of the specific conditions in which the case is embedded.\nPractical implications: The paper identifies key messages for international companies interested in promoting change in their Brazilian businesses or operations. It also stimulates reflection on the issue of dependency on the leader and eventual challenges regarding continuity and succession.\nOriginality/value: The paper offers an in-depth analysis of leadership challenges and mechanisms in an organisation embedded in the Brazilian culture.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Group-level motives for alcohol consumption in a young adult sample	[ "Social interaction", "Social science", "Social marketing", "Alcohol", "Qualitative research methodology", "Group communications" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Young adults have been found to have some of the highest rates of risky drinking with some studies showing the prevalence of risky drinking among females at 51.5 percent (95% CI: 48.4-54.6) and males at 58.0 percent (95% CI: 52.9-63.0); notably, binge drinking rates measured nine years after initial surveying showed no significant changes for males (p =0.905) or females (p =0.999) (Cservenka and Brumback, 2017), suggesting that risky drinking behavior in young adults could continue into later life. Indeed, longitudinal data links binge drinking at age 18 to higher incidence of alcohol abuse disorder at age 35 (Schulenberg et al., 2016). Additionally, people aged 25-34 years old have experienced the highest average annual increase in cirrhosis related mortality (10.5 percent, 8.9 to 12.2 percent, p<0.001), driven entirely by alcohol related liver disease (Tapper and Parikh, 2018). Binge drinking has been associated with a wide range of negative consequences (e.g. neurocognitive deficits, other drug use, risky sexual behavior), for both the drinkers themselves and also for other in their close environment (Cservenka and Brumback, 2017). Evidence has found that for young adults drinking with close friends was riskier than drinking with family members present or with no friends or family present (Connor et al., 2014). Given that an individual's choices about drinking and associated behavior are subject to influences from others (Room et al., 2016), social problems may require extending focus beyond the individual, to include the important \"others\" surrounding the individual. Importantly, whilst previous research has determined the mechanisms through which an individual's risky consumption is learned, promoted and supported via group members, the collective group-level motives for alcohol consumption remain unidentified. Past social marketing campaigns have sought to moderate alcohol consumption or abandon risky drinking practices (Janssen et al., 2013), a midstream social marketing approach that focuses on group-level motives may form a strong foundation for future social marketing interventions. As such, this study seeks to understand and elucidate the perspectives regarding group-level motivation for alcohol consumption.\nLiterature review: Researchers have found that an individual member's drinking is heavily influenced by the relevant norms of the group that govern drinking and associated behaviors (Room, 1975), with pressures to drink most likely to come from friends (Room et al., 2016). Friendship groups are defined as stable, affective relationships marked by preferences, shared affect and reciprocity (Howes, 1983). They involve \"[...] mutual trust, commitment, reciprocal liking and share intent or values\" (Berman et al., 2002, p. 218). Compared to other types of groups, such as work groups, friendship groups usually exist outside the realms of workplace culture and offer more informal relationships. Work group bonds can easily be influenced or strained by management through promotion or recognition of individuals, whereas friendship groups are more likely to have egalitarian and less hierarchical structures (Berman et al., 2002).\nCollective intentions: Collective intentions are defined as a commitment of an individual to participate in joint action and involve an implicit or explicit agreement between the participants to engage in that joint action (Tuomela, 2005). Here, a person plans to participate in a joint activity, but conceives of the activity not so much as individuals performing personal acts that atomistically accumulate and contribute to a group performance, but rather as a group action, where one is a member of the group (Bagozzi and Dholakia, 2006b). Notably, in formulating these collective or social intentions, the activity (and the intention) only has meaning if the group acts in concert (Bagozzi and Dholakia, 2006a). Furthermore, groups can function together to produce a result not independently obtainable through an individual's action. As outlined by past literature (Bagozzi and Dholakia, 2006b), when formulating a social intention, the individual acts as an agent of or an agent with the group in coordination and cooperation with its other members. For example, when organizing celebratory drinks, groups plan to coordinate arrival times and locations, with endorsed or suppressed group alcohol consumption occurring as group motivations change. Collective intentions form the basis of participant in-group drinking, since the actions sustaining the behavior are by the friendship group as a whole. One such theory that explains why a group-level motive could increase alcohol consumption is Kohler's motivation gain effect.\nKohler's motivation gain effects: Kohler's motivational gain effects theory finds that less-able individuals perform better when they are members of a team than when they are working individually (Kerr and Hertel, 2011). This is due to two complementary mechanisms: that of social comparison and conjunctive task. Social comparison expresses itself through a less capable partner revising their personal performance goals upwards, or through doing as well as or better than the partner, a process known as successful competition (Kerr and Hertel, 2011; Stroebe et al., 1996). Conjunctive task presents the view that the more indispensable or vital that individuals perceive their efforts to be for the group or personal outcomes, the greater efforts they will exert (Hertel et al., 2000). Additionally, when the task is conjunctive (all participants need to work together to achieve a goal), individuals will increase their efforts. The main motives for working harder when in a group have been identified as social comparison (\"I should be matching everyone else\"), successful competition (\"I want to win\") and indispensability (\"I cannot let my team down\") (Hertel et al., 2000; Kerr and Hertel, 2011; Stroebe et al., 1996). Whilst these motives were identified in simple motor persistence tasks such as exercise activities, the specific group-level motives for alcohol consumption have not been examined.\nMethodology: This research gathered data from the perspectives of research participants regarding the phenomenon of collective intentions for alcohol consumption in friendship groups. Specifically, this research sought to unravel the complexities of group-level motives to determine explicitly what group-level motives for alcohol consumption exist. As such, interviews were selected as the optimal research method as they allow a deep understanding of the participant's lived experiences within their own terms (Cameron et al., 2001). Although validity and generalizability are not the aims of qualitative work, these interviews employed the qualitative equivalents, namely, credibility and transferability (Shenton, 2004). Credibility is recognized through an established research method, standardised processes, establishing rapport with participants in a nonjudgmental environment, and iterative questioning (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). Transferability, can be made, based on the contextual information provided but is up to the reader to make such a transfer (Firestone, 1993).\nResults and discussion: Participant sample and characteristics\nImplications: A midstream social marketing approach focuses on the people or environments that can influence the priority group, for instance, focusing on how midwives might talk with pregnant women about the importance of HIV/AIDS testing (Lee and Kotler, 2011). While the downstream for a program targeting alcohol consumption would focus solely on the individual drinker, a midstream approach could focus efforts on adapting the drinking locations and environments by catering to moderate consumption of alcohol. This allows for the drinking group as a whole to be affected. For example, having staff remove empty glasses from tables assists in preventing groups from comparing how much consumption has occurred between members. By removing consumption evidence, group-level competitive motives could be reduced since the drinking benchmark is not explicitly discernible. Additionally, while a cafe or restaurant might have table water as standard many clubs only provide water when explicitly requested. As such, having water added to drink orders automatically might help to reduce excessive alcohol consumption. As a possible competitive substitute for alcohol water can reduce thirst, thus further reducing alcohol consumption. Additionally, water can disguise non-alcoholic drinking in a pro-consumption peer group lowering peer influence and possible consequence for not drinking.\nLimitations and future research: Notwithstanding this research's contribution to knowledge in the area of group-level motives, the study does contain some limitations with the potential to provide support for future research studies. This research focuses on the respondent's friendship group and leaves out the potential for other drinking groups and contexts, such as the workplace group or sports teams. Future research needs to take into consideration other these groups when drinking and also other contexts such as drinking venue and consumption amounts. This study collected the data within Australia, but not other countries. There are noticeable difference in drinking styles between men and women in various countries (Babor et al., 2010) and, as such, future research needs to examine if group-level motives differ in other countries. This research used only one type of method to gather data and also interviewed one person from each friendship group. Future research should consider the use of observational techniques, focus groups, interviewing in pairs and projective techniques in interviews to delve deeper and triangulate the data. Additionally, using quantitative methods to measure these group-level concepts would increase the ability to rapidly detect group-level motives, allow determination of their respective strengths on alcohol consumption, and discover any moderators or mediators amongst the relationships, such as whether individual-level motives override or become subsumed by group-level motives.\nConclusion: Understanding how group-level motives influence a priority group's behavior is vital to ensure that meaningful and effective interventions achieve success. Room et al. (2016, p. 19) summarize the importance of examining multiple levels of influence, stating that \"An effort to 'change drinking culture' by a government or other actors coming from outside the levels of individual interactions and of social worlds of drinking would be well advised to understand the ways in which individual behavior and attitudes are located in and influenced by interactions at these levels. Addressing - and where possible complementing - these interpersonal and subcultural influences is the most likely path to the effort succeeding.\" Overall, this research supports the idea that a friendship group can have different group-level motives for alcohol consumption, and that these play an important role in alcohol intake. In conclusion, this paper represents an important step toward understanding the role group-level motives play in alcohol consumption and offers a significant development arc for future research in this area.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Collective motives for alcohol consumption represent a nascent field, with individual-level attributes, peer pressure and broad-level environmental elements being at the forefront of research. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of friendships in the context of alcohol consumption and determine what group-level motives exist for alcohol consumption.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 participants aged 18-30, these discussed the role the participant's friendship group played in alcohol consumption and helped to elucidate what collective and group-level motives existed.\nFindings: Group-level motives can steer a collective's alcohol consumption by either endorsing it or degrading it, the findings revealed four group-level motives: these were, competition, conformity, hedonism, with opportunity cost receptiveness acting as a buffer.\nResearch limitations/implications: The small sample and qualitative nature of the study means external validity still needs to be established to generalize the research to other audiences.\nPractical implications: By unpacking group-level motives researchers can develop group-level strategies and match specialized interventions with the right priority group.\nOriginality/value: This paper is the first to address group-level motives for alcohol consumption and makes an important contribution to understanding how group-level factors can impact individuals.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Work-based learning: how it changes leadership	[ "Work‐based learning", "Leadership", "Leaderful practice", "Collective leadership", "Workplace learning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Readers might be wondering whether and how work-based learning connects to leadership. In this article, after defining how I view work-based learning, I will demonstrate that it impacts, indeed changes, leadership, but it does so by helping to produce a different form of leadership - a shared leadership or \"leaderful\" practice. Once explaining the leaderful approach, I will illustrate how work-based learning affects its four critical tenets.\nBackground on work-based learning: I propose that work-based learning be considered not only a pedagogical method, but also a philosophical approach that characterizes how learners develop their knowledge to participate effectively and democratically in a civil society. It is concerned with how to make learning arise from our mutual experience with others, in particular, from our work together. Many of us, not only in academia, but also in our workplaces, have become conditioned to a classroom training model that separates theory from practice, making learning at times seem impractical or even irrelevant. But what if we were to make our worksite an acceptable location for learning?In work-based learning, theory is expressly merged with practice, while knowledge is considered to be fluid and changeable. Learning is centered on reflection on work practices. Hence, it offers practitioners faced with the relentless pace of pervasive change an opportunity to overcome time pressures by reflecting upon and learning from the artistry of their action.Work-based learning uses many diverse technologies but primary is the deployment of action projects, learning teams, and other interpersonal experiences, such as mentorships, which permit and encourage learning dialogues. Learning dialogues are concerned with the surfacing, in the safe presence of trusting peers, those social, political, and even emotional reactions that might be blocking our personal development and operating effectiveness.\nBackground on leadership: Although there are constantly evolving models prescribing the best approaches for assuming leadership, there may be reasonable agreement about what constitutes leadership, regardless of the model in question. In Figure 1, a functional model describes four critical processes of leadership (Raelin, 2003).The first critical process, setting a mission, defines the outcomes to which the organization or community becomes dedicated. People want to know where they're going together. The second, actualizing goals, is concerned with the varying tasks and activities that need to be organized to carry out the mission. The third, sustaining commitment and cohesiveness, addresses how people come together to feel that they are part of something. Lastly, responding to changes allows the organization to adapt to changing environmental conditions. This last step may require a reset of the mission, so the model becomes iterative.\nWork-based learning and leadership: The especially dialogic approaches of work-based learning appear to surface a different form of leadership, one denoted by a collective form of leadership that I refer to as \"leaderful\" practice (Raelin, 2003, 2010). This relatively new term is used because the idea of involving everyone in leadership and seeing leadership as a collective property is quite distinctive from its familiar individualistic and heroic archetype. Leaderful practice also falls into the domain of \"shared\" and \"distributed\" leadership (Gronn, 2002), which have roots in empowerment, self-directed work teams, and in self-leadership. However, unlike some traditions in shared leadership, it is a mutual rather than sequential or serial activity.There is a natural relationship between work-based learning and leaderful practice that can be explained based on two principles. First, a spirit of organizational learning provides a critical condition for the effects of work-based learning to be fully realized. If everyone consciously participates in learning, be it formally or informally, then no one needs to stand by in a dependent capacity.The second principle that underlies the link between work-based learning and leaderful practice is the endorsement of a culture of free inquiry. Since the root of many of our organizational problems may not be known in advance, there is a need for inquirers to be nonjudgmental and authentically curious.\nThe four Cs of leaderful practice: In order to illustrate the specific impact of work-based learning on leaderful practice, one final set of attributes needs to be explained, those being the critical tenets that constitute leaderful practice. These tenets are known as the \"four Cs\" (Raelin, 2003): that leadership be concurrent, collective, collaborative, and compassionate. In brief, concurrent leadership means that not only can many members serve as leaders; they can do so at the same time. No one, including the supervisor, has to stand down when someone is making a contribution as a leader. Collective leadership means that everyone in the group is participating in leadership; the team is not dependent on any one individual to take over. Collaborative leadership means that everyone is in control of and can speak for the entire team. All members pitch in to accomplish the work of the team. They engage with one another through dialogue, which, in turn, co-creates the enterprise. Finally, in compassionate leadership, members commit to preserving the dignity of every single member of the team, regardless of his or her background, status, or point of view.\nThe shaping of leaderful practice through work-based learning: As a powerful force for leadership development, work-based learning shapes leaderful practice through the aforementioned four Cs. Here is how it operates:1. On concurrent leadership. Because it professes that leadership can be exhibited by more than one person in the group at the same time, concurrent leadership is arguably the most radical proposition in leaderful practice. At the early stages of the life cycle of any team or organization, it is unlikely that inexperienced members will agree cognitively or behaviorally with this proposition. Hence, they may need encouragement, evidence, and practice to arrive at this form of participation. Work-based learning requires team members and facilitators to work through critical developmental issues. How prepared are its members to share leadership with one another? Do they need to rely on one person to assume standard leadership responsibilities? Who will see to it that the best use will be made of the team's resources, that the strengths and weaknesses of the team members will be recognized? Who will provide support to team members in need? Who will be concerned with fostering team spirit? Who will explore and report on opportunities outside the group? These issues are learning issues. Work-based learning does not insist that they be lodged within any one person; rather, they become the knowledge responsibilities of the entire team.2. On collective leadership. Having considered the concurrent perspective of leadership - that it can be practiced by members of a team at the same time - it is not a leap of faith to view leadership as something that the entire community does together. In such a setting, everyone is challenged to learn; no one needs to stand by in a dependent capacity. Participants assemble into learning teams where they begin to question one another about their project experiences. In due course, they also extend their inquiry to each other's professional and personal experiences. They develop a peripheral awareness of others. They come to know learning as a collective process that extends beyond the individual.3. On collaborative leadership. Work-based learning models collaborative leadership through three explicit practices. First, it models dialogic processes that, as noted earlier, take a stance of nonjudgmental inquiry. Participants are encouraged to express genuine curiosity about others' suggestions and to avoid maintaining hidden interests. Second, they are encouraged to submit their own ideas and views to the critical scrutiny of others. In this way, they become receptive to challenges to their own ways of thinking, even to discovering the limitations of how they think and act. Third, they entertain the view that something new or unique might arise from a mutual inquiry that could reconstruct everyone's view of reality in an entirely new way. They are willing to disturb their own preconceived world views on behalf of a common good.4. On compassionate leadership. Compassionate leadership uplifts an organization, since it represents a process that dignifies the human spirit to grow and achieve. In this way, compassion entails an appreciation of other cultures and sensitivity toward views that are less privileged than those in the dominant culture. As a grass-roots form of learning, work-based learning emphasizes such critical democratic values as humility and sustainability. Participants appreciate any social transformation because they participate in it and see their contribution as dependent on others.\nConclusion: Practitioners in the development and learning field already know the value of work-based learning for learning purposes. It not only accomplishes something useful within the work environment but it concurrently provides a living learning opportunity whereby participants create and consume knowledge just-in-time to be useful to them. What we have not explored sufficiently is work-based learning's tie to leadership development. In this article I have made the case that work-based learning does impact leadership but in a most profound way. It changes it. The work-based learning process as a collective and reflective experience transforms leadership in kind - toward a collaborative practice that can respond to contemporary demands to take advantage of all that people have to offer their teams and organizations.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Although readers of this journal are familiar with work-based learning and with leadership, they may not have entertained the link between them. The paper aims to contend that the link is that the former changes the latter. The authentic practice of work-based learning produces a more collective form of leadership, matching the former's founding principles and practices.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Guided by the author's long-standing research of both work-based learning and leadership, he searches for commonalities in their underlying conditions, proposing a means to identify their relationship. The author's model invites both further study by researchers and field replication by practitioners.\nFindings: - A number of compatible principles and practices undergird the fields of work-based learning and collective leadership; namely, their mutual commitment to dialogic processes based on nonjudgmental inquiry; their accentuation of the state of genuine curiosity - even doubt; their acceptance of critical challenge; and their willingness to disturb preconceived world views on behalf of a common good.\nPractical implications: - Managers and executives taking advantage of work-based learning, when offered as an authentic practice, may acknowledge its powerful impact on leadership, but as in the case of learning, they must be willing to sustain its collaborative nature to release its potential.\nSocial implications: - When people in a community or organization authentically share leadership, it ignites their natural talent to contribute to the growth of that community and it also elevates the value of trust by bringing genuineness to the community.\nOriginality/value: - Practitioners in the development and learning field already know the value of work-based learning for learning purposes, but in this article, it is shown to impact leadership in a profound way - it changes it. As a collective and reflective practice, it responds to contemporary needs to find ways to release people to contribute their natural talents on behalf of mutual action.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How to balance work, study and play: How work-based learning initiatives can achieve excellence in higher education	[ "Work‐based learning", "Higher education", "Change management", "Business schools" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Higher education in the UK faced a crossroads in 2011 in terms of its long-term funding and development. In fact, it faced an enormous, multi-exit roundabout with the universities careering round the junction without a clue where they were heading and perplexed as to the speed of change in their industry.\nEverything changes: The problem for those inside higher education institutions was that funding also cut into their budgets so research was put at risk, and redundancies were even a feature of some organizations' strategies to cope with the shifting priorities. Against this backdrop, lecturers were expected to develop and excel in their teaching and research, and the need for a coherent, flexible program became ever more important. For teaching-based institutions in the UK, where funding was dependent on teaching excellence rather than research activity, these programs were central to the very existence of the university itself and it ability to attract enough students to balance the books.In the article \"Extending and embedding work-based learning across the university: change strategies in action\" (2011), Barbara A. Workman looks at how one UK university, Middlesex, sought to embed work-based learning (WBL) programs in its university across a range of subject areas. A WBL program includes the following components:Learning which is recorded or accredited by an employer or professional body.Individual agreement with learner, institution and third-party.Research methods course.Work-based projects.Flexible, wide-ranging teaching practices to facilitate requires aspects of learning.\nTown and gown: Establishing excellence in these programs is crucial for a reaching-based university, as funding will depend on showing how well courses are being provided and the benefits offered to a wide range of different students. Communications and relationships with external bodies are central to this, and extra funding will come a university's way if it can prove high impact in these areas. Planning for this is therefore core to the development of higher education strategy, and Middlesex created a model which had a \"hub and spoke\" approach to this, so that the central Excellence in Teaching and Learning (ETL) could push out the WBL program to the different faculties within the university - the business school, health and social sciences, arts and education, engineering and information sciences.The effect in developing new programs and strategy has been profound. For example, in the business school in 2005 WBL was minimal in its facilitation. There was some learning from part-time work programs, joint validation utilized and the usual work placements. However in 2010, there was a PhD available in professional studies, bespoke awards that meet the needs of different business sectors and accreditation of in-house training.\nWhat does good look like?: Middlesex has won a number of awards and additional funding for its programs, and it has several factors that have marked out its success:Internal champions. While WBL programs have in the main been appreciated by the world outside academia, inside they have often failed to engage all members of the faculty. Having an internal champion is therefore crucial so that the first initial hurdle to adoption is removed, in that the top echelon of the institution are seen to be on board. Symbiotic with the is faith that funding for WBL programs are sustained, so that people will then have both faith in the system and the future, but the champions must also have faith in the future themselves to push it forward.Departmental WBL. Success here was dependent on a degree of autonomy being given to the schools so that they could adapt the broad frameworks of WBL into their own systems and goal-setting. As we saw with the business school at Middlesex, it was able to move forward considerably in five years through such flexibility and not inconsiderable innovation - this innovativeness is not to be underestimated across so many different disciplines that exist across a university curriculum.Project-based programs. In the business school, these involved modes of reflection, mentoring, applying for funding and how to adopt new theory into practice. They formed a considerable legacy for the school, and also helped to influence the effect of champions in the first point aboveInnovation. Whilst the approaches adopted by the university and different schools within the WBL framework were often innovative, one aspect of the programs that provided an added bonus were the innovations that came back that helped to shape and evolve the programs themselves. The realization that the WBL programs were organic and could be improved by recognizing innovation that came back from the spokes to the central hub was a key development for the school and the WBL ethos as a whole.Facilitating success. It was important to identify the many reasons behind the adoption and development of WBL, such as the level of funding required and the quality of staff that put together the WBL programs. Understanding the role time played as well was key, as this is so often taken as a given or misunderstood, but allowing programs enough time to embed themselves can lead to innovation and improvement that could be missed if hurried\nInvestment and individuals: Whilst universities are quite rightly obsessed by the quest for additional funding and have been willing to \"game\" the system quite cynically to achieve this, what the Workman case study at Middlesex University showed is that given the time and quality of staff, considerable innovation and development can occur from within a well-structured, organic WBL system. In the rush for investment, it is to be hoped that it does not overshadow the power of individuals to successfully shape education given the right conditions.\nComment: In her case study \"Extending and embedding work-based learning across the university: change strategies in action\" (2011), Workman adroitly establishes both the necessary background and management processes required to establish successful work-based learning programs within a UK higher education institution. This work is most important due to the background of massive change occurring not just within the tertiary education system in the UK and internationally, but also the changes that have been seen in business and the public sector that have a direct bearing on WBL approaches. An appreciation of the sophistication and flexibility of the modules employed in the article will greatly aid other institutions and organizational change initiatives taking place amid massive structural upheavals.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints 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: - Higher education in the UK faced a crossroads in 2011 in terms of its long-term funding and development. In fact, it faced an enormous, multi-exit roundabout with the universities careering round the junction without a clue where they were heading and perplexed as to the speed of change in their industry.\nPractical implications: - 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" } ]
Chasing Frankenstein's monster: information literacy in the black box society	[ "Information literacy", "Theory", "Sociocultural theory", "Algorithmic culture", "Algorithmic literacy", "Information literacy education" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The incorporation and acceptance of algorithms into everyday life has implications for the practice of information literacy. This premise is based on the view that the ubiquity of algorithms intersects with everyday life with the potential to reshape practices and culture. Subsequently, algorithms should be viewed as a feature with the potential to create or remake the conditions for everyday life by enabling and/or constraining conceptions of reality, agency and performativity (Roberge and Seyfert, 2016). The question for information literacy scholars and educators is how do we understand the impact of algorithms on agency and performativity and how do we address and plan for it in our educational and instructional practices?\nAlgorithmic cultures: Introduced by Striphas (2015) (after Galloway, 2006), the concept of algorithmic culture has been described as representing an emerging intellectual shift in understanding how culture is practiced, experienced and understood (p. 395). Traditionally, the ascription of culture has been the work of humans but is now increasingly being delegated to computation processes, which trawl through big data to categorise and hierarchise people, places, objects and ideas, suggesting that a more taxonomic view of culture is again in operation and leading to a reassembling of the social (Latour and American Council of Learned Societies, 2005). Striphas (2015), who has an interest in keywords, pointed to examples such as the Amazon deranking of gay romance books (p. 396), other examples include Twitter topics feed, Facebook \"friends\" recommendations as evidence of the shift in the work of classifying culture.\nImplications of algorithmic culture \"power, discourse and agency\": Algorithms are not produced in a vacuum but are a part of the practice of meaning making through which discourse is replicated; social and technical performances are enacted, and their outcomes are experienced and understood. Because an algorithm is a thing or part of a larger sequence of code, made by people, it is unavoidably - sometimes unconsciously and sometimes consciously - subject to cultural biases representing, privileging and prioritising certain truths while negating others, for example, social media feeds and search results represent forms of decision making about what to present or (re)present (Beer, 2017; Striphas, 2015; Willson, 2017). This prioritising references historical decisions, which operate through the algorithm and have future consequences because they shape outputs and have the potential to influence agency in relation to the limitation or delegation of decision making.\nInformation landscapes and algorithms: The ubiquitous enmeshment of algorithms in daily living has implications for the remaking and reshaping of culture and this in turn has implications for how people practise information literacy and how information landscapes are shaped. By association, there are also implications for librarians and educators in terms of information literacy pedagogy and archivists in relation to memory practices. The recent focus on algorithms as social expressions of enablement and constraint (and therefore power) has implications for information landscapes and acts as a catalyst for them to problematised.\nInformation literacy and algorithmic cultures: How do we provide education about the way an algorithm works, where they are in operation, what assumptions and biases are inherent in them and how do we prepare students to address the challenges of opacity?\nTeaching information literacy in the context of algorithmic culture: How do we teach information literacy to ensure that agency and practices such as reflexivity are highlighted and advocated in ways that scaffold the questioning of results and automated decisions? While information literacy is the foundational core supported via the literacies of information, (defined here as the contextualised forms of information literacy - media, digital, visual, etc) incorporating and developing awareness and knowledge of algorithmic culture becomes key to interrogating how increasingly complex socio-technical interactions with technologies, algorithms other artefacts, challenge or refocus agency in contemporary life.\nConclusion: While algorithms have been working away quietly for many years, the sudden rise in big data, complex social interactive sites, interest by business and their invasion into everyday life through accelerated mediation of technology, mean that these pieces/strings of code have also risen in people's consciousness. This rise invokes many questions for information literacy researchers and educators about power, agency, reflexivity and trust.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce and examine algorithmic culture and consider the implications of algorithms for information literacy practice. The questions for information literacy scholars and educators are how can one understand the impact of algorithms on agency and performativity, and how can one address and plan for it in their educational and instructional practices?\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this study, algorithmic culture and implications for information literacy are conceptualised from a sociocultural perspective.\nFindings: To understand the multiplicity and entanglement of algorithmic culture in everyday lives requires information literacy practice that encourages deeper examination of the relationship among the epistemic views, practical usages and performative consequences of algorithmic culture. Without trying to conflate the role of the information sciences, this approach opens new avenues of research, teaching and more focused attention on information literacy as a sustainable practice.\nOriginality/value: The concept of algorithmic culture is introduced and explored in relation to information literacy and its literacies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Does board independence enhance firm value of state-owned enterprises? Evidence from India and China	[ "Corporate governance", "Board independence", "Firm value", "Resource dependence theory", "State-owned enterprise" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The institution of independent directors (IDs) is the backbone of corporate governance framework globally. IDs bring in objectivity and functioning of the board and improve the effectiveness and interests of all stakeholders, particularly minority shareholders. IDs balance the conflict of interest of stakeholders and ensure objective evaluation of the performance of the board and management (Uday Kotak Committee, 2017). IDs play an important role in corporate governance in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and it is no less important than in private enterprises. The board should function in the interest of the state, company and minority shareholders (OECD, 2015). As per the shareholder theory, the underlying problem that stems in SOEs is the principal-agent relationship which occurs because of separation of ownership and executive decision-making. The role of IDs becomes more critical when the government promoter holds significant portion of the shares and only a small percentage is listed in the stock exchange. Minority shareholders are a highly fragmented group of individuals who lack cognizance of their rights and very rarely play a significant role in the performance of the firms. IDs have an incentive to monitor the performance to protect their reputation (Fama and Jensen, 1983) and act as stewards to mitigate the agency conflict. The presence of IDs may result in reallocation of corporate control from owners to professional managers including IDs and can ensure better monitoring and protect the interests of minority shareholders (Gaur et al., 2015). IDs can provide a new perspective and boards dominated by IDs may substitute the CEOs than boards with more insider directors (Weisbach, 1988), and emerging economies are taking efforts to professionalize their boards.\n2. Development of hypothesis: SOEs is an enduring feature in an economy and their underperformance will be detrimental to the growth, competitiveness and fiscal risk of an economy (World Bank, 2014). A recent study of OECD shows that, on an average, SOEs account for 2.5% of national employment and are highly concentrated on infrastructure and other network industries. In developing economies, SOEs account for 25%-50% of the urban economy and they are the sole provider of the public services such as telecommunications, water and electricity (OECD, 2015). The control of SOEs vests in the hands of Administrative Ministry/Departments which oversee the functions of the enterprise, but the main governance challenges faced by the SOEs are unclear accountability and bribery. The government controls these enterprises through the provisions in the Articles of Association with respect to composition of board of directors, restrictions on the board powers, nominations of government officials on the board and making government approval mandatory in some cases to reduce expropriation. Corporate scandals across the world led to the development of corporate governance codes by public authorities to protect the interest of shareholders (OECD Principles, 1999, 2004, 2015; Daiser et al., 2017). The role of IDs has increased tremendously in India and China after 2000, especially after the Enron and WorldCom scandal (Gupta and Gupta, 2015). Over a period of time, regulators have been amending the existing regulations on board compositions, particularly, the regulations pertaining to IDs to ensure transparency in the system.\n3. Data and methodology: This study is based on SOEs which are listed in the stock exchange in India and China. The sample constitutes 110 state-owned firms that are part of Shanghai Stock Exchange and the data have been collected from Bloomberg for the period from 2010 to 2017 covering 2,400 observations. In India, there are both Central government-owned enterprises and SOEs. This study focuses of CPSEs and out of 89 CPSEs, the data is available for only 53 CPSEs in Prowess IQ, a database maintained by Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy. Hence, for India, our sample consists of 53 CPSEs for the period 2010-2017. The period 2010-2017 covering 1,080 observations is the most recent years for which data is available. We winsorize all continuous variables at 1st percentile and 99th percentile of the values to avoid outliers.\n4. Empirical results: In India, on an average, 8.7% of the board of state-controlled firms comprise IDs, whereas in China, it is 6.57% (Tables 2 and 3). However, the number of IDs in SOEs is found to be lower than the listed firms which is around 12% (Yermack, 1996; Bhagat and Black, 2002). The mean value of TQ is 1.44 for India and 1.83 for China, which shows that, on an average, Indian firms and Chinese firms market value is greater than the recorded assets. The mean value of board size is 5 for India and 10.1 for China, which shows that compared to India, China has large number of directors on their board. Being a stated-owned economy, Chinese SOEs have promoter holdings of 34% held by the government, whereas in Indian SOEs, it is 43%. The correlation matrix shows that board independence is positively and significantly related to firm value in India and China, similar to Fama (1980), Welsbach (1988) and Morck et al. (2008). Board size is negatively related to firm value in India, which is similar to Khanna and Paleppu (2005) and Sarkar and Sarkar (2000), whereas in China, more the directors on the board, higher the firm value, which is in line with the resource dependency theory.\n5. Conclusion: This study contributes to the literature on corporate governance by examining the impact of board independence on firm value in SOEs of India and China. Using a panel regression analysis of state-owned firms in India during the period 2010-2017, we find that board independence has positive impact on firm value. IDs are appointed to monitor the principal owners and the presence of IDs can reduce the conflict between the controlling shareholders and minority shareholders. Analysis of SOEs in China shows that IDs have significant impact on firm value, being a significant resource to protect minority shareholders and reduce the agency problem. Interestingly, it is observed that State Government works in alignment with the IDs in enhancing firm value in India and China SOEs.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to examine the effectiveness of governance in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and explores if board independence enhances the firm value of SOEs in India and China. The study further explores the moderation impact of promoter ownership in enhancing firm value.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study is confined to government-owned enterprises in India and China and is based on a sample of 53 central government-owned firms listed in National Stock Exchange of India and 110 state-owned firms listed in Shanghai Stock Exchange of China for the period 2010-2017. A fixed-effect panel regression analysis has been used to examine the effect of board independence on firm value.\nFindings: The study found that board independence adds value to the SOEs in India and China and the presence of independent directors (IDs) in the board of SOEs act as better monitors of performance to protect the interest of minority shareholders. Probably, they minimize agency conflict and provide resources to the firm and management. The greater the government shareholdings, the board independence further enhances value of SOEs in India and China.\nPractical implications: Compliance with guidelines on IDs in SOEs serves as an effective corporate governance mechanism and the presence of IDs can signal better firm performance. The government promoters align with the IDs in better monitoring of SOE performance.\nOriginality/value: The study is unique and contributes to the literature by examining the impact of board independence on firm value in the context of SOEs in India and China and also provides insight on the effect of promoter ownership on the effectiveness on board independence.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Emotion display and suppression among Arab and Jewish assistant principals in Israel: The key role of culture, gender and ethnicity	[ "Emotion", "Regulations", "Qualitative", "Deputy principals" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Despite the increasing importance of assistant principalship in the last two decades in school maintenance and improvement, research in many countries has almost ignored assistant-principal relations, perceptions of AP's role and its implementation in practice (Arar, 2014; Cranston et al., 2004; Glanz, 2004). Most of the studies have simply related to AP's job satisfaction or intentions to advance to principalship (Arar, 2014; Young, 2011). Kwan and Walker (2008) also noted that AP's job definition and its implementation within the school space have not been substantially clarified, while in some cases assistant principals perform many of the managerial tasks at the internal level of the school, including managing teaching and learning and student discipline. In other cases, the assistant principals follow up school policy, thereby conducting regulations and mediation (Arar, 2014; Oplatka, 2017). Until today, however, there has been little theoretical or applied research concerning assistant principals' emotion display and suppression of internal feelings. For this reason, our discussion on emotion focuses on educational leadership, in general, and on APs, in particular.\nThe expression and suppression of emotions: Emotion is usually defined in terms of an ephemeral and fluid phenomenon (Hargreaves, 2005) that is a mix of \"psychological, physiological and cognitive processes that allow people to process experience and to express it through positive or negative feelings\" (Bridges et al., 2004, p. 340). Distinctions are also drawn between feelings, emotions, emotional labor and emotions at work, and these can be influenced by different situations at work. Furthermore, Zembylas (2016, p. 286) notes that emotions can serve as therapization of social in/justice as a part of the conditions of the birth of particular forms of bio-power and therapy in schools, especially in an era of social problems and educational politicization.\nMethodology: Research context\nFindings: From the analysis of the interviewees' accounts, four major themes emerged: a display of warmth and empathy, deliberate suppression of emotion, strategies of emotion management, and factors affecting emotion regulation among APs.\nDiscussion: From the interview transcripts of the APs several insights may be formed. First, female APs, most of them Jewish, tend to display warmth and empathy toward teachers in order to better understand their personal needs and professional performances, especially when they feel close to what has been happening in the teachers' lounge and care for more cohesion in the staff. In this sense, they seem to abandon an emotional discourse of vulnerability for a discourse of containment (Blackmore, 2004) that enables the building of a professional climate and constructing a team (Schutz et al., 2006). In contrast, Arab APs, who live in a masculine, collectivistic society, avoid displaying emotions, especially when it comes to interactions between males and females, including students, as this kind of emotion displays contradicts the Muslim culture. The emotional regime of a school can further make emotional life in schools the \"object-target\" for specific technologies of power (Zembylas, 2016). The APs used feelings of affection and empathy in order to motivate the teachers and to improve their work morale (Oplatka, 2011).\nEmpirical and practical implications: Although the qualitative method used in this study provided a profound picture of the emotion management in two educational arenas, its small sample limits generalizability to similar contexts elsewhere. Therefore, it is suggested to further study emotion management among APs in different nations and contexts so as to allow the research to inform programs of leadership development how to prepare APs for their emotional engagements in this intermediate job.\nChallenging conclusions: In some sense, our findings reconstruct educational leadership in terms of gender, culture and identity as they show how the social position of the educational leader influence his/her emotion management. Thus, while many leadership theories give an impression of universal organizational phenomenon, our findings emphasize the particular nature of educational leadership and its highly contextualized activities. For example, in the Arab society, the gender of the principal has been much influential upon their decision to display or suppress a certain emotion, while in the Jewish society emotion management was more neutral in gender terms. In both cases gender was entwined within the local cultural context. Thus, any analysis of leadership behavior should take in consideration national and ethnic cultures, organizational arrangements, intercultural interactions, and local educational ideologies. Without this analysis, any change initiative will be impeded many cultural, organizational and ethnic barriers that are particular to the educational system in which the change is intended to be implemented. Our cultural insights should be considered in leadership development programs and in policy making.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: It is widely accepted that educational leaders and teachers need to manage and regulate their emotions continually, mainly because schooling and teaching processes expose many emotions. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to trace the ways Israeli assistant principals, both Arab and Jewish, manage their emotions at work.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on semi-structured interviews with 15 assistant principals, it was found that they are required to manage their emotions in accordance with entrenched emotion rules in the culture and society.\nFindings: Most of the Jewish female APs tend to display warmth and empathy toward teachers in order to better understand their personal needs and professional performances. In contrast, Arab APs suppressed or fabricated emotional expression in their discourse with teachers and parents, in order to maintain a professional facade and retain the internal cohesion of the school. Both groups of APs believed their emotion regulation results in higher level of harmony in the school. Empirical and practical suggestions are put forward.\nOriginality/value: The paper is original and contributes to the theoretical and practical knowledge.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Multilevel analysis of work context and social support climate in libraries	[ "Hierarchical linear modeling", "Organizational identification", "Social support climate", "Work context", "Work design", "Libraries" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A number of studies have indicated that the social support climate should increase the performance of standard job activities and encourage actions that are favorable to the organization and that go beyond the assigned responsibilities to share knowledge and work experiences. Social support from co-workers and superiors, performance feedback, autonomy, and task variety with opportunities for professional development are positively associated with work engagement (Bakker and Bal, 2010). The development of social support is encouraged by the tendency of employees to assign humanlike characteristics to their organizations (Hutchison et al., 1986). According to previous research, social support is the most important factor of organizational development. Social support influences the work motivation of every employee within the company and organization. Social support is an assurance that aid will be available from the organization when it is needed to carry out a job effectively and to deal with stressful situations (George et al., 1993). In recent years, new research studies have tackled the issue of knowledge acquisition and sharing in the work context (Herbig et al., 2001; Koskinen et al., 2003). The continuous development of ICT (information communication technology) has altered how libraries provide online content, access, and services in the new electronic era (Hawkins, 2000). In this new era, the increasing amounts of various electronic resources have made it more difficult to use. Libraries should act as gateways for social and intellectual interactions in communities and organizations, in both the traditional way and in new ways (Robertson and Reese, 1999). The various reference resources held by libraries include electronic journals, online databases, professional websites, and other digital resources (Sharifabadi, 2006). These information resources make it more difficult for librarians to handle the readers' problems. In order to quickly respond to the readers' questions, librarians need large amounts of timely knowledge, which can present a huge challenge, as there are various knowledge resources contained within the library. A library is a knowledge-oriented organization, and the librarian is a knowledge worker of the library. How to encourage librarians to share their knowledge and self-learning is important. Library managers must enhance the organizational identification, as well as set up a suitable work context for knowledge workers. Within the extensive literature on social support, comparatively little research has focused on the multilevel analysis of social support in libraries. Therefore, in order better to understand the organizational level effect, this study proposed the research model from the perspective of the social support climate. It differed from previous studies mainly through its focus on the hierarchical linear analysis of the organizational climate. In light of these concerns, the contribution of this paper was the conceptualization of organizational identification by emphasizing social support as an important aspect of knowledge sharing capacity at the organizational level. To ground the theoretical discussion, in the next section, we first review the literature on social support, knowledge sharing, organizational identification and task characteristics. Based on the literature review, hypotheses were developed on the relationship between task characteristics and organizational identification from the personal perspective and the relationship between social support, knowledge sharing and organizational identification at the organizational level. This study examined the theoretical framework that has guided research on work context and social support, considered studies on the hypothesized antecedents and consequences of organizational identification, and evaluated evidence on the processes assumed to underlie these associations. Finally, this study explained the methodology employed and presented a discussion of the results and implications.\nLiterature review: Organizational social support\nResearch method: Data collection\nData analysis and results: According to the demographics, we further explored the possible difference by conducting several Analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests. The results are shown in Table II. ANOVA revealed that there were statistically significant differences in terms of gender, work position, education, service counter, library type among research constructs. The result of the ANOVA showed the interaction between gender and task variety (F=6.251, P=0.013) and knowledge sharing (F=2.981, P=0.086). The result of the ANOVA showed the interaction between work position and task variety (F=4.351, P=0.006) and knowledge sharing (F=5.524, P=0.001). The result of the ANOVA showed the interaction between education and task autonomy (F=2.672, P=0.034) and knowledge sharing (F=2.321, P=0.059). The result of the ANOVA showed the interaction between service counter and task autonomy (F=3.282, P=0.072) and task feedback (F=3.477, P=0.064). The result of the ANOVA showed the interaction between library type and social support (F=4.034, P=0.008). Finally, there were no statistically significant differences in terms of work experience among research constructs.\nDiscussion: This study had four findings that were worth summarizing. First, work autonomy which represents the perceived control over how they carry out their job is important for librarians, including scheduling, work procedures, and task variety. Previous studies indicated that unnecessary and overelaborate formalities undermine job satisfaction for those who desire work autonomy by communicating to employees that they are controlled by the work organization in public sector (Davis, 2013). Our findings do not contradict with those of the empirical studies discussed above. With regard to work design, the results of this study confirmed that organizational identification is significantly related to work autonomy, and that autonomy has a positive value for organizational identification in the library. Second, task variety is the extent to which employees are required to execute a large variety of tasks on the job (Morgeson and Humphrey, 2006). Employees with high levels of task variety show a higher employee engagement. Task variety represents one of the critical psychological states likely to influence employees' intrinsic motivation (Zhang and Bartol, 2010). Consistent with previous studies, the finding of this study suggested that task variety is necessary to maintain organizational identification. Third, task feedback is the reaction of a manager or a colleague to the performance of a task and the connected results. Hackman and Oldham (1976) indicated that the motivating potential of a job is determined by the extent to which a job has the characteristics of task variety, identity, autonomy, and feedback. This study found that task autonomy, task variety, and task feedback have a significant influence on organizational identification. Therefore, this study combined the results of studies examining the importance of work characteristics and organizational identification. Last, as librarians need to share knowledge with their colleagues in order to provide timely responses for the readers. Especially, social support motivates the librarians to perform tasks well. Through conducting a cross-level study, the findings provided insights for both practice and academia. Other results may be explained by considering the several analysis of variance tests. We can conclude that both gender and work positions are able to explain significant amounts of variance on task variety and knowledge sharing intention. The findings indicate both education and service counter are able explain significant amounts of variance on task autonomy. The results also support library type explains related to social support, education related to knowledge sharing intention, and service counter related to task feedback.\nConclusions: This paper presented an investigation of the work context and social support climate in libraries. Since knowledge sharing relies on reciprocal behavior among librarians, social support can provide a reciprocal, cooperative environment for sharing knowledge. Librarians who perceive a supportive climate will identify themselves as part of the library. In addition to the direct effect, social support will indirectly affect their sharing behavior through shaping their organizational identification. The results of the cross-level analysis also suggested that the variance of a supportive climate among libraries might exert an influence on knowledge sharing. In order to avoid atomistic or ecological fallacy, future research should take hierarchical structures into consideration. The results of this study supported the relationship between task characteristics and organizational identification. Tasks with sufficient autonomy, variety, and feedback could improve the perception of organizational identification. Task autonomy allows a librarian to perform a task with considerable discretion and control over the processes. Task variety refers to the range of instructional activities that the members engage in when they provide a service to readers, whereas task feedback refers to the librarians' gains from performing their job. Therefore, librarians perceive that more elastic task characteristics will increase their commitment toward the library. The findings also confirmed the mediating role of organizational identification. Organizational identification acts as a full mediator in the relationship between task feedback and knowledge sharing, and acts as a partial mediator in task autonomy and knowledge sharing. According to the cross-level analysis, organizational identification is also a partial meso-mediator for social support and knowledge sharing. Task characteristics and social support can reinforce knowledge sharing through shaping the organizational identification. This study enhanced the findings of previous studies by providing a much more detailed examination of work characteristics; however, a wider range of work characteristics needs to be examined in order to further clarify the influence of work context on the cognition and evaluation of knowledge sharing and organizational identification. It was not within the scope of this paper to provide an extended discussion of other knowledge-oriented organizations among respondents from diverse cultures. Future research will hopefully clarify such possible cultural differences.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The paper aims to clarify the relationship between organizational identification, knowledge sharing and work characteristics. It proposes hierarchical linear modeling analysis of work context and social support climate with regard to organizational identification. The study aims to understand and prescribe the cross-level effects of a supportive climate and the effect of job design on organizational identification and knowledge sharing. Librarians need to share knowledge with their colleagues to provide timely responses for readers. Through a cross-level study, the authors' findings provide insights for both practice and academia.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Analysis approach in this paper consisted of the following steps. First, this study applied confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to assess the validity and reliability of the authors' instrument. Second, this study checked the viability of aggregating the responses of the librarians to library-level constructs. Third, this study adapted hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to examine the research hypotheses. HLM could be utilized to explain the nested data and simultaneously estimate the influence of factors from the different levels.\nFindings: The paper provides empirical insights to support the relationship between task characteristics and organizational identification. Tasks with sufficient autonomy, variety, and feedback can improve the perception of organizational identification. Task characteristics and social support can reinforce knowledge sharing through shaping organizational identification.\nResearch limitations/implications: As the sample libraries were all located in Taiwan, the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to further test the propositions in multiple cultures.\nPractical implications: The paper includes implications for task characteristics and social support can reinforce knowledge sharing through shaping the organizational identification in libraries.\nOriginality/value: The results of cross-level analysis in this paper suggested that the variance of a supportive climate among libraries may exert an influence on knowledge sharing. This paper also confirmed organizational identification is also a partial meso-mediator for social support and knowledge sharing.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Big data analytics with swarm intelligence	[ "Evolutionary computation", "Optimization", "Data mining", "Big data", "Swarm intelligence", "Big data analytics" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the traditional decision making or statistical analytics, the results are obtained based on the analysis of the samples from a small data set. The analysis bias or ridiculous coincidence may occur due to the choices of samples. In other words, the partial and insufficient information from a small data set may produce wrong or biased analytical results. The quality and quantity of data are vital for the effectiveness of problem solving. The more data we obtain, the more clear structure of a problem can be observed and thus the more accurate analysis can be made to solve the problem.\n2. Big data analytics: The data set of the big data cannot be handled by typical relational or object-oriented database, normal computers, or traditional desktop application software. It needs huge parallel processing power of computer clusters. Mostly the big data processing is based on a nonlinear system whose behavior sometimes appears to be unpredictable or counterintuitive. For a linear system, it satisfies the superposition principle - the additivity and homogeneity properties as below:\n3. SI: Many real-world applications can be represented as an optimization problem of which algorithms are required to have the capability to search for the optimum. Most traditional methods can only be applied to continuous and differentiable functions (Shi, 2011a). For problems with non-continuous or differentiable functions, the traditional methods cannot solve or at least are difficult to solve. So the meta-heuristic algorithms are proposed to solve such problems. Recently, the SI, as one type of the meta-heuristic algorithms, is attracting more and more attentions.\n4. SI in big data analytics: The big data analytics is a new research area of information processing, however, the problems of big data analytics have been studied in other research fields for decades under a different title. The rough association between big data analytics and SI (or more generally, computational intelligence (CI)) can be established and shown in Table I.\n5. An application: The big data are created in many areas in our everyday life. With the big data analytical techniques and SI methods, more effective applications or systems can be designed to solve real-world problems. The big data analytics problem not only occurs in web data mining and business intelligence, but also in complex engineering or design problems. The following example gives an introduction to the applications of the big data analytics in a real-world commodity routing problem in a real port in China (we call it XYZ port).\n6. Conclusion: The big data analytics problem is a hot and new topic. It has attracted more and more attentions currently. Most of the big data researches focus on the huge amount of data, however, handling the high-dimensional data and the multiple objectives are also important in solving big data problems. The big data analytics problem has many difficulties, which have been researched separately for several years with different names, such as the high-dimensional problems, problems with massive data, dynamic problems, just to name a few. Due to the properties of big data problems, it is difficult to use some \"divide-and-conquer\" strategies to solve these problems. The SI algorithm is a new kind of computing and information techniques, which have obtained good performance on the search and optimization problems, especially for the problems that the traditional method cannot solve or is very difficult to solve.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The quality and quantity of data are vital for the effectiveness of problem solving. Nowadays, big data analytics, which require managing an immense amount of data rapidly, has attracted more and more attention. It is a new research area in the field of information processing techniques. It faces the big challenges and difficulties of a large amount of data, high dimensionality, and dynamical change of data. However, such issues might be addressed with the help from other research fields, e.g., swarm intelligence (SI), which is a collection of nature-inspired searching techniques. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this paper, the potential application of SI in big data analytics is analyzed. The correspondence and association between big data analytics and SI techniques are discussed. As an example of the application of the SI algorithms in the big data processing, a commodity routing system in a port in China is introduced. Another example is the economic load dispatch problem in the planning of a modern power system.\nFindings: The characteristics of big data include volume, variety, velocity, veracity, and value. In the SI algorithms, these features can be, respectively, represented as large scale, high dimensions, dynamical, noise/surrogates, and fitness/objective problems, which have been effectively solved.\nResearch limitations/implications: In current research, the example problem of the port is formulated but not solved yet given the ongoing nature of the project. The example could be understood as advanced IT or data processing technology, however, its underlying mechanism could be the SI algorithms. This paper is the first step in the research to utilize the SI algorithm to a big data analytics problem. The future research will compare the performance of the method and fit it in a dynamic real system.\nOriginality/value: Based on the combination of SI and data mining techniques, the authors can have a better understanding of the big data analytics problems, and design more effective algorithms to solve real-world big data analytical problems.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Nurses' perspectives on quality of nursing care: a qualitative study in Iran	[ "Quality", "Nursing", "Health services", "Iran" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Quality is the ability of a product and service to satisfy stated or implied needs (American Society for Quality (ASQ), 2004) and the degree to meet customer or patient expectations (Hoy and Miskel, 2000). Health care quality is the degree to which services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes (Marquis and Huston, 2003) and which are clinically effective, efficient, and affordable (Foely, 2001). Quality is not a single, homogeneous variable, but rather a complex construct incorporating values, beliefs, and attitudes of individuals involved in a health care interaction (Gunther and Alligood, 2002). Any attempt to define quality must recognize the different views held by the major health care stakeholders: patients, providers, payers and the public (Huycke and All, 2000).As nurses comprise the largest group of health care providers (Brooten et al., 2004) and are legally liable and morally responsible for the quality of care they provide to patients (Gunther and Alligood, 2002), their perspectives on the definition of nursing quality is important. Many studies have discussed the impact of nurse staffing on health care outcomes (Lankshear et al. 2005, Bolton et al. 2003) and suggest that positive patient outcomes depend more on the quality of nursing than on the available technology (Navuluri, 1999). In response to these concerns, many investigators, managers and researchers attempt to define nursing quality care (Williams, 1998; Kunaviktikul et al., 2001; Aiken et al., 2002; Chang et al., 2002). Thus, the need to define quality of nursing care and to determine how is it measured, is urgent\nNurses' perspective on quality: Williams (1998) studied nurses, perspective on delivery of quality nursing care by a grounded theory study. Data was gathered by tape-recorded interviews, published literatures and some participant observations. Findings revealed that the presence or absence of \"needs\" was seen as central to determining the quality of nursing care delivered. Quality was assessed by the participants in terms of the degree to which patients, needs (physical or psychosocial) were met by the nursing care provided. High quality nursing care was described as \"meeting all needs of the patients or patients you are looking after\". Insufficient time (caused by lack of human and physical resources) was perceived as the main reason for inability to consistently provide quality-nursing care. To deal with this, nurses used a process named \"selective focusing\". It means that work was planned to most effectively utilize the time available, within the parameters of safety (Williams, 1998).Idvall and Rooke (1998) in a study by a qualitative methodology used a focus group discussion to find out clinical nurses, perceptions of important aspects of nursing care in surgical wards. Findings revealed 15 categories of important aspects of care, which could be condensed in two dimensions, called \"prerequisites\" (i.e. staffing, routines and attitudes) and \"elements of performance\" (i.e. detecting and acting on signs and symptoms and acting on behalf of the patients) (Idvall and Rooke, 1998). Kunaviktikul et al. (2001) conducted a qualitative approach to develop a definition of quality of nursing care. This study consisted of two phases; the first phase consisted of individual in-depth interviews and focus groups of various stakeholders concerning quality of care. The second phase used a consultative meeting of experts in nursing quality of care. The major emergent themes were:* meeting the physical needs of the patients;* providing psychosocial support;* ensuring spiritual needs;* patients are satisfied with the care;* nursing care is responsive to the needs as defined by the patient; and* ensuring holistic care.The researchers then analyzed all definitions and summarized them into one definition as follows:Quality of nursing care is nursing's response to the physical, psychological, emotional, social and spiritual needs of patients provided in a caring manner, so that the patients are cured, healthy, to live normal lives, and both patients and nurses are satisfied (Kunaviktikul et al., 2001).According to differences in definition of nursing care quality in some studies and related aspects as patient safety, nurse responsibility, patient and nurses, satisfaction, the purpose of this study was to define and describe quality from the perspective of Iranian expert and clinical nurses. In this study \"nursing experts\" are nurses with the MSN and PhD in nursing who work as faculty members in nursing schools or as top managers in governmental nursing departments and \"clinical nurses\" are nurses with BNS and higher who work in hospitals as manager, supervisor, head nurse and staff nurse.The significance of this research was to identify nurses, perspective by a qualitative approach, based on the Iranian culture and health care system, to contribute to a more developed research aimed at \"designing a model for quality assurance in nursing care system\".\nMethod: As qualitative studies can help to shape nurses, perceptions of a problem or situation (Polit and Beck, 2005) content analysis was chosen to capture the definition of nursing care quality from the nurses, perspective in Iran. Following ethical approval, data was collected through ten tape-recorded, individual semi-structured interviews with nursing experts worked in nursing faculties or in top managerial nursing departments in Tehran and five tape-recorded focus group discussions with clinical nurses worked in five general teaching hospitals in Tehran.Sampling and data collection\nData analysis: Although most qualitative data is content analyzed (Mayan, 2001) there are nearly as many qualitative analysis strategies as there are qualitative researchers (Polit and Beck, 2005). Each interview was transcribed verbatim and then managed for analysis using \"latent content analysis approach\", whereby collection, coding, and analysis occur simultaneously. The information was coded and categorized in order to develop a definition of quality of nursing care. Latent content analysis is the process of identifying, coding, and categorizing the primary patterns in the data. In this approach, the researcher seeks the meaning of specific passages within the context of all the data (Mayan, 2001), develops a categorization scheme and then codes the data according to the categories (Polit and Beck, 2005). So in this study, the themes were categorized by identifying, exploring and coding by latent content analysis approach.Two strategies were employed throughout the study to ensure that the data collection and interpretation accurately reflected the phenomenon. These included two other researchers separately coding segments of the some transcripts to confirm the categories identified by the researcher (peer check). Furthermore, once the description of the phenomenon was completed, it was returned for validation to three nurses from the focus group interviews (member check). This strategy as a test of credibility is a way of assuring validity.\nEthical consideration: Data were collected through tape-recorded, semi-structured interviews. Each participant was informed of the purpose of the research and consent form was signed for recording her/his voice and using it without her/his name. All of participants agreed on recording their voice, however just one participant did not consent to this method, but agreed that the researcher would transcribe her responses verbatim while she was talking.\nFindings: Although both participant sets (nurses and experts) emphasized on some factors and prerequisites that influence on defining nursing quality care, they in the main considered two aspects in their definition of nursing care quality: \"standards of care\" and \"patient satisfaction\". The final definition of nursing quality care from the perspective of expert and clinical nurses was:Quality of nursing care is the delivery of safety care based on nursing standards which eventuates patient satisfaction.Standard care\nDiscussion: The findings from this qualitative study led to a definition of nursing care quality. Quality nursing care in this study was defined as: \"the delivery safety care based on nursing standards which eventuates patient satisfaction\". The participants in this study placed great emphasis on standard and safe care and patient satisfaction. Kunaviktikul et al. (2001) in their findings identified a definition of quality of nursing care by nurse administrators and staff nurses as: \"the conduct of nurses based on nursing standards to create safety and satisfaction for the patients\". Williams (1998) in her study defined quality of nursing care in terms of patients, needs. On the other hand, the role of organizational structure can not be ignored in the quality of care delivery, as (Aiken et al., 2002) in their study concluded that adequate nurse staffing and organizational/managerial support for nursing are key to improve the quality of patient care.In this study, clinical nurses and nursing experts emphasized the role of organizational factors and highly considered physician and other health care workers, role in delivering quality care. Williams (1998) in her study emphasized teamwork and stated \"a quality focus was not the quality nursing care delivered by a single individual, it was delivered by a team consistently assigned to the care of a particular patient, the doctor and the nurses all worked hard together, all equipment was present, there was adequate nurses and everything was done as it should have been for the patient\".As nurses work on the first line of patient care and patients have more contact with nurses than other health care provider (Kunaviktikul et al., 2001), our participants believed that, patients assess quality of care just as nursing care and usually ignore the role of the wider team. They highly emphasized that it is because of the negative social perspective about nurses as non-professional staff. This perspective leads to nurses becoming discouraged in delivering quality care. The authors of this paper believe that assessing the truth of this claim needs more study through obtaining patients and other health care workers perspectives about this subject.\nRecommendations: The findings of this study cannot be generalized to wider populations of nurses at this stage, because they are limited by the methodology used and the context in which the data was collected. Also other stakeholders, perspectives such as managers, patients, physicians, and other care providers are important for a consensus on quality definition, so it is recommended that this is an area for further research. It is also suggested that socio-cultural factors influence the quality of care provided by health care team especially with nurses.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Quality of health care is the degree of the most optimal degree of health outcomes by delivery of effective, efficient and cost-benefit professional health services to people and communities. As nurses are the largest groups among health care professionals and are legally liable and morally responsible for their care, thus their perspective on quality of nursing care is important. The purpose of this qualitative study is \"to define and describe quality from the perspective of nursing experts and clinical nurses\".\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In this paper data were collected in two phases (ten individual interviews and five focus group discussions). A total of 44 clinical nurses and ten nursing experts participated through a purposeful sampling frame. Data analysis was conducted by latent content analysis to achieve a definition of nursing care quality.\nFindings: - The findings in this paper show that, according to similarities and differences between nursing experts' and clinical nurses' perspectives on quality, the final definition is \"delivery of safety care based on nursing standards which eventuates in patient satisfaction\". Findings reveal that in nurses' perspectives on quality definition two important aspects have been mostly considered: \"standard of care\" and \"patient satisfaction\". Moreover, both participant groups have emphasized the benefits of collaborative work in health care (teamwork). Further in this study, organizational and socio-cultural roles in delivering quality nursing care have been mentioned such as staffing, budget, leadership, and social perspectives about nursing as a highly educated profession.\nOriginality/value: - The paper offers an overview of nurses' perspectives of quality of nursing care in Iran.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Catalysts for change: vizualizing the horizon of poverty	[ "Signal", "Mapping", "Visualization", "Crowd‐sourcing", "Searchlight function", "Engaged forecasting", "Poverty", "Strategic planning", "Disadvantaged groups", "Communities" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Over the next decade, the issues of global poverty and development will pose growing social, economic, and environmental issues at local, regional, and global levels. In order to better anticipate these issues - and craft effective responses - the development sector needs to integrate foresight methodologies into its practices and interactions with its partners.The Institute for the Future (IFTF) uses a framework built on a cycle of foresight-insight-action to organize much of its work in converting long-range forecasting into actionable strategies. This model (see Figure 1) often begins with horizon scanning activities, such as those set up by the Rockefeller Foundation with its Searchlight function, followed by a mapping exercise that captures key insights from the horizon scan. The resulting visual tool is then used to engage stakeholders in strategic conversations.IFTF began working with the Rockefeller Foundation in the Fall of 2010 to integrate its Searchlight function into a foresight-insight-action cycle. The project presented three key challenges:1. how to analyze the compendium of diverse newsletters created by the Searchlight partners to identify a comparable set of signals that could then be clustered to reveal larger patterns;2. how to organize these emergent clusters into a theoretically sound framework of systemic change that could form the basis of a visual planning tool; and3. how to engage a wide and diverse community of stakeholders in the shared language and systems view that the visual tool provides to frame a strategic agenda for innovation with broad support.Over the course of the project, IFTF addressed these challenges first by converting the newsletters to what is now an open public signals database. We then created a visual Catalysts for Change map of the territory, using a modified version of Donella Meadow's well-known article \"Leverage points: places to intervene in a system\" (Meadows, 1999) as a launching point. This map is available in both print form and as an online website. Finally, we used a collaborative foresight platform developed at IFTF, called Foresight Engine, to engage a global community of people committed to positive change in the lives of poor and vulnerable communities in a strategic game-like discussion about catalysts for change.\nMethodology: a three-part process: The IFTF approach to the Searchlight visualization project started from the premise that diverse scans of the horizon of poverty and social change by professional foresight experts could be integrated with and augmented by bottom-up crowd-sourced ideas for innovation, using a proper visualization tool as a common language and framework. The project methodology thus proceeded in three steps, as follows.Foresight: from newsletters to a signals database\nResults: a second opportunity for visualization: The Catalysts for Change project has blended the best of two worlds of foresight. Starting from the skilled horizon scanning of a cadre of foresight professionals around the world, it created a set of visual tools and platforms to engage the \"crowd\" in taking that foresight to next level to imagine what could and should be the future of social change for marginalized communities. The crowd, of course, is a diverse community of actors, some of whom are well versed in the issues of development, community organization, and global innovation, but less familiar with the practices of foresight, and some of whom are getting their first taste of both practices.The question at this point is how to feed the 18,207 game ideas (plus the Twitter conversations in four languages) back to both the foresight professionals and the community at large to improve the overall cycle of foresight-insight-action. In Meadows' hierarchy of leverage points, feedback loops are considered a leverage point that can often be more effective in system change than altering material flows (or \"capacity building\" in the language of Catalysts for Change). The map and the game have already created a feedback loop to the Searchlight partners. The opportunity now is to create a feedback loop that might perhaps refocus the Searchlight scan of the horizon and alter the innovation agenda in marginalized communities.Preliminary analysis: a shift of emphasis\nConclusion: the evolution of foresight: The Catalysts for Change project has demonstrated a framework for a broad-based approach to foresight in the domains of poverty and social change. This framework includes the use of both top-down expertise and bottom-up crowd-sourcing to create foresight and strategy for addressing some of the world's most pressing problems. In addition, it promises to extend the literacy of foresight in a diverse community of global actors.Among the many strategies that the crowd contributed to the Catalysts for Change conversation were calls for integrating foresight into the social change agenda. Taking just a small sample of the foresight cards played, we discern the increasing role of foresight itself in addressing poverty and its related issues:* Involve people from slums in national foresight programs.* Local foresight workshops to allow excluded communities to future-plan and negotiate with different actors in an ordered and coherent way.* Better analysis of job demand for the next 50 years. Focused application of this foresight to maximization of opportunities for the poor.* Storytelling mechanisms could make sure of foresight techniques to make use of lessons to build ideal futures, while monitoring challenges.* When people write the stories of their future selves, their hopes, goals, what their world could be like in ten years, the journey begins.Foresight and forecasting practices have their modern roots in elite institutions that often look at the future \"from the outside in\". But in a world of high connectivity and increasing transparency of information, the capacity for participatory foresight practices \"from within\" has already changed the landscape of analysis and guidance of our complex global systems. The Catalysts for Change project joins the growing number of efforts to build a much broader base of foresight literacy as a core competency for our global society.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The Institute for the Future (IFTF) has collaborated with the Rockefeller Foundation and its Searchlight function to create a framework for broad engagement in strategic thinking about ways to catalyze change in the lives of poor or vulnerable communities. This paper seeks to focus on this broad-based approach.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Starting from the top-down horizon scan of the foundation's Searchlight partners - a network of horizon scanning organizations - IFTF created a public database of signals of innovation and disruption in the domain of poverty and social change. This signals database was used to build a visual map of catalysts for change, creating a simple hierarchy of four catalyst types, each containing four action zones and a pivotal challenge. This map provided the language and framework for engaging a global community in a serious game to extend the vision of the Searchlight function and capture novel ideas for innovations that could improve the lives of those in marginalized communities.\nFindings: - With an estimated global reach of 160,000 views and 1,600 game players from 79 countries, the game produced more than 18,000 ideas about catalysts for change.\nOriginality/value: - This framework of foresight (the signals database) to insight (the visual map of catalysts for change) to action (global strategic game) demonstrates a way to integrate top-down expert foresight with bottom-up strategic ideation on a global scale.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The impact of protectability and proactiveness on the environmental performance of new ventures	[ "Entrepreneurship", "Sustainability", "Environmental performance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Environmental degradation poses a major threat to the survival of humans and living organisms in the long-term. There is a broad range of environmental issues to be dealt with, ranging from greenhouse effect, disposal of toxic and nuclear waste as well as water and air pollution. Clean-technology (cleantech) ventures are young firms that are involved in developing, commercializing or manufacturing environmental technologies, such as renewable energy, waste management and recycling, sustainable water management, sustainable mobility, material efficiency and energy efficiency. Cleantech innovations are more radical compared to the rather incremental improvements of established firms and thus have a higher probability to bring about long-term real gains for pollution reduction (Shrivastava, 1995; Cohen and Winn, 2007). Despite their economic and ecological potential, many cleantech ventures struggle in translating a promising technology into ecological products and services, which can be attributed to liabilities of newness and smallness (Freeman et al., 1983; Stinchcombe, 1965), potential goal conflicts (Moss et al., 2011, Lumpkin et al., 2013) and the long-term perspective and complex nature of green innovations (Hart, 1995).\n2. Theoretical development: 2.1 Technological protectability and environmental performance\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Sample and data collection\n4. Empirical results: Table I shows the means, standard deviations and correlations of the research variables. To test hypotheses on environmental performance (KLD environmental strengths, environmental awards), a multiple hierarchical regression and a logistic regression analysis were carried out. As logistic regression analysis is strongly affected by outliers, one case was excluded from the logistic regression. To reduce risk of multicollinearity all independent variables were mean-centered as recommended by Aiken and West (1991).\n5. Discussion and conclusion: 5.1 Key findings and implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Building on the natural resource-based view, this paper aims to explore the effects of technological protectability and proactiveness on new ventures' environmental performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data from 150 clean-technology ventures are analyzed using hierarchical and logistic regression analyses.\nFindings: Empirical findings show that both protectability and proactive behavior increase environmental performance. Results further indicate a negative but not significant moderator effect of proactiveness on the protectability - environmental performance relationship.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research has been limited to clean-technology ventures. Findings provide empirical evidence on the link between proactiveness, a key dimension of entrepreneurial orientation, and environmental performance. The study further contributes to sustainable entrepreneurship research by showing that higher ecological gains can be achieved by proactive firms that are based on protected technologies.\nPractical implications: The study provides a deeper understanding of the success factors of young firms with regard to their environmental impact. Findings suggest that policy makers and investors can use protectability and proactiveness as key characteristics to evaluate and foster a venture's ecological potential.\nOriginality/value: The paper adds to existing literature on sustainable entrepreneurship by establishing a relationship between protectability, proactiveness and environmental performance.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Patient experience as an indicator of clinical quality in emergency care	[ "Culture", "Qualitative research", "Clinical governance", "Continuous quality improvement", "Emergency department", "Health care quality", "Patients" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nPatient experience as a clinical quality indicator: Aspects of patient experience have become an increasingly prominent component in quality measurement. The English Government pinned its colours to the mast in its 2010 NHS White Paper, opining \"healthcare systems are in their infancy in putting the experience of the user first\" and proposing an \"information revolution\" would be \"the key to better care [and] better outcomes\". It called for \"PROMS, other outcome measures, patient experience surveys and national clinical audit\" to be more widely used in future (DoH, 2010). The problem is that while in political rhetoric \"the experience of the user\" is a simple and self-evident good, \"the experience of the user\" is in fact a complex and contested phenomenon. Patients, clinicians, politicians, managers and academics seem often to have something rather different in mind when they refer to patient (or user) experience.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: There is growing focus on the importance of attending to \"patient experience\" in delivery of health services, and the design of clinical quality indicators. \"Patient experience\" (also termed \"user experience\") has been augmented by \"staff\" and \"carer\" experience in the \"service experience\" quality indicator for emergency care in England. But \"patient experience\" is a contested concept which patients, clinicians, politicians, managers and academics view differently.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The purpose of this paper is to examine approaches to thinking about patient experience. The author describes three key approaches to conceptualising patient experience and identify their philosophical origins, then asks what aspects of patient experience ought to be treated as key to measuring the quality of emergency care. The discussion is illustrated with extracts from a patient interview describing emergency care following placental abruption.The author demonstrates that differing purposes and differing conceptions of care direct attention to different aspects of patient experience.\nFindings: Donabedian's insight was that conceptions of quality are inevitably related to conceptions of value and the author concurs, arguing that decisions about which aspects of patient experience to include in clinical quality indicators are ethical as well as technical judgements.\nPractical implications: This paper is of value to those concerned with quality improvement because it clarifies the meaning of patient experience in the context of care quality measurement, and highlights the ethical implications of experiential data.\nOriginality/value: It is a novel synthesis of understandings of patient experience and clinical quality in emergency care.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Gender-specific human capital: identification and quantifying its wage effects	[ "Gender", "Human capital", "Pay differentials", "Matching", "PIAAC", "C14", "J16", "J24" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction and motivation: The issues of gender wage inequality, its nature and possible drivers have been thoroughly studied over recent decades. Various methodological approaches have been employed in order to better understand the underlying reasons for male-female wage differential. However, despite high research attention, the issue still remains acute, especially in the case of small and developing economies (Polachek and Xiang, 2009; Nopo et al., 2012; Anspal, 2015a), where labour markets are particularly sensitive to any gaps in returns to labour. Better understanding of gender wage disparities is providing additional information for development of labour market institutions and improvement of labour markets functioning.\n2. Data and empirical strategy: Data used in our analysis were collected from a Survey of Adult Skills, as a part of the PIAAC, currently implemented in 24 countries, including 22 OECD member states. Despite several limitations, PIAAC database has a considerable advantage, as it allows to link information on individual cognitive abilities with a wide range of background information on various socio-demographic characteristics of respondents. The survey assessed proficiency in literacy, numeracy and problem solving in technology-rich environments of adults aged 16-65 year. Along with the key information-processing assessments, the survey provides a wide range of background information on basic socio-demographic characteristics of respondents, their educational attainments, participation in education and training, labour force status, and employment characteristics. Representative samples were questioned in years 2011-2012 and first results for Estonia were published in 2013 (OECD, 2013a, b).\n3. Empirical results: 3.1 Matching and extraction of the gender-unique human capital\n4. Discussion and conclusions: The main contribution of the given research is a novel approach towards a role of human capital in gender wage disparity. The novelty of given study is not only in application of the PIAAC database allowing to measure individual cognitive abilities in literacy, numeracy and problem solving, but also in combination of several methodological approaches towards identifying a role of human capital in wage inequalities. The analytical approach elaborated within a given paper both extract and explicitly analyse the gender-unique profiles and thus contribute to gender pay gap studies by evaluating wage returns to male- and female-exclusive characteristics. The results show that a subsample of unique males have PIAAC-measured cognitive abilities at a level that females mostly do not reach, thus their superior earnings appear as a premium to their better competencies. Skills are valued at a labour market more than formal education; hence, men's better numeracy and problem-solving abilities help them to attain higher wage, despite lower formal education.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to better understand the possible reasons behind gender pay disparities, focussing on the unique features of male and female human capital and their wage returns. Despite increasing convergence of male and female human capital attainments, substantial differences remain. Extraction of human capital components non-overlapping across genders provides more profound explanation of the unexplained wage gap of men and women.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Starting with the non-parametric matching-based decomposition technique, the authors extend the pay gap estimation framework and focus on males and females having no counterpart in a set of characteristics within the opposite gender. The authors identify gender-unique human capital in terms of differences in distribution of individual characteristics across men and women and gender-specific combination of human capital characteristics. Wage returns to gender-specific profiles are evaluated applying wage regression on both full distribution of earnings and wage quantiles. The research relies on the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) database for Estonia, which incorporates both formal education and cognitive skill records.\nFindings: The study identifies sets of characteristics and competencies exclusive for both genders, proving that male and female profiles cannot be directly compared. The results suggest that men possess high individual and combined abilities in numeracy and problem solving in technology-rich environment, not always reached by females. This potentiates men's higher earnings in spite of their generally lower formal educational attainments. Wage gap analysis over the full distribution of earnings shows even larger \"glass ceiling\" effect for females, possessing woman-specific human capital.\nOriginality/value: The authors raise a research from a novel perspective towards a role of human capital in gender wage inequality. Instead of usual reference to observable gaps in male and female characteristics, the authors identify the gender-specific human capital profiles, to a large extent non-reached by the opposite gender. Analysed associations between gender-specific characteristics and earnings provide an insight to possible effects of gender-unique human capital on a male-female wage disparity.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Inter-organisational knowledge networks: synthesising dialectic tensions of university-industry knowledge discovery	[ "Knowledge creation", "University-industry collaboration", "Governance mechanisms", "Dialectic thinking" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Our understanding of the process of organisational innovation and its management has evolved in recent decades (Rothwell, 1992, 1994). Central to this is that innovation rarely involves a single technology or market but rather a bundle of knowledge which is brought together into a configuration. It is about accessing and using knowledge about components but also about their integration (Tidd et al., 2005). The current perspectives of the innovation process view it as an interactive and networked system that spans organisational boundaries to draw on diverse sources of knowledge, experience and capabilities to achieve organisational objectives (Rothwell, 1992; Chesbrough, 2003; Sydow et al., 2016). The use of inter-organisational alliances, partnering and collaborations is an increasingly common way of learning and achieving organisational innovation objectives (Beamish, 1988; Hagedoorn, 1995; Powell et al., 1996; Inkpen, 1996). Syndow et al. (2016) identifies the three types of inter-organisational relationships as being: market, hierarchical and networked relationships. The market and hierarchical types view knowledge more as an asset, while the networked perspective views knowledge as the output of the interaction process between organisations. The networked type of inter-organisational relationship is deemed the most collaborative type, striving to deliver output of mutual benefit (Sydow et al., 2016) and thus often poses significant challenge for management. Networked relations between organisations, especially knowledge-rich entities such as universities and industry research organisations, can bring together collective knowledge that allows peer reflection and confronting of \"unknowns\" (Brown and Duguid, 1991). This leads to learning and new knowledge. Collaboration with such complementary partners can facilitate knowledge discovery that otherwise might be outside the scope of an individual organisation's capability (de Faria et al., 2010). Through slackening the organisational boundaries, organisations are able to harness externally controlled resources to address gaps in internal knowledge and achieve resource synthesis to respond to ever increasing dynamic environments (Becheikh et al., 2006; Bojica et al., 2018; Dooley et al., 2016; Kang and Lee, 2008; Romijn and Albaladejo, 2002).\n2. Inter-organisational knowledge network management: The establishment of inter-organisational networks is not solely a strategic issue but also an organisational and managerial one (Ring and Van de Ven, 1994; Child et al., 2005; Sydow et al., 2016). The motives of firms co-operating in networks include cost reduction, risk reduction, access to scarce resources, market access, access to new technologies to speed up product development and commercialisation, increased capacity, knowledge co-creation and to pool complementary knowledge and skills (Cerchione and Esposito, 2016; Ilvonen and Vuori, 2013; Kogut, 1989; Kleinknecht and Reijnen, 1992; Hagedoorn, 1995; Eisenhardt and Schoonhoven, 1996; Powell, 1998; Robbins-Roth, 2001; Tidd et al., 2005). Inter-organisational networks are neither a new phenomenon nor one confined to big business; they are driven by market, hierarchical and networked forces (Syndow et al., 2016) and can engage any size or sector of organisation. In the innovation context, inter-organisational networks commonly seeks to harness the knowledge discovery and learning benefits of engagement between commercial industry and publically funded research entities (e.g. Universities) for mutual benefit. In bringing complementary knowledge from diverse sources together through engagement, then there is significant scope for knowledge synthesis, learning and innovation.\n3. Methodology: When the research question examines the \"how\" and the \"why\" in regards to certain issues (as is the focus in this research), then Yin (2002) suggests that the use of case studies, histories and experiments may be most applicable. In exploring the dynamics of the knowledge process within inter-organisational networks, the research adopts a qualitative approach and explores a university-industry knowledge network of multiple partners collaborating on exploratory research within a specific area. Qualitative analysis offers the potential of deeper understanding of the dynamics of interaction within the knowledge creation network and scope to explore the meaning of actions in developing new knowledge for potential benefit. The evolution of knowledge networks takes time and thus the case selected for this research has been under longitudinal study for the period 2004-2014 (see Dooley et al., 2013). Continued engagement by independent partners, together with resource commitment to support the network activities is deemed a reasonable proxy for the quality of the network's knowledge creation and justifies it as an interesting case for the study of inter-organisational knowledge creation. The decision to focus on a single case for this study was influenced by the dialectical epistemology which dismisses the expectation of homogeny or constancy across cases and application of the set of alliance dialectic tension pairs identified by de Rond and Bouchikhi (2004) (Figure 1) as an analytical lens for understanding governance of the network's knowledge management process.\n4. Findings: 4.1 Case background\n5. Discussion and conclusions: Given the longevity of the case and the significant resource commitment of industrial partners over its lifetime, then it is not unreasonable to label it an example of successful triple helix engagement of university, industry and societal stakeholders. The case is evidence that the triple helix model is achievable, especially when the focus is on exploratory research engagement where more natural synergies exist with university's traditional academic missions. From an academic perspective, the engagement with industry has furthered research though the availability of additional supports such as scientific compounds, equipment and finance, enhancing reputation of the research centre and its PI's. This case also provides evidence of the academic \"Matthew effect\" (Merton, 1968) where individual success/reputation of the lead academic PI and his research centre, has attracted further research funding and generated a virtuous circle of achievement and returns on those achievements. The importance of the human element in university-industry engagement also comes to the fore, with the case highlighting the core role of the entrepreneurial academic, not only in creating the original network opportunity but also in behaving as network architect and boundary spanner, synthesising competing tensions and ensuring continued alignment of partner and network objectives. This finding aligns with the research of Perkmann et al. (2013) who found that key individuals' characteristics such as seniority within their organisation, established reputation for high research quality and success and experience of working with industry, were antecedents of academic external engagement with industry. The case also highlights the need for governance mechanisms to allow for the network to gel and develop the necessary appreciation of partner perspectives and routines of practice to achieve the desired knowledge exchange and synthesis. This resonates with findings of Philpott et al. (2011) who argue that transition towards the entrepreneurial university ideal and associated triple helix model is a journey towards harder entrepreneurial channels of interaction and that external engagement as opposed to those of commercialisation fit better with the attitudes of academics (Perkmann et al., 2013). Thus, the experience that partner representatives have gained through collaborating within the network reduces cognitive distance between partners and enhances their ability to effectively govern the collective knowledge management process.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Despite growth in use of inter-organisational relationships for knowledge co-creation, many collaborations struggle to realise the synergistic benefits of these networks. This paper aims to explore the evolving dialectic tensions evident within an inter-organisational relationship and the governance consideration to optimise the knowledge process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A longitudinal case of a university-industry knowledge network is selected for study. The single case analysis aligns with the dialectical epistemology, which dismisses the expectation of homogeny or constancy across network cases.\nFindings: The research highlights the circular condition between dialectic tensions evident within inter-organisational relations and the governance mechanisms developed to synthesis the network knowledge discovery capability. The research shows that these tensions are a natural part of the network existence and often advantageous to knowledge creation. The research also highlights that governance is required at multiple levels within the network entity to optimise knowledge exchange and discovery.\nOriginality/value: The research adds to the limited application of dialectical thinking to inter-organisational networks. It highlights the structural and relational governance mechanisms that interplay to optimise their knowledge process capability. The research also highlights the multiple levels within networks at which tensions can originate, requiring knowledge governance at the micro, meso and macro level to address the complexity of the inter-organisational relationship. This research provides a better understanding of how knowledge within inter-organisational relations can be managed for mutual benefit and value creation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Academic culture: a promising mediator of school leaders' influence on student learning	[ "Leadership", "Student learning", "Academic culture", "Academic press", "Disciplinary climate", "Instructional time" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: School leader effects on student learning are largely indirect (Hallinger and Heck, 1996; Heck and Hallinger, 2010, 2014; Leithwood et al., 2006, 2010; Marks and Printy, 2003). Given the substantial theory and evidence accumulated in support of this claim, one of the most important goals for leadership research is to identify potentially powerful mediators or school-related variables that make significant, relatively direct, contributions to student learning, and are amenable to skillful leadership intervention. The practical value of such research lies in the guidance it provides leaders when choosing the focus of their improvement efforts; while leaders' choices are myriad, only some of those choices pay off for students.\nFramework: Organizational culture has long been the object of research in many contexts, stimulated in no small measure by Schein's early work (e.g. Schein, 2006). Interest in the nature and effects of school culture, in particular, was an important feature of the early \"effective schools\" research (Teddlie and Stringfield, 2007). Research on school culture has developed two distinct foci. One focus, represented, for example, in the early work of Little (1982), Lortie (1975), and Rosenholtz (1989) explored the contributions to student success of collaborative norms of work between and among teachers and school leaders.\nResearch methods: Design\nConclusions and implications: Influenced by the goals and methodological tools reflected in research about AO (e.g. McGuigan and Hoy, 2006), the purpose of this study was to explore the value of another generalized latent variable, AC as a mediator of school leaders' influence on SA. Including AP, DC, and UIT, the initial justification for exploring AC was the focus on academic goals that it encourages on the part of teachers, students and parents, along with the uninterrupted opportunity provided for students to be meaningfully engaged in academic work most of their time in class.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study is a quantitative exploration of a new construct the authors label as \"academic culture (AC).\" Treating it as generalized latent variable composed of academic press (AP), disciplinary climate (DC), and teachers' use of instructional time, the purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of this construct to be a key mediator of school leaders' influence on student learning. The study is guided by three hypotheses.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Responses by 856 elementary teachers from 70 schools to an online survey measured the three components of AC along with school leadership (SL). Provincial tests of writing, reading, and math were used as measures of student achievement (SA). Social economic status (SES) was used as control variable for the study. Data were summarized using descriptive statistics and correlations were calculated among all variables. Analyses included intra-class correlation analysis, regression equations, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling.\nFindings: Evidence confirmed the study's three hypotheses: first, AP, DC, and instructional time formed a general latent construct, AC; second, AC explained a significant proportion of the variance in SA, controlling for student SES; and third, AC was a significant mediator of SL's influence on SA. Concepts and measures of academic optimism (AO) and AC are compared in the paper and implications for practice and future research are outlined.\nOriginality/value: This first study of AC explored the relationship between AC and SA. Although at least two AO studies have included measures of distributed leadership, minimal attention has been devoted to actually testing the claim that AO is amenable to the influence of explicit leadership practices (as distinct from enabling school structures) and is a powerful mediator of SL effects on student learning. Addressing this limitation of AO research to date, the present study included a well-developed measure of leadership practices and assessed the value of AC as a mediator of such practices.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Research on lapse in life insurance: what has been done and what needs to be done?	[ "Life insurance", "Consumer behavior", "Modelling", "Research work", "Lapsation", "Surrender", "Lapse modeling", "Value‐based management", "Internal risk models" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Today's insurance policies allow policyholders to choose among a large number of options that can significantly influence the extent of the insurer's liabilities (Bauer et al., 2006; Gatzert, 2009; Kling et al., 2011). For example, policyholders can surrender their policy and receive a surrender value (the so-called surrender option) or they can opt to discontinue premium payments (the so-called paid-up option). Originally, the term \"lapse\" meant termination of an insurance policy and loss of coverage because the policyholder had failed to pay premiums (Gatzert, 2009; Kuo et al., 2003). In the academic literature, however, lapse often denotes both termination of a policy accompanied by payout of a surrender value to the policyholder and termination without any payment (Renshaw and Haberman, 1986; Kuo et al., 2003)[1]. A broader definition of the term lapse also includes the paid-up option Life Insurance and Market Research Association (LIMRA) (Purushotham, 2005); Committee of European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Supervisors (CEIOPS), 2009). In the new EU regulatory regime Solvency II, the lapse risk module covers:[...] all legal or contractual policyholder options which can significantly change the value of the future cash-flows. This includes options to fully or partly terminate, decrease, restrict or suspend the insurance cover as well as options which allow the full or partial establishment, renewal, increase, extension or resumption of insurance cover (CEIOPS, 2010, p. 155).The risks arising from lapse are of high economic importance for a variety of reasons. A massive lapse event can threaten the insurer's liquidity and force the selling of assets. Lapsation might also lead to a loss of potential future profits; specifically, early lapses could result in substantial losses if the insurer is not able to retrieve acquisition costs (Prestele, 2006, e.g. claims that only half the life insurance policies in Germany stay in force until the end of their policy terms). Moreover, the option to lapse can enhance adverse selection, especially in cases when policyholders can lapse without incurring any substantial lapse fees. Lapses also diminish the effectiveness of risk pooling. Finally, high lapse rates can have a negative effect on the insurer's reputation, which might result in even more policyholders lapsing, as well as harm new business.EU regulators have identified lapse as one of the main risk drivers of life insurance companies. In fact, the recent quantitative impact study (QIS) five of the new regulatory framework Solvency II showed that lapse risk is the most important risk among life underwriting risks (EIOPA, 2011). Moreover, recent history shows that lapses can be problematic for life insurers facing solvency issues. According to the Comite Europeen des Assurances (CEA, 2009), companies such as equitable life, standard life, and mannheimer holding experienced significantly increasing lapse rates in the course of their turmoil. As an analogue to bank run, Harrington (1992) uses the term \"policyholder run\" to describe the problems several insurers faced in the late 1980s. Thus, research on lapse rates is crucial to a proper calibration of regulatory standard models (Watson Wyatt, 2004; CEIOPS, 2009) and internal risk models, among other reasons.The aim of this paper is to review what research has already been done on life insurance lapse and to foster future research by outlining what needs to be done in this important field. The core of this paper is a structured review of 44 theoretical and 12 empirical papers on life insurance lapse. Only seven of the 56 papers are published before the year 2000, which emphasizes the increasing importance and topicality of this field of research in actuarial literature[2]. Lapsation is of interest not only to academics, but is of high importance for the industry, regulators, and policymakers, especially in regard to designing an appropriate regulatory environment. Moreover, lapsation impacts many actuarial tasks, such as product design, pricing, hedging, and risk management.The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 reviews the existing lapse research. We first consider theoretical lapse rate models, reviewing terminology and providing a classification by product type and modeling approach. Then we review empirical research on life insurance lapse, again providing a classification including product type and modeling approach. Here, we also review potential data sources for lapse research that shall help researchers to get an overview of appropriate data. In Section 3 we outline potential avenues for future research. We discuss challenges for future lapse rate models, lapse risk mitigation techniques, and possible trends in future lapse behavior. Of course, this discussion is subjective in nature, but our hope is that it might serve as a helpful outline for academics and practitioners interested in lapse research. We conclude in Section 4.\n2. Theoretical models and empirical evidence: 2.1 Lapse models\n3. Areas for future research: Based on the above literature review, we now discuss potential areas for future research. We first analyze the design of lapse rate models, followed by a discussion of topics for future empirical research. Here, we also discuss lapse risk mitigation techniques and factors that might influence policyholder behavior, such as the increasing availability of information.3.1 Design of future lapse rate models\n4. Conclusion: The intention of this paper was to review the extant academic literature on lapse in life insurance and to identify potential areas of new research in this important field. Lapse rate modeling has been a very active field of research in the last years, as evidenced by the 44 papers on lapse modeling considered in our review. Moreover, a fair amount of empirical work (another 12 papers reviewed here) has been done, especially on the issue of how environmental variables affect lapse. Research on individual policyholder and contract information is more scarce since such information is typically treated as confidential.Although much has been done in recent years, there is still plenty of room for future research, both from a theoretical as well as from an empirical point of view. Challenges for lapse models are the inclusion of interaction effects, level of information, and individual or collective decision-making processes. Moreover, adverse selection and extreme scenarios should be incorporated in the models. On the empirical front, more can be done regarding other markets, prediction models, and the effects of new legislation or the increasing secondary market on lapse risk. The empirical methods applied in the life insurance sector could be applied to other branches of the insurance industry, e.g. to analyze drivers of renewal decisions in health and property-casualty sector. Our hope is thus that this paper will serve as an encouragement to additional theoretical and empirical research on lapse in years ahead.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to review research on lapse in life insurance and to outline potential new areas of research in this field.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The authors consider theoretical lapse rate models as well as empirical research on life insurance lapse and provide a classification of these two streams of research. More than 50 theoretical and empirical papers from this important field of research are reviewed. Challenges for lapse rate modeling, lapse risk mitigation techniques, and possible trends in future lapse behavior are discussed.\nFindings: - Lapse rate modeling has been a very active field of research in the last years, as evidenced by the 44 papers on lapse modeling considered in this review. Moreover, a fair amount of empirical work (another 12 papers) has been done, especially on the issue of how environmental variables affect lapse. Research on individual policyholder and contract information is more scarce, since such information is typically treated as confidential.\nPractical implications: - The risks arising from lapse are of high economic importance. Lapsation is thus of interest not only to academics, but is highly relevant for the industry, regulators, and policymakers, especially in regard to designing an appropriate regulatory environment. Lapsation also impacts many actuarial tasks, such as product design, pricing, hedging, and risk management. A review of the recent literature might be helpful for these tasks.\nOriginality/value: - To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first structured review of the increasingly important literature on life insurance lapsation. Next to the structured review of the existing models and the empirical evidence, the paper also contributes to the literature by discussing challenges for lapse rate modeling and possible trends.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Price discovery and convergence in fragmented securities markets	[ "Price discovery", "Fragmentation", "Securities markets" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: After decades of national exchanges' rigid monopolies for trading listed securities in Europe, securities markets have become fragmented over the past years, mainly due to regulatory changes such as the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) enacted by the European Union (EU) in 2004 and enforced in November 2007. With the advent of alternative trading platforms called multilateral trading facilities (MTFs), traditional exchanges in all EU member states lost significant market share to these new players in the financial market. With the fragmentation of liquidity, new issues arise for market microstructure. As supply and demand of stocks is no longer accumulated on one distinct venue, price efficiency is a major concern of market fragmentation. If identical stocks are traded on multiple venues, how is the price for the stock determined? Do all liquidity sources contribute to price discovery or is the price rather determined by one dominant venue while the others only mirror the price due to traders making use of arbitrage opportunities? Moreover, what can be considered price innovation due to the incorporation of information into prices and what can be considered arbitrage price adjustments? These questions are not only of fundamental value for regulators and policy makers that are concerned with trading venues operating under the reference price waivers of MiFID or the coordination of safety measures such as circuit breakers, but also for trading participants that seek best execution for their clients. Although there already exists empirical research regarding price discovery in fragmented markets, most of these studies focus on the market system in the USA. Moreover, a lot of studies are based on rather theoretical measures such as the information share which has several drawbacks since it is only based on continuous trading and favors the venue which moves faster and shows higher price volatility (e.g. Hasbrouck, 1995; Riordan et al., 2011). However, price volatility and speed of a market are not necessarily the main factors determining a venue's contribution to price discovery. A more suitable methodology is to reveal which market is the most informative one and whose trade prices are most relevant for future stock prices.\n2. Price discovery in securities markets: According the efficient market hypothesis proposed by Fama (1970) and further discussed by various academic studies (e.g. Grossman and Stiglitz, 1980; DeBondt and Thaler, 1985; Lo and MacKinlay, 1988; Fama, 1991), asset prices should fully reflect all available information. The term price discovery describes the process how price relevant information about stocks or other listed securities is transformed into new prices. Caporale and Girardi (2013, p. 227) define price discovery as the process of \"timely incorporation of information into market prices.\" Therefore, price discovery in efficient financial markets ensures that new information is immediately reflected in the price of a listed security while no arbitrage possibility should exist if an instrument is traded on multiple venues. Another definition of price discovery is that it explains the process of markets trying to find equilibrium prices for listed securities (Schreiber and Schwartz, 1986).\n3. Data and institutional details: In order to analyze price discovery in the EU market system, trading data from Deutsche Borse's trading platform Xetra and BATS Chi-X Europe's open order book Chi-X are used. Xetra is the fully electronic trading platform run by the regulated market operator Deutsche Borse Group. The market model consists of an opening and a closing auction with a continuous trading session in an open limit order book between both auctions (Deutsche Borse, 2013). The continuous trading session again is interrupted by an intraday auction, which serves as the event window analyzed in this study. BATS Chi-X Europe (2014a) is the largest European equities exchange in terms of market share and value traded. BATS Chi-X Europe, which evolved from the merger of the two MTFs BATS Europe and Chi-X Europe, used to be the largest MTF in Europe until it became a recognized investment exchange in May 2013 being the first MTF making this conversion (BATS Chi-X Europe, 2014a). Due to the merger, BATS Chi-X Europe (2014b) has two open order books with price-time priority and it also offers two anonymous midpoint dark order books. In this study, transaction data from the open order book Chi-X are used. Different to Xetra, no auctions are implemented on Chi-X and there is only continuous trading throughout the trading day (BATS Chi-X Europe, 2014c).\n4. Analyzing trading data from Deutsche Borse and BATS Chi-X Europe: In this chapter, the data described above are used to investigate how much Xetra and Chi-X contribute to price discovery of the 30 DAX listed stocks. In particular, it should be analyzed whether one market dominates the price discovery process inducing a price leader and price follower relationship. Section 4.1 gives a first impression of the issues related to price discovery that evolve during the event window on an aggregated level. In Section 4.2, contributions to price discovery of indicative prices on Xetra and trade prices on Chi-X are studied in detail. Section 4.3 looks at the price convergence process after intraday auctions on Xetra and investigates which venue's last price before the end of the auction is more relevant for post-auction prices.\n5. Conclusion: Price discovery in a fragmented market environment is a complex process, not only because of the high-frequent nature of today's securities trading, but because of the subsequent problem to disentangle price innovation from price disequilibrium correction due to arbitrage trading. Thus, differentiating between price leader-follower relations and competitive price discovery is not an easy task. Existing literature related to this topic addresses this issue based on co-movement and information share analyses (e.g. Hasbrouck, 1995; Harris et al., 1995, 2002). This paper introduces an alternative methodology to analyze the contributions to price discovery of different venues based on a shock to the price equilibrium mechanism originating from a switch to another market phase. In such situations, where arbitrage opportunities are hard to exploit, price innovation can directly be measured and price convergence shows the prevailing hierarchy among venues.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study price discovery and price convergence in securities trading within a fragmented market environment where stocks are traded on multiple venues. The results provide novel empirical insights questioning the generalizability of the current literature and aim to expand the understanding of price determination in a fragmented market microstructure.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper provides an empirical data analysis based on an event study methodology. The authors applied Thomson Reuters Tick History data covering German blue chip stocks listed on multiple venues in 2009 and 2013. Different time aggregations up to one second are applied to provide an in-depth analysis.\nFindings: The paper empirically discovers a persistent price leader-follower relationship not only during intraday auctions but also in subsequent continuous trading. The authors found that trading on alternative venues instantly dries out in case the dominant market switches to a call auction. In these situations, alternative markets await and adopt the official price signal of the dominant market although prices on alternative venues still indicate a certain extent of price discovery. This phenomenon remains persistent at different levels of market fragmentation, indicating that alternative trading venues fully accept the price leadership role of the dominant market, no matter their own market share.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides an innovative empirical setup to analyze price co-movement and convergence based on high-frequent data. Further, the results provide novel and robust insights into the price determination process in fragmented markets that clarify the role of price follower and price leader.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Explaining and tackling the informal economy: a dual informal labour market approach	[ "Labour market", "Employee relations", "Undeclared work", "Informal economy", "Dual economy", "South-East Europe" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: During the twentieth century, the informal economy was widely portrayed as a residual sector that was disappearing as economies modernised. However, there is today recognition that the informal economy persists, with 60 per cent of the global workforce having their main job in this realm (Jutting and Laiglesia, 2009). To explain participation in the informal economy, scholars have adopted either a structuralist theoretical perspective that portrays workers as involved in the informal economy due to their \"exclusion\" from the formal economy and state benefits (Davis, 2006; Gallin, 2001; Taiwo, 2013), or a view that informal workers voluntarily \"exit\" the formal economy, with neo-liberals representing this as a rational economic choice (De Soto, 1989, 2001; Maloney, 2004; Perry and Maloney, 2007) and institutionalists representing informal workers more as social actors who choose not to abide by the formal codified laws and regulations (Cross, 2000; Gerxhani, 2004; Snyder, 2004). To move beyond such universal depictions of informal workers as either exclusion- or exit-driven, the aim of this paper is to propose and evaluate the existence of a dual informal labour market in which there is an exit-driven \"upper tier\" and an exclusion-driven \"lower-tier\" of informal workers. Until now, there are no empirical evaluations of whether such a dual informal labour market exists. To begin to fill this lacuna therefore, a survey of workers' motives for engaging in the informal economy in South-East Europe is here evaluated.\nExplaining workers involvement in the informal economy: A common belief during the last century was that the informal economy was gradually being replaced by the formal economy. The informal economy was thus represented as a sign of \"backwardness\" and the formal economy a signal of \"development\", \"advancement\" and \"progress\" (Geertz, 1963; Lewis, 1959). In the past few decades, nevertheless, it has been recognised that workers involvement in the informal economy is an enduring and extensive feature of economies across all global regions (ILO, 2013; Jutting and Laiglesia, 2009; Williams, 2014, 2015). To explain this, two broad theoretical perspectives have been adopted.\nMethodology: To evaluate the thesis that the informal economy is a dual labour market, along with the ratio of informal workers in the exit-driven \"upper tier\" and exclusion-driven \"lower-tier\", the population groups significantly more likely to be found in these two tiers, and the policy approaches required to tackle these tiers, the results are reported of a survey conducted in Bulgaria, Croatia and FYR of Macedonia by well-known market research agencies, who were commissioned by the European Commission's Framework 7 Industry-Academia Partnerships Programme project on \"Developing capacities and capabilities for tackling undeclared work in Bulgaria, Croatia and FYR of Macedonia\" (GREY). These countries were selected for investigation because they have some of the largest informal economies in Europe (Williams and Schneider, 2016). This survey comprised some 2,000 face-to-face interviews in each country (i.e. 6,019 interviews in total) undertaken in late 2015. Individuals were interviewed aged 16 years and older in the national language based on a multi-stage random (probability) sampling methodology, which ensured that on the issues of gender, age, region and locality size, each country and also each level of sample, was representative in proportion to its population size. Hence, for both the univariate and multivariate analysis, sample weighting was used, as recommended in the wider literature (Pfeffermann, 1993; Winship and Radbill, 1994).\nFindings: This study of a representative sample of the population in each country found that 8.1 per cent (1 in 12) of the total surveyed population in Bulgaria, Croatia and FYR of Macedonia had worked in the informal economy during the 12 months prior to the survey. There are, nevertheless, variations across populations (see Table I). Not only is the participation rate higher in Croatia and Bulgaria than FYR of Macedonia, but also among men, younger people, the unemployed and self-employed, those with no money problems, and living in rural areas. Participation is also more prevalent among those viewing the detection risk as very small and the sanctions lower, as well as among those whose norms, values and beliefs are not in symmetry with the laws and regulations, and those perceiving a greater share of the population to be engaged in the informal economy.\nDiscussion and conclusions: This paper has evaluated the thesis that the informal economy is a dual labour market composed of an exit-driven \"upper tier\" and exclusion-driven \"lower-tier\", along with the population groups significantly more likely to be found in these two tiers, and the policy approaches required to tackle these tiers. Reporting a survey conducted in Bulgaria, Croatia and FYR of Macedonia, the finding is that involvement that 16.9 per cent are purely exclusion-driven and they are more likely to be unemployed and to be struggling financially, 54 per cent purely exit-driven and are more likely to be employed and not to be struggling financially, and 26.6 per cent to do so for a mixture of both exclusion- and exit-driven rationales.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: To transcend the long-standing debate regarding whether workers are driven into the informal economy by either their involuntary \"exclusion\" or voluntary \"exit\" from the formal economy, the purpose of this paper is to propose and evaluate the existence of a dual informal labour market composed of an exit-driven \"upper tier\" and an exclusion-driven \"lower-tier\" of informal workers, and to explore its policy implications.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To do so, data are reported from a 2015 survey of the informal economy conducted in South-East Europe involving 6,019 face-to-face interviews in Bulgaria, Croatia and FYR Macedonia.\nFindings: Identifying a dual informal labour market with three exit-driven informal workers for every exclusion-driven informal worker, a multinomial logit regression analysis reveals that, compared to the exclusion-driven \"lower tier\", the exit-driven \"upper tier\" is significantly more likely to be populated by the formally employed, retired and those not struggling financially. Participation is not affected by the perceived severity of penalties and likely risks of detection, but relative to those in the exclusion-driven \"lower tier\", there is a significant correlation between those doing so for exit rationales and their lack of both horizontal trust and vertical trust in formal institutions.\nPractical implications: The outcome is a call to transcend the conventional deterrence approach of increasing the penalties and risks of detection. Instead, to tackle those driven by exit rationales, tackling both the lack of horizontal trust that other citizens are operating in a compliant manner and the lack of vertical trust in formal institutions is advocated. To tackle exclusion-driven informal workers, meanwhile, a focus upon the macro-level economic and social conditions which lead to their participation is required.\nOriginality/value: This is the first paper to empirically evaluate the existence of a dual informal labour market and to evaluate its policy implications.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Exploring the key success factors of advanced manufacturing technology implementation in Indian manufacturing industry	[ "Manufacturing systems", "Advanced manufacturing technology", "Implementation", "Organizational change" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the present dynamic manufacturing environment, diversity of pressure either internally or globally urges manufacturer to become more receptive and flexible. While venturing into the modern global market in developing/newly industrialized countries, manufacturers have to face many challenges to their survival. Management of technology as seen by the professionals involves new approaches to develop and manage the resources, team development, and profit sharing. With the liberalization and globalization aspect, there is a mad rush for adoption of new technologies, especially in developing countries, but these technologies are not being fully exploited by the organizations for the strategic success. Manufacturing organizations are continuously striving to strengthen their competitive position by implementing advanced manufacturing technology (AMT). AMTs have an awesome potential to provide the respective companies by a whole variety of tangible (such as cost, inventory, etc.) as well as intangible (such as product quality, flexibility, etc.) benefits. The use of advancement in technology required a considerable measure of venture and modification in the existing manufacturing system (Gagnon and Haldar, 1997). It is profoundly prescribed to modified existing organizational structure and makes it compatible with change in technology to accomplish higher productivity. AMTs are most likely to yield productivity gains when these are coupled with changes in the organizational and human behavior (Gupta and Whitehouse, 2001).\n2. Literature review: AMT fundamentally alludes to technologies related to the industrial manufacturing process. The various aspects such as examination, evaluation, implementation, development and advantages of AMT have to address while measuring the susceptibility of AMT implementation. AMT focused on both soft and hard technologies, which must be adopted to improve productivity (Rahardjo and Yahya, 2010). The domain of AMT encompasses a broad range of computer-controlled technologies due to advancement in information technology. In some cases, implementation of new technology has ended up becoming an aggregate disappointment, be that as it may; some attractive outcomes have been acquired, however yet to achieve the desired level (Singh and Khamba, 2010).\n3. Research methodology: The aim of present methodology is to measure the normality, reliability, and testing of hypotheses. The statistical package for the social sciences software package cum analysis of moment structures (AMOS) version 21 was used to perform SEM.\n4. Conclusions: The objective of the paper is to explore the relationships between success parameters and AMT implementation and to look at the progressions required for the manufacturing system for AMT implementation. The hypotheses posed for this study were tested through the SEM, and results are discussed above. The findings of the present research work provide an insight into implementation dimensions of AMT in the Indian manufacturing industry. The findings of the final path model revealed that organizational structure and manufacturing strategy are strongly associated with AMT implementation at p-value<0.001 and p-value<0.01, respectively. The important finding of work is that manufacturing organizations ought not to do superfluous activity in enhancing the worker abilities without assessing thought in the upgrade to the production system.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to explore the relationship between success parameters and implementation of advanced manufacturing technology (AMT); and second, to examine the changes required in manufacturing system as a result of AMT implementation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The first order confirmatory factor analysis was performed to validate the presence of observed variables on their respective latent variable. Structural equation modeling is used to test the considered eight hypotheses.\nFindings: The finding indicates that all five success factors are positively related to the AMT implementation. The redesign in the production system and organization strategy is directly related to the AMT implementation. The notable finding is the AMT implementation has no direct impact on the redesign of human resource, but it has mediated impact through the production system.\nResearch limitations/implications: The originality and reliability of data collected for research purpose merely depends upon information and the accessible resources.\nOriginality/value: The outcome of the present work gives rise to meaningful implications for researchers and practitioners as well.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Social networking gets serious: Social networking moves beyond timewasting to become a powerful business tool	[ "Networking", "Communication", "Media", "Innovation", "Creativity", "Strategy", "Connections", "Social media", "Social networking sites" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The use of social media in the workplace was until very recently an activity deemed congruent with timewasting. Many organizations maintained restrictions on accessing social media or other internet sites from company computers. Today however, social networking is increasingly viewed as serious business. Firms use sites such as Facebook to attract business and engage customers in relationship building as well as encouraging employees to use business-specific social networking sites such as LinkedIn. Today's managers recognize the importance of social networking within a business environment. Ferris (2012) points out that 50 percent of senior managers believe that the use of social networking is important today and over 80 percent agree that it will be a key business strategy in the future.\nConsumer-led networking: Consumers have been faster to adopt social networking. Social media foster discussions on the plus and minus points of different brands of consumer products, and Twitter has become the instant method of expressing pleasure or displeasure to the world about a wide range of topics including recent purchases. Twitter has the power to lobby major organizations, create popular political movements or to launch new careers. Recently a passenger on South West Trains launched a tweet about passenger's shoes under the byline of My6Percent. Her ongoing tweets, fridayshoes, provided a forum for sharing passengers' disgruntlement at the rising cost of rail fares as well as providing a bit of amusement every Friday. Another successful use of social media is evident in the power of blogging. De Vita (2012) points to the example teenage fashionista, Tavi Gevinson, has become a media sensation with her fashion blogs that attract more readers than many high fashion magazines. She is now regularly invited to major fashion shows. On a more serious note, recent popular political movements such as the Arab Spring, Occupy, and Idle No More, have all relied heavily on social media to spread both ideas and activism.\nInternal social networking: While many companies have been quick to see the benefits of social networking in terms of their relationship with the outside world, internal networking has been slower to become established. However some employees have seen the value in setting up their own internal networks to share solutions and solve problems. This grassroots use of social networking tools is quite common but HR managers are beginning to recognize the value of a wider strategy using social business platforms, otherwise known as enterprise social software. If a few employees can increase collaboration, engaging an entire firm can produce outstanding results. Roberts (2012) explains the three stages of social technology usage identified by Professor Harquail of Stevens Institute of Technology. Initially social networking is used for a limited focused engagement, for instance as a method for developing relationships with customers. In the second stage the use of technology becomes wider and crosses internal barriers, for instance groups of employees at the customer interface may begin to network with employees involved in design or production. Finally, the third stage of social networking sees it embedded into the culture of the workplace and being used in new and innovative ways that change the way employees think about their work.\nSocial networking as a recruitment tool: Some companies such Random House are using social networking in innovative ways to recruit staff. Neil Morrison HR director at Random House, explains that many companies use social networking to advertise vacancies, however Morrison feels that this is a poor use of a powerful tool. Random House is currently publishing the Twitter handles of members of the HR team to encourage applicants to tweet with them. The publishing firm has even used YouTube as a recruitment tool enabling some very creative applicants to send in videos in place of application forms. Potential employees, especially those who have grown up in the digital age, will be more attracted to firms that embrace the use of social media. Companies displaying dated attitudes such as using firewalls to block web access do not understand the importance of social media as a communication tool or the benefits of having a social media savvy workforce.\nStrategy is the key: Having the right strategy can assist intelligent use of social networking. If social networking is introduced in corporate environment but no-one is quite certain what the point of the introduction is the result can be confusion, resentment and a breakdown in the very communication social networking was meant to foster. A study published recently by the Corporate Executive Board demonstrated the need for both a social networking plan and a roadmap detailing the journey. Ferris (2012) highlights examples of firms that have planned their social networking strategy to increase team cohesion as well as company profits. One of these is the UK Department for Work and Pensions, which created a game for employees to suggest improvements. The most popular suggestions were then implemented through a team approach, saving the Department around 21 million pounds. Another key strategy is to make management of the social network a full time, high-status position. This job is so important in today's business environment that it should be assigned to someone at Director level who can communicate with staff across all departments.\nConclusion: Members of the technologically literate generation who could use the television remote before they could talk are having the last laugh now. Told repeatedly by their parents and teachers to stop wasting time on social networking sites and do something useful, they have now discovered that their social media skills are just as valuable as their profession specific knowledge. Whether working in the airline industry, in manufacturing, marketing or finance, and in the public sector, employees who can utilize social media platforms effectively and incorporate these into their working environments provide added value for their employers. Astute job seekers recognize the value of this skill and are using it in the application process. This is considered innovative now, but may soon become standard practice. Social media impacts on us all both personally and professionally. Having a strategic plan for the implementation of social media increases its usefulness by creating working environments focused on transparency, communication and collaboration.\nComment: All three articles cited were well written and informative and provided examples of the ways in which modern companies are developing their use of social networking as a corporate strategy.\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: - Social media has come of age in the business environment. Today social media is used internally to foster communication and inter-departmental team working. Externally social networking can be used to create new markets, build relationships with existing customers and recruit the best new staff. To get the best out of social networking, organizations need to strategically plan how it will be utilized and manage this effectively.\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" } ]
An exploratory content analysis of situational leadership	[ "Leadership", "Leadership development", "Management effectiveness" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Hersey and Blanchard's (1969; Hersey et al., 2001) situational leadership (SL) model is one of the most widely known leadership approaches (Bass, 1990; Northouse, 2004; Vecchio, 1987; Yukl, 2006). It has been a major factor in training and development programmes for over 400 of the Fortune 500 companies (Hersey et al., 2001). However, a literature search revealed only a handful of published, peer-reviewed studies investigating the approach. These offered only mixed support for the model. Therefore, the present study is a contribution to this modest literature. It investigates the validity of the model through the content analysis of clinical supervision (CS) sessions. This is the first time that either this methodology or this sample have been utilised to evaluate the SL model.CS and leadership\nMethod: Sample\nResults: As is common practice, in order to allow cross-group comparisons, word counts are converted to percentages of total words spoken within the session (Weber, 1990). Table II displays these summary percentages over the supervisee groups.R1-level (novices)\nDiscussion: Hersey and Blanchard's (1969; Hersey et al., 2001) SL model has received relatively little empirical analysis or support. In previous evaluations, difficulties exist in terms of measurement, control and design. The aim of this study was to investigate the validity and utility of SL, whilst partially overcoming these methodological issues through use of: analysis of speech content (behaviour), reasoned allocation of participants to readiness levels, and a controlled evaluative context. A content analysis approach was adopted to investigate the model, this approach previously being novel to this context. Whilst studies with a qualitative component are relatively rare in leadership research, they have offered important contributions to the field of leadership (Bryman, 2004a; Conger, 1998). Additionally, it is desirable that a variety of appropriate research methods are deployed within a field, to increase the certainty associated with common findings.The present findings offer limited support for the SL model. As predicted by the model, an increasing proportion of supervisee speech is contained in the supervision of followers of higher readiness level. However, the majority of the specific predictions arising from the model associated with \"behavioural indicators\" (as well as other model-related predictions) were not met. Whilst R1-level therapists elicited higher levels of instruction from supervisors, the supervision did not contain the supervisor control behaviours which are associated with aspects of \"closer\" supervision. R2 therapists' supervision did not contain the higher levels of explanation and questioning predicted by the model. Similarly, whilst R3 therapists requested more feedback from supervisors, they did not appear to receive an increased proportion of feedback within their supervision in comparison to R2s. However, R3 staff did receive predicted higher levels of reassurance and lower levels of instructional/explanatory supervisory speech.These findings are in keeping with some extant findings. For instance, they indicate that the model has some validity on a broader level, in that expert supervisors do tend to be less active within therapy with increasingly experienced supervisees. These results echo those of Silverthorne (2000) and Silverthorne and Wang (2001), who similarly noted broader findings in regard to successful leadership and an \"adaptive\" style. However, more specific predictions associated with the model appear not to have been consistently supported in previous studies. A small cluster of studies have noted greater predictive value of the model with low-readiness groups (Vecchio, 1987; Cairns et al., 1998). Our study's results offer partial support for its utility for this group.Of interest are findings which offer insight to an area which is debated. The SL model predicts a reduction of confidence and motivation as followers progress from R2 to R3. This has been theoretically challenged (Graeff, 1983, 1997). However, our data offer support to this aspect of the model, R3 supervisees requesting greater levels of feedback (including reassurance) than other participants, and also receiving greater levels of reassurance from their supervisors. These findings might be interpreted as being symptomatic of a reduction in confidence. Indeed, the transition from training therapist to qualified staff member involves significantly increased levels of responsibility.Our results highlight evaluation issues and areas for possible further model refinement. An area of ambiguity is the model's level of application. Hersey and Blanchard's (1969) original description of the model entitled it as a \"life cycle theory\". Using human development as an analogy, it described followers maturing gradually over time. It implied that individuals follow a single pathway of development associated with maturing within a job. The authors have since allocated less specificity to this aspect of the model: \"Situational leadership is based on [...] the readiness level that the followers exhibit in performing a specific task, function, or objective\" (Hersey et al., 2001, p. 172). This latter definition implies that individuals might have multiple tracks of maturity associated with different job sub-components.By way of illustration, see the example listed in Table IV. On the macro-level, this exemplar job is categorised as \"research psychologist\". It might encompass several exo-level objectives and, in turn, each objective might have several functions. For instance, for the objective listed, these might include provision of research supervision, specific areas of expert support and the running departmental workshops (e.g. writing for publication). A micro-level task associated with one such function might be provision of expertise in the analysis of data. Clarification of the level of action of the model is essential for its evaluation. For instance, this and previous evaluations appear to define readiness according to a macro-level distinction (e.g. how long a person has been in their post). However, whilst R3/4 level employees may have many transferable competencies, the taking on of new work objectives may necessitate S1/2 levels of supervision.This classificatory model for levels of job specification also highlights an alternative hypothesis or area for further study. A \"micro-level\" focus for supervision may be appropriate for R1 level staff but as they develop, supervision may broaden to encompass a greater proportion of meso- and exo-level material rather than become more relationship-focused (at S2/S3). This might explain why research data tends to offer more support over the R1/S1 dyad: micro-level task supervision inevitably involving more instruction. This would also explain why a broader level of leader adaptability has been found to be successful (Silverthorne, 2000; Silverthorne and Wang, 2001). Similarly, this might account for the variety of leadership styles found in our micro-level of analysis, the interview participant being a R3 therapist who would, according to this alternative hypothesis, be receiving supervision over a variety of these job specificity levels, in a responsive fashion according to need.An additional issue is the model's neglect of other follower characteristics, such as personality. In specific contexts, this has been linked to increased performance (e.g. extroversion in sales and managerial jobs; Barrick and Mount, 1991). Also, whilst the impact of follower personality upon leadership effectiveness is a topic which has been largely neglected, some work suggests that it is a significant factor. For instance, Kandalla and Krishman (2004) observed that the personality factor \"openness to experience\" enhanced transformational leadership, perhaps by encouraging leaders to demonstrate more transformational behaviours. As such, some stable, confounding factors could explain why within certain professions (which may attract individuals with specific personality features or learning preferences), specific resonant leadership styles are preferred, regardless of the follower's readiness level (Butler and Reese, 1989; Goodson et al., 1989).This study contains several methodological limitations. The modest sample size inhibited the use of statistical analysis and confines the degree of generalisation to other samples. The inclusion of only one R1 participant and no R4 therapists within the sample limited the study's scope. Additionally, supervisors were supervising their followers in the implementation of various therapy approaches. It is possible that these differing approaches involved supervision which necessitated a menu of different supervisory behaviours, a demand characteristic that may have biased our findings. Finally, a self-selection bias may have arisen, through the use of supervisee volunteers. In sum, bearing these weaknesses in mind, we believe that the present study should be viewed as exploratory, raising some significant issues about the validity of the SL model. It is also hopefully illustrative, as it shows how a new methodology can be introduced into the field.Our study has investigated Hersey and Blanchard's (1969; Hersey et al., 2001) SL model and found limited support for broader associated principles, but more specific predictions arising from the model and its \"behavioural indicators\" were not generally upheld. These results are important in that they share similarities with results obtained by others through use of a questionnaire approach. This synchrony over differing methodologies adds robustness to these common findings. Issues associated with the model have been highlighted, as well as areas in need of further exploration. These results draw into question the extent of the utility of the SL model, which is particularly important given the huge resources that are invested in its use.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Hersey and Blanchard's situational leadership (SL) model is widely utilised, but it has limited empirical support. This paper aims to investigate the model through content analysis of the transcripts of supervision sessions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Eight transcripts of successful supervision interviews are subjected to in-depth content analysis to investigate the validity of aspects of the SL model, principally that successful leadership interactions would vary systematically according to the level of supervisee experience. The supervisees consist of a novice, four training therapists, and three post-graduate therapist practitioners. Statistical analyses are undertaken to investigate fundamental, predicted differences between the speech behaviours associated with the different developmental levels of these supervisees.\nFindings: - The findings offer only partial support for the model. As predicted, an increased proportion of supervisor speech is observed in the supervision of increasingly less experienced therapists. However, the majority of the more specific speech behaviours associated with supervisee experience level are not in keeping with the model.\nOriginality/value: - These results are consistent with the findings of other evaluations of the SL model. As the present results are based on a novel approach, this increases the plausibility of the claim that SL lacks adequate empirical support. Areas of development and exploration are recommended, and limits associated with the model's utility are highlighted.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Promoting protean career through employability culture and mentoring: career strategies as moderator	[ "Mentoring", "Protean career", "Organizational", "Career strategies", "Employability culture", "Moderator" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The pace of innovation, the advancement of technology, the turbulence of economics and market globalization have had an enduring impact on the organizations nowadays. To meet increasingly market competitiveness, most organizations have exercised massive restructuring and downsizing to achieve organizational efficiency and flexibility (Park and Rothwell, 2009). Resulting from these changes, many employees have experienced involuntary job loss (i.e. retrenchment practices) and career interruptions in their workplaces (Eby et al., 2003). An emerging career pattern, namely, the protean career is becoming increasingly important to one's career development in the dynamic business environment at present. It replaces the traditional organizational career development programs. Employees are actively managing their own career development instead of relying on organizational career development programs (Reitman and Schneer, 2008).\nDefining a protean career: Traditionally, careers taking place within a bureaucratic context and on continuous vertical advancement through the organizational hierarchy (Wilton, 2011). The individual develops his/her career through climbing up organizational \"ladder\", with increases in income, status and power at each rung. Hence, careers tend to be structured around well-trodden paths or ladders which link a sequence of jobs resulting in the achievement of predetermined goals which are objectively defined in the organization (Wilton, 2011).\nOrganizational predictors of professional employees' protean career: The review of past career-related literature reveals that organizational-related factors contributed significantly to individual career development. The organizational-related variables were deduced from the SCCT (Lent et al., 1994). SCCT highlights the importance of contextual variables in predicting career choice action and career development. The contextual affordances are described as more distal in nature and influence individuals' interests and self-cognitions (Lent and Brown, 2006). SCCT also identifies contextual factors consist of the real and perceived opportunity structure of career plans which are developed and implemented. Opportunity structure is viewed as:\nCareer strategies as a moderating variable: An individual pursues a particular career strategy that is based on the expectation that it will provide them with the greatest opportunity of attaining personal and professional success. Theoretically, the relational-based career strategies provide individuals the opportunities for personal and professional growth through interdependence (e.g. learning from mentor to achieve task accomplishment) and reciprocity (e.g. developing expectation, motivation and skills to help each other) process. Penley and Gould (1984) identified seven career strategies as creating career opportunities, extending work involvement, self-normination/self-presentation, seeking career guidance, networking, opinion conformity and other enhancement which have impacted individual career development.\nResearch framework: Based on reviews of related literature, we proposed a research framework of protean career. Organizational factors help to foster positive relationships based on employability culture and mentoring, which are important to promote protean career development, particularly in the context of Malaysian electrical and electronics (E&E) industry. Figure 1 depicts the research framework and the hypothesized relationships in the study.\nMethodology: Population and sample\nData analysis: PLS-SEM was used in this study. PLS-SEM is the second generation of multivariate technique of combining confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), multiple linear regression and path analysis. It focuses on explaining the variance in the dependent variable when examining the structural model (Hair et al., 2010). Chin et al. (2003) emphasized that PLS-SEM is appropriate if the phenomenon is relatively new, and prediction is more important than parameter estimation. In this study, no researches have investigated the predictability of organizational-related factors, namely, employability culture and mentoring on protean career (Briscoe and Hall, 2006; Chan and Ong, 2014). The study is considered as added and new contribution to the existing SCCT model and career theoretical framework. Specifically, this is the case of an incremental study, which is initially based on a prior model (e.g. SCCT), but new measures and structural paths are then introduced into the model.\nDiscussion: The research findings revealed that employability culture is significantly related to protean career. The finding is supported by earlier studies which found that employability influence individual career development (Konrad and Mangel, 2000; Nauta et al., 2009; Rasool et al., 2012). Consistent results were obtained by Rasool et al.'s (2012) study who found that employability culture is positively related to protean career. The context of E&E industry may have been the reason for the presence of the relationship in such unique industry environment. The E&E industry is characterized by rapid and dynamic changes in its business nature and organizational restructures resulting from external environment factors. This unique business environment is different from other private industries, as there are direct effects and influence from advancement of technologies, changes in governmental policies, localization of MNCs as well as effect from the global financial crisis in 1998 and 2008. Many MNCs in E&E industries implemented cost reduction strategies to improve their competitive edges. Subsequently, workforce reduction and elimination of organizational career development program were commonly practiced to reduce operational cost (Nambiar, 2009). Employees experiencing strong employability culture at their workplace were more likely to emphasize learning new skills to improve self-employability in labor market, decision-making ability and job performance. They were more pro-active and creative in developing own career path (Yamamoto, 2006).\nStudy limitations and future research: The study has limitations and suggestions for future research are provided. First, the limitation of the current cross-sectional study design. The sample of this study involved employees from the MNCs in Malaysia E&E industry and the generalization of the study findings may be limited to other industries (Ary et al., 2010). Second, the concept of employability culture is a limited operationalization that focused upon the employees' employability on career prospect. The recommendations to be considered are more elaborative conceptualizations on employability which related to other prospects (Van der Haijde et al., 2006). Third, the present study focused on the formal mentoring program relationship in the organization. Thus, the generalization of the findings to other types of mentoring program such as informal mentoring and external mentoring shall be limited. Hence, future research should investigate the correlation of mentoring provided in alternative forms of mentoring relationship.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of organizational-related variables and the moderating role of career strategies on protean career among employees.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Research data are gathered from a sample of 306 employees in 18 electrical and electronics multinational corporations (MNCs) in Malaysia. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is used to examine the influences of organizational-related factors and the moderating role of career strategies on protean career.\nFindings: The results demonstrate that organizational-related variables, namely, employability culture and mentoring are viewed as potential predictors of protean career. There are significant moderating effects of career strategies on the relationship between both employability culture and mentoring toward protean career among employees.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper provides an empirical framework to explain protean career based on the review of career-related literatures.\nPractical implications: The findings provide implications to both organizations and human resource development practitioners on new career trends of protean career. Practical interventions are suggested to assist individuals and organizations toward protean career development.\nOriginality/value: This paper offers new insight into the predicting factors of protean career and its moderating role on career strategies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The experience of workplace anger	[ "Emotional dissonance", "Individual psychology", "Organizational development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Handling anger on the job has become a new survival skill for leaders in all fields (Ramsey, 2004, p. 8).\nCurrent study: The current study aims to redress this problem by examining the causes, characteristics and consequences of workplace anger using interview techniques rather than surveys or anger scripts (techniques involve asking participants specific questions about an anger episode they have experienced in order to identify protypical features of their workplace anger) which dominate previous research approaches (e.g. Fitness, 2000; Allcorn, 1994; Gibson and Barsade, 1999); anger scripts. Interviews provide qualitative data which have the advantage of being more sensitive to respondents' meanings and interpretations (Coyle and Williams, 2000).\nMethod: Participants were recruited through opportunity and snowball sampling and consisted of 24 currently employed men and women in full-time work: ten males and 14 females. A total of 12 of the participants were in management positions and 12 were in non-management positions; and there were six participants interviewed from each of the four organisational sectors health, education, retail and wholesale (three in management and three in non-management).Interview schedule\nResults and discussion: Themes\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine the experience of anger in the workplace and in particular to identify the characteristics, causes and short- and long-term consequences of workplace anger episodes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This qualitative study involves in-depth semi-structured interviews with 24 participants from within four different organisational sectors. Participants were asked general questions about their experiences of anger at work, followed by more specific questions as appropriate.\nFindings: - Analysis of the data resulted in several themes being identified within the categories of causes, characteristics and consequences of anger episodes.\nPractical implications: - This study allows managers to understand better the role of anger in the workplace and its relationship with various undesirable outcomes as well as how aspects of organisation life might contribute to anger episodes. This should help them to introduce strategies aimed at reducing the incidences of anger experiences as well as contributing towards the development of better coping skills at all levels when anger episodes do occur.\nOriginality/value: - While existing research into the experience of emotions in the workplace suggests that anger is commonly experienced and might have detrimental effects not only on the health of the individual experiencing it, but also for the organisation, there is currently a lack of empirical research into the experience of workplace anger in terms of what causes it and what the long- and short-term consequences are for the individual and the organisation. This paper aims to fill that gap.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Othering women: fluid images of the ideal academic	[ "Gender", "Academic staff", "Ideal academic", "Gender stereotypes", "Arts", "Sciences", "The Netherlands" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The universal character of science and the growing globalization of the academic community suggests the existence of generally shared norms about the \"ideal academic\" among those working in academia. Research about gender in academia suggests this ideal academic to be gendered, the norms in the male-dominated natural sciences being even more gendered than in the arts and humanities sector (Benschop and Brouns, 2003; Knights and Richards, 2003; Van den Brink and Benschop, 2012).We were able to examine the images of the ideal academic in these two sectors when we subsequently worked on two independent research projects commissioned by the executive boards of an arts and a sciences university, aiming to investigate the causes and consequences of the underrepresentation of women in higher academic positions and to distill possible interventions based upon these analyses. We conducted interviews with deans as an integral part of these research projects. While aware of the theoretical notion of \"othering women,\" we were quite struck by the way deans in both universities were portraying women academics as not living up to the competencies and commitment needed to be successful at their schools.Before explaining how deans construct images of the ideal academic in the two universities and how these images are gendered we will first briefly introduce how theories on the ideal worker and the ideal academic had framed our expectations about the material. Second, we will describe our two cases into more detail. Subsequently, we will describe the interview protocol we used and the way we performed content analysis. Finally, we contrast the ideal images constructed by the deans and define the space the different constructions offer for renegotiating the image of the ideal academic to be more inclusive for women academics.\n2. Theory: Women as the \"other\"\n3. Cases and method: The context of Dutch academia\n4. Analysis: The image of the ideal academic\n5. Discussion: Comparing a Dutch arts and Dutch sciences university we found commonly shared norms that the ideal academic should give priority to work and that family life is secondary to the job. The images of the ideal academic at the two universities, however, differed regarding the expertise, the applicability of knowledge and the visibility needed to be considered successful. At the arts university getting published in good scientific journals and getting scientific funds is the criterion for academic success, while the deans at the sciences university emphasize the ability to bring academic knowledge in the market. The deans constructed the image of women academics as the opposite to this ideal. The typical women academic in the arts university is constructed as practically oriented. Their investments in management and education are seen as keeping them from doing serious work in \"knowledge production\" (cf. Parsons and Priola, 2012). In contrast, at the sciences university women were considered to be too much directed to fundamental research and lacking entrepreneurial skills for \"valorizing\" their knowledge. Deans portrayed women academics as typically not fitting the profile of the \"normal\" or ideal worker (cf. Acker, 1990; Lewis, 1991) and justified this by referring to women having \"naturally different interests\" than men in general, and having different attitudes toward science in particular. However, since the perceived characteristics of the typical woman academic appeared to be diametrically different when comparing the deans from the two universities, they appear to be less \"naturalistic\" than suggested.To our surprise, success within the sciences university had much more to do with how well academics can self-promote their visible outcomes of their research activities outside the university than with the image of someone oriented toward \"certified knowledge production,\" as literature suggests (Benschop and Brouns, 2003). The image of the successful ideal academic in the arts university on the other hand was much more defined in terms of a single-minded focus on research productivity, than as someone oriented toward the other functions of sciences as a social institutions. So, women academics in the sciences based university were portrayed, in contrast to what we expected, as nerdy and single minded, thus deviating from the ideal academic as perceived by the deans, whereas in the arts university the women were portrayed as collegial and with a focus on the applicability of their work outside academia.These juxtaposed images of the ideal academic reflect Faulkner's (2007b) conceptualization of the ideal academic \"as multifaceted and multidimensional, encompassing symbols, cultures, practices, identities and structures\" (p. 333). As deans from these two scientific institutions construct partly opposite images of the ideal academic and of the typical women academics, we suggest that the binary between the masculine norm and the feminine otherness is a more constant element of the image of the ideal academic than the content of the image itself. We argue that images of the ideal academic are not only fluid, but also context dependent; the ideals and norms may diametrically change once we shift focus from one academic discipline to another. Benschop and Doorewaard (1998) and Tienari et al. (2002) already suggested that the image of the ideal worker is not fixed but evolves in time and space. Further research would be needed to investigate how the image of the ideal academic changes within the same discipline between different countries, for example in countries with a relatively high level of women professors. The conclusions of this paper are limited to the Netherlands.In both universities the image of the ideal academic is used to illustrate the existing academic ideal and to show the \"otherness\" of women academics. Nevertheless, the fact that the masculine identity of the ideal academic is a matter of discussion offers opportunities for a change in hegemonic culture (see Bendl and Schmidt, 2012). Some deans openly debate the fact that education is undervalued and express a preference for improving its status. Such a revaluation would go with a better balance between individual and group performance and would - according to earlier research - contribute to more inclusiveness (Knights and Richards, 2003). Other deans argue that the fact that women are more balanced makes them more suitable for management positions. Since management positions are one of the places where women academics can gain visibility and be selected for promotion justifying their entrance to management positions offers opportunity to improve the representation of women academics in higher positions. Third, deans showed awareness that their personal efforts to reduce turnover intentions of women staff and nourish women's self-confidence, albeit patronizing, may help women gain the necessary support for progress in their careers. So, increasing the personal involvement of deans with women academics among their staff may support the cultural change needed to recognize their competencies and commitment.\n6. Conclusion: In this paper we examined the construction of images of the ideal academic and how these images are gendered. By contrasting the construction of the ideal academic by deans at an Dutch arts and science university, we found commonly shared norms that the academic should give priority to work and that family life is secondary to the job. The images of the ideal academic, however, fundamentally differed regarding the expertise, the applicability of knowledge and the visibility needed to be considered successful. Moreover, the deans told nearly opposing stories about the competencies and commitment women academics lacked to fit to this standard. In the science university women academics were considered to be too much directed toward fundamental research, while in the arts university women academics were considered to be too much practical oriented to be successful.The contribution of this paper is that we showed that constructions of the ideal academic are fluid rather than absolute, while dominant actors in organizations seem to attribute universal value to these images. The \"otherness\" of women academics to the image of the ideal academic is more constant than the characteristics of these images themselves. Revealing the fluidity of the construction of the ideal academic allows room for changing hegemonic gender identities and strategically exposing characteristics that are most suitable in particular situations. The variety in the construction of the otherness of women academics offers opportunity for escaping the binaries between masculinity and femininity and for discussing and renegotiating the image of the ideal academic to be more inclusive to women (cf. Bendl and Schmidt, 2012, p. 23). Promoting more heterogeneous images of the ideal academic can serve to make academia more inclusive, leaving room for academics who are successful in various roles. In order to become more inclusive, academia need to transcend binaries such as applied vs fundamental research, teaching vs research, technological vs social innovation, individualistic vs collegial attitudes and so forth.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - In the context of research on the career advancement of women and men in academia, this paper aims to reflect on how deans at six schools of a Dutch arts and a Dutch sciences-based university construct the image of the ideal academic, and on how these images are gendered.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Using an inductive approach, the study analyzed the transcripts of semi-structured in-depth interviews with six deans (all men) from two different Dutch universities on the career advancement of men and women at their school.\nFindings: - It was expected that the images of the ideal academic would be more gendered in the sciences than in the arts university, considering the stronger male domination in the sciences university. The images of the ideal academic, while fundamentally different, regarding the expertise, the applicability of knowledge, and the visibility needed to be considered successful, were equally gendered in assuming that practicing science leaves little room for caring obligations outside work; in both places science was considered an omnipresent and greedy calling. Moreover, deans at both universities to a similar extent expected women academics not to fit to this standard. Paradoxically, in the arts university deans construct an image of women academics that in some aspects reflects a mirror image of women academics in the sciences university and vice versa.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The paper suggests that in this construction the process of \"othering\" women academics is more constant than the content of the ideal academic. They contribute to theories on the ideal worker in the field of science by arguing the construction of the ideal academic is fluid rather than fixed. Further research could investigate how the image of the ideal academic changes within the same discipline across different countries with a higher representation of women among full professors, as the findings are limited to The Netherlands.\nPractical implications: - The paper argues that the fluidity of the ideal academic norm offers space for renegotiating such norms by making it more inclusive for women, which will have positive consequences for women's career advancement in academia.\nOriginality/value: - The contribution of this paper is that constructions of the ideal academic are fluid rather than fixed, while dominant actors in organizations seem to attribute universal value to these images. The \"otherness\" of women relative to the image of the ideal academic is more constant than the characteristics of these images themselves.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A systematic review of educational leadership and management research in Turkey: Content analysis of topics, conceptual models, and methods	[ "Turkey", "Educational administration", "Educational leadership", "Organizational behaviour", "Systematic review", "Research design" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Educational leadership and management (EDLM) emerged as an academic field at the end of the nineteenth century, based primarily on the exchange of school administrators' practical experiences. Production of knowledge within the field of EDLM accelerated with the emergence of the theory movement in the 1950s and the field has since gradually strengthened as an applied field of study (Eidel and Kitchel, 1968; Oplatka and Arar, 2016). Since the emergence of EDLM as an independent discipline, studies conducted by English-speaking Western societies have dominated the knowledge base. North America and the UK have played a crucial role in the development of the field and the production of related knowledge. However, significant efforts by researchers in non-Western societies have introduced a more international perspective, especially since the turn of the millennium (Hallinger, 2019; Walker and Dimmock, 2002).\nThe Turkish EDLM context: Located at the crossroads of Asia, Europe and the Middle East, Turkey offers a unique and rich cultural, social, and religious context. Despite this diversity, Turkey has adopted a highly centralized and hierarchical education system (Celik et al., 2017). Therefore, the Ministry of National Education (MoNE) has borne the primary responsibility for the assignment and development of school administrators. Over the years, MoNE's policies in this area have received considerable criticism concerning the lack of consistency over time and the paucity of the requirements for those in administrative positions to complete any formal training, certification or relevant degree (Korkmaz, 2005). In general, school administration is not seen as a profession in Turkey, but is rather perceived as a temporary assignment for teachers (Beycioglu et al., 2018).\nConceptual framework: The conceptual framework for this review was developed based on existing review studies in the field of EDLM. While the earlier review studies mostly focused on Western countries (Bridges, 1982; Erickson, 1979; Hall and Southworth, 1997), recent reviews have also paid considerable attention to non-Western contexts (Bush and Glover, 2016; Hallinger and Chen, 2015; Mertkan et al., 2017; Oplatka and Arar, 2017). Three approaches typify these review studies, with some studies combining different approaches. Focusing on the big picture, the first type sets out to reveal the volume, citations, geographical distribution, etc. of the knowledge base (Gumus et al., 2019; Hallinger and Kovacevic, 2019; Wang and Bowers, 2016). The second type, meanwhile, tries to identify the overall content of existing studies by revealing their topical foci, methodological approaches, conceptual models, etc. (Aypay et al., 2010; Castillo and Hallinger, 2018; Ogawa et al., 2000). The final type of review of the EDLM research conducts in-depth synthesis of the findings of existing studies using either a qualitative or a quantitative approach (Boyce and Bowers, 2018; Oplatka and Arar, 2017; Robinson et al., 2008).\nMethod: The present paper follows the steps for conducting systematic reviews within the field of EDLM developed by Hallinger (2013). According to this framework, a systematic review study starts by specifying the central topics of interest, research questions and goals; it then draws upon a conceptual perspective to identify, select, evaluate and interpret relevant publications; it clarifies the sources of the data used and the way these data are analyzed and synthesized; and, finally, it discusses findings, limitations and implications.\nResults: In this section of the paper, we present our findings in relation to each of the research questions posed at the outset.\nMethodology: Research approach\nDiscussion and conclusions: With the aim of contributing to current efforts to draw attention to the body of knowledge produced by researchers from non-Western countries within the field of EDLM, this paper presents a systematic review of Turkish EDLM literature based on 315 articles published between 1994 and 2018. Specifically, we analyze the methods, topical foci and conceptual models used in the selected studies. In the following, we discuss limitations of the review, summarize the main findings, and offer recommendations for both policymakers and researchers.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: While the current knowledge in the field of educational leadership and management (EDLM) has been primarily based on research produced in English-speaking Western societies, there have been significant efforts by other societies to contribute to the knowledge production, especially during the past decade. The purpose of this paper is to identify the contribution of Turkey to the international EDLM literature by investigating the topical focus, conceptual frameworks and research designs of papers published by EDLM scholars from Turkey.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Descriptive content analysis method was employed to examine 315 empirical, review, conceptual and commentary papers published by Turkish scholars in core educational administration and Web of Science journals. The time period of the review left open-ended. However, in practical terms, it begins in the year 1994 when the first article from Turkey was published in any of the selected sources and ends at the end of 2018. Information relevant to the research was extracted from each article and was coded to facilitate quantitative analysis. Using Excel software, descriptive statistics including frequencies and percentages were provided for each research question.\nFindings: Results show that Turkish EDLM scholars mostly rely on survey based quantitative research approach, employing advanced statistical techniques in the analysis of the data. However, mixed method and qualitative studies are relatively less common. Organizational behavior, school leadership and emotions stand out as most frequently used topics, while Turkish scholars are not interested in analyzing the educational outcomes such as student achievement and school improvement. Consistent with the findings related to topical foci, a large number of those who were interested in correlational studies examined the relationship between leadership roles and organizational behaviors.\nResearch limitations/implications: The data set only included journal articles and excluded conference proceedings, books and theses/dissertations. Nevertheless, the authors believe this review adds significantly to previous reviews of local EDLM journals conducted by Turkish scholars. The authors concluded that the Turkish scholars should direct their future research to exploring and better understanding the practices of Turkish principals in schools by: diversifying their research topics; incorporating more qualitative and mixed-method designs; and taking into account specific features of the culture and educational system in Turkey.\nPractical implications: Based on the current higher education context, reducing scholars' teaching load, diversifying research funding opportunities, and modifying access to tenure tracks seem necessary interventions to support EDLM research with strong ties to practice and to the sociocultural context. In addition, policy changes aiming professionalization of administrative positions and establishing some forms of formal training for school principalship are needed. Such changes can help transfer the knowledge produced by the Turkish EDLM researchers to the practice and provide solutions to problems related to school administration.\nOriginality/value: This paper will add to recent effort to identify how a developing nation outside Western perspective approaches the field, and contributes to the global knowledge base.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
L&D professionals in organisations: much ambition, unfilled promise	[ "Careers", "Roles", "Competencies", "Context", "Learning and development professionals", "Perceived effectiveness" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: There is a growing recognition that the effective training and development of human resources (HRs) is critical to organisational and financial performance (Tharenou et al., 2007; Nadiv et al., 2017). As a consequence, the learning and development (L&D) function finds itself under increased scrutiny and pressure to add value to the business (Aguinis and Kraiger, 2009; Kim and Ployhart, 2014). The roles of L&D professionals have evolved throughout history from an emphasis on the direct delivery of training (Harrison, 2009) in the twentieth century, to one where L&D professionals are expected in the twenty-first century to be managers of learning, change agents and architects of organisational learning (Stuart and Overton, 2015; Noe et al., 2014). The L&D profession was criticised in the 1980s and 1990s for its focus on delivering direct training and its administrative tendencies. During the twenty-first century, the profession was urged to play a more strategic role in organisations (Garavan, 2007; Brandl et al., 2012), with proponents arguing that a more strategic role would enable it to make a more valuable and measurable contribution to organisational performance. In spite of these calls, the work of L&D professionals continues to be perceived as operational, tactical and administrative, suggesting that L&D professionals have struggled to get out from under their history as a profession. The available evidence suggests that L&D professionals have struggled to make the transition to a strategic role (Mundy, 2012; CIPD, 2016). These strategic L&D roles include \"business partner\", \"internal consultant\" and \"strategic business partners\" (Gao et al., 2016; Campbell and Lambright, 2016; Nguyen et al., 2019). L&D professionals have made efforts to reframe their expertise around these roles and to relinquish tasks associated with direct training, training administration and compliance activities. However, these efforts at reframing the role have proven difficult. First, research studies and industry reports have called into question the competences, skills and potential to influence performance in organisations (CIPD, 2017; Nadiv et al., 2017). The specific skill gaps highlighted include the lack of strategic skills, poor business acumen and gaps in skills to leverage data and technology to contribute to strategic formulation and implementation. Second, key organisational stakeholders including Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), senior and line managers do not view L&D as a strategic priority (The Open University, 2016; Loon, 2016) and consider training and development to be a waste of time. L&D professionals are not viewed as strategic partners with organisational leaders when it comes to strategic change. Structurally, only a very small proportion of L&D professionals sit at the top table. Third, a prominent factor explaining the lack of strategic impact concerns the inability of L&D professionals to use evidence-based rigor in decision making. Kryscynski et al. (2018), for example, found that where HR specialists possessed higher-level analytical abilities, they were more effective. The lack of analytical skills and the inability to make use of evidence-based approaches to L&D has held back professionals from making a strategic business contribution (Dulebohn and Johnson, 2013). Fourth, L&D professionals experience inherent conflicts between daily operational roles and long-term strategic roles, giving the different demands made by senior managers, line managers and employees (Caldwell, 2003; Gao et al., 2016). Finally, there are significant perceptive differences between L&D professionals and their customers including employees, line and senior management concerning their effectiveness (Nadiv et al., 2017). John and Bjorkman (2015) found, for example, significant differences in perceptions between HR professionals and line managers concerning capabilities and capacity to deliver the strategic agenda. In addition, employees perceive that L&D has become disconnected from the employee agenda and is no longer an employee champion (Van De Voorde and Beijer, 2015). This becomes manifest in criticisms that L&D professionals no longer focus on personal development planning, the enhancement of employees' careers and employability. Therefore, an important question concerns whether L&D professionals have delivered on the promise that is suggested by proponents of the strategic approach to role performance.\n2. Theoretical and empirical background to research: 2.1 Theoretical perspectives informing the study\n3. Research methods: To address our research questions, we gathered data using multiple data sources. Our analysis is based on data gathered during 2016 and 2017 with organisations within Ireland, UK, Europe and the USA. We purposely selected organisations that differed on key contingency factors including sector, geographic location, firm size, type of business and characteristics of the L&D function.\n4. Results: We first report the descriptive findings on contextual influences including:\n5. Discussion: It is now well-established that L&D practices are important within organisations. However, there are significant questions concerning the extent of alignment and strategic impact of L&D in addition to the competencies and effectiveness of L&D practitioners to deliver the strategic agenda. These issues raise major questions as to whether the strategic project advocated by academics and professional bodies for L&D has failed and we do not have reliable information regarding the extent to which these issues are prevalent across organisations and there is a major lacuna in knowledge concerning the roles that L&D professionals play in organisations. The specific gaps focus on:\n6. Conclusion: Over almost 20 years, L&D scholars have purported that for L&D practitioners to be effective, they need to take on strategic roles in organisations. This is one of the first studies to investigate how L&D practitioners perform their roles in organisations and how they are perceived by organisational stakeholders. Using contingency role and multiple constituency theories, we explored contingency influences on both roles and competencies and the relationship between competencies, roles, career levels and perceptions of L&D effectiveness. Our findings reveal that L&D professionals perform a combination of more traditional, expanded and strategic roles in organisations. Our second contribution is to provide empirical evidence of the context factors that influence the importance of these roles, the competency requirements that each role requires and how each role is perceived in terms of contribution to organisational effectiveness from the perspectives of multiple stakeholders. Overall, our findings reveal that a combination of organisational and L&D function characteristics impact L&D roles in organisations and they differed in terms of their perceived contribution to organisational effectiveness. An important takeaway from our study concerns the relatively modest progress that L&D professionals have made to lay a more strategic role in organisations. It has struggled to disentangle its operational remit and transform its focus and activities. We highlight that future research can further expand our research by conducting longitudinal investigations to capture the change in both context and L&D roles.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This monograph reports on the strategic and operational roles of learning and development (L&D) professionals in Irish, UK European and US organisations including multinational corporations, small to medium enterprises, the public sector and not for profit organisations. This paper aims to investigate the contextual factors influencing L&D roles in organisations, the strategic and operational roles that L&D professionals play in organisations, the competencies and career trajectories of L&D professionals, the perceptions of multiple internal stakeholders of the effectiveness of L&D roles and the relationships between context, L&D roles, competencies/expertise and perceived organisational effectiveness.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study findings are based on the use of multiple methods. The authors gathered data from executives, senior managers, line managers, employee and L&D professionals using multiple methods: a survey (n = 440), Delphi study (n = 125) and semi-structured interviews (n = 30).\nFindings: The analysis revealed that L&D professionals increasingly respond to a multiplicity of external and internal contextual influences and internal stakeholders perceived the effectiveness of L&D professionals differently with significant gaps in perceptions of what L&D contributes to organisational effectiveness. L&D professionals perform both strategic and operational roles in organisations and they progress through four career levels. Each L&D role and career level requires a distinct and unique set of foundational competencies and L&D expertise. The authors found that different contextual predictors were important in explaining the perceived effectiveness of L&D roles and the importance attached to different foundational competencies and areas of L&D expertise.\nOriginality/value: This is one of the few studies to have investigated the L&D professional role in organisations from the perspective of multiple stakeholders using multiple research methods.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Role of internal and external organizational factors in TQM implementation: A systematic literature review and theoretical framework	[ "Business outcomes", "External organizational factors", "Hard TQM", "Internal organizational factors" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: TQM is renowned as one of the critical determinants of success for every business organization, whether it is service or manufacturing organization. Its theories and concepts are being adopted in innumerable industries to become successful in market by gaining competitive advantage. For this purpose, businesses are investing considerable resources to gain competitive advantage through adopting and implementing total quality management (TQM). That is why TQM is considered as a source of innovation (Singh and Smith, 2004), competitive advantage (Douglas and Judge, 2001) and improved organizational culture (Irani et al., 2004) in numerous organizations. However, the notions of quality vary from industry to industry.\nLiterature review: Literature available on TQM in service organizations shows that service organizations are more toward following soft aspects of TQM (Nasim et al., 2014; Rees, 1995). However, there are some exceptions that also discussed the role of hard aspects of TQM in service organizations to achieve the desired business outcomes, for example, Oakland's (1991) triangle. Soft TQM elements have been studied mainly in relevance to business outcomes, such as HRM, organizational support, team building and management's commitment. Chin et al. (2002) focused on soft TQM elements in Shanghai manufacturing organizations and identified top management commitment, leadership, education and training as important soft sub-sections. Rahman (2004) studied soft aspects of TQM and categorized them under people aspect. These aspects are: education, leadership, loyalty, empowerment and team work. However, there are some other outcomes that cannot be achieved and then measured without hard TQM aspects.\nMethodology: Scope of research\nFindings: Findings based on the above displayed graphs show that there is a great variation of published research in different time periods, countries and type of studies done. In the time period of 2005-2009, most of the research has been published and the research was mainly empirical. Moreover, most of the research related to TQM has been published in UK. TQM has been in the phase of evolution since its introduction. It was implemented in manufacturing organizations at the beginning. Later, service organizations also started to adapt the concepts of TQM from manufacturing organizations. Moreover, the research was mainly based on literature review and theory. For example, a systematic study from 1970 to 1993 by Ahire et al. (1995) generated only 29 empirical studies that show the deficiency of TQM research based on empirical methodology during that period. At the beginning of 2000, most of the researchers started to empirically test factors of TQM (Hietschold et al., 2014) and later linked it with performance (e.g. Talib et al., 2013) or some other management principles (e.g. Nasim et al., 2014). This is evident from the systematic review findings that most of the research done is empirical and focused more on soft TQM. Moreover, TQM is mainly related to customer satisfaction and organizational performance. As TQM is a broad concept so its implication cannot be limited to customer satisfaction or organizational performance. It is required that important internal external organizational factors should be focused to better understand the outcomes that can be achieved through the implementation of TQM. Role of certain moderators and mediators need to be studied in this regard as well.\nDiscussion: There are different dimensions to TQM mentioned in literature that can affect the overall firm performance, both service and manufacturing (see e.g., Sureshchandar et al., 2001; Ghobadian and Gallear, 2001; Pinho, 2008; Gadenne and Sharma, 2009). In service organizations, soft factors are considered to be the determinants of TQM while in manufacturing organizations; hard factors (tools and techniques) play their role. Focus of this study is on service organizations, so in service organizations, different performance outcomes can be achieved through hard TQM also. However, TQM has ability to directly affect firm performance depends upon the degree of its implementation (Yusuf et al., 2007).\nImplications: The model developed in this study can be applied in any service organization with slight modifications to enhance the service quality of organizations by integrating both internal and external aspects for quality improvement. By adopting this framework, organizations can increase their production quality. However, more training will be required by team management for implementing this framework as TQM implementation takes a long time. Adoption of this framework may help organizations to consider all elements for success of service organizations by incorporating service concepts in it. Present model can be applied in any service organization with required changes in the adapted or developed measurement scales.\nLimitations and scope for future research: The study focused on majority of the dimensions which are required for the development of TQM model for service organizations. One major limitation is the testing of this model. It has not been tested in any environment or organization to assess its validity. So, in future, empirical research needs to be done to test the fitness of model and review the proposed relationship of different variables with each other. Moreover, seven developed hypotheses should also be tested in future to get some empirical evidence for the proposed relations. Only three journals have been included for this study so in future more journals can be focused to get more insight into different factors. Impact of IT on organizational processes toward TQM can also be studied in future (Ang et al., 2000). Organizational change in service industries also considered as barrier to service organizations' success (Huq, 2005) so its role can also be studied in future. Moreover, more journals and time framework can be considered in future to get detailed insight of the work done so far in TQM. Statistical analysis for the findings of literature can also be done in future.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework for the development of total quality management (TQM) model for service organizations considering both internal and external environmental factors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Through an extensive literature search, it is found that despite a large body of knowledge on TQM, there is hardly any research undertaken on the model of service quality including all external and internal factors that can affect the impact of soft and hard TQM factors on organizations performance. So, a systematic literature review has been conducted to extract the relevant journal articles for the study purpose.\nFindings: The conceptual model fills this yawning gap and presents a framework of integrated relationships based on several constituent models. These are soft TQM factors, hard TQM factors and organizational performance. Moreover, quality improvement, market benefits, R&D performance and quality performance are used as mediators while industry rivalry and entry barriers are used as moderators between soft and hard TQM and organizational performance. The seven propositions, derived from these elements, highlight the dynamic relationship between above mentioned constructs.\nResearch limitations/implications: One major limitation is the testing of this model. It has not been tested in any environment or organization to assess its validity. Future research can be done to test the developed hypotheses. Besides three journals, other journals can also be focused in future to get detailed insight into different factors. Impact of IT on organizational processes toward TQM can also be studied in future. More rigorous statistical tests can also be applied to generate more findings with an extension of review time period and selection of more journals.\nPractical implications: The model developed in this study can be applied in any service organization with slight modifications to enhance the service quality of organizations by integrating both internal and external aspects for quality improvement. By adopting this framework, organizations can increase their production quality.\nOriginality/value: This proposed framework will help organizations to effectively implement TQM in their organizations considering internal and external organizational factors.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Perception of hospital environment before and after relocation	[ "Health care", "Environment", "Employees", "Hospital management", "Hospitals", "Work design" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The work environment has a remarkable effect on work flow and the well-being of employees (Feige et al., 2013; Clements-Croome, 2011; Bluyssen, 2014). When moving to a new work environment, change is inevitable, regardless of the circumstances. An employee has to adjust to the new environment and learn new, perhaps challenging work processes (Edmondson, 2004). However, the change may also eliminate old barriers that formerly encumbered work. The transition to a new work environment may present the opportunity to address old issues and optimize the environment, making it more appealing to the employee (Ateg et al., 2008; Gesler et al., 2004).\n2. Materials and methods: 2.1 Context of the study\n3. Results: 3.1 Job contents\n4. Discussion: When moving to a new work environment, changes such as structural reformation and new work methods, colleagues and supervisors are unavoidable (Beyer and Hannah, 2002). This inevitably affects employees, and it may take a while before they become accustomed to the new work environment. Employees may initially experience job insecurity, threats to individual self-esteem and well-being and even anxiety (Kavanagh and Ashkanasy, 2006). In this study, the anesthesia, orthopedics and physiatrics departments all relocated in the summer of 2015. As the latter part of the questionnaire was conducted between February and March of 2016, it is possible that the results may be negatively biased: Feelings of anger and resentment that may occur after organizational change can negatively affect employees' attitudes toward the new work environment (Mirvis, 1985).\n5. Conclusions: Relocating to new facilities in a HC environment resulted in significant changes for the employees. The respondents were more satisfied with their work and work performance, inspired by and swept away by their work, and had become more absorbed in their work. Work premises were considered more accessible, slightly more suitable for carrying out work tasks and better facilitated tasks that were carried out both alone and independently. It was easier to find a place to discuss confidential matters. Employees were more satisfied with being able to see out of windows and to customize the work environment. The number of available meeting rooms had increased and quality of interior design had improved. An increase was noted in the awareness of Lean thinking, as well as in the respondents' perceived utilization of this at the workplace. The time spent on customer service tasks and in office rooms had decreased. However, cooperation among employees was less efficient than before the relocation. The new work premises did not support interaction between individuals as well as before, the employees felt more isolated from the work community, and it was more difficult to reach one's colleagues in the environment. Moreover, the workplace had become more unsettled.\n6. Ethical consideration: The study was conducted in compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki 2013 and a favorable opinion of the study was obtained in advance from the Research Ethics Committee of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health. Organizational permission to carry out the study was granted by the Research Director of H1. To ensure the privacy of the study participants, the hospital staff sent them the questionnaires. The investigators had no access to the study population's personal data. All responses to the questionnaire were given anonymously.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study assessed employees' perceptions of their hospital work environment, its quality and functionality, as well as their satisfaction and well-being both before and after relocation within the hospital campus.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study was carried out in a Finnish University Hospital. Employees from the anesthesia, orthopedics and physiatrics department took part in the study. The data were collected from the employees with online questionnaires before and after the relocation. The statistical differences between the questionnaire variables were analyzed using the Chi-square test.\nFindings: Remarkable improvements in the quality of the new workplace included ability to adjust temperature, ventilation and furniture, ability to see out of windows, accessibility, number of meeting rooms, places to discuss confidential matters, quality of interior design, improved work satisfaction and desire to implement Lean. Significant deteriorations after relocation included unsettled work environment, impaired quality of cooperation and decreased interaction between employees.\nOriginality/value: This study discovered several improvements in the new facilities that had a visible effect on the assessed employee satisfaction and well-being parameters. The paper contains new, significant information that is relevant to the hospital facilities management and provides insight about the pros and cons of relocation and wherein their focus should be placed.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Human resources and scientific output in Brazilian science: Mapping astronomy, immunology and oceanography	[ "Brazil", "Astronomy", "Oceanography", "Human resource management", "Information research" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The establishment of Brazilian S&T activities is a recent event in the country's history. The most important governmental funding agencies, CNPq and CAPES[1], began operations at the beginning of the 1950s. However, a national programme of training Brazilians to carry out research was implemented only in the 1980s. During the last two decades, the large number of fellowships granted by these agencies to students enrolled in graduate courses was decisive for the growth of Brazilian science (Leta et al., 1998).The large but recent investment in training researchers has led to an expansion of Brazilian science and technology activities. This has been frequently estimated by the number of Brazilian publications in journals catalogued in the databases of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI, now Thomson Scientific). According to the Ministry of Science and Technology (MCT, 2004), both the absolute number of Brazilian publications and its share in the total increased in the 1981-2002 period. They went up from 1,887 to 11,285 and from 0.44 per cent to 1.55 per cent, respectively.In order to understand and to map Brazilian science, many bibliometric studies have been carried out over the last years. The first analysis of Brazilian scientific literature took place in the 1970s (Morel and Morel, 1977). Thereafter, most such studies have focused on the analysis of publication trends in specific fields (Azevedo, 1984; Meneghini, 1992; Spagnolo, 1990; Rumjanek and Leta, 1996). Recently, Leta and Lewison (2003) described the contribution of women in three different fields, astronomy, immunology and oceanography. The authors chose these fields mainly because they differ a lot in both their subject matter and their share of women scientists. Using data on publications in these fields, collected from the ISI database, the authors identified and counted Brazilian women's and men's outputs. They found that women published as much as men, in terms of both quantity and quality. Studies of sex and science using quantitative methods, such as the above and that of Plonski and Saidel (2001), are still uncommon in Brazil. Thus, this article has played an important role in the discussion of this theme by mapping and monitoring women's participation and success in Brazilian science.With the exception of the study carried by dos Santos and Rumjanek (2001) on Brazilian immunology, the scientific outputs of astronomy and oceanography in Brazil have not been studied. Besides the different characteristics of their subject matter and the participation of women, the three fields differ also in their process of institutionalisation in the country. Brazilian astronomy was officially started in 1827, when the emperor D. Pedro I founded the National Observatory. Immunology was started at the beginning of the twentieth century, with the foundation of the Oswaldo Cruz Institute[2]. As for oceanography, it was officially started in the country during the 1940s when the first academic institute devoted exclusively to teaching and research in this field was founded, the Institute of Oceanography of Sao Paulo.Concerning human resources and scientific outputs, did the differences in subject matter and institutionalisation influence the present state of the art of the three subjects in Brazil? In order to seek a response to this question, the present paper aims to outline trends in human resources and in publications in these fields in recent years.\nMethodology: Data on the Brazilian scientific community\nResults and discussion: The Brazilian scientific community - number of researchers, qualifications and sex\nConclusion: In the present study, data on human resources in S&T activities in Brazil as well as data on scientific outputs were used to map the state of the art of three fields: astronomy, immunology and oceanography. Within the international literature, there are only a few articles on trends in publications in astronomy, immunology and oceanography (Uzun and Ozel, 1996; dos Santos and Rumjanek, 2001; Dastidar, 2004).In view of the relatively recent institutionalisation of science in Brazil, an outline of trends in personnel and in scientific output in fields with different structural and historical aspects may help us to understand better the features of Brazilian science. It is clear from the data presented here that there is a close correlation between scientific outputs and the numbers of qualified researchers, although traditions also play a part. However, it is important to point out some limitations of this study: the coverage of both the Brazilian and the ISI databases. The Brazilian scientific censuses lack some data for human resources and publications because the database covers only 80 to 90 per cent of the whole Brazilian scientific community. As for the SCI, it is known that a large fraction of scientific research from developing regions, including Brazil, is published in domestic journals (Meneghini, 1992; Krzyzanowski and Ferreira, 1998). Thus, since the data shown here were obtained from a particular set of publications comprised in the world's mainstream journals with the highest probability of having a Brazilian publication, they should be interpreted as publishing trends of the fields studied rather than as definitive.Based on this consideration, we can suggest that the three fields differ a lot in terms of the characteristics of their researchers (Tables I and II). The different distribution of the total number of researchers registered in the CNPq database as well as the number of PhDs may be a consequence of the different processes of institutionalisation of the three fields.Trends in scientific output catalogued in the CNPq database indicate that astronomy publications differ from those in the other two fields in terms of pattern (Figure 1) and international visibility (Figure 2). Trends in scientific output catalogued in the SCI corroborate it. Astronomy has the largest number of publications (Figure 3), the highest share (Figure 4) and the highest impact (Figure 6), and tends to concentrate its publications in a small number of journals (Figure 5). Such differences, however, may be a consequence of intrinsic characteristics of each field. In immunology, it is known that the similarity and the overlap of the subject matter with other biomedical fields contribute to spread publications from immunology journals to others classified in other sub-fields.Analysis of the addresses of this set of publications confirms the trends observed in previous studies. Brazilian public universities are the institutions that contribute most to the scientific production of the country (Table V). A curious finding, however, is that they were less prominent among the publications cited most (Table VII).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The present study aims to overview Brazilian human resources and scientific output in astronomy, immunology and oceanography during the last decade.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data on human resources and on scientific output were obtained from the Brazilian database, the Directory of Research Groups. Scientific outputs were also analysed from a set of journals catalogued by the Institute for Scientific Information: the 20 journals with the largest number of articles in 2003.\nFindings: - Compared with the other two fields, the number of Brazilian researchers in astronomy has not grown from 1997-2002, but they are the most qualified and more than 90 per cent of them have a PhD degree. Most astronomy publications are in international journals and they are well cited. The most cited astronomy papers are on international topics, but this is not true for the oceanography papers.\nResearch limitations/implications: - These data are derived from a particular set of publications and should be interpreted as trends rather than as definitive.\nOriginality/value: - This study, which covers three fields with different structures and traditions, provides a snapshot of some features of the whole of Brazilian science, and will provide evidence for new science policies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The role of formal industry clusters in the internationalization of new ventures	[ "Cluster", "INV – International New Venture", "Internationalization", "Intermediation", "Business development", "Capability building" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Following the seminal work of Oviatt and McDougall (1994), the phenomenon of international new ventures (INVs) has attracted significant interest from researchers and practitioners. An international new venture is a \"business organization that, from inception, seeks to derive significant competitive advantage from the use of resources and the sale of outputs in multiple countries\" (Oviatt and McDougall, 1994, p. 49). Several other definitions of INVs in particular, and early internationalizing firms in general, have been proposed in literature (Knight and Cavusgil, 1996; Kuivalainen et al., 2007; Gabrielsson et al., 2008; Baum et al., 2011). However, these definitions consistently describe increased involvement in international activities either from the firm's inception or very early in its existence.\n2. Clustering and the early internationalization of firms: The internationalization process of small firms is determined by several factors: among these, location occupies a prominent place. In this section, we analyze the literature that has examined the role of location - and more specifically, location within industrial clusters - in the internationalization process of entrepreneurial firms in general and of INVs in particular. We begin by highlighting the role of networks in the internationalization process of small-sized firms, and then focus more precisely on the link between a firm's location in an industrial cluster and internationalization.\n3. \"Competitiveness clusters\": a French model of industrial clustering: To strengthen its competitiveness and its attractiveness to foreign firms (in particular, to multinationals), France has developed a new industrial policy since the year 2000. As a part of this policy, competitiveness clusters (poles de competitivite) were created by the government in 2005. A competitiveness cluster is a joint theme-based initiative for a given geographic area that brings together companies, research centers and educational institutions to develop synergies and cooperative efforts that focus on R&D and innovation. Other cluster partners may include local and national authorities and services catering to cluster members (DGE, 2008). The main goals of competitiveness clusters include developing the competitiveness of the French economy through increased innovation, boosting local technological and creative industries, attracting businesses to France by creating a higher international profile and stimulating growth and employment. According to the new policy, these strategic objectives are achieved through the actions of clusters, which include creating partnerships between different stakeholders, forming joint R&D projects, promoting an environment that favors innovation, encouraging the development of technological partnerships with international partners and attracting investors to France.\n4. Methods and data: In this section, we detail the methods used in our empirical study. We start with a brief presentation of the research sites (Systematic and Mov'eo), and then focus on our data collection and data analysis techniques.\n5. Case summaries: The four cases are summarized below. The names of the firms have been changed to preserve anonymity.\n6. Findings: This research explores the ways through which formal clusters facilitate the internationalization of INVs.\n7. Discussion: The findings of our research suggest that industrial clusters can facilitate the internationalization process of INVs by providing the resources needed to approach international markets by providing networking opportunities and legitimacy to INVs and by increasing the speed of internationalization. We contend that the concept of intermediation is appropriate to define the actions of clusters. Indeed, clusters act as a link between a firm, on the one hand, and as international markets and international innovation partners on the other hand. Previous research has argued that intermediary organizations or \"infrastructural networks\" (Hallen, 1992) may facilitate the development of networks (O'Gorman and Evers, 2011). For Hallen (1992), infrastructural networks are non-business actors that are not directly related to a specific purchase or sale, but that act as vehicles for information, communication and influence. Competitiveness clusters in France clearly assume this role. The clusters assist new ventures in overcoming obstacles to approaching foreign markets that are mostly caused by their limited resources and limited international experience.\n8. Conclusion: This article studied the internationalization of INVs through industrial clusters. Based on an empirical study of four INVs that use two clusters in France to help them internationalize, our findings demonstrate that this internationalization mode can constitute a tenable alternative to individual internationalization. We provide evidence that clusters undertake four different types of actions to facilitate the internationalization of their member firms. First, we note actions that include searching for international clients and participating in trade fairs, exhibitions and other business events. We describe these actions as business development. Second, certain actions focus on searching for international partners for R&D and forming partnerships within the framework of inter-cluster alliances - we call these actions capability building.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the internationalization of international new ventures (INVs). Specifically, this research explores the ways in which a formal cluster can facilitate the internationalization process of these firms.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors studied how four INVs benefitted from the actions of two clusters in France - Systematic and Mov'eo - as they internationalized. They conducted semi-structured interviews with the CEOs and other representatives of the INVs and with the members of the cluster management teams.\nFindings: The findings indicate that clusters can facilitate the internationalization of INVs by providing resources, networking opportunities and legitimacy to help them reach global markets and by increasing the speed of internationalization.\nOriginality/value: By analyzing the specific role that a formal cluster plays in the internationalization of INVs, this research contributes to the literature examining the link between location and INV internationalization. The authors argue that the cluster's role can be considered as that of an intermediary organization helping INVs to expand globally.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
If you think about it more, do you want it more? The case of fairtrade	[ "Ethics", "Branding", "Conjoint analysis", "Fairtrade", "Dual-process theory", "Information processing", "Consumer behaviour" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: If consumers spend more time thinking about a brand, will they be more likely to choose it over competing brands? Or are most purchases rather low involvement decisions for which promotion of conscious thinking is a waste of time and effort, compared to simply making the brand distinctive and easily recognisable? These questions represent an ongoing controversy in marketing (Sharp, 2010).\nThe fairtrade logo and brand information processing: The effect of endorsing logos on consumer preferences\nResearch questions and overall approach: Overall, the literature on endorsing logos is mixed. It is apparent that for some consumers ethical claims may not be considered. Alternatively, where endorsing logos do play a role, there are varied explanations as to how they influence consumer preference. There is a view that influence arises from deliberative thinking, with consumers processing the claims implicit in the endorsing logo; on the other hand, there is the possibility that the logos may simply draw attention, or that the preference may derive from the familiarity of the logo facilitating heuristic processing.\nManipulations: Within study test conditions for logos\nStage one: Development of specific hypotheses\nDiscussion: Consumers prefer familiar logos\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: There are substantive disagreements about whether encouraging deliberative thinking increases consumer preference in low-involvement product categories. The authors draw on dual-process theory to add rare experimental evidence to this debate. They also investigate whether the effect of deliberative thinking increases with familiarity of the stimuli, as different theories of memory yield different predictions on this point. Finally, they provide evidence on whether the effectiveness of the Fairtrade logo arises more from mere exposure or attention to the ethical claim.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The context for the research is the use of ethical logos in packaged coffee, as this provides a realistic setting for the desired experimental manipulations. The fieldwork consists of two sets of trade-off experiments - rankings based conjoint analysis (n = 360) and best-worst scaling with a balanced incomplete block design (n = 1,628). Deliberative thinking is manipulated in three ways: by varying logos between visual (Type 1 processing) and lexical (Type 2 processing) treatments, by post hoc classification of time taken, and by imposing either time constraints (Type 1) or cognitive load (Type 2) on the completion of the task. Familiarity is manipulated by varying logos between the Fairtrade and a fictional Exchange Ethics logo.\nFindings: Consumers do have higher preferences in the deliberative treatment conditions; thinking more results in an 18 per cent increase (Cohen's d = 0.25) in the preference for choices that display an ethical cobranded logo. Surprisingly, the impact of deliberation is not greater for the more familiar Fairtrade logo than the fictional Exchange Ethics logo. This result is inconsistent with strength-based theories of memory, as these predict that deliberation will have a greater effect for more familiar stimuli. However, it is consistent with newer theories of memory that acknowledge familiarity can lead to activation confusion, reducing retrieval of pre-existing knowledge into working memory. The research also shows that the Fairtrade logo has substantial utility to consumers, and that this is approximately 59 per cent due to the ethical claim and 41 per cent due to the familiarity of the logo.\nResearch limitations/implications: In field conditions, attempts to manipulate deliberation may not be effective or may simply result in reduced attention. Also, the costs of increasing deliberation may outweigh the benefits obtained.\nPractical implications: The research confirms the heuristic value of the Fairtrade logo and shows that the effectiveness of ethical logos may increase with additional deliberation by shoppers.\nOriginality/value: There is relatively little work in marketing that applies dual-process theories to investigate consumer behaviour. The present study extends the use of dual-process theories in marketing, demonstrates a new method to investigate the effect of deliberation on brand choice and shows how deliberation magnifies the effect of endorsing logos, including unfamiliar logos.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Influence of initial trust on control from client perspective: construction industry in China	[ "Social control", "Behaviour control", "Calculative trust", "Initial trust", "Outcome control", "Relational trust" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The construction industry has been often criticized for issues such as low efficiency, unproductivity, negative feedback from customers, and completion delays. For instance, the efficiency of the American construction industry has been thought to be decreasing during the period of 1964-2004 based on an analysis of information from the US Department of Commerce and US Bureau of Labor Statistics (Wikipedia, 2011). The US Bureau of Labor Statistics itself does not publish labor productivity data for the construction industry separately and there are no further updates. It is most likely because of a lack of meaningful and reliable data, which reflects the state of affairs of this industry in the USA. This would provide incentive toward a query on modern project management modes in the construction industry.\n2. Theoretical background on trust and control: 2.1 Trust in construction projects\n3. Research hypothesis: 3.1 Relationship between trust and control\n4. Research methodology: One theory may not be true, if it has not been testified. The survey method was adopted to test the hypotheses proposed in this research. There are four stages for survey method (Cho et al., 2009).\n5. Discussion: 5.1 Theoretical implications\n6. Conclusion: In this research, calculative trust and relational trust are examined in the construction industry in China and their effects are examined on outcome, behavior and social controls. The results show that calculative trust has a positive influence on outcome and behavior controls, but does not have effects on social control. Relational trust has a negative influence on outcome and a strong and positive influence on social control, but does not have effects on behavior control.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of initial trust on control in the construction projects from the perspective of the client. The results are a good resource in managing the relationship between trust and control in the construction industry in China, and formulating a good working relationship with contractors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using a set of questionnaire, data were collected from project managers of the clients, who are responsible for the overall project management and have face-to-face interaction with the contractors. The data were analyzed by structural equation modeling to identify the effects of initial trust on control for the contractors.\nFindings: Trust is examined in the construction industry in China through calculative and relational trust. Their effects are examined on three modes of inter-organizational control: outcome control, behavior control and social control. The results show that the calculative trust has strong effects on outcome-based and behavior control, while the relational trust, on social control.\nResearch limitations/implications: First, the conclusion of this research is based on the construction industry in China. It may not be suitable for other industries or other countries. Second, there may be other factors that influence the relationship between trust and control, such as the characteristics of the client and organizational culture, which are not taken into consideration in this research.\nPractical implications: The effects of initial trust on control have been testified in the study. For the client, it is wise to take suitable control measures to face with the contractors with the consideration of initial trust. The contractors would apply the rule in the relationship between initial trust and control, and set up good relationship with the client.\nOriginality/value: This research has certain originality and value in theory and practice. First, this research analyzes the relationship between trust and control in a dynamical way, which has innovative significance to some extent. Second, research on inter-organization supplies a new perspective about project control. Finally, this research would offer a perspective to improve the present situation of the construction industry in China. If the clients use the trust and control measures appropriately, the harmonious relation can be achieved and projects performance can be improved.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
HACCP for the hospitality industry: a psychological model for success	[ "Hospitality services", "Psychology", "Interviews", "United Kingdom", "Safety engineering", "Control systems" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) is the international standard for food safety management, and its use is advocated in the hospitality industry. Many HACCP uptake studies are methodologically limited, showing higher levels of implementation than is likely to be the case. Indeed as the depth of the research increases, figures on the successful uptake of HACCP decrease. Despite this, figures from the hospitality industry have always been especially low, from 4 to 33 per cent. In 2002, a wide reaching international survey concluded that there had been no systematic, effective implementation of HACCP in the hospitality industry anywhere in the world (Taylor, 2008a).It is widely recognised that there are barriers to the implementation of HACCP, and papers one and two in this special theme issue explain the reasons for this from both a theoretical and practical point of view (Taylor, 2008b; Taylor and Forte, 2008). However, there is little in-depth, discovery-based research in this area, and none that focuses on the hospitality industry. The aim of this research is to carry out a detailed and in-depth investigation into the practical and psychological barriers to food safety management and HACCP in the hospitality industry. This paper will present the results of narrative interviews and documentary analysis in 22 small businesses, carried out as part of the development process of a new method of HACCP for hospitality. Their purpose was to identify the barriers to HACCP and food safety management in hospitality.The outcomes from this paper were used as a starting point to develop an innovative new method of HACCP for the hospitality industry in 2002; this is detailed in Paper Four in this special theme issue (Taylor and Taylor, 2008).\nMethodology: Research in the field of HACCP and food safety, both complex and sensitive subjects, is often methodologically limited for several reasons. These include a reliance on self-reporting often at a distance, superficial categories or questions, generalisations made from very low response rates and a lack of \"discovery\" (Taylor and Taylor, 2008).The narrative interview technique used in this research project is based on the biographic-interpretive method that was used in Germany in the 1970s. Schutze (1977) argued that standardised interviews were experienced as something strange by the interviewees, as something that did not have anything to do with their everyday communication, and forced them into a passive role. He explored the use of biographic narratives to understand the meanings that individuals give to their lives and the social phenomena that they have experienced.The use of \"story telling\" as a valid research technique has gained growing recognition in recent years. Indeed, the use of biographies, narratives and personal accounts has grown so dramatically in the social sciences it is even debated whether there is a fundamental paradigm shift towards this type of research (Chamberlayne et al., 2000).In 2001, Taylor and Taylor (2003, 2004) utilised an adapted form of the narrative interview method to uncover and expand the understanding of barriers to the implementation of HACCP. This was the first time the method had been used in the field and it was found to be highly successful. It demonstrated a deep and honest portrayal of the problems businesses encountered and allowed for the discovery of new themes and ideas.However, although the narrative interview method counters some of the research limitations discussed above, the depth of the approach results in a small number of participants. In-depth, discovery-based research on a larger scale is time consuming and difficult to achieve, and as a result it is still not possible to make more general observations about the industry in question. One of the purposes of this research was to utilise in-depth techniques and gain 100 per cent access to a larger number of businesses. This provides increased confidence in the wider applicability of the results.Three fundamental principles of the narrative interview research carried out for this project were that:1. It was undertaken with the appropriate knowledge and experience.2. It used an extensively tested research tool specific to the field.3. It used an in-depth, systematic and non-biased analysis.In line with these principles, the interviewer was a qualitative psychologist trained specifically in the narrative method and with eight years experience carrying out narrative interviews. She was also a young female researcher, not positioned or perceived as \"expert\" or \"enforcer\", and thus not in a position of power over interviewees. The research tool was tested and used in prior research in the field of HACCP (Taylor and Taylor, 2003, 2004) and each interview was taped and transcribed in full. Finally, the analysis was conducted using an in-depth systematic technique, which was then compared to the independent analysis of a second researcher.The research project\nResults and analysis: An overview of the food safety documentation and active record keeping (i.e. evidence of the record sheets being filled in) can be seen in Table II. It can be seen that most businesses have very little food safety documentation and record keeping, and most do not use them effectively. No businesses have a HACCP system in place.Analysis of the narrative interviews revealed a series of \"themes\" that emerged repeatedly within individual responses, and across many different interviews. These highlighted strong barriers to the implementation of HACCP and food safety management at knowledge, attitude and behavioural levels (see Figure 1).The themes will be illustrated with a small selection from the many quotations in the initial analysis. Each quote will be presented with a reference, relating to the business description provided in Table II. It is important to take into account that no themes were asked about directly or mentioned by the interviewer, and each was raised independently by the interviewee. The full in-depth psychological analysis can be found in Taylor (2008).\nKnowledge barriers: Barrier 1. Lack of HACCP awareness\nAttitude barriers: Barrier 4. Lack of risk awareness\nInternal behavioural barriers: Barrier 12. Operation variability\nExternal behavioural barriers: Barrier 19. Negative guideline factors\nConclusion: In conclusion, documentary analysis shows very low levels of HACCP or food safety management systems in the hospitality industry, and narrative interviews reveal that where documents do exist they are either not correctly used or seen as an unnecessary burden. Furthermore, the barriers (see Figure 1) represent the challenge that is faced for the hospitality industry to achieve compliance with HACCP. It is not simply a case of \"increase training\" or \"spend more money\" or \"close them down if they don't comply\". There are strong barriers operating at many different levels: some internal, some external, some psychological, some practical and some unavoidable. In the face of these barriers it is perhaps not surprising that at the time this research was carried out a wide reaching FSA survey concluded that there had been no systematic, effective implementation of HACCP in the hospitality industry (Taylor, 2008).The outcomes from this paper were used as a starting point to develop an innovative new method of HACCP for the hospitality industry in 2002; this is detailed in paper four in this special theme issue (Taylor and Taylor, 2008).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to answer the question as to why until 2004 there had been no systematic, effective implementation of HACCP in the hospitality industry anywhere in the world. It is the third article in the second Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes issue of the International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management presenting a new method of HACCP for the hospitality industry and proof of its utility.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In-depth narrative interviews, supported by documentary analysis, were carried out in 22 hospitality businesses in Greater Manchester.\nFindings: - The research techniques find 21 practical and psychological barriers to success at knowledge, attitude and behavioural levels. These are investigated in depth in order to develop a model for overcoming the problems and achieving tangible improvements in food safety and HACCP in the hospitality industry.\nOriginality/value: - The research techniques chosen for the project documented in this paper overcome the methodological limitations of most previous research in the area. Using an in-depth psychological perspective they have uncovered important barriers not previously considered.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Technology readiness among managers of Malaysian construction firms	[ "Construction industry", "Managers", "Malaysia" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The construction industry (CI) is one of the most important industries contributing to Malaysian economic growth. It has been suggested that for substantial development to take place in developing countries, the CI must grow faster than the national economy (Ganeson, 1982). Today, similar to other industries, the Malaysian CI is moving towards globalisation and the new information technology (IT) era. IT has been perceived as a driver for many construction business and operational processes.The use of new technology and information and communication technologies (ICT) in the CI is increasingly important to improve the productivity of the sector. Currently, 64,000 contracting firms in various categories operate in the industry. Innovation in construction procurement - for example design, building and operation - requires contractors to equip themselves with new knowledge on technologies. The implementation of a few past and current mega-projects in Malaysia, such as Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), SMART (Storm water Management and Road Tunnel), the Second Penang Bridge, the extension of Penang Bridge and monorail projects, are examples of increasing demand for new high technologies in the industry.In relation to ICT, the Finance Ministry implemented an electronic procurement system known as eP in 1999. eP allows transactions between Government agencies and suppliers to be conducted electronically. Based on data in 2005, eP has 95,000 registered suppliers and has recorded 583,835 transactions worth RM16.8bn. Following that, the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) introduced the National e-Tendering system in September 2000. This system was introduced to develop greater corporate governance in the public construction tendering process. The e-Tendering system is expected to be fully implemented by the end of 2007.In view of the advance of new technology in the CI worldwide, few researchers have determined the advantages of using IT in the CI. The benefit of using IT in the CI has been illustrated by Aouad et al. (1999) and Marosszeky et al. (2000), who concluded that the use of IT is important because it has been proved that:* it can bring faster cycle and response times;* businesses that have applied IT experienced significant gains in productivity and hence competitive advantage; and* for some firms, IT has enabled expansion into new markets, and positioned them to compete internationally.Unfortunately, Stewart and Mohamed (2003) found that the CI still lags considerably behind other industries in achieving comparable rates of IT implementation.One of the possible reasons for this is the service or product characteristics offered by the industry (i.e. heterogeneous variety in size, no two projects are exactly alike, etc.). Furthermore, the industry practises different ways of producing products by using different combinations of resources. For example, construction project teams are unique entities, created through a complex integration of factors, with interdisciplinary players, varying roles, responsibilities, goals and objectives (Goodman and Chinowsky, 1996). Collaboration and teamwork is crucial in construction since sharing up-to-date information between project teams leads to minimising errors, reducing time delays and breaking the widespread rework cycle (Mohamed, 2003). Latham (1994) identified the lack of integration across partners as a major issue affecting the performance of the UK CI. The application of IT thus facilitates the sharing of information and knowledge to increase the efficiency and productivity of the industry.Furthermore, the CI in general is highly fragmented, with significant problems like low productivity, cost and time overrun, conflicts and disputes, resulting in claims and time-consuming litigation. This has been acknowledged as the major cause of performance-related problems facing the industry (Mohamed, 2003). Information produced by many sources, at many levels of abstraction and detail, also contributes to industry fragmentation (Froese et al., 1997). According to Steward and Mohamed (2003), fragmentation is one of the characteristics of the industry and forms a barrier that prevents the strategic use of IT.To overcome industry fragmentation, a number of integration approaches and strategies which have been successfully applied in other industries have been put forward, including design and construct, design for construction, concurrent engineering, lean production and business process reengineering (Mohamed, 2003). But, according to Mokhtar and Bedard (1995), these approaches have been proved to be inadequate in coping with the increasing complexity of construction projects without the support of IT. As a consequence, research on the factors that affect the level of IT usage in the CI would be crucial in determining the strategies required to elevate IT usage.While looking at the above scenario, an exploratory study was conducted to assess the technology readiness of managers in contracting firms in the Malaysian CI. This study attempted to find the answers to the following questions:* What is the technology readiness level of construction firms' project managers?* Do the managers' backgrounds influence their technology readiness level?\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Technology and construction firms\n3. Methodology: This study collected data via mail from managers of contracting firms in the Northern Region of Peninsular Malaysia using convenience sampling. Four hundred contracting firms registered with Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) were chosen as the sample. The survey was conducted from December 2004 to February 2005. The managers were chosen as the respondents because they are the most important person in the company who will determine the level of technology usage (Saad, 2005).The items to measure technology readiness were adopted from the US National Technology Readiness Survey (NTRS), which was intended to understand technology-related attitudes and behaviours of client companies' customers - namely to look into customers' receptivity to and use of various technology-based services (Parasuraman, 2000). As stated above, technology readiness consists of four components:1. optimism;2. innovativeness;3. discomfort; and4. insecurity.There are a total of 36 items that assess the respondents' attitudes and behaviours towards the four components. A Technology Readiness Index (TRI) for each respondent is obtained by averaging the scores of the means of the four components (after reverse coding the scores on the discomfort and insecurity components).The Cronbach's alphas obtained for the measures are presented in Table I. According to Sekaran (1992), a Cronbach's alpha nearer 1 shows higher internal consistency. Table I shows that the alpha values for all four components of TRI were more than 0.6, which was acceptable.To fulfil the second objective, this study used two types of analysis - t-test and one-way ANOVA. The general purpose of these two analyses is to compare the relationships between several continuous variables with a categorical or nominal variable which has two or more groups. A t-test is appropriate for two groups and a one-way ANOVA is appropriate for more than two groups. Any significant differences between these groups can be detected by t-values that are large, and the F value for a one-way ANOVA. There are two types of significant difference level - i.e. p<0.01 and p<0.05, where p<0.01 indicates a 99 per cent confidence level and p<0.05 indicates a 95 per cent confidence level. The model is insignificant if it does not indicate any of these values (Gupta, 1999).\n4. Discussion: A total of 400 questionnaires were sent out and a total of 96 questionnaires were received, giving a response rate of 24 per cent. Table II shows the profile of the respondents.Table II shows the background of 96 managers of construction firms in Malaysia. Most of them are males and almost 50 per cent of them have a degree or post-degree qualifications. Seventy per cent of them are aged 31 and above. They are exposed to computers, whereby 89.6 per cent have computers at home. Seventy-four per cent of them have already been using computers for more than five years and almost 70 per cent have been using the internet for more than three years.Table III shows the descriptive analysis for the main variables. A Pearson correlation test was used to test the intercorrelation for the main variables. The result is shown in Table IV. Figures 1 and 2 present the results of the t-tests for gender and race, respectively. It can be seen that there are no significant differences on overall TRI and individual dimensions based on gender and race. Figures 3-6 show the results of one-way ANOVAs for different managers' backgrounds to TRI (i.e. age, formal education level, years of using computers and years of using the internet). As can be seen from Figure 4, managers feel insecure at p<0.05, although managers with Master's level education tend to experience less insecurity compared to the lower educational group. The overall TRI score shows that managers with a degree-level education have a higher technology readiness as compared to lower education achievers.From Figure 5 we can see that optimism is significantly different at p<0.05 to years of using computers. Respondents with three to four years' experience of using computers have the highest optimism compared to other categories. New computer users and respondents with more than five years' experience in using computers also tend to be more optimistic compared to the other groups.\n5. Conclusion and implications: Generally, it can be seen from the descriptive analysis that although managers score highly on optimism and innovativeness, they also experience some level of discomfort and insecurity, which is in line with another study conducted in Malaysia (Ramayah et al., 2003).Compared to the study by Ramayah et al. (2003), which was conducted on SMEs in public business, manufacturing and agriculture, we found that managers of construction firms scored higher on technology readiness. Their mean scores on optimism and innovativeness are lower compared to this study, but higher for discomfort and insecurity. Furthermore the overall TRI score was lower (mean=3.03, SD=0.26) compared to our study. This indicates that owner/managers of other industries in Malaysia exhibit lower scores on TRI compared to managers of construction firms. Generally, we can conclude that the CI actually does not lag behind other industries in achieving comparable rates of IT implementation, which does not support the finding of Stewart and Mohamed (2003).The next finding is that level of education plays an important contribution to the TRI. This finding is also in line with Ramayah et al. (2003) who found that respondents with degree-level education are higher on technology readiness compared to other groups. Thus, Ramayah et al. (2003) concluded that the Malaysian education system has changed the inclination of managers (from techno-shy to techno-savvy) towards the greater usage of technology. This is important because as the nation moves towards the knowledge era, managers should also gain extra knowledge in order to be more competitive in the industry.In the Malaysian CI, there is a gradual evolution of managers having higher academic qualifications (as explained in Table II). This higher education level has influenced their perception towards IT usage. Most of them are familiar with the use of computers and the internet. In fact, the explanation of the Malaysian CI in section 1 provides support that construction firms should be more exposed and interested in adopting new technology. The reasons for this are:* The Malaysian construction industry is aggresively exercising the use of E-Tendering for construction works. The full package for E-Tendering, which includes advertising of tender documents to awarding contracts to contractors, will be implemented by the end of 2007.* Construction firms are now facing different types of clients who constantly demand fast decisions, complex projects, and proper management and control. Thus, managers have to be more professional and ready to adopt new technologies in order to enhance their clients' satisfaction.* The Malaysian CI is shifting from traditional practices in projects to non-traditional methods, for example build-operate-transfer. Contractors have to join with finance companies, consultants and perhaps other contractors in order to increase their capacity for the purpose of project bidding (Ariffin, 2002).* Large firms have to be increasingly competitive to compete in a borderless world.From the above discussion, we hope that Government bodies, especially CIDB, extensively promote ICT training for managers in the CI. In the long term, the industry needs to get actively involved in research and development in order to enhance the technology readiness of contracting firms in Malaysia.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to assess the Technology Readiness Index (TRI) of the managers of Malaysian construction firms. Also, the backgrounds of the managers were examined to determine the influence of background on the TRI level.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The TRI developed by Parasuraman was adopted to measure the readiness of construction firm managers. TRI refers to people's propensity to embrace and use technologies for accomplishing goals in home life and at work. Four hundred structured questionnaires were sent out to respondents.\nFindings: - The overall TRI score (M=3.18, SD=0.23) indicates that the managers are moderate in terms of their technology readiness. There are no significant differences in terms of technology readiness (TRI) across various demographic variables (e.g. gender, age, etc.), except for educational level. Individual dimensions of TRI, i.e. insecurity and overall TRI, show a significant difference at p<0.05 and p<0.01 to educational level, respectively.\nOriginality/value: - The findings are discussed in relation to the emerging information technology era in Malaysia. CIDB extensively promotes ICT training for managers in the CI. Research and development should be promoted to enhance the technology readiness.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Interorganizational collaboration in public health data sharing	[ "Community planning", "Collaboration", "Public health", "Data sharing", "Interorganizational networks" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Collaboration has been identified as a critical component to improving the public health of society. This is particularly true in the area of transportation planning, given increasing evidence on the relationship between transportation systems and public health outcomes (American Public Health Association, 2009; Corburn, 2009; Corburn and Bhatia, 2007; Frank et al., 2003, 2006; Frumkin et al., 2004; Hynes and Lopez, 2009). However, collaboration continues to be difficult to achieve, the concept remains elusive, and although promoted as a policy panacea, its theoretical development needs more study (Keast and Mandell, 2014). This research contributes to the literature on interorganizational collaboration with a specific focus on the institutional constraints faced by public health and transportation professionals in achieving collaborative data sharing practices. While collaboration is often touted as a solution, much remains to be known as to the institutional constraints that inhibit collaborative action, and more specifically, how institutional constraints impede the social relationships necessary to achieve the collaborative ideal.\nCollaborative cross-sector data sharing: Data sharing is at the core of any type of joint action, but it takes on different meanings in different types of joint action situations. Joint action can occur within organizations, or it can extend beyond organizational boundaries. In this research, the focus is solely on joint action that transcends the boundary of a single organization; hence the term interorganizational network is used for distinction. An interorganizational network is one where one agency or sector does not have direct authority over the other, yet each agency or sector is recognized as having particular unique value or expertise to contribute to the arrangement (Agranoff, 2007). Interorganizational networks vary in the degree of joint action achieved, on a continuum from cooperation, coordination to collaboration. The three C's, as distinguished by Keast and Mandell (2014), vary in intensity of resources, relationships, organizational commitments, degrees of goal autonomy and mutual and reciprocal interdependence. In each of these, data sharing is important; however, the impetus for sharing data, the purpose for sharing data, the use of the data, and its form and function differ based on the intensity of the joint action.\nThe collaboration challenge: Achieving any type of collaborative joint action remains a challenge. As Keast and Mandell (2014) found in a study of eight joint action arrangements over a ten-year period, the majority of these arrangements did not achieve collaboration. The arrangements that achieved collaboration were characterized by stronger and denser social relationships, a recognition by organizational members on their dependency on others to address issues, high levels of trust and reciprocity and the desire to reconfigure the systems in which they operate.\nThe institutional-social capital framework and collaborative data sharing practices: The study focusses on the cross-sector data sharing practices between public health and transportation professionals in the transportation planning process for several reasons. First, collaboration between the transportation and public health sectors has been identified as a key way to improve public health outcomes (Centers for Disease Control, 2012; US Department of Transportation, 2012). Decisions made in the transportation planning process can influence whether or not individuals have access to health care services, access to recreational activity such as walking and biking, improve air quality and safety, and more generally, improve an individual's access to healthier lifestyles. To achieve cross-sector collaboration, data needs to be shared and integrated across professionals with different areas of expertise to improve the knowledge of the situation, create new knowledge about the relationship between features of transportation systems and public health, and identify new and innovative solutions.\nMethodology: The DFW metropolitan area was selected for the analysis because the research team had access to key informants, the metropolitan area is the fourth largest combined statistical area in the USA based on 2010 Census data, and the area exhibits sector and organizational diversity. The research was carried out as part of a Federal Highways Administration grant project from 2010 to 2013 in conjunction with two local project partners the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) and Tarrant County Public Health Department (TCPH). These partners were able to provide assistance in recruiting a representative study population. In addition, it was necessary to have a region that exhibited organizational diversity. The regional planning agency is the local Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), the NCTCOG, which is comprised of 16 counties and over 200 other cities, school districts and other government bodies, representing both urban and rural populations. The role of the MPO is to facilitate joint action around transportation issues among the many multi-purpose governments and agencies in the DFW area. Finally, the DFW has a diversity of public health agencies, neighborhood clinics, hospitals and other nonprofit health care providers. Public health agencies in the USA often operate at the county level, thus it was necessary to have a region that encompasses multiple public health agencies to enhance the generalizability of the findings.\nResults and analysis: In total, 85 surveys were completed, a 39.7 percent response rate. Public health professionals accounted for 27 of the responses, and transportation professionals accounted for 58 of the responses. This is deemed to be representative, given the overall larger population of professionals responsible for data sharing practices in the transportation sector than in the public health sector. Based on consultation with the project partners, this is attributed to the decentralized nature of the transportation planning process and duplicated positions at the regional level. Each city and county generally has transportation planning and engineering staff that work extensively with data, coordinates with transportation agencies, and larger cities have dedicated transportation planners. Public health agencies and organizations, on the other hand, employ fewer mid-level staff responsible for data sharing functions in the planning process. The age of the majority of survey respondents was between 30 and 59, with 34.1 percent between 30 and 39, 20 percent between 40 and 49, and 19 percent between 50 and 59.\nProfessional sector specialization influences data types and sharing: When analyzing patterns of data sharing and exchange, the data reveal a high level of similarity within professional sector in terms of the data used, and a lack of shared data across professional sectors. Survey participants were presented with an inventory of data sets used by professionals in at least one of the sectors, and asked to indicate whether or not they received or shared the data. Common data sets were classified into those that align to different professional interests such as: environmental measurements and exposure (natural resources, air quality, water quality), health measurements and impacts (health care costs, hospital records, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), safety, disease rates, health outcomes, community health indices, sanitation, quality of life, health behaviors), and transportation planning and forecasting (development plans, travel demand, infrastructure, demographic forecasts and future transportation plans). Participants could also indicate if other data sets were used or exchanged, but no additional suggestions were offered.\nProfessional sector specialization is reinforced by organization boundaries: Survey participants were asked about the barriers encountered in data sharing. Organizational and resource barriers (human and financial) are the most commonly cited barriers. Specifically, the most common barriers reported by professionals in both areas were lack of funding, staff expertise, lack of time and organizational interest.\nProfessional sector specialization influences social capital relationships: Professional specialization and organizational boundaries not only influence data sharing practices but also the social capital relationships that exist. To measure social capital relationships, the survey asked respondents about the pattern and intensity of their professional communication ties. The communication patterns suggest that professionals do not suffer from professional isolation, but within professional relationships are dominant. The majority of respondents (86 percent) indicate that they do communicate and engage in data sharing with professionals in other sectors. However, the intensity of these relationships is higher within professions.\nProfessional sector specialization and organizational boundaries influence the development of shared language and knowledge: The analysis reveals that cognitive social barriers, the development of shared language and knowledge, also exist. In addition to the earlier survey data that indicated a joint, collaborative data sharing system has not yet emerged, focus group participants expressed the need for the development of a shared language and increased legitimacy of alternative data sources. The lack of these collaborative attributes is attributed to professional sector specialization, as well as other institutional forces operating at the level of the organization or political jurisdiction.\nLimitations: The study is limited in that it focusses only on patterns of data sharing in one metropolitan area. The limitation is that focussing on one metropolitan area provides a smaller sample size and prevents the use of advanced statistical analyses, hypothesis testing, or identifying any causal relationships. A nationwide study, capturing data from professionals in a similar role in other metropolitan areas without a history of collaboration would strengthen the findings from this one case.\nConclusion and discussion: As Keast and Mandell (2014) found, collaboration is difficult to accomplish. The institutional-social capital framework suggests that calls for collaborative action to improve health outcomes may be limited without adjusting the institutional forces that shape social relationships. The interorganizational network in this case fails to achieve cross-sector collaborative data sharing. The patterns of data sharing appear to be shaped by institutional forces related to professional specialization and organizational boundaries. Normative isomorphic forces shape professional and sector-specific preferences for the use of particular data, tools and methods (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Schon, 1983; Willson, 2001). Professional distinctions further manifest themselves within distinct organizational settings, which serves as another institutional force restricting data sharing practices. However, at a deeper level, the normative forces of isomorphism foster fragmentation in the relational and cognitive social capital critical for cross-sector data sharing. Within professional relationships are stronger, and there is evidence of a lack of shared language across sectors. The coupling between the normative isomorphic forces and social capital it produces influence the collaborative data sharing potential of a cross-sector network. Thus, the challenge to building collaborative capacity is not just solving the technical problem of exchanging data across the professions, or mandating it, but to first decouple social capital from its normative forces.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the institutional and social forces that influence collaborative data sharing practices in cross-sector interorganizational networks. The analysis focusses on the data sharing practices between professionals in the transportation and public health sectors, areas prioritized for collaborative action to improve public health.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A mixed methods design is utilized. Electronic surveys were sent to 57 public health and 157 transportation professionals in a large major metropolitan area in the USA (response rate 39.7 percent). Focus groups were held with 12 organizational leaders representing professionals in both sectors.\nFindings: The application of the institutional-social capital framework suggests that professional specialization and organizational forces make it challenging for professionals to develop the cross-sector relationships necessary for cross-sector collaborative data sharing.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings suggest that developing the social relationships necessary for cross-sector collaboration may be resource intensive. Investments are necessary at the organizational level to overcome the professional divides that limit the development of cross-sector relationships critical for collaborative data sharing. The results are limited to the data sharing practices of professionals in one metropolitan area.\nOriginality/value: Despite mandates and calls for increased cross-sector collaboration to improve public health, such efforts often fail to produce true collaboration. The study's value is that it adds to the theoretical conceptualization of collaboration and provides a deeper understanding as to why collaborative action remains difficult to achieve. Future study of collaboration must consider the interaction between professional specialization and the social relationships necessary for success.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Developing an e-learning strategy in higher education	[ "Education", "Higher education", "Learning organizations", "E‐learning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nKey challenges faced by higher education: Steep budget cuts, which include layoffs, frozen enrollments, and hiring freezes have overburdened teaching and learning in higher education. At Nevada State College, almost one-quarter of the college's 161 budgeted positions are currently vacant and will remain that way due to a lack of funding (Lake, 2008). Of the instruction at Lanier Technical College in Georgia, 65 percent is conducted by part-time adjunct faculty instead of full-time faculty (Blackwood, 2008). In what is a growing trend, the governor of California has proposed to cut higher education by 10 percent, which would mean a substantial reduction in student services (including financial aid) and the offering of fewer classes. If the governor's proposal is enacted, the University of California and the California State University systems would be forced to reduce enrollment by 27,000 over the next two of years in order to meet new budget constraints (Paddock, 2008). At a time when gas prices are soaring, tax revenues are dwindling and the housing crisis is in full swing, higher education institutions, like other businesses, are being forced to drive down costs by spending less.While higher education budgets are lean and getting tighter, the socioeconomic pressure to make education accessible to all members of society is growing. Our first amendment rights provide us with freedom of thought, speech and expression that includes academic freedom or the fundamental right to pursue knowledge. As the public puts increasing demands on colleges and universities to provide higher education, federal and state governments are establishing standards and instituting accountability with legislation such as No Child Left Behind, establishing standards for assessing student achievement as with the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, and intervening in higher education by cutting funds to those schools that do not make the grade. In 2005, the National Commission on Accountability in Higher Education released its recommendations for higher education which included: developing a national data system to monitor student progress, defining learning goals systematically, and removing barriers to student success (Lingenfelter, 2005). A strong commitment by federal and state governments to advance higher education and sustain educational progress in the USA is clearly still at the core of our nation's priorities, yet the funds to develop such progress are diminishing rapidly.Administrators in higher education are looking for ways to expand their course offerings and grow their programs while dealing with budget cuts of tens of millions of dollars. The University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa must cut $50.4 million from its budget this year alone, along with eliminating 450 jobs at the same time the University is being pressured to offer a broader selection of courses (Emerson, 2008). USF, along with other colleges and universities, is exploring the option of offering additional online courses and programs as a way of meeting the growing demand for education during a time of cost cutting. Online programs do not require classrooms or full-time professors to be offered, but transitioning to online course offerings from the traditional classroom model is not a simple process. It requires strategic planning and clear implementation processes to ensure that the new online offerings support and augment the goals, objectives and mission of the institution.\nDefining e-learning strategy: In an effort to reduce costs, many organizations, including higher education institutions, are looking for alternative educational solutions, such as e-learning - solutions that are less costly and more flexible than standard in-house or classroom programs. The University of Notre Dame and the University of Phoenix Online offer certificate and career development courses which include streaming video and other technology to help professionals obtain professional development skills completely online. Agreeing on what constitutes e-learning can be challenging as there is often the perception, albeit incorrect, that any workplace learning that incorporates technology is an effective e-learning platform.E-learning is often defined in terms of technology. For example Welsh et al. (2003, p. 246) define e-learning as the \"use of computer network technology, primarily over or through the Internet, to deliver information and instruction to individuals.\" Rosenberg (2001) shares a similar definition referring to e-learning as using internet technologies to deliver various solutions to learners. Holmes and Gardner (2006) simply state that e-learning provides us with access to resources that promote learning on an anyplace anytime basis. While the definitions of e-learning may vary, they all focus on a set of basic concepts which include learning, technology and access. While this definitional exercise may be interesting, Servage (2005) believes that our efforts would be better spent creating a framework in which to implement e-learning strategies than defining it.While technology is an obvious component of e-learning, educational pedagogy must also focus on participation. Those challenged with the task of implementing an e-learning strategy within their organization must find a way to connect the learners with the content, and offer collaboration while maintaining the idea of anytime, anyplace learning. Not an easy task. The next section will focus on just how to develop an e-learning strategy that addresses these challenges.\nDeveloping a successful e-learning strategy: Planning\nConclusion: A slick design with solid content and the right technology are all necessary components of an e-learning initiative, but these must be aligned with the objectives and mission of the organization instituting the change. Cost, technology and security issues must be considered along with identifying the impacts on faculty, staff and students as a result of the new e-learning environment and requirements. Any major organizational change requires that all stakeholders impacted by the change be informed, engaged and committed to the change (Dublin, 2007). To ensure success, attention must be paid to attaining buy-in from administration, faculty and students. It will take solid planning, organizing, energy and resources to successfully implement an e-learning strategy. All parties must be committed to it and must understand that while technology is an integral part of e-learning, people are the key ingredient for success.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to clarify the challenges faced by higher education institutions such as budget cuts and the pressure to offer accessible, affordable anytime/anyplace learning and offer a solution in the form of the development of an e-learning strategy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper explores recent research on higher education and e-learning strategies in an effort to offer a participatory pedagogy coupled with cost effective technology as a solution to overcoming the increase in market demand and socioeconomic pressures facing higher education institutions.\nFindings: - The paper provides pragmatic insights about the five stages of developing an e-learning strategy, including determining the delivery method and technology, making curriculum and development decisions, integrating implementation and roll out strategies and monitoring and evaluating the new e-programs.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The chosen research offers an approach as a starting point for developing an e-learning strategy. Further research may be needed to generalize and apply the suggestions to individual higher education institutions.\nPractical implications: - The paper includes implications for higher education institutions and other organizations wishing to explore the option of e-learning as a delivery system for knowledge, training and instruction.\nOriginality/value: - This paper fulfils an identified need to study the implications of technology on learning.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A study of consumer choice between sustainable and non-sustainable apparel cues in Poland	[ "Consumer behaviour", "Poland", "Sustainability", "Aesthetic and functional attributes", "Age and gender effects", "Environmental and social/ethical attributes" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Sustainability plays a critical part in every sector of the economy. Practitioners, academicians, policy-makers and the general public are increasingly becoming concerned with issues of sustainability and environmental impact. This phenomenon does not solely occur in developed nations, but also transition economies such as Poland. This nation seems to be particularly interesting for sustainability research, and it has been classified as one of the three 'new consumer countries' (Poland, Ukraine, and Russia) in Eastern Europe with impressive economic growth at an average rate of 5% annually over the past ten years (Myers and Kent, 2003). It is worth stressing that only a few countries worldwide have recorded such long-lasting GDP growth in the last three decades. According to Raszkowski and Bartniczak (2019), the global index provider FTSE Russell reclassified Poland from the status of 'emerging markets' to 'developed markets' on 24 September 2018. Currently, it is the eighth largest economy in the European Union and the largest one among the Central and Eastern European countries. According to a report on this country's environmental policy (Zawadzka-Stepniak, 2009), greenhouse gas emissions were reduced by 28.9% between 1988 and 2007. Irrefutably, sustainable development has made remarkable progress in Poland. Many national funding programmes such as Energia Plus (Energy Plus) and Cieplownictwo Powiatowe- pilotaz (District Heating-Pilot Programme) are available not only to entrepreneurs and urban dwellers but also to farmers in rural areas in order to reduce the impact of negative environmental practices (Government of the Republic of Poland, 2019).Due to the rise of environmental awareness, a considerable amount of research on sustainable practices and consumption have been undertaken and disseminated over the last ten years. The prior studies were conducted in many areas, with topics including corporate social responsibility (Lombart and Louis, 2014), sustainable practices and transformable design (Rahman and Gong, 2016; Chu and Rahman, 2012), eco-labelling (Koszewska, 2011), zero-waste design practices (McQuillan, 2011), recycling and upcycling (Shim et al., 2018), slow fashion movement (Pookulangara and Shephard, 2013), and circular economy (Koszewska et al., 2018). These aforementioned strategies and interdisciplinary research provide compelling evidence that the issue of sustainability has received widespread attention in both academia and industry. In addition, empirical studies (Cleveland et al., 2011; Rahman et al., 2016) have reported that demographic variables play a prominent role in market segmentation to identify consumer groups with similar needs and behaviours. For example, demographic research conducted in Europe (Creusen, 2010) found that higher earning, better educated, and/or older consumers tended to pay more attention to product quality when shopping for very diverse ranges of products including automobiles, coffee makers and electric razors. However, it is worth mentioning that the results regarding the impacts of demographic factors on sustainable consumer behaviour are contradictory and inconclusive (Auger and Devinney, 2007; Jain and Kaur, 2006). Based on our literature review, there is still a paucity of research examining the effects of demographic variables in relation to sustainability.For this study, apparel was chosen based on its essentiality and ubiquity to investigate the Polish consumers' choice in relation to both sustainable and non-sustainable factors. According to a recent report published by the European Union (2019), clothing accounts for 2-10 % of the environmental impact of EU consumption. The amount of clothes purchased in the European Union has increased by 40 % per person in just a few decades-driven by a fall in prices and the speed in which fashion is delivered to consumers (Koszewska, 2016). It is also worth stressing that Poland is one of the top ten European Union countries recognized as textile and clothing industry leaders (Euratex, 2018)Due to Poland's economic growth, it is imperative to understand what elements play an important role in purchasing decisions. The overarching objective is to investigate and broaden our understanding of Polish consumer behaviour, choice, and preference of clothing, particularly from age and gender perspectives. Therefore, the purposes of this study are twofold: (1) to understand what product cues (sustainable and non-sustainable) may play a relatively more significant role in apparel evaluation; and (2) to examine the age and gender effects on apparel evaluation.The rest of this paper is organized as follows. The next section is a literature review related to sustainability, sustainable and non-sustainable cues, demographic factors (age and gender) and also the development of hypotheses. This is followed by the research methodology. In the next two sections, empirical findings and conclusions are reported respectively. Finally, limitations and future research are presented to conclude the study.\nLiterature review: Sustainability and (non-)sustainable apparel cues\nDemographic variables: According to the literature review, many studies (Jegethesan et al., 2012; Seock and Bailey, 2008; Zelezny et al., 2000) on marketing and consumer behaviour indicate that age and gender are the two most important demographic variables. For example, age and gender are considered as significant predictors or indicators in determining consumers' purchasing intentions for apparel products (Kim and Kim, 2004; Rahman et al., 2018). Bohdanowicz and Clamp (1994) found that gender is an important factor influencing consumer's choice of clothing, and Behling (1985-1986) suggested that age plays a significant impact on the clothing adoption process. Since these two demographic variables play such a great influential role in market segmentation and consumer behaviour, this current study was mainly focused on these specific variables.\nAge: Consumer age and non-sustainable cues\nGender: Gender and non-sustainable cues\nMethodology: Research instrument\nResults: Consumer profile and apparel expenditure\nAge - results of H1 to H4: Consumer age and the importance of non-sustainable cues\nGender - results of H5 to H8: Gender and the importance of non-sustainable cues\nConclusion: Sustainable and non-sustainable cues - observations, implications, and challenges\nLimitations and further research: Although the current study provides meaningful insights on fashion consumption and sustainability, further research of consumer-centric approaches towards sustainability is needed. In addition, an in-depth understanding of whether consumer decision-making is driven by fashion trends, personal needs, and/or price; which would be useful to identify buying patterns and choices. However, this study is not without limitations and shortcomings. Firstly, the results should not be generalized to other developed nations or developing markets with different demographics such as population size, age cohorts (e.g. pre-teen, baby boomers) and ethnic groups. Secondly, apparel was employed for the present study, therefore, the findings may not be valid for other consumer products. Thirdly, as qualitative research approaches grow in importance for product design and development, ethnography and observational research can shed additional light on this topic and generate further information. Fourthly, future research may also be extended to investigate consumers' cognitive and affective responses to eco clothing. Considerations to include cross-cultural examinations of sustainable practices and eco-marketing strategies is also recommended.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to expand the existing knowledge on fashion consumption in general and age/gender effects on clothing choice in particular. This study was undertaken to empirically examine the importance of various sustainable and non-sustainable apparel cues, as well as the functional, aesthetic, symbolic, financial, environmental and social/ethical aspects of clothing. Although Poland's economy has been transformed remarkably over the last decade, there is still a paucity of empirical research focusing on this area has been conducted.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A self-administered online survey was employed for this study. Twenty product cues (10 non-sustainable cues and 10 sustainable), eight items of 'environmental commitment and behaviour' measuring scale and demographic questions were used for data collection and empirical testing.\nFindings: A total of 288 useable surveys were collected for analysis. The results revealed that many Polish consumers would not purchase a sustainable or 'green' product if it did not provide enough aesthetic, functional and financial benefits to satisfy their needs and aspirations. Women were more reliant on garment fit and style than men. Our findings underscore several meaningful implications and useful information. Sustainable fashion is not merely about environmental, social and ethical benefits, but their aesthetic, functional, symbolic and financial values must be factored in as well.\nOriginality/value: There is limited empirical research examining the age and gender effects in relation to sustainable and non-sustainable apparel cues. Unlike many previous research that only focused on one dimension or single aspect of clothing (e.g. aesthetic/hedonic attribute or functional/utilitarian attribute).\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Sensing and warning-based technology applications to improve occupational health and safety in the construction industry: A literature review	[ "Information systems", "Technology", "Construction", "Management", "Safety", "Health", "Sensing", "Construction safety", "Occupational" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Enhancing occupational health and safety (OHS) is a major issue across global construction industries (Zhou et al., 2012). The construction industry is one of the industry sectors with severe occupational injuries and fataand challenging sector (Umer, Antwi-Afari, Li, Szeto and Wong, 2017). For example, in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, there were 3,332 injuries and 37 fatalities in the construction industry in 2013, which accounted for 19.68 percent of fatalities across all industries (HKOSH, 2014). In the USA, 36 percent of fatalities (1,231 of 3,419) were related to fall injuries in the construction industry from 2011 to 2014 (BLS, 2016a). In Australia, there were 35 out of 182 fatalities in the construction industry in 2016, which accounted for 3.3 fatality rate (fatalities per 100,000 workers) across all industries (Safe Work Australia, 2017). In addition, occupational injuries can lead to project delays, increased project costs, medical burden and disabilities (Umer, Antwi-Afari, Li, Szeto and Wong, 2017). In order to improve OHS in the construction industry, there is the need to develop and provide pragmatic solutions to prevent occupational injuries and fatalities.\nMethods: The current review methods comprise three major steps: literature search, literature selection and literature coding. The three-step method was adopted from a similar review (Zhou et al., 2013) of applying advanced technology to improve safety management in the construction industry.\nResults and discussion: Annual publication trend on sensing- and warning-based technology articles\nKey and specific OHS research topics covered: In this review paper, each included article was categorized according to the main research topic, although some articles may contain more than one research topic. Table IV summarizes the key research topics covered by sensing- and warning-based technology applications for OHS during the studied period. Our results found six main research topics (Table IV). As depicted in Table IV, the first research topic covered was construction site safety management and monitoring. This key research topic had a total number of 21 articles, representing 24.1 percent of included articles during the studied period (Table IV). The second and third relevant research topics covered were safety risk identification and assessment (18 articles) and intrusion warnings and proximity detection (16 articles), respectively (Table IV). The awareness percentage of the first three research topics was 63.2 percent of included articles during the studied period. The remaining three research topics covered had not more than 15 included articles in each area (Table IV).\nResearch gaps and future studies: In this review paper, different types of sensing- and warning-based technologies were applied for OHS in the construction industry. This section highlights four main research gaps that are worth for directions in future studies.\nConclusions: The current review has summarized the trends in the applications of sensing- and warning-based technology for OHS in the construction industry from 1996 to 2017 (years inclusive). A three-step approach was used to identify relevant articles for data analysis and discussion. Our findings indicated an increasing annual publication trend on sensing- and warning-based technology for the construction industry in the recent years. While most of the included articles (34.5 percent) were published in Automation in Construction, other journals have started to publish papers relevant to this topic. Of ten different types of major sensing- and warning-based technologies, direct measurement sensors were most commonly used for the investigation of OHS in the construction industry. Other commonly investigated technologies include remote sensing techniques and RTLS based on RFID technologies. These sensing- and warning-based technology applications can closely complement each other to improve OHS, particularly with sensing networks of on-site safety management. This review also identifies six key research topics in the applications of sensing- and warning-based technology for OHS in the construction industry: construction site safety management and monitoring; safety risk identification and assessment; intrusion warnings and proximity detection; physiological status monitoring; activity recognition and classification accuracy; and SHM. Finally, four major research gaps and future directions were identified and discussed including: application of sensing- and warning-based technologies in the total life cycle of a construction project; hardware and software design of sensing- and warning-based technologies; application of sensing- and warning-based technologies from research to practice; and integration of sensing- and warning-based technologies and other advanced information technologies. Future researchers and practitioners can conduct more relevant studies and propose pragmatic interventions based on the identified research gaps, to improve the performance and applicability of sensing- and warning-based technology for OHS in the construction industry.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Sensing- and warning-based technologies are widely used in the construction industry for occupational health and safety (OHS) monitoring and management. A comprehensive understanding of the different types and specific research topics related to the application of sensing- and warning-based technologies is essential to improve OHS in the construction industry. The purpose of this paper is to examine the current trends, different types and research topics related to the applications of sensing- and warning-based technology for improving OHS through the analysis of articles published between 1996 and 2017 (years inclusive).\nDesign/methodology/approach: A standardized three-step screening and data extraction method was used. A total of 87 articles met the inclusion criteria.\nFindings: The annual publication trends and relative contributions of individual journals were discussed. Additionally, this review discusses the current trends of different types of sensing- and warning-based technology applications for improving OHS in the industry, six relevant research topics, four major research gaps and future research directions.\nOriginality/value: Overall, this review may serve as a spur for researchers and practitioners to extend sensing- and warning-based technology applications to improve OHS in the construction industry.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Green human resource management: A systematic literature review from 2007 to 2019	[ "Literature review", "Green human resource management", "Green training", "Green HRM", "Environmental HRM" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Countries around the world, be they developed or developing (e.g. Australia, the USA, China, Brazil), have faced a multitude of impacts from the huge demand for a more sustainability-oriented and environmentally friendly agenda; hence, the call has been made for an urgent change and the adoption of green practices. Businesses operate in a highly competitive global economy in which they must not only be efficient and deliver value, but also must be responsible, and this includes responsibility towards the environment. The intensification of environmental concerns around the globe has led companies to adopt environmental practices at an increasing rate; and such adoptions can benefit companies in becoming \"green and competitive\" (Jabbour et al., 2012). In the pursuit of this green agenda, scholars (e.g. de Souza Freitas et al., 2012; Jackson et al., 2011; Renwick et al., 2016) have argued that human resource management (HRM) plays an important role. Hence, embedding green practices in HRM functions could possibly enhance the likelihood of a firm's sustainability.\n2. Review method: This paper follows a systematic literature review method to analyze, summarize and draw inferences (Tranfield et al., 2003) from the available literature on Green HRM. The purpose of the present study is to analyze and categorize the existing literature on Green HRM into different focus areas and to identify avenues for future research. The methodology used in this study is based on the works of Hohenstein et al. (2014) and Rashman et al. (2009). This review approach comprises four steps and discusses time horizon, database selection, article selection and article classification.\n3. Findings: To delve further into the Green HRM studies, 70 articles were analyzed and classified into five focus areas. Table I summarizes the key findings of the 70 articles by focus area. The critical dimensions are discussed in the following sections.\n4. Summary of review and discussion: Over the past decades, research on Green HRM has received increased attention in many leading academic journals such as ScienceDirect, Emerald Insight, SpringerLink, Taylor & Francis, Wiley Online Library, SAGE Publications and Inderscience Publishers. In the following sections, the development of this body of knowledge is discussed by focus area of Green HRM literature, distribution of articles, year of publication, national context, the methodologies and the theories employed.\n5. Conclusions, unique contributions, recommendations and further research directions: The evidence from this review of reliable literature from 2007 to 2019 shows the importance of Green HRM in ensuring environmental sustainability and competitiveness in the current business world through organizational and individual involvement. This literature review contributes to the literature in the following ways. First, this review maintains an objective approach in collecting the data. Data collected were from reputable journals, which ensure a benchmark in the quality of data reviewed. Second, the categories in the classification of the literature differ from those of prior studies, offering readers a new way of looking at the literature to view and study. Third, the study presents an integrated definition of Green HRM practices.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Green or environmental human resource management (HRM) has in recent years attracted much attention from academia and practitioners all over the world. However, a thorough analysis of green or environmental HRM has not been made so far. To address this gap, the present study provides a systematic and comprehensive literature review. The purpose of this paper is threefold: to review Green HRM literature of various scopes, approaches and contexts; to identify different focus areas in the Green HRM literature; and to propose areas for future research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper follows a systematic literature review approach. The selected journal articles are categorized on the basis of five focus areas in the Green HRM derived from the extant literature.\nFindings: Research has grown significantly over the past 12 years that has focused on Green HRM. A total of 70 articles were reviewed and most of these articles employed quantitative method and were carried out in developing countries. Based on the five focus areas identified in this literature review, the performance outcome of Green HRM at both the organizational level and individual level received the greatest attention from the researchers.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper is limited to a review of academic articles obtainable from online databases, containing the words \"Green human resource management\", \"Green HRM\", \"Green human resource\", \"Environmental HRM\", \"Green training\" and \"Environmental training\" in the title. Additionally, only papers from high quality, peer-reviewed journals were evaluated. Other academic sources such as books and conference papers were not included in this study.\nOriginality/value: The paper presents a structural overview of 70 peer-reviewed articles published in leading academic journals from 2007 until early 2019. This review provides an increased understanding of the existing state of current research, trends and future research directions in the Green HRM discipline.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
"Name your price" - online auctions and reference prices	[ "Dynamic pricing", "Online auctions", "Reference prices" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The Internet has been a boon to commerce, not only because of its ability to bring buyers and sellers together but also because it deviates from traditional models of commerce by allowing consumers to set the price they are willing to pay (Kung et al., 2002). The success of Web sites such as eBay and Priceline is rooted in their ability to connect consumers who are seeking to pay as little as they can for a product or service with sellers who are willing to sell to these consumers at the price they seek. The co-creation of price between buyers and sellers raises some interesting questions regarding how the prices set by sellers can influence the prices buyers are willing to pay (Hardesty and Suter, 2005). For example, in the eBay marketplace, a seller may set an initial low price because doing so creates a low barrier to entry for buyers; buyers will then compete with each other, ultimately driving up the price (Ariely and Simonson, 2003). However, as low prices are associated with low-quality products, does the initial low price also drive away consumers (Kalita et al., 2004)?\nOnline auctions and reference prices: Online auctions\nEmpirical investigation: Study 1 - English-style auction\nImplications, summary and conclusion: Our findings supported the view that a progression of reference prices will produce differing effects based on the type of auction format. In an English-style auction, where quality concerns may be an issue, the auction started low but the presence of a low price pulled down the valuation. Consumers were willing to pay less when they knew that the price was originally lower. Thus, the lower price may attract more buyers, but it may also reduce the valuation toward the product, which could cause consumers not to bid if the price rises too much. In the reverse-auction format, however, the low price did not pull down the price. Rather, consumers focused on the higher price, which pulled up their valuations.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the presence of varying price points on the impact of product valuations in both English and reverse auctions on potential bidders, that is, those not yet engaged in the auction. Internet auctions, both English style and reverse, constitute one of the success stories of digital commerce.\nDesign/methodology/approach: As its method of research, this paper uses an experimental approach to explore the effects of multiple reference prices.\nFindings: While previous research has done well to show that a lower initial price decreases barriers to entry and can lead to a higher final price in English-style auctions, this research shows that such a strategy may harm potential bidders' product perceptions due to multiple reference prices. The authors explore situations of multiple reference prices in the context of reverse auctions, where both higher and lower reference prices are shown to be able to increase product valuations.\nResearch limitations/implications: Additional research of a variety of products and using a representative sample would enhance the findings of this paper.\nPractical implications: The findings show that reference prices have differing impacts, which are dependent upon the goal of either maximizing or minimizing the distance between the initial price and the price consumers are willing to pay in an online auction.\nOriginality/value: The investigation links differing goals created by the type of auction to the potential impact of the reference price. In addition, we explore the effects of multiple reference prices on consumer valuations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Measuring women's beliefs about glass ceilings: development of the Career Pathways Survey	[ "Australia", "Women", "Career development", "Glass ceilings", "Measures", "Women's beliefs", "Resilience", "Denial", "Acceptance", "Resignation", "Attitude surveys" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: There is strong evidence of the under-representation of women in leadership positions in many countries such as Australia (Davidson, 2009; Maginn, 2010; Still, 2006), China (Tan, 2008), France (Barnet-Verzat and Wolff, 2008), South Africa (Booysen and Nkomo, 2010; Mathur-Helm, 2006), UK (Davidson, 2009; Thomson et al., 2008), and the USA (Eagly and Carli, 2007; Fassinger, 2008). The glass ceiling metaphor is frequently used to describe the obstacles and barriers in front of women seeking promotions to the top levels of organizations (Burke and Vinnicombe, 2005; International Labour Office, 2004; McLeod, 2008). In this paper we describe the development of a measure of women's thoughts and attitudes towards glass ceilings, the Career Pathways Survey (CPS).Undoubtedly, a wide range of theoretical explanations have been proposed to make sense of glass ceilings (Barreto et al., 2009; Eagly and Carli, 2007). A comprehensive review of these theories is beyond the scope of this paper. Instead, the following examples highlight the great diversity of causes proposed for glass ceilings. Some evolutionary psychologists explain glass ceilings as a by-product of natural selection, resulting from hard-wired adaptations that increased the success of the human species over the last 20,000 years (Browne, 2006; Buss, 1995). Most commonly, the scarcity of female leaders is linked to ongoing prejudice and discrimination against women in the workplace (Weyer, 2007). For example, Fassinger (2008) cites women being denied access to the old boys' club, tokenism, shadow jobs (women being subjected to extra scrutiny), plus a lack of mentors and role models as forming a package of barriers acting against women. Women who become mothers often encounter an array of prejudice against career advancement that creates a maternal wall (Crosby et al., 2004). Several researchers emphasize gender differences as the major reason for gender inequality in leadership. Olsson (2002) gives a qualitative analysis which uses ancient Greek heroes Ulysses and Xena as a double-metaphor for different ways men and women search for satisfying careers. Hakim (2006) proposes her preference theory citing gender differences in life goals, values, abilities, and competitive behavior. O'Connor (2001) hypothesizes that the existence of glass ceilings is largely due to \"different needs\" between women and men. She sums up these differences with more metaphors: women prefer career trees whilst men are much more likely to climb career ladders.The genesis of the CPS began in our review of the literature on the causes of glass ceilings. Of particular value in understanding the glass ceiling phenomenon is the role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders (Eagly and Karau, 2002). This theory is based on the key proposition that most beliefs about the sexes are related to communal and agentic attributes. Communal characteristics, which are strongly associated with women, include being nurturant, helpful, kind, and sympathetic whilst men are strongly linked to agentic attributes such as being assertive, ambitious, independent, forceful, and self-confident (Embry et al., 2008; Heilman and Okimoto, 2007; Phelan et al., 2008). Agentic characteristics are usually seen as being essential for successful leadership (Duehr and Bono, 2006; Eagly and Carli, 2007; Weyer, 2007).Eagly and Karau's (2002) theory is based on two categories of stereotypes: descriptive stereotypes (expectations about what members of a group are actually like) and prescriptive stereotypes (what they should ideally be like). An interplay of these stereotypes results in women being seen as less suitable for leadership roles as they are most likely thought to exhibit communal characteristics, while leaders need to fulfil the descriptive stereotype of being agentic. A second incongruity acts as an extra obstacle for women aspiring to be leaders. Eagly and Karau (2002) point out that female leaders are likely to be evaluated less favourably when they exhibit agentic behaviors because this contradicts the prescriptive stereotype that women should be communal. These two forms of prejudice are at the foundation of the phenomenon of glass ceilings (Eagly and Carli, 2007; Eagly and Karau, 2002; Weyer, 2007) and their influence is pervasive because women as well as men can accept these stereotypes (Eagly and Karau, 2002).Eagly and Karau's (2002) theory of prejudice against women leaders makes an excellent paradigm for much more research into glass ceilings. After identifying the major role of gender stereotypes, beliefs and attitudes in supporting and perpetuating the problem of glass ceilings, we reviewed the literature on women's beliefs about glass ceilings. The decision to focus on women and exclude men was made after it was found that there was a scarcity of studies of women's thoughts and beliefs about glass ceilings.\nMeasuring women's beliefs about glass ceilings: Women's opinions about the causes of glass ceilings are usually reported in qualitative studies (Kumra and Vinnicombe, 2008; Mathur-Helm, 2006; Wrigley, 2002). Three qualitative studies stand out for their thoroughness. Morrison et al. (1992) interviewed 82 managers at Fortune 100 companies, mostly from mid-management levels, and Goward (2001) interviewed 32 self-employed Australian women who were winners of the prestigious Telstra Awards which are given annually to recognise high achievers in Australian business. Goward identifies a common reason for these women striving out on their own: many of the women had ended unhappy marriages. Since the mid-1990s, the number of female business operators in Australia has been growing at three times the rate than that for males (Goward, 2001). Stone (2007) reported the results of detailed interviews with 54 women who opted out of high profile careers to focus on family life. She found a major reason for this life change was the refusal of husbands to modify their own careers (Stone, 2007).Our review of research related to glass ceilings found the following instruments: women as managers scale (WAMS) (Terborg et al., 1977), managerial attitudes toward women executives scale (MATWES) (Dubno et al., 1979), and women workplace culture questionnaire (WWC) (Bergman, 2003). There are also three unnamed instruments used by Jackson (2001), Wood and Lindorff (2001) and Elacqua et al. (2009).The MATWES is a 38-item questionnaire with a five-point Likert scale from \"highly agree\" to \"highly disagree\". Concurrent validity was assessed by administering the scale with the WAMS yielding a correlation of 0.73. The MATWES was developed \"to serve as a practical research tool for identifying organizational climates potentially hostile to the introduction of women into positions of executive responsibility\" (Dubno 1985, p. 236). Everett et al. (1996) used the MATWES in a study of cognitive development of MBA students, stating that high scores indicate negative attitudes toward female managers. No other scoring criteria could be found. There have been strong concerns about the validity and reliability of the 21-item WAMS (Cordano et al., 2003; Crino et al., 1981).The WWC is a 24-item measure with four factors: perceived burdens on women (11 items, a=0.87); personally experienced burdens (nine items, a=0.84); sexual harassment (four items, a=0.80); inadequate organizational support (three items, a=0.71). The first two factors share four items that have high loadings on both factors. Even though all items have fixed response alternatives, the WWC uses a wide range of behavioral descriptors as well as two-, four-, and five-point rating scales. Bergman (2003) recommends further research with women with lower levels of education and in a wider range of job positions as most of the women tested with the WWC worked within two faculties of a single university.Jackson (2001) developed a questionnaire to assess women's perceptions about glass ceilings. It was completed by 47 women and limited to women who were in upper or mid-level management positions and only within organizations with a minimum of 400 employees. Jackson acknowledged the limitations of her pilot study, recommending that a larger sample from a much wider geographical area be surveyed. Women's perceptions to career barriers were measured by a 52 items, each rated on a five-point response scale. Six scales with a total 45 items were generated: perception and stereotyping; work-family conflict; old boy network; valuing women and tokenism; management style; career development opportunity. No details of factor analysis or reliability levels were given (Jackson, 2001).Wood and Lindorff (2001) also attempted to quantify explanations from women (n=156), as well as men (n=351) about career progress. Attributions for overall career progress were measured by 14 items, on a five-point rating scale. Factor analysis identified a four-factor model. The factors were: personal qualities (a=0.74), gender-based policies (a=0.60), social network resources (a=0.44), and political awareness (single item). A 15-item instrument was used to investigate the glass ceiling in a large insurance company (Elacqua et al., 2009). The instrument was designed by staff with the guidance of a psychologist. Elacqua and her colleagues provide no details of factor analysis. Analysis of the responses from 685 managers (n=221 women) in the company who completed the questionnaire enabled the construction a 13-pathway model linking manager's beliefs about interpersonal and organizational factors with glass ceilings (Elacqua et al., 2009).No study could be found which extensively examined opinions from women at all stages of career advancement. This observation, plus the limitations of the instruments discussed above, prompted us to undertake the present study. The aim of this study was to construct an instrument that allows quantitative analyses of women's beliefs about glass ceilings.Development of instrument\nStudy 1: Method\nStudy 2: Method\nDiscussion: Our literature review had identified the need for a reliable measure of women's attitudes towards glass ceilings. Moreover, there is a need to provide more insights as the most commonly used measures in this area, the WAMS and MATWES, are unifactorial, only delivering single scores. The CPS provides greater feedback as it gives the scores for four separate factors. It allows a comparison of negative attitudes towards seeking promotions via resignation and acceptance scores. It also gives feedback on positive attitudes towards seeking promotion via resilience and denial scores. We believe this will give important feedback for researchers, organizations, and most importantly the women who complete the CPS. The four scores from the CPS can make them more aware of the reasons for seeking or rejecting career advancement.We carried out two studies with women (n=243 and n=307), mostly from Australia, and the findings provided psychometric support for the CPS. Principal axis factoring confirmed the existence of four factors: resilience, acceptance, resignation, and denial. These were the factors predicted by our theoretical model of glass ceilings attitudes. The results show that the initial version of the CPS and the revised 38-item CPS have good reliability levels. The 38-item measure is recommended as it contains more items with high face validity than the previous 34-item version.The main theoretical contribution of the two studies is the support given for the existence of four groups of stereotypic thinking about glass ceilings. These groups of attitudes may represent state-like psychological constructs. There is a major practical implication as the CPS can be recommended for future quantitative research into the causes and consequences of glass ceilings. It is being used in our ongoing studies of the relationships between glass ceiling beliefs, work engagement, career satisfaction, wellbeing, and the under-representation of women in leadership positions.There are several limitations of the present research. However, each of these limitations provides a direction for future research. First, and of most concern, both our studies included only moderate numbers of respondents from top level management. Second, most of the participants were based in Australia and there is a need to carry out international comparisons across different countries. There is also a strong need for longitudinal studies to assess the stability of glass ceiling beliefs over time, as well as when women change jobs and careers. Furthermore, the CPS could be used to determine if there are differences of women's glass ceiling beliefs across employment sectors, especially where women dominate (e.g. public relations and social services) and in male dominated careers (e.g. finance). Finally, further studies are needed to investigate the construct and concurrent validity of the CPS. We are planning to use the CPS in combination with measures of work engagement, occupational self-efficacy, explanatory style, and hope.There are a variety of other practical implications if organizations use the CPS to test their female staff. It could assist to clarify which employees and new recruits will appreciate and benefit from \"move-ahead\" tasks, thereby supporting vertical development (i.e. promotion) and those who prefer \"stay-here\" tasks, seeking horizontal development (for example, a personal assistant being offered training to learn another language, increasing her effectiveness communicating with the manager's clients).Following a suggestion made by M. Davidson (personal communication, October 2, 2009), we also see the value of using the CPS to assess men's attitudes towards glass ceilings. The WAMS and MATWES were designed to assess the attitudes of both women and men. Male dominated organizations could be evaluated with the CPS to determine whether an anti-female culture exists. The CPS could be used to test the effectiveness of training programs designed to change sexist workplace cultures. Our ongoing research aims to help women be aware of the deeper attitudes and reasons why they have rejected any ideas of seeking promotion. Wrigley (2002) believes cognitive dissonance explains why some women might give superficial reasons to justify their decision not to pursue promotions. Women who gain high scores for resignation and acceptance would be suitable candidates for research interviews to ascertain the strength of their anti-career advancement beliefs.\nConclusions: The findings reported in this study support our proposal that women can have beliefs about glass ceilings based on four different groups of stereotypic thoughts: denial, resilience, resignation, and acceptance. The measure we have developed, the CPS, allows quantitative assessment of these different attitudes. Possibly, the CPS will be able to identify gender differences in these attitudes towards glass ceilings. We hope that future research with the CPS will make a contribution to solving a problem that hurts all of us, women and men. This is made clear in the challenge from the US Labor Secretary in 1991 when she introduced the findings of the first ever government study into glass ceilings. She stated that glass ceilings disadvantage society as a whole as they effectively restrict leadership to only one-half of the population (US Department of Labor, 1991).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to develop a new measure called the Career Pathways Survey (CPS) which allows quantitative comparisons of women's beliefs about glass ceilings.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A 34-item version of the CPS was completed by 243 women from all levels of management, mostly in Australia. An expanded 38-item CPS was administered to another sample of women (n=307).\nFindings: - Analyses of data from both studies yielded a four factor model of attitudes to glass ceilings: resilience, acceptance, resignation and denial. The factors demonstrated good internal consistency.\nPractical implications: - The CPS allows a comparison of positive attitudes towards seeking promotions via resilience and denial scores, and provides feedback on negative attitudes towards seeking promotions via resignation and acceptance scores.\nSocial implications: - This new measure can be recommended for studies of women's and men's attitudes towards gender inequality in organizational leadership. Also, it could play a role in identifying sexist cultures in organizations.\nOriginality/value: - Because of the scarcity of measures of glass ceiling beliefs, this study makes a major contribution to the literature on women's beliefs about barriers to career advancement.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Innovation inputs and efficiency: manufacturing firms in Sub-Saharan Africa	[ "Africa", "Manufacturing", "Technical efficiency", "R&D", "Human capital development", "Foreign technology adoption" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Developing countries have become increasingly aware of the important role that innovation and efficiency play in driving economic growth and development. Innovation has been described as a \"creative destruction\" process that underlies economic development (Schumpeter, 1942). The innovation process at the firm-level entails the transformation of internal organisational innovation inputs including internal R&D, and human capital development (HCD) into product and process innovations. Furthermore, the innovation process also encompasses external innovation inputs involving the adoption of foreign technology. Internal R&D is defined as creative work undertaken for increasing the development of innovative products and processes. HCD on the other hand relates to formal training of workers that is associated with increased absorptive capacity that is crucial for innovation and efficiency (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990; Vandenbussche et al., 2006). The adoption and imitation of foreign technology entails the use of technology licensed from foreign-owned companies for enhanced productivity and efficiency. Imitation is associated with the extent to which firms invest in imitative research activities when adopting foreign technology (Cameron et al., 2005). Thus, firms may invest in internal R&D, HCD, and/or adopt foreign technology (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990) as innovation inputs aimed at increasing productivity and efficiency in the transformation of factors of production. Technical efficiency is a fundamental measure of economic efficiency that refers to the maximum possible output that can be obtained from a given a set of inputs (Aigner et al., 1977). Achieving technical efficiency has been thought to produce the highest gains for firms. This is because the fundamental problem of scarcity of resources implies that firms must employ new and more efficient methods of production. Hence, scarcity of resources attaches importance to efficiency since resource constrained firms aim to produce maximal output (Luptacik, 2009) subject to scarce resources.\n2. Literature review and hypotheses: A technically efficient firm is one in which an increase in an output requires an increase in at least one input or a reduction in at least one other output. Moreover, a decrease in an input has to be accompanied by a reduction in at least one other output or an increase in one other input (Koopmans, 1951; Porcelli, 2009). Thus, the notion of technical efficiency relates to the maximisation of output subject to a given set of factors of production. Given the technology used, inefficiency is the difference between the observed output and the maximum obtainable output. The production possibilities frontier (PPF) provides microeconomic foundations of technical efficiency. The PPF defines the maximum potential output that can be achieved by a firm for a given set of inputs and technology. Inefficiency gives rise to deviations from the maximum potential output. Determining efficiency differences between firms entails estimating the production frontier where efficient firms are located. The inefficiency scores of the remaining firms are then derived by obtaining their deviation from the frontier (Chen et al., 2015; Gumbau-Albert and Maudos, 2002).\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Data\n4. Results: Table I provides descriptive statistics for the whole sample. About 26 per cent of the firms invest in internal R&D. In contrast, it can be observed that about 41 per cent of the firms undertook HCD involving formal training for employees. Furthermore, only 19 per cent of the firms in the sample adopt foreign technology. Similarly, only 17 per cent of the firms report foreign ownership. This suggests that HCD is a preferred option among the alternative innovation inputs. It is also observed that about 88 per cent of the firms report utilising at least 50 per cent of their capacity. Also, about 65 per cent of the employees in the sample possess secondary school education. Furthermore, about 60 per cent of the firms report having ICT infrastructure. Lastly, about 59 per cent of the firms fall in the low-technology industry.\n5. Discussion: The findings of this study primarily support the hypotheses. The negative and significant relation between internal R&D and technical efficiency is an important finding given the context of the study. Biggs (1995) argues that inefficiency in manufacturing firms in SSA is attributed to a lack of R&D spending and a lack of organised R&D activity. Hence, internal R&D is expected to bolster efficiency (Kumbhakar et al., 2012). Nonetheless, this study reveals that internal R&D diminishes efficiency. There are several probable explanations for this anomalous result. First, internal R&D in a firm may lead to efficiency within the firm but results in relative inefficiency in firms not pursuing internal R&D resulting in overall inefficiency in an industry (Torii, 1992). Second, firms may engage in unproductive R&D that could result in wasteful practices which in turn result in inefficiency (Gumbau-Albert and Maudos, 2002). Another reason may be attributed to the fact that internal R&D may have dynamic effects such that current internal R&D may not influence efficiency in the current period but in future time periods (Gumbau-Albert and Maudos, 2002).\n6. Conclusion: In response to the question \"How do innovation inputs affect technical efficiency in manufacturing firms in SSA?\" this paper empirically examined the technical efficiency effects of innovation inputs. Notwithstanding the limitations of this paper, its findings offer valuable insights on the relationship between innovation inputs and technical efficiency in the context of manufacturing firms in SSA.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Countries in Africa have a common goal policy of industrialisation that is expected to be driven by investing in innovation that yields efficiency. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the technical efficiency effects arising from innovation inputs including internal R&D, human capital development (HCD), and foreign technology adoption in manufacturing firms in Africa.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study uses cross-sectional firm-level survey data from the 2013 World Bank Enterprise Survey and the linked 2013 Innovation Follow-up Survey. A heteroscedastic half-normal stochastic frontier is used for analysing the technical efficiency effects of innovation inputs of 418 firms.\nFindings: This study reveals that internal R&D, and foreign technology have negative effects on technical efficiency. Notwithstanding, the combination of foreign technology and internal R&D, and foreign technology and HCD reinforce each other's effects on technical efficiency.\nPractical implications: This study provides evidence that whereas individual innovation inputs may not yield positive efficiency outcomes, the combination of absorptive capacity enhancing inputs comprising internal R&D and HCD with foreign technology is vital for enhancing technical efficiency in manufacturing firms in Africa. This study offers important lessons for managers in manufacturing firms in Africa.\nOriginality/value: This study is virtually the first to investigate the relationship between innovation inputs and efficiency in Africa. This study demonstrates that investing in foreign technology in isolation from absorptive capacity enhancing innovation inputs diminishes efficiency. HCD and internal R&D are imperative for building absorptive capacity that enhances efficiency outcomes arising from foreign technology.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Application of the Taguchi method for optimization of parameters to maximize text message entering performance of mobile phone users	[ "Mobile communications", "Noise control", "Optimization techniques", "Taguchi methods" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The recent advancement in the communication and information technology has led to the development of mobile phones. This modern gadget has revolutionized our lives by way of providing round the clock connectivity with the rest of the world. Today almost every body, irrespective of age and gender, uses mobile phones not only to make or answer telephone calls but also to read or send text messages. The benefits of short message service (SMS) over calls are clear: they have a very low cost and the receiver does not need to be available when the message is sent. However, to read or send a text message requires more visual attention than a call, potentially causing a higher level of distraction from the assigned task. The other uses of a mobile phone include news seeking, web-surfing, playing video games etc. (Wei, 2008). The number of mobile phone users around the globe is expected to reach approximately 2 billion in 2008 (Boretos, 2007) and to fulfil their exponentially growing demand many global companies are manufacturing varieties of mobile phones with different design features. The user can select a particular brand of the mobile phone by following a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach proposed by Isiklar and Buyukozkan (2007).As mentioned above, one of the important uses of mobile phone is to read or send SMS to people at relatively low cost. For sending massages the user has to input the required information through the keyboard of the mobile phone. The speed, accuracy and efficiency with which the required data is entered may be affected by various factors such as illumination level, noise level, mobile angle (angle of the mobile phone with horizontal), and size of the keys etc. Therefore, it is an important task to select these parameters for achieving high massage sending performance of the users. Usually, the desired level of these parameters is determined based on experience.It appears from the available literature that although much research has been conducted on mobile phone use and driving, no published research was found in which attempt was made to determine the optimal levels of these parameters to maximize text entering performance of mobile phone users. In view of this, an attempt has been made in this paper to determine optimal levels of these parameters, which can maximize operators' text message entering task performance. For this purpose, the Taguchi method was used and experiments were conducted according to the standard L9 orthogonal array. In the experiments, subjects were asked to input the Arabic text through the keyboard of the mobile phone at different levels of the above stated three parameters and number of characters entered per minute by the subjects was recorded which served the data for further analysis. The details of the methodology used for data collection and analysis are discussed below.\n2. Methodology: Aim of the present study was to determine optimum level of three parameters i.e. illumination level, noise level and mobile angle that could maximize the text message entering performance of the mobile phone users. The methodology adopted to achieve this objective involved a standard L9 orthogonal array of Taguchi design of experiment and a few male subjects who performed the text message entering task on mobile phone. The details of the participating subjects, apparatus used, experimental procedure and Taguchi method are given below:2.1 Subjects\n3. The Taguchi method: The Taguchi method, indeed, is a powerful tool for the design of high quality systems. It provides a simple, efficient and systematic approach to optimize designs for performance, quality, and cost. Taguchi parameter design can optimize the performance characteristics through the settings of design parameters and reduce the sensitivity of system performance to source variation. In recent years, the rapid growth of interest in the Taguchi method has led to numerous applications of the method in a worldwide range of industries and nations (Bendell et al., 1989). The Taguchi method has been used in the optimization of parameters of manufacturing processes (Sukthomya and Tannock, 2005) such as injection moulding (Reddy et al., 1998; Kamaruddin et al., 2004), rapid prototyping (Lee et al., 2005), hydroforming (Bafail et al., 2007). The Taguchi method uses a special design of orthogonal arrays to study the entire parameter space with a small number of experiments only and thus, it results in a lot of cost as well as time saving. A desired number of experiments as suggested by the orthogonal array are performed and the experimental results are then transformed into S/N ratio. Taguchi recommends the use of S/N ratio to measure the quality characteristics deviating from the desired values. Usually, there are three categories of quality characteristic in the analysis of the S/N ratio, i.e. the-lower-the-better, the-higher-the-better, and the-nominal-the-better. The S/N ratio for each level of process parameters is computed based on the S/N analysis. Regardless of the category of the quality characteristic, a greater S/N ratio corresponds to better quality characteristics. Therefore, the optimal level of the process parameters is the level with the greatest S/N ratio. Furthermore, a statistical analysis of variance (ANOVA) is performed to see which parameters are statistically significant. With the S/N and ANOVA analyses, the optimal combination of the process parameters can be predicted. Finally, a confirmation experiment is conducted to verify the optimal process parameters obtained from the parameter design.3.1 Selection of parameters and their levels\n4. Results and discussion: Results of the experiments were obtained using the S/N ratio and ANOVA. Based on the results of these analyses, optimal settings of the parameters that maximize the text message sending performance of the mobile phone users were obtained and verified.4.1 Analysis of signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio\n5. Discussion: Results of the ANOVA presented in Table V revealed that noise (within the range investigated) significantly affected the text entering performance of the mobile phone users. This might be because the noise gives a kind of hammering action on the processing resources and consequently operators loose their concentration, get disturbed and feel annoyed. The result also indicated that the optimum combination of parameters and their level to maximize text entering performance of mobile phone users was illumination at 475 lx, noise at 45 dB(A) and mobile angle at 70deg. An increase in the illumination from this value may cause both direct and indirect glare and a further reduction in the illumination level may cause poor visibility of the task material and consequently these situations can reduce subjects' text entering performance. An increase in the noise level from 45 dB(A) may produce significant disturbance and annoyance which can lead to distraction of the subjects from the task and thus, subjects' performance can get adversely affected. A smaller mobile angle (less than 70deg) may cause difficulty to the subjects in seeing the text message on the mobile screen and this can also lead to their poor performance.\n6. Conclusions: This paper has presented an application of the Taguchi method for optimizing the parameters in order to maximize text message sending task performance of the mobile phone. As shown in this study, the Taguchi method provides a systematic and efficient methodology for the optimization of the parameters with far less effect than would be required for most optimization techniques. It has been shown that the performance of the users, measured in terms of MNCEPM, can be improved significantly. From the results, it was found that within the range of the parameters investigated in this study, illumination level of 475 lux, noise level of 45 dB(A) and mobile angle of 70 degrees yield maximum efficiency of the mobile phone users so far as the text message sending task is concerned. It was also found that the noise is the dominant parameter and its percentage contribution towards achieving maximum efficiency is 95.53 percent, followed by mobile angle at 3.25 percent and illumination level at 0.66 percent. The confirmation experiments were conducted to verify the optimal parameters. The improvement of MNCEPM from initial parameters to the optimal parameters is about 115 percent.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate application of the Taguchi method to determine the optimum level of three important parameters (factors) related to the use of a mobile phone for the text message entering task, namely illumination level, noise level and mobile angle that maximizes the performance of mobile phone users.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Three levels of each parameter as available in the literature, except for the mobile angle, were considered. The design of the experiment, as proposed by Genichi Taguchi, was used to conduct nine experiments. A total of 30 male subjects participated in the experimental study. The text message entry task, in the form of Arabic text, was presented to the participating subjects and their performance, measured in terms of mean number of characters entered per minute, was recorded. The signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio and the analysis of variance (ANOVA) were employed to investigate the users' performance. Finally, a confirmation test was conducted to verify the validity of the results.\nFindings: - Results showed that, at the illumination level of 475 lux, noise level of 45 dB(A), and mobile angle of 70 degrees, the subjects were quite comfortable, efficient and entered the maximum number of characters in the mobile phone per minute. The noise was found to be the dominant parameter with a contribution of 95.53 percent towards the laid down objective followed by mobile angle, 3.25 percent and illumination level, 0.66 percent.\nOriginality/value: - To the best of the authors' knowledge no study has been conducted in the past to investigate the effect of these parameters on the performance of the mobile phone users. In addition, no attempt has yet been made to find the optimal level of these parameters from a text-entering viewpoint. The paper represents original research and in the authors' opinion carries significantly important values as it provides new information for those involved in the design of the mobile phone environment.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Perspectives on principal instructional leadership in Vietnam: a preliminary model	[ "Principals", "Vietnam", "School leadership", "Asia", "Instructional leadership" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The principal occupies a key position that bridges the gaps between context and school, policy and program, and means and ends. The principal's importance emerges from that position. He or she has the greatest access to the wishes and needs of district leaders, parents and community members, school staff, and students. With experience and training, he or she has the best opportunity to formulate an image of schooling that is relevant and responsive to those groups and to begin to bring that image into being(Dwyer, 1986, p. 16).\nTheoretical perspective: Evolving perspectives on principal instructional leadership\nMethod: The research strategy employed in this study reprised the approach adopted by Bossert and colleagues (Bossert et al., 1982; Dwyer, 1986; Dwyer et al., 1983) in the USA 30 years ago. Their research team began with literature review (Bossert et al., 1982), followed by qualitative inquiry comprised first of interviews with successful principals and then case studies (Dwyer et al., 1983). We deemed this research sequence appropriate to the current state of inquiry into principal instructional leadership in Vietnam.\nResults: A preliminary conceptual model\nDiscussion: This study sought to elaborate and extend findings from recent reviews of research on school leadership in Vietnam (Hallinger and Truong, 2014; Hallinger et al., 2015). Our approach entailed collecting qualitative interview data from primary school principals concerning their role as instructional leaders. In this section of the paper, we review limitations of the study, discuss our interpretation of the findings and outline implications.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Worldwide interest in principal instructional leadership has led to global dissemination of related research findings despite their concentration in a limited set of western cultural contexts. An urgent challenge in educational leadership and management lies in expanding the range of national settings for investigations of instructional leadership. The current study addressed this challenge in the context of Vietnam, a nation with a very limited formal knowledge base in school leadership (Hallinger and Bryant, 2013b; Hallinger and Truong, 2014). The purpose of this paper is to describe the perspectives of Vietnamese primary school principals toward their role as instructional leaders, illuminate instructional leadership practices perceived as important by the principals, and develop a preliminary model of instructional leadership within the Vietnamese education context.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study was a qualitative inquiry that sought to illuminate the perspectives of Vietnamese principals toward their role as instructional leaders. The research employed semi-structured interviews with 27 primary school principals. Data analysis employed grounded theory in order to synthesize results gathered from the principals into a preliminary conceptual model.\nFindings: The study yielded a preliminary model of principal instructional leadership in Vietnam. The authors' model evidences similarities to western models of instructional leadership by including dimensions focusing on setting direction, managing curriculum and instruction and developing the school learning climate. Differences also emerged in terms of two additional constructs, building solidarity and managing external relationships. Other distinctive practices of Vietnamese instructional leaders also emerged in the findings which the authors suggest can be linked to the institutional, political and socio-cultural context of education in this society.\nResearch limitations/implications: Key limitations arise from the focus on primary schools, small size of the sample, absence of data from the Northern region of Vietnam, and lack of verification of principals' perspectives with data from other stakeholders.\nOriginality/value: This study is one of the first empirical studies of Vietnamese school leadership submitted for publication in international refereed journals and the first study that has that sought to conceptualize the instructional leadership role of principals in Vietnam. Moreover, the study illustrates how conceptualizations of school leadership are shaped by features of specific societies. This lends credence to scholarly admonitions concerning the lack of universality of leadership theories.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The changing business model of B-schools	[ "Business schools", "Business environment", "Competitive advantage" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Nowadays, administrators and top officers of universities and business schools continually engage in a debate on the drivers of the ups and downs in the demand for MBA programs and MBA graduates. In this respect, we contend that such shifting demand is caused by active sources of change arising in the wider contexts of business schools. Furthermore, we suggest that the current process of change transcends the notion of a new business cycle to result in a different business model for business schools. In the present article, we examine the nature of these environmental transformations and propose structural measures that business schools might wish to deploy to cope with changes occurring in their wider contexts. In addition to this framework of structural measures, we propose a number of specific actions that may produce a good fit between business schools and their ever-changing contexts.\nThe global market and the B-schools: The process of globalization that influences the strategy and operations of firms also exerts a considerable impact on business schools. According to the Corporate Recruiters Survey made by the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), the demand for MBA graduates will increase by 18 percent in 2006 with respect to 2005. Furthermore, Fortune magazine reported that 98 percent of business schools experienced a substantial increase in job offers to their MBA graduates in 2006, whereas 42 percent of US MBA programs reported more recruiters coming to campuses (Holtzman, 2006). And the demand for the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT) exam is increasing, too. The declining trend of the last four years is shifting now, as shown by the increasing number of prospective candidates attending MBA fairs.In the past, business schools have experienced ups and downs in demand for their MBA programs and MBA graduates. Such changing demand was the ultimate consequence of the evolution of domestic economies, implying a decreasing number of applications for MBA programs in periods of economic recession, and otherwise in situations of expanding demand. Under the process of globalization that is affecting business schools, such demand is much less contingent on the short-term performance of domestic markets.Importantly, business schools have addressed differently the increasing demand placed on their programs from a much wider range of students established in other countries and regions (Lorange, 2005). Some business schools have implemented strategic alliances with partners from other continents, which also enable the mobility of faculty and students across regions (e.g. the SUMAQ alliance, implemented by the Instituto de Empresa Business School in Spain and leading business schools and universities in Latin America). On the other hand, some business schools have set up new campuses in other continents (e.g. the campus of INSEAD in Singapore; see Hawawini, 2005), whereas other schools and universities have drawn on online technologies to meet the distant and wide-ranging demand for their programs (e.g. the Open University).The globalization process constitutes a general phenomenon and, as such, it exerts a lasting influence on the way of doing business in today's world. Additionally, the business model of business schools is influenced by a number of driving forces that are sector-specific. In this respect, we argue that the globalization process catalyzes the effects of such driving forces, by ultimately augmenting their effects on the business model. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In the next section, we will examine the forces that drive change in the business school's model. Next, we will comment on the courses of action that business schools could implement to cope with environmental changes. Finally, we will suggest some measures that might help business schools to anticipate change arising in their wider contexts.\nThe drivers of the business model: In the present article, we identify five sector-specific forces that drive change in the business model of business schools. We suggest that such forces consist of the structure of the MBA programs, the sources of income of business schools, market concentration, the new profile of customers, and the changing distribution channels. As noted above, the effects of such sector-specific sources are augmented by the effects of the globalization process that influences the functioning of business schools and universities from around the world.The structure and forms of delivery of MBA programs\nWhat to do in the new environment?: Mainstream strategic thinking states that organizations should stick to what they know best, i.e. \"stick to their knitting\". In other words, firms should focus on their core areas of strength to exploit their competitive advantages. In spite of these recommendations, we would rather propose the viewpoint of thinking \"out of the box\" in order to address the challenges posed by the ever-changing environment of business schools on their business model. In this respect, we suggest that business schools might wish to undertake two structural actions. First, our institutions should adopt an entrepreneurial mindset. By doing this, business schools should undertake a continuous screening of the environments to reinvent themselves in an ongoing search for challenges and opportunities. Second, business schools should instil in their structure and functioning the idea of diversity. In this manner, our institutions will capitalize on the richness provided by the different cultures, languages, genders, and races of their students and staff. In turn, these two structural changes will help to mobilize more concrete actions, such as a focus on a portfolio of financial resources, segments of activities, geographical markets and strategic alliances (see Figure 1).Portfolio of financial sources\nConcluding remarks: In this paper, we have reviewed the characteristics of the changing wider context of business schools, suggesting that transformations in such environments have brought about a change in the business model of our institutions. In doing this, we indicate that the globalization process acts as a catalyst for the driving forces of change operating in the institutional contexts of business schools, namely:the structure of MBA programs;sources of income;market concentration;profile of customers; anddistribution channels.To tackle such forces of change, we propose a number of measures that business school might wish to undertake. Arguably, such actions represent a proactive approach that may help business schools to anticipate changes and gain competitive advantage from the challenges and opportunities provided by such dynamic contexts.Overall, the environment of business schools is characterized by their complexity and uncertainty. Currently, it is not possible to provide a straightforward remedy to resolve the problems caused by the ever-changing environments of business schools. On the other hand, the uncertainty is high and the threats and challenges are mutating. With that caution in mind, we would suggest that the best combination of measures to cope with such changing demands would involve:an entrepreneurial mindset, consisting of an open mind to anticipate as well as reacting with flexibility to the challenges posed by the driving forces of change; and*an emphasis on diversity.Since our contexts are increasingly varying, we need to rely on the skills of diverse faculty and administrators to cope with such demands. Furthermore, we would suggest that business schools must actively seek the idea of diversity in terms of gender, nationalities, and background of staff. Overall, we think that the suggestion for more entrepreneurship and more diversity would not necessarily require the pursuit of breadth at the expense of depth. Consistent with what we teach in our programs, in practice we must be able to manage organizations that combine breadth and depth to meet the challenges of their ever changing contexts.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to argue that recent changes in the wider contexts of universities and business schools signal a shift in their business model instead of a mere turn in their business cycle.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper reviews the position of those that hold a traditionalist view of the business model of business schools and comments on the extent to which such a model applies to the ever-changing conditions that are a feature of the environment of institutions of higher learning.\nFindings: - The paper argues that the process of globalization augments the effects of five sector-specific forces on the business model of business schools. Additionally, the paper identifies some structural factors that business schools might wish to address in order to cope with changes occurring in their wider environments.\nOriginality/value: - In addition to structural measures, the paper proposes a number of specific actions that business schools may implement to maintain and/or gain competitive advantage.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Pure or ambidextrous strategy? A study of responsive and proactive market orientations in industrial firms	[ "Firm performance", "Competitive intensity", "Proactive market orientation", "Responsive market orientation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Market orientation (MO) has been recognized as an organizational resource of sustainable competitive advantage (Jaworski and Kohli, 1993; Slater and Narver, 1995; Hult and Ketchen, 2001; Hult et al., 2005; Santos et al., 2005; Song and Parry, 2009). Although previous research on the relationship between MO and firm's performance has produced mixed results, the predominant view follows the resource-based view: greater MO leads to improved performance outcomes (Song and Parry, 2009; Atuahene, 1996; Najafi et al., 2016). This is particularly true for firms operating in industrial markets where it is critical to maintain market share (Hallen et al., 1991; Avlontis and Gounaris, 1997; Hsieh et al., 2008; Liao et al., 2011; Frosen et al., 2016).\nTheoretical background and hypotheses: Market orientation\nAnalyses and results: Factor analyses were performed using all study measures. All factors were loaded onto the four corresponding factors: RMO, PMO, competitive intensity and firm performance (Table I). Cronbach's alpha for all constructs exceeded 0.70, confirming the reliability of our measures. Table II displays the means and correlations for all variables.\nDiscussion: The objective of this research was to address under what environmental conditions it is advantageous to firm's performance to pursue an ambidextrous strategy (simultaneously develop both RMO and PMO) or a pure RMO or PMO strategy in B2B markets. Specifically, this study tests the moderating effects of competitive intensity on the relationships between different MO strategies (pure RMO, pure PMO or ambidextrous) and firm performance. This study expected that a pure RMO or PMO strategy would outperform an ambidextrous strategy under environmental conditions of high competitive intensity, consistent with the strategic purity literature (Thornhill and White, 2007). But for conditions of low competitive intensity we hypothesized that an ambidextrous strategy would outperform pure PMO or RMO strategies, consistent with the RMO/PMO literature (Narver et al., 2004). Our empirical results confirm the usefulness of our model in understanding the role of competitive intensity in extending our existing knowledge of the roles of RMO and PMO in firm performance.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the environmental conditions (i.e. competitive intensity) under which a pure strategy or an ambidextrous strategy of implementing responsive market orientations (RMOs) and/or proactive market orientations (PMOs) is more advantageous for firm's performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Drawing upon the market orientation (MO) and strategy literatures, the authors test the study's model empirically using a sample of 308 US-based firms operating in industrial markets. All measurement items are taken from the widely used maturity scale which has been confirmed in the literature.\nFindings: The empirical results suggest that when the competitive intensity is high, pursuing a purity strategy of RMO while decreasing PMO is the best course of action. On the other hand, balancing between RMO and PMO (implementing a strategy of ambidexterity) can increase firm's performance in a low competitive intensity environment.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study aims to contribute to the existing MO literature in several ways: first, this study advances the MO literature by emphasizing the moderating role of competitive intensity on the effects of different MO strategies (purity or ambidextrous MO strategy); second, this study focuses on the firms operating in industrial markets and informs managers on how to adopt RMO and PMO under different level of competitive intensity; third, this study is the extended research of the prior study published in this journal (Wang et al., 2013), which examined the environmental antecedents of adopting RMO and PMO.\nPractical implications: First, firms operating in industrial markets should increase RMO, while at the same time decrease PMO, in a highly competitive intensity environment. Second, companies should pursue both RMO and PMO at the same time in a low competitive intensity environment. Balancing between RMO and PMO can improve firms' performance in a low competitive intensity environment.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to the industrial business and marketing literature by sharpening the theoretical understanding of the impact of RMOs and PMOs on firm's performance. It also offers practical insights to managers of industrial firms on when to adopt RMOs and/or PMOs under different levels of competitive intensity.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The internationalization of small to medium-sized enterprises: do all levels in international networking matter?	[ "SMEs", "Uganda", "Internationalization", "Network extension", "Network integration", "Network penetration" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction and motivation: With increased competition, small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from developing countries are increasingly expanding their participation in the global economy as they seek for continued survival, competitiveness, risk diversification and revenue growth (Matenge, 2011; Misati et al., 2017). In light of the limited financial resources, market knowledge and skills associated with SMEs in developing countries, there is growing evidence that their increased international participation is being facilitated through networking with other players in the foreign markets (Rutashobya and Jaensson, 2004; Amoako and Lyon, 2014). This is particularly so since developing countries are constantly linked with limited supporting institutions that would have otherwise provided SMEs with the finances, information and marketing assistance required for easier and quicker access to international markets (Rutashobya and Jaensson, 2004; Rugasira, 2013; Matanda, 2012). Networking in the international context is related to a process by which firms initiate, develop and coordinate various network relationships in foreign markets (Johanson and Mattsson, 1988).Networking influences firms' internationalization through three sequential levels of network extension, network penetration and network integration (Johanson and Mattson, 1988; Johanson and Vahlne, 1990). Firms initially begin by initiating foreign networks (network extension), followed by developing the established networks (network penetration) and finally coordinating the various networks established in different countries (network integration) (Andersson and Mattson, 2006; Ardersson et al., 2018). Submission by Andersson and Mattson (2006) indicated that these levels tend to have an additive incremental effect on firms' internationalization. The authors noted that network extension contributes to network penetration, which also adds to network integration to subsequently influence SMEs' internationalization. This sequential view appears to suggest that all levels are equally important since each builds on the other for international networking to have a significant influence on SMEs' internationalization.While the significant additive effect of international networking levels is well acknowledged (Kenny, 2009; Andersson et al., 2018), less is known about what could be the critical level(s) that matters most for SMEs' internationalization in developing countries such as Uganda. Uganda offers a unique setting in a number of ways. First, it is landlocked and its economy is highly dependent on its relationship with the neighbouring countries Kenya and Tanzania that have access to the sea (Elbadawi et al., 2006). The lack of access to the sea implies that exporting SMEs are isolated from major international markets, which makes exporting prohibitively expensive and difficult on their part. Thus, for SMEs in Uganda to get their products across distant markets such as those in Europe and the USA, networks must be established and developed with international brokers, customers, freight and forwarding companies, distribution companies and customs officials, and networks must also be established with both the neighbouring countries that have access to the sea as well as to their target foreign markets. The networks established should be in position to help SMEs access market information, customers, overcome unnecessary delays at border crossings and facilitate speedy entry into foreign markets. Second, SMEs in Uganda face challenges associated with access to finance, technology, skills and information and high costs in their internationalization efforts (Rugasira, 2013; Nakaweesi, 2016). Thus, partnering with other institutions such as banks, research agencies, customers, distributors and suppliers located in other countries seems to be the best alternative strategy to overcome resource-constrained challenges that normally characterize most internationalizing SMEs in developing countries. Finally, Uganda is associated with limited institutional support for facilitating international expansion of SMEs (Rugasira, 2013). Therefore, relative to developed countries that tend to support their internationalizing SMEs with export credit, marketing services and specialized market information (Holzner and Stollinger, 2013), foreign networks can act as alternative supporting structures that can be relied on to expedite the international expansion of SMEs in Uganda.Clearly, given the context, forming partnerships with other players in the foreign markets seems a worthwhile endeavour for internationalizing SMEs in Uganda and perhaps in other similar contexts. But, as to what level(s) in international networking matter(s) for the internationalizing SMEs in the Ugandan context is an empirical question we seek to answer. Thus, the aim of this paper is to provide evidence on which international networking level(s) matter(s) most in the internationalization of SMEs in developing countries with a particular focus on Uganda. Such evidence is important since it provides the resource-constrained SMEs in developing countries with information on what level(s) they should direct much of their resources and efforts to in the process of internationalization.The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 is the literature review. This is followed by Section 3, which provides a detailed methodology. Section 4 presents results and discussion of findings. This is followed by Section 5, which presents conclusions and implications. Finally, Section 6 presents limitations and areas for future research.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Theory\n3. Theresearch methodology: 3.1 Theresearch design, population and sample size\n4. Results and discussion: 4.1 Results\n5. Conclusions and implications: The present study established that amongst the three levels of international networking, it is only the network extension and network integration that matter SMEs' internationalization in developing countries like Uganda. The findings of this study disclose some lessons that add into the debate of SMEs' internationalization from the networking perspective.First, from the theoretical point of view, the study isolates the contribution of each level in international networking and proves it; while network extension and network integration levels have positive and significant relationships with SMEs' internationalization, network penetration level does not. This implies that in the context of developing countries, it is only the network extension and network integration levels that matter for successful internationalization of SMEs. Our contribution to this theory is that we tested its worth in a developing African country. The study results also have an implication to the academic community. While it has been known that all the three level of international networking matter in SMEs' internationalization, this study confirms only two.From the practical perspective, the findings in this study imply that SMEs should devise strategies aimed at establishing foreign partnerships (network extension). Such strategies should include continuous visits to international trade fairs and exhibitions. By participating in international trade fairs, managers and owners of exporting firms are more likely to meet and interact with numerous potential partners in the form of customers, suppliers, distributors and any other relevant individuals, who will perhaps be in position to provide information on the possible opportunities in their respective countries at a lesser cost. Also, managers and owners of exporting SMEs in developing countries need to continuously search for information about prospective foreign partners. This can be done through the use of Internet and exploiting hints from existing partners. By obtaining information on the prospective partners, SMEs' managers and owners will be able to understand their financial capacity, motivation levels, location, credibility as well as the coverage in advance. This will subsequently help SMEs to only deal with partners that will advance their objectives in international markets. Undoubtedly, by initiating foreign networks, SMEs' managers and owners in developing countries will be well positioned to gain from capabilities, information and resources embedded in the foreign networks, which will subsequently accelerate their internationalization efforts and long-term survival in international markets. Moreover, the findings in this study also imply that managers and owners of exporting SMEs in developing countries need to coordinate the network relationships established in different countries (network integration) if they are to realize higher levels of internationalization. This can be done through maintaining constant communication with the partners in various countries and by having specific people within their organizations to manage the various foreign relationships. By maintaining a constant line of communication, SMEs in developing countries will be able to get access to up-to-date market information from various partners and this will help them to quickly respond to customers' expectations, as well as to take advantage of multiple opportunities that may accrue in different countries at any point in time.For policymakers there is a need for government to prioritize measures that help firms to access international networks. Particularly the government must continuously support SMEs to participate in international trade fairs. These trade fairs might be valuable in helping these firms to identify key network contacts that may not only be potential clients but also potential financiers or suppliers. The government may also invest in training managers and owners to equip them with skills necessary for identifying, coordinating and developing potential and future partners since networks seem to be a major resource that SMEs can rely on to easily penetrate into unfamiliar and more demanding international markets.\n6. Limitations and future research: Like any other research, this study has several limitations which in turn offer opportunities for future research. First and foremost, our sample was limited to exporting SMEs in Uganda. While the findings may be generalized to other countries at the same level of development and operational features, the same study should be conducted in other countries at different levels of development to generate more debate and understanding of SMEs' internationalization from international networking perspective. Second, a multi-industry sample was used in this study and it would be interesting for future researchers to conduct a similar study in a specific industry to see whether similar results could be obtained. Third, a standard questionnaire was adopted to generate responses from the target respondents, which limited the information only to the structured questions contained in the survey instrument. Future research may wish to use a qualitative approach that utilizes in-depth interview to get a deeper understanding on how the different international networking levels influence SMEs' internationalization. Finally, the independent variables (international networking levels) predicted only 10.5% of SMEs' internationalization in Uganda. This suggests that about 89.5% of SMEs' internationalization in Uganda can be explained by other factors that were not part of this study. Thus, future studies may consider other network characteristics such as network position, network structure, network ties and network strength to establish their effect on the internationalization of SMEs in Uganda.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate whether each level in international networking (network extension, network penetration and network integration) matters in the internationalization of small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study adopted a cross-sectional and correlational research design. The data were collected through a questionnaire survey of 206 exporting SMEs in Uganda. The study employed a structural equation modelling (SEM) technique using partial least square (PLS) to test the hypothesis.\nFindings: The findings revealed that network extension and network integration do matter in SMEs' internationalization, while network penetration does not.\nPractical implications: SMEs in developing countries need to concentrate on network extension and network integration levels to successfully internationalize their operations.\nOriginality/value: The study provides initial evidence on whether network extension, network penetration and network integration matter in SMEs' internationalization in developing countries like Uganda.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Influences of working condition and faculty retention on quality education in private universities in Bangladesh: An analysis using SEM	[ "Private universities", "Quality education", "Faculty retention", "Mediating influence", "Working condition" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The private university concept was originated in Bangladesh during the early 1990s with the enactment the Private University Act 1990 (Ashraf et al., 2016). It is now almost three decades of which many of these private universities have been started its operations. As per UGC record, there are 97 private universities in Bangladesh most of which are located in the metropolitan region of the capital city of the country (UGC, 2017). Although there are few private universities whose quality of education have been substantially improved, still they have to go a long way to attain that level of excellence prevailed in the public higher educational institutes in Bangladesh (Mamun, 2011; Mazumder, 2014; Ashraf et al., 2016).\nUnderlying theory and past research: Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory\nResearch model and hypotheses: The research model used in the study, shown in Figure 2, is based on Muslow's hierarchy need theory. The ultimate object of the discussion is quality education which was postulated as to be influenced by faculty retention practices directly and by working condition indirectly. The four hypotheses embodied in the model are listed below. The directionality stated in each hypothesis is derived from the prior discussion about working condition and faculty retention from the basic structure of the underlying theory.\nResearch design: Data collection took place in November and December 2017. A total of five undergraduate and postgraduate students were recruited from a university to complete a questionnaire that contained measures of the constructs of concern. Data were collected from 537 employees including faculty members working in private universities located all over the country based on a closed ended questionnaire through face to face interview. The respondents were selected based on random sampling procedure. Due to incompleteness and some errors left in the filled-in questionnaire, a total of 516 data were finally selected for the analysis. The questionnaire was pilot tested with a small sample of data. There were also seven demographic questions included in the instrument the statistics which are presented in Table I.\nResults and discussion: Several past surveys have studied about the quality education rendered by the private universities in Bangladesh but none of these studies have investigated the actual associations between human resource practices particularly the constructs of working condition, faculty retention and quality education. This study has demonstrated, at least for this sample, that the working condition is much important to influence faculty retention which subsequently influences the construct of quality education of the private universities in Bangladesh.\nConclusions: As mentioned earlier, the concept of private higher education in Bangladesh is relatively a new phenomenon in the education sector which was entirely within the public domain before the 1990s. As a nascent sector, it has been suffering from myriads of management problems. Particularly, working conditions prevailed in these universities are not up to that level which is pleasant for the faculty members due to many of ill managerial policies (Joarder, 2012). The results of this study reveal that this factor is considerably important to maintain a steady faulty retention policy. There have been several studies that report that turnover intentions of the faculty member in these private universities in Bangladesh are significantly high which is responsible for reducing quality education. In this respect, the present study has offered important evidence that faculty working condition in the private universities in developing context can have significant influence on employee retention as well as on quality education in the private universities in Bangladesh.\nResearch implications: From a research perspective, the study results demonstrate once again the robustness of the Muslow's hierarchy need theory of motivation for helping to explain the faculty members of the private universities. Other studies have also successfully used the similar motivational theories as a theoretical framework from which to explain job satisfaction (Ashraf et al., 2008; Joarder and Ashraf, 2012), working environment (Heneman, 2007; Edgar and Geare, 2005; Joarder, 2012), faculty retention (Milman and Dickson, 2014; Ashraf and Joarder, 2010) and quality education (Biggs, 1995; Ashraf et al., 2016; Ashraf, 2009). In addition to the importance of working condition toward quality education in the higher education institutes, some of these studies have found job autonomy as a part of working condition to also be important (e.g. Joarder, 2012), while others have found compensation package to also be important (e.g. Ashraf, 2009). Both cases demonstrate the increased power of Muslow's theory of motivation. As more and more studies of faculty behavior and its antecedents are done within the similar framework, we are more able to discover and confirm which antecedents are most important, helping us build a robust theory of quality education affected based on human resource practices by the management of the institutes.\nPractical implications: From a practical perspective, as a cumulative body of work on the nexus between human resource management and quality education emerges, we will be better able to advise private university authorities on the elements they need to address in order to excel quality education. In this study, the one area of findings that may help university authorities the most concerns work environment. We found that perceptions about sound work environment in the universities as a channel for conducting commitment with the organization were associated with enhancing faculty retention, and these positive attitudes were, in turn, associated with quality education. The implication is that university authorities can focus on promoting positive work environment, and in doing so, they can generate positive attitudes toward faculty retention. Such a strategy can be accompanied by steps to promote the sound working condition in order to make an environment conducive for excelling quality education in the private universities.\nDirections for future research: This study considered only one antecedent to faculty retention. There may well be others that should be considered in future research, such as other aspects of motivational factors, such as compensation, career prospect, training and development, job autonomy and so on. Valid and reliable scales for these constructs need to be developed, however, in order to include them in future studies. As a matter of fact, there have serious shortages of studies that focused on the nexus between human resource management practices and quality education in the higher education sector especially in private education sector in Bangladesh. Future research could include those practices in their studies which will enable us to formulate a proper policy measure for ensuring higher level of quality education in the private higher education sector in developing country context like Bangladesh.\nLimitations: As with any study, there are limitations to the study described here. One possible drawback is the use of both faculty members as well as university administrative staffs as respondents. Perceptions about work environment may have been differently perceived by the faculty members and administrative staffs. If the study were to include only the faculty members as respondents, the findings may have been different. Nevertheless, the usual cautions about overgeneralizing findings from this sample, to populations for which it is not strictly representative, apply. Although the sample was randomly drawn to represent a population to which findings could be generalize, the ability to generalize the findings very far beyond the sample is limited due to the inclusion of only 20 private universities in Bangladesh.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to examine the influence of working condition on faculty retention and quality education in the private higher education sector; and second, to see whether there is any mediating role of faculty retention linking working condition and quality education in the private universities in Bangladesh.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To attain these objectives, a total of 516 data were collected from the faculty members of the private universities located all over the country based on random sampling procedure. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling technique.\nFindings: The findings of the study reveal that though working condition has a direct significant influence on both faculty retention and quality education and faculty retention has a partial mediating influence on quality education in private higher education institutes in Bangladesh.\nResearch limitations/implications: From a research perspective, the study results demonstrate once again the robustness of the Muslow's hierarchy need theory of motivation for helping to explain the faculty members of the private universities. As more and more studies of faculty behavior and its antecedents are done within the similar framework, the author is more able to discover and confirm which antecedents are most important, helping the author build a robust theory of quality education affected based on human resource practices by the management of the institutes.\nPractical implications: From a practical perspective, as a cumulative body of work on the nexus between human resource management and quality education emerges, the author will be better able to advise private university authorities on the elements they need to address in order to excel quality education. In this study, the one area of findings that may help university authorities the most concerns work environment. These findings imply that in order to excel quality education the authorities of the private universities should focus more on friendly and enjoyable working environment for prolonging faculty retention and excelling quality education.\nOriginality/value: This study has revealed an important contribution focusing the influence of working condition on faculty retention as well as quality education in private universities in Bangladesh.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Factors affecting intention to use e-banking in Jordan	[ "Internal marketing", "Individual perception", "Individual behaviour", "Multiple regression analysis", "Jordan" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The pervasiveness of technology defining the twenty-first century is leading banks to adopt a new set of practices. Today, the best banks recognize the need to have more complete and up-to-date services that go beyond traditional offerings. The e-banking concept is based on the development, design, and implementation of financial services that take place on the internet. Simply, e-banking occurs when customers use the internet to access their bank accounts to carry out banking transactions (Sathye, 1999). Thus, offering multichannel banking has become a competitive necessity and a guarantee of the interaction between banks and their customers (Stoica et al., 2015). Both banks and customers can benefit from e-banking services. Banks can create higher banking efficiency by enabling customers to open accounts, make deposits, transfer funds across accounts and make payments entirely online (Takieddine and Sun, 2016). Customers can undertake financial processes such as buying and fund transfer with speed and convenience (Ling et al., 2016). In particular, e-banking services offer benefits to customers because they can perform their transactions and other financial activities from home.\nLiterature review: Explaining and predicting customer intentions and the adoption of internet banking have recently been the focus of many scholars worldwide and this issue has seen dramatic growth in the relevant literature related to online banking channels (Lin, 2011; Purwanegara et al., 2014; Zhou, 2012). Over the last several years, numerous theories offering new insights have emerged (Oruc and Tatar, 2017), aiming to explain and predict the relationship between user beliefs, attitudes and behavioural intentions to use the technology. The technology acceptance model (TAM), theory of planned behavior (TPB), innovation diffusion theory and theory of reasoned action are examples of these theories.\nTheoretical model and hypothesis development: Over the past decade, the TAM and TPB have been widely applied to examine e-banking usage and acceptance (Davis, 1993; Hsu, 2004; Hsu et al., 2006). However, neither the TAM nor TPB have been found to provide consistently superior explanations or behavioural predictions (Chen et al., 2007). Recently, a growing body of research has focused on integrating the two models to examine information technology usage and e-service acceptance because they are complementary; the results of such research have shown that the integrated model has better exploratory power than the individual use of the TAM or TPB (Bosnjak et al., 2006; Chen et al., 2007). The strengths of the TPB have been explored to enrich the TAM by adding usage and placing premiums on specific settings and external variables that influence a technology adoption process (Awa et al., 2015).\nResearch methods: A quantitative methodology employing a cross-sectional survey was used to address the research objectives.\nDiscussion: This study integrates SEM with ANN to overcome the shortcomings of both techniques by first validating the proposed model using SEM, followed by examining the normalized importance of the significant determinants derived from the SEM analysis. The descriptive statistics reveal that all respondents have heard of e-banking services but only 54 percent of them use such services. This demonstrates that marketing instruments for e-banking services within banks have not played a successful role in providing full awareness or the benefits of e-banking services to clients. It would seem that the problem of non-intention to use e-banking services is strongly related to the promotion of e-banking services by the banks.\nConclusion and recommendations: In this study, factors that contribute to enhancing the intention to use e-banking are presented in the context of the banking sector in Jordan by integrating the TAM and TPB models. The conjoined SEM-ANN analysis provides a more holistic understanding and thus may provide significant methodological contributions from the statistical point of view. Such research will help banks to formulate marketing strategies, which will lead to the creation of suitable products that attract customers to use e-banking and thus reduce their operating costs.\nSummary statement of contribution: This study adopted a sequential predictive-analytic method by integrating both SEM and ANN. This helps in providing a more holistic understanding of the phenomenon under study and provides a significant methodological contribution from a statistical point of view.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Despite the wide availability of internet banking, levels of intention to use such facilities remain variable between countries. The purpose of this paper is to focus on e-banking in a country with low intention to use e-banking - Jordan - and to explain the slow uptake.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A quantitative method employing a cross-sectional survey was used as an appropriate way of meeting the research objectives. The survey was distributed to bank customers in Amman, Jordan, collecting a total of 328 completed questionnaires. SPSS and AMOS software were used, and multiple regression and artificial neural networks were applied to determine the relative impact and importance of e-banking predictors.\nFindings: The statistical techniques revealed that several major factors, including perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, security and reasonable price, stand out as the barriers to intention to use e-banking services in Jordan.\nOriginality/value: This study theorizes a series of implications on intention to use e-banking. It draws the attention of Jordanian banks to the full functionality of their e-banking systems, emphasizing positive safety features, which could contribute to changing negative customer perceptions. It also contributes to eliciting the theory of customer value among banks by focusing on how they should properly enhance their use of shared value. Moreover, it will present to managers how e-banking predictors can send meaningful and timely information to customers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The relationship between spiritual management and determinants of turnover intention	[ "Management technique", "Employee behaviour", "Employee turnover" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Focus on employee spirituality in the workplace is one of the important trends in business in the twenty-first century (Shellenbarger, 2000). Burack (1999) argued the fast growing interest and durability of workplace spirituality originate largely from two mainstream business developments. One is called the \"economic-technological imperative,\" the other one is simply described as \"people centered management.\" The former that is dealing with \"downsizing and re-engineering\" seems to be confronted by decreasing economic returns, the later focus on people driven approaches which are viewed as the main contributing factor to inter-firms' outstanding performance differences. The major transformation occurring in organizations is also referred to as \"spirituality movement\" and characterized as having with less to do with rules and order and more to do with meaning, purpose, and a sense of community (Ashmos and Duchon, 2000). Unfortunately, despite spiritual phenomenon being such an essential issue in an organization, there is deficiency of studies in this research area; what's more, it is rare for studies to use spiritual variables. Hence, this study is offering a conceptual framework of spiritual management and employee turnover intention and present empirical evidence to fill in the gap.The definitions of employee spirituality are abounding, Clark's (1958) definition of religion serves well to define spirituality:[It] can be most characteristically described as the inner experience of the individual when he senses a Beyond, especially as evidenced by the effect of this experience on his behavior when he actively attempts to harmonize his life with the Beyond (p. 3, p. 22).However, religion is not synonymous with spirituality (as most of the literature on spirituality emphasizes). Roof's (1993) research had dealt with the distinction between religion and spirituality; the religion had an institutional connotation, meant practicing rituals, adhering to dogma, and attending services. On the other side, the spirituality had more to do with life's deeper motivations and an emotional connection to God.Heskett et al. (1994) contended the service-profit chain which puts \"hard\" values on \"soft\" measures to help managers link the internal service quality with employee satisfaction, royalty and productivity, and then creating high-service value to the customers. High-service value brought out a high-external customer satisfaction and royalty. That is why the internal service quality is so important to the organizational profit and revenue growth. And most of the researchers agree that only satisfied employees can create satisfied customers.This research drew on the partial concepts of service profit chain to analyze the relationships between spirituality management and determinants of employee turnover intention. And then identified effective management concepts and suggestions from the empirical results to improve employee satisfaction/loyalty and achieve the ultimate goals of growth and profitability.The remainders of this study are organized as follows: first, we discuss the current literature regarding the meanings of spiritual management, service profit chain, and determinants of employee turnover intention. Next, we introduce the research methodology. Third, we describe the empirical results. Finally, we present the conclusions of the research on spiritual management.\nLiterature review: This study was partially based on Heskett et al.'s (1994) service profit chain framework and investigated the relationship between spiritual management and determinants of employee turnover intention. The conceptual model of this study is shown in Figure 1. Before we describe the model in detail, we want to introduce the concepts of spiritual management, service profit chain, and determinants of employee turnover intention.Spirituality and spiritual management\nResearch methodology: This study surveyed managers and manufacturing employees between January and March 2007 by convenient sampling. We obtained 87 useful responses for data analysis. We applied the grey relational analysis (GRA) to process the data. The GRA was first proposed by Deng (1982), and was based on the theory of grey relation space. Grey relation means the measurement of changing relations between two systems or between two elements that occur in a system over time (Shih et al., 1994). If two elements develop in a consistent trend, the two elements have a high level of relation. If two elements develop in an inconsistent trend, they have a low level of relation. Using GRA, the multi-criteria-weighted average is proposed in the decision-making process that ranks the options in preference order under the conditions of non-linear constraints, uncertainties and conflicting objectives. It will identify degree of relatedness between spiritual management and determinants of employee turnover intention.\nResearch results: Empirical data were collected with mail questionnaires. The questionnaire had used Likert five-scale to measure the degree of agreement on spiritual management and turnover intention, that is \"strongly disagree\" score 1, \"disagree\" score 2, \"neutral\" score 3, \"agree\" score 4, and \"strongly agree\" score 5. Furthermore, GRA was used to calculate the grey relational grades of managers' and employees' perceptions, respectively.Descriptive statistics\nConclusions and suggestions: As stated above, there has been a transformation occurring in all kinds of organizations called \"spiritual movement,\" that is organizations now are making room for new spiritual dimension, a dimension that has less to do with rules and order and more with meaning, purpose, and a sense of community. The growing interest in spirituality is derived from several society changes, such as downsizing, which had made workers more demoralized (Brandt, 1996), the workplace have replaced neighborhoods, churches, civic groups, and extended families and became the primary source of community (Conger, 1994), and the eastern culture being more and more attractive to the west (Brandt, 1996). But the most important driver is the pressure of global competition on chief executive officers (CEOs) who now have to recognize that employee creativity needs of fuller expressing themselves at a workplace, and such expressing is difficult when work itself is not meaningful. That is to say, the combination of heart and head will be a competitive advantage (Ashmos and Duchon, 2000). On the other hand, employee turnover has become the nightmare in lots of organizations because of a high cost of recruitment and poor quality of products and services due to high turnover. Even more importantly, high turnover resulted in serious immoral problems.Therefore, this study keep focus on finding the appropriate spiritual management tactics to reduce the employee turnover intention effectively and furthermore upgrading the employees' spirituality.According to the empirical results, this study found out that there exist some perception differences between managers and employees with regard to the relationship between spiritual management tactics and employee turnover intention. Managers consider \"the tangibles,\" like CWN, taking exercises or other ways to release the work pressure as more effective tactics. Compared with the managers, the employees favor \"the intangibles,\" such as harmonious atmosphere, stimulation and inspiration, employee growth and other ways that can improve the internal atmosphere, etc. There also exists mutual agreement from managers and employees regarding to pay less attention on the role of \"rotation\" on employee turnover intention.Employee turnover is a widely discussed phenomenon and have direct/indirect effect on firm productivity. So the fact, that the firm need to effectively retain an employee satisfaction in the organization, should be important for all managers, but especially the human resources managers. Our preliminary results indicate that conducting appropriate spiritual management would benefit from reducing employee turnover and then increasing the firm performance, while if firms ignore the spiritual sides of employees it can be exposed to high risk of loosing good employees and having immoral atmosphere in the workplace.\nLimitations and future research recommendations: Based on the concepts of service profit chain, the final goal of this study is to understand how spiritual management, by various tactics, can reduce the turnover intention effectively and contribute to profitability and growth in organizations. Although this study did not address performance issues, it has implied the results. Since this study is an exploratory research, the lack of other empirical studies is clearly a limitation, more work needs to be done in regard to reliability and validity of measures of spiritual management. A cultural comparison can be also studied, as it would be interesting to see if those 11 spiritual management tactics has the same effect on employees' turnover in different cultural environments. However, as we attempted to provide a conceptual framework and did some empirical tests on spiritual management, we think it is a way to initiate a scholarly and practical conversation about the importance of spirituality in the workplace and human resource management. Like Ashmos and Duchon (2000) said, developing a conceptualization and measure of spirituality at work is important so that organizational scientists can begin understanding and observing this workplace phenomenon. At least we have taken one step forward toward dealing with the \"spiritual movement.\" We hope this step will lead to more steps in the near future to get a fuller and more comprehensive understanding of what spirituality management is.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Based on the first part of the service profit chain, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between 11 spiritual management tactics and determinants of turnover intention.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A survey on managers and manufacturing employees is conducted. Later, the grey relational analysis to process the data is used together with the multi-criteria-weighted average in the decision-making process to identify degree of relatedness between spiritual management and determinants of employee turnover intention.\nFindings: - The paper finds that a difference in perception between managers and employees exists with regard to appropriate spiritual management tactics; the former put more emphasis on the tangibles aspects; and the later on the intangibles.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This paper is an exploratory research; so there is lack of other empirical studies in this area, more work needs to be done in regard to reliability and validity of measures of spiritual management. The authors suggest cultural comparison to be studied, to see if those 11 spiritual management tactics has the same effect on employees' turnover in different cultural environments.\nPractical implications: - The results indicate that conducting appropriate spiritual management will benefit from reducing employee turnover and then increasing the firm performance.\nOriginality/value: - This paper offers some concrete management suggestions both for the academy and the practice, especially in the new era of conceptual age.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Heritage reporting by the Australian public sector: Possibilities from the concepts of new public governance	[ "Australia", "Reporting", "New public management", "Heritage", "New public governance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The push for profit-based accounting in the public sector as a result of the new public management (NPM) reforms has brought substantial criticism over several decades (McCulloch and Ball, 1992; Kettl, 1997; Hood, 1998; Carnegie and West, 2005; Van Peursem and Pratt, 1998), especially when it has resulted in reporting requirements that are sector-neutral and do not take the public sector context into account. For example, a recent report by the AASB (2015) is concerned that the implementation of private-sector based International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in the Australian public sector requires excessive disclosures and that the costs of complying with some standards outweigh the benefits. In highlighting a lack of relevance of some IFRS aspects, the AASB (2015) recognises the need to consider the main users of public sector reports and their information needs. In particular, the sector-neutral approach to reporting of heritage items[1] in the public sector continues to be a topic of debate and dissension (Ellwood and Greenwood, 2016; Kober et al., 2013). This relative decrease in support for sector-neutrality, the rise of new public governance (NPG) as a concept of public administration (Osborne, 2006, 2010) and the reinvigoration of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board's (IPSASB) heritage project[2] have motivated this paper which specifically aims to contribute to the future development of heritage reporting in Australia.\n2. Concepts underpinning NPM and NPG: The introduction of extant requirements to account for heritage items occurred concurrently with the NPM reforms undertaken in Australia, the UK, New Zealand and USA, and many other Western European countries (Parker and Gould, 1999). These reforms prioritised private -sector practices, efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery, and performance management requiring targets and output reporting (Pallot, 1998). While Carlin (2005) notes that accrual accounting in the Australian public sector first occurred in 1913, the NPM reforms of the mid-1980s brought a widespread push for accrual accounting (Carnegie and West, 2005). The argument for accrual accounting was to increase accountability and performance disclosures (Potter, 2002), that is, to meet the need for better information (Oehr and Zimmerman, 2012). Carnegie and West (2005) note that such systems match costs and revenues. This provides data to fuel the neo-liberal drive for efficiency and results in job cuts and performance incentives (Considine and Lewis, 2003). Further, it is expected that the push for enhanced internal and external transparency results in better resource allocation - an outcome of knowing the cost of activities (Carlin, 2005; Ellwood and Greenwood, 2016). Nevertheless, a number of authors have refuted these claims (e.g. Carlin, 2005; Wynne, 2008).\n3. Development and present state of heritage reporting requirements - a critique: In critiquing and proposing a model for heritage reporting in Australia, this section utilises the UNESCO (1972) dimensions: identification, presentation, protection, conservation and transmission[4] to compare and contrast the current state of heritage reporting in Anglo-Western countries as required by standard setters in: Australia (the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB)), the UK (the Financial Reporting Council Board - FRC), New Zealand (the External Reporting Board - XRB) and the USA (the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board - FASAB, which promulgates standards for federal entities). We selected these standard setters because the core accounting standards differ between the UK, New Zealand and the USA, with the base of standards in the UK (IFRS) being similar to Australia[5].\n4. A proposed heritage reporting model in a pluralist and networked state: The model in Table II uses our proposed definition of heritage (see Section 3) in order to identify heritage. This redefines heritage as a resource instead of an asset and thus encourages public sector entities to engage with their communities - in much the same way as envisaged by Pallot (1990), when she coined the term \"community asset\". It also enables the broadening of discussion on heritage beyond the narrow term \"asset\" (Potter, 2002) and the need to report heritage as a financial asset that is controlled by one entity. Thus we propose that heritage that is simultaneously used in governmental operations (\"multiple use\" with economic service potential) is an \"asset\" (recognising arguments also made by Christiaens et al., 2012; Cheng and Harris, 2000). This is evident in the US standards (FASAB, 2015; XRB, 2014). We recommend that the AASB consider sector-specific valuation options for such assets, to better meet users' needs as noted above.\n5. Conclusion and directions for future research: The NPG-based model presented in this paper attempts to answer the historical questions about heritage with a new theoretical framework. Proponents of the financial valuation of \"heritage\" use a definition that forces heritage to be an \"asset\", limiting the way forward to an NPG reporting model, despite the arguments from academicians and practitioners against treating heritage as government assets (Barton, 2005b; Hooper et al., 2005). In determining heritage reporting in Australia, it is disquieting that the answers to the six questions raised by Carnegie and Wolnizer (1995, 1999) have not been developed in the two decades since they were raised and that other arguments have also been ignored in the push for sector-neutrality. Users of government reports have suggested that capitalisation does not fulfil their information needs (Aversano and Christiaens, 2014). Further, the advent of NPG and co-production suggests that these users are diverse, and their needs are likely to proliferate. The push for democracy through pluralism means government should listen and respond to their citizen's (stakeholders') needs. Thus, non-financial data are as important as (if not more than) traditional quantification to inform the inevitable decisions that governments must make to manage heritage resources in a democratic manner.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the future development of heritage reporting in Australia. Public sector reporting of heritage has been a long-standing issue, due to shortcomings in (sector-neutral) for-profit-based financial reporting standards. Australia's sector-neutral approach does not meet public sector users' information needs. The authors develop a heritage reporting model to balance community and other stakeholders' interests and address prior critiques.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper reviews heritage reporting requirements in Anglo-Western Countries, and analyses commentaries and research publications. It evaluates the existing reporting requirements in the context of new public management (which focusses on information and efficiency) and new public governance (NPG) (focussing on balancing interests and quality).\nFindings: The paper proposes an NPG-based heritage reporting model which includes indicators of performance on the five UNESCO (1972) dimensions and operational guidelines issued by UNESCO (2015). These are identification, presentation, protection, conservation and transmission. The proposed model is consistent with the notion of US SFFAS 29 (the standard for Federal entities). Not all heritage must be capitalised and hence attachment of monetary value, but detailed disclosures are necessary.\nResearch limitations/implications: The authors expect the proposed heritage reporting model to better serve users of heritage information compared to the present Australian Accounting Standards Board 116: Property, Plant and Equipment.\nOriginality/value: The authors' proposed model of heritage reporting attempts to answer Carnegie and Wolnizer's (1995, 1999) six questions, addresses decades of concerns raised in previous literature and provides a new perspective to heritage reporting based on NPG that should better serve users' needs.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Difficulty in implementing continuous improvement - Rasch measurement analysis	[ "Continuous improvement", "Barriers", "Rasch", "Rank", "Continuum" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Over the last few decades, due to the new conditions that prevail in the business environment, companies have had to innovate in order to be competitive and survive (De Jager et al., 2004; Quesada-Pineda and Madrigal, 2013). Companies have a wide range of improvement approaches at their disposal to do this (Kettinger and Grover, 1995) and continuous improvement (CI) is one of them.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 CI concept\n3. Rasch measurement theory: In the social sciences field and, specifically, in the business and management area, there are many realities that cannot be directly measured. Thus, measurement is usually done indirectly by measuring a group of items that, in theory, integrate the construct or reality that we are interested in. In those cases, it is very common to use Likert scales to value those items. The scores obtained from Likert scales cannot be considered measurements since they are ordinal scores and, in order to consider them a measurement they should have an additive structure, a characteristic that only interval variables have. RMT, initially developed by George Rasch (1960), solves this problem by transforming ordinal variables into interval variables.\n4. Materials and methods: Once the construct was defined, a survey was conducted. The scope of the study was focussed on the autonomous community of Cantabria, one of the 17 autonomous communities that integrate Spain.\n5. Analysis and findings: 5.1 Validity\n6. Discussion: According to the results, \"lack of time\" is the main barrier faced by companies when implementing CI, as other authors have already stated (Albors Garrigos et al., 2009; Middel et al., 2007; Suarez-Barraza et al., 2011). CI is a constant cycle that should not be undertaken as an occasional activity and, as a result, a lot of time should be allocated to it. Sometimes companies are too worried about solving daily problems to allocate any time to implement CI initiatives. In addition, companies should be aware that time requirements vary over the course of the implementation process. For instance, at the beginning of the project, more time is needed because everything is still to be done.\n7. Conclusions, limitations and future lines: This paper falls within the CI field. It is aimed at developing and defining a unifying construct to measure the level of difficulty in implementing CI initiatives. This approach, unlike traditional studies, considers CI barriers as a whole, as part of a superior construct. In order to do this, the RMT is used, analysing the field of CI barriers, which is quite mature, from a different and innovative perspective.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to define a general and common construct in order to measure the level of difficulty companies experience when they implement continuous improvement (CI). Additionally, a rank of barriers is obtained together with a rank of companies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In order to achieve the objective, first, a literature review is carried out to specify the domain of the construct; second, a sample of items is selected; third a survey is carried out in companies that have already implemented CI initiatives, the results being thus limited to this population; fourth, measures are purified by analysing the reliability and validity of the measurements, and finally results are obtained. The Rasch measurement theory will be used to provide a new perspective on a mature research topic.\nFindings: It can be concluded that a new valid construct has been defined together with a rank of CI barriers, being lack of time the main barrier. A rank of companies is also obtained which is a first step in the development of future research studies.\nPractical implications: Managers are provided with a better understanding of the barriers that can obstruct CI implementation. Thus, the rank of CI barriers guides managers through the most common and important obstacles so that they will be able to plan better CI strategies. In addition, the rank of companies allows each company to undertake a benchmarking exercise.\nOriginality/value: This work proposes a new way of analysing the difficulty in implementing CI as a continuum, rather than as independent barriers. From a theoretical point of view, it defines a new construct and offers a rank of CI barriers together with a rank of companies based on their level of difficulty when implementing CI initiatives. This is something new, as previous studies were mainly focussed on the items side. From a practical point of view, this study offers the surveyed companies the opportunity to see how they are positioned with respect to the other companies. Moreover, this rank of companies is the foundation on which to develop further studies with a practical orientation in the future.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Building commitment through reflective practice: an inside-out approach	[ "Reflective practice", "Individual learning", "Group learning", "Organizational development", "Learning organization", "Learning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The difference between involvement and commitment is like ham and eggs. The bird which produces eggs is involved; the animal which becomes meat is committed (Modified) - Martina Navratilova.Cognitive psychologists such as Jean Piaget, Chris Argyris, and Donald Schon believe that learning is a choice, a pursuit that considers external factors as stimuli for potential lessons learned (Marquardt and Yeo, 2012). It is no wonder former number one Czech American tennis player, Martina Navratilova, expounded on the philosophy of involvement and commitment to illuminate the criticality of choice. Through the analogy of \"animal\" and \"bird\" to demonstrate the outcome of \"ham\" and \"eggs\" respectively, Navratilova appears to have extended the dimension of \"choice\" to include the embryonic realm that transcends time and space. Similarly, learning is a complex endeavor as both a process and an outcome. All three elements - choice, involvement, and commitment - require a learning approach to allow potential lessons learned to grow organically out of ongoing events.In this paper, I draw on the perspectives of experiential learning and action learning theories to describe how personal choice, involvement, and commitment can lead to reflective practice. I extend the concept of Community of Practice (CoP) by integrating the cognitive and behavioral involvement of choice to suggest the importance of Community of Commitment and Practice (CoCP). The purpose of this paper is to argue that an inside-out approach to learning, as driven by cognitive intent (choice), is the driving force for sustaining reflective practice (involvement) and continuous improvement (commitment). I draw on findings of a three-year empirical study conducted in Singapore (Yeo, 2006) to illustrate the importance and benefits of CoCPs. The study discusses the challenges and successes of reflective practice in a large organization.\n(Re)introducing Community of Commitment and Practice (CoCP): CoCP builds on the principles of CoP where people connect physically and virtually to discuss specific issues that concern their professional practice. A CoCP consists of a group of people to share knowledge and learn from each other's experience. Together, they build resources that extend the knowledge base of specific subject areas and \"knowledge\" is subsequently stored in a database supported by IT infrastructure through intranet or web-based platforms. These resources will be used to promote ongoing dialogue about specific issues which enable participants to construct new meanings around their work practice.CoCP extends the workings of CoP by focusing more strongly on the cognitive intent of individuals where \"choice\" is governed by aligning self-interest to the wider interest of others. This ultimately has an impact on learning in groups and learning of groups, the former referring to individual learning taking place in group settings while the latter, group learning. The integration of individual learning and group learning is motivated by the power of decision making which determines the level of commitment and involvement. Here, there is a time sequence (sustainability) and a consequence of impact (action) involved in CoCP, making it different from CoP which focuses on the act of knowledge co-construction within different learning systems (Marquardt and Yeo, 2012).Ultimately, CoCP helps to develop reflective practitioners as it increases the level of commitment of people who care about what they do and how they can contribute effectively to their organizations. The aims of CoCP are threefold: to identify practical issues as potential challenges for collaborative learning; develop a culture of knowledge sharing and problem solving through team learning; and develop self-directed and reflective learning.On the inside: reflective action learning\nBeyond involvement, the power of commitment: Being committed to learning requires not just a mindset but an understanding that learning can be enriched in group settings. What differentiates CoCP from CoP is that CoP is building knowledge through practice while CoCP is using knowledge to change practice and sustain effective practice. CoP promotes involvement while CoCP requires a commitment to change. CoCP therefore focuses more on the impact of action and learning on work practice in an immediate context, while CoP focuses more on the impact of action and learning on a wider context. Commitment requires one to own the process of doing something and invest in growth and development to ensure continuous improvement and sustained motivation. Fundamentally, CoCP functions within a belief system that enables one to act according to a set of values and guiding principles. On the other hand, involvement is simply getting busy with doing something which may not necessarily lead to any desirable outcomes.CoCP in action\nTowards organizational development: CoCP is an integral function of organizational development which promotes growth and change, leading to organizational competitive advantage. Participants become catalysts of change when they translate their learning into reflective practice. This helps them to modify norms and routines by disrupting predictable dynamics and introducing alternative systems and processes to gradually bring change to the organization. Organizations seek transformation but they cannot change without the intervention and collective effort of organizational members. CoCP helps to unravel underlying complex issues that could threaten organizational survival. It provides the space for participants to proactively seek possible solutions to alleviate toxic organizational issues and improve work systems.Organizational development initiatives are driven by process consultation and intervention led by internal or external experts (Schein, 1993). CoCP participants are consultants in their own right as they develop functional and strategic capabilities to facilitate organizational change to increase the organization's competitive advantage. CoCP allows participants to integrate their learning into underlying change processes and develop appropriate course of action for experimentation. Such experimentation goes beyond direct involvement; it requires participants to be rigorously engaged in the experience of learning, knowing, and acting to improve organizational performance by influencing others to embrace change.Through CoCP, participants are no longer mere actors of change. They increase their self-awareness and become more thoughtful in their actions, impacting their cognitive maps to generate better ideas for further action. In so doing, they increase their reflective practice when they make sense of their environment, reflect on meanings, articulate their concerns, listen to their peers' interpretations, and conceptualize new experiences for practice. As change agents, they are also keen observers of workplace dynamics and responsive to contextual stimuli that provide opportunities for learning and reflection. CoCP creates a collaborative space for action and learning, develops a network of learning systems for supporting organizational growth, and fosters shared vision among employees in promoting organizational effectiveness. Table I provides an integrative perspective of the impact of CoCP on organizational development and learning.\nThe pathway for developing a learning organization: CoCP builds organizational knowledge and strengthens organizational memory through a network of knowledge workers gathered regularly for the realization of breakthrough actions. The Singapore study (Yeo, 2006) demonstrates that CoCPs generate a great many \"Aha\" moments that alter the way people perceive their world of work. Participants of that study began to view their daily tasks differently. When confronted by challenges, they drew on the learning and experience of their CoCPs to experiment alternative processes and strategies. A shift in one's thinking has the potential to make a huge impact on work practice. Collectively, these \"Aha\" moments serve as the light that shines through the cracks of organizational messiness.The different levels of learning in CoCP enable participants to draw on a variety of knowledge resources to help them become active learners. CoCPs promote individual and group learning; collectively, they influence the wider community to develop organizational learning capabilities. A learning organization is one that every member responds to both internal and external challenges with a learning attitude (Senge, 1990). They learn from their own mistakes and the pitfalls of others. Most importantly, they are curious about why other organizations are running faster than their own organizations. CoCPs facilitate that learning process and cascade the learning to the overall fabric of the organization. CoCP is not a one-off pursuit but one that grows organically through different levels of employees. CoCP works when one believes that experience is the best platform for knowledge application. Knowledge and experience grow with time, and so do CoCPs.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to (re)introduce the concept of Community of Commitment and Practice (CoCP) and to discuss the types of learning that occur in the process. It describes the differences between CoCP and the commonly-known Community of Practice (CoP), emphasizing the power of commitment as crucial for organizational development.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A Singapore case study was used as a basis for identifying the conceptual and practical relevance of CoCP to organizational practice. A literature review based on relevant concepts provides the theoretical perspective for understanding the occurrence of learning in organizational contexts.\nFindings: - CoCP promotes reflective action learning and reflective action taking driven by an inside-out approach. Intrinsic learning is largely influenced by the intent and motivation of individuals rather than a top-down (outside-in) approach.\nPractical implications: - The reflective inquiry and collaborative learning process of CoCP help build individuals as agents of change as they not only seek to do things differently but also influence others to make the organization a better workplace. In turn, they become reflective practitioners as they view constraints as opportunities for further learning to achieve specific outcomes.\nOriginality/value: - The usefulness of CoCP is supported by relevant research and its impact on organizations is wide ranging. The paper elucidates an integrative perspective of the CoCP processes, providing a roadmap for developing the learning organization.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Co-creating value with consumers through social media	[ "Social media", "Co-creation", "Brand management", "User-generated content", "Value" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The implementation of innovative business models and new technology has enhanced interaction between enterprises and consumers. Currently, consumers do not merely passively accept products and services but also participate in the business operation process and play central roles in strengthening innovation and creating value (Etgar, 2008; Hoyer et al., 2010; Landroguez et al., 2013; Nambisan and Baron, 2009). The importance of value co-creation has been widely recognized by firms and confirmed by early research (Fuller et al., 2010; Hoyer et al., 2010; Sawhney et al., 2005).\nTheoretical background: Co-creation\nResearch method: In the current study, we first develop our model of the co-creation process model in the social media environment in two steps and then illustrate how the model can be applied in practice in the third step. First, based on the literature review, we established a primary five-stage model for the co-creation process in the social media environment, which describes the process and tasks as presented at the end of theoretical background section.\nThe process model of value co-creation: This section describes the proposed IEPAR model, which is shown in Figure 1.\nCase application: This study examines an enterprise's value co-creation through social media. The case firm is the Taiwanese franchise of a leading global coffee shop chain. Using the proposed IEPAR model, this section briefly illustrates this firm's performance in environmental care campaigns to co-create value with consumers on Facebook.\nDiscussion: The results of this study have theoretical and managerial implications.\nConclusions: The meaning and value of a brand is co-created through interactions with and among consumers involved with the brand, and the brand's image reflects the complete experience that consumers have with the brand's products and services. Social media provide enterprises with excellent platforms for value co-creation with consumers. Based on a literature review and expert interviews, this exploratory study clarifies the co-creation process in the social media environment and proposes a process model for co-creation on social media. At each stage of the process, the study illustrates the objectives to be accomplished by the social media operator and the means that can be used to complete these objectives. First, by using various types of interactive clues provided by social media, an enterprise could develop effective interactions for value co-creation with consumers. Next, the enterprise could develop consumer engagement and create an environment to motivate suggestions from consumers. In essence, consumer engagement involves a collection of experiences. It is necessary to realize that there is more than one path to engagement, and the different paths offer the consumers distinct experiences. Third, various proposals would be developed. Through a continuous dialectical process and negotiation, a firm can generate collective power in the virtual environment. The accumulation of this power would in turn direct to the enterprise's actions and ultimately result in the creation of value for new products or services. By diffusing ideas through the community, the enterprise would realize this value.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to develop a process model to facilitate enterprises' co-creating value with consumers through social media.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Drawing on the concepts of internet-based co-creation and collective action theory, this study outlines a five-stage model (Interact-Engage-Propose-Act-Realize, IEPAR) of utilizing social media to co-create with consumers, enriches the model through in-depth interviews with industry experts and briefly illustrates how it can be applied in practice using a service firm case.\nFindings: This study clarifies the co-creation process in the social media environment. For each of the process's five stages, the objectives to be accomplished by the social media operator and the means to complete the objectives are illustrated.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study illustrated the proposed model with a representative service firm. Future study may refine the model by gathering additional data from real implementations to improve its effectiveness in practice.\nPractical implications: This study suggests how an enterprise can construct a consumer co-creation platform from a managerial perspective. The proposed model can serve as a reference that enterprises can implement to increase customer value through co-creation using social media.\nOriginality/value: Enterprises have begun to notice the power of serving as a platform for co-creating value with consumers. However, it is seldom related to literature. The proposed model of the co-creation process in the social media environment can supplement past research.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Country of origin effects on brand image, brand evaluation, and purchase intention: A closer look at Seoul, New York, and Paris fashion collection	[ "Perceived quality", "Brand image", "Perceived value", "Country of origin", "Purchase intention", "Fashion collection" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Nations worldwide strive to strengthen their competitiveness, create differentiation, and generate higher added value from their fashion industries. Amid intense global competition, fashion collections are recognized as comprehensive art media representing national culture, art, and industry from production to consumption (Entwistle and Rocamora, 2006). The most commercially successful global fashion event is New York's fashion week: each year it attracts 250,000 people from around the world and generates an economic value of approximately $900 million (Friedman, 2015).\n2. Theoretical background and research hypotheses: 2.1 National stereotypes, COO images of fashion collection, and fashion brand's images\n3. Method: 3.1 Measurement\n4. Results: 4.1 Sample characteristics\n5. Conclusions: This study aimed to examine the effects of national stereotype and COO image of fashion collection on brand image, consumers' brand evaluations, and purchase intention. Our findings clearly vindicate that the relationship between a COO image of fashion collection and brand image is of strategic importance to fashion collections' and fashion brands' marketers. People's stereotypes of a nation's cultural artistic image and political economic image have a positive influence over a COO image of fashion collection. Fashion is part of the cultural industry and identity of a country. In fact, cultural artistic image has a substantial impact on a COO image of fashion collection. Furthermore, COO effects are frequently explained in term of the country's environment of economic and politics. The results of previous researches (Crawford and Lumpkin, 1993; Ko et al., 2008; Manrai et al., 1998; Wang and Lamb, 1983) suggest the possibilities to supplement the results of this study. Regarding COO effects linking fashion collection, there is a need to enhance and promote the national images such as cultural heritage, stable politics, and stable economy. However, the influence of national stereotype on fashion brand's image is predominately indirect. National stereotype cues are deemed unimportant when consumers assess a fashion brand's image. Consumers use a COO image and brand image to evaluate the quality and value of fashion products. A COO image of fashion collection and fashion brand's image both have a positive influence on brand evaluation. In particular, COO image of fashion collection is associated with a strong increase in the perceived quality. Perceived value has an affirmative impact on consumer's purchase decision making. In other words, a better COO image of fashion collection and fashion brand's image lead to higher brand evaluation, which ultimately creates a stronger purchase intention. Our results show the importance of perceived value for purchase intention. Unlike the case for perceived value, however, there is little behavioral effect directly from perceived quality as far as purchase intention is concerned. This empirical evidence from this study supports Lee and Lim's (2000) concern about relationship between perceived quality and purchase intention. Consumers are not always willing to buy fashion products with best quality. In this context, marketers of fashion brand should pay special attention to perceived value in the development and implementation of their marketing strategy.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze how national stereotype, country of origin (COO), and fashion brand's images influence consumers' brand evaluations and purchase intentions regarding fashion collections. Korea (Seoul) and overseas (New York and Paris) collections are compared and analyzed.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors conduct a structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis using data collected from Seoul, New York, and Paris.\nFindings: Consumers make higher brand evaluations and ultimately have stronger purchase intentions toward fashion collections from countries that have stronger COO and fashion brand images. In the context of fashion collections, COO image is greatly influenced by a nation's political economic and cultural artistic images. In addition, comparing the domestic Seoul fashion collection with New York and Paris collections reveals that a national stereotype images, COO images of fashion collection, and fashion brand's images cause different brand evaluation and purchase intention.\nOriginality/value: The overarching value of the study is that it expands COO research, which has been limited to actual products. Also, the results provide a basic foundation for establishing marketing strategy based on COO image as a way to enhance the development and image of fashion collection.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]

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