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Personal values and ethical fashion consumption
|
[
"Personal values",
"Ethical fashion consumption",
"The Fritzsche model"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Ethical consumption has gained popularity in recent years (Carrigan et al., 2004; Carter, 2009; Crane and Matten, 2003; Newholm and Shaw, 2007; Pinto et al., 2011; Szmigin et al., 2009). Szmigin et al. (2009) posited that ethical consumption constitutes \"positive choice behaviors such as the purchase of fairly traded or environmentally friendly products, and can involve avoidance and boycott of certain goods or companies\" (p. 224). Ethical consumption encompasses a wide array of issues such as animal welfare, environmental, fair trade, human rights, fair wages, and self-interested health concerns (Carrigan et al., 2004). For example, green consumption is strongly associated with environmental concerns (Cooper-Martin and Holbrook, 1993). Thus, green consumption is considered a subset of ethical consumption. Suitably, Harrison et al. (2005) defined the \"ethical consumer\" as one who may \"have political, religious, spiritual, environmental, social or other motives for choosing one product over another\" (p. 2). It is important to note that traditionally ethical consumption has been associated with environmental concerns, which does not encompass the entire spectrum of ethical consumption behaviors (Cooper-Martin and Holbrook, 1993). Therefore, Cooper-Martin and Holbrook (1993) identified two dimensions of ethical consumption (labeled as ethical space): first, the horizontal axis that represents a continuum from selfish to selfless (i.e. on the left are selfish consumption experiences, which include self-gratification or self-indulgence and on the right are consumption experiences that encompass self-discipline or self-sacrifice) and second, the vertical axis that represents a continuum from active to passive level of activity (i.e. active level of activity represents purposeful purchase to do good, whereas passive level of activity represents a reactive aspect of consumption that does not entail a purpose of doing good; see Cooper-Martin and Holbrook, 1993).\nLiterature review: Values\nTheoretical framework: The present study adapts the value model proposed by Fritzsche and Oz (2007), which is an example of value-behavior consistency model. According to the Fritzsche model, an individual's values (as per Schwartz, 1992, 1994) are predictors of one's intention to engage in ethical behavior. The model was proposed in the context of business ethics, where professionals face ethical dilemmas in their professional lives. As per the Fritzsche model, ethical dilemmas were presented in the form of vignettes to predict behavioral intentions of engaging in ethical behavior. This is deemed appropriate for the context of ethical fashion consumption, since the current study intends to profile ethical fashion consumers' values and understand how these values might translate into ethical fashion consumption practices. The behavioral intentions to engage in ethical as well as unethical fashion consumption behavior (e.g. the intention to buy organic apparel, counterfeit products, donating used clothes, fair trade consumption) will be gauged using vignettes (the development of vignettes for the present study will be discussed in the Measures section).\nMethod: Sample and procedure\nResults: A total of 315 responses were obtained from the online survey out of which 292 were useable. The mean age of participants was 33 years, with a range of 18-74 years. About 73 percent of participants consisted of Caucasian Americans, and 50 percent were male. About 43 percent of respondents held a bachelor's degree and about 41 percent answered that they have a high school diploma. Approximately, 62 percent of the participants have income below US$50,000 and about 30 percent earned between US$50,000 and US$100,000 annually (see Table I).\nDiscussion and conclusions: The present study employed the Fritzsche model (Fritzsche and Oz, 2007) in the context of ethical fashion consumption. The Fritzsche model states that an individual's personal values influence his/her ethical behavior intention. Our study's findings support the Fritzsche model in the context of ethical fashion consumption. Our findings suggest that self-enhancement and openness to experience personal values influence a consumer's intention to engage in ethical fashion consumption. We maintain that our study has some theoretical implications.\nImplications and limitations: Our study has practical implications. Scholars (e.g. Vinson et al., 1977) have discussed the importance of personal values in marketing and consumer behavior. For example, Vinson et al. (1977) maintained that a consumer's global personal values (e.g. self-enhancement) influence domain-specific values (e.g. related to religion or economic) and beliefs about product related values (e.g. expectancy-value). Furthermore, it has been suggested that personal values can be helpful in market segmentation and advertising campaigns (e.g. Prakash, 1986; Reynolds and Gutman, 1984; Vinson et al., 1977). For instance, the means-end chain model proposed by Gutman (1982) explained how consumers engage in consumption process to satisfy their desired personal values. According to means-end chain model, successful product positioning should be linking product attributes (means) with benefits (consequences), which lead to the satisfaction of personal values (end). In other words, it has been recommended that personal values can be helpful in designing successful advertising strategies (Prakash, 1986). For example, Doran (2009) maintained that advertisements with widespread appeal are ineffective. Therefore, from our study, we propose that, to promote ethical fashion consumption among ethical fashion consumers, firms should deliver messages that underscore openness to experience values. On the other hand, encouraging non-ethical consumers to engage in ethical fashion consumption is a tangled task (Doran, 2009). In the latter case, we recommend that firms develop communication strategies that emphasize self-enhancement values since the consumers who place importance on these set of values are least likely to engage in ethical fashion consumption.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: The role of personal values in consumer behavior is well documented; however, in the context of fashion consumption, the role of personal values' influence on consumers' ethical behavior has not been studied. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to seek to explore whether consumers' personal values predict consumers' behavioral intentions to engage in ethical fashion consumption.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The present study employed the Fritzsche model, which states that an individual's personal values are related to his/her intentions to engage in ethical behavior. The present study examined the causal relationship between the personal values and behavioral intentions to engage in ethical fashion consumption. Data collected from the US national sample were subjected to structural equation modeling.\nFindings: The proposed model explained 42 percent of variance in consumer's behavioral intentions toward ethical fashion consumption. Furthermore, a significant negative relationship between self-enhancement personal values and behavioral intention toward ethical fashion consumption was found. Several theoretical and practical implications related to the present study were discussed.\nOriginality/value: To the authors' knowledge, the study is first of its kind in several aspects: first, ethical fashion consumption has been conceptualized in the broadest definition possible, as oppose to focussing on a particular facet of fashion consumption (e.g. organic products or counterfeit fashion); second, linking consumer personal values as a predictor of his/her ethical fashion consumption behavioral intentions; and third, employing the Fritzsche model in fashion behavior context.\n",
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The effect of FDI on domestic investment and economic growth case of three Maghreb countries: Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco
|
[
"Economic growth",
"Foreign direct investment",
"Domestic investment"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The analyses of foreign direct investment (FDI) and domestic investment (DI) effect on growth economic is through several channels. These aggregates generally uphold a significant sign of economic progress in the host country. In this opinion, several discussions were taken in the Maghreb countries to popularize and make the region more attractive to both domestic and foreign investors. Especially, after the restricting of the countries concerning. The openness economic that has followed this reform had the effect of increasing the FDI influxes. As there is a significant economic growth for each country, the question becomes: can we identify significant effects of domestic and FDI on growth in the three Maghreb countries; Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco?\n2. Literature review: There are several studies on the effects of FDI on economic growth. Thus, many empirical studies have been prepared on the host countries of this investment. Among these works are those which have outlined the existence of a positive relationship between FDI and economic growth, and at here which have had reverse effect.\n3. Research methodology: F. Perroux defined economic growth as \"the sustained increase over one or more long periods of a dimension indicator, for a nation, the net real product in real terms\". However, the first theories of economic growth, such as those of Adam Smith (1776), Thomas Robert Malthus (1798), David Ricardo (1817), attach primordial importance to factors of production to explain long-term growth: capital, labor, and earth. But this explanation remains insufficient and static because it does not incorporate intangible factors such as technical progress.\n4. Results and interpretations: We will try to apply the generalized moments method (GMM) on these three equations together. This approach is used because of its relevance to other estimation methods (OLS, 2MCO and 3MCO). Now we turn to the analysis of the socio-economic impact of FDI on economic growth. The variables we have configured to explain economic growth are: export, DI, human capital and FDI.\n5. Conclusion: In conclusion, we can say that, given our estimates, the impact of FDI on the economic growth of the Maghreb countries (Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco) is different and nuanced. These effects are positive and significant only in the case of Morocco. However, for Tunisia and Algeria, there is a neutrality of these effects. It can be deduced, for this purpose, that DI and the FDI are complementary only for the case of Morocco. For the other two countries, the economic and financial landscapes remain less ambitious, and not attractive. On the other hand, DI, as a vehicle for growth, finds its place privileged for the case of Tunisia and Algeria. Indeed, DI is a positive and significant coefficient in the growth equation, credibly transferring the effects of domestic savings and credit to national value-added GDP. On the other hand, for the case of Morocco, DI does not have a significant weight in growth. Human capital is at the forefront. The knowledge and qualifications internal and imported in Morocco occupy the position in favor compared to Tunisia and Algeria.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to show how foreign direct investment (FDI) affects domestic investment and economic growth. This study empirically examines this question in the case of three developing countries (Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using the GMM estimator technique, the authors constructed a system with simultaneous equations by three endogenous variables: economic growth (GDP), FDI and domestic investment (DI).\nFindings: The study was a nuance, its results, at the role of investment-growth relationship, are of paramount importance though subtle and slightly different.\nOriginality/value: The authors used data from international institutions such as the IMF, UNCTAD, OECD and the World Bank for macroeconomic aggregates. However, the interest rate variables are derived from the central banks of the three countries in the sample. The analysis covers the period from 1980 to 2014.\n",
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The disparate roles of accounting in an amateur sports organisation: The case of logic assimilation in the Gaelic Athletic Association
|
[
"Amateur sports organisation",
"Accountability",
"Transparency",
"Institutional logics",
"Logic assimilation",
"Hybrid organizations",
"Financial reporting"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) could be described, without exaggeration, as the most successful amateur sporting organisation in the world; the largest and most important socio-cultural movement in this country; the spiritual core of this thing we call the \"Irish nation\" [...] I grew up in a GAA Household. To me, playing and following hurling and football was as natural as eating or sleeping [...] and almost as pleasurable. It was the simplest yet most profound expression possible of my Irishness.(McManus, 2009)\n2. Literature and theory: 2.1 The evolution of ASOs\n3. Research method: Given that the aim of our study is to examine the consequences of logic assimilation within an ASO, we have adopted a qualitative case-based research approach (Cooper and Morgan, 2008; Stake, 1995). The paper presents a case study that is derived from a combination of podcasts, semi-structured interviews and documentary data. The current section outlines the process of data collection and data analysis.\n4. Case context: the GAA: 4.1 History of the GAA: the emergence of a social welfare logic\n5. Case narrative: The case analysis is presented in this section. It examines the consequences of logic assimilation in three controversial situations where elements of the commercial logic and professional logic were selectively assimilated in the GAA's social welfare logic. The three situations we examine outline how accounting, in the form of financial reporting, has both mitigated and exacerbated tensions that arose due to the consequences of logic assimilation. Our first situation illustrates how financial reporting was used by the Central Council to soothe tensions that arose following the sale of TV rights to a subscription television sports broadcaster called Sky Sports (Sky). Specifically, we describe how financial disclosures were drawn upon - and largely failed - to convince members of the compatibility of the social welfare logic and commercial logic. In situation two, we illustrate how clubs and counties ignored financial reporting rules to facilitate payments to managers. We show how an absence of accounting disclosures for the payments eased tensions of logic incompatibility and played an important role in members accepting the practice as taken-for-granted. Our final situation illustrates how the visibility accounting provides can ignite resistance to logic assimilation and can disrupt practices that were previously considered uncontroversial. In the context of an elite player group called the GPA, we illustrate the challenges that it faced when expenditures on practices that erode the social welfare logic, which were previously unreported, were made public through financial disclosures. Together, the three situations highlight the role of accounting in mitigating and exacerbating tensions by controlling what is made (in)visible within the GAA.\n6. Discussion: Our analysis offers rare insights into how forms of accounting influence the maintenance of amateurism within one of the world's largest ASOs, the GAA. It highlights how financial reporting both tempered and exacerbated the challenges that the GAA faced in seeking to fortify the social welfare logic through a process of logic assimilation. While accounting was used by management to illustrate the compatibility of the commercial logic and the social welfare logic, we reveal how it played a murkier role within counties, clubs and player groups by facilitating payments that diluted the GAA's amateur status. In doing so, our analysis allows us to reveal the conflicting role accounting played within the GAA and deepens our understanding of its importance in making visible the consequences of logic assimilation within ASOs and hybrid organisations more generally (Miller et al., 2008).\n7. Conclusion: Despite their cultural and economic significance, sports organisations have received relatively little attention in the accounting literature (e.g. Potter and Lightbody, 2016). The few studies examining the role of accounting in sport have tended to focus on the so-called professional sports organisations. Apart from a handful of studies on how forms of accounting assist the transition from amateurism to professionalism, there has been an absence of accounting research focusing on ASOs. We have sought to address this research gap by examining how forms of accounting are implicated in the process through which amateurism is maintained in one of the world's largest ASOs, the GAA. We reveal how accounting both mitigated and exacerbated challenges that arose as a consequences of logic assimilation. In doing so, the paper offers the following contributions.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine an ongoing process of logic assimilation within an amateur sports organisation (ASO) called the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA). It seeks to develop our understanding of how forms of accounting mitigated (or exacerbated) the tensions that arose among GAA members due to the consequences of the assimilation of select elements of a professional logic and a commercial logic within its traditionally dominant social welfare logic.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Interviews were undertaken with representatives and members of the GAA to understand the effects of growing commercialisation and professionalisation on the organisation's traditional amateur status and social mission. In particular, the authors sought to understand how accounting, in the form of financial reporting, influenced the extent of the tensions that arose. Interviews were supported by an extensive collection of podcasts and news articles that discussed this topic.\nFindings: The paper's findings offer unique empirical insights into the role played by forms of accounting in the maintenance of amateurism within an ASO. It reveals the conflicting role of financial reporting within the GAA whereby it was used by the GAA's management to ease member concerns surrounding logic assimilation while simultaneously being ignored by clubs and counties to facilitate payments to managers thereby eroding the amateur status of Gaelic Games.\nOriginality/value: The paper is unique in its exploration of logic assimilation within a form of hybrid organisation that has previously been unexamined in the accounting literature. It extends extant understandings of how accounting influences the co-existence of potentially conflicting logics. The paper also discusses the implications of what accounting makes visible and keeps invisible on the longevity of the traditionally dominant social welfare logic within an ASO.\n",
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Supervisor political support as a buffer to subordinates' reactions to politics perceptions: A three-sample investigation
|
[
"Job satisfaction",
"Citizenship",
"Work engagement",
"Depressed mood at work",
"Perceptions of organizational politics",
"Supervisor political support"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Organizational politics are pervasive throughout all organizations and are known to exert modest to substantial amounts of influence on a number of important organizational processes (e.g. promotion decisions) and outcomes (e.g. compensation, resource allocation) (e.g. Ferris and Hochwarter, 2011; Silvester, 2008). This widespread recognition has triggered both the \"organization as political arena\" metaphor (Mintzberg, 1983) as well as the associated blurring of the assumption that reward decisions are commensurate with an individual's merits (Hall et al., 2004). As expected, considerable research has linked heightened politics perceptions to negative outcomes, including dissatisfaction (Chang et al., 2009), strain (Rosen and Levy, 2013), and decreased organizational commitment (Witt et al., 2001). Scholars' continued interest in the \"dark side\" of organizational politics has reinforced a zero-sum conceptualization, where self-interested pursuits occur exclusively at the expense of others (Hall et al., 2004).\nTheoretical foundations and hypothesis development: Perceptions of organizational politics\nMethod: Participants and procedures\nResults: Psychometric properties of supervisor political support measure\nDiscussion: Extending and refining past research, we investigated the role of subordinate perceived supervisor political support as a boundary condition capable of differentially influencing actor reactions to politics perceptions. Consistent with prior research (e.g. Chang et al., 2009), bivariate associations indicated that politics perceptions were directly associated with unfavorable workplace outcomes, supporting its strain/hindrance stressor classification. Further, as hypothesized, supervisor political support moderated politics perceptions - workplace outcomes relationships across three distinct samples.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of subordinates' perceived supervisor political support (SPS) as a boundary condition capable of attenuating individuals' negative reactions to politics perceptions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data for this three-sample investigation were obtained from employees of a package distribution firm (n=144), employees of an engineering firm (n=187), and individuals attending a manufacturing-related professional conference (n=174). Data were analyzed using hierarchical moderated regression analyses.\nFindings: Consistent with prior research, individuals' politics perceptions were directly associated with less than desirable workplace outcomes. However, individuals' who perceived their supervisors to provide them with SPS were less negatively affected by politics perceptions than their peers who perceived low levels of SPS.\nResearch limitations/implications: SPS appears to provide information to subordinates to aid in sensemaking such that they are better able to deal with requisite uncertainty associated with their political settings, and in doing so, SPS shifts their perceptions of the political environment from that of threat to potential benefit.\nOriginality/value: This investigation in one of a handful of studies to examine the other-benefitting role of political behavior as well as the conditions under which politics perceptions result in auspicious outcomes. Additionally, the manuscript is unique in that it introduces, conceptually delineates, and empirically evaluates a more active, behavioral form of supervisory support (i.e. SPS).\n",
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Hybrid activist collectives: reframing mothers' environmental and caring labour
|
[
"Care work",
"Activists",
"Community economies",
"Elimination communication",
"Everyday activism",
"Hybrid collectives"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: It was not so long ago that feminist activists of the second wave gathered behind the slogan \"the personal is political\" and embraced a politics of ubiquity that recognised the power of women acting in multiple yet particular places (Gibson-Graham, 2005). While forms of organised activism certainly played an important role as well, the widespread and contemporaneous nature of the second-wave feminist revolution resulted primarily from forms of geographically dispersed global activism conducted without coherent central organisation. This politics of ubiquity relied on the fact that because women are everywhere, a woman is always somewhere, and in these \"somewhere\" gender relations could be renegotiated (Gibson-Graham, 2005). Two important sites of renegotiation were \"the places closest in\" (Underhill-Sem, 2005): the body and the home. In particular, feminists reframed and challenged naturalised understandings of the reproductive and nurturing capacities of women's bodies, and the domestic sphere as a women's natural place of work and responsibility. While feminist activism is still current and important in these two sites, in this paper I am interested in extending our reframing of women's embodied and home-based caring labour with reference to environmental as well as social activism. In other words, activism for, and with, the \"more-than-human\" (Whatmore, 2006).\nEC and OZNappyfree: Under a large tree in the botanical gardens, a cluster of mothers and small children gather around a few picnic rugs and prams. One mother stands swaying back and forth as she talks, rocking a five-month-old baby in a cloth sling. The baby sits upright over her hip and stares wide-eyed at the crowd of children, babies and mothers. The baby looks up at the mother, then tries to straighten its legs in the sling. \"Hang on a minute\", she says to the group, and looks around the park as she loosens the rings on the sling. She lifts the baby up and out, and swings it around so that its back is against her front torso, and her hands support its thighs in a loose squat. We now see it is a boy, because in what seemed like one fluid movement she had also removed his nappy. She walks to a nearby bush a little distance from the group, and squats herself, holding him out in front. \"Ssssss\", she softly cues, and a small stream of urine arcs through the air.\nEveryday activism and mothers' caring labour: To what degree can mothers and others engaged in this form of infant hygiene be understood as environmental activists? Elsewhere, the work mothers do to secure organic food for themselves and their children has been critically analysed as individualising \"identity work\", constructing a neoliberal consumer fantasy of the \"organic child\" who is the sole responsibility of the mother (Cairns et al., 2013). Likewise, the work American La Leche League mothers do to collectively support each other in breastfeeding their infants and children has been critiqued for its middle-class roots and normative assumptions about women's paid and unpaid work (Bobel, 2001). Yet undoubtedly organic foods and breastfeeding are steps in the direction of environmental sustainability - why are those women not generally understood as environmental activists of everyday practice? Perhaps what we are coming up against here is the traditional analysis of the Left that links activism with more public, demand-based activism, what Chatterton and Pickerill term \"the militant activist\". Post-structural commentators argue that this affective attachment to the \"hegemony of hegemony\" (Day, 2004) prevents Leftist academics from seeing the diversity of activist engagements already happening in place (Gibson-Graham, 1996), and is perhaps a form of academic paranoia (Sedgwick, 1997). For those using the \"strong theories\" (Sedgwick, 2003) of the critical Left, any direct action for change that is too domestic and unorganised seems to smack of the private sphere, and thus, the problematic neoliberal trend of outsourcing caring labour to the \"shock absorbers\" (MacGregor, 2006) of society - women.\nKey themes of direct action on OZNappyfree: Unlike the environmental maternal activist blogs and webgroups reviewed by Logsdon-Conradsen and Allred (2010), the Oznappyfree women did not identify themselves - in this forum - as activists. Yet in forum discussions, focus groups and follow-up reflections, I have traced a number of areas of direct action for change: sustainable consumption, healthy attachment, balancing care and sharing knowledge.\nHybrid activist collectives: It should have now become clearer that my intention is not to unproblematically celebrate as activist all the domestic and caring labour that women undertake in the home. As Cairns et al. (2013) and Bobel (2001, 2004) have both pointed out, the privatisation of childcare that plays out through discourses of mothering invites and perhaps pressures mother-subjects to understand themselves as individually responsible for the wellbeing of their children and family in North America. Yet this invitation is not always taken up: in regional Australia, Organo et al. (2013) find that while women do much of the everyday sustainability and wellbeing labour in the home (making homemade washing powder and compost, feeding chickens, shopping decisions), men did much of the one-off \"project-based\" labour (building chicken coops, establishing vegetable gardens, experimenting with recipes for bread, beer, washing powder and so on) especially if they worked longer hours of formal employment. While the labour was certainly gendered, the women in Organo et al.'s study highlighted connections to flexible and industrial time in the division of activities. Like Organo et al. I have found that action for sustainability in OZNappyfree is understood as being offered at the household level, even in cases where it is mostly mothers taking up the caring labour of EC, and certainly the emotional labour (Fraad, 2000) of researching it and engaging with the forum. Yet sustainable consumption, healthy attachment relationships, balancing care, and sharing knowledge were often reported to be household values, and OZNappyfree fathers contributed to direct action around these key concerns, both through EC and in ways other than EC (for example, promoting attachment through carrying their babies around while at home or having skin-to-skin time with newborns). The household is therefore one form of collective taking action for environmental and social change[9].\nConclusion: In this paper, I have examined the everyday activist practices of the hybrid activist collective gathered around the Oznappyfree EC discussion forum. While we should be wary of caring labour that serves to isolate women or further individualise infant, child and environmental caring responsibilities on women or mothers at the expense of our broader societal collective, we should also be taking seriously the perspectives of women making meaning of their caring labour, and find ways to theorise their lives with these meanings incorporated (Casey, 2003). While the mothers contributing to Oznappyfree did not specifically frame themselves as \"activists\", the key concerns they find meaningful resonate with calls for direct ethical action to take back the economy for people and planet (Gibson-Graham et al., 2013). Drawing on the concept of hybrid collectives, we can understand the meaningful care-work of EC not as a burden carried by isolated individuals, but as shared research and activist work being carried out by a vibrant hybrid activist collective of mothers, babies, household members, microbes and communication technologies - researching, experimenting, documenting and sharing knowledge around the practice of EC. The hybrid activist collective worked to change embodied and habituated everyday hygiene practices within the family, and these contributions to different kinds of futures should not be overlooked.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to use a case study of an online parenting forum to theorise how mothers' everyday environmental and caring labour is a form of environmental and social activism in the home, that while not organised as such, is still collectivised in a \"hybrid activist collective\".\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using ethnographic data and content analysis from an online parenting forum for the nappy-free infant hygiene practice known as \"elimination communication\", the author compares the matters of key concern arising for this group of mothers with economic activist concerns as identified by Gibson-Graham et al. (2013) in their community economies work.\nFindings: The paper finds a high degree of resonance between the key concerns of the elimination communication forum members with the key concerns of community economies. Furthermore, the author identifies the components of what might comprise a \"hybrid activist collective\" of mothers and others undertaking direct action for environmental and social change.\nSocial implications: Mothers and others acting for social and environmental change through domestic practices should be recognised for their important environmental and caring labour.\nOriginality/value: The paper proposes the \"hybrid activist collective\" as a way of understanding the human and non-human elements that gather together to act for environmental and social change in a collectivised, but not formally organised manner.\n",
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Forecasting the technology revolution
|
[
"Sciences",
"Forecasting",
"Change management",
"Planning",
"Product development"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: With the onset of a knowledge economy, accelerating advances in information systems are driving a technological revolution that is transforming life. The decoding of the human genome, for instance, was only possible by using a dozen supercomputers to decipher the three billion bits of information stored in DNA. For the first time in history, knowledge - the very heart of scientific progress - is being harnessed systematically on a massive scale. The result is that breakthroughs are appearing everywhere.\nOnline research method: Figure 1 illustrates that the TechCast method consists of five phases.Phase 1: scanning\nTypical results: Figure 2 presents a summary of the forecast results organized by seven fields. The major conclusion of this work is that breakthroughs are appearing in all fields that will transform industries, the way organizations work, and society itself.We also present results more fully by organizing them into bubble charts that illustrate all three types of data for each field. Figure 3 illustrates the results for selected emerging technologies that are considered especially strategic.\nAccuracy: The obvious question raised by Delphi forecasts of this type is: \"How accurate are the results?\". TechCast has been using this method for 15 years on a variety of projects, and analyses of these results show that the variation among forecasts averages +-3 years, with standard deviations averaging 4.3 years (Halal, 1998; Halal et al., 1998).Some technologies vary more widely because they are controversial, while others show little variance because they are well established. We have also recorded \"arrivals\" of several technologies, all roughly within this likely error band of +-3 years. These results are compelling when it is recalled that the expert panel changed over this time, as did the prospects for various technologies, and other general conditions. The results also hold up well when conducting parallel studies for other purposes that compare closely (Laitner, 2004).The field of knowledge management (KM) offers a useful perspective for understanding the rationale underlying this methodology. From a KM view, this approach can be understood as a \"learning system\" conducted by a \"community of practice\" to \"continually improve\" results. This process of gathering background information, organizing it into a coherent analysis, surveying experts and using results to improve the system allows the experts to continually learn and thereby approach a \"scientific consensus.\"Some contend that methods that rely on expert judgment are subjective, whereas quantitative methods are more precise. The fallacy of this argument lies in seeing that quantitative methods also involve large amounts of uncertainty because of underlying assumptions that must be made to conduct any quantitative analysis. The TechCast approach is superior because it subsumes quantitative forecasts into the analyses provided to experts, and then allows their considered judgment to resolve the uncertainty that remains.This consensus can be in error, of course. But it represents a synthesis of the best available background information and authoritative knowledge to produce the best possible answer to a tough question. Experts may have their own bias, naturally, but it is usually distributed normally, washing out in the aggregate results.As Figure 1 shows, if the present uncertainty is defined as 100 percent, we have found through experience that this process reduces uncertainty to about 20-30 percent. The outcome can be seen as \"good enough to get decision-makers into the right ball park.\"\nRecommendations: Almost all organizations require technology forecasts to conduct their strategic planning. This is especially true of IT, health care, media, defense, and other fields that are changing constantly and facing upheavals. We outline here a simple but effective approach to managing technological change.The first requirement is to develop a method to develop forecasts or locate other sources, and then make a point of tracking the most critical trends over time. Pooling the knowledge of a sample of the organization's best minds online would be especially convenient and useful. This type of system can also be valuable for developing an organizational consensus on identifying key technologies, analyzing critical issues, framing scenarios, and evaluating strategic alternatives.We suggest a strong focus identifying \"disruptive technologies\" and studying how to protect your present capabilities from possible threats, while also finding opportunities it may offer. For instance, voice over internet protocol (VOIP) is poised to move telephone calls to the internet en masse, posing an enormous challenge to traditional telecoms. Although technological changes like this may pose great dangers, they can actually open-up bold new possibilities if approached in a creative way. Telecoms are co-opting VOIP by introducing their own versions.Promising new ventures should be selected and incubated in autonomous units freed from the normal organization constraints and supported by resources and advice. Some will almost certainly fail, so launch many projects forming a portfolio of investments that can do well on average. Plans for new ventures can be guided by the earlier forecasts to suggest feasible project timetables.Whatever the method, good managers should develop some type of well thought out plan to forecast and adapt to the wave of technological change that is upon us. There may be uncertainty about specific breakthroughs, but there is very little uncertainty that we are going to see plenty of technological change over the planning horizon.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: - This article gives managers and executives a way to think about how their organizations can benefit from the technology revolution.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Results are presented of an improved Delphi forecasting method that forecasts breakthroughs in all fields of science and technology.\nFindings: - Breakthroughs are expected that will transform business over the next 20 years.\nPractical implications: - Managers should develop a similar system to guide their strategic planning and product development.\nOriginality/value: - An improved Delphi method has been used to pool the knowledge of 100 experts working online around the globe to forecast breakthroughs in all fields of science and technology. Results show that major advances are under way everywhere, which are likely to transform business and society over the next 20 years. Managers are shown how they can develop a similar method to guide their strategic planning and product development, thereby benefiting from the coming technology revolution.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Producer relationships segmentation in Malaysia's milk supply chains
|
[
"Buyer‐seller relationships",
"Price satisfaction dimensions",
"Cluster analysis",
"Dairy industry",
"Malaysia",
"Value chain",
"Food industry"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Malaysia's dairy industry is changing rapidly as income growth, urbanization, shifting diets and more liberalized trade and investment polices enhance competition among milk processers. Milk demand is expected to increase by more than 30 percent in the half-decade period leading up to 2014 (Beghin, 2006; Dong, 2006). In the face of this rapid growth, the domestic dairy industry is only keeping pace with its overall market share, around 5 percent. However, domestic dairy companies are seeking a better understanding of how they might compete to take better advantage of a profitable and expanding market (Boniface et al., 2010).Over the years, government programs included a range of reasonably successful initiatives to improve milk yields and production output. Examples include establishing Milk Collection Centers (MCCs), introducing more productive breeds and improving veterinary and extension services. The leading dairy processors have focused on improving logistics in product flows to lower costs, reduce waste and enhance efficiency in their chains. Increasingly, however, dairy processors are exploring the role of producer incentives that go beyond traditional production and product flow logistics. In particular, milk buyers seek information on how they can build stronger and mutually beneficial relationships with their suppliers to secure regular and uninterrupted milk supplies.A growing agricultural literature suggests that efforts to build and maintain long-term buyer-seller relationships can provide benefits to both the producers and buyers, including traders, wholesalers and processors. The roles of relationships are especially important for highly perishable commodities like milk. Previous studies suggest wide-ranging outcomes and benefits, including lower transaction costs, enhanced efficiencies, joint decision-making, better information sharing and joint investments (Batt, 2003; Lu et al., 2008).Research on the role of long-term buyer relationships in the agricultural sector is relatively recent. The studies aim to understand how developing and maintaining sustainable relationships can contribute to improved profits over time. For example, the research investigates the determinants of suppliers' trust (Batt, 2003), the effects of producers' loyalty (Boniface et al., 2010), and how commitment between exchange partners influences economic outcomes (Spiller and Schulze, 2007). Other researchers examine networking between exchange partners (Lu et al., 2008) and what determines suppliers' relationship quality (Gyau and Spiller, 2007a; Reynolds et al., 2009). A few studies explore how three relationship variables, trust, loyalty and commitment, influence the economic and non-economic business performance of the producers (Gyau and Spiller, 2008). The emerging consensus from these studies is that the stronger the buyer-seller relationship, the more efficient and sustainable the supply chain.Batt (2004) however, argues that while a long term business relationship may reduce some market uncertainties, it may not be enough to provide price certainty. As a result, suppliers may abandon their exchange partner from time to time to obtain a better and more reasonable price. A number of studies recognize the importance of price satisfaction in the development and maintenance of long-term relationships between exchange partners. For instance, Gyau et al., 2011 found that offering satisfied price could strengthen and enhanced quality relationships between exchange partners. They argue that an actual price does not influence quality business relationship but behavioral factors such as price satisfaction. Considering the vital roles of price satisfaction in business relationships, we explored price satisfaction as multi-dimensional constructs (Matzler et al., 2006).This study attempts to add to the long-term relationship literature in several ways. First, it aims to provide an agricultural sector example in an emerging economy. Second, it expands on existing literature by gaining insights of the sellers' relationships perception. Finally, it explores the price satisfaction dimensions of producers. Much of the existing literature tends to treat suppliers as homogeneous. The purpose here is to investigate the nature of long-term relationships and better understand the economic implications by examining how different seller characteristics influence seller-buyer relationships. The paper contends that strategies and policies seeking to enhance quality buyer-seller relationships in the agricultural sector need to be tailored to the specific socio-demographic and economic attributes of the sellers.The next section presents an overview of the Malaysian dairy industry development. Next the research methodology and cluster solutions are outlined, followed by analysis of the results.\nMalaysia's dairy industry and market relationships: Over the past two decades, the Malaysian Government has continually structured and tailored dairy industry development through extensive research and investment. The establishment of Milk Collection Centers (MCC) through the Department of Veterinary Services (DVS) represent the initial steps to enhance the country's milk supply chain. The MCC helps dairy producers who are predominantly small-scale farmers to market the milk directly to processors. A \"Memorandum of Understanding\" obliged producers to provide labor and land while the DVS provided veterinary services, consultation and breed guidance to the producers.The MCC buys milk based on milk grades and quality at predetermined and subsidized prices (Wells, 1981). This contract does not restrict the producers from selling their milk to other buyers. Consequently, there are multiple markets for the producers. Some producers sell their milk-to-milk agents and other producers sell directly to restaurants or processing firms, including Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad, Susu Lembu Asli and Sabah International Dairies (Boniface et al., 2010). There are wide differences in the prices received by farmers depending upon to whom they sell. For instance, whereas the farm gate price that the farmers receive from the MCC and factories range from RM1.80 to RM2.50 per litre, the price range for individual, agents and restaurants lies between RM2.20 to RM4.00 (Author survey, 2009).Figure 1 indicates that Malaysia's dairy supply chain consists of three main actors; (1) the producers, (2) the buyers (which also can be the milk supplies to the consumers) and (3) the consumers. Only a few portions (5 percent) of the chain that producer interacts directly to consumers. The short supply chain implicates the significant role of the buyer and the seller to achieve long-term working relationship.Researchers identify a number of variables that influence the relationship, including trust in the partner and satisfaction with the relationship. Batt (2003), for example, argues that trust plays a significant role in buyer-seller relationships. The presence of trust in a relationship creates market barrier to other buyers. Trust initially promote mutual understanding between exchange partners and strengthen the relationships. Other research identifies how satisfaction and trust improves the relationship quality between exchanges partners (Gyau and Spiller, 2007b). Basically, quality relationships emerge when both parties develop mutual goals, joint actions and communicate frequently (Reynolds et al., 2009). In the long run, these relationships variables strengthen business relationships and promote long term relationships in which both parties have higher commitment and loyalty in their relationships.In the dairy industry, coordinated and integrated supply chains are needed because fresh milk is highly perishable. The need for economic motivations including prices, lower transaction costs are crucial (Abdulai and Birachi, 2008; Siqueira and Aguar, 2008). However, promoting relationship outcomes such as trust, satisfaction, loyalty and price satisfaction in the relationships encourage sustainable and integrated business relationships (O'Toole and Donaldson, 2000; Espejel et al., 2008). Producers are not alike in nature but varied in reality and while other scholars identified the economic and management profiles of the producers (Rosenberg and Turvey, 1991; Espinoza-Ortega et al., 2007), we attempt to understand the producers' characteristics from the business relationships point-of-view.This study proposes to add to the long-term relationship literature by treating producers as heterogonous in an effort to better understand the nature of relationships in Malaysia's dairy industry and offer suggestions on how to improve its efficiency.\nMethodology: Measurements of the relational variables\nConclusion and implications: Research on producers' segmentation has examined the economic characteristics and management profiles of producers (Rosenberg and Turvey, 1991; Espinoza-Ortega et al., 2007). In this paper, producer segmentation is based on long-term relationship variables and dimensions of price satisfaction. This study finds two main producer groups within the sample. First, the relationship group that considers long-term relationships important to their businesses. This group has significant trust in their buyers and are committed and loyal to them. Reflected by their average farm profit, around RM4,000 monthly, they focus on sustainable business relationships. In terms of milk price, they are quite satisfied with the current milk prices offered by the buyers especially in terms of price reliability, price fairness and price transparency. Most of this group includes small-scale and semi-commercial producers.The market-driven group is made up of farmers who are willing and able to switch buyers at any time, as they are not as loyal to their current buyers. This group is interested in reliable and transparent milk prices. The market-driven group has stable average monthly profits and have been in the dairy business for more than 18 years. This evidence indicates that they have good knowledge in the dairy industry, and have more experience.The findings have some implications for both policy and management in the milk industry in Malaysia. The main managerial implication is that buyers who want to promote sustainable and uninterrupted milk supplies should focus on different strategies for the different groups. For instance, buyers can improve their relationships with the relationship-oriented group by engendering relationship management practices that can sustain the trust and commitment levels. This may include joint activities and problem solving, better communication and flexibility (Lu et al., 2008). Such activities are more likely to be successful for the relationship group than the market-driven group. For policy, we suggest that the government through the MCC should ensure clear and transparent price formulas, taking into consideration milk quality. As the largest milk buyer, the government could gain credibility by testing the milk to determine the quality. Furthermore, the price associated with each quality level also needs to be more transparent to enhance farmers' confidence in the pricing system.The outcome of this research should be seen within the context of some limitations, which could stimulate further research on the relationship performance between the dairy producers and their buyers. The first limitation is that although buyer-seller relationship is a dynamic phenomenon, this study considers the relationship variables at a particular point-in-time. The cross-sectional nature of the data implies that changes in the variables used over time are not captured. Assessing time series data would provide better insights into how dimensions of the relationship variables shift over time. Second, the relationship performance was measured from the perspective of the producers only. Future research should therefore consider measuring the relationship performance dimensions from the perspective of the buyers in order to triangulate the results and to determine if there are any perception gaps in the measurements.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: - Research on buyer-seller relationships in the agricultural sector receives little attention. A growing body of evidence suggests that strengthening buyer-seller relationships fosters more efficient supply chains. Much of the long-term relationship literature tends to treat suppliers as a homogeneous group when identifying motivations, strategies and incentives to enhance the quality of buyer-seller relationships. This article aims to explore the role of long-term relationships between buyers and sellers in Malaysia's dairy industry, taking into consideration the heterogeneous nature of producers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study examines variation in relationship quality (trust, satisfaction, and commitment), loyalty and price satisfaction dimensions, using data from a survey of 133 dairy producers.\nFindings: - Cluster analysis suggests two well-defined groups differing in terms of demographic characteristics and relationship perceptions about their buyers.\nPractical implications: - The study results highlight ways milk buyers can develop and promote more appropriate and efficient marketing strategies with milk producers.\nOriginality/value: - This study provides evidence of producer relationship segmentation in an agricultural industry of an emerging economy.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Banking system resilience: an empirical appraisal
|
[
"Resilience",
"Composite indicator",
"Financial crises",
"Banking system",
"Macroprudential regulation",
"E44",
"G01",
"G20"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The idea that financial deepening generally stimulates economic growth dated back to Schumpeter (1934) a century ago. However, newer research conducted in the wake of the global financial crisis has gained currency, and they focus the attention on the limits upon which the financial system should continue expanding without threatening the entire system's sustainability. UNEP (2015, p. 4) has recently stated \"too much finance may actually harm economies\" so there is a point until which economies may benefit from the positive effects of financial development, but we must be aware because further financial deepening contributions may diminish, or even turn negative (Sahay et al., 2015; Loayza et al., 2018).\n2. Resilience and stability: a new approach to complex banking systems: The concept of resilience was first introduced in the studies of ecologic systems in the 1970s as a movement towards the complex systems theory (Walker and Cooper, 2011). The seminal work in which the concept of resilience was first introduced was Holling (1973). He initially defined resilience as \"the ability of the system to absorb shocks in the state of the variables and afterwards return to the initial state of equilibrium prior to the change\". However, over time resilience studies have evolved and focused on the conditions that lie beyond a steady state of equilibrium. Those conditions are capable of moving the system towards a different point of equilibrium (Holling and Gunderson, 2002, pp. 27-28). Therefore, stability and resilience are complementary targets when analysing complex systems because a system should be able to both respond to a shock and afterwards move to a new state of equilibrium as part of an evolutionary process.\n3. Methodology: To appraise the multidimensional nature of resilience and stability, we propose a CI that summarises the information of the main determinants previously identified. The purpose of the CI is not to make predictions about banks' behaviour, but rather to use it as a tool for appraising the overall health of the most salient banking systems.\n4. Empirical results: Table III shows the descriptive statistics of the main determinants of resilience and stability. Since all variables all normalised, their minimum value is 0 and their maximum value is 100. We observe that means are quite different among variables, while the value of the standard deviation ranges from 18.36 to 28.37. This narrow range has positive implications for the stability of the CI.\n5. Concluding remarks: Macroprudential policy aims to enhance the resilience of the financial system and to dampen systemic risks that spread through the system. However, none macroprudential tool will remove the financial system susceptibility to cyclicality and shocks, but they will improve the financial system's resistance to shocks, the capacity of recovery after the shock, and what is more important it will serve as an important signal for identifying and addressing a potential future crises before it is too late (Group of Thirty, 2010). Resilience and financial stability can be seen as complementary goals in the quest for improving the health of banking systems in an era full of new challenges.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to empirically appraise the health of banking systems by applying a new theoretical framework based on resilience and stability simultaneously. In line with complex system theories, the authors will consider the dynamics of the banking system as a whole, analysing not only banks individually but also the broad environment in which they operate. For doing so, the authors propose a composite indicator (CI) for analysing the resilience and stability of banking systems of developed countries. The main purpose of the indicator is not to make predictions on future banks' behaviour, but rather to use it as a tool for appraising the overall health of the most salient banking systems.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors have designed a theoretical framework of resilience and stability taking into account the review of previous literature. The authors have identified the main factors underlying these two concepts that can be appraised as complementary targets. The authors have applied multiple factor analyses to identify the main determinants of banks' resilience and stability, and the authors have constructed a CI giving different weights to the relevant dimensions previously identified. The authors have tried different model specification and the authors have chosen the simplest model that render better empirical results. The authors construct the resilience and stability indicator for the group of G7 countries, Spain and Portugal, from 2004 up to 2015.\nFindings: First, resilience-stability indicators for the group of countries analysed reveal quite different patterns in the aftermath of the financial crises. While some countries have improved its relative position within the ranking, the authors find others evolving just in the opposite direction. Second, the relative position of countries in terms of the resilience-stability indicator allows the authors to identify Canada and the USA as examples of best practices. Third, by analysing countries individually the authors will be better able to identify potential weakness and areas for improvement in each case.\nPractical implications: The evolution of the resilience and stability indicator will serve as an early warning system for policy makers and supervisors in identifying signs of weakness, as well as a useful tool to identify the best practices. Furthermore, this indicator will allow to better assessing the potential vulnerability of banking systems in the advent of a forthcoming crisis. Therefore, this measurement should not be interpreted as an absolute value but as a warning signal of potential weakness in each case.\nOriginality/value: The main contribution of this paper to the existing literature is that it introduces a new reconceptualization of the health of the banking system in line with complex theories. The theoretical background is based on a comprehensive framework of resilience and stability as complementary targets. The CI summarises into a single figure a multidimensional concept like resilience and stability. The variables that the authors have used for the construction of the indicator have been validated by applying multiple factor analysis. The authors have empirically appraise the resilience and stability of a group of advanced economies that encompass the group of the more developed countries in the world and the two European cases that have receive financial support in order to see if there are remarkable differences.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Entrepreneurial learning and innovation: The critical role of team-level learning for the evolution of innovation capabilities in technology-based ventures
|
[
"Innovation",
"Knowledge",
"Exploration",
"Team learning",
"Entrepreneurial learning",
"Technology-based ventures"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The importance of knowledge-intensive ventures for economic growth is widely acknowledged. Research suggests that these ventures channel and apply new combinations of knowledge into marketable products and services, which in turn contribute to the creation of innovations and new jobs (Acs and Szerb, 2007; Delmar and Wennberg, 2010). Moreover, they generate positive side effects in the form of indirect knowledge spillovers that fuel technological advancements, industrial renewal and regional development (Wright et al., 2008). As such, knowledge-intensive ventures play an important entrepreneurial function in modern economies by creating and expanding opportunities for new products, new markets, new ways of organizing, new raw materials and new processes to meet current and future customer needs (Shane, 2005).\nLearning and innovation in technology-based ventures: Technology-based ventures are widely recognized as key contributors to job creation, technological change and industrial renewal (e.g. Beckman et al., 2012; Hsu, 2008), especially in advanced economies characterized by highly qualified R&D operations and increasing knowledge intensiveness in occupations and work tasks (e.g. Kelley et al., 2016). However, technology-based ventures that operate in early stages of their development are prone to failure since they struggle with challenges such as learning new roles and developing social structures (Shepherd et al., 2000; Stinchcombe, 1965). By contrast, these challenges also provide them with opportunities to build a sustainable organization by systematically integrating the knowledge and skills embodied in individuals into organization-wide routines and practices (Brush et al., 2001). In this respect, establishing and supporting processes that connect and channel learning across multiple levels in the organization is an issue of critical importance for the survival, competitiveness and long-term value creation of technology-based ventures.\nA dynamic, multilevel conceptualization of entrepreneurial learning: The on-going experimentation and adaptation that underlies innovation in early-stage technology-based ventures can be understood as a process of entrepreneurial learning (Ravasi and Turati, 2005). As stated in the introduction, entrepreneurial learning is in this paper conceptualized as a dynamic, multilevel process in which technology-based ventures develop their innovation capability by learning and internalizing an increasingly sophisticated set of routinized behaviours in the organization. This theoretical conception bridges individual and organizational levels of analysis that has currently divided most research on entrepreneurial learning (Wang and Chugh, 2014).\nVenture team learning and the routinization of organizational behaviours: In this section, the theorizing will continue by integrating and advancing literature and research on team learning into the overall theoretical logic in the 4I framework to identify different sets of learning processes in and around the venture team that influence explorative and exploitative innovation in technology-based ventures. The venture team is defined as the group of individuals, that is chiefly responsible for the venture's strategy and operations (Klotz et al., 2013). This team of individuals include key leadership positions such as founders and early-stage key employees, but may also include potential investors and external board members who typically play influential roles in determining the direction and performance of technology-based ventures (Bjornali and Aspelund, 2012; Gabrielsson and Huse, 2002).\nDiscussion: Contributions\nConclusions: Technology-based ventures need to identify and build productive learning processes that enable them to interpret the strategic environment and incorporate this understanding into new products, services and processes. The conceptual model developed in this paper assumes learning as a dynamic, multilevel process which largely depends on the individual's ability to ask questions, seek feedback, experiment and reflect on results and unexpected outcomes (Edmondson, 1999, p. 353). These processes correspond well to the \"inquiry\" and \"reflection\" approach emphasized in theories of experiential learning (e.g. Kolb, 1984; Politis, 2005), where learning is described as an iterative process of designing, carrying out, reflecting and modifying action. However, for organizational learning to occur there is a need for enabling structures and encouraging conditions in and around the venture team. Following this, the model specifies a distinct set of team-level constructs which is expected to influence the routinization of learning behaviours on the system level in technology-based ventures. In this respect, the model presented in the paper can be seen as a novel but critical step towards the advancement of theory that addresses how learning processes at the team level connect with individual and organizational levels of learning in technology-based ventures, thereby influencing the evolution of innovation capabilities in the entrepreneurial process. To this end, continued research in this direction are much welcome to develop the scholarly knowledge of the dynamic processes that drive learning and the development of innovation capabilities in technology-based ventures.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual model that explains how learning processes at the team level connect with individual and organizational levels of learning in technology-based ventures, thereby influencing the evolution of innovation capabilities in the entrepreneurial process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The 4I organizational learning framework is used as an overarching theoretical structure to acknowledge entrepreneurial learning as a dynamic process that operate on multiple levels in technology-based ventures. Embedded in this logic, research on team learning is integrated into this theorizing to examine how learning processes at the team level bridge and connect with learning processes operating at individual and organizational levels.\nFindings: The conceptual model identifies different sets of team learning processes critical for the routinization and evolution of innovation capabilities in technology-based ventures. In this respect, the conceptual model advances the scholarly understanding of entrepreneurial learning as a dynamic process operating across multiple levels in technology-based ventures.\nOriginality/value: By conceptualizing how individual streams of experiences over time become institutionalized via interaction, conversation and dialogue, the paper provides novel insights into the critical role of team learning for bridging individual and organizational levels of learning in the entrepreneurial learning process.\n",
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Strengthening school principals' professional development through effective school ownership in Norwegian municipalities
|
[
"Team learning",
"Trust",
"Group climate"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Does school districts make a difference for the professional development of their principals? In one sense, extant research indicates a positive answer to that simple question: Highly effective districts are characterized by district leaders and their principals engaging in \"cross-school collaborative inquiry into problems and a search for solutions that go beyond current knowledge and expectations\" (Anderson and Louis, 2012, p. 201). Studies from the US context suggest that school district staff and their superintendents should aim at strengthening the principals' leadership competence through joint learning venues that focus on professional development in leadership areas (Anderson and Louis, 2012; Stein and Coburn, 2008). On the other hand, the extant literature provide only limited guidance for how school district might operate as such professional learning systems (Honig, 2008, p. 627).\n2. The Norwegian policy culture in education: The political and administrative context of the current study is Norwegian municipalities, which constitutes the district and local authority level (between the state and individual schools) in the Norwegian school governance system. The main objectives of the 426 municipalities are to provide their inhabitants with primary and lower secondary education, basic healthcare services and elderly care, and thus, acting as a mediating level in the Norwegian welfare state system. During the last two decades the state has delegated significant amounts of formal power, authority, and responsibility toward municipalities to organize their functions as school owners in accordance with their own priorities (Moos, Kofod and Brinkkjaer, 2016; Moos, Nihlfors and Paulsen, 2016). Most commonly, except in the smallest municipalities, a school superintendent is responsible for primary education within the entire municipality and thus the unity of command of the school principals. The superintendent, despite a range of different job titles in use, is typically subordinated to a political board, and also directly coupled to the top apex of the municipality hierarchy through permanent membership in the municipal top manager's leadership team (Paulsen et al., 2014).\n3. Theoretical background and hypothesis development: 3.1 Professional development through enhancing leadership competence\n4. Method: 4.1 Participants\n5. Results: In testing the hypotheses, a multi-level analysis was conducted using the HLM7 software (Raudenbush and Bryk, 2002) to investigate a two-level intercept regression model without random slopes (Snijders and Bosker, 1999). The results are shown in Table IV.\n6. Discussion: 6.1 Implications for theory development and further research\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how school principals' leadership competence is enhanced by participation in municipal school district leader teams in the Norwegian context.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study investigated a field sample of 854 school principals working in 252 municipal school leader teams. Hypotheses were developed and tested by using multiple regressions and structural equation modeling; whereas individual- and group-level effects were tested using a hierarchical linear modeling approach. Moderator analyses where undertaken.\nFindings: The results indicate that a supportive group climate in school leader teams is the strongest predictor of the principals' learning outcomes. Moreover, trust to the superintendent and having a competent municipal school owner apparatus also predicted this form of professional development. Moderator analysis provides supplementary insights by showing that the positive effect of a trusting relationship to superintendents is contingent of a competent school owner.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study reinforces the crucial importance of school superintendents creating a supportive and risk-free learning climate within their team of school leaders. The study underscores the importance of a competent school owner in Norwegian municipalities and the study places emphasis on a trusting relationship between school principals and their immediate superintendent.\nPractical implications: The study highlights the importance that school district administrators develop municipal school leader teams toward effective learning system through internal competence development and a supportive group climate.\nOriginality/value: The study provides empirical evidence regarding the complex dynamics involved in the professional development of school principals in district leadership teams.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Determining the contribution of distraction factors on Malaysian seafarers using a systematic average mean value
|
[
"Average mean value",
"Distraction factors",
"Marine casualties",
"Maritime safety",
"Seafarers",
"Ship operation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the maritime sector, when safety is a priority, the element of human factor is crucial to be assessed in a particular system (IMO, 2004; Othman et al., 2015) because the discipline of human factors is devoted to understand human capabilities and limitations to design equipment, work environments, procedures and policies that are compatible with the human ability. In this way, the designed technology, environments and organizations will work with people and enhance their performance, instead of working against people and degrading their performance. However, the technologies, environments and organizations that have been designed to enhance human performance may also act vice versa and be the key factors that lead to human errors, as they may incompatible with the optimal human performance (Rothblum, 2000). These incompatible factors could increase the risk of human errors and result in the occurrences of injuries, casualties, poor health and even fatalities. A serious increment of reported cases from year 2011 to 2015 which should be concerned of as the marine safety was seriously threatened as in Figure 1 (European Maritime Safety Agency, 2016).\n2. Literature review: Distraction can be defined as a diversion process of an individual or group's attention from the desired area of focus in which it may block or diminish the reception of desired information. Distraction can be caused by several states of situations which consist of the lack of ability to pay attention, lack of interest in the object of attention or the great intensity, novelty or attractiveness of something other than the object of attention (Post and Schumm, 1997; Distraction, 2016). Sources of distractions come from both external sources and internal sources (Alboher, 2008) which may significantly affect the seafarers and may cause many undesirable effects such as excessive fatigue, mental stress and poor work performances (Trafton and Monk, 2007; Othman et al., 2015).\n3. Methodology: A test case is developed using systematic mathematical steps incorporated with an average mean value technique to determine the contribution of the distraction factors before they are ranked in preference order. The average mean value technique is a systematic mathematical algorithm is using a basic mathematical formula, the averaging, to produce more effective calculation steps and reliable outcomes (Jacobs, 1994; Foerster, 2006). In this research, the average mean value technique is used to assist in finding the weight for each of the parameters involved. It is a straightforward concept by calculating the central tendency of the parameters based on the evaluation given by the respondents compared to the other method which is more complex to understand that may lead to misconduct of the real concept of the method. In addition, the outcomes would also be easily understood and interpreted. The formulae used for this technique, generally, are shown in Equations (1) and (2).\n4. Findings: A test case was created based on the current situation faced by Malaysian seafarers on board ships. The process of selection was started by identifying the issue faced by seafarers during on board ships and determining the parameters to be used as shown in Table I. Second, the main body of the test case contains:\n5. Discussions: The factors of \"food and nutrition\" and \"Individual factors\" are leading the ranking order of overall analysis which means that they have a huge influence in affecting seafarers' conditions on board ships compared to other factors involved in this research. The percentage value of contribution between each of the factors involved, regardless of the departments that they're being into, are not so much different as each factor is interrelated with one another, for instance, food and nutrition may be the highest contribution in affecting overall Malaysian seafarers' conditions due to the effect of individual factors who manage it such as in terms of the quality of preparation and maintenance of the food or the equality of the food served on board. The quality of preparation and maintenance of the food can be seen in terms of food preparation, taste and hygiene during preparation and storage, meanwhile, the equality can be seen in terms of quantity of the halal and non-halal food served on board the ship. Factor of individual may link in the food and nutrition consumed, as the individual factors of the steward crew may influence the hygiene and the quality of the food prepared. Thus, if the food and nutrition is not so good in terms of hygiene, quality, taste and segregation of the \"halal\" or non-halal' food, all the crew, regardless of which department, could be affected, as they may engage with the feeling of un-satisfaction or doubtful situation to consume the food, thus will increase the poor consumption of healthy and nutritious foods for recovery from harsh working jobs. Besides, the crew may also experience a poor state of health condition due to consumption of poor quality of food, as they may engage with food poisoning, diarrhoea, nausea or dizziness, and these situations may probably interrupt the whole activities on board, as the affected person may be distracted by the uncomfortable feeling and lead him to be less aware or leave his duties to the other crew. Such actions may cause increase of negligence or unsafe acts to occur, or may cause other crew to engage with the fatigue problem during the working hours. In the end, the safety on board will be jeopardized if such actions are not under control.\n6. Conclusion: The contributions of all listed distraction factors are determined as shown in Table V which is meeting the objective of this study, to determine the amount of distractions faced by Malaysian seafarers while serving the shipboard operation due to the recognized distraction factors among seafarers at their workplace. The weightage values of the factors indicate that each factor does have variability of influence on the seafarers based on their work backgrounds. The findings of this study contribute a scope of knowledge regarding the potential distraction factors which may exist and increase the number of adverse risks on board ships. Nevertheless, the potential factors of the distraction problem on seafarers basically are very dynamic and subjective in which they are depending on the current situation of a particular area of study and who are being involved in this study. The findings of this study are only based on the surveys made to several offshore ships in Malaysia. Further research may be conducted to all maritime transports which are usually engaged with longer times at sea and shipboard operation.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine the distraction factors based on their contributions in affecting seafarers' physical and psychological well-being.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A systematic average mean value technique incorporated with quantitative data collection is applied to determine the contributions of the involved factors in establishing the distraction problems among seafarers.\nFindings: Element of \"Food and nutrition\" is recorded as the highest contributing factor to Malaysian seafarers, for deck and engine department, respectively, in establishing the distraction-related problem among five other factors involved.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper is only providing a scope of knowledge regarding the contribution of potential distraction factors existing on board the offshore ships. However, the potential distraction factors and their contributions, respectively, are very dynamic and may vary, depending on the situation of a particular area and who are being involved.\nPractical implications: The result assists the shipping industry in recognizing the actual causes of the occurrences of marine casualties and incidents related to human factors.\nSocial implications: The benefits are addressed to seafarers' community where their well-being and work performances could be enhanced, thus reducing the occurrences of marine casualties and incidents. Local community at the shores also will be less threatened by marine pollution caused by the accidents of ships at sea.\nOriginality/value: The result provides a scope of knowledge regarding distraction-related factors in shipboard operation and also the introduction to a systematic assessment approach to determine and rank the parameters by using the systematic average mean value technique which is also a straightforward method and can be applied in any other circumstances.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Parental participation and retention in an alcohol preventive family-focused programme
|
[
"Health education",
"Family",
"Adolescents",
"Parents",
"Sweden"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Adolescents are an important group to reach in health promotion, since alcohol and drug use and other risk behaviours are major threats to young people. Underage alcohol use is related to both frequent heavy drinking later in life (Hingson et al., 2000; Hawkins et al., 1997) and to development of dependency (Hingson et al., 2006; Bonomo et al., 2004; Grant et al., 2001) as well as to physical injuries (Rainone et al., 2006; Mattila et al., 2005; Swahn et al., 2004; Spirito et al., 2001; Hingson et al., 2000; Meropol et al., 1995), and high-risk sexual behaviours (Bonomo et al., 2001).Programmes targeting family and family strengthening interventions have demonstrated positive effects in reducing adolescent problem behaviours (Kumpfer et al., 2003). These interventions are often based on a risk-focused approach. The assumption is that by reducing or eliminating the risk factors or by mitigating their precursors, alcohol and other drug problems can be prevented (Hawkins et al., 1992).From a public health position it is important to involve as many parents or families as possible in reducing problem behaviours like the use of alcohol and other drugs. However, recruiting parents into intervention programmes is not easy, especially if the intervention includes an evaluation as well (Spoth and Molgaard, 1993). Several studies report a recruitment rate of 40-50 per cent of eligible parents and some as low as 13 per cent or even as low as 10 per cent (Dusenbury, 2000; Al-Halabi Diaz et al., 2006; Cohen and Linton, 1995). In a study evaluating the Strengthening Families Programme (SFP), 38 per cent of eligible families were recruited (Spoth et al., 2002). Moving from efficacy to effectiveness studies lead to further challenges regarding attendance rates. In the PROSPER Community-University Partnership Trial the attendance rate for the Strengthening Families Programme was 17 per cent (Spoth et al., 2007).For parents coming from diverse socioeconomic areas, different recruiting strategies may be needed. Families with a lower socioeconomic status (SES) participated at a lower rate in a German trial of a universal prevention programme for child behaviour problems (Heinrichs et al., 2005). The main reasons for not participating in the programme were scheduling conflicts and time demands.Factors such as family context and the role of health beliefs may also relate to parental enrolment. Spoth et al. (2000) hypothesized that past prevention-related behaviour, family size (number of children), household income, parents' educational attainment, and child problem behaviour had an effect on inclination to enrol in a skills training intervention. Parent education appeared to be the most predictive factor of actual project participation, followed by past parenting resource use.Gender of the target child could also have an impact on programme initiation. One study reports that participation was more likely when the target child was a girl (Bauman et al., 2001). The family situation mattered in completing the programme; families with two parents living in the household were more likely to complete the programme, while the family situation did not matter to initiation.In a recent study, Haggerty et al. (2006) found that most of the variables that in the past have been shown to lower participation such as race, single-parent status, age of the adolescent and parent education level, could not be replicated in their study of programme initiation and exposure in two different programme formats of \"Parents who care\".Prior studies demonstrate a variety of predictors, not always consistent. Most of the studies have been performed in the USA; only a few have been carried out in a non-US setting. This paper will present determining factors for parental participation and retention in a Swedish version of the SFP.Swedish adaptation of the SFP\nMethod: Recruitment of parents\nResults: Recruitment and retention rates\nDiscussion: In this paper we have examined predicting factors for participation and retention in a Swedish version of the SFP. We found two contributing factors for participation (i.e. having a low score on a scale measuring warmth and having a more restrictive attitude towards youth and alcohol). For retention, both having a low score on the warmth scale and being born in Sweden were predictive.The predictors that we decided to incorporate in our analysis are well known from prior research to be important aspects of parental participation in family programmes (Heinrichs et al., 2005; Spoth et al., 2000; Bauman et al., 2001; Haggerty et al., 2006). We also included some psychological factors like the sense of warmth in the relationship with the child, perceptions of norm-breaking behaviours, rule setting, knowledge of school performance, and attitude to youth and alcohol.Surprisingly, participation was more likely when parents were less warm. In the literature of parental behaviours and parental rearing styles, warmth is a concept in the dimension of responsiveness and supportiveness (Baumrind, 2005; Barber et al., 2005a, b). One might expect the warmer parents to be responsive and supportive and therefore join a prevention programme like this. In contrast, parents who are less warm may be perceived as more analytical and may reason in a more rational way, wishing to be prepared for future risks. From a rational point of view, they may want to take advantage of new knowledge and hands-on tools in a programme aimed at preventing alcohol and other problem behaviours in their child. The less warm parents could also be influenced by negative media coverage of alcohol related harm in young people and therefore be more concerned. The warmer parents may think that they already have a good relationship with their child and are therefore less worried, and, consequently, see less value in participating in a programme like this.The finding that a more restrictive attitude to alcohol was positively related to participation was more in line with our assumption. The more restrictive attitude towards youth and alcohol could imply a concern for these issues, hence a willingness to participate in a family programme on alcohol prevention. We did not see a correlation between warmth and being restrictive in attitudes towards alcohol, even though they were both predictors to participating. Meaning that the less warm parents do not necessarily have to be restrictive and vice versa. The restrictive parents could also be perceived as less warm as a consequence of their restrictive attitude.Completion of the programme, i.e. participation in part 2, was more likely if parents were born in Sweden or if they had a low score on the warmth scale. Coming from another culture with different values and attitudes could be a contributing factor to dropping out. There might also be a language barrier. Therefore, it might be necessary to adapt the programme to meet the needs of those not born in Sweden.Compared to other family programmes the recruitment rate was quite high: 47 per cent. Other studies have shown numbers around 38 per cent (Spoth et al., 2002) and as low as 10 per cent (Cohen and Linton, 1995). One explanation for this can be the way parents were recruited. We had members of the research team informing about the programme at parent-teacher meetings in the schools. It is an advantage if you can approach parents in person and inform them by well-trained recruitment personnel (Spoth et al., 2002). This was also a time (beginning of 2003) when there was a lot of media attention about parental programmes, which could have influenced the recruitment rate.Almost half of the parents dropped out following part 1 of the programme. The majority of the dropouts reported that they did not have the time. This could imply that the programme is too long: seven sessions in the first part and five in the second. To attract more parents to participate and to retain them in family preventive interventions, further research is needed to evaluate the core elements that have to be included and to examine the amount of sessions required.The dose effect is low when counting in how many parents participated in the whole programme including seven sessions in the first part and five sessions in the second part. That means that only 16 per cent of the students had parents participating in all seven sessions; 51 per cent participated in six or seven sessions and 84 per cent in five or more. In Spoth et al. (1998), corresponding attendance rates for the SFP were 62 per cent attending all sessions, 88 per cent attending six or seven sessions and 94 per cent five or more sessions. Even if the effect of the programme per se should be large, the effect size on a group level would be diluted and therefore hard to detect.There is a difference in efficacy studies and effectiveness studies. You can have a high efficacy with a small sample, but the effectiveness is low if only a small proportion of the population participate. Even if a 47 per cent recruitment rate and a 27 per cent retention rate are high numbers in this research area, they still raise the issue of public health relevance. A programme that, despite extraordinary efforts from the research team, retains only a quarter of the intended population is unlikely to have a significant impact on the societal level.\nConclusions: In a programme like the Swedish version of the SFP, which is aimed at the general population, it is preferable to have no recruitment bias to ensure that all sorts of people are included. In that sense our programme was satisfactory. The main predictors to participating and remaining in our programme were being less warm, having a more restrictive attitude towards alcohol and being born in Sweden. An important issue in future research is to discuss and investigate how to attract more parents to participate and remain in family programmes.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine factors predicting parental participation and retention in a Swedish version of the Strengthening Families Programme (SFP).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This study is based on data from a randomised controlled trial to evaluate the effects of the Swedish version of the SFP. The sample involves 441 parents of sixth graders, and the data are obtained from parents' questionnaires measuring demographics, parental warmth, rule setting, perception of norm-breaking behaviours, knowledge of school performance, and parents' attitude towards adolescents and alcohol. Predictors of parental participation and retention are analysed with multiple logistic regressions.\nFindings: - There were two significant predictors for programme recruitment: having a low score on a scale measuring parents' emotional warmth and having a more restrictive attitude towards youth and alcohol. Retention was associated with being born in Sweden, and having a low score on the scale measuring warmth.\nPractical implications: - There are few predictors of participation and retention in the Swedish version of the SFP, indicating that the programme seem to attract all types of parents in the general population. The fact that a low level of warmth predicts participation indicates that parents with a stronger need for support are recruited. Retention was greater among those who were born in Sweden, which indicates that efforts might be needed to meet the needs of those coming from another country.\nOriginality/value: - Recruiting and retaining parents into family programmes is challenging and it is important to identify the underlying factors for successful recruitment.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Influence of humidity and temperature on the deterioration of the building stones
|
[
"Temperature",
"Humidity",
"Degradation",
"Building stone",
"Mausoleum Imedghassen",
"Thermo-hygro buttons"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Imedghassen Mausoleum monument is located 30 km west of the town of Batna, Algeria, at an altitude of 914 m (Figure 1); it is listed as a national heritage. The mausoleum was built in the third or fourth century BC. It is built entirely from huge blocks of stones without mortar, fastened with lead studs, and rubble stones (Plate 1) (Gsell, 1972). The height of this monument is 18.35 m and has a base diameter of 58.86 m. The cylindrical base is embellished with decorative columns (Blas and Sintes, 2003).\n2. Mausoleum damage factors: Among the most significant degradation factors that appear clearly on the mausoleum are plants, lichens, algae, cracks, color change of stones, crystallization of salts, corrosion of stones, rising damp (capillary), water infiltration and loss of stone mass and rubble. However, rain and change in humidity and temperature have a marked influence on the degradation of the monument (Assafsaf and Hamiane, 2010). Plates 2 to 6 show the different degradation types.\n3. Experimentation: 3.1 Thermal shock\n4. Interpretation: 4.1 Interpretation of physical results (thermal shock and freeze/thaw)\n5. Conclusion: Building stones of the Mausoleum Imedghassen are in an advanced state of deterioration. The parameters responsible for this status are many, and they affect each other. Humidity and temperature factors are particularly noted. The large magnitude of the variation of humidity and temperature between day and night and between winter and summer, recorded on the site, confirms the relationship between these parameters and the degradation state of the monument. The samples subjected to the influence of humidity (45 and 95 per cent) showed that the amount of the absorption increases with the amount of humidity, open porosity and the time of exposure of the samples to this environment. The mass loss recorded in the test of thermal shock and freezing/thawing confirms the relationship between these factors and the conservation status of the Mausoleum.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the influence of humidity and temperature on the deterioration of the building stones of the Imedghassen Mausoleum located in Batna, Algeria.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Thermo-hygro buttons were used to control the microclimate of the monument (humidity and temperature).\nFindings: The obtained results on the variations in temperature, humidity and also the dew point enabled the confirmation of the relationship between these factors and the origin of the stone deterioration and the degradation state of the monument.\nResearch limitations/implications: Scientific research approach in this work is to find a relationship between the factors of degradation and the state of conservation of the monument, using, for the first time, thermos-hygro buttons in situ to follow with great precision the microclimate.\nPractical implications: These results can be extrapolated to all new and old houses having the same environment.\nSocial implications: The use of thermo-hygro buttons as an in-situ logger that can monitor and control humidity and temperature (microclimate) is of great importance for the preservation of cultural heritage monuments.\nOriginality/value: Thermo-hygro buttons are used for the first time to monitor and control the temperature and humidity on site. Their use makes a great contribution in the field of control degradation of building materials by moisture and temperature.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Beyond training: new firefighters and critical reflection
|
[
"Ethics",
"Fire services",
"Sociology of work"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Over the past 20 years the focus of educators writing about firefighting labor have focussed primarily on operational competencies and training needs (Wilson, 2000a, b; Ohio State Department, 2003). However, in the twenty-first century, a focus on training is not enough. Firefighters have become increasingly professionalized, technologically advanced, and expected to deal with hazards of considerable complexity in changing built, social and natural environments. Now is a time of intense media scrutiny, fanned by robust community demands for environmental responsibility, safety and accountability. An emphasis on prevention and mitigation has emerged, and litigation has become a real possibility where individuals or groups of \"consumers\" are unhappy with emergency responses.Nowhere is this truer than in the urban fire and rescue services. No longer are firefighters manual laborers relying on a basic trade certificate. \"Command and control\" and \"do as you're told\" approaches to firefighter development are clearly inadequate in the face of complex incident command systems, multi-agency collaborations and the human geography of post-modernity. \"Adaptive performance\" (Joung et al., 2003) has become a factor in safe and smart firefighting. In addition, firefighters have been increasingly asked to do new kinds of labor (Baigent et al., c2002; Childs et al., 2004) previously associated with the community services, such as community development and education. As Sir Graham Meldrum (Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Fire Services for England and Wales) pointed out in the forward to Baigent et al. (c2002, p. 4) report:The role of a firefighter has changed dramatically over the past few years and will continue to do so as the modernizations agenda is developed. This will have implications for everything associated with the service and in particular in relation to the type and delivery of basic training. The wider role of rescue work and the demands of community fire safety require skills that need to be taught in a different manner to that of firefighting. All of this will require the initial training to be delivered in a manner that meets the new agenda.Firefighting is no longer blue-collar labor. But if it is not, what does it mean for firefighters to engage in professional labor? This paper will draw from the traditions developed within the professional communities of nurses and educators to suggest that we need to begin an extended conversation about \"critically reflective firefighters\".\nCritical reflection: The following discussion explores a number of questions and links these to the context of firefighting labor:* Why do educators of nurses and teachers place emphasis on \"critical reflection\" as a core capability of their work?* How is \"critical reflection\" spoken of in the literature?* What can be taken from this literature to establish the beginnings of a conversation about critical reflection and the reflective firefighter professional?Why do educators of nurses and teachers place emphasis on \"critical reflection\" as a core capability of their work?\nConclusion: This paper has argued that we need a new dialogue about what it might mean to be a \"critically reflective firefighter\". Teaching and nursing (and more recently policing) professions have a long history of incorporating \"critical reflection\" into their educational development as professional labor. The actions of firefighters are important, and tell us something about who we are, and what we value, but their accountability and professionalism needs to be based on a great deal more than gratitude and trust. Following on from 9/11, Habermas in Borradori (2003) argued that \"democratic common sense is not singular; it describes the mental state of a many-voiced public\" (italics on original, p. 109). Our community benefits from \"critically reflective firefighters\" able to articulate a many-voiced living ethics in relationship to changing social landscapes as well as burning or exploding ones. In order to earn the shoulder pips of the professional, firefighters need to begin the work of articulating debate through critical reflection; and educators working with firefighters need to develop - and write about - pedagogy appropriate to the development of reflective and enquiring emergency management. \"Becoming a critically reflective firefighter\" needs to become commonplace within recruit training and further education programs.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to initiate a conversation within the disaster community about the applicability of \"critical reflection\" to the professional work of firefighters. \"Critical reflection\" is a term commonly used within the nursing and teaching professions. Although it has contested meanings, it generally conveys the sense of purposeful enquiry about one's professional conduct, ethics and decision making. Fire fighting labor is no longer blue collar, and firefighters in western fire fighting agencies require increasingly complex capabilities and accountabilities. Could \"critical reflection\" be added to post-incident debrief as a core professional capability?\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper draws on the concept of \"critical reflection\" as it has been developed within the professional fields of nursing and teaching. It then considers the applicability of and importance of this concept to the professional field of firefighting.\nFindings: - The meanings and applications of \"critical reflection\" vary, but the inclusion of dialogue about it exists within many nurse and teacher education courses. It can be argued to provide professionals with an opportunity to engage in dialogue about their labor, and thereby scrutinise their professional conduct and the ethical dilemmas of their work.\nPractical implications: - This paper calls for a paradigmatic shift in the approach taken by educators who work with firefighters. It argues that instructional methods based on rote learning, chalk and talk, and show and tell training are insufficient as a means of developing firefighters capable of responding and adapting to the complex demands implicit within increasingly professionalized firefighting labor. Future firefighters will need to be adaptive, reflective and accountable; able to demonstrate discursive and inquisitive capabilities; and engage in reflected actions both on and off the incident ground.\nOriginality/value: - High originality. This is the first time the intellectual traditions and debates implicit within \"critical reflection\" have been linked to the work of firefighters.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Optimization of processing conditions of milk "coagulum" rings and the effect of incorporation of extenders on their quality and storage stability under ambient temperature conditions
|
[
"Storage quality",
"Banana peel powder",
"Unripe banana powder",
"Milk “coagulum” rings"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: India produces around 155.5 million tonnes of milk but only 45 percent of the milk is consumed as liquid milk while the rest 50-55 percent is converted into different traditional dairy products (Mohanta and Shrivastava, 2014). Milk is a good source of high quality protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. Owing to its high nutrient contents is unstable at ambient temperature (Mourad et al., 2014). Different preservation and packaging techniques are commonly used in the shelf life extension of foods. Reducing water activity (aw) in dairy-based products may restrict the growth and multiplication of microbes and reduces the rate of chemical reactions (Bonazzi and Dumoulin, 2014).\n2. Materials and methods: 2.1 Source of raw materials\n3. Results and discussion: Results have been presented through narration and supported with suitable tables and graphs. A critical analysis of the results obtained during the present investigation and discussion on such analysis and comparisons have also been attempted.\n4. Conclusion: The technology developed for making shelf stable RTE milk-based snack using 1.5 percent fat milk coagulum can provide a nutritious, palatable and healthy product to the consumers. The study found that the incorporation of UPB and BPP at optimum level of 11 percent and 6 percent, respectively result in increase in the yield, moisture, ash and TDF content. But, the protein and fat contents were lowered in the treated products due to replacement of coagulum with the same. Further, the acceptability of the treated products were high as it was ranked from good to excellent. The developed \"MCR\" could be stored without marked changes in quality for 42 days at ambient temperature, when packaged aerobically in PET jars.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to optimize the processing conditions of ready-to-eat (RTE) milk \"coagulum\" rings.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Milk \"coagulum\" rings were prepared from milk coagulum. Milk at four different level of milk fat (0.1, 1.5, 3 and 4.5 percent) were used to obtain milk coagulum of four different fat level for preparing milk \"coagulum\" rings. Unripe banana powder (UPB) and banana peel powder (BPP) were incorporated at three different levels separately. The incorporation levels were also optimized to be 11 percent for UPB and 6 percent for BPP on the basis of sensory evaluation.\nFindings: The yield, ash, moisture and total dietary fiber content of products with optimized level of UPB and BPP were significantly higher as compared to control while the protein and fat contents were lower. Incorporation of extenders resulted in a significant reduction in the color value of the treated products. The water activity was highest for T2 and lowest for control at the end of 42 days. TBARS as lipid oxidation parameter was highest for control and the microbial count was comparable in T1 and T2 where as it was higher in control. The sensory scores of the control was higher than the two treated products during the entire storage period.\nOriginality/value: The shelf stable RTE milk coagulum-based snack using 1.5 percent fat can provide a nutritious, palatable and healthy product to the consumers.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Segmenting elder German grocery shoppers based on shopping motivations
|
[
"Cluster analysis",
"Germany",
"Grocery shopping",
"Store choice",
"Principal component analysis",
"Elder consumers"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Like in other industrialised societies, the share of over 64 year olds in the total population is increasing in Germany (BMFSFJ, 2010). These elder consumers have been neglected by businesses for a long time (BMFSFJ, 2010), but meanwhile have become an attractive well-funded target group that likes to consume (BMFSFJ, 2010; Helm et al., 2012).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Research on elder grocery shoppers\n3. Method: To identify shopping motivations of elder grocery shoppers in Germany, multi-item variables were generated from the extensive literature review in Section 2 (especially Hare et al., 2001; Cirkel et al., 2004; Moschis et al., 2004; BAGSO, 2007; BMFSFJ, 2010; Groppel-Klein, 2010; Meyer-Hentschel and Meyer-Hentschel, 2010; Angell et al., 2012; Kocher and Bruttel, 2012; John, 2013; Kohijoki and Marjanen, 2013; Kruger et al., 2013; Mahne et al., 2017). The list of store-choice attributes was previously validated by employing focus-group interviews with 36 elder German consumers aged 65 or older, who reported about their needs and requirements when shopping for groceries. Focus-group interviews seemed suitable for this exploratory marketing research (Morgan, 1996; Stewart and Shamdasani, 2014; Lesakova, 2016).\n4. Data analysis and findings: 4.1 Shopping motivations of elder German grocery shoppers\n5. Conclusion: 5.1 Managerial implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Elder German grocery shoppers are a growing, heterogeneous, and highly relevant and attractive, but under-researched market segment. In order to understand them and their grocery shopping motivations better and target them efficiently and effectively, the purpose of this paper is to identify dimensions of their shopping motivations and segment them based on these dimensions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In total, 26 grocery store-choice criteria were identified in a thorough literature review and focus-group interviews with 36 elder German consumers aged 65 and older. In a subsequent survey, the importance of these criteria was rated by 1,288 German shoppers of the same age group. A principal component and cluster analysis were performed to identify dimensions of store-choice criteria and segments of elder German grocery shoppers. Multivariate analysis of variance, analysis of variance and discriminant analysis were used to test for statistically significant differences between the clusters.\nFindings: Basic quality considerations, shopping experience and social interaction, service and assistance, price consciousness, product orientation, convenient location and quick service and packaging requirements influence the grocery store choice of elder German consumers in decreasing order of variance explained. The cluster analysis revealed indifferent, leisure, convenience, assistance-oriented, no frills, product-oriented and service-oriented elder German shoppers, which differ in their shopping motivations statistically and significantly. These clusters are described and contrasted in detail to derive managerial implications.\nOriginality/value: This research provides the first store-choice component analysis and cluster analysis for elder German grocery shoppers. This can help food retail to reach this attractive target group more efficiently and effectively and improve the food supply of elder German consumers.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The contribution of foresight to improve long-term security planning
|
[
"Risk management",
"Security",
"Long-term planning",
"Black swans",
"Norwegian government complex"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The protection of buildings and infrastructures against security threats, such as terrorism and other intentional malicious events, have become an increasingly prominent focus of attention following several major terrorist attacks in Western countries, and the prospect of similar attacks occurring in the near and long-term future seems alarmingly likely (Hegghammer, 2016). In the process of protecting buildings, infrastructures and public places, risk management has been suggested as an appropriate tool. However, the threat of events inspired by terrorism and the modus operandi of the possible perpetrators can change rapidly. These issues become even more complicated when dealing with the protection of buildings and infrastructures and trying to ensure their resilience against a variety of possible security threats in a long-term perspective. How do security risk managers deal with these issues, and do they possess sufficient risk-management tools for long-term planning?\nTheory: Despite general interest in the active management of the future, few attempts have been made to investigate the intersections between the two academic fields of risk management and foresight studies. This is so, despite the shared focus on understanding the future and how to deal actively with and describe the uncertainties related to future events.\nDiscussion: To summarize, the main challenges of current security risk management methodology with regard to securing the Norwegian Government Complex in a long-term perspective are:\nConclusions: This study has aimed to investigate whether current security risk management methodology is sufficient for long-term security planning. The finding of this study is that the methodology risk managers use to anticipate future unwanted incidents is based on plausible scenarios, historical data, a linear perspective on the future and the known rather than the unknown. This leads to a narrow and limited understanding of possible future events. Moreover, this study concludes that current security risk analysis applied when planning for long-term future scenarios is insufficient and that foresight perspectives can contribute to a broader view on risks and extended variation of future scenarios that could lead to more effective security planning.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Despite the common focus on studying future events, the study of risk management and foresight have developed as two segmented scientific fields. This study aims to investigate whether current risk management methodology is sufficient for long-term planning against threats from terrorism and other black swan events, and whether perspectives from foresight studies can contribute to more effective long-term security planning.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study investigates the planning process of the rebuilding of the Norwegian Government Complex destroyed during a terrorist attack in 2011. The study examines whether security risk managers find current security risk management methodology sufficient for dealing with long-term security threats to the Norwegian Government Complex.\nFindings: Current security risk management methodology for long-term security planning is insufficient to capture black swan events. Foresight perspectives could contribute by engaging tools to mitigate the risk of these events. This could lead to more robust security planning.\nOriginality/value: The main contribution of this paper is to investigate whether perspectives and methodology from foresight studies can improve current security risk management methodology for long-term planning and look for cross-fertilization between foresight and risk studies. A framework for scenario development based on security risk management methodology and foresight methodology is proposed that can help bridge the gap.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Untangling the antecedents of code of ethics quality: does corporate governance matter?
|
[
"Corporate responsibility",
"Corporate governance",
"Code of ethics"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: During the past two decades, the repeated corporate scandals and the deep economic crises that have occurred have enhanced interest in the field of corporate ethics and behaviour. Within this context, a reorientation towards a sustainability firm strategy assumed increasing relevance through the implementation of managerial practices and tools. Codes of ethics are one of the most relevant examples of managerial tools in which firms are investing to improve transparency and effectiveness of their relationships with multiple stakeholders. Although these codes of ethics are relevant, additional work is required to highlight the quality of these codes and to identify the factors that affect such quality.\nTheoretical background and hypotheses: The quality of codes of ethics: a lack in the literature\nMethodology: The sample\nResults: Table I presents the descriptive statistics and correlations for our variables. The strongest correlations are found between some of the control variables and codes of ethics. More specifically, the quality of codes of ethics is negatively (r = -0.17) correlated (p\nDiscussion and conclusions: The aim of this study was to investigate the antecedents of code of ethics' quality. We focused on the effects of certain characteristics of corporate governance on the degree to which companies direct investments towards improving the quality of their codes of ethics.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to investigate the antecedents of code of ethics' quality with specific regard to the peculiarities of corporate governance, which include the role of the primary shareholders within the firm, the role and influence of independent directors on the board, the effect of board size on the strategic decision-making process and the influence of the chief executive officer's (CEO) age and gender diversity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A sample of 248 Italian public companies publishing a code of ethics as of 2011 is used to test the hypotheses through Tobit regression models.\nFindings: A positive or negative impact is derived from the implementation of a high-quality code of ethics. Codes of ethics are strongly influenced by the ownership structure of the company given the critical role played by primary shareholders with larger stakes in influencing the quality of a code. Moreover, the lower the number of independent directors, the higher the firm's propensity to invest in code of ethics' quality. Similar results were found in relation to board size and CEO age, where smaller boards and younger CEOs are more inclined to implement higher-quality codes of ethics.\nOriginality/value: Results support the argument that when linked to a sustainability strategic orientation focused on a high-quality code of ethics, corporate governance characteristics reveal influences that differ from those found in prior literature.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Impact of self-efficacy and retention on transfer of training: The mediating role of motivation to transfer
|
[
"Motivation",
"Retention",
"Transfer of training",
"Self-efficacy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Training is the most reliable technique to enhance the organizational productivity of employees (Bhatti and Kaur, 2009). Organizations spent millions of dollars every year on training for their human resource development to face global competition (Kauffeld and Lehmann-Willenbrock, 2010). Investment in training has been increased and more employees are getting training (Blandy et al., 2000) and average number of training hours per employee have also been increased (Heathfield, 2017). According to an estimate, US organizations spend annually about USD171.5 billion (Green and DeSandro, 2011). But research posits that training efforts cannot improve performance unless newly learned skills are transferred to the actual job (Baldwin and Ford, 1988; Rouiller and Goldstein, 1993; Montesino, 2002). Baldwin and Ford (1988, p. 63) defined transfer of training as \"the degree to which trainees effectively apply the knowledge, skills, and abilities gained in the training context to the job.\" This definition suggests that first requirement of transfer of training is that the trainees must learn new competencies (Velada and Caetano, 2007) and after learning training contents, trainees are required to transfer knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) on actual work (Noe et al., 2006). Research shows that training and development activities are implemented with the faith that it will give desired result (Arthur et al., 2003), but it was found that only 10-40 percent of training got transferred to actual work (Burke and Hutchins, 2007). In Pakistan, organizations also spend heavy amounts on employee training but fail to produce the desired results (Dastgeer and Rehman, 2012), so it is necessary to investigate the factors that influence transfer of training (Holton et al., 2000; Holton and Baldwin, 2003). Researchers have identified three main factors that affect transfer of training. These factors include trainee's characteristics, training design and transfer climate (Burke and Hutchins, 2007; Martin, 2010; Yamnill and McLean, 2001). In developing countries like Pakistan, researchers did not pay much attention to study the impact of trainee's characteristics on transfer of training. Also, Bhatti and Kaur (2010) proposed to test the mediating effect of motivation to transfer in the relationship between self-efficacy and transfer of training.\nLiterature review: Transfer of training\nMethodology: The population of the present study was the employees working in the banking sector in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Currently, nearly 400 branches of 30 banks were operating in this area. The reason to choose this sector is because the banking sector conducts training on a regular basis. It is a compulsion from the State Bank of Pakistan. As per requirement of the study, the purposive sampling also known as judgmental sampling was used. Data were collected only from those employees who got training in last six months. All data were collected with the help of self-administered questionnaires. Initially, about 300 questionnaires were distributed but only 240 (80 percent) were returned by the respondents. Out of returned questionnaires, only 215 were used for final analysis which was 72 percent of the distributed questionnaires.\nResults and discussions: Reliability analysis\nContributions and implications: Although previous studies have tested the impact of self-efficacy and retention on transfer of training, but the mechanism through which self-efficacy and retention influence transfer of training remains underexplored. This gap was also highlighted by Bhatti and Kaur (2010). This study has filled this gap and has contributed to the existing literature by testing motivation to transfer as a domain of explaining the relationship between trainee's characteristics (self-efficacy and retention) and transfer of training. Our findings indicate that employees with higher self-efficacy and retention exhibit higher motivation to transfer, which ultimately leads toward a higher transfer of training. The results presented also have several implications for practitioners. A clear understanding about the factors that affect transfer of training will help the trainers to design effective training programs. Knowing the importance of self-efficacy and retention as antecedents of motivation to transfer can help the training managers to design an effective training plan. This study suggests that trainers should design training contents in such a way that increases retention. This study also highlighted the importance of self-efficacy in transfer of training. If organizations want to get maximum benefits out of their heavy investments on training, they must need to provide a supportive environment that may enhance self-efficacy and retention capabilities of their employees. These findings will help the training managers to develop effective strategies for successful transfer of training.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Training plays a vital role in the success of an organization as it provides the employees an opportunity to improve their competencies. The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating effects of motivation to transfer between self-efficacy, training retention and transfer of training.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Research hypotheses were tested using quantitative research technique. The data were collected through self-administered questionnaire from 300 employees working in the banking sector of twin cities (Rawalpindi and Islamabad), of Pakistan. In total, 215 questionnaires were finally used for analysis.\nFindings: The findings of this study reveal that motivation to transfer mediates the relationship between self-efficacy, training retention and transfer of training.\nPractical implications: Although previous studies have tested the impact of self-efficacy and training retention on the transfer of training, but the mechanism through which self-efficacy and retention influence transfer of training remained underexplored. Knowing the role of self-efficacy and training retention as the antecedents of motivation to transfer can help the training managers to design an effective and efficient training plan.\nOriginality/value: This study will contribute to the existing body of knowledge especially in the Pakistani context by testing the role of trainee's characteristics in transfer of training. Also, this study has empirically tested the mediating role of motivation to transfer between trainee's characteristics (self-efficacy and retention) and transfer of training which has not been tested before.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Parenthood and labour division in Italian two-earner couples
|
[
"Gender",
"Labour",
"Family",
"Parenthood transition",
"Difference-in-differences estimator",
"SURE model",
"Intra-household work allocation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Several studies analyse empirically the paid and unpaid work supply of women and their partners adopting a life course perspective (e.g. Sanchez and Thomson, 1997; Baxter et al., 2008; Carlson and Lynch, 2013). However, the estimated effect of life course events, such as parenthood, may strongly differ across studies as a consequence, at least in part, of the misspecification of latent factors involving unobserved effects over time and \"between\" individuals (e.g. Baxter et al., 2008). In particular, the estimation of the effect of transition to parenthood on both paid and unpaid work may be influenced by the misspecification of the bargaining process between partners in intra-household labour allocation (Sanchez and Thomson, 1997; Baxter et al., 2008). As a consequence of misspecification, we can observe a lack of robustness in the findings, especially if the effect of unobserved bargaining is specified by including in the regression model proxy variables measuring the economic dependency of each partner. As an example, Brines (1994) adopted the contribution of each partner to the labour income of the household as an \"inverse\" measure of his/her economic dependency. The result of the empirical analysis is that the bargaining process depresses a woman's paid work and promotes her commitment to housework. Gupta (2007) and Gupta and Ash (2008) found that the time spent by a woman in housework is negatively related only with her own (absolute) earnings. Garcia-Mainar et al. (2011) chose as an indicator of economic dependence the fraction of a woman's non-labour income[1]. It emerged that the higher the non-labour income of the subject, the lower his/her commitment to domestic activity and, in particular, childcare.\n2. Methodology: In this study we simultaneously estimate paid and unpaid work equations to evaluate the impact of the transition to parenthood on market and domestic work of both partners. In doing this, we provide a DID parameterization of the effect of parenthood and we take into account possible misspecifications due to the bargaining process and the over-time correlation between repeated observations. In fact, as a prerequisite of the DID approach the event determining the transition should not be affected by endogeneity or measurement errors (Ashenfelter and Card, 1985; Athey and Imbens, 2006; Greene 2012; Wooldridge 2010). In particular, the conventional DID estimator requires that in the absence of treatment, the average outcomes for treated and controls would have followed parallel paths over time. This assumption may be not plausible if latent factors, influencing the pre-transition characteristics of the subjects, lead the dynamics of the outcome variable to be unbalanced between the subjects who experienced the transition and the subjects who did not experience the transition.\n3. The model: The potential effects of life course events on partners' working activity are here modelled by the specification of a simultaneous labour supply and domestic work equations model for both partners. Therefore, our model is specified as follows:(1)\n4. Empirical analysis and estimation results: In this section, we present the contents of our empirical analysis. First, we describe the data set and the criteria adopted for the sample selection. Then, using the sample data, a brief descriptive analysis of the allocation of Italian couples' working time is provided. Finally, the estimation results are discussed.\n5. Final observations: Previous studies on the effect of parenthood on partners' working time lead to a variety of results, both due to the change of the context in which the empirical analysis is carried out, and to the difficulties arising from the specification of the model. In particular, in this study we consider misspecification problems such as the influence of the incomplete specification of latent factors. The SURE stochastic specification of the error terms here adopted lets us check for endogeneity effects of partners' behaviour in bargaining and for the over-time correlation between repeated observations.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Lack of robustness of findings characterizes the empirical studies about the effect of the transition to parenthood on partners' labour division. In this analysis, the purpose of this paper is to solve these problems through the conjoint use of methodological instruments of regression analysis, allowing the authors to correct for the effects of omitted variables.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A correction method is here applied to a longitudinal simultaneous equation model. In particular, the authors impose specific constraints on the covariances of the error terms of the longitudinal simultaneous equations of the paid and domestic work of both partners. For the empirical analysis, use is made of the Italian National Institute of Statistics Multipurpose Panel Survey in the years 2003 and 2007 to select a survey sample of dual-earner Italian couples.\nFindings: The authors found that the negative influence of motherhood on the Italian women's paid work supply is stronger than the positive effect of wage. The authors found that having a child (whatever the order) decreases a woman's paid work hours by 17 hours a week, while woman's domestic work increases by 20 hours a week as the effect of the birth of the first child.\nOriginality/value: Compared to Fixed Effect or Change-Score models suggested for longitudinal studies the Seemingly Unrelated Regression Equations-Difference-in-Differences procedure let us obtain estimations also for the effect of time-invariant variables. In addition, the methodological approach allows us to correct estimates for the common effects that latent variables exert simultaneously (e.g. the bargaining process) on paid and unpaid work equations of both partners.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Role of gender on the performance of Indian microfinance institutions
|
[
"Gender",
"Microfinance institutions",
"Financial performance",
"Female board members",
"Governance structure"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Microfinance institutions (MFIs) provide financial services to the poor for achieving two goals, namely, poverty alleviation and empowerment. The mission of this industry is to reach out to large the number of poor clients (the outreach goal) like any social enterprise. On the other hand, MFIs in this industry have to be financially self-sustainable and earn profits or at least cover their costs (the financial sustainability goal) such as formal banking institutions. Most MFIs explicitly target women because more women than men are poor and vulnerable, especially in rural areas where cultural norms make it hard for women to perform any financial activity and economic activity (D'Espallier et al., 2013). The literature on non-government organizations (NGOs) suggests that female managers' style may be associated with better outreach. Recent work on gender and finance shows that female CEOs may deliver better results in some financial firms. Driven by this logic, we have tried to examine, the role of gender in various stages of operation of MFIs, namely, decision-making (governance), managerial and field level operation on the performance of MFIs in terms of profitability, efficiency and meeting the social mission of catering to poor women. Board members and top managers influence the financial and social performance of organizations. Moreover, we have tried to examine how the female managers are performing in terms of reaching their financial targets and meeting their social mission. The role of female field staff has also been examined. The idea of this study came from the fact that in India though 90 per cent borrowers of MFIs are the women when it comes to the governance it has been observed that representation of women in the boards, in the managerial level and in the staff level has not received much attention in the academic literature.\n2. Literature review: In this section, a brief review of the literature is discussed. It is divided into two themes, namely, one on female leadership in general and two contributions of this leadership in the microfinance industry in specific.\n3. Objectives and research methodology: The broad objective of this study is to understand the comprehensive role of gender in the performance of the microfinance industry. We have used secondary data from the Microfinance Information Exchange Network[1], a global web-based microfinance platform that provides individual data on MFIs. The platform is among one of the most renowned and extensive databases on worldwide microfinance and provides high-quality information. We have extracted data from 104 MFIs operating in India over the period 2010-2014 for which the concerned variables are available. We have constructed a panel set of financial and outreach indicators.\n4. Description of variables: 4.1 Regulatory status\n5. Empirical findings: In this section, we have analyzed the data to study the gender role on financial performance and social performance. We have run a random effect model[6] with ROA, cost per borrower, the yield of the gross portfolio, profit margin and OSS as the successive dependent variable.\n6. Discussion and conclusion: The present study has shown very crucial issues-related to gender role in the microfinance industry in India. Most of the literature showed that the microfinance industry targeted the women customers to cater to the weaker section of the society (D'Espallier et al., 2013; Aghion and Morduch, 2005). Very few literatures studied contribution of female board members or female managers or female field staff in this industry (Mori and Olomi, 2012; Aghion and Morduch, 2005; Strom et al., 2010 and Vishwakarma, 2017). This paper has analyzed comprehensively the role of women in decision-making, managing and the implementation in the microfinance industry.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Microfinance institutions (MFIs) are known for their contribution to the women empowerment and poverty alleviation but it is not clear about the role of gender on the performance of this industry. It is important to explore the representation of both the gender in three levels, namely, decision-making, day-to-day management and implementation of the micro-financial services. This study aims to examine the impact of female board members, female managers and female field officers on the financial and social performance of the MFIs.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors have used random effect panel data analysis. The study covers 104 MFIs operating in India. The time period of the analysis is from 2010 to 2014.\nFindings: The study has shown that as the number of female directors within the board increase there is an increase in cost per borrower. This is an indication that more female clients are being targeted. The increase in number of female managers leads to an increase in the number of active borrowers. The increase in the number of female staff members leads to an increase of operational self-sufficiency and yield of the gross portfolio.\nResearch limitations/implications: The present study has faced a lot of limitation due to the non-availability of the secondary data on the governance system of the microfinance industry. The study could not be undertaken for an extended period because of the unavailability of data for a long period.\nPractical implications: This study has highlighted the role of gender in case of performance of microfinance institutions. The gender diversity at the field level has shown to enhance the financial performance of the MFIs. So, the MFIs should try to bring gender diversity at the operation level.\nSocial implications: This study has shown that an increase of woman directors at the board level increase female clients of MFIs. The increase of female managers also enhances number of female clients. So, the gender diversity at the managerial level and director level help MFIs to meet their social performance by reaching to more number of needy female clients.\nOriginality/value: The gender diversity at the three levels, namely, board level, managerial level and field operation level has not been analyzed in the Indian context. In India MFIs mainly target the female clients so in this context having gender diversity at the three levels of operation of the MFIs, which can improve both the financial and social performance of the MFIs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Executive development: planning for "key experiences"
|
[
"Post experience learning",
"Succession planning",
"Employee development"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Successful executives are purposeful on their paths to success. They learn. They explore. They observe. They take informed chances. They make bold decisions. Companies that want to facilitate these endeavors and expedite the creation of an executive-ready talent pool can benefit from the development and utilization of a key experiences portfolio. Such a portfolio should be an explicit part of an organization's executive talent management program (Maurer and Boyle, 2006) and succession planning activities (Pomeroy, 2007). Indeed, \"if executed well, a key experiences program is evidence to an organization's key constituencies of 'how well future proofed' a company is\" (Millar, 2006, p. 12).\nA prototypical set of key experiences: To be clear, we define a \"key experience\" as:A planned activity or assignment that affords a potential executive a significant opportunity to acquire or further develop the knowledge, skills, and behaviors necessary to become a senior executive.We offer the following key experiences, which are also summarized in Figure 1, as examples of what a company might develop for its executive-oriented, key experiences portfolio. Key experiences 1-7, which help to develop \"What\" executives are expected to achieve, are: 1. Serve customers: experiences that provide opportunities for direct, frequent, and significant contact and interaction with external customers of the company's products, systems, services. As examples, this experience provides opportunities to understand customer needs, respond to customer concerns, and to develop mutually beneficial solutions. 2. Grow the business: experiences that provide opportunities to start new businesses, to organically grow an existing business, or to expand business into adjacent and emerging markets. In particular, this experience involves the development of innovative approaches, creative solutions, and the rapid conversion of technology to pursue new opportunities. 3. Develop global awareness: experiences that provide opportunities to live and work outside of one's home country, or to work in a role that involves significant interaction with constituencies from other countries. As examples, this experience provides opportunities to understand global market trends and develop region and/or country assessments of opportunities and risks. 4. Know the business: experiences that provide opportunities to enhance one's breadth and depth of business knowledge in core areas including having a clear and deep grasp of the financial language and levers of the business and, having a strong understanding of the company's products, systems, and services and their technological basis. 5. Leverage technology: experiences that provide opportunities to integrate technology and business to transform technological capability into profitable products, systems, and services. Specifically, this experience connects technology to customers. 6. Build enterprise talent: experiences that provide opportunities to lead, at a large organization level, a proactive process of ensuring that there is a continuous supply of highly productive individuals through an integrated talent management system. 7. Run a large organization: experiences that provide opportunities to run a business, lead an operation or major project, that entail having end-to-end responsibility for the performance and success of the operation as a whole, including accountability for its profit and loss.Key experiences 8-11, which help develop \"How\" executives are expected to achieve results, are: 8. Create a climate for success: experiences that provide opportunities to create and sustain an environment that empowers people by providing them with the authority they need to achieve results and at the same time foster the company's core values of integrity, innovation, customer satisfaction, and teamwork. 9. Inspire a shared vision: experiences that provide opportunities to engage people in support of a shared vision of future goals. Specifically, this experience provides opportunities to boost people's energies, inspire their commitment, communicate high expectations and standards, and instill a sense of urgency and shared accountability.10. Lead organizational change: experiences that provide opportunities to lead strategic initiatives designed to result in specific changes in the company's culture, structure, or processes. These may include reorganizations resulting from new business relationships, quality/process/reengineering initiatives, turnarounds of struggling operations, and closedowns.11. Collaborate to win: experiences that provide opportunities to develop and utilize networks of relationships that cut across functions. These experiences involve spanning organizational boundaries, utilizing influence without direct authority, in pursuit of resources to solve complex business issues and develop customer-focused solutions.Tools for managing a key experiences portfolio\nBe proactively prepared: Companies that assume executive-ready talent will exist when needed without planning for that to be true, run the risk of serious disappointment. Nearly a decade ago, Byham (1999, p. 18) reported that \"many organizations will see half their executives leave in the next five years - and there are not enough people prepared to replace them.\" We believe this prediction has come true and, more importantly, continues to be valid. An executive-oriented key experiences portfolio, facilitated by the three templates presented here, can pre-empt such shortages.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper presents the case for, and several templates for, the planning and monitoring of the key experiences status of a cadre of high-potential managers seeking to become executive-ready.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper is the result of numerous years of advising executive education corporate clients on the importance of key experiences to complete and complement a future executive's development.\nFindings: - Offers seven key experiences as examples of what a company might develop for its executive-oriented, key experiences portfolio.\nPractical implications: - The field-inspired tools presented here, are immediately and broadly applicable to those charged with the development of a pipeline of executive-ready talent.\nOriginality/value: - In a concise and comprehensive manner, readers are provided a framework for conceptualizing, planning, and establishing a key experiences portfolio for its high-potential executives. It is also shown how such an inventory can be linked to a company's competency model and to an articulated set of personal learning objectives.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The aging workforce: perceptions of career ending
|
[
"Older workers",
"Jobs",
"Human resource management",
"Personal needs",
"Job satisfaction",
"Employee participation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The retirement of the baby boomers is the most pressing HR issue of the coming decade (Young, 2006). Around the world governments, institutions and organizations are busy developing strategies to cope with the aging workforce. Because such a mass exodus of employees is unprecedented in management history, its impact is assessed on all different organizational and societal levels. Based on future expectations several measures were made at the European Summit in Lisbon in March 2000 that are supposed to help Europe manage the aging workforce. Raising the total participation of the joint workforce to 70 percent by 2010 was one of the most important norms. During a subsequent summit in Stockholm the target participation rate was further specified to 50 percent of employees within the range of 55-64 years old by 2010 (Jouhette and Romans, 2006).With a percentage of 64.3 percent, the participation rate of the working population in Flanders (the Dutch speaking region of Belgium) is currently above the European average of 63.3 percent. However, for the age category between 55 and 64 years this percentage in 2004 was only 29.5 percent, which is the lowest average within the whole European Union (Nonneman, 2007). Most other European countries have neither reached this norm of 50 percent so for the whole European Union it constitutes a tremendous challenge. In order to find out whether this objective is at all feasible and - if so - how it can be reached, there should first be assessed why so many people leave the labor market before the official retirement age of 65. If this is the result of physical or mental health problems other policies are needed than when it results from, for example, a decrease in motivation (Thompson and McHugh, 2002). When this is clear an assessment of the career-ending needs, perceptions and preferences of older workers should be conducted. That way measures and policies aimed at prolonging the participation rate of older employees can be tailored to the specific needs, perceptions and preferences of these employees.This study consists of two phases. First, we conducted a literature review to assess the scope of the problems related to the mass-retirement of older workers and to identify existing insights into why there is such a low participation rate among older workers. Second, two surveys were used to explore the career-ending attitudes of older workers and the employers' perception of the development of older workers. To our knowledge this has never before been done in a European study.Why the participation level of older employees needs to be increased\nMethod: Data collection and sample\nResults: It should be noted that there is a relatively low representation of blue-collar workers on the side of the employees (10 percent). Therefore, the results of the employee questionnaire are more representative of white-collar employees than of blue-collar employees. Furthermore, as the Cronbach alphas are from a scientific point of view rather low with an average in the 0.70's, the exact meaning of the used constructs should be interpreted with caution.Prevalence and effectiveness of end-of-career measures\nDiscussion: In this study we primarily explored what measures would effectively enhance the careers of older workers. While there is a global awareness about the future problems resulting from the mass-retirement of the baby-boom generation, little is known about what would motivate them to keep on working (Young, 2006). This is surprising as both national and international political debates are being held about what measures are needed to manage these problems effectively (Duval, 2003). One of the key measures in this debate addresses retention (Loretto and White, 2006). In our theoretical framework we suggested that imposing such measures is likely to yield effects opposite to those intended. This was confirmed by our results. While the right to remain at work after the age of 65 years is regarded as positive, the duty to continue working after the age of 65 years receives a very negative response.Instead, retention measures should fit the specific needs and preferences of the older worker, which was the focus of our second research question. The outcomes of this study show that this can best be reached by improving older worker's involvement with their job. A higher level of job involvement was shown to be related to preferences for career preservation or career expansion, while lower levels of job involvement were related to career-diminishment preferences. Furthermore, the results provide indirect support for the idea that stereotype-threat mechanisms play a role in the performance of older workers. The extremely diverse perceptions of older workers about changes in the level of their own performance suggest that older workers have become rather insecure about their own capabilities. Although our research design limits our ability to draw direct conclusions out of this finding, it does provide support for the idea that ageist stereotypes have negatively affected the older worker. In their experimental study, Abrams et al. (2006) have found a causal relation between the cognitive underperformance of older people due to salient ageist stereotypes. Hence, this third part of our study supports evidence that mindsets about the abilities of older workers need to be changed in order for older workers to remain at work (Nelson, 2002; Taylor and Walker, 1998).Practical implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is two-fold. The first is to relate the negative image of older workers to stereotype threat and to propose that effective retention management should start by replacing this negative image. The second is to assess the needs, perceptions and preferences of older workers regarding their career-ending.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A total of 266 employer questionnaires and 1,290 older worker questionnaires identified the employers' perceptions of older workers and the career-ending needs and preferences of older workers.\nFindings: - The results provide indirect support for the hypothesis that the negative image of older workers forms a self-fulfilling prophecy due to the mechanisms of stereotype threat. Furthermore, the results indicate that job involvement plays a crucial role in the preference for retirement or to keep on working.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Stereotype threat promises to be very important when it comes to career-ending measures for older workers. However, the empirical design of the study limits the possibility of drawing direct inferences about the effects of stereotype threat on older workers.\nPractical implications: - Measures and policies aimed at prolonging the participation of older workers at the labor market should be tailored to the specific needs, perceptions and preferences of older workers.\nOriginality/value: - The concept of stereotype threat has never been connected with the perceptions of older workers. Further, the assessment of the needs, perceptions and preferences related to the career-ending of older workers has never before been examined in a European study.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A sociological ethnographic study of clinical governance implementation in one NHS Hospital Trust
|
[
"Clinical governance",
"Organizational effectiveness",
"National Health Service",
"Medical management",
"Enthography",
"United Kingdom"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: According to Davies (2003) organizational studies of the NHS have not been prominent over the past few years. In particular studies of the hospital as a social organization have declined significantly in the last 30 years. This is surprising as the NHS Plan (Department of Health, 2000) constituted the biggest change to health care in England since the inception of the NHS in 1948. This included state intervention, professional regulation, inter-professional and lay relationships, commercial and administrative activities and the use of new health technologies, together with the nursing health care context. It would seem fundamental that essential factors that must be included in any change is an evidence-base and systematic evaluation. This ethnographic case study provides one such evaluation by presenting an account of how stakeholders in an NHS Hospital Trust responded to the clinical governance initiative, the effects on quality improvement and the practical accomplishment of legitimacy.\nDefining clinical governance: Since its appearance as an important element in the Government's focus on improving quality in the NHS, clinical governance has generated considerable discussion on its true meaning, substance and essential nature, in that there are problems in the widely used \"official\" definition:A framework through which NHS organizations are accountable for continuously improving the quality of their services and safe-guarding high standards of care by creating an environment in which excellence in clinical care will flourish (Department of Health, 1998, p. 33).This explanation \"however\" can be criticised because it soon becomes obvious that various connotations can be utilised for \"governance,\" for example; that of supremacy, domination, power or authority and that in this context it is not entirely clear who is doing the governing and who is to be governed. Nevertheless, in this study a \"framework\" for clinical governance was adopted for identifying the usual components such as standard setting (protocols and policies), risk management, performing audits, adverse incident recording and training, reflection and professional development in the form of a learning organization as described by Easterby-Smith and Lyles (2003).\nNew institutionalism theory: Sociological new institutionalism theory was utilised as a tool for explanation of the clinical governance process. Institutionalism is a social science approach that examines institutions in order to explain sequences of economic, political and social behaviour. Sociological new institutionalism theory has a specific perspective on institutions in the way that they are socially rewarded by legitimacy, resources and survival, subject to their acceptance of coercive, normative and mimetic institutional pressures. These institutional pressures or change mechanisms are used to achieve \"institutional isomorphism,\" in that the structures, procedures and practices become \"similar\" across organizational fields (Powell and DiMaggio, 1991).The attraction of using new institutionalism theory was influenced by Meyer and Rowan's (1977) work on how organizations incorporate structures and procedures that match widely accepted cultural models in order to become \"legitimate\" they indicate that this \"legitimacy\" may also be obtained by \"ceremonial\" actions of the organization. This was felt to be relevant and appropriate when investigating the case study's Trust structures and processes. The use of this theory was also felt to be applicable because of its emphasis on \"culture,\" in that clinical governance literature advocates that clinical governance produces a \"cultural change\" (Donaldson and Gray, 1998; Scally and Donaldson, 1998; Donaldson, 2000, 2001; Halligan and Donaldson, 2001). However, these articles are mainly theoretical, rhetorical and promotional, and concern separate components within clinical governance, with little or no comment on how the integrated approach might have an advantage in improving care.New institutionalism approaches have influenced a number of studies of health care organizations. Scott et al. (2000) for example examined the transformations that had occurred in the medical care systems in the San Francisco Bay area since 1945 and there has also been increasing interest in applying this approach to studies of the English National Health Service (NHS). Currie and Suhomlinova (2006, p. 1) \"highlighted the influence of regulatory normative and cultural-cognitive aspects of institutions operating in the health field on the boundaries that impede knowledge sharing.\" Managers, orienting to coercive pressures from the state, did not always recognise the cultural and political dimensions of knowledge sharing, oriented to within the normative frameworks of professionals, so that \"knowledge sharing across [professional] boundaries will be difficult to realize.\" As Dingwall (2009) states, the result has been a state initiative to undermine professional authority, in the name of quality and safety, in order to weaken the normative influences that check the state's coercive interventions. This paper is based on my own work (Staniland, 2008), which investigated the implementation of clinical governance, in one English NHS hospital Trust.\nThe study context: The Trust studied was broadly typical of any large university teaching hospital in England in that wards were structured within directorates with departments actively engaged in teaching and research. The formal designated organizational structure of clinical governance focused on designated committee meetings at various levels, ranging from corporate to directorate level. These consisted of the corporate clinical governance committee, the executive sub-committee, and directorate clinical governance management committees together with their accompanying terms of reference.\nMethodology: The study utilized a case study approach using ethnographic methods although some minor quantitative data was produced in respect of numbers and attendance at meetings. The qualitative data were obtained over a two-and-a-half year period by the documentary analysis of papers related to the implementation of clinical governance, observation of clinical governance meetings, day-to-day observation of ward activity and semi-structured interviews with nurses and stakeholders involved in clinical governance implementation within the Trust. In total 67 meetings were observed to include all levels of the organisation, ward observations comprised short stages of four or five hours at any one time over a period of eighteen months in two chosen directorates within the Trust and 13 semi-structured interviews were conducted within a \"Nurses\" category (comprising of a variety of nursing bands 8 to 5 throughout the organisation) and 15 interviews within the \"Stakeholders\" category (comprising of groups identified as Consultants, Managers and Professions Allied to Health.A grounded theory approach was adopted in the analysis of the semi-structured interviews. Grounded theory is an approach to the analysis of qualitative data that aims to generate theory out of research data by achieving a close fit between the two (Strauss and Corbin, 1998; Denzin and Lincoln, 2000). Of specific interest was how nurses translated available \"evidence\" into their nursing care \"practice\", what opportunities there were for this and how they saw their responsibilities in making a difference to the quality of patient care, using the Essence of Care Benchmarks (the nursing component of clinical governance) (Department of Health, 2003). The Essence of Care initiative related to the commitment made in Making a Difference, the National Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting Strategy (Department of Health, 1999). The document proposed the area of \"benchmarking\" as a process through which health care professionals could identify best practice and improve practice through a structured comparison and sharing of information about patient care, within a set framework.Having transcribed the interview data for each interviewee, in order to begin to ask analytic questions of the data generated, guidelines for the process of grounded theory coding as explained by Charmaz (2006) were followed. Two grids were prepared, one for the nurses and one for the Stakeholders. The answers were re-examined in different ways, for example using grading, grouping, response and directorate. In selecting, sorting and separating data some patterns were found. Using these patterns focused coding was established in order to make decisions about the most analytic sense in which to categorize the data. The themes were regrouped into an analytical framework, under three broad theoretical categories, those of \"Making sense\" \"Knowledge construction' \"Real work\" and \"Somebody else's job\"\nEthical considerations: Appropriate forms were completed for the NHS Local Research Ethics Committee approval. It was also necessary to apply for and obtain an Honorary Research Contract from the Trust for the observation period.\nResults: Documents and meetings\nSemi-structured interviews: Emerging themes from interview data were identified under the main categories previously identified. Some relevant comments by the staff are portrayed here; further interview detail is available in Staniland (2008).Making sense\nDiscussion: First, it is argued under the new institutionalism framework that whilst the Trust meetings in this study met the \"coercive\" external criteria (that required a relevant corporate clinical governance committee to be set up in order for the organisation to be recognized as legitimate), in reality, the activities were diverse, the committee appeared ineffective and did not comply with its own terms of reference. It was also noted that the documents produced became increasing \"isomorphic\" in respect to meeting the guidelines for gaining external legitimacy in relation to what Powell and DiMaggio (1991, pp. 67-72) suggest that organizations in the same field adopt 'similar forms' despite the consequences on the efficiency or effectiveness of that form for their own organization.In terms of new institutionalism theory, one then has to look at the purpose and need to obtain external organizational legitimacy and the achievements of the Trust over the same period of observation. It is concluded that there was a \"coercive ceremonial\" management of clinical governance throughout the Trust and the Trust used committees fundamentally to achieve the \"external organizational legitimacy\", which, in this case, appeared to be more important than quality or effectiveness. The Trust obtained a three star status and recognition (for having appropriate structures and systems in place) for insurance purposes, of a higher level of compliance with the litigation authority, which carried a significant reduction in insurance premiums. The Trust was also able to produce the appropriate documentation necessary for this \"external legitimate recognition\" and was viewed as being highly effective by the Strategic Health Authority (in fact statistically the best hospital in the region), which ultimately brought financial incentives to improve services.In this instance therefore new institutionalism theory was helpful in making sense of what was happening in the Trust and guided the finding that external legitimacy can still be obtained without a clear indication of improvement in quality at grass roots level. Conclusions were that although from a quality improvement and the researcher's own perspective the clinical governance committee was ineffective, from a new institutionalism viewpoint it was highly effective in that it did accomplish external legitimacy (Meyer and Rowan, 1977) allowing the organization to gain external legitimacy and in bringing financial incentives to the Trust.It seems logical that clinical staff, responsible for clinical decisions, work in conjunction with managers who, it is suggested should ultimately take the responsibility for putting reliable systems in place. It was evident that, at corporate level, in the context of clinical governance, there was no clearly understood delegation of responsibility and roles were misunderstood, with the result that nobody took any responsibility when things went wrong and issues remained unresolved. It is also suggested that the identified categories of \"Knowledge construction\" \"Making sense\" \"Real work\" and \"Somebody else's job\" fit together to produce a workable order for staff. They all put boundaries on workload and commitment that make the job sustainable within available resources.This paper, by taking a sociological viewpoint of clinical governance implementation in one organization, provides a useful alternative perspective of clinical governance organisational success. If a hospital demonstrates conspicuous, but ceremonial compliance in the production of institutional isomorphic documentation, it becomes legitimate, but it is argued that this affects only the ceremonial order, rather than the culture, delivery of bedside care, patient experience and, indeed, how patients are recognised amongst the members of the organization. In this case, it appears that legitimacy is the pre-condition of organizational success rather than its consequence.From the data obtained in this study, it is argued that clinical governance has created some potentially unreliable systems within the hospital studied. The whole process concerned with the implementation of procedures in relation to clinical governance clearly affected the nursing personnel, who, at the front line, were trying to use unreliable IT systems in their every day practice. It was clear that the failure of the IT systems and the increase in documentation did result in more time spent away from the patients' bedside. This raises concern at two levels, the first that managers did not give due regard to reported complaints that the IT systems did not work effectively and this in turn affected the Trust's \"knowledge management\" as described by Easterby-Smith and Lyles (2003). The second in that it was believed that change occurred through meetings that nurses, for instance, did not attend.The need for further independent studies on clinical governance is endorsed, as an important finding in this study is that there is still limited evidence for any improvement in the quality of care at the bedside as a result of the integrated approach of clinical governance. The intention of this paper is not to make recommendations but to provoke discussion and thought as to whether these findings might be present in other organizationsIn summary, by using the theoretical framework of new institutionalism theory to analyse the implementation of clinical governance within a healthcare setting it can be argued that because the hospital is good at producing external paperwork, it disguises that fact that organizational effort is apparently not making care better for patients and may indeed be making it worse, but nobody appears to notice. Sociological new institutionalism theory therefore provides a coherent framework to understand why organizations adopt procedures and practices, which appear to promote uniformity and standardisation. Nevertheless, the evidence reveals some of the complexities, local difficulties and unintended consequences of such processes in a health care setting.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: - This study aims to give an account of how stakeholders in one NHS Hospital Trust responded to the clinical governance initiative, the effects on quality improvement and the practical accomplishment of legitimacy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Sociological new institutionalism theory was utilised to explain the political and ceremonial conformity that marked the clinical governance process. A case study was employed using ethnographic methods. The qualitative data were obtained by documentary analysis, observation of meetings and ward activity and 28 semi-structured interviews. A grounded theory approach was adopted in the analysis of the interviews.\nFindings: - Errors and inconsistencies were found in Trust documentation and reporting systems were poor. In practice clinical governance was inadequately understood and the corporate goals not shared. Nevertheless, during the same period the Trust obtained recognition for having appropriate structures and systems in place resulting in external legitimacy.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The results only relate to the Trust considered but the study has identified that, although the organization responded to isomorphic governmental pressures in the production of appropriate institutional documentation, the impact of clinical governance to improve the quality in practice was found to be inconsistent.\nPractical implications: - The Trust promoted and endorsed clinical governance success but the lack of organizational processes and knowledge management equally promoted its failure by denying the resources to implement the desired actions.\nOriginality/value: - Whilst the study identified that clinical governance had been a \"ceremonial success\", it is argued that the practical accomplishment in the improvement of quality of care for patients will remain a paper exercise until organizational and practice issues are addressed.\n",
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] |
Synergistic effects of operant knowledge resources
|
[
"Service industries",
"Knowledge management",
"Competitive advantage",
"Resource efficiency"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this article.In the resource based view (RBV) of the firm, first discussed in the 1990s, a new paradigm changed the way in which businesses assessed their resources and competitive advantage. RBV asserts that a company's advantage over the competition can be attributed to the company's strategic resources. These resources may be categorized as operand resources (tangible resources such as products, raw materials, and facilities that are aligned with the traditional conceptualization of \"resources\" throughout history) (Constantin and Lusch, 1994) or operant resources (intangible assets such as brand name, knowledge, or organizational capabilities) (Collis and Montgomery, 2008). In RBV, competitive advantage occurs when an organization applies its unique resources in a manner that allows the company to compete more efficiently or effectively than the competition (Collis and Montgomery, 2008).\nTheoretical background and hypothesis development: Under the traditional goods-centered dominant logic, resources act as operand resources - resources that are to be acted on such as raw materials that are made into finished goods during production (Constantin and Lusch, 1994). According to Constantin and Lusch (1994), operand resources often are tangible, static and finite. By contrast, service-dominant logic places emphasis on operant resources which usually are intangible, invisible, dynamic and infinite such as the skills and knowledge of individual employees, of customers, or organizational routines (Vargo and Lusch, 2004; Hunt, 2000). Vargo and Lusch (2004) argue that knowledge is the foundation of competitive advantage and economic growth in the service-centered dominant logic. This view is consistent with the knowledge based view (see Grant, 1996) and the extant knowledge literature (e.g. Kogut and Zander, 1992; Nonaka, 1994; Simonin, 1999; Zollo and Winter, 2002). Knowledge serves as a strategic resource in that it allows a firm to improve its manufacturing productivity (Eppel et al., 1991) and increase its alliance efficiency and adaptability (Lin and Germain, 1999).Under the service-centered dominant logic knowledge and its management is viewed as a resource that can be employed by a firm to develop value propositions in the marketplace which can lead to competitive advantage (Vargo and Lusch, 2004). In fact, under service-dominant logic, \"knowledge is the fundamental source of competitive advantage,\" (Vargo and Lusch, 2006, p. 7). Building on this logic, we conceptualize and test a model of knowledge utilization focusing on the influence of three operant knowledge resources (and their synergistic combination) on the firm's ability to develop the value proposition of ability to meet customer (see Figure 1). These operant resources are discussed in the next section.Ability to meet consumers' needs as service-oriented value proposition\nMethod: Data collection\nAnalysis and results: Measurement model results\nDiscussion: To succeed in a service-dominant economy, organizations now compete for consumers in the front-line (Lusch et al., 2006), suggesting that retailers need to become prime service integrators instead of just distributors. As such, service-dominant logic characterizes retailing as a service-integration function where meeting the consumers' needs is the pivotal capability for retailers to maintain their competitive advantage, and may be achieved through providing front-line employees with the resources and the ability to gain the knowledge necessary for service provision that meets customer needs. The present study reiterates the importance of this capability empirically (via value proposition delivery). Our study makes several important contributions to the literature.First, researchers have yet to fully explore the effects of knowledge as operant resources in their conversion into capabilities. Our results demonstrate that a firm's employees' knowledge of firm customers and knowledge of industry allow the firm to develop the ability to meet customer needs. Although this finding is not surprising, in that it confirms prior research, it is surprising from the standpoint that firm employees' knowledge of the firm's practices does not enhance the firm's ability to meet customer needs (H1c).Resource theorists (e.g. Hunt, 2000) argue that firm practices are central elements leading to firm competitive advantage. However, our results suggest that although a firm's employees may have a well developed understanding of the firm's practices, this knowledge does not, in isolation, enhance a firm's ability to meet customer needs. However, because many firm practices and policies are often in place to protect the organization (i.e. rules and procedures such as return policies in retail), perhaps employee knowledge of these practices has little effect on the ability of the employee to meet the needs of a consumer; in fact, as suggested in the interaction results discussed below, knowledge of firm practices may actually prevent or hinder employees from meeting consumer needs. These results both confirm and fail to confirm prior research in knowledge management by cautioning that all core competencies may not be created equally, especially when they are utilized in isolation, thus providing further insight into knowledge utilization under the service-centered dominant logic.More importantly, the two-way interactions provide new insights into the synergistic employment of operant knowledge resources. First, the results indicate that when the firm's knowledge of its customers is leveraged with its knowledge of its competitors the firm is able to establish more developed capabilities related to meeting customer needs. Competitor offerings and industry changes may directly affect the preferences of consumers in an industry (Kohli and Jaworski, 1990), thus it is necessary for employees interacting with these consumers to be aware of trends that may influence consumer satisfaction with encounters with the organization. For example, servers at TGI Friday's, who are trained to look for new patterns among their guests, began noticing that consumers were asking to have their burgers without buns, or to substitute fries with vegetables. This information paired with external data that many households in the USA had at least one person on a low-carbohydrate diet, led TGI Fridays to be among the first major dining establishments to offer a low-carbohydrate menu and to profit from the carb-counting phenomenon (Parasuraman et al., 2007).More interesting however was the negative two-way interaction of knowledge of customers and knowledge of firm practices. The negative nature of the interaction suggests that when employees have knowledge of customers and a well developed understanding of the firm's practices, the reliance on the firm's practices may act as a hindrance in converting their knowledge of customers into the development of effective value propositions, such as the firm's ability to meet customer needs. Traditional approaches to service have involved a top-down management approach where front-line employees were given strict policies for dealing with customers and customer complaints. In these rigid structures, service encounters, and service failures, are closely governed by firm policy (Bowen and Lawler, 1995). If organizations emphasize strict procedures and practice above employee judgment, particularly relating to service encounters and employees acting on their knowledge of customer needs, the \"going by the book\" mentality may limit an employee's ability to adapt and respond to customer needs. Empowering service employees by giving them the freedom to interact with consumers as they believe is most appropriate (within boundaries) on a customer-by-customer basis, may allow employees to leverage their knowledge of consumers with their knowledge of the firm's practices. Thus empowerment may lessen the negative impact of these seemingly conflicting knowledge bases. Future research should look at the effects of employee knowledge of firm practice in organizations empowered vs non-empowered front-line employees.Together, these results resonate with previous propositions that operant knowledge resources are primary in service-dominant logic (Vargo and Lusch, 2004) and that value comes from the deployment of operant resources and more importantly from the synergistic combination of operant resources to deliver value propositions such as the ability to meet customer needs. Moreover, our results suggest that operant knowledge resources may not be equally created as different combinations of operant resources result in superior capabilities than other combinations, suggesting the need for future research.Further, the results relating to the three-way interaction indicates that a firm's ability to synergistically combine its operant knowledge resources related to customers, industry and firm practices allows the firm to develop the capability of meeting customer needs. While knowledge resources in and of themselves are valuable to a firm and can be acted on in isolation, through the combination of these three resources a firm is able to leverage its resources developing a specific value proposition. Further, the positive effect suggests that the potential limiting effect related to knowledge of firm practices can be overcome.Most studies of knowledge resources have focused almost exclusively on direct performance implications, neglecting resource conversion into viable capabilities. As such, the findings of this study underscores, and provides empirical support for, the theoretical precepts put forth in the service-centered dominant logic literature (i.e. that resources are necessary yet insufficient for the establishment of enhanced performance) and the dynamic capabilities approach to resources. Here, the findings demonstrate that it is through the conversion of knowledge resources into value propositions (i.e. a mediation effect) that a firm is able to develop a unique market position allowing for enhanced performance.Managerial implications\nConclusions and directions for future research: While this study provides a number of new insights into operant knowledge resources conversion into the value proposition of ability to meet customer needs as the foundation of competitive advantage, as with prior studies, it is subject to limitations. Although this study explored the synergistic combination of three operant knowledge resources, its findings are limited to the scope of resources examined. Future research, addressing a broader domain of operand/operant resources, would provide greater insights into collaborative competency conversion and capability development. For example, although this study focused solely on internal operant knowledge resources, following the foundation of Vargo and Lusch (2004), joint knowledge resources between the firm and its customers could be explored.Another limitation of this study derives from its cross-sectional design. Knowledge resource conversion into capabilities should ideally be examined longitudinally. Exploring this issue longitudinally would also provide for additional insights into the underlying processes of resource conversion. For example, researchers could explore the underlying process by which resources are combined synergistically to develop capabilities. For instance, building on the work in the entrepreneurship literature, it could be argued that firm with a greater entrepreneurial focus may be more innovative in combining resource bases.Additionally, we might point to the use of subjective and self-report managerial measures utilized in this study as a limitation. It should be noted that past research indicates that self-reported assessment of performance by managers is generally closely reflective of both internal and external organizational performance data (Dess and Robinson, 1984; Conant et al., 1990), however, that is not to say that objective measures of performance are not desirable in addition to, or in place of, subjective measures.Similarly, the measurement of specific types (or levels) of knowledge was prohibited due to the varied nature of the sample (30 retail sectors), as different industries require different levels and types of knowledge for competitive advantage; i.e. in some industries more complex knowledge of consumer preferences may be required to meet consumer needs (Conant et al., 1990). Thus our measures of knowledge of consumers, competitors and firm practices were necessarily broad to accommodate differences in knowledge bases across a variety of businesses. Future studies may look at knowledge levels of specific industries to isolate what specific aspects of customer, industry, and firm practice are most salient for meeting customer needs.Finally, it would be valuable for future researchers to gather dyadic buyer-seller data to ascertain if manager perceptions of meeting customer needs (the value proposition) are highly reflective of customer assessment of the company's ability to meet their needs (value delivery). This would help researchers determine if value has actually been created for the consumer. Additionally, it would allow researchers and managers the opportunity to see where value delivered may be enhanced or undermined by operant resources. However, many researchers (Slater and Narver, 1999; Homburg et al., 2002) find that strategic business decisions are often driven by manager perceptions of the environment, thus the use of manager perceptions in this study was considered appropriate.In today's competitive world, knowledge is arguably \"the only true source of sustainable competitive advantage\" and is \"the operant resource that makes service possible\" (Lusch et al., 2006). As demonstrated in this study, service-oriented value propositions can be derived through the use and joint use of knowledge resources. The results presented provide empirical support to the new service-centered dominant logic of marketing and to the understanding of the conversion of knowledge resources into the value proposition of ability to meet customer needs in service encounters and ultimately, their influence on firm performance.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Building on the service-centered dominant logic, this paper aims to investigate the effects of firm knowledge (knowledge of customers, industry, and practices) and synergistic combinations of different types of employee knowledge as a foundation for competitive advantage in retail and service organizations. Specifically, it seeks to theorize that the firm's operant knowledge resources combine to develop the service-based value proposition of enhanced ability to meet customer needs that results in greater performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A survey methodology was used to test the hypotheses using a sample of 293 retail and service providers.\nFindings: - Employees' knowledge of its customers and competitors allow the firm to enhance its ability to meet customer needs, whereas knowledge of firm practices, in isolation, does not enhance a firm's ability to meet customer needs. When looking at the synergistic combination of employees' knowledge (i.e. the two-way interactions and the three-way interaction of knowledge of customers; knowledge of firm practices; knowledge of industry) several interesting insights emerge to help to understand how to enhance a firm's ability to meet customer needs.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Since researchers have yet to fully explore the effects of knowledge as operant resources and their conversion into capabilities, this study uses a dynamic capabilities approach and demonstrates that providing front-line employees with the knowledge necessary to understand the firm's consumer base allows the firm to develop the ability to meet customer needs (i.e. a capability), which in turn allows the organization to reap the economic benefits of a satisfied and returning customer base.\nPractical implications: - The two-way and three way interactions provide new insights into the synergistic employment of operant knowledge resources.\nOriginality/value: - The results suggest that operant knowledge resources may not be equally created as different combinations of operant resources result in superior capabilities than other combinations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Learning, friendship and social contexts: Introducing a social network analysis toolkit for socially responsive classrooms
|
[
"Social relationships",
"Social networks",
"Diverse students",
"Social network analysis toolkit",
"Socially responsive classrooms"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nPurpose: Educational leaders, teachers and researchers are increasingly focused on both enacting and studying more inclusive schools and classrooms (Armstrong et al., 2016; Precey and Mazurkiewicz, 2013). This focus on more inclusive environments is critical as a growing body of research around social emotional education and inclusivity is suggesting the importance of these approaches for increased student learning (Florian, 2017). In addition, these efforts at supporting more socially responsive and inclusive settings from educational leaders and teachers not only support achievement at the school and classroom level, but may also reduce other behaviors that may distract from the learning environment such as discipline problems, dropout and disaffected students (Deppeler et al., 2015; Florian et al., 2016). However, these professionals often have limited tools of practice and research at their disposal to support efforts at inclusion.\nTheoretical framework: Social capital theory\nDesign/methodology/approach: Classroom social network research requires rigorous and careful designs. In collecting the data from the two classrooms, we implemented a quantitative social network survey that asked students four questions: who are your friends in this classroom? Who do you hang out with outside of class? If your teacher is not around, who do you turn to for help on school work? If you are having a bad day, who do you talk to? In each question, students were provided with a classroom roster and were asked to check as many names as they wanted in each question. The roster is more advantageous as it reduces the recall error and students get the chance to respond for each of their classmates (Scott, 2013). The advantage of such a quantitative design is that it is efficient, low cost and quick in collecting data and can yield valuable information about the classroom network. This type of design is particularly useful for generating a \"snapshot\" of the social dynamics within a classroom. However, despite these advantages, the design does not explain the development of social structure (Crossley and Edwards, 2016). Therefore, it would be useful to collect data in different points in time from the same students so the evolution of relationships may be better captured.\nResults and substantiated conclusions: Data visualization and network maps\nConclusions: The use of an SNA toolkit can be valuable in understanding and creating more socially responsive classrooms and in turn provide data and insights for educational leaders for larger climate and culture issues impacting the school. The toolkit can act as a \"bridge\" between social network researchers (research) and educators (practice). We view this as a new approach to conducting research but also as a powerful tool for personalized professional teacher development and training and providing a reliable set of metrics for schools. First, combining rigorous social network research with educators' insights in the form of participant observation, and informal conversations with their students can be pedagogically transformative. Educators are ideally placed to think and act as ethnographers and use the toolkit as a complementary set of tools to understand and transform the social dynamics within their classrooms. Second, educators can then receive personalized professional development and training based on the findings from their classrooms, as shown in the results section above. In general, this could be a useful pedagogical tool to be used in teaching and learning.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce a social network analysis (SNA) toolkit aiming to enable leaders, educators and researchers work together to deepen their understanding of classroom social network dynamics. In doing so, the authors provide both theoretical and practical steps in building a bridge between theory and practice and a step-by-step introduction to designing and implementing SNA to understand socially responsive classrooms. To make the case, the authors present data that were collected through an SNA survey completed by eighth graders in two highly diverse classrooms in Southern California.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Driven by an SNA perspective, the authors highlight the potential value of examining social interdependencies and interconnectedness among students in a classroom network. The SNA toolkit was employed to calculate social network measures and develop network maps for each classroom.\nFindings: The toolkit has shown to provide a comprehensive platform in gaining important insights into students' social relationships, particularly those who are underserved and at higher risk of exclusion. The findings have shown that some of the students in the two classrooms were more likely to remain on the periphery of their social networks, particularly those who are traditionally more likely to be marginalized including students with disabilities as well as racially and linguistically diverse students.\nOriginality/value: The toolkit in the hands of leaders and teachers may provide a powerful tool for personalized professional development and act as a catalyst in bridging the gap between research and practice.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Mobile internet and SMEs: a focus on the adoption
|
[
"Italy",
"Small to medium‐sized enterprises",
"Mobile communication systems",
"Internet",
"Employee communications"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Mobile internet (MI), which includes applications based on cellular (e.g. GSM, GPRS, UMTS) and wireless (Wi-Fi, RFId, WiMAX, etc.) networks, represents the convergence between two of the most relevant technological trends of the last few years: the internet and mobile technologies. MI can provide a tremendous impetus to development of strategic applications for business (Barnes, 2003a, b) in many different industries such as transportation and logistics, financial services, health services, and others (Shim et al., 2006). MI solutions can be classified into business to business applications (targeted to other companies, e.g. PDA-based solutions to manage the sourcing and procurement), business to consumer applications (targeted to final customers, e.g. advertisements based on SMS/MMS), and business to employee (B2e) applications (targeted to company employees, e.g. rugged terminal-based solutions for maintenance activities). The interest in the topic is not limited to users; academics refer to these applications with the terms mobile commerce and m-commerce (Varshney and Vetter, 2002; Mennecke and Strader, 2003; Ngai and Gunasekaran, 2005) or mobile business (Paavilainen, 2002; Chen and Nath, 2004; Leem et al., 2004, IMDS).This paper deals with B2e MI applications, which, from a world market of $1.2 billion in 2005, is expected to grow significantly with a compound annual growth rate of 23 percent to $3.5 billion in 2010 (IDC, 2006).B2e MI applications can significantly benefit company processes without requiring significant modifications to these processes or major investments (Gebauer and Shaw, 2004; McIntosh and Baron, 2005). For these reasons, these applications seem to be particularly suitable for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which generally have shown little awareness of information and communication technology (ICT) applications (Chuang et al., 2007). Nevertheless, studies on how and to what extent SMEs adopt mobile technologies are still scarce. For this reason, the present paper combines survey and case study methodologies in order to fully understand the adoption of B2e MI solutions by Italian SMEs.The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 provides background on B2e MI applications. Section 3 defines the overall goals and methodology of the study. Section 4 presents the use of a survey to assess the rate of adoption and Section 5 presents the use of case studies to discuss the adoption process. Section 6 illustrates the discussion of the results. Finally, Section 7 offers concluding remarks and points out future research paths.\n2 Background: In this paper, the term MI is used, since it precisely indicates the use of portable devices (i.e. laptops, PDAs, smartphones, etc.) and data transmission based on TCP/IP through a cellular network (i.e. GPRS, Edge, or UMTS) (Rangone and Renga, 2006). Nevertheless, this term is often used to identify solutions based not only on cellular networks but also on wireless systems (i.e. Wi-Fi or WiMAX networks) (Barnes, 2002; Kuhmar and Zahn, 2003).In this section, the body of literature on B2e MI is analyzed with reference to three relevant issues regarding the topic:1. the classification of the solutions;2. the value and impact on processes of the applications; and3. the adoption.2.1 Classification of B2e MI applications\n3 Overall, objectives and methodology: As shown in the previous section, B2e MI applications highly impact the processes of firms without requiring major investments. For this reason, they seem to be especially suitable for SMEs, in particular those in Italy, where they have traditionally shown little awareness of ICT projects (Balocco et al., 2006).Academic research is especially needed in order to investigate the adoption of such technologies: the diffusion of B2e MI applications among companies has been rarely measured and in-depth focus on the IT governance of these technologies is still missing.The overall goals of the paper are therefore the following:* To analyze the diffusion rate of B2e MI applications in Italian SMEs and identify the main barriers to adoption.* To take an in-depth look at the impact on the corporate environment and decision-making process leading to the adoption of B2e MI applications in Italian SMEs.The first goal is to address questions related to \"how many\" (e.g. How many Italian SMEs have been adopted by Italian SMEs?), whereas the second goal is to to address questions related to \"how\" (e.g. how was the adoption process of these technologies?). As suggested by Yin (1984), surveys are suitable to address questions related to \"how many\" whereas case studies are suitable to address questions related to \"how.\" For these reasons, in order to fulfill the overall goals, an approach combining the following two methodologies has been put forth:1. A survey of 646 Italian SMEs in the manufacturing industry in order to assess the diffusion rate of the various types of B2e MI applications and the reasons for not adopting these technologies (Section 4).2. Multiple case studies of 28 Italian SMEs that have adopted 33 B2e MI applications in order to analyze the impact and the benefits of such solutions and the decision-making process behind the adoption of these applications (Section 5).\n4 Assessing the rate of adoption with a survey: In this section, the survey conducted on 646 SMEs in order to assess the rate adoption of B2e MI solutions is discussed. Firstly, the survey-specific methodology is illustrated. Then the results on the diffusion of the applications, the type of solutions adopted and the barriers of adoption are discussed.4.1 Survey-specific methodology\n5 Assessing the process of adoption with cases studies: This section presents the results of the 28 case studies of Italian SMEs, which have been carried out in order to assess the impact of adoption on the corporate environment and to investigate the decision-making process. Firstly, the methodology specific to the case studies is illustrated. Then the results regarding the impact of the solutions on the businesses and the process of adoption are described.5.1 Case studies-specific methodology\n6 Discussion: Our results show how these applications can be adopted by firms of various industries, because mobility requirements are present in every company. Whereas Gebauer and Shaw (2004) affirmed that the adoption of mobile solutions is driven by the amount of time users pass outside the firm, and are therefore suitable for sales agents and field force, our study shows that mobile office support is also becoming really popular amongst managers: mobility requirements are now present for every position in the firm and can redefine the concept of workspace.The results of our study on mobile solutions show a deep contradiction: on one hand they can help firms to achieve high benefits, while on the other hand their adoption is still limited. The combined methodologies of survey and case studies used in this paper help us to answer to this question. Previous studies proved how the organizational characteristics of IT functions (Weill and Ross, 2004) and the personal characteristics of CIOs and CEOs largely influence the success of IT adoption. The awareness of the technology is extremely wide among companies for connectivity-based solutions, which is not surprising, given the advertisements via traditional media broadcast by MNOs and PDA/smartphone manufacturers. The current limitation of the adoption of these solutions cannot be attributed to limited awareness (as shown in the survey). Moreover, the diffusion of connectivity-based solutions is leaded by the limited required BPR (the survey showed that the BPR-less applications are the most adopted by firms) especially because, as suggested by Shiels et al. (2003), SMEs have limited BPR skills. For connectivity-based solutions, a key role is played by the CIO in all phases (solution knowledge, adoption decision, actual implementation). For this reason suppliers should interact with CIOs, describing the features of solutions and trying to explain the benefits of wireless information transmission, in order to increase the adoption of these applications.For application-based solutions, on the contrary, there is limited adoption, especially because of the barriers identified in the survey (little knowledge about these applications and a low level of perception of the real benefits for the company). These solutions cannot be promoted and explained through advertisements via the traditional media since they are highly customized on the basis of the company processes. For application-based solutions, suppliers should meet with the key players in the adoption of such solutions, i.e. the CEOs or the line managers, and try to explain the benefits and the value (in terms of return on investment) derived from an enhancement of the business process. The suppliers should also aim to sell a service and not merely a product, adopting a value-added reseller model. The identified barriers highly impact the commitment of the top management, which has been low in the 75 identified cases of not-adoption. Karlsen et al. (2006) identify the top management commitment as a critical factor for the success of IT projects: whereas this is extremely true for application-based solutions, in connectivity-based cases, it is the commitment of the CIO (the key actor) that makes these solutions succeed.The complexity of application-based solutions greatly impacts project management. Existing literature suggests that the success of information systems strongly depends on the ability of the company to benefit from external information technology expertise (Wong and Lu, 2005; Sledgianowski et al., 2008). The results of our study go further: one of the main implications is that the CIO and the IT function should have the capability to manage large project teams in order to govern the change. This can be realized only if the IT function is structured (Chen and Dwivedi, 2007), although this statement is only true for the larger SMEs. As proof of this, a relevant adoption rate of mobile solutions can be found only in SMEs with more than 250 employees (as proved by survey results). Moreover, given the plethora of the suppliers involved, application-based solutions generate significant organizational complexity in the surveyed companies, both in the supplier-scouting phase and during project implementation itself. One prospective barrier to the adoption is clearly evident in the limited collaboration between suppliers (i.e. the MNO, the hardware reseller, the software house, the system integrator, etc.) in proposing integrated B2e MI applications. Partnerships with other members of the supply chain in proposing an integrated offer is suggested in order to reduce complexities in managing the process for the customer.User acceptance and needs for training employees, unlike what is stated by general IT management studies are not critical for MI solutions: connectivity-based solutions do not require any training, whereas the application-based solutions are highly accepted by users once they understand the benefits of the applications.As for the generalizability of the results of this paper, the limited diffusion of B2e MI solutions in SMEs seems to be a reality for other countries as well, since it has been proved that the adoption of IT technologies is similar for SMEs of different countries (Dholakia and Ksehtri, 2004). The classification of connectivity- and application-based solutions gives us many insights into the adoption process and it is believed to be generalized to all IT management solutions (not only for mobile solutions).\n7 Conclusion and further studies: The diffusion of B2e MI applications among Italian SMEs is still limited, especially among smaller companies. A reasonable spread of these solutions is evident only in companies with over 250 employees. Among the applications, the sales force support systems are the most prevalent, followed by mobile office and FFA. The reasons for not adopting these solutions are basically a lack of knowledge about these kinds of applications and difficulties perceiving the benefits and value before implementation. Subsequently, the value of the solutions becomes clear, as shown in the case studies.With regards to the decision process, the key players sponsoring the adoption of the solutions and driving the innovation within the firm are CIOs for connectivity-based solutions and top management for application-based solutions. Given the small number of suppliers involved in the process, supplier management in connectivity-based solutions is easy, while application-based solutions usually involving larger numbers of suppliers require greater organizational effort.The study greatly benefits from the combination of the two methods in order to fully understand the adoption of these technologies in SMEs. It is suggested to combine these methods in order to better understand the dynamics of the adoption of IT solutions in companies. Future studies may extend the approach used to other IT applications. Moreover, the classification between connectivity-based and application-based solutions is believed to represent a relevant dimension for IT adoption: its link with adoption of IT solutions (not only mobile) should be tested through extensive studies.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to focus on the adoption of business to employee (B2e) mobile internet (MI) applications in Italian small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The purpose is twofold: to analyze the diffusion of these applications underlining the main adoption barriers and to describe the impact on the corporate environment and the decision-making process leading to the introduction of B2e MI applications.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The diffusion of mobile solutions is gauged through a survey of 646 Italian SMEs in the manufacturing industry. Multiple case studies of 28 Italian SMEs that have adopted 33 B2e MI applications have given insight into the impact and the adoption process of such technologies.\nFindings: - The adoption of MI technologies is still limited in Italian SMEs. Two different kinds of solutions (classified into connectivity-based and application-based) lead to different processes of adoption.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The study has been conducted only in an Italian scenario. As for the survey, only firms belonging to the manufacturing industry have been interviewed.\nPractical implications: - The main adoption drivers/constraints have been identified. The paper also provides information and communication technologies vendors with guidelines on how to increase the use of the applications in Italian SMEs.\nOriginality/value: - The paper is based on a double methodology in order to provide a full analysis of the adoption of mobile technologies in a business environment: the survey is used to quantify the adoption of the technologies and the case studies are used to investigate the adoption process.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Baringa puts employees at the heart of its culture: Management consultancy named best place to work for third year in a row
|
[
"Employees involvement",
"Corporate culture",
"Management consultancies",
"Awards",
"Workplace",
"Working conditions"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Aconsultancy whose personnel are often based on site with clients has overcome the difficulties that can arise in maintaining a sense of corporate identity and a team environment by putting its employees at the heart of its culture.\nStrong workplace values: Commenting on the company's culture, managing partner Mohamed Mansour said: \"There can be no doubt that the strong workplace values we implemented when the company was established have driven our success to date.\"For the last 12 years the culture we created then, and now work so hard to maintain and improve year after year, has helped us to inspire some of the best people in our industry to produce exemplary results. The challenge for us, as we look ahead to the next 10 years of our development and growth as an organization, is to maintain our people-centric culture. That is the foundation of our commercial success.\"We are fully committed to maintaining an environment in which everyone can feed into the Baringa of the present and future. And we take inspiration from the way in which some of the larger international employers, who feature strongly as both Great Place to Work laureates and entrants, have been able to maintain workplaces where people thrive and feel they belong while growing head-count and operating over multiple regions.\"Everyone in Baringa is encouraged to be involved in developing the approaches taken to achieve individual and corporate growth and goals. Baringa has recently launched its Vision for 2020, driven by people from across the business, and over the coming months will use this as a basis to refresh the five-year corporate strategy.\nCore values hard wired into the company's DNA: \"Our core values are defined by everyone in the company and are hard-wired into our corporate DNA,\" said Jim Hayward. \"They guide and inspire our people to continuously grow themselves, our business and our clients. They form the bedrock of our great-place-to-work culture, are emphasized in all the publications we produce and feature in our appraisal process. We even have a quarterly awards scheme in place that, among other categories, has a prize for the individual who has made an exceptional contribution to one or more of our core values.\"He continued: \"Our people are characterized by their deep market-focused expertise and absolute commitment to delivering outstanding value and service to clients.\"Operating in the energy, utilities and financial-services sectors, Baringa Partners attracts committed people with deep market-focused expertise and a track record of delivering outstanding service.\"Such employees deserve to be fully supported through their careers, even if they are not working in one central office,\" Jim Hayward explained. \"Rather than simply being an HR formality, we have processes ingrained throughout the company. All new starters are provided with a 'buddy' for the first year to provide advice and unofficial help, while all staff are assigned a dedicated career advisor during their induction who acts as a mentor throughout their time at Baringa.\"Thanks to our non-hierarchical structure, employees also have constant access to the management team, who work closely alongside them with no distinction by rank or seniority. We strongly believe that our supportive culture motivates our people to perform to the best of their ability. That is reflected in the feedback we hear from clients, and the extremely low attrition rates for Baringa compared to the rest of our industry.\"\nSupport for female employees: In what can often be a male-dominated arena, Baringa makes a considerable effort to support its female employees. It runs a women's forum which encourages female staff to take charge of their career progression and realize their full potential in the consulting world.Twice a year the company hosts a weekend away for employees and their partners. These typically include a company update and team-building activity as well as an informal dinner and dance. Furthermore, Baringa's core values extend beyond the workplace and into the community with an active corporate social responsibility program.Mohamed Mansour said: \"We maintain a consistent and uncompromising focus on getting the right people into Baringa. Once the right people are on board we empower them to make a difference both at client sites and internally. Indeed, it is hugely satisfying to note that many of our Great Place to Work initiatives, policies and practices have been initiated bottom up rather than top down. We plan to continue our robust growth trajectory while ensuring we maintain the culture that all our people have helped to create.\"More than 10 million employees within 5,500 organizations are involved in the Best Workplaces program. The rankings include input from both management and employees, to help to ensure that the process captures all aspects of a workplace's culture, values and successes.\nNote: David Pollitt, Human Resource Management International Digest Editor, wrote this article.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - It is the aim of the article to describe how Baringa Partners management consultancy, whose personnel are often based on site with clients, has overcome the difficulties that can arise in maintaining a sense of corporate identity and a team environment by putting its employees at the heart of its culture.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The article highlights the policies that have won the consultancy the Best Place to Work accolade for three consecutive years.\nFindings: - The article details the importance of recruiting the right people, providing mentors for new recruits, giving employees easy access to top managers and establishing a women's forum to help female employees to develop their careers.\nPractical implications: - Successful HR policies have helped the company to grow despite the recession.\nSocial implications: - It is revealed that Baringa's core values extend beyond the workplace and into the community, with an active corporate social responsibility program.\nOriginality/value: - Plenty of advice for companies seeking to improve relations between management and employees is provided in the article.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Implementing the principles of Academagogy for effective learning facilitation in corporate organizations: a case study
|
[
"Learning theory",
"Heutagogy",
"Andragogy",
"Academagogy",
"Learning principles"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nBackground: Academagogy (McAuliffe et al., 2009; McAuliffe and Winter, 2014) expounds a new learning approach based on andragogical and heutagogical principles. Academagogy is an amalgamation of learning theories, viz. pedagogy (teacher-centered learning); andragogy (student-centered learning); and, heutagogy (self-determined learning). In their first case study, the authors applied academagogy to an engineering course, delivered through a face-to-face model. The results showed superior outcomes and performance for all students who took the course.\nThe Case Study: This case study covered 144 participants from the training batches of 2011-2015. A typical batch-size was about 15 participants who were segmented as the experiment and control groups.\nMethodology: The effect of academagogical treatment on the performance of participants was studied by setting up a quasi-experiment non-equivalent group. The performance data of participants was recorded, preserving confidentiality. Statistical tools were used to study the technical, behavioral, and overall performance of the participants. Table I shows the details of the data analyzed in this case study.\nResults: A summarized analysis of data with conclusions is shown in Table II. The performance results were corroborated with interviews and feedback from Project Managers, as well as participants from both groups.\nConclusion: The Academagogical framework has been increasingly employed in education, ranging from Distance Studies (Mcauliffe and Winter, 2013) to Entrepreneurship (Jones, 2019).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to adapt the principles of Academagogy (McAuliffe et al., 2009; McAuliffe and Winter, 2014) in Corporate Training. Academagogy is an amalgamation of learning theories, viz. pedagogy (teacher-centered learning); andragogy (student-centered learning); and, heutagogy (self-determined learning). 10;While the original paper by McAuliffe et al. focused on the application of Academagogical principles to higher education in a university, this case study extends Academagogy into corporate training.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Academagogy-based learning interventions were implemented in training programs conducted at IIC Academy. The study-sample comprised 144 trainees divided into the experiment and the control groups. Academagogical interventions were applied to the experiment group, whereas the control group followed conventional methods. Controlled quasi-experiment and statistical analyses were used as research tools in this case study.\nFindings: The performance scores of the participants' at entry-level were analyzed through propensity score matching and chi-square tests. The results concluded that the experiment and the control group had no selection bias. 10; 10;The treatment effect applied to the experiment group was studied using scatter-plots and effect size analyses. 10; 10;The results indicate that the academagogical interventions markedly improved behavioral and professional skills among participants of the experiment group, which showed up in their superior performance, both during training and at work.\nResearch limitations/implications: This case study has two major limitations, viz. the sample population was homogenous; the batch-size was limited to 15 participants, which facilitated closer monitoring of the course.\nOriginality/value: Academagogical interventions were implemented in a corporate setting as opposed to earlier studies which focused on a university setting and academic environs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Adapting the SHEL model in investigating industrial maintenance
|
[
"Knowledge management",
"Information management",
"Qualitative data analysis",
"Industrial maintenance",
"SHEL",
"SHELO"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Complex organisational structures, a multitude of disciplines and several reporting levels are often identified as problems in the maintenance function (Swanson, 2003). Tendencies towards integrated product and service offerings increase such complexity further (Pawar et al., 2009). Within the maintenance function, personnel with different skill sets, such as electricians, mechanics and pipe installers need to work together, and the management has to take this into account (Organ et al., 1997). In addition to organisational and managerial complexities, maintenance faces complexity related to technical and human learning aspects (Shafiei-Monfared and Jenab, 2012). All these together make resource allocation and work scheduling in maintenance a difficult task. Accordingly, computer support has become indispensable for tasks such as stock control, management of personnel, task tracking, processing of historical data and document change control (Waeyenbergh and Pintelon, 2002). Therefore, more attention must be paid to information processes to support the ability to make decisions that are appropriate in the situation at hand and take into account longer term consequences without neglecting the crucial role human knowledge plays in maintenance. Decreasing the complexity of organisational structures or maintenance tasks are strategies for reducing the requirements of information processes (Swanson, 2003; Shafiei-Monfared and Jenab, 2012). Other strategies aim at increasing the capacity of an organisation's information processing capability either by investing into information systems or by streamlining the decision-making processes (Swanson, 2003; Crespo Marquez and Gupta, 2006), and integrating the maintenance function with other activities performed in the company through advanced IT systems (Sherwin, 2000). However, it is recognised that to support effective decision making, the better the understanding of a problem the more successful the proposed solution can be (Triantaphyllou et al., 1997). For the investigation of the challenges in industrial maintenance, methods are required that can capture the multitude of different influences on successful maintenance, such as humans, technical systems and organisational settings (Thenent et al., 2013). Metso (2013) has identified problems in information sharing as well as lack of information in industrial maintenance. However, without proposing guidance or good practises for how to overcome these challenges. Thenent et al. (2013), having investigated the conditions for successful maintenance, suggest that the SHEL model offers potential for improved understanding of maintenance practices and conditions for successful maintenance. By combining these two perspectives in this paper (see Figure 1), we shed light on the information management challenges that arise in industrial maintenance from the interactions between the different elements in this complex system.\n2. Literature review: Maintenance can impact many aspects significant for business, for example equipment downtime, quality and productivity (Shyjith et al., 2008). Here we define that for maintenance to be successful, the targeted availability of a technical system must be achieved when required (Thenent et al., 2013). This is not a simple goal and requires a systemic approach, since many different elements are connected to each other with causal relations that affect the outcome. These elements include, e.g. people, machines and equipment, computers, software and the environmental context. The importance of the competence of the personnel and training for successful maintenance has been acknowledged by many scholars (e.g. Al-Najjar, 2007; Al-Najjar and Alsyouf, 2003; Goettsche, 2005; Simoes et al., 2011).\n3. Methodology: The research methodology used in this paper comprises two surveys for data collection and qualitative means to analyse the survey data. The steps of conducting the research are depicted in Figure 3 and explained in more detail.\n4. Findings - the SHELO model in industrial maintenance: Applying the SHELO model to the survey data showed that the L-S, L-L, L-O and S-S themes presented in Table IV comprised the highest number of coded text passages. There were no codes in the elements S-E, H-E, H-O, E-E, H and E. One explanation for this is that the survey questions did not explicitly touch on aspects such as the environment, organisations or hardware-related concepts, such as tools and materials.\n5. Conclusions: This paper demonstrates the application of a modified SHEL model to analyse survey data about information and knowledge management in industrial maintenance. To the best of the authors' knowledge this is the first application of the SHEL model in such a context. While the original SHEL model was created to investigate human factors in accidents, we adapted the model to capture organisational factors as well, and that is why our model is called SHELO. The SHELO model, unlike the other variations of the SHEL model, takes interactions without direct human influence into account. Such variation is useful in modern maintenance management and the related research, because more and more information is transferred and processed without direct human interaction. Our analyses show that the most relevant knowledge management problems in industrial maintenance are in the following areas:\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify and categorise problems in knowledge management of industrial maintenance, and support successful maintenance through adapting the SHEL model. The SHEL model has been used widely in airplane accident investigations and in aviation maintenance, but not in industrial maintenance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data were collected by two separate surveys with open-ended questions from maintenance customers and service providers in Finland. The collected data were coded according to SHEL model -derived themes and analysed thematically with NVivo.\nFindings: The authors found that the adapted SHELO model works well in the industrial maintenance context. The results show that the most important knowledge management problems in the area are caused by interactions between Liveware and Software (information unavailability), Liveware and Liveware (information sharing), Liveware and Organisation (communication) and Software and Software (information integrity).\nResearch limitations/implications: The data were collected only from Finnish companies and from the perspective of knowledge management. In practice there are also other kinds of issues in industrial maintenance. This can be a topic for future research.\nPractical implications: The paper presents a new systematic method to analyse and sort knowledge management problems in industrial maintenance. Both maintenance service customers and suppliers can improve their maintenance processes by using the dimensions of the SHELO model.\nOriginality/value: The SHEL model has not been used in industrial maintenance before. In addition, the new SHELO model takes also interactions without direct human influence into account. Previous research has listed conditions for successful maintenance extensively, but this kind of prioritisation tools are needed to support decision making in practice.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The study of the effect of online review on purchase behavior: Comparing the two research methods
|
[
"Big data",
"Crowd science",
"Online purchase behavior",
"Psychology method"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The development of e-commerce and the popularity of the internet, more and more people are accustomed to online shopping, they choose to buy commodities and services what they need on online. According to a report on January 2019, 74.8 per cent of netizens use online shopping. Online purchasing has become the main form of daily consumption. In this context, the study of online consumers' purchase behavior has become the main field of consumer behavior. According to a survey report, 97.7 per cent of consumers refer to relevant reviews before online purchase. These reviews, as feed-backs of buyers, largely affect the purchase intention or purchase behavior of potential consumers. Thus, online reviews can serve as a promising data source to predict online purchase behavior. In addition, the risk perception of online purchase (when faced a buying situation, a consumer perceives a certain degree of risk involved in choice of a particular brand and how to buy it) also affects the purchase intention or decision (Sun et al., 2006). Therefore, risk perception is also a psychological variable that affects consumer purchase behavior (Lawrence and O'Connor, 2000). Of course, the impact of this information on purchase intentions will be different which also depending on the type of commodities. Consumption of some commodities is common, while others have personal characteristics, making the impact of online reviews and perceived risk different.\n2. Empirical study: 2.1 Study 1. The influence of consumer reviews and commodity types on online purchase intention\n3. Discussion: 3.1 General discussion\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explain the difference and connection between the network big data analysis technology and the psychological empirical research method.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study analyzed the data from laboratory setting first, then the online sales data from Taobao.com to explore how the influential factors, such as online reviews (positive vs negative mainly), risk perception (higher vs lower) and product types (experiencing vs searching), interacted on the online purchase intention or online purchase behavior.\nFindings: Compared with traditional research methods, such as questionnaire and behavioral experiment, network big data analysis has significant advantages in terms of sample size, data objectivity, timeliness and ecological validity.\nOriginality/value: Future study may consider the strategy of using complementary methods and combining both data-driven and theory-driven approaches in research design to provide suggestions for the development of e-commence in the era of big data.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Taking time for patience in organizations
|
[
"Management education",
"Ethics",
"Management development",
"Emotional self-regulation",
"Patience",
"Virtuous behaviour"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: He that can have patience can have what he will (Benjamin Franklin, 1736).\nDefinition and perspectives: Patient individuals are less likely to respond angrily to delays, provocations, or other difficult circumstances. A person who behaves with patience demonstrates an ability to cope well with trying or otherwise unpleasant circumstances, including those created by others, for a protracted period. The English word patience comes from the Latin patientia, for suffering, endurance, and forbearance (\nBenefits of patience: Personal benefits\nCultivating patience: According to Aristotle (350 BCE/1985, II, 1), people do not behave virtuously because they have virtue; rather, they have virtue because they have behaved virtuously. In short, they build character by habitually performing good acts. Empirical research indicates that moral development continues well into adulthood (Hill and Roberts, 2010). Because virtues depend upon self-directed motivation, they are more amenable to change than dispositional traits (McAdams and Pals, 2006). Thus, most individuals who want to become more patient can[3]. Individuals differ in terms of how much patience they have and how much they value patience (Schnitker and Emmons, 2007; see also Joireman et al., 2006). However, a reasonable person can come to appreciate the many personal and organizational benefits of patience as strong incentives to enhance this quality. People can develop patience - if they recognize its importance, wish to make it part of their identity, and are willing to practice sufficiently to incorporate it into their behavioral response repertoire. Central in this effort to cultivate patience is understanding how emotions affect patience, and, specifically, how emotional self-regulation can help to bolster patience.\nCultivating patience in the workplace: recommendations for practice: Increasing numbers of organizational leaders have come to appreciate that they cannot neglect or imperil the needs of future generations (Bertels et al., 2010; Haanaes et al., 2011; Lacy et al., 2012). As these leaders strive to make sustainability an essential part of their organizational culture, they and their employees will need patience to implement strategies that entail sacrifices in the present to ensure long-range economic, social, and environmental viability (Banon Gomis et al., 2011; Slawinski and Bansal, 2009). As Bowie (1991) advised, a long time horizon that considers the interests of multiple stakeholders is morally and strategically sound. How can organizations promote patience?\nConclusion: Today's business leaders face unprecedented levels of uncertainty (Chawla et al., 2012). Managers and employees at every level are pressed to generate products and services with fewer resources as they strive to fulfill shareholders' performance expectations and to address other stakeholders' concerns. This intense pace for survival might seem inconsistent with the practice of patience in organizations. On the contrary, patience is even more important now than it was two decades ago, when Bowie (1991) urged businesses to shed their impatient ways. Emerging global markets and ever-expanding technologies create demands for transformation and renewal that put a premium on the ability to remain calm while confronting inevitable obstacles to goal fulfillment. The search for innovative solutions requires practicing patience according to Aristotle's centuries-old prescription for moderation - that is, tolerating some level of failure in order to ensure that a search is comprehensive but not futile (Baumann, 2010). Organizations that promote patience and help employees to develop the self-regulation strategies that support it can, as Ben Franklin suggested, attain their goals.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Patience is underestimated in organizations. The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of patience and the individual and organizational benefits it confers. Then, the paper discuses emotional self-regulation and explain how two self-regulatory techniques can affect the patience of individuals in organizations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper considers religious, philosophical, and psychological perspectives on patience; and highlight the emotional underpinnings of patience.\nFindings: The paper argues that patience plays an important role in organizations and that individuals can use emotional self-regulation to enhance their patience. The paper offers two key points about the relationship between self-regulation strategies and patience: first, situation selection mitigates the need for patience and second cognitive reappraisal facilitates the execution of patient responses and the development of the virtue itself.\nPractical implications: The paper provides recommendations for increasing individuals' patience in organizational settings.\nOriginality/value: The virtue of patience has received scant research attention. This paper focusses on the importance of patience in the workplace and examines how emotional self-regulation can facilitate its activation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Does debt convergence hold in case of India?
|
[
"Dynamic panel data model",
"Indian states",
"Phillips and Sul’s (2007) convergence test",
"Public debt convergence",
"H63",
"H74",
"C33"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: A lot of emphasis has been paid on the convergence of per capita income, starting from the seminal works of Baumol (1986), Barro and Sala-i-Martin (1992) and Mankiw et al. (1992) based on the neoclassical growth theory (Solow, 1956). Nevertheless, there have been few studies on debt convergence in case of European Union (Escolano, 2010; Apergis and Cooray, 2014). This paper investigates the debt convergence hypothesis in case of Indian states where the debt is a focal point of debate for a policymaker, particularly after the economic reforms of 1991. The increasing seriousness regarding such discussion results from austerity and reform programs implemented in Indian states, which might trigger an intense debate concerning the management of public debt (RBI Report, 2016-2017). The other reason for such discussion is decentralization process (in which political, administrative and fiscal responsibilities are transferred to states level), which was passed in 1993 by the central government of India. Decentralization process not only improves the performance and accountability of local government, but it may also increase the fiscal responsibilities of the government of the state (Johnson, 2003). Therefore, state government has to depend more on the market borrowing, apart from the transfer from the central government, to meet its expenditure obligation, which might lead to the burden of debt, threatening the macroeconomic stability. However, it is also argued that borrowing is not always bad if it is used for development needs (see Kaur et al., 2014).\n2. Econometric methodology: 2.1 Club convergence\n3. Data sources and measurement of the variables: This study uses the annual data for 25 Indian states such as Andhra Pradesh[1], Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar[2], Goa Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh[3], Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh[4] and West Bengal for the period from 1990-1991 to 2014-2015. In India, most of the official data produced by the government of India are in the financial year and not in the calendar year. For example, the beginning of our study period is 1990-1991, implying data from April 1990 to March 1991. The same logic also applies for end period 2014-2015. The total outstanding liabilities series has been considered for each state as a proxy for public debt. Further, three key compositions of total public debt are taken on the basis of the data availability, named as market loans, banks loans and advance and loans from the central government[5]. All the series have normalized debt as a percentage of nominal GSDP. All these series are collected from National Institution for Transforming India Aayog, Government of India and Reserve Bank of India (RBI).\n4. Empirical results: First, this study provides the preliminary statistic of public debt in case of full sample as well as for all the clubs created by the Phillips and Sul's (2007) approach.\n5. Conclusions: This study examined the debt convergence in case of Indian states, where the debt level is very heterogeneous. Addressing convergence hypothesis always helps to find out the path of the states whether states are catching up to each other or not. To examine this research issue, Phillips and Sul's (2007) convergence technique is applied. The novel part of this method is to test the convergence based on non-linear time-varying factor model. The findings of our study are as follows: first, there is evidence of debt divergence across Indian states while considering all 25 states together as a full sample. However, club convergence was found on the basis of the clustering algorithm, which was created by taking sub-sample of states. Club 1 included the highest debt states: Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur, Nagaland and West Bengal. Club 2 contained the middle debt states: Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Punjab, Rajasthan Sikkim, Tripura and Uttar Pradesh. Club 3 contained the states that were having the lowest debt such as Assam, Karnataka, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Tamil Nadu. Further, this study investigated that Club 1, Club 2 and Cub 3 are converging but not merging with each other, which infers that these clubs are following different paths. Thus, our results support the hypothesis of club convergence of debt, which implies that higher debt states can follow other states with lower debt within their sub-group. Further, the results of three broad compositions of debt support the hypothesis of overall convergence for market and banks loans but not in case of advances and loans from the central government. The presence of divergence for overall states with regard to advances and loans from the central government is also noticed. We found evidence of club convergence in case of advances and loans from the central government. Although many steps have been taken by various Finance Commissions to improve the overall fiscal health of the states through optimizing revenues and allocating expenditures productively and eliminating many central sponsored schemes, still, states need more attention for curbing unproductive expenditure, thereby reducing the borrowings. Additionally, this study based on empirical results suggests to squeeze the fiscal consolidation further for states whose debts as a percentage of GSDP are on the higher side.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the convergence analysis of public debt among Indian states using annual data from 1990-1991 to 2014-2015.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper tests this hypothesis using club convergence technique propounded by Phillips and Sul (2007).\nFindings: The results reveal the existence of debt divergence for overall Indian states. States are formed into four clubs on the basis of their level of debt, and three clubs support the hypothesis of club convergence. Further, the total public debt decomposes into three compositions such as market loans, bank loans and loans and advances from the central government. The existence of convergence is found for market loans and bank loans; however, the presence of divergence is found in case of loans and advances for overall states.\nPractical implications: Since public debt plays an important role for fiscal health of the Indian states, findings of this study suggest to squeeze the fiscal consolidation further for Indian states whose debts as a percentage to gross state domestic product are on the higher side. Further, the examination of debt convergence helps to manage debt level among the states because heavy dependence on public debt could retard investment and economic growth.\nOriginality/value: Whereas bulk of empirical studies emphasize on examining the linkage between public debt and economic growth, and issue on debt sustainability across Indian states, examination of convergence of debt and its compositions (markets borrowings, bank loans and loans and advances from the central government) among the Indian states is scanty.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Quality improvement tools for chronic disease care - more effective processes are less likely to be implemented in developing countries
|
[
"Chronic disease care",
"Clinical quality",
"Health systems",
"Care management",
"United Arab Emirates",
"Medical care",
"Service delivery"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Effective chronic disease care is characterized by continuity, self-management and a systems approach; that is, viewing quality improvement (QI) in an overall healthcare delivery context, not as isolated responses to medical errors (Bodenheimer et al., 2004). Chronic disease programs should include care management processes (CMPs) such as disease registries, clinical practice guidelines, patient appointment reminders and educating patients to manage their conditions (Casalino et al., 2003; Shortell et al., 2009). Health systems research shows that CMPs improve clinical outcomes (Garcia-Lizana and Sarria-Santamera, 2007; Kirkman et al., 2002; O'Connor et al., 2009; Thomas et al., 2007; Weingarten et al., 2002). However, earlier research found that CMPs might be used sub-optimally. Implementation barriers include adverse finances, poor incentives to improve service quality, information technology weaknesses, uninterested and over-worked physicians (Shortell et al., 2009; Casalino et al., 2003; Bodenheimer et al., 2004). With the alarming rise in diabetes and obesity in the UAE (Baynouna et al., 2008; Saadi et al., 2007), it is imperative that chronic disease management (CDM) services are high quality. Most chronic disease care occurs in primary settings, which is relatively under-developed in the region, so we surveyed QI perceptions among primary care healthcare professionals.\nMethods: Study population\nResults: All 38 participants completed the questionnaire: 26 (68 percent) were women; primary care physicians constituted most 30 (81 percent); nurses six (16 percent); while 3 percent did not specify their profession. Mean years since graduation was 22 (range, 3 to 42 years) reflecting a fairly experienced group. Physicians reported seeing 41 patients daily compared to 112 patients daily by nurses (H=2.93, df=1, p=0.087). As a practice size indicator, mean physicians per clinic were 7.1 (95 percent CI, 5.3 to 8.8). Almost all participants were fixed salaried and 14 (43 percent) had managerial responsibilities.Figure 1 shows CMP use among survey participants; 21 used chart audits and 19 (90 percent) reported that results were relayed. Among 21 participants able to access chronic disease flowsheets, only 12 (62 percent) noted that physicians were entering patient data. Similarly, among 29 participants whose clinics had problem lists in the medical records, only 14 (48 percent) reported that physicians were updating them. Analyzing different CMP tools to predict physician numbers in clinics yielded only one statistically significant variable, chart audits (multiple linear regression, F=7.2, p=0.02; all other variables, p >0.05). Problem lists were negatively associated (multiple logistic regression, odds ratio 0.11, 95 percent CI, 0.012 to 0.92) with EMR use, while other CMP tools were not related. In response to the open-ended question about improving service quality, participants listed various interventions including: audits; continuing medical education (CME); competency assessment; and staff meetings.\nDiscussion: Most participants reported that CMPs were used in their clinics but actual use was sub-optimal (ranging from 48 percent to 62 percent). More effective QI tools, such as incentive plans and EMR systems were less common. The Casalino et al. (2003) survey provides a useful comparison; clinical guidelines were used by 50 percent of physicians compared to 74 percent in our study. Results are comparable for the direct questions we asked: the US survey found that 53 percent of health facility managers provided feedback to physicians while in our study the figure was 50 percent. We found a 53 percent prevalence of CMPs for chronic diseases and chronic disease nurse educators were present in 58 percent of the clinics in our study. However, caution should be exercised as our study was based on convenience sampling, which does not represent all UAE health facilities. Also, participants, self-selecting to attend a QI workshop, may have positively skewed the results.Practice size (i.e. clinic physicians) did not correlate with CMP use - a finding in concordance with the Casalino et al.(2003) US survey. This indicates perhaps that staff in small clinics are just as good at implementing CMP as those in larger ones. The EMR systems in 34 percent of the clinics we sampled was encouraging but did not correlate positively with CMP use, unlike other researchers who found a positive correlation (Casalino et al., 2003) - possibly because of EMR's early implementation in the UAE and that EMRs are used primarily for administrative rather than clinical purposes. During the early transition, paper-based record quality may actually decline owing to demands on newly installed EMR systems. Physicians may also feel overburdened with electronic data entry and, therefore, neglect up-dating problem lists. This may explain the inverse correlation between EMR and physicians filling out problem lists.Overall, our survey indicates a low evidence-based CMP awareness for improving chronic disease care. No participants mentioned using proactive tools such as disease registries, reminder-tracking systems, patient self-management support services and clinical decision support (Shortell et al., 2009). Community-based efforts to improve self-care using patient education and out-reach programs were not surveyed in our study, but also form an important chronic disease management component (Bodenheimer et al., 2002; Etz et al., 2008). Furthermore, a health systems QI approach was not apparent in our interactions with workshop participants. Traditional QI approaches, such as staff meetings, continuing professional education and audit feedback, reported by survey participants, can bring about only short-lived improvements (Kirkman et al., 2002; O'Connor et al., 2009). It appears that health services remain oriented to episodic acute care rather than systematically planning chronic disease care. Our study is limited by its small, convenience sample, and recall bias inherent among survey participants (Kopec and Esdaile, 1990; Grimes and Schulz, 2002). Further research is needed to explore what cultural and logistical barriers impede CMPs in primary care settings. This is the first survey to report QI tools for chronic disease care in the UAE, a rapidly developing country with a heavy diabetes burden. Our finding that adopting more effective CMP lags behind other, traditional QI tools has implications for healthcare administrators and clinicians in developing countries.\n",
"role": "user"
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"content": "Purpose: - Chronic disease services may be improved if care management processes (CMPs), such as disease-specific flowsheets and chronic disease registries, are used. The newly industrialized Gulf state health service has underdeveloped primary care but higher diabetes prevalence. This paper's aim is to investigate care management processes in United Arab Emirates (UAE) primary care clinics to explore these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A cross-sectional survey using self-administered questionnaires given to family physicians and nurses attending a UAE University workshop was used to collect data.\nFindings: - All 38 participants completed the questionnaire: 68 per cent were women and 81 per cent physicians. Care management processes in use included: medical records, 76 per cent; clinical guidelines, 74 per cent; chronic disease care rooms, 74 per cent; disease-specific flowsheets, 61 per cent; medical record audits, 57 per cent; chronic disease nurse-educators, 58 per cent; electronic medical records (EMR), 34 per cent; and incentive plans based on clinical performance, 21 per cent. Only 62 per cent and 48 per cent reported that flowsheets and problem lists, respectively, were completed by physicians. Responses to the open-ended question included using traditional quality improvement (QI) approaches such as continuing education and staff meetings, but not proactive systems such as disease registries and self-management.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The study used a small, non-random sample and the survey instrument's psychometric properties were not collected.\nPractical implications: - Chronic disease care CMPs are present in UAE clinics but use is limited. Quality improvement should include disease registries, reminder-tracking systems, patient self-management support and quality incentives.\nOriginality/value: - This report highlights the lag regarding adopting more effective CMPs in developing countries.\n",
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Middle market companies: reaching stakeholders through strategic communication
|
[
"Corporate communication",
"Small business",
"Family-owned businesses",
"Middle market",
"Multinational corporation",
"Privately-held businesses"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Between the nation's smallest and largest businesses, according to annual sales, lies the middle market (MM), what one writer described as \"to the USA economy what North America was to Christopher Columbus: a giant, incredibly important, heretofore 'undiscovered' but now unavoidable and centrally important part of the world's landscape\" (Maney, 2011). Everyone knows it exists but most are fuzzy on the details. Middle market businesses (MMBs) are easy to ignore because they lack the visibility of large-cap publicly traded companies at one end and the popularized-image of struggling small business owners at the other. In the past, this \"everything else in between\" status and lack of clarity led researchers, reporters and policymakes to throw up their hands when asked about the seemingly invisible MM. Recently, however, the sector has been gaining visibility through its role in creating jobs, developing products and markets and innovating business models. Because of its new-found status, experts are calling for research focused on a better understanding of the MM and the firms it encompasses. This paper describes characteristics of the MM that impact corporate communication needs. The constantly changing environment is a central part of this discussion.\nMiddle market characteristics: According to the USA Census Bureau (2007) data, slightly more than six million firms with a payroll were in operation in the USA in 2007. Of these, more than 5.8 million firms recorded annual revenue of less than $10 million and are regarded as small firms in the present study. At the top end, the large firms' category consists of 2,631 companies, each with a sales volume of $1 billion or more. Between these two is the MM category, defined in this paper firms with annual revenues between $10 million up to $1 billion. Defining business segments has never been an easy, straightforward task as Galbraith (1955) suggested more than 50 years ago:\nThe changing environment: The concept of the corporation has been transformed (Goodman and Hirsch, 2012). A combination of forces, especially technology, is breaking down walls and boundaries all over the business landscape. Business size was once associated with certain benefits, favoring large firms in some cases and smaller ones in others. Yet size is losing significance as the public is increasingly unable to distinguish among firms, especially mid-sized and large. Globalization and the new business models it has spawned are breaking down traditional enterprise boundaries, while borderless enterprises are required to compete and scale globally (Cisco, 2008/2009). Web 2.0, referring to how the World Wide Web is used, has shown its impact. Companies below the large business threshold find themselves competing with those above the threshold. As Hanscott reported, \"digital marketing has torn down the traditional barriers to promotion, allowing small businesses to compete with larger players like never before\" (as cited in Yell, 2011). Perceptions of company size and scale are unimportant for consumers. Zappos.com is a case in point. The company grew from start-up status in 1999 with \"almost nothing\" in sales to more than $1 billion in sales in 2008 before it was purchased by Amazon.com in 2009 (\nImplications for corporate communication: MMBs are particularly vulnerable in the changing environment not only because they are undercapitalized and thinly staffed in their management ranks, but also because they are not as visible as their smaller and larger counterparts. In view of these vulnerabilities as they face the new competitive\nSummary and conclusions: Lacking the visibility of its smaller and larger counterparts, the MM is frequently ignored by academics, public policymakers and the business press. Firms in the small business sector (under $10 million in sales) have an ally in the form of the USA Small Business Administration and are often the subject of news stories depicting the struggles faced by independent business owners. At the other extreme, large firms (the $1 billion plus sales category) are well known from the in-depth coverage of their affairs by the business press, as well as by their many products and services, which have become household names. A combination of circumstances is now encouraging a closer look at the middle market. MMBs have been creating new jobs, developing new products and services and innovating through the introduction of new business models. Enough attention has been drawn to the MM, in fact, that observers are calling for research to better understand the sector and the companies it comprises.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a description and overview of the middle market which, by sales volume, lies between the small business and large business sectors and also identifies the implications for corporate communication in that sector.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A review of the literature in corporate communication and related business and management topics formed the basis of the paper.\nFindings: The middle market was found to be a collection of businesses vastly ranging in size and structure and spanning numerous industries. Regardless of size, firms need to behave as if they were large corporations and well-staffed organizations as they engage and manage stakeholders and implement corporate communication strategic plans.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings, which could form the basis for a more comprehensive study, were based solely on secondary sources.\nPractical implications: Suggestions for addressing unique corporate communication issues in the middle market are highlighted.\nOriginality/value: The paper enhances understanding of the middle market which, while economically-successful, is often ignored.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Pricing practices in Victorian America: evidence from a satirical point of view
|
[
"Pricing",
"Housing",
"Consumerism",
"United States of America"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Historical pricing practices are fundamental in economic history and can provide important evidence about the impact of technical progress and may also have independent consequences for the standard of living. In addition, geographic and other variations in prices continue to offer clues about the evolution and operations of markets. Therefore, understanding pricing practices on one side and consumers pricing perception and behavior on the other side in contemporary America was and is still a subject of interest to an impressive number of scholars, e.g. Maxwell (2008), Goldberg and Hellerstein (2007), Monroe (2003), and Nagle and Holden (2002), Zeithaml (1988), Jacoby and Olson (1985), Bishop (1984), Doyle (1984), Sawyer and Dickson (1984) and Schechter (1984). They confirm that price, as an important element of the marketing mix, determines and concludes the conceptual model of the relation between perceived quality and perceived value and therefore finally explains the consumers' behavior (Zeithaml, 1988).Perhaps surprisingly, well before marketing became an academic and conceptual subject, pricing was receiving considerable attention in Victorian America (1870-1910), where it had an impact on participants in the business sector, all classes of consumers, and various governmental entities. That is, by the early 1880s, two satirical weekly magazines - Puck and Judge - were portraying this fact in an instructive and amusing manner while documenting foibles and misadventures in a country being transformed by an industrial revolution and awash with speculation, highly partisan and corrupt administrations, rapid urbanization, waves of immigration, and a stratification of wealth. There was plenty to satirize, including the prices or costs for a variety of goods, services, and ideas.The use of magazines to understand historical pricing practices is not novel. Rees (1961) drew upon advertisements to estimate rents in six cities between 1890 and 1914, and Margo (1996) used rental advertisements to analyze housing prices for the antebellum United States.The aim of this paper is to get a first impression of the concept of price related to consumer behavior - notably price as a sacrifice to obtain a product or service (Zeithaml, 1988; Chapman, 1986; Mazumdar, 1986; Monroe and Krishnan, 1985; Ahtola, 1984) and such other costs as time, effort, situation and psychic (Down, 1961; Gronau, 1973; Leibowitz, 1974; Leuthold, 1981; Linder, 1970; Mabry, 1970; Mincer, 1963; Nichols et al., 1971; Zeithaml and Berry, 1987). The authors do this by singling out pricing examples and practices in three broad activities within the US of the Victorian era as captured in the two magazines. In drawing upon the timeliness, quality, and detail of the cartoons, they attempt to reveal the impact upon citizens, ideally to provide insights for researchers focusing on aspects of twenty-first century pricing theory and practice.\nThe economic environment (1860-1910): Data from the US Bureau of the Census (1975) provide a comprehensive picture of the industrial revolution that swept Victorian America. Gross National Product (GNP) rose from a $7.4 billion average during the 1869-1878 decade to $30.6 billion by 1913, which in constant (1958) dollars represented a climb from $23.1 billion to $131.4 billion. Even when taking into account the strong increase in US population, GNP per capita during this period rose from $531 to $1,351. That surge translates into a jump in annual GNP of 4.3 percent and in per capita output of 1.9 percent. Maddison (2003) calculates US output surpassed that of the UK in 1872 when America became the largest economic power in the world.As the USA moved from a rural society to an economic giant (Chandler, 1968), a snapshot of the transformation in 1900 by the US Census Office (1902) highlights the importance of industrial products, valued at just over $13 billion (versus nearly $5.4 billion in 1880). This total is led by five major industries: iron and steel, with an output of $804.0 million; meat packing, $790.3 million; foundry and machine shop products, $645.0 million; lumber/timber products, $566.6 million; and flour and grist mill products, $560.7 million. And another 50 industries each had annual outputs worth at least $50 million. In turn, 5.3 million wage-earners were employed in industry in 1900 (with wages of $2.32 billion). The labor situation in those five largest industries were: iron and steel (222,490 workers, and wages of $120.8 million); meat packing (69,441, $33.9 million); foundry products (350,327, $182.2 million); lumber/timber (283,179, $104.6 million); and flour products (37,073, $17.7 million).The growth of cities was phenomenal in Victorian America. While the country registered 38.6 million people in the 1870 census with just below 10 million in urban areas, by 1910 the total of 91.9 million citizens would include 42 million living in urban areas, including 8.5 million in places of over 1 million inhabitants. Housing units in 1890 for a population of 62.9 million were just 12.7 million, but 4.8 million of those units were on farms. The non-farm number of units would climb from 7.3 million (1890) to 10.3 million (1900) to 14.1 million (1910), although the share of owner-occupied would increase only gradually during this era (from 36.9 percent to 38.4 percent).US Bureau of Census (1975) figures for city wages earned by families in 1888-1891 provide a picture of the distribution of consumption. For example, for a sample of families, average annual income was $576, with the current consumption of $534 distributed as $219 (food), $80 (housing), $32 (fuel and light), $82 (clothing), and $121 (sundries). As such researchers as Faulkner (1951) and Kirkland (1961) make clear, survival was the key element confronting many workers.This picture of a country transforming its industrial structure, filling up the urban space, and enabling many of its citizens to enjoy a rising standard of living suggests that pricing practices associated with urban life, housing difficulties, and enhancement of consumer choice could be of special interest for a content analysis of Victorian America.\nStudy method: To explore the pricing practices in Victorian America, qualitative research was undertaken. Qualitative research is a mixture of the rational, the explorative, and the intuitive, where the skills and experience of the authors play an important role in the analysis of data (Ghauri and Gronhaug, 2005). The authors use content analysis to identify and examine selected pricing practices in Victorian America.Information for this article was collected from two satirical weekly magazines - Puck and Judge - which portrayed in an amusing manner the pricing practices and costs for a variety of goods, services, and ideas. These two influential magazines would tear apart newsworthy political, economic, social, and business issues in order to generate color cartoons on the front and back covers and on a large centerfold as well as to deliver satirical musings between the covers (Dennis, 1974; Dennis and Allen, 1979). While the competitive nature of the two magazines and their differing political orientations were often evident in the subject matter of the color cartoons, each issue depicts America's changing environment in a particularly interesting manner, as Holden and Holden (2007) have demonstrated to marketing historians. Even Silverman (2000) argues that successful pictorial and textual studies recognize the value of working with a clearly defined approach.Puck was launched as a weekly magazine in New York on March 14, 1877. As a successful pioneer in US cartoon journalism, Puck delivers pages of humor and satire that particularly expose the epidemic of national and local political corruption (e.g. bribery and scandals), the considerable inequalities of monopolist power (e.g. the unequal bargaining position of capital and labor), a largely Republican push for high tariffs and infant-industry protection (e.g. hurting consumers and farmers), and international political tensions (mostly within Europe). With an estimated subscriber circulation of some 90,000 at its peak, Puck would transition into a largely fashion magazine by about 1914.The Judge was launched as a weekly magazine in New York on October 29, 1881 (with its name shortened to Judge starting with the issue of January 16, 1886). As a second successful pioneer in US cartoon journalism, Judge (as this paper refers to all issues) is also full of humor and satire that target the same national and local political corruption, evident excesses of power (e.g. by capital and by organized labor), several wrong-headed, largely Democratic domestic platforms (e.g. free silver and Bryan's several presidential campaigns), and unrealistic international views. The magazine, with an estimated subscriber circulation of some 60,000 at its peak, lost its satirical edge about the same time as Puck but published for decades after World War I.\nPricing practices in Victorian America: a satirical content analysis: 1. The price of urban life: living high in New York City (NYC)\nConclusions and future research: Regarding the pricing experiences in the three selected activities, urbanization produced many stresses, and the price of living in the biggest city was high, amid NYC's explosive physical growth and a concentration of jobs in Manhattan. On top of this, a shortage of housing was endemic. Moreover, corruption at the municipal level generated additional pressure on prices for citizens and businesses. Notably, the spoils system required higher local taxes and more inconveniences.The sensational press made important inroads in the Victorian era while injuring the reputation of victims, but that did not deter publishers from feeding the demands of consumers for a diet of scandal and worse. Meanwhile, as demand for more choice became wide-spread, the price for some households of this new \"consumerism\" was an entrapment by the clever promotional efforts of retailers. Nonetheless, it is clear that this awakening by householders would become a foundation of the modern American economy, with its heavy dependence upon consumer demand.In terms of future research, the authors selected three categories of pricing practices to assess. But Victorian America offers many more, including those associated with corruption in Washington, a national mania for speculation, tense labor-management relations, religious fervor, and tariff issues.In sum, satirical views of pricing practices in Victorian America offer many issues that are familiar to analysts of twenty-first century pricing theory and practice. They reveal and again sensitize the question of how consumers in the Victorian American era related price to quality and value in their deliberations about urban life, housing, and consumerism. The price as a sacrifice therefore determines mainly the consumers' perception and behavior.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper seeks to investigate how consumers in Victorian America related prices to quality and value in deliberations about urban life, housing, and a newly-emerging consumerism. The objectives are to understand pricing practices of firms and the behavior and perception of prices by consumers in Victorian American and to determine whether Victorian pricing practices could provide important insights for twenty-first century theory and practice.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper conducted a qualitative content analysis of pricing highlighted in a large sample of three cartoons appearing weekly in Puck and Judge. In these preeminent satirical magazines of the 1880-1910 era, the authors found cartoons to be reflective of pricing practices and resultant consumer behavior of that era.\nFindings: - The paper confirms even on a satirical research basis that Victorian households indeed experienced price-related stresses in urban life, housing decisions, and in daily consumption. It also reveals that during industrial revolution, rapid urbanization, waves of immigration, and a stratification of wealth, price is not only money but also time, effort, and psychic energy.\nOriginality/value: - The study confirms that pricing has long influenced consumer decision making and that, even historically, price was perceived primarily as a sacrifice to obtain a product. The study uses archival data to underscore the fact that product prices are evaluated in terms of consumers' everyday life decisions.\n",
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Product knowledge and information processing of organic foods
|
[
"Information processing",
"Organic food",
"Heuristic v. systematic processing model",
"Product knowledge",
"Product label claims"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Consumer interest in products with environmental, health or societal attributes has grown in recent years (Nasir and Karakaya, 2014). In particular, food products now bear labels such as certified organic, GMO-free, locally grown, cage-free, fair trade, gluten-free, halal, natural, community-supported and many others. These labels rely on consumer trust for their market value, as most of the implied attributes are not easily verifiable by the consumer, even after purchase (Nuttavuthisit and Thogersen, 2017; Kirchhoff, 2000). Considered credence qualities, such labels present an extra challenge for marketers who must build relationships with consumers to establish that credibility (Darby and Karni, 1973). Indeed, as the market for these \"alternative\" foods has grown, so has the concern that their ethical attributes may be diluted by mainstream market forces (Maguire et al., 2017).\nLiterature: Information and product labels\nStudy 1: Methodology\nStudy 2: Methodology\nDiscussion: Our results offer significant lessons. First, the information processing path followed by the consumer is likely to influence the criteria used to make the product choice, if not the choice itself. Heuristic processors use peripheral attributes - brand and price - as well as the product's \"organic\" status more often as rationale than do systematic processors who rely more on core attributes such as ingredients and nutritional content. Thus, the premise of the HSM is confirmed, but, more importantly, we have established that \"organic\" serves as a credible heuristic to a sizeable portion of consumers. Given that 15 years have passed since the formal introduction of USDA's National Organic Program's (NOP), this is an important finding.\nImplications for other alternative food categories: Alternative food labels, both existing and emerging, whether legitimate or co-opted by mainstream forces, include those aimed at ethics (e.g. GMO-free, fair trade, free range, cage free), health (e.g. gluten-free, lactose-free), safety (e.g. traceability), religion (e.g. kosher, halal), and economics (e.g. locally grown). This wide and changing set of labels may face many of the same challenges experienced by the organic food industry. After 15 years of a federally backed formal definition of \"organic\", along with the general and specific marketing support via the USDA, we see lessons regarding both consumer awareness and the value of marketing tools that may apply to other alternative food categories. The role of product knowledge - objective or subjective - must be incorporated into expectations of consumer interest and behavior. Policymakers who target food communications rules are part of that change.\nConclusions and limitations: Our purpose with this article was to illustrate how product knowledge influences the choices made by consumers, specifically with respect to product choice, the rationale used for that choice and the information processing method employed. Our results show considerable support for hypotheses that the information processing path affects choice rationale, and that a consumer's product knowledge influences the choice of information processing path. Specifically, for the case of \"organic\" food, consumers with low levels of both objective and subjective knowledge are more likely to use heuristics and to base their choice on peripheral cues such as brand and price. Importantly, \"organic\" also serves as a heuristic cue, although principally among high knowledge consumers.\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine how product knowledge influences consumers to consider available information before choosing between organic and non-organic options. As \"certified organic\" is based on a complex standard in the USA, many consumers have only partial understanding of the term. This research shows how that knowledge influences consumer evaluation of the options presented in the market.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A two-study experimental survey that offers respondents a choice between two canned soups, one organic and one not, along with front- and back-of-label information which they can decide to use is utilized. The two studies differ in inclusion of national brand.\nFindings: Consumer behavior with respect to information significantly affects rationale for product choice, and higher levels of knowledge are associated with choice rationale. Objective and subjective knowledge influence information processing differently. Inaccurate knowledge displayed by consumers influences their information processing behavior.\nResearch limitations/implications: While the survey stimuli are a realistic representation of two products, the online survey abstracts from in-store distractors that might influence behavior. The product chosen, while familiar and commonly consumed, is a low-involvement product which may reduce consumer effort.\nPractical/implications: Marketers of organic foods must understand the level of knowledge held by consumers, as well as the information that most influences their choices if the industry is to grow further.\nOriginality/value: This study contrasts subjective and objective knowledge about organic foods and calculates the degree to which consumers under- versus over-estimate \"organic\" in their ignorance. As such, the research offers insight into a well-established label claim that has yet to achieve significant market share.\n",
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}
] |
Past purchase and intention to purchase in e-commerce: The mediation of social presence and trust
|
[
"Electronic commerce",
"Purchasing",
"Trust"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Information and communication technologies (ICT) are commonly used in many work and non-work situations. It is important therefore that the design of ICT consider the social context of use (Lamb and Kling, 2003). In e-commerce, for example, the social context of purchasing is paramount even though less obvious than in traditional shopping in physical stores. Ignoring the social context of online shopping leads to an incomplete representation of the consumer that may fail to take into account multiple expectations and roles people play when shopping. Shopping in physical stores may be seen as fun, a means of compensating for some emotional loss, getting a good bargain, or consulting with friends. Each of these situations involves a different social context and different social actors although the purchasing frame remains a constant. Are these typical modes of traditional shopping relevant to online shopping? In this paper we take some first steps in establishing the social context of online shopping and investigating its impact on intentions to purchase.Theories prior to the internet age focused on the intention-behavior link (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975; Ajzen, 1985). Customer purchase intention studies highlighted the role of such factors as service quality, equity and value, customer satisfaction, past loyalty, expected switching cost and brand preference (Hellier et al., 2003).In a recent comprehensive review investigating what drives consumers to shop online, Monsuwe et al. (2004) suggested that attitudes towards online shopping and intention to shop online are not only related to ease of use and fun but also to several exogenous factors such as consumer traits, situational factors, product characteristics, previous online shopping experience and trust.In this paper we argue that purchasing experience should be considered as an initial factor in the prediction of purchasing intentions in combination with features of the social context, namely, social presence and trust. We develop and test a model that explains the social context of online purchasing intentions by looking at past purchasing and these two constructs of social context. This model has implications for both academia and business. Theoretically, it sheds light on the social context of using ICT in complex social activities such as online purchasing, and explores whether and how the impact of social context on behavior is contingent on experience.The current article is constructed as follows: section 2 discusses social context in relationship to social presence and trust and describes the theoretical framework. It presents the set of hypotheses and the research model. Sections 3 and 4 present the methodology and findings, and section 5 covers the discussion, the contributions and limitations of the study, and recommendations for future research.\n2. Theoretical framework: Following the long tradition in studying buyers' behavior, we assume that a person's behavior is affected by intention. The most frequently used consumer-behavior theories that build on intention are the theory of reasoned behavior (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980) and its extension, the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1985; see also Smith et al., 2008; Chih-Chung and Su-Chao, 2005). However, it is not clear how these theories capture the range of behaviors found in diverse social contexts relevant to online purchasing. This study examines the relationship between past behavior and intentions in internet shopping in its specific (virtual) social context. We use four constructs to explore this relationship: social presence (SP), trust, past purchasing and intention to purchase.2.1 Social presence\n3. Model and hypotheses: The model formulates the mediating role of social context, represented by SP and trust, in explaining intentions to purchase online. Three hypotheses formulate the effects on SP and trust, and the fourth hypothesis formulates their impact on intentions to purchase.3.1 Past purchasing and social presence\n4. Method: 4.1 Participants\n5. Results: The zero-order correlations of all predictor variables with the participants' intention to purchase via the internet are presented in Table I.Table II reveals that all hypotheses were confirmed as expected. Participants who had past internet purchasing experience showed a higher perception of SP when entering the site (r=0.27, p>0.01), and a higher degree of trust (r=0.26, p<0.01), confirming H1 and H2, respectively. Participants who perceived a higher SP when entering the site showed a higher degree of trust (r=0.46, p<0.01) (confirming H3).Participants showed higher intentions to purchase in the future when they had previous internet purchasing experience (r=0.49, p<0.01), felt a higher SP (r=0.49, p<0.01), and had higher trust in the site when conducting the purchase process, (r=0.58, p<0.01), confirming H4a, H4b and H4c, respectively).5.1 Multivariate regression analysis\n6. Discussion: Past behavior has been shown to reliably predict consumer behavior, primarily in stable contexts in which habits are influential (Bagozzi et al., 2000; Oellette and Wood, 1998). Online purchasing is not a stable context; to many it is new, difficult and even threatening. It was therefore of special importance to investigate how past purchasing affected intentions to purchase online. The change consumers experience is not only in the novel technological, physical context of online purchasing but perhaps more importantly in the implied social context. The social context of traditional shopping has a crucial impact on consumers' behavior. We examined how the social context of online shopping, which is not embedded in the physical setting of the traditional shop, impacts consumers' intention to purchase. Our findings showed that indeed the social context is important in affecting the consumer's intention to purchase. Moreover, the social context is affected by past purchasing; thus a dynamic view of the social context in which it changes with the consumer's experience is likely to be a substantial factor in determining online shopping behavior. We discuss these issues below.6.1 Theoretical implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Purchasing on the internet has unique features that make it different from the traditional shopping process, particularly with regard to its social context. This study seeks to investigate the relationship between past online purchases and purchasing intentions, representing the social context by the notions of social presence and trust.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A sample of 115 working MBA students purchased an item online (but were stopped at the stage of paying), and then completed a questionnaire on social presence and trust.\nFindings: - The results show that past purchasing predicts intentions to purchase and that trust and social presence act as partial mediators.\nPractical implications: - Social context is important for understanding how past behavior affects future purchasing. Designs should therefore enhance social presence and trust. Moreover, it may be beneficial to monitor these mediators to detect potential problems.\nOriginality/value: - The study demonstrates the important role of social context in online shopping. In particular, the mediation of trust and social presence between past and future purchasing is determined.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Managing information security awareness at an Australian bank: a comparative study
|
[
"Information security (InfoSec)",
"Fear of reprisal",
"Information security awareness (ISA)",
"Multi-channelled InfoSec training regime",
"Social desirability bias"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: 1.1 Background\n2. Justification for this research: This research is predicated on the theory that employees with a higher level of ISA will be more risk-averse and, therefore, more compliant with organisational InfoSec policies and procedures. This will improve their computer-based behaviour and lead to a higher level of organisational InfoSec (Clarke et al., 2016). Hence, if the ISA of an employee is known, intervention strategies such as training and other education initiatives can be implemented or modified to target the most vulnerable areas of InfoSec.\n3. Information security awareness (ISA): Within the past few years, ISA has become the internationally accepted phrase to describe an individual's understanding of all the aspects that relate to the security of an information system. However, numerous variations on this theme have emerged in recent years. For example, Kruger and Kearney (2006, p. 289) define ISA as:\n4. Research methods: 4.1 Overview\n5. Results: Table I shows the percentage of favourable (that is, in accordance with policy) knowledge and attitude responses for both the bank's employees and the general workforce participants. After reverse scoring, favourable responses, the sum of responses that were marked as either \"Strongly Agree\" or \"Agree\", were expressed as a percentage of the total number of responses for each InfoSec focus area.\n6. Discussion of results: The results shown in Table I can be attributed to the following factors.\n7. Limitations: This current research did not investigate the InfoSec culture that prevailed within the bank being studied because the objective of the research was to compare a bank's employees with general workforce employees rather than compare organisations. The authors were only able to make general observations about the bank's InfoSec culture through occasional interviews with InfoSec management people within the bank.\n8. Conclusions: The aim of the research project described in this paper was first to confirm that a specific bank's employees were generally more information security-aware than employees in other Australian industries and second to identify the major factors that contributed to this particular bank's high levels of ISA.\n9. Future research: The research outlined in this paper has reinforced the need to confirm and validate the type and extent of InfoSec training and other ISA initiatives that keep employees informed about the InfoSec risks, threats, consequences, assets at risk and appropriate computer-based behaviours. Future research of this nature should examine the effectiveness of various ISA programmes in light of individual differences and learning styles. This would form the basis of an adaptive control framework that would complement many of the current international standards, such as ISO's 27000 series, NIST's SP800 series and ISACA's COBIT5. More specifically, the research needs to include questions relating to the various types of training modalities, such as online videos, email alerts, posters, regular bulletins and computer-based training lessons, so that their effectiveness can be assessed.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The aim of this study was first to confirm that a specific bank's employees were generally more information security-aware than employees in other Australian industries and second to identify the major factors that contributed to this bank's high levels of information security awareness (ISA).\nDesign/methodology/approach: A Web-based questionnaire (the Human Aspects of Information Security Questionnaire - HAIS-Q) was used in two separate studies to assess the ISA of individuals who used computers at their workplace. The first study assessed 198 employees at an Australian bank and the second study assessed 500 working Australians from various industries. Both studies used a Qualtrics-based questionnaire that was distributed via an email link.\nFindings: The results showed that the average level of ISA among bank employees was consistently 20 per cent higher than that among general workforce participants in all focus areas and overall. There were no significant differences between the ISA scores for those who received more frequent training compared to those who received less frequent training. This result suggests that the frequency of training is not a contributing factor to an employee's level of ISA.\nResearch limitations/implications: This current research did not investigate the information security (InfoSec) culture that prevailed within the bank in question because the objective of the research was to compare a bank's employees with general workforce employees rather than compare organisations. The Research did not include questions relating to the type of training participants had received at work.\nOriginality/value: This study provided the bank's InfoSec management with evidence that their multi-channelled InfoSec training regime was responsible for a substantially higher-than-average ISA for their employees. Future research of this nature should examine the effectiveness of various ISA programmes in light of individual differences and learning styles. This would form the basis of an adaptive control framework that would complement many of the current international standards, such as ISO's 27000 series, NIST's SP800 series and ISACA's COBIT5.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Building affective commitment in a financial institution through an ambidexterity context
|
[
"Contextual ambidexterity",
"Employees’ affective commitment",
"Exploration and exploitation of knowledge"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Although employee commitment and employee engagement are terms often used to describe different properties of the relationship between an organisation and its employees, the truth is that it is not always easy to differentiate both concepts. While employee commitment may refer to the extent to which employees are emotionally bound to their organisations (Rhoades et al., 2001; Meyer and Herscovitch, 2001), employee engagement often refers to the degree to which employees feel passionate either about what they do (Attridge, 2009) or about their work in general (Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004; Scheepers and Elstob, 2016). For stylistic parsimony, instead of \"commitment\" and/or \"engagement\", this paper makes use of the term \"affective commitment\" as a most encompassing approach to describing the behaviour of those employees who strongly identify themselves with the goals of the organisation and whose desire is to remain a part of it (Mercurio, 2015). When employees feel that the organisational environment becomes \"their own\" while remaining a \"true organization\", they are more likely to develop a positive perception of the organisation and its performance (Allen and Meyer, 1990).\n2. Conceptual framework: There is consensus in the organisational learning community that while knowledge management deals with contents acquired, created or used by the organisation (Nonaka, 1994), organisational learning studies focus on the processes through which members of the organisation acquire new knowledge related to its environment, functions and culture (Easterby-Smith and Lyles, 2003; Argote, 1999). Productivity and quality-of-work-life have been defined in terms of people's reaction to work, particularly individual outcomes related to job satisfaction and mental health (Cummings and Worley, 2015). It is no surprise that organisational learning has been described as a tool used to support cooperation among employees (Christensen et al., 2005). Thus, Benner and Tushman (2003) have argued that organisational learning requires assessing the organisation along the following two critical dimensions:\n3. The proposed research model: The basic dilemma confronting organisations in this context consists of finding mechanisms to allow for sufficient exploitation to ensure its current viability and, at the same time, to devote enough energy to exploration to ensure its future viability (He and Wong, 2004). Yu et al. (2013) for instance show that managers should let service workers exercise their own judgment when deciding when or what to up- or cross-sell. To address this challenge, some authors have argued that ambidexterity can arise from punctuated equilibrium or sequential attention to exploration and exploitation (Burgelman, 2002). However, some other authors suggest that such a balance can be achieved through the use of both exploration and exploitation in parallel or simultaneously (He and Wong, 2004; O'Reilly and Tushman, 2008; Jansen et al., 2008).\n4. The empirical study: The target population for this study were employees from the 188 branches of a Spanish commercial bank which operates in the south-eastern region of Spain and in other countries. Before starting with data collection, managers from all 188 Spanish branches were contacted individually and invited to participate in the study. They were informed by telephone of the objectives of the research and were reassured of its strictly scientific and confidential nature, as well as the how the anonymity of participants would be maintained. Out of the 188 managers who were invited, a total of 76 agreed for their employees to participate in the study, representing the 40.42 per cent of all branches.\n5. Results: Because PLS makes no distributional assumptions in its parameter estimation, traditional parameter-based techniques for significance testing and modelling were used for this study (Chin, 1998). A significant outcome of the comparison between covariance structure analysis modelling approaches and PLS is that no proper overall goodness-of-fit measures exist for models using the latter (Hulland, 1999). Following the recommendations of Dinc (2015) and Hayes and Preacher (2014), a first test is conducted using sequential chi-squared difference tests to understand whether a less restricted model worsened the fit. This was performed by comparing the partially and fully mediated models in which ambidexterity context affects affective commitment directly and indirectly via the explorative and the exploitative processes with a fully mediated model where ambidexterity context influences affective commitment through the explorative and the exploitative processes. Next, a test is conducted with a view to understand whether an even less restricted model worsened the fit.\n6. Discussion: The first contribution of this research is an extension of the existing organisational learning models by adding the consequent variables of an ambidexterity context and affective commitment. This was achieved by comparing both the partially and fully mediated models (in which an ambidexterity context has an effect on affective commitment directly and indirectly via the explorative and the exploitative processes) with a fully mediated model (where ambidexterity context influences affective commitment through the explorative and the exploitative processes).\n7. Conclusions: There is limited research on the relationship between an ambidexterity context and affective commitment currently reported in the literature. This study has addressed that gap by examining, through an empirical study of 219 employees of a bank, how the existence of an ambidexterity context in an organisation contributes to the exploration and exploitation of knowledge by its employees and how knowledge activates are linked to the nurturing of affective commitment in staff. Subsequently, the first contribution of this research is to shed light on what may prove to be an important role for employees when it comes to carrying out explorative and exploitative activities. The research has shown that an ambidexterity context is a key component of the process of combining knowledge in a way that is both appropriate for exploring value to the company and effective in exploiting its memory.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Ambidexterity refers to the tension between two different business models within the same organisation. This paper examines the significance of individuals' knowledge exploration and exploitation activities in an organisation's ambidexterity context, along with how they affect the creation of an affective commitment in the workforce. The study then investigates how an organisation's ambidexterity vision contributes to employees' affective commitment to learning.\nDesign/methodology/approach: These relationships are examined through an empirical investigation of 219 employees in the financial sector, using structural equation modelling validated by factor analysis.\nFindings: The results indicate that for a firm to successfully achieve ambidexterity, its managers need to explicitly work to nurture a context where explorative and exploitative activities take place simultaneously. Another relevant contribution of this study has been addressing the impact that explorative and exploitative activities may have on affective commitment. The results suggest that while the effect of the ambidexterity context on the affective commitment by way of explorative activities is statistically insignificant, the effects of exploitative activities on affective commitment are statistically significant.\nOriginality/value: While the extant literature provides useful insights into the relationship between contextual ambidexterity and organisational performance, the relationship between ambidexterity and affective commitment has been less researched. This study has shown that an ambidexterity context is a key component in the process of combining knowledge structures in ways which are appropriate for both exploring value of that knowledge for the company and being effective in exploiting its memory.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Assessment of performance using MPSS based DEA
|
[
"Benchmarking",
"Data envelopment analysis",
"Frontier function",
"Principal component analysis"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The journey of data envelopment analysis (DEA), as proposed by Charnes et al. (1978) (the CCR model), commenced from the dissertation of Rhodes when the performance of students from participating and not participating schools were compared using a non-linear model and an equivalent data-oriented, linear programming-based, non-parametric approach. A DMU is called an efficient performer if it uses fewer quantities of each input to generate the same set of outputs or produces more outputs from the same set of input resources than its rivals. Thus, it makes a place in a production possibility set. Later on, the assumption of constant return on scale (CRS), was extended by Banker et al. (1984). The renowned BCC model of these researchers was able to administer variable scaling techniques. As a result, weak efficient and strong efficient DMUs, most productive scale size (MPSS) and, scale efficiency became prevalent. To estimate the CRS frontier function, the regression approach was modified by Winsten (1957) by using a corrected ordinary regression technique. It enabled the detection of CRS efficient DMU instead of classifying them into below average, average and above average units (Cooper and Seiford, 2011). Later on, the DEA estimators were found statistically consistent (Banker and Maindiratta, 1992). The detailed methodology of the frontier function estimation was done by Greene (1980) on a generalized form proposed by Aigner and Chu (1968). The exploration of stochastic DEA has proven to be highly effective for adapting this approach to abrupt changes. The experiment on \"Program follow Through and Non-follow Through\" school sites (originally considered by Charnes et al., 1978) was revisited by Land et al. (1993) who, instead of taking average values for inputs and outputs, suggested a deterministic equivalent of the chance constrained model by assuming normally distributed output variables which were conditional on inputs. In an efficiency evaluation of the research activities in economic departments at Danish Universities, Olesen and Petersen (1995) developed a chance constrained programming model while distinguishing two reasons (true inefficiency and random disturbance) to remain inefficient.\n2. Definitions and theorems: 2.1. DEA with CCR model\n3. The proposed model: The whole process has been subdivided into three sections such as conversion of DEA (Section 3.1), which is essential for making a resemblance between DEA and embedded PCA, construction of CRS frontier using embedded PCA (Section 3.2) while measuring the PCA efficiencies and lastly, derivation of the MPSS-based frontier function (Section 3.3) with multiple output using the CRS frontier function.\n4. A mathematical example: To rank according to the proposed model six schools are considered in Table I. The quality of a school is judged based on the average writing score per student (O1) and science score per student (O2). Two inputs, spending per student (I1) and the financial condition of a student represented in terms of percent not from low income (I2), are also recorded here.\n5. Conclusion: To address the question \"why this new DEA model\" it is referred here that the traditional CCR DEA model is very useful to define a kinked frontier which discriminates the efficient DMUs from the rests. However, it hardly mentions anything about the internal dimensions of resource utilization. The cost (collective consumption) frontier is derived from the first principal component of a non-central covariance matrix. The corresponding eigenvector shows positive direction of the joint variation of all resources. Any DMU which has lowest intercept will be counted as economic user of resources. As a result it remains close to the cost frontier to become cost efficient.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Identification of the best school among other competitors is done using a new technique called most productive scale size based data envelopment analysis (DEA). The paper aims to discuss this issue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A non-central principal component analysis is used here to create a new plane according to the constant return to scale. This plane contains only ultimate performers.\nFindings: The new method has a complete discord with the results of CCR DEA. However, after incorporating the ultimate performers in the original data set this difference was eliminated.\nPractical implications: The proposed frontier provides a way to identify those DMUs which follow cost strategy proposed by Porter.\nOriginality/value: A case study of six schools is incorporated here to identify the superior school and also to visualize gaps in their performances.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Design information for efficient equipment supplier/buyer integration
|
[
"Sweden",
"Manufacturing industries",
"Manufacturing systems",
"Information dissemination",
"Operations management",
"Production system design",
"Production equipment acquisition"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: One key issue during production system development projects is the acquisition of production equipment, which often accounts for a fairly large share of costs in production system development projects. Skinner (1992) argues that the investment in new production equipment can increase both production performance such as reliability or dependability and financial performance such as margins or market share. Production equipment acquisition situations require inward technology transfer and thus provide an opportunity for bringing in new technology into the manufacturing process (Trott and Cordey-Hayes, 1996). In addition, the ability of designing production equipment that can be easily transferred and ramped up to high volume production is difficult to emulate by competitors and thus allows for competitive advantages (Hayes et al., 2005).However, the task of designing and building the production equipment or parts of it is rather complex and often involves collaboration between manufacturing companies and equipment suppliers. The design of production equipment is an iterative process requiring input from members of various functions with different backgrounds and roles. Holden and Konishi (1996) conclude that the old model of technology transfer, i.e. import of technology, has to be replaced by more reciprocal collaboration including a more dynamic and interactive process of balancing internal R&D with that of strategic partners around the world. This is in line with Malik (2002), who argues that technology transfer should be a reciprocal iterative process. Consequently, it is of utmost importance to have good contacts and strong collaboration with equipment suppliers in order to explore new process development opportunities (Lager and Horte, 2005).Hence, there is a need for external integration during production system design, i.e. integration of work activities between organisations with formal boundaries (Pagell, 2004). An integration process requires the processing of relevant and necessary information between the parties involved (Koufteros et al., 2002; Swink et al., 2007). When design and building of production equipment is handed over to an equipment supplier, higher requirements are placed on the management of design information to secure that the equipment complies with technical and financial requirements of the manufacturing company. However, despite the fact that the integration of the equipment supplier is important (Bellgran, 1998) and consequently also the managing of design information between the manufacturing company and the equipment supplier, few studies have actually examined information processing between equipment suppliers and manufacturing companies.The purpose of the paper is therefore to describe the underlying design information and success factors for production equipment acquisition in order to support the design of high-performance production systems. More specifically, the following questions are formulated:* What type of design information is used for production equipment acquisition?* How do equipment suppliers obtain the design information required?* What factors contribute to an effective production equipment acquisition process?\n2 Theoretical framework: Although production system design is deemed important for project performance, it seems difficult to achieve (Bellgran and Safsten, 2010; Duda, 2000). As Hayes et al. (2005, p. 195) have noted that:[...] the development of new operating process technologies, however, has engendered far less excitement among academics and practitioners, let alone the public at large.However, the absence of support for the design of new process technologies increases the risk of installation and running-in problems and disturbances before start of production. Disturbances when installing new production equipment are often caused by new technology that has not been verified enough before being implemented. Probably most manufacturing companies have experienced this general problem.2.1 Design and development of production equipment\n3 Research design: 3.1 Case study research method\n4 Empirical findings: 4.1 Type of information used for production equipment acquisition\n5 Discussion: The type of information transferred to the equipment supplier during the production system acquisition process extends far beyond transferring technical information. Although technical information is the primary type of information required by the equipment suppliers, the manufacturing company, i.e. the customer has to provide information of different types. For example, the transferred information also has to include a detailed description of the context to enable people to place the information in its context. Since information has no intrinsic value; instead, the value depends upon the context and the user. Therefore, the transferred information has to be embedded in a meaningful context for the equipment supplier, which requires for example also a description of the shop floor environment where the equipment will be located.Moreover, the results of the empirical studies show that equipment suppliers need a combination of quantitative and qualitative information (Frishammar, 2003; Hackner, 1988), although both the equipment suppliers and their customers prefer the transfer of quantitative information. One reason is that quantified information facilitates the handling and processing of large amounts of information compared to qualitative information. Quantitative information such as performance specifications on tact time or availability is fundamental when designing production equipment for a new production system. Further, since it is quantitative it is also easy to verify that the stated requirements are fulfilled. A possible reason why manufacturing companies need to provide quantitative and qualitative information is the underlying nature of the type of information. Different types of information are transferred for different purposes (Fjallstrom, 2007; Zahay et al., 2004), which underscores that some types of information are transferred to enable clarification, while other information types seek answers to explicit questions. By using only quantitative information, it might be difficult for the equipment suppliers to set the information in its context. Further, to increase the understanding of the information, it was found that the different types of information should be transferred by different communication media, which is also mentioned by Daft and Lengel (1986).The empirical data shows that the equipment supplier and the manufacturing perceive the relevance of information differently. For example, the results from the questionnaire revealed that verification information summarised in a verification plan was of minor relevance to the equipment suppliers, while the case study company regarded it as important information. A potential reason for the contradictory relevance is that the equipment suppliers test the equipment by themselves during the development process, while for the manufacturing company the plan is an important guiding or control document. Further, although the equipment suppliers do not identify the verification plan as an important type of information, it can facilitate continuous communication and interaction during the project. This is vital for the manufacturing company in order to integrate the activities carried out by the equipment supplier as discussed by Lakemond and Berggren (2006) or Ro et al. (2008).The differences in the amount of information provided by the manufacturing company and the information required by the equipment supplier indicate that the transferred information has to be based on a holistic perspective. However, the empirical findings indicate that the information required by the equipment suppliers to make a quote is seldom based on a holistic perspective. For example, several equipment suppliers stated that information about the entire process flow of the product to be manufactured or information of how material and components should be supplied to the workstations were missing. A potential reason is that the customer, i.e. the manufacturing company does not always consider the fact that the equipment supplier only has a limited insight into the organisation of the manufacturing company. This implies that it is easy to become blind to the shortcomings of one's own company and thus have difficulties in judging the relevance of information to the equipment supplier. Further, this type of information is more complex and not as easy describable as for example information of a quantitative character.The challenge of providing the right amount of information from buyer to equipment supplier is reflected by the fact that equipment suppliers perceive that some information obtained is not relevant for their work activities. Manufacturing companies must find a trade-off between transferring too much or too little information. If too much information is provided, there is a risk that equipment suppliers will overlook important information. Further, by providing too much information, separating important from unimportant information becomes the responsibility of the equipment supplier and information might be misunderstood causing frustration and possibly a need for rework. Collecting irrelevant information also becomes a time consuming and costly activity at the manufacturing company. Thus, not all-available information should be transferred automatically; rather equipment suppliers have to purposefully choose the required design information that is going to be transferred.Further, the results propose that the information transfer between organisations with formal boundaries can contribute to deficiencies in the information quality. Since the information quality determines utilization of information, it can have major implication on the work of the equipment supplier. For example, when information is not accessible the frequency of usage will decrease (Frishammar, 2003; Sawyerr et al., 2000). Thus, if the equipment suppliers obtain too little information, they have to seek additional information, which can be very time consuming. Table IV shows information quality deficiencies and its consequences for the equipment supplier that originates from the collaboration between two separate companies. The figure exemplifies information quality deficiencies based on observations in the case study. As can be seen, the information quality of the transferred information is crucial in order to avoid frustration, confusion and time-consuming activities at the equipment supplier.To a background where equipment suppliers play a key role in designing and building the production equipment, it seems justified to elaborate on what factors contribute to the overcoming of integration barriers. From the empirical studies, it can be concluded that a clear success factor for the collaboration concerns the manufacturing company's appointment of a skilled contact person that bridges the exchange of relevant information and communication between buyer and supplier. Thus, the contact person can be seen as a so-called gatekeeper, because he/she opens the gate or barrier raised by the organisational boundaries (Allen, 1977; Tushman and Scanlan, 1981). However, it is important to point out that, as the success of the production acquisition process is partly dependent on the contact person, the success depends on the skill and engagement of that person. This poses a great challenge for the manufacturing company to have the required in-house competence.Finally, the empirical findings underscore the importance of formal processes that can contribute to the coordination of the work activities, which is also mentioned by Ro et al. (2008) and Liker et al. (1999). As both parties have different needs and interests, the process should be characterised by transparency, clear decision-making responsibilities and contain performance measures. The use of formal documents and structured processes with identified milestones may reduce procrastination caused by problems into which the other party does not have any insight. Another aspect that may highlight the importance of formal documents is the requirements placed on the author of written information. The use of formal documents requires writing in a common and easily understandable language, which increases the understandability of information (Vandevelde and Van Dierdonck, 2003).\n6 Conclusions: The presented research contributes with new knowledge by describing the underlying design information and success factors for production system acquisition. Information types relevant for the production equipment acquisition process have been identified and categorized into three categories: fact-based, contextual and objective information. In order to realize the benefits of collaboration with an equipment supplier, it is important that manufacturing companies have a holistic perspective when collecting relevant and necessary design information to be transferred to the equipment supplier. Judging which design information is relevant or not for the equipment supplier appears to be especially challenging for the manufacturing company. As such, we highlight the fact that transferring all available information is not always the most suitable option. However, one has to be aware that by separating important from unimportant information at the manufacturing company, there is a risk that the equipment supplier might not obtain all information needed. Therefore, the information transferred should be cautiously tailored to the specific needs of the equipment suppliers. Furthermore, we have found that it is beneficial to organise the collaboration in a formal process and to appoint a skilled contact person.The implications of the research are that the lack of ability to manage design information has severe consequences on the performance of the production equipment acquisition. The management of design information is crucial for both the manufacturing company and the equipment supplier. The consequence of underestimating managing information will be a poor production system causing significant problems, disturbances and delays, which have major implications on the productivity and profitability. It also implies that equipment suppliers have to spend more time than estimated at the manufacturing company solving problems and disturbances, which requires additional resources and generates unexpected costs. Further, these problems and disturbances might have negative consequences for future collaborations. In order to reduce these risks, project managers are encouraged to create a formalised collaboration that facilitates the coordination between both sides. The process should include critical gates that are located at various points in the process and incorporate frequent meetings with the project members. These meetings facilitate the exchange of rich information that allows the project members to define problems and resolve conflicts. In addition, successful production equipment acquisition also requires a focus on the in-house competencies at the manufacturing company. Our empirical findings revealed that successful collaboration with equipment suppliers requires the ability to gather, understand and transfer information as well as to discuss and give meaningful feedback and input to proposed solutions or problems that arise and thus requires skilled and engaged employees.With regard to future research, we identify two areas. First, innovation in production processes and technology becomes increasingly important and can imply competitive advantages for the manufacturing company. Due to the large amount of costs and risks associated with production process and technology innovations, collaborative development of equipment supplier and manufacturing industries could be one solution. Thus, understanding the impact of an effective management of information on production process and technology innovation capabilities is a critical issue that needs to be investigated. Second, it would be useful to investigate the impact of the contact person and the members of the project team on the project performance. The present study's result point to the importance of the people involved but understanding how the project team at both the equipment supplier and the manufacturing company affect the acquisition process needs to be enhanced. Hence, further research is required in order to achieve the best possible production equipment and thus contribute to the profitability of the manufacturing company.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to describe the underlying design information and success factors for production equipment acquisition, in order to support the design of high-performance production systems.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research strategy employed was an in-depth case study of an industrialization project, together with a questionnaire of 25 equipment suppliers.\nFindings: - The study provides the reader with an insight into the role of design information when acquiring production equipment by addressing questions such as: What type of information is used? How do equipment suppliers obtain information? What factors facilitate a smooth production system acquisition?\nResearch limitations/implications: - Limitations are primarily associated with the chosen research methodology, which requires further empirical studies to establish a generic value.\nPractical implications: - The implications are that manufacturing companies have to transfer various types of design information with respect to the content and kind of information. More attention has to be placed on what information is transferred to ensure that equipment suppliers receive all the information needed to design and subsequently build the production equipment. To facilitate integration of equipment suppliers, manufacturing companies should appoint a contact person who can gather, understand and transform relevant design information.\nOriginality/value: - External integration of equipment suppliers in production system design by means of design information is an area that has been rarely addressed in academia and industry.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Assembling an infrastructure for historic climate data recovery: data friction in practice
|
[
"Data friction",
"Climate data",
"Critical data studies",
"Data assemblage",
"Data infrastructure",
"Historical records"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Climatology requires long-term data from many locations, consistent across both space and time. This requirement implies a lengthy chain of operations, including observation, recording, collection, transmission, quality control, reconciliation, storage, cataloguing, and access. Every link in this chain represents an information interface subject to data friction.(Edwards, 2010, p. 84)\nMethodology: capturing the socio-material dynamics of data infrastructures: As Larkin (2013, p. 330) observes, to define an infrastructure as an object of study is \"a categorizing moment\"; an infrastructure should not be understood \"in any positivist sense, [as] simply 'out there'\", but as something constructed in part by the perspective of the researcher. There are many potential ways of entering, and defining the limits of, the field of study in order to understand better the socio-material factors shaping the development of a data infrastructure and the movement of data through it. In our research, we identified the ACRE initiative as a central node in the assemblage of material and symbolic forces shaping the journey of data from logbooks into the ICOADS, and entered the field from this site. Through this entry point, we then connected with other projects and individuals that were actively engaged in the data recovery effort at different sites along the \"journey\" of data from historical logbooks into the ICOADS database. This research was conducted as part of the Secret Life of a Weather Datum project. As part of the project, we conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 19 key actors heavily engaged at different sites in the UK's climate data infrastructure and observations of working practices and cultures at five of these sites including a digital ethnography of the forums used by citizen scientists engaged in the Old Weather project. We also analysed primary documentation relevant to the circulation and governance of climate data across emergent data infrastructures (e.g. organisational and project websites, policy documents). This research was ethically approved by the University of Sheffield Information School's Ethics Committee, and transcripts of many interviews are available at: https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22The+Secret+Life+of+a+Weather+Datum%22\nTheoretical framework: data infrastructures and assemblages: Our work on data journeys echoes work in cognate disciplines to illuminate the socio-material constitution and consequences of data movements in a variety of contexts (e.g. Leonelli, 2016; Merrick White, 2017; Beer, 2013). Despite their disciplinary differences, a common strand that draws many of these approaches together is an interest in the socio-material constitution of the data infrastructures that enable digital data flows, and how these contribute to the constitution of emergent forms of knowledge and/or social relations. In some cases, such work falls under the banner of \"critical data studies\"; an interdisciplinary field aimed at turning critical attention to the complex \"technological, political, social and economic\" context in which data are \"produced, organised, analysed and employed\" (Kitchin and Lauriault, 2014).\nFindings: assembling an infrastructure for climate data recovery: Observing those involved in the journey of data from archived ship logbooks into the ICOADS database highlights that efforts to recover data are dependent upon the joining up of a number of already existing data and knowledge infrastructures. These include the archival infrastructures for storing and cataloguing historical records within different countries, the data infrastructure for the production and sharing of global climate data sets such as the ICOADS, and the infrastructure behind the Zooniverse platform which supports various online citizen science projects including Old Weather. The assemblages of material and symbolic forces that shape how this linking up happens in practice, and that constitute how data are recovered and move between logbook and ICOADS are examined in detail below. Here, it is enough to observe that at the core of the assemblage are the climate scientists actively working to drive forward the initiative, and towards the periphery of the assemblage are a heterogeneous range of component assemblages upon which the project is dependent. For example, the archival community and its artefacts can be said to constitute one set of assemblages, those that hold the material means of production, i.e. government funding agencies and commercial organisations form another. The communities and tools of volunteer \"citizen scientists\" make up a further set of assemblages. Furthermore, much of this linking up takes place within the context of the assemblage of socio-material forces that constitute the contemporary neoliberal states of, for example, the UK and USA.\nConclusion: Across sectors, diverse assemblages of socio-material forces are coalescing to develop a variety of data infrastructures that enable the integration and circulation of data across time and space. The data journeys that these emergent infrastructures enable bring social actors into new forms of relation with one another, and thus have complex societal implications. Deepening our empirical understanding of the assemblages of socio-material forces that are influencing the development of data infrastructures and the movement of data across them helps to identify the forms of value that are being crystallised through the development of infrastructure and illuminate what the potential implications of this may be. It also enables us recognise where critical praxis might need to be fostered.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to adopt an assemblage theory lens to examine the socio-material forces shaping the development of an infrastructure for the recovery of archived historical marine weather records for use in contemporary climate data sets.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors adopted a data journeys approach to research design, conducting in-depth semi-structured interviews with climate scientists, citizen scientists and a climate historian who were engaged at key sites across the journey of data from historical record to the International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set database. Interview data were complemented by further qualitative data collected via observations of working practices, a digital ethnography of citizen scientists' online forums, and documentation relevant to the circulation and governance of climate data across emergent data infrastructures. Data were thematically analysed (Ryan and Bernard, 2003), with themes being informed primarily by the theoretical framework.\nFindings: The authors identify and critically examine key points of friction in the constitution of the data recovery infrastructure and the circulation of data through it, and identify the reflexive and adaptive nature of the beliefs and practices fostered by influential actors within the assemblage in order to progress efforts to build an infrastructure despite significant challenges. The authors conclude by addressing possible limitations of some of these adaptive practices within the context of the early twenty-first century neoliberal state, and in light of current debates about data justice.\nOriginality/value: The paper draws upon original empirical data and a novel theoretical framework that draws together Deleuze and Guattari's assemblage theory with key concepts from the field of critical data studies (data journeys, data friction and data assemblage) to illuminate the socio-material constitution of the data recovery infrastructure within the context of the early twenty-first century neoliberal state.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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The individual in multiple interacting activity systems: IT-supported diabetes management
|
[
"Alignment",
"Technology adoption",
"E-health",
"Activity theory"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nBackground: Information technologies (IT) are playing an increasingly central role in healthcare and long-term health management across a range of settings. Individuals are now actively using the Internet to learn about diseases and identify strategies to improve health (Fox, 2011). There is a growing body of research within the field of e-health, covering a range of issues, including electronic patient records (e.g. Hayrinen et al., 2008), the design of IT to support patient-physician communications (Gonzales and Riek, 2013), patients' use of online communities and social media for support, empowerment, and knowledge-sharing (Johnston et al., 2013; Liu et al., 2013), and broad design considerations involving patient autonomy and empowerment (Fitzpatrick, 2011; Storni, 2010). While e-health research typically focuses on the possibilities offered by new technologies, it is important to recognise that new technologies can change health management in both positive and challenging ways. The processes by which individuals incorporate new technologies into their health management, and the subsequent impact new IT tools have, can only be fully understood by taking into account the broader contexts in which health technologies are used (Aarhus and Ballegaard, 2010; Fitzpatrick, 2011; Moen et al., 2007). In this paper, we examine how patients with a chronic condition have integrated specific IT-enabled healthcare devices, along with more generic information systems, into their everyday lives.\nResearch method: We utilised a multiple-case research design for the study (Yin, 2003). The case study method is ideally suited to the exploration of new phenomena (in this instance use of IT-enabled smartpumps) in a particular context (in this instance, diabetes care). To complement the earlier mentioned healthcare systems research with its focus on healthcare practitioners (Engestrom, 2007), we chose the unit of analysis to be the individual patient. Each interviewee was an individual woman with type 1 diabetes, who was either pregnant, planning to be pregnant, or had recently given birth. We chose to focus on individual women with type 1 diabetes as they are revelatory in terms of their highly specialised care needs. This makes them highly reliant upon health professionals and family support, creating a set of multiple interacting activity systems that are relevant to the analysis. The multiple-case design yielded opportunities for literal replication (Yin, 2003) in analysing how women incorporated (or planned to incorporate) new IT-enabled health technologies into the multiple interacting activity systems that contribute to their health management.\nFindings: Here, we report the findings of the analysis, beginning with an outline of the core activity system: the patients' health management. We then describe the different activity systems that interacted with this core activity, focusing on: healthcare provision, pregnancy healthcare, hospital systems, and workplace, families and home life, which in the interests of space are discussed together. Throughout, we present extracts from the data to highlight how participants integrated new IT tools into these activity systems and the impact new tools had on contradictions or tensions between intersecting activities.\nDiscussion: IT transformed the way the women in our study managed their diabetes, creating opportunities for improved interactions with members of the healthcare community, but also highlighting tensions or exacerbating contradictions between interacting activity systems. One of the most notable findings to emerge from our research is that the women we interviewed were active in learning about the tools and resources available to support their health management, and choosing to adopt new technologies to suit their own established practices. Existing research has shown that new technologies can be empowering for patients with chronic conditions (e.g. Aarhus et al., 2009; Fitzpatrick, 2011; Johnston et al., 2013; Storni, 2010). Our research extends this, suggesting that highly motivated patients with chronic conditions may be already empowered, choosing to use technologies in particular ways to suit their own established practices. This study contributes to a growing body of literature that is concerned with understanding the complexities involved in integrating personal health technologies into long-term health management (e.g. Aarhus and Ballegaard, 2010; Fitzpatrick, 2011; Moen et al., 2007; Storni, 2010). By applying an activity theory lens to examine the socio-cultural context in which smartpumps were used, we have furthered understanding in this area. Previous research has illustrated the complex social and physical spaces into which new technologies must become integrated when used by patients with chronic conditions (Aarhus and Ballegaard, 2010; Fitzpatrick, 2011; Storni, 2010). Our research provides further insight to help understand these complexities, highlighting the contradictions that occur between interacting activity systems and the effort patients go to in order to achieve alignment between those activities. Again, the proactive role of the highly motivated individual was clearly apparent. This finding has both theoretical and practical implications, highlighting a need to incorporate individual perspectives in analyses of healthcare systems, and providing insight into how new IT tools are integrated into healthcare activities.\nConclusion: The study reported in this paper demonstrated that changes in this healthcare activity system were largely initiated by a central, highly motivated individual: the patient. The study also examined the broader context within which healthcare occurs, including interactions with other individuals and activity systems. By applying an activity theory lens to understand this socio-cultural context, we extend previous research on personal IT use in similarly complex healthcare settings (Aarhus et al., 2009; Aarhus and Ballegaard, 2010; Storni, 2010). Our findings show that highly motivated patients play an active role in managing their health, aligning different interacting activity systems and using technologies in particular ways to support their health management. In contemporary society, many patients are knowledgeable and resourceful individuals who are taking ownership over their healthcare. Analytical frameworks of healthcare systems would therefore benefit from a more prominent focus on empowered individual patients. We propose that these individual(s) could be theorised as micro activity systems in their own right. The role of the active and highly motivated patient in healthcare settings also needs to be taken into account when planning the introduction of new IT tools. Healthcare providers may need to accommodate a bottom-up approach to the adoption and use of new technologies, adapting their own practices to fit in with patients' approach to adoption and use of new technologies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how pregnant women with type 1 diabetes integrate new information technology (IT) into their health management activities, using activity theory as an analytical framework.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research is a multiple case design, based on interviews with 15 women with type 1 diabetes who were pregnant, considering pregnancy, or had recently given birth. A thematic analysis, sensitised by activity theory, was used to analyse the data.\nFindings: Health management in this setting involves negotiations and contradictions across boundaries of interacting activities. Participants play an active role in managing their health and using new IT tools in particular ways to support their health management. Using new technologies creates both opportunities and challenges. IT-enabled healthcare devices and other information systems open up new treatment possibilities, but also generate new contradictions between interacting activity systems.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research was conducted with a small sample in a specific context of health management. Further research is needed to extend the findings to other contexts.\nPractical implications: Healthcare providers need to accommodate a bottom-up approach to the adoption and use of new technologies in settings where empowered patients play an active role in managing their health.\nOriginality/value: The findings highlight opportunities to further develop activity theory to accommodate the central role that individuals play in resolving inherent contradictions and achieving alignment between multiple interacting activity systems when incorporating new IT tools into health management activities.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
FM research in Switzerland
|
[
"Research",
"Service management",
"Facility management",
"FM in health care",
"Workplace management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the early 1990s, FM related research in Switzerland started at the Chair of Planning and Management in Construction at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) with several PhD theses. In the late 1990s, research was started at the newly established Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) and FM research in Switzerland has been mainly concentrated at its Institute of Facility Management (IFM) since.\nService management: The \"service value management (SVM)\" research group manages projects and conducts research by applying a combination of the service profit chain (Heskett et al., 1997) and the value chain (Porter, 1985) to FM. Combining these two paradigms of successful management within FM, the key point of research of the group is the value that FM co-creates with clients, customers and end users as a services management discipline.\nWorkplace management: Workplace management is an extension of space planning, a discipline that incorporates the design and management of workspace features. Workplace management consists in the interdisciplinary activities of developing, planning, providing, managing, and evaluation of workspaces and work environments. The main focus in workplace management is on how space may support the main activities of an organisation (effectiveness) while using spatial resources and services efficiently (see Blakstad and Torsvoll, 2010). Thus, adopting a systemic approach, workplace management aims to transform spatial, technical, organisational and human resources into results.\nFM in healthcare and ambient assisted living (AAL): The IFM's strategic research fields include \"FM in healthcare\" and ambient assisted living (AAL), both of which focus on support processes within healthcare institutions such as care facilities and hospitals. The Swiss healthcare system is high-performing and well-developed, albeit costly (OECD/WHO, 2011; Olmsted Teisberg, 2007) and therefore, as in most developed countries, highly topical due to rising costs. In comparison to other countries, it is of high quality (Achtermann and Berset, 2006; Olmsted Teisberg, 2007) and delivers the care service promptly, mainly without an undue waiting time (OECD/WHO, 2011). This indicates that Switzerland has \"universal coverage but not cost control\" (Underwood, 2009). Two research projects funded by the Swiss federal administration and two research projects funded by third parties address the need for more transparency of support processes in hospitals; furthermore the AAL project was funded by the EU AAL Programme. The objectives and results of these five projects are briefly covered in the following sections.\nConclusions: The IFM is an acknowledged centre of competence in Switzerland. It gained its reputation by the collaborative, application-oriented research and the education programmes (Bachelor of Science in FM and vocational master of advanced studies). Since 2011 a Master of Science in FM programme is run at the IFM. The MSc programme is research-based and management-oriented and the students are involved in the research projects, thereby increasing the research capacity of the institute. In order to further develop the professional field of FM in Switzerland the IFM continues to focus on application-oriented research. Besides the domain-specific challenges this type of research will further contribute to the theoretical development of FM services quality, FM relationship quality, FM service profit/value chain, workplace management, FM in health care, and other aspects of FM as a professional and research discipline.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to review FM research in Switzerland with a focus on recent research projects at the Institute of Facility Management of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper provides a summary and review of research projects.\nFindings: FM research in Switzerland has grown in the past few years and is now well rooted in the Swiss FM industry. The focus is on service management, workplace management and FM in health care. FM research in Switzerland has been driven collaboratively by the Institute of FM and the industry.\nResearch limitations/implications: Research at the IFM is very much oriented towards application and many collaborative projects between industry, public administration and universities have been conducted. However, some fields of FM have received little attention yet.\nPractical implications: FM research in Switzerland has been driven collaboratively by the Institute of FM and the industry. The focus is on application, e.g. management tools, benchmarking systems or the relationship of FM services, organisational outcomes, and customer satisfaction. Many research results contribute to the development of Swiss FM industry.\nOriginality/value: In this article the authors summarize FM research in Switzerland and their research approach. With this they contribute to transparency and further development of FM research.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
An evaluation of a toothbrushing programme in schools
|
[
"Evaluation",
"Social inequality",
"Schools",
"Oral health",
"Mixed-methods",
"Child and adolescent health",
"Toothbrushing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Oral diseases are common across populations globally, with 60-90 per cent of children experiencing dental caries (Gussy et al., 2006; WHO, 2012). The distribution of dental caries, however, does vary in different parts of the world. For example, the mean number of decayed, missing or filled teeth (dmft) in children is relatively high in the Americas (dmft=3.0) the European Region (2.6) and parts of Asia (2.2) (Hartono et al., 2002; Petersen et al., 2005). In Sub-Saharan Africa the index is lower (1.7) (Petersen et al., 2005), with dmft scores of 0.14 being reported in Nigeria (Adekoya-Sofowora et al., 2006) and 0.3 in Ghana (Bruce et al., 2002). Reports by the World Health Organisation (WHO) suggest that the incidence of dental caries is predicted to increase in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa and other developing countries. This is being attributed to the growing consumption and availability of sugars and inadequate exposure to fluoride (Petersen, 2004). The WHO, through policy strategies and prevention programmes in schools, has been committed to mitigating against oral diseases in children across the world (Petersen, 2004).\nMethodology: The intervention\nFindings: This section presents the findings of the evaluation. The findings have been organised in relation to the cross-cutting themes that emerged across the data gathering approaches. Where quotations have been used to illuminate an issue, these have been anonymised to protect the participants involved.\nDiscussion: Although schools can be seen as an artificial setting with which to encourage toothbrushing (Cooper et al., 2011), there was evidence of positive health and educational outcomes as a result of the programme. The following discussion intends to highlight key learning from the programme and discuss implications for future development.\nConclusions: This paper has reported on a toothbrushing programme delivered in schools in Yorkshire and the Humber - a part of Northern England - drawing on various data sources. Given the central importance of children within the toothbrushing intervention this is, to our understanding, one of the first studies to gather the views of children on a toothbrushing scheme using participatory methods. While it is difficult from this evaluation design to suggest the longer-term impact on oral health inequalities, evidence from elsewhere shows that the introduction and uptake of a similar toothbrushing program contributed positively to the dental health of children and reduced dental health inequalities (Macpherson et al., 2013).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of a toothbrushing intervention delivered in primary schools in Yorkshire and the Humber, a Northern district of England. The toothbrushing intervention was designed with the intention of improving the oral health of young children. The paper reports the effectiveness of the intervention and explores process issues related to its co-ordination and delivery.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The evaluation had three data gathering approaches. These were: in-depth case studies of three selected schools participating in the toothbrushing programme; interviews with oral health promoters responsible for the programme in the district; and a small scale questionnaire-based survey which was sent to the 18 schools participating in the intervention.\nFindings: The intervention was accepted by children and they enjoyed participating in the toothbrushing scheme. Children had often become more knowledgeable about toothbrushing and the consequences of not regularly cleaning their teeth. The scheme was contingent on key staff in the school and the programme was more successful where school's embraced, rather than rejected the notion of improving children's health alongside educational attainment. Whether the intervention made differences to brushing in the home requires further investigation, but there is a possibility that children can act as positive \"change agents\" with siblings and other family members.\nPractical implications: This paper suggests that schools can be an effective setting for implementing toothbrushing interventions.\nOriginality/value: Toothbrushing in schools programmes are a relatively new initiative that have not been fully explored, especially using qualitative approaches or focusing on the views of children. This paper makes a particular contribution to understanding the process and delivery of toothbrushing interventions delivered in primary schools. The implications for programmes outside of the UK context are discussed.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Customer creation of service products: role of frustration in customer evaluations
|
[
"Control",
"Fairness",
"Frustration",
"Satisfaction",
"Mediation",
"Repeated measures",
"Customer satisfaction",
"Consumer behaviour"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this article.\nIntroduction: What makes one service encounter different than another? Why is one satisfactory and not another? Extant research has concentrated on connecting outcomes (e.g. delight, satisfaction) to service attributes (e.g. smiles, tone, or provider attitude) paying less attention to cognitive or affective processes that exist between the two. That is, there is less understanding of why and how a smile influences satisfaction. Research has attempted to model the process: some researchers point to the importance of expectations (e.g. Oliver, 1981); others identify perceptions of control and fairness as important links between service attributes and outcomes (Van Raaij and Pruyn, 1998; Namasivayam and Hinkin, 2003). Drawing on social psychology and consumer behavior literature this paper extends and adds to previous research by conceptualizing and empirically examining a psychological mechanism connecting service attributes and outcomes.Social psychological research suggests the initial appraisal of an event triggers specific emotional reactions and behaviors (Wallace et al., 2009; Turner and Stets, 2006). Event characteristics, e.g. controllability, dictate individuals' affective and behavioral reactions (Bateson and Hui, 1992). Wetzer et al. (2007) suggest that distinguishing different emotions is important to predict consumer reactions; they identify frustration (besides anger and irritation) as pivotal. Rather than describe particular event characteristics causing consumer frustration (e.g. lack of information (Strebel et al., 2004)), in this paper frustration is modeled as resulting from controllability and fairness.Briefly, consumers perceiving controllability and fairness in an event (e.g. service exchange) are less likely to experience frustration. Manipulating perceptions of control and fairness, the experience of frustration is modeled and empirically examined in this paper.How and why control and fairness are important in the service depends on consumer and service provider roles in the service exchange. The next section describes these roles, provides a discussion of the \"service product\" and a basis for the operation of control and fairness. Next, appropriate literatures are reviewed and hypotheses developed. The paper concludes with a discussion of the results and implications for research and practice.Service product\nLiterature review: Prior research, for example using exchange theory, has investigated individual reactions in interpersonal transactions. According to exchange theory (e.g. Turner and Stets, 2006; Lawler, 2001; Emerson, 1962) when payoffs fall short, especially when injustice and unfairness is perceived, individuals experience negative emotions.Consumers make cognitive investments including selecting a suitable service provider; they also make time and ego investments which demand a certain payoff. If the payoff (e.g. perceived control of the service process) is not met, individuals will experience emotional arousal with consequent behavioral responses (Yi and Baumgartner, 2004; Namasivayam and Hinkin, 2003). Agentic consumers' need for control of the service process is considered purely instrumental (with no status-ordering involved) with the aim of specifying and receiving the desired service product.Prior research has modeled the effect of perceived control and fairness on service satisfaction (Hui and Bateson, 1991; Namasivayam and Hinkin, 2003). This line of research is extended here and consumers' perceptions of control and fairness are themselves considered as components of the \"desired\" service product. That is, individuals having invested time, effort, and cognitive resources seek fairness and control in the exchange as elements of the total payoff. Deriving from this, it is suggested here that individuals will experience frustration when payoff levels are reduced, including in their expectations of control and fairness in a service exchange.Perceived control, frustration, and satisfaction\nMethod: Sample\nResults: Table I reports scale correlations; the results indicate that all variables were correlated and in the predicted direction. The means and standard deviations reported in Table II show patterns as expected. The means clearly indicate that respondents reported higher levels of control, fairness, satisfaction, and behavioral intentions and lower levels of frustration when both control and fairness was present in comparison to when only one or neither was present.Hypotheses\nDiscussion and limitations: Rather than identify discrete factors motivating consumers' satisfaction, this project modeled psychological processes driving consumers' service evaluation. Extending prior work that has modeled PC and PF as important psychological markers of satisfaction, frustration was identified as another important mediating variable for various reasons including:* frustration is considered a process variable (Strebel et al., 2004);* frustration results from not being able to achieve a goal; and* it is an important motivator of consumer behavior (Wetzer et al., 2007).An important finding of this paper is the relationships among PC, PF, and consumer frustration. Consumers experienced higher frustration in the absence of fairness in the service process. However, different than our predictions, no significant relationship between PC and frustration was found, although the AIC criterion provided partial support. The results also indicated frustrated consumers are less likely to be satisfied and therefore recommend or re-patronize the establishment.The results provide strong support for the mediation of frustration in the fairness - satisfaction relationship but only weak support for its mediation of control - satisfaction relationship. Additionally, the study provides substantial evidence that fairness mediates the relationships between control and satisfaction and between control and frustration. Taken together, these findings provide strong evidence for the control-fairness-frustration-satisfaction linkage. The results show that control has an impact on frustration only through fairness; this is consistent with work suggesting fairness offsets any perceived lack of control in an exchange (Namasivayam and Hinkin, 2003; Namasivayam, 2004). This is also consistent with the notion that frustration results from the process itself and not from goal achievement; consumers may make controllability judgments after they have the desired product, while fairness is evaluated during the process of assembling the desired service. Frustration is more likely to result from unfair and unhelpful behaviors of the service provider. Finally, consumers' frustration level influences consumers' satisfaction and behavioral intentions.The theoretical development in this paper suggested that individuals may feel the service process to be fairer when provided more choice. Adopting exchange theory precepts, choice in the exchange can be considered an element of the total payoff a consumer expects from a service exchange. When choice is available, consumers view the payoff as equitable (fair). That is, choice induces PC and when consumers perceive control of the exchange they also perceive the exchange as fair. However, fairness as measured in this paper is a potential limitation since the measure captured respondent attention to the fairness of the overall exchange. It may be necessary to separate respondent attention to the behaviors of the service provider from those of the fairness of the exchange itself. This project has therefore brought to the front issues around the measurement and conceptualization of fairness in the exchange and the relationship of each dimension of fairness with outcome variables including frustration. Theoretically and methodologically, the operation of fairness in the exchange and its relationship to controllability needs clarification.Consistent with previous work, frustration was an important mediator between service characteristics (in terms of control and fairness available) and subsequent consumer appraisals and actions (Strebel et al., 2004; Wetzer et al., 2007). In this paper, frustration emerged as an important process variable; however, it may be necessary to differentiate among anger, irritation, and frustration in future studies. Do consumers feel anger or irritation if they do not perceive control or fairness in the exchange? These emotions are likely to lead to the same outcomes (such as negative word-of-mouth) but different aspects of the exchange may cause different emotions (Zeelenberg and Pieters, 2006). It is possible that while the lack of fair behaviors leads to frustration, reductions in PC may lead to irritation or even anger. The pathways that such emotional reactions follow may be different and it is essential to understand these more clearly.\nImplications: The implicit assumption in much services management research is that consumers purchase service products manufactured by service providers. Recent research emphasizes the role of customers as co-producers of the service product and has proposed a customer-oriented approach (Vargo and Lusch, 2008); however, the customer-oriented approach implicitly privileges the service organization. Extending and slightly reorienting this view, some research has argued that customers are in fact the sole producers of the service product (Namasivayam, 2004). This approach emphasizes the consumer's role in a service product focusing research and managerial attention on the cognitive and affective processes consumer adopt while producing and consuming their desired service.This paper discusses two important variables that influence consumers. When consumers perceive lack of control and fairness in a service exchange, it results in a negative emotional state of frustration, which consequently results in consumer dissatisfaction and negative behavioral intentions. Service industry managers should evaluate their consumer interaction processes and evaluate if consumers feel they are in control, or alternatively are being treated fairly, to reduce consumer frustration and consequent dissatisfaction.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The paper models psychological processes in consumers' evaluation of an exchange and proposes frustration as a mediating mechanism explaining the relationship between consumers' perceptions of control, fairness, and satisfaction.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were collected in an experimental setting using video scenarios. Hypotheses were tested using repeated-measures MANOVA and ANCOVA.\nFindings: - The results support hypotheses predicting that frustration mediates the influence of fairness on satisfaction and supporting a control-fairness-frustration-satisfaction linkage.\nResearch implications/limitations: - This paper extends research in the area of consumers' cognitive and affective service evaluation processes and suggests future theoretical and methodological research directions. Although sample is representative of the population, no claims are made to generalize the findings of the study to a broader population.\nPractical implications: - Service industry managers should analyze their consumer interaction processes and evaluate whether consumers feel they are in control, or alternatively are being treated fairly, to reduce consumer frustration and dissatisfaction.\nOriginality/value: - Considering consumers as actual creators of service product this study emphasizes the consumer's role in a service product focusing research and managerial attention on the cognitive and affective processes consumer adopt while producing and consuming their desired service.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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A model of functional integration and conflict: The case of purchasing-production in a construction company
|
[
"Construction industry",
"Conflict",
"Differentiation",
"Case research",
"Functional integration",
"Spend consolidation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Corporations with a functional organizational design must deal with issues of differentiation and integration (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967b). Coordination between functions such as production and purchasing is particularly challenging when differentiation is high. In this case, integration becomes the glue that supports coordination and ensures high performance. The importance of integration has been acknowledged in the OM literature, where researchers have found a positive association between integration and performance (Das and Narasimhan, 2000; Flynn et al., 2010; Parente et al., 2002; Stock et al., 1998). In addition, research has addressed antecedents to integration, effects on coordination, as well as managerial processes and mechanisms to improve integration. In this research, we investigate how integration, or more precisely low integration, relates to inter-functional conflict, a phenomenon, which has received little attention in the OM literature. We therefore apply theoretical knowledge from beyond the OM literature, as we draw on organization and conflict theory. Conflict can be defined as \"a process in which one party perceives that its interests are being opposed or negatively affected by another party\" (Wall and Callister, 1995, p. 517) and integration as \"the quality of the state of collaboration that exists among departments that are required to achieve unity of effort by the demands of the environment\" (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967b, p. 11). We take departure in the following research question:\nFunctional integration: From an OM perspective integration can be defined as \"a process of interaction and collaboration in which manufacturing, purchasing, and logistics work together in a cooperative manner to arrive at mutually acceptable outcomes for their organization\" (Pagell, 2004, p. 460). Table I provides an overview of the integration topics and mechanisms along with examples of references.\nFunctional conflict, integration, and cognitive inertia: Differentiation, integration, and conflict appear as core constructs in the seminal studies of Lawrence and Lorsch (1967a, b). Functional specialization separates work tasks and assigns responsibility for these to homogeneous organizational units, but also results in differentiation in internal structures, behaviors, and attitudes of its members (Kretschmer and Puranam, 2008). Differentiation and integration are closely connected because high differentiation requires high integration for effective organizational functioning (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967b). However, high levels of differentiation also work to decrease the integration between functions.\nIntegration and conflict: Conflict comes to mark the functional interface when integration is low in a differentiated organization (Corwin, 1969). Opposition plays out through the specific manifest behaviors of one party that consciously interferes with, blocks, or prevents the other from carrying out activities and meeting objectives (Pondy, 1967; Schmidt and Kochan, 1972). Integration is negatively associated with conflict as low integration increases the chance of uncoordinated behaviors leading to a high probability of affecting the other party negatively (Corwin, 1969; Hambrick et al., 2001). Reversely, conflict can be detrimental to inter-functional interfaces as it damages both parties' performance as well as their relationship and thereby the possibilities for functional integration (Barki and Pinsonneault, 2005; Hambrick et al., 2001; Nelson, 1989). Conflict:\nDifferentiation, cognitive inertia, and integration: Lawrence and Lorsch (1967b, p. 11) define differentiation as \"the difference in cognitive and emotional orientation among managers in different functional departments\". By virtue of differences in education, background, experience, work task nature, etc. group members develop a joint working style and shared cognition. Employees in different functions develop different functional views of appropriate task accomplishment and the most beneficial behaviors and practices for the company (Litterer, 1966), and reason differently regarding suppliers, customers, time, goals, relationships, etc. Lawrence and Lorsch (1967b) discussed the differences in assumptions, values, and perceptions of reality between functions and observed the development of specialized functional languages shaped by specialized tasks and environments. More recently, Van de Ven et al. (2008) framed the term \"organizing model\", which defines the priorities, values, and principles of the organizational unit and determines the most optimum way of organizing and most appropriate practices as perceived by group members.\nConflict between production and other functions: Some authors investigated conflict between production and other functions, including the effects of cognitive differences, but without treating the concept of integration directly. The production-sales/marketing interface attracted most attention, with several investigations of conflict issues and different functional perceptions, leading to proposed conflict management advice (Crittenden et al., 1993; de Vries and Boonstra, 2012; Katz and Kahn, 1978; Konijnendijk, 1993; Shapiro, 1977). Menda and Dilts (1997) investigated the corporate wide joint decision making process of establishing order-winning criteria, involving managers from seven functions (purchasing not included). Based on their exposure of large differences in views among managers, a cross-functional decision making process model was developed. More recently, Oliva and Watson (2009, 2011) studied similar cross-functional decision making processes. The former study developed a categorization of functional biases that affected a forecasting process, and proposed that a well-structured forecasting process managed by an independent group could prevent inter-functional conflict. A well-structured and planned process characterized by constructive engagement was also proposed as the remedy in the latter paper, which investigated joint supply chain planning between functions characterized by large differences in incentives and orientations.\nMethodology: Case research was deemed suitable, as our aim was to develop theory on the relationship between integration and conflict (Meredith, 1998; Voss et al., 2002). The unit of analysis was the cross-functional interface between the production and purchasing functions. A single case design enabled us to achieve depth and detail in the investigation of how conflict interplays with integration and reasoning processes in purchasing and production. It also allowed us to capture in detail the context surrounding the integration-conflict phenomenon (Barratt et al., 2011). Moreover, we investigated an extreme case, where the phenomenon of interest had a high degree of visibility and which offered ample opportunity to learn (Binder and Edwards, 2010; Stake, 2008; Yin, 1994). Based on one author's considerable experience with researching the construction industry, we knew that large construction companies, including their production-purchasing interfaces, are frequently characterized by high differentiation combined with low functional integration. Therefore, according to classical organization theory, we were particularly likely to get the opportunity to study conflict between the two functions in this setting.\nIntegration and spend consolidation at C1: As in most other construction companies, production and purchasing were physically separate entities in C1. PMs spent most of their time on the construction sites, while purchasing was located in C1 headquarters. CMs, some with a technical background, were responsible for scanning and analyzing markets, tendering, selecting, and negotiating new agreements with corporate wide suppliers in the various specialized product categories. These categories included material suppliers and contractors, who delivered both materials and contracting work into the construction site. PMs handled the purchasing tasks on site, including ordering, logistics coordination, work coordination, and problem solving. Work tasks and responsibilities were clear-cut and precisely specified in job descriptions. Interdependence was high as the suppliers selected and agreements made by purchasing were to be used by the PMs. Stakes were also high as sourcing costs constituted a very high percentage of overall C1 costs and therefore had significant impact on corporate and function performance. Purchasing was measured on its ability to generate savings with a 5 percent annual savings objective, while PMs were measured on their construction project profits. The degree of integration between the two functions was very low across all integration mechanisms (Table I).\nFindings: Appendices 1 and 2 show all identified conflict behaviors/practices and their perceived conflicting effects. The colored arrows indicate which of the interviewed PMs and CMs responded that they experienced the behaviors/practices and effects. The large range of rather severe negative behaviors and effects demonstrate the extent of the conflict as it has been allowed to develop. Given a high level of differentiation and a relatively passive hierarchical management approach, cross-functional integration is the only means of ensuring coordinated sourcing activities between purchasing and production. However, as integration is almost non-existing, the parties have engaged in ranges of conflicting behaviors/practices, which have grown to severe proportions.\nThe integration-conflict model and the two contrasting sourcing models: Analyzing across the high number of instances of behaviors and effects (see Appendices), we identified a reasoning pattern that employees on each side go through, which causes own behaviors that are deemed more effective, but compromise the other party's objectives, thereby reinforcing the conflict (Figure 1). The figure shows only the production side. An identical pattern appears on the purchasing side.\nCase example: Below we provide an example of the model pattern (Figure 1) supported by quotes from the interviewees. The case example is derived from the analytical display and represents a small subset of the overall investigation results, where evidence for the same pattern was found across the entire set of behaviors and effects (see Appendices). In the example below, we have chosen to describe some of the behaviors that were most prevalent across the range of interviews - basically those with many connectors in the Appendix charts. For these behavior-effect links, we provide a detailed example from the data, demonstrating the cognitive inertia processes on each side in the context of low integration. The example shows respondents' reasoning why and how the behavior of the other side has negative effects, why the other side does it anyway, and what the managers think is the right approach to sourcing. It also shows how the managers draw on their own experience, general knowledge (or lack of), or simply their critical attitudes when arriving at answers for the three questions (in Figure 1). On the production side, we show the perceived purchasing behaviors \"make preferred supplier long-term agreements\" and \"incompetent trading and negotiation\" (marked with red in Appendix 1). On the purchasing side, we have selected the perceived production behaviors \"use alternative suppliers - not agreement suppliers\", \"incompetent trading and negotiation\", and \"embrace non-agreement suppliers' aggressive attempts at getting in as suppliers to C1\" (marked with red in Appendix 2).\nProduction reasoning: All interviewed PMs argued that the practice of placing purchases with one supplier with a long-term agreement meant that C1 was eventually ending up paying too much for the supplies. One major reason for their certainty was their experience that frequently when they planned supplies into a new project, they tested the price of the corporate agreement supplier with several alternative suppliers, and were always capable of finding a supplier with a lower price - even when subtracting the bonus for C1. PM2 provided an example:\nPurchasing reasoning: A process similar to the sketched PM reasoning visualized in Figure 1 was taking place among the CMs. CM2 provided some background information: \"Historically, in the construction industry, the project managers have been kings of their projects - they have done whatever suited them\". In the minds of the CMs, this PM attitude had endured, despite the spend consolidation rules. CM6: \"The PMs say: 'If we are responsible for the delivered product then we will choose the suppliers we wish'\". This attitude was perceived a major reason why PMs were, to a large extent, using non-agreement suppliers. When asked about the PMs' reactions to the agreements, CM1 observed: \"Well they are just disloyal - they just buy in other places - and that has an effect on the results of C1\". Purchasing was heavily affected because their performance was measured entirely on the achieved savings on the supplier agreements. The agreements had been negotiated with large price discounts in return for promises to suppliers of specific annual purchase volumes. The aim had been to reach a loyalty level of 80-90 percent on all C1 spend on corporate agreements, but sometimes the realized loyalty ended far below this objective, damaging the relationships with agreement suppliers. CM1: \"I can only conclude that I have a loyalty of say 30 percent on some purchases - then it is difficult to make agreements with suppliers\".\nDiscussion and theoretical implications: Integration is developing into a central construct in the OM literature. Research on integration between production and other organizational functions has investigated its effects on various types of corporate performance, the mechanisms of integration (Table I), integration barriers, and proposed various managerial means of achieving integration. However, OM research has mainly devoted attention to the striving for and the positive effects of integration, but less attention to the development and negative implications of low integration, including the effects on conflict. Conflict has generally received surprisingly little attention in the OM literature, especially because issues such as coordination and cooperation in interpersonal, intergroup, and interorganizational relations have been recognized as core OM phenomena for some time. This paper contributes to the OM literature by shedding light on the negative implications of low integration, specifically how inter-functional conflict is allowed to develop in a low integration organizational environment.\nManagerial implications and conclusion: In this study, we have attempted to generate knowledge on the interface between highly differentiated and lowly integrated production and purchasing functions in order to shed light on how functional conflict develops in this setting. Based on archival studies and interviews with production and purchasing managers in a construction company as well as key supplier employees, we have proposed a model of integration and conflict that contributes to extant literature by laying out how these constructs relate. The model shows how the behaviors of one party are perceived, evaluated, and acted upon by the other party, leading to the crystallization of a dominant functional model for sourcing, which then fuels an adjustment in behavior/practice that again opposes the other party, generating further conflict. We have also contributed by mapping a broad set of conflicting behaviors/practices of each function, demonstrating the extent of the conflict and the difficulties in coordinating among the two functions. Furthermore, a contribution has been made by shedding light on how one of the most critical and prevalent sourcing initiatives, spend consolidation, becomes the subject of conflict. We have shown how the two studied functions developed contrasting sourcing models, which engendered behaviors that affected the other party negatively. Differences in perceptions, experience, knowledge, attitudes, and capabilities drove the development of these differences. With low integration, the differences were allowed to develop into detrimental proportions.\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this article is to generate theory on how functional integration and conflict interrelate by studying the interface between production and purchasing.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An interpretive single case research methodology is adopted. The authors rely on in-depth interviewing of managers in the production and purchasing functions of a construction company, as well as by its suppliers.\nFindings: Given low functional integration, antagonistic reasoning within each function and resultant conflicting behaviors are allowed to develop in a negative cycle, escalating the conflict between purchasing and production. This process leads to the creation of two opposing functional sourcing models that serve as blueprints for behavior.\nResearch limitations/implications: The single case methodology was chosen to maximize depth and detail and form an ideal foundation for theory building. Future qualitative and quantitative studies should inquire further into the studied phenomenon to increase analytical and statistical generalizability of the proposed model.\nPractical implications: The findings can help managers understand how poor integration between functions can develop into cross-functional conflict. Facing a conflicting functional relationship, managers must resort to conflict resolution methods, instead of attempting to integrate, as several integrative devices are not appropriate in conflicting interfaces.\nOriginality/value: The proposed model contributes by connecting the constructs of integration, group reasoning, and conflict, thereby generating knowledge on conflict development processes in cross-functional interfaces. Furthermore, the article contributes by uncovering the difficulties associated with implementing spend consolidation, a prevailing sourcing strategy.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Key performance indicators for the maintenance of public hospitals buildings in the Gaza Strip
|
[
"Building",
"Building maintenance",
"Health care",
"Maintenance management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Recent decades have witnessed a maturing of concern and interest in building performance that is increasingly evidenced in building design. Building performance is complex, as different criteria in the building sector have differing interests and requirements. One of the complexity reasons is the lack of consensus on what constitutes excellence in building assessment performance, covering the overlapping dimensions of social, economic, environment and technological factors (Alwaer and Croome, 2010). The first step toward an improvement is to make explicit the available knowledge on performance indicators and how they are related to use this knowledge in a modern framework for organization modeling. It is necessary to formalize the concept of a performance indicator together with its characteristics, relationships to other performance indicators and relations to other formalized concepts such as goals, processes and roles (Popova and Sharpanskykh, 2010).\nReview of previous research: Performance measurement application in the construction industry can be seen as an action case investigating manufacturing methodologies (Nudurupati et al., 2007), whereas, KPIs are the compilations of data measures (either by quantitative or qualitative data) used to access the performance of the construction operation. Despite extensive research, there is no general agreement on a set of KPIs for construction projects to date. Therefore, there is a need to identify a set of common indicators to be used by construction executive and project managers in measuring construction performance at the project level. Performance measurement in construction project has been dominated by the conventional measures of time, cost and quality (Toor and Ogunlana, 2010).\nMethodology: There are 30 hospitals in Gaza Strip; 13 of these are public hospitals administrated by the Palestinian MoH (Table I and Figure 1). Public hospitals were selected as the population of this study because of their importance and the role they play in Palestinian people's life in the Gaza Strip.\nBPI calculation: Actual performance score for system j in building i was calculated based on Lavy (2006) using equation (1):\nTotal annual maintenance expenditure: It computes the actual total annual maintenance expenditure (TAME) for the facility. The following assumptions were used in the development of this procedure: each day-care patient bed equals one-third of an acute-care patient bed in the facility. The reason for this is that a day-care patient bed is used for about 8 hours a day, while an acute-care patient bed is used for 24 hours a day (Lavy, 2006).\nMaintenance efficiency indicator (MEI): MEI indicates the efficiency with which maintenance activities are implemented. The assessment of the various values of MEI is based on the AME calculations and BPI scales. The ranges for the MEI were taken from Lavy's (2006) study. The MEI ranges of values for health-care facilities were defined as:\nURI: Park and Augenbro (2003) stated that a high value of URI means that the engineering staffs are heavily engaged in urgent repairs, being distracted from carrying out normal corrective and preventive work, and, in the long term, the building will suffer from loss of business and prestige defined as:\nResults: Analysis of calculated KPIs\nConclusion: The efficiency of maintenance planning and execution are important for ensuring continued performance of health services. Existing health sector buildings in Palestine lack adequate maintenance attention. The aim of this paper is to identify and assess the KPIs for the maintenance of public hospital buildings in the Gaza Strip. This study is considered the first study which identified and assessed the KPIs in the Gaza Strip. KPIs will assist the MoH to compare the actual and estimated performance in terms of effectiveness, efficiency and quality of workmanship. The results indicated that the average BPI for the 13 hospitals was 76.18, which is marginal status. On an average, the MEI for Gaza hospitals was 0.3, which indicated low budgetary investment. URI was found to be average in this study. This means the engineering staff is moderately engaged in urgent repairs. These results showed some differences of maintenance management in the Gaza Strip and Israel. The AME in Israel is 2.5 times higher than that in the Gaza Strip due to the excellent financial status in the Israeli hospitals. Culture, political status and financial statements considered factors that affected the measurements of KPIs in the Gaza Strip hospitals. The skills of maintenance staff were found to be related to the maintenance management behavior.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify and assess the key performance indicators (KPIs) for the maintenance of public hospital buildings in the Gaza Strip.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Four KPIs were identified and evaluated in this paper: building performance indicators (BPI), maintenance efficiency indicators (MEI), annual maintenance expenditure (AME) and urgent repair request indicator. Twenty-one buildings in 13 public hospitals in Gaza Strip Governorate were taken as the sample of this study.\nFindings: The results indicated that the European Gaza hospital has the highest BPI score (81.66) and the Dorra hospital has the lowest BPI score (68.26). The findings revealed that the average AME for all hospitals was $13.8/m2 which is considered to be below the standard level of expenditure. The MEI for Gaza public hospital buildings was found to be equal to 0.3 which indicated low level of maintenance expenditure.\nResearch limitations/implications: Unavailability of certain data, lack of maintenance documentation and comparison difficulty between the Gaza Strip and Israel due to political, cultural and financial situation were some of the limitations of this study.\nPractical implications: The Ministry of Health (MoH) can utilize the results of this study and consider it as benchmarking for maintenance management in public hospital buildings. This can improve the current maintenance situation which ultimately will improve the health-care situation in Palestine. The Palestinian MoH should look for external funding to increase the AME, as well as aim at increasing the MEI.\nSocial implications: The health-care situation in Palestine will be improved.\nOriginality/value: This study is considered the first study to identify and assess the KPIs in the Gaza Strip. KPIs will assist the MoH to compare the actual and estimated performance in terms of effectiveness, efficiency and quality of workmanship.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The impact of ethics programmes and ethical culture on misconduct in public service organizations
|
[
"Ethical culture",
"Ethics programmes",
"Misconduct",
"Public service organizations"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Efforts at enhancing ethical behaviour in public service organizations are seen as important and widespread (Feldheim and Wang, 2002), but the ERC (2005) concluded that although there had been an increase in the number of ethics programmes, their impact on misconduct was not as great as hoped, and appeared to be strongly reliant upon culture. This highlights the need to understand the role of ethical culture in the relationship between ethics programmes and misconduct, yet there has been limited research on what makes ethics programmes effective in reducing misconduct, or the role of ethical culture in the process (Pelletier and Bligh, 2006; Proenca, 2004). This article addresses this gap, examining the impact of ethics programmes on misconduct and ethical culture, and clarifying the process by which ethical culture influences the relationship between ethics programmes and misconduct. We offers insights to policymakers on allocating resources to promote ethical behaviour in public service organizations.\nLiterature review: An ethics programme is a set of activities, policies and procedures intended to support employees to understand and comply with the ethical standards and policies set by the organization. Programmes comprise various elements designed to prevent misconduct, defined as \"behaviour that violates the law or organizational ethics standards\" (ERC, 2008). Companies with strong ethics programmes report improvements in ethical conduct, and programmes have a positive effect on employee behaviour, ethical attitudes and corporate culture (Ferrell et al., 1998). Each element is likely to have some impact on employees' attitudes and behaviour, but the manner and extent of this impact may vary. Proenca (2004) suggests five elements: a code of ethics, an ethics officer, an ethics training programme, an ethics audit system, and dedicated ethics telephone hotlines. The Ethics Resource Center (ERC), on the other hand, proposes six elements, based on US Federal Sentencing Guidelines (FSG): written codes of conduct, ethics training, mechanisms to seek ethics advice or information, channels to report misconduct anonymously, discipline of employees who violate ethical standards, and evaluation of employees' ethical performance (ERC, 2005; US Office of Government Ethics, 2008). This widely adopted and highly influential approach is utilized here as it has been adopted by the Korean Institute of Public Administration (KIPA) for their ethics survey, the data from which forms the basis of this study. We turn now to consideration of each of the six elements.\nMethod: Our study used data from the KIPA ethics survey. South Korean public services offered an ideal context in which to test our hypotheses, as the South Korean Public Officials' Code of Conduct (Executive Order No. 17906, May 19, 2003) required executive branch departments and agencies of central government to put in place an ethics programme, comprising six elements identical to the FSG guidelines. Like most ethics surveys the KIPA survey measures ethics programmes in terms of these elements (Table I).\nResults: Correlation analysis was conducted to examine how ethical culture, misconduct and the ethics programme elements are correlated. Table IV shows means, standard deviations and inter-correlations for all the variables.\nDiscussion: The primary goal of this study was to clarify the role played by ethical culture in the relationship between an ethics programme and decreased misconduct. The findings show ethical culture completely mediates the relationship, and that most of the elements of an ethics programme significantly contribute to engendering an ethical culture. These findings have a number of implications, both for future research and for policy and practice. First, since the results indicate ethical culture is key to improving ethical behaviour in organizations, the resources used to develop ethics programmes ought to be deployed in a manner most likely to strengthen ethical culture. Before controlling for ethical culture, the elements which had the greatest effect on ethical culture were ethics training and discipline for violators, and these elements would thus appear to provide the best return on investment, although clearly the starting point will continue to be the development of a code of conduct, as the basis for both training and discipline. Examining implementation of ethics codes in public service organizations, Grundstein-Amado (2001, p. 461) stresses \"internalization of the code's provisions\", developing ethical standards which become embodied in employees' habitual thoughts and behaviour. This would need to be supported by ethics training specifically aimed at teaching public officials the rules and standards of ethical behaviours (Schwartz, 2004), and our results provide further evidence that ethics training contributes to creating ethical culture, and confirm its effect in a public service context.\nConclusion: There has been little work on how an ethics programme might reduce misconduct in public service organizations, or on the role of ethical culture in the process. The present study has begun to address this gap in the literature, showing ethical culture fully mediates the process by which ethics programmes reduce misconduct. The aim of an ethics programme to decrease unethical behaviour is thus accomplished through the mediating role of ethical culture rather than directly, and this has important implications for policy makers and managers. Though our study demonstrates that ethics programmes influence ethical culture, the existing ethical culture may also influence the implementation and effectiveness of ethics programmes (Webley and Werner, 2008), and further study is required to understand the manner in which ethical culture contributes to the effectiveness of ethics programmes, which in turn reinforce the ethical culture and improve ethical behaviour.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine the relationship between ethics programmes and ethical culture, and their impact on misconduct.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A theoretical model which posits ethical culture to be a mediating variable in the relationship between ethics programmes and misconduct was tested using data from a national ethics survey of Korean public service organizations.\nFindings: The data indicates the relationship between ethics programmes and misconduct is fully mediated by ethical culture. Only two of the six elements of an ethics programme had a significant effect on misconduct before ethical culture was controlled for, and when ethical culture was controlled for, none of the elements had a significant impact on misconduct. The ethics programme did however appear to strengthen ethical culture, suggesting such programmes make an important contribution to reducing unethical behaviour in organizations.\nResearch limitations/implications: Future research should examine the interaction of ethics programmes and ethical culture using longitudinal research designs, to obtain a better understanding of how programmes serve to strengthen ethical culture.\nPractical implications: The findings provide insights into the role of ethics programmes in improving ethical behaviour, suggesting resources should be deployed to those aspects of these programmes which serve to strengthen ethical culture.\nOriginality/value: The paper provides clarification of the relationship between ethics programmes, ethical culture and misconduct, an important finding given the significant resources deployed by public service organizations to initiatives aimed at improving ethical behaviour.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Stock exchange brands as an influence on investor behavior
|
[
"Brand equity",
"Perceived risk",
"Stock market",
"Investor behaviour"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Scholars in behavioral finance have expended considerable effort in trying to understand investment choices. Much of this research has focused on the decision-making behavior of the actors involved in the financial markets, particularly the institutional investors who account for the bulk of the activity (Gabaix et al., 2006; Gompers and Metrick, 2001). One strand within this research, at the finance and marketing interface, has investigated the effect of brands and brand variables in investment choices, both for individual and institutional investors (Frieder and Subrahmanyam, 2005; Huberman, 2001; Keloharju et al., 2012).\nInvestor perceptions and behavior: For a long time, the decision to invest in a financial asset was believed to be exclusively rational, determined by the financial returns that investors might obtain. This traditional proposition has evolved in recent times to include some non-financial variables, particularly the perceptions and cognitive evaluations of customers. In this regard, both marketing (Barber and Odean, 2008; Billett et al., 2014) and finance scholars (Fama and French, 2007; Frieder and Subrahmanyam, 2005) have challenged the dominant influence of financial returns on investment decisions, and highlighted the role of customer perceptions and evaluations of companies and brands as a critical influencer on their decisions (Aspara and Tikkanen, 2010).\nInvestment products as brands: Numerous studies have suggested that product-market characteristics spill over into the investment market and affect investors' perceptions and consequent behavior. Huberman (2001) suggested that familiarity with a company or brand, as a non-financial attribute, positively affects investors' choices. Grullon et al. (2004) found that the breadth of a firm's stock ownership increases in line with the firm's overall visibility with its investors, with advertising expenditure as a measure of brand visibility. Frieder and Subrahmanyam (2005) also found a preference for highly visible, brand name companies in stock choices in a study of 82 institutional holdings in the USA.\nStock exchanges as brands: The research just discussed provides compelling evidence that corporate brands and reputation are an important influence on investor perceptions and behavior. However, the nature of the stock market is such that investors do not generally buy stocks directly; they have to go through intermediaries, such as brokers, who execute a purchase transaction through a stock exchange. The number of steps in this supply chain suggests a complicated relationship with each step exercising some influence in the investment choices made. The question is: how much influence does each player in the supply chain exert on the investment choices and, in particular, what is the relative influence of the stock exchange through which the trade is transacted.\nRisk perception and COO effect: The marketing literature suggests that the COO is an important influence on product evaluation, preferences and resulting purchasing decisions (Chuang and Yen, 2007; Klein, 2002). It serves as an information cue in decision making (Katsumata and Song, 2016), similar to the simplifying heuristics discussed above. The mechanism works through a \"matching\" process, with positive evaluations when a country's reputation matches the consumer's beliefs about the product or brand (Cui et al., 2014).\nInvestor-based brand equity: Brand equity tends to be discussed in three basic ways in the literature: CBBE (Aaker, 1992; Berry, 2000; Farquhar, 1989; Keller, 1993), financial brand equity (Barwise, 1993; Davcik and Sharma, 2015; Kapareliotis and Panopoulos, 2010; Kapferer, 2012), and a combination of these two approaches (Kim et al., 2003; Torres et al., 2012). These approaches still prevail in most product and service domains, but more recently the concept has been extended into the financial services domain, i.e. investor-based brand equity (Jacobsen, 2009).\nResearch methodology: This study takes the form of a survey of individual, private investors in two stock markets, Turkey and Ireland. Private investors own a smaller percentage of stocks in many countries, e.g. 40 percent in the USA; 18 percent in Japan, 11 percent in the UK (Celik and Isaksson, 2013), but they still account for a significant portion of the trading activity and overall portfolio (Chuang and Susmel, 2011; Ivkovic and Weisbenner, 2005), and therefore merit study.\nResults: Comparative demographics and investment experience\nDiscussion: The two structural models indicate that the brand equity embodied in the stock exchanges has a significant effect on the intention to invest, all other things being equal. However, this effect is strongly mediated through PR in the developing Turkish Stock Market, while its role is much lower in the more developed Irish Stock Market.\nConclusions: There is a considerable body of research focused on the decision-making behavior of investors involved in financial markets. One strand within this research has investigated the effect of brands and brand variables on investment choices at individual and institutional levels (Frieder and Subrahmanyam, 2005; Huberman, 2001; Keloharju et al., 2012). The basic finding of these studies is that perceptions and sentiments toward corporate brands in the wider consumer market spill over into the stock market.\nTheoretical implications: This research addresses a gap in the literature by approaching financial markets as brands (Kokosalakis et al., 2006) which need to work on their value propositions for potential customers/investors and to promote themselves to increase awareness (Jansson and Power, 2006). In this sense, it brings the marketing and finance disciplines together, mostly an ignored interdisciplinary area, by exchanging different approaches between the two.\nPractical implications and suggestions: This research has revealed that people, regardless of being actual, potential or non-investors, have certain value perceptions, which can be expressed in terms of brand and brand equity, toward the stock exchange of their country of residence. These perceptions act either as an enabler or barrier to their intention to invest. This overlaps with the traditional viewpoint which sees well-known corporate brands as having brand equity deriving jointly from features of the brand itself and from customers' perceptions.\nLimitations: This research has certain limitations such as investigating individual, private investors as the basic unit of analysis, and thus leaving out institutional investors; evaluating investor behavior only from an equity-investment perspective and excluding other types of investment instruments such as government funds, treasury bills, bonds and currencies; not being a comparative study in the strict sense, in that the respondents were only asked about their own countries.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of stock exchange-related brand equity on intention to invest and the mediating role of perceived risk (PR) in this relationship in a comparative analysis between a developed and a developing market.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study is carried out through an online survey among financially literate adults in two countries, Turkey and Ireland. Structural equation modeling is used to empirically test the relationships between brand equity dimensions and intention to invest, with a mediating role of PR.\nFindings: The results indicate that the brand equity of a stock exchange is a relevant construct that significantly influences intention to invest. Also, the mediating role of PR is found to be strong in a developing market such as Turkey, but weak in a developed market like Ireland.\nResearch limitations/implications: One limitation of this paper is its inclusion of individual investors as the unit of analysis while leaving out institutional ones. The second limitation is the difficulty in generalizing the results to overall country populations.\nPractical implications: This paper offers managerial implications regarding the need for emphasizing \"stock exchange brand,\" besides corporate brands traded, and customizing the management of brand-related influencers in investment decisions according to country context.\nOriginality/value: The impact of corporate brands in investment choices has been demonstrated before, but the influence of intermediaries - stock exchanges - through which investments are transacted, has not yet been investigated. This study addresses this gap, and further shows the differing extent of PR in this relationship between a developed and a developing country setting.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Corporate governance in Islamic financial institutions: the issues surrounding unrestricted investment account holders
|
[
"Kuwait",
"Bahrain",
"United Arab Emirates",
"Malaysia",
"Financial institutions",
"Islam",
"Corporate governance",
"Investments",
"Islamic financial institutions",
"Effectiveness",
"Protecting",
"Maximizing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The initial wave of oil revenues in the early 1970s and the growth of petrodollars gave momentum to the growth of Islamic finance and many reputable Islamic banks were established, including Nasser Social Bank Cairo in 1972, the Dubai Islamic Bank in 1975, Kuwait Finance House in 1977, Faisal Islamic Bank of Sudan in 1977 and Dar Al-Maal Al-Islami in 1980 (Van Greuning and Iqbal, 2008). In the beginning of 1980s, three Muslim countries - Iran, Pakistan and Sudan - transformed their entire financial sector to be completely Islamized. The step was considered as of great importance to the global developments of Islamic banking (Bhatti and Khan, 2008).Currently, Islamic Finance is one of the fastest growing industries with double-digit annual growth rates for the past 30 years. There are more than 250 financial institutions in over 45 countries, in an industry which has been growing at a rate of more than 15 per cent per annum for the past five years, with estimated annual earnings of $350 billion, compared with a mere $5 billion in 1985 (Van Greuning and Iqbal, 2008). There are more than 284 Islamic Financial Institutions operating in 38 countries, and this does not include conventional banks offering Islamic financial products and services (Dusuki, 2008). The success of the Islamic financial system can be measured by the number of conventional banks that have established their own \"Islamic windows\" not only in countries dominated by Muslim populations, but also in rest of the world. A number of conventional Western financial institutions went beyond the \"Islamic windows\", and opened whole Islamic subsidiaries.El-Gamal (2005) suggests that the activities of Islamic financial institutions affect the welfare of more than 20 per cent of the world's population and for this reason the governance of such institutions is becoming highly visible. Thus, the credibility of their CG practices is becoming crucial for their effective growth, development, and social acceptance. However, it has been observed that such practices do not sufficiently address the rights of investment account holders and specifically the unrestricted investment account holders (UIAHs) in view of the fact that it is the investor alone who bears the financial risks of his or her investments (Archer et al. 2010). There seems to be a deficiency in the protection of investment account holders as equity holders, in terms of board representation but also as depositors, in terms of principal-guarantee (El-Gamal, 2005).This paper reports on an investigation into the effectiveness of current corporate governance practices of a sample of Islamic financial institutions with increasing international representation. The primary foci of the research project are the IFIs' corporate governance practices and their effectiveness (or lack of it) in safeguarding the interests of the UIAHs. Given the UIAHs' central role in bearing the risk of the performance of the IFI's investment pool, they are arguably the major stakeholders of the Islamic financial industry.\n2. Corporate governance from an Islamic perspective: Islam is a faith that relates to all aspects of life, and it includes a value-based system that gives high priority to the recognition of justice and fairness to all humans. The main characteristic of the Islamic economy is its aim to create a just, honest, fair and balanced society as envisioned by Islamic ethical value. Islamic law (Shariah) states that Islamic businesses must be conducted and founded on ethical norms and social obligations, and also must be grounded on the moral framework of the Shariah (Ahmad, 2000). The holy Quran and Hadith and the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) have extensively stated and supported all the fundamentals behind corporate governance, by stressing the importance of values, ethics, and morals for the welfare of a society \"Each one of you is a guardian, and each guardian is accountable to everything under his care\" (Prophet Mohammed, PBUH).The beliefs of Muslims regarding the accountability of their actions in this world and beyond have strong implications on how the application corporate governance is perceived, especially in financial services. The main challenges that has faced the Islamic financial industry from its inception was how to transform conventional financial products and instruments into Islamically friendly ones, taking into account the prohibition of any payment of interest \"Riba\". Also, there has been a need to adapt CG principles to Shariah requirements, and to the teachings of the holy Quran and Sunnah. The Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) and the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) have stepped in and issued well-known CG guiding principles for Islamic financial institutions.Shariah law, prohibits Riba (interest), Gharar (speculations) and the trading of money. Hence, in order to ensure that the operations and activities of Islamic Financial Institutions are in compliance with Shariah rules and principles, a Shariah Supervisory Board (SSB) must be in existence in all IFIs. This Board has the task of reviewing and evaluating newly introduced products and services in order to ensure compliance with Shariah. In this manner, Shariah endorses a stakeholder-oriented model of corporate governance, in the light of Islamic principles (Van Greuning and Iqbal, 2008). However, Islamic finance does introduce distinctive challenges for CG, one of the key challenge being the need of stakeholders (in our case account holders) to be confident that the Islamic financial institutions are in fact efficient, stable, and trustworthy providers of financial services (Bhatti and Bhatti, 2010).2.1 Principles of corporate governance\n3. Research design: 3.1 Research question\n4. Findings: 4.1 Direct observation exercise\n5. Conclusions: Despite its rapid growth, Islamic finance as an industry is still in its infancy stage. This is clearly reflected in our results. IFIs are still trapped in an international financial system that is mainly tailored to supporting conventional financial institutions. Looking at Islamic financial products and services, we can easily say they are replicas of their conventional versions, but with some changes, so as to make them Islamically acceptable.5.1 Corporate governance principles\n6. Recommendations: Based on our findings we offer a number of recommendations which we believe would improve the unique relationship between IFIs and UIAHs.Given the distinctive issues concerning CG for IFIs, the establishment of dedicated corporate governance committees with the task of monitoring and overseeing the implementation of the governance framework, including looking after the interests of the stakeholders, seems to be a must. Such committees would undertake the protection of the right of UIAHs, and would guarantee their fair treatment, especially if they are non-executive members. Another recommendation concerns the Mudharabah contract. As discussed earlier, this agreement lacks the elements that empower UIAHs to query the management of IFIs about the performance of their investments. Such an important piece of governance needs to be revised and amended according to the best CG practice, of course without violating the underlying Shariah principles.Islamic financial institutions are haunted by the fear of displaced commercial risks caused by their depositors withdrawing their funds and investing them elsewhere. This fear forces IFIs to adopt the practice of smoothing the returns through the establishment of profit equalisation reserves (PER). The utilisation of PER appears to be a significant obstacle to transparency and fairness. Therefore, it would seem wise to cease such a practice given that it misleads UIAHs about the true performance of IFIs. As a replacement, IFIs might reimburse UIAHs with grants from the IFIs' own returns, a practice already being implemented by some IFIs. If the IFI opts to use PER, then it should allow the holders of unrestricted investment accounts to redeem their contributions prior to leaving the financial institution.The role of regulators. We believe that regulators should play a more significant role in protecting the right of UIAHs and in minimizing conflicts of interest. Central banks and monitoring agencies should establish specialized laws and Islamic regulatory divisions as well as their own Shariah Supervisory Board to look after issues mainly concerning IFIs. They should also make Islamic CG standards issued by IFSB and AAOIFI mandatory for IFIs. Regulatory bodies should impose a governance structure apt at protecting the rights of UIAHs and if such a structure is implemented correctly, it might substitute the need for representation of UIAHs on the Board. In order to mitigate the problem of conflicts of interest between the UIAHs and equity holders, it is crucial that IFIs stop commingling the funds of shareholders and UIAHs in the practice of one pool. Avoiding such practice would enhance the element of transparency as well as of independence in CG.Finally, we recommend that IFIs concentrate on the education of Directors (executives and non executives) regarding their responsibilities toward stakeholders. The issue of successful Islamic CG does not depend only on the governance structure but also on the competency of the people within the structure. They should be knowledgeable enough about the nature of Islamic finance and its products, which in turn would enhance current managerial attitudes towards UIAHs.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - It has been observed that the practices of corporate governance in Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) do not sufficiently address the rights of unrestricted investment account holders (UIAHs). Given that such account holders are generally the ones who bear the risk of the performance of the investment pool, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between corporate governance practice and the safeguarding of the interests of UIAHs as major stakeholders.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A qualitative research methodology is applied to a sample of 16 managers from 12 Islamic financial institutions from Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE and Malaysia. A theoretical model built around the GC principles featured in the King report underpins the research design.\nFindings: - The findings reveal that the current practices implemented by IFIs in protecting the rights of UIAHs are not effective enough, in the light of standard corporate governance principles. It was also found that lack of responsibility, accountability and independence in decision making, as corporate governance principles, is contributing to the ineffectiveness of current practices in the investigated IFIs.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The major limitation of the research is the small size of the sample used. Hence, the work reported here must be considered as exploratory and a further study employing a larger sample is recommended as future research.\nPractical implications: - A number of recommendations for corporate governance practice in IFIs aimed at the unique relationship between IFIs and UIAHs are put forward.\nOriginality/value: - The originality and the value of this paper rest on its topic which, to the best of the researchers' knowledge, has not been investigated empirically before. Hence, the authors believe it will be of value not only to academics but mostly to practitioners in IFIs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Natural experiments and debt-driven financial crises: mortgage finance booms in the 1920s and 2000s
|
[
"Debt-driven financial crises",
"Lax lending standards",
"Natural experiments"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The increasing frequency and severity of financial instability is drawing analytical attention to the contributing role of debt in the booms that produce the inevitable crises. John Kenneth Galbraith (1988, 1993, 2004) explained how debt fueled the great stock market bubbles that collapsed in 1929, 1987, and 2000-2001, through low margins on brokers' loans in the 1920s and creative use of modern financial derivatives in the 1980s and 1990s. But the US economy has also experienced two mortgage-debt-driven booms that ended in financial crises, and those hold special interest because they occurred under very different general and financial circumstances. Although overshadowed by the bull market in stocks, the financial exuberance of the 1920s included an extraordinary increase in mortgage debt. As unemployment rose following the stock market crash of 1929, the inability to meet those debt obligations contributed to the depth of the Great Depression through both direct and indirect effects on the nation's credit system (Schumpeter, 1939, p. 748). In 2007, the collapse of the \"subprime mortgage bubble\" precipitated the most severe financial crisis since the early 1930s. In a historically anomalous development, an extraordinary increase in mortgage debt had fueled a boom in an economy suffering a recession and verging on deflation in the aftermath of the collapse of the dot.com stock market bubble in 2000-2001.\n2. The methodology of natural experiments: In the scientific method, a hypothesis is formulated that posits as precisely as possible a functional relationship between an independent variable and a dependent variable, with all other factors that might affect the value of the dependent variable held constant as parameters. The hypothesis is then tested under rigorously controlled laboratory conditions, where the \"experimenter\" activates calibrated changes in the independent variable and measures the reactions of the dependent variable. In some experiments, a control group not being subjected to changes in the independent variable is paired with the subjects in the experiment, with membership in the two groups determined by a process of random selection. Success (but never absolute proof) is defined as the inability of replications to disprove the hypothesis (Friedman, 1953, p. 9).\n3. Mortgage finance in the 1920s and 2000s as Schumpeterian-Friedman natural experiments: Our interpretation of the mortgage finance booms in the 1920s and the 2000s as natural experiments follows the methodological approaches of both Friedman and Schumpeter. The first step is recognizing that events provided a basis for formulating and testing a hypothesized functional relationship. Our hypothesis that lax lending standards are the prime contributors to mortgage-debt-driven booms was formulated from observations on the historical features of mortgage finance in the 1920s and the 2000s. But more directly, it was suggested by Schumpeter's analyses of the importance of mortgage finance in the 1920s. As we will note in detail below, the general economic and financial environments in which the two mortgage-debt booms occurred were very different, as were also the specific institutional features of the mortgage finance sector itself. But there was one prominent common element, namely a laxity in the lending standards.\n4. Concluding statement: The implications drawn from all natural experiments must be taken in recognition of the complexity of real world economic and financial phenomena. But when similar events have occurred in different periods and under different general circumstances and resulted in similar outcomes, the methodology of natural experiments is reasonably satisfied and cautious acceptance of the conclusions is warranted. The mortgage debt-driven booms of the 1920s and 2000s qualify as Schumpeterian-Friedman type natural experiments due to: the commonality of lax lending standards as temporary deviations from the previous and succeeding periods, and having occurred under very different general financial and economic conditions. On that basis, these experiments provide convincing evidence of the powerful effects of laxity in mortgage lending standards. As particularly well illustrated in the 2000s episode, the intensity of the booms and the severity of the financial crises that follow are greatly amplified by the secondary factors, e.g., securitization of mortgages, debt-default swaps, and the role of the Federal Reserve's interest rates policies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The role of debt in episodes of financial stability is a topic of increasing important as the global economy struggles to recover from the worst crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The purpose of this paper is to examine the mortgage finance booms of the 1920s and 2000s as natural experiments, new insights into debt-driven financial crises are gained.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The general methodology is interpreting anomalous historical events as natural experiments. The specific methodology is the approach to natural experiments provided by Joseph A. Schumpeter and Milton Friedman. The hypothesis tested is that laxity in lending standards was the prime contributor to the mortgage debt booms. In each case, we explain why factors other than laxity in lending standards would be secondary factors, with the pre-boom and post-boom lending standards providing the control groups of natural experiments. The two episodes of mortgage debt booms occurring under very different general economic and financial conditions provide an especially strong test of the hypothesized functional relationship.\nFindings: The results of the two natural experiments support the hypothesis that lax lending standards were the prime contributors to the two episodes of debt-driven financial crisis.\nOriginality/value: From a social economics perspective, the insights gained are important because a major social goal has been to encourage greater opportunities for home ownership. The results of these natural experiments provide guidance for policymakers in the search for a viable balance between achieving that social goal and maintaining financial stability.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Determinants of foreign direct real estate investment in selected MENA countries
|
[
"Commercial real estate",
"MENA countries",
"Foreign direct investment",
"Panel data analysis",
"Dunning’s eclectic paradigm",
"Greenfield development"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Capital is a vital ingredient for economic growth. The total capital requirements of a nation are met from internal resources, but also from foreign investors through foreign direct investment (FDI) and foreign portfolio investment (FPI), the two most commonly-defined routes through which overseas investors invest in an economy. FDI implies investment by foreign investors directly in the productive assets of another nation, while FPI means investing by investors in financial assets such as stocks and bonds located in another country.\n2. Related literature: Many books, journal papers, and other sources explain clearly how the OLI paradigm can be applied to explain the decisions of global multinational enterprises when deciding on undertaking manufacturing-related FDI. In contrast, there are very few studies which try to illustrate the OLI paradigm in a real estate context.\n3. Hypothesis development: Our objective in this paper is to explain real estate FDI, as we define and qualify it, in a set of Middle Eastern countries over a seven year period, 2003-2009. Specifically, we examine internalised greenfield development in the context of L (location) factors, which are clearly vital in understanding drivers and barriers to investing in Middle Eastern property markets.\n4. Data and methodology: 4.1. Analytical method\n5. Conclusions: The study employs the location dimension of the Dunning framework as a basis to explain the determinants of FDI in the commercial real estate sector. We find that the Dunning OLI paradigm can be utilised to explain the behaviour of property developers when venturing into emerging markets and the location dimension of the OLI framework is specifically found to be of high relevance and importance to investing in foreign property markets.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the main determinants of foreign direct real estate investments (foreign direct investment (FDI)) in selected Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The empirical work of this study is an econometric analysis of FDI in the commercial real estate sector for eight MENA markets, namely Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Tunisia and the UAE during the period 2003-2009. The econometric analysis is carried out using the pooled Tobit model technique for panel data.\nFindings: The paper finds that both country-specific factors and real estate sector-specific variables consistently support hypotheses explaining commercial real estate-related FDI, and find evidence that political stability explains why some selected MENA countries attract more real estate investments than other MENA countries.\nPractical implications: The findings should be seriously considered in any policy making effort on the part of governments in the region.\nOriginality/value: The authors contribute to the existing literature in many ways. First, the study aims to develop econometric models, using both conventional and unique variables, to be generalised and applied to any developed or emerging market. The study applies relevant techniques in estimating the models, including the pooled Tobit model. Second, the research studies eight selected MENA real estate markets from 2003 to 2009, a timeframe and geography not examined in previous published empirical work on commercial real estate investments. Lastly, and for the first time in real estate literature, the study applies the location dimension of Dunning's OLI paradigm as a theoretical explanation for the behaviour of foreign investors in commercial real estate towards the selected MENA markets.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Interplay of cognition and emotion in IS usage: Emotion as mediator between cognition and IS usage
|
[
"Perceived ease of use",
"Information system",
"Perceived usefulness",
"Positive emotion",
"Negative emotions"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nCorrigendum: It has been brought to our attention that Bouchaib Bahli was not named as an author of \"Interplay of congnition and emotion in IS usage: emotion as mediator between cognition and IS usage\" which was published in the Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Vol. 28 No. 3, pp. 363-376. This occurred through an author error. The authors sincerely apologise for this. The additional author attribution for this article has now been added to the electronic version of the article.\n1. Cognition, emotion, and IT use intention: 1.1. Cognition\n2. A framework for mediating emotions between cognitions and IS usage: In this paper, we propose a model highlighting the mediating role of emotion between cognition and IS use intention. To illustrate this mediating relationship, we follow Baron and Kenney's (1986) three steps to explain: first, independent variable to dependent variable (cognition to IS use); second, independent variable to mediator (cognition to emotion); and third, mediator to dependent variable (emotion to IS use).\n3. Discussion: In this paper, we have adapted cognitive appraisal framework incorporating both cognition and emotion towards IS continuance. This paper joins in the growing body of IS literature that emphasizes the importance of emotions by considering the fact that IS users' emotions influence their behaviours (e.g. Beaudry and Pinsonneault, 2010; Loiacono and Djamasbi, 2010; McGrath, 2006). Ciborra (2002) argues that we always act within an emotional medium. In this view, purely rational action is not possible and the relationship between rationality and emotionality (Avgerou and McGrath, 2005) should be explored to explain their consequences on IT use. Drawing on cognitive appraisal, this paper presents a new and comprehensive approach to existing stand-alone cognition- and affect-based models by studying emotion as a mediator between cognition and IS use intention. In doing so, this paper contributes to predicting IS continuance. No study has yet attempted to incorporate together the impact of the cognitive and affective processes leading to IS continuance. We argue that by connecting cognitive judgement and emotional reactions on IS, both ease of use and usefulness should be considered in designing IS as to how these may generate positive or negative emotions. Our model helps to explain why and how both PE and PU are important and lead to IS intention by explicitly stating mediating variables, emotions. By doing so, we contribute towards discussions within a more complete view so as to determine IS usage taking into consideration both external and internal causes of users.\n4. Conclusion: In recognition of the importance of emotions as well as cognition in decision and behaviours of individuals, there has been growing interest and research on emotions in IS literature. Studies incorporating emotions in IS literature have mainly considered discrete emotions such as anxiety and comfort, focusing on temporal reaction to changes. Moreover, most studies considered emotion effects in isolation from cognition effects. Such approaches could miss out on opportunities to understand the dynamics between the cognitive and affective aspects of IS usage.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the effects of emotion as outcomes of cognition, in turn influencing levels of information system (IS) usage at work. In doing so, the author presents set of propositions illustrating an integrated model by adapting both cognitive and affects aspects to explain continuance of IS usage.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This conceptual paper explains the importance of cognitive judgement to IS usage via emotional lenses. Based on literature covering the concepts of technology adaptation theory, emotions, as well as the theoretical foundations in cognitive appraisal, the author has examined the relationship between cognition and IS usage with mediating emotion.\nFindings: Propositions based on literature review of cognition and emotions in IS research are presented for further empirical study. The author argues that by connecting cognitive judgement and emotional reactions on IS, both ease of use and usefulness should be considered in designing IS as to how these may generate positive or negative emotions.\nResearch limitations/implications: As the success of IS depends on the users' continued use of the system, an integrated model adapting both cognitive and affects aspects will be better equipped to explain continuance of IS usage.\nPractical implications: Good IS design could influence not only the effectiveness of IS but also the emotional well-being of employees.\nOriginality/value: This is one of the first studies to consider together the impact of the cognitive and affective processes leading to IS continuance in one model. This is one of the first studies in which one single model is used to consider together the impact of the cognitive and affective processes leading to IS continuance. Thus, the author contributes to IS continuance literature as well as employees' well-being literatures given how IS is embedded in today's working organization. The author also believes the model will stimulate more comprehensive understanding of IS continuance as IS users are considered as human beings with both cognition and emotions.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Doing business in India: cross-cultural issues in managing human resources
|
[
"Human resources",
"Cross-cultural"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: India and China are the two fastest growing economies. Even during the economic slowdown of (2009-2011), India has grown at 7.2 per cent vs 2.5 per cent global average and is slated to overtake China by 2030. India's economy among emerging markets is attracting large multi-national corporations (MNCs) to set up operations, involving large foreign direct investment inflows. According to Khanna et al. (2005), MNCs must invest in emerging markets in order to remain competitive. It thus becomes imperative for managers of these MNCs to understand the business situation and people practices prevailing in India if they are to succeed in doing business here (Budhwar and Varma, 2010).\nChallenges of doing business in India for MNCs: A Goldman Sachs report (see Wilson and Purushothaman, 2003) forecasted that by 2050, BRIC economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China) could collectively outgrow economies of G-6 countries (the USA, Japan, the UK, Germany, France and Italy).\nCross-cultural issues in international business: Culture of an organization is a composite of values, beliefs and assumptions held by organizational members which explains how they cope with external and internal forces (Schein, 1983; Hofstede, 2000; Kanungo, 2001). Soh et al. (2000) opined that culture is the prime determinant of system-specific changes. It also determines performance standards, prevailing climate and HR policies in the context of socioeconomic realities and ethos of the country in which the organization operates (Tayeb, 1987, 1994; Budhwar and Sparrow, 1997; Davenport, 2000; Kumar and van Hillegersberg, 2000).\nExpatriate issues: MNCs have extended their operations into Asian countries, particularly in India and as per a Goldman Sachs report (see Wilson and Purushothaman, 2003) India will be among the leading economies by 2020. Expatriate performance is crucial to the success of an MNC, however, one-third of expatriates fail in their international assignments (Tung, 1988) and such failures have very high-costs attached (Shaffer et al., 1999; Stroh et al., 2000). Individual- and organizational-level factors are found to correlate with the success or failure of expatriates. Personality differences, motivation and adjustment issues of the expatriate in a cross-cultural environment (Black et al., 1999; Shaffer et al., 1999; Lomax, 2001; Selmer, 2002); unsystematic expatriate selection and preparation, inability of the spouse to adjust and prejudices of HCNs come in the way of an expatriate's success (Caligiuri and Cascio, 1998; Harris et al., 2003).\nManaging HR: Foreign firms in India are facing two major challenges which are related to management of HR; recruitment of qualified personnel and thereafter retaining them. The Indian labour market is volatile and these firms need a clear HRM strategy to win \"the war for talent\".\nMethodology: Objective of this research is to understand which factors contribute to the success of multinationals/transnationals while doing business in India with a focus on cross-cultural issues and managing human capital. The study adopted the interview method to collect data. This method was felt to be most appropriate given the objectives of the study. All the respondents were very senior professionals working in diverse sectors like media, aviation, insurance, consulting, finance, infrastructure, etc. Most of the sample organizations were privately held conglomerates, some were government owned while others were large family-owned businesses.\nStudy findings: Cross-cultural issues in the context of managing HR\nUnderstanding India geographically and culturally: Foreigners need to understand that geographically India is a mix of four-five different countries but culturally it is like a continent, akin to the European Union. Over the years India has developed its own ways of doing business.\nManaging HR in a cross-cultural context: A major challenge facing organizations worldwide is how to manage the HR in a foreign subsidiary. Research has shown that implementing the managerial practices of the home country in a foreign country is simpler if cultural values of both are similar and highly challenging if they are different (Ramamoorthy and Carroll, 1998). The foregoing analyses highlights some of the important cultural aspects of doing business in India that are necessary for any MNC to understand. There are abundant qualified personnel in India as brought out in a statement by Aparna Dutt Sharma, CEO, India Brand Equity Foundation.\nHiring: Opportunities in India can be capitalized by hiring the right people. For this MNCs need to identify some good executive search firms that can help identify quality human capital. There is no dearth of English-speaking people with superior analytical skills in the country; however, to optimally utilize this resource MNCs need to complement them with their comprehensive HR processes and high-quality standards.\nTraining: People look for professional growth and continuous learning opportunities, and want to be trained, developed and reskilled. Organizations that invest in training, reap the benefits of low attrition. The HR department should be able to articulate to a prospective employee the benefits of working in that company and reinforce this with a structured and strong induction training programme.\nPerformance management: Gagan Bhargava, Group Head HR, NDTV points out that in India, there are various factors which determine and motivate performance, e.g. ambition, quick growth, appreciation, variety, etc. It is a myth that people in India do not want to know how they are doing and care only for compensation. In fact they are keen to be assessed in an unbiased and objective manner so that they can improve themselves. Sinha cautions MNCs about the sensitivity of performance feedback in the Indian milieu: \"Indian work culture is paternalistic and boss is seen as a father-figure. As a result, 360 degree appraisal does not work well here as compared to the West. People are sensitive to one-to-one feedback/interaction and supervisors have to be good listeners with positive body language, etc.\" Given the importance of designations and compensation for Indians, a clear career path should be chalked out for them when they join an MNC. Letting them know what is in it for them in the long term helps them to stay on. It is also essential to plan their lateral and vertical movements within the organization.\nCompensation: Decisions regarding compensation and benefits for individuals, career planning, succession planning, etc. all have to be carried out in light of what works best in the Indian context. CEO of an Indian executive search firm pointed out that Indian social structure compels one to take up a stable job with a good pay and growth potential. In absence of adequate social security and uncertainty about long-term employment in an MNC, Indians expect a relatively higher base salary. Some of the best organizations have moved away from cost to company concept and are customizing compensation on an individual basis.\nRetention: People are keen to grow and hence creating an effective career development path becomes extremely crucial for retaining talent. Samarth Masson, HR Consultant, Right Management points out that most of the companies are facing high attrition, however attrition in Tata group companies is low. The Tata group also pays moderate salaries (at 35th-40th percentile of the market) but what makes people stick with them is the organizational culture, the ability of the group to be progressive, to be open to change and carry their people with them. MNCs could benchmark with the Tata group for training, development and succession planning of their employees to reduce attrition. Country Head (India) of an Aviation company commented, \"Only high compensation does not ensure retention of talent\".\nEmployee engagement: It is unanimously expressed by respondents that majority of firms in India are plagued with attrition and find it difficult to retain people. Most MNCs and start-ups struggle to keep their employees engaged, excited, motivated and productive. Including employees in regular company \"Communications\" globally and at the headquarter level could keep them engaged as they would be aware of what is happening internally. Managements should send regular updates on internal changes, quarterly performance, etc. Recognition mails must also be circulated similarly at a global level.\nDiscussion: It is evident from this study that MNCs need to understand the culture of an emerging market like India which is a unique blend of different intra-country cultures. Therefore, understanding of its culture is very important to deal with contrasts and spot opportunities. This can be achieved by building trust with the HCNs. Indians are very relationship driven and MNCs need to give weightage to this factor while trying to build businesses in India. They also need to get an Indian manager into the decision-making process to establish trust among Indians that MNCs have long-term business plans in the country.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Given the increasing global significance of Indian markets, multi-national corporations (MNCs) are keen to do business here; however, cross-cultural issues can be barriers in managing human resources (HR) in international businesses. The purpose of this paper is to understand how MNCs can successfully do business in India, with special reference to cross-cultural issues and management of HR.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In-depth interviews were conducted with executives working in MNCs and Indian MNCs based in India and abroad. Respondents were senior professionals, working in diverse sectors and had global work experience for about five years. Majority of the interviews were conducted in Delhi and some were conducted in Singapore. Interviews responses were qualitatively analysed.\nFindings: Findings reveal that MNCs wanting to do business in India need to have a long-term business focus, a well-defined expatriate policy and deep pockets to experience growth and payoffs on investments. In order to be successful, they need to understand India culturally and geographically, build trusting relationships with HCNs, partner with local players who are familiar with domestic challenges and localize the best practices of the west. Attrition and retention being the major challenges in India, compensation alone is not enough to attract and retain talent. Understanding Indian psyche and offering individuals a unique value proposition such as challenging roles and professional growth is imperative for creating an attractive employer brand in order to win the war for talent.\nResearch limitations/implications: Though sample size is small, this research has implications for MNCs operating in India or planning to set up Indian operations.\nOriginality/value: Inferences have been drawn out of primary data collected from senior executives who were handling core MNC operations and sharing their wealth of experience. The findings give fresh insights into the whole issues of MNC management involving cross-cultural and HR issues.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Exploring potential factors leading to effective training: An exclusive study on commercial banks in Cambodia
|
[
"Training",
"Higher education",
"Commercial banks",
"Cambodia"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Cambodia (also known as Kampuchea), a country in Southeast Asia of some 181,035 square kilometers (69,898 square miles), is bounded to the Northeast by Laos, to the East and Southeast by Vietnam, to the West and Northwest by Thailand, and to the Southwest by the Gulf of Thailand. The population of Cambodia is 14,080,653 (Ministry of Planning of Cambodia, 2006) with growth per year at approximately 1.8 percent, one of the highest rates in Asia.There are four types of financial institution in Cambodia:1. 17 commercial banks;2. three specialized banks;3. ten licensed micro-finance institutions; and4. 27 MFI NGOs registered with the National Bank of Cambodia (In, 2005).However, our study focuses mainly on commercial banks, the biggest and most important type of the four.Cambodia is considered one of the poorest nations in the world, with a GDP per capita of around $US280 per year (World Bank Indicators, 2005). However, like other developing countries, there is a large disparity between rich and poor. There are people who can earn a lot of money, but they do not deposit their savings in banks. One possible reason for this, offered by one banker from a commercial bank in Phnom Penh, is that people do not trust banks. This same banker said, \"In Cambodia, there is a lot of money under the mattress\". To ensure the trust of people in the banking system, there was a modification on the minimum capital requirement in the law from five million dollars to 13 million dollars in 1999 (Asian Economic News, 2000). Before the amendment of the law, there were more than 30 commercial banks but today there are only 17 still in operation in the country, of which two are state-owned (Winne World Investment News, 2004).Based on our previous research on the quality of higher education in Cambodia (Chen et al., 2006), the quality is quite low compared to international standards, meaning that the quality of graduate students is also low. Therefore, it is natural to assume that their working performance should be low as well. However, a study of the annual financial reports of five commercial banks in Cambodia reveals that their performance is high. We speculate that the effectiveness of training is the main factor underlying this disparity. In other words, we believe that effective training can make up for poor education quality and ultimately improve employee working performance in the banking industry. This belief prompted us to conduct the current research on how commercial banks conduct their training to make it so effective, in the hope that our findings will contribute to other fields by creating a model of effective training for them to follow.Training has become increasingly important as human capital, knowledge, and skills become competitive assets or tools within organizations, with the presence of the globalization of markets, increased diversity of the workforce, and the rapid entry of foreign investment into Third World countries (Zakaria, 2000; Bhagat and Prien, 1996). The cost of investment in continuing training is considerable. Based on a survey on 550 enterprises in 42 countries conducted by the American Society for Training and Development in 2000 (Marquardt et al., 2002), training expenditures in Europe were between 2 percent and 2.5 percent of total expenses. American firms spend up to $US60 billion and Canadian companies spend about US$4 billion on training per year, and the average employee receives about 30 hours of training annually (Belcourt and Wright, 1996). This show very clearly the important role training plays in the success of the organization and growth in productivity. Bartel (1994) tried to prove this concept by looking at the link between training and productivity using 150 firms from another survey of the Columbia Business School, and found that there is a positive effect of training on productivity. We are fully aware that training is a key element for the success and growth in productivity of organizations as well as companies: this is why Noe and Ford (1992) and Schuler and Walker (1990) stated the importance of training as an integral part of the strategic planning process of the firm. Also, Tannenbaum and Yukl (1992) viewed the need for training as a system to be integrated into the organizational context. Companies try to create a continuous-learning culture for the same reason - learning is an important part of organization life, particularly in our contemporary, fast-paced, changing world. Organizations stand to lose significant amounts of money from lost productivity when there are changes in process, technology, or culture and employees are not properly trained to handle them. Leading management theoreticians argue that it is much more profitable to invest a given sum in knowledge assets than to spend the same amount on material assets if a company wants to maintain competitive advantage because without knowledge, no organization can make effective use of its resources to produce goods or services (Probst et al., 2000; Davenport and Prusak, 1998). As knowledge has become a key economic resource and a source of competitive advantage, effective training is an effective tool to instil knowledge (Drucker, 1995).We have stressed again and again how important training is for the survival as well as the growth of companies. But what is training? The term has been described as a planned learning experience designed to create change in an individual's knowledge, behaviors, or skills (Campbell et al., 1970) and later was developed as a planned effort by a company to facilitate the learning of specific knowledge, skills or attitudes that employees need to be successful in their job (Goldstein, 1992). However, Green (1999) argued that the main purpose of training is not simply to improve the skills of the workforce; instead, it serves many purposes such as fostering a common culture in the firm, improving employees' commitment to the firm, and attracting good quality workers. However, these goals have not always been met. The problem every business entity faces every day is how to make training effectives or what the potential factors that can lead to effective training are. Our study focuses on six dimensions that can lead to effective training as mentioned in the literature.\nMulti-dimensional concept: a review: Training needs assessment\nResearch design: Due to the necessity of the topic and the purpose of the research, this study is mainly descriptive, carried out to learn about the level of quality of training being conducted in commercial banks in Cambodia. The investigation is a study of correlation between the six propositions mentioned above and the quality of training being conducted.There are two sources of data used in this research:1. primary data obtained through a questionnaire; and2. secondary data such as booklets, brochures, and the annual report from the Ministry of Finance and Economics as well as from the web sites of each commercial bank.We also sent out the questionnaire to all employees serving at all levels in five commercial banks. The data was gathered just once, over a period of two weeks.One-hundred-and-thirty questionnaire samples were sent out to five commercial banks among the 13 commercial banks officially operating nationwide. We expect that these five commercial banks will reflect the quality of training being conducted in all commercial banks in Cambodia. The response rate from all five banks was about 55 percent.The questionnaire was composed of six parts:1. training needs assessment;2. training program;3. flexibility of training;4. self-efficacy;5. social support; and6. transfer of knowledge.In the first part, we sought information on whether an assessment of training needs is conducted, and how to assess these needs. The second section aimed to measure the quality of the training programs, and whether they respond to the requirements of the company as well as each employee. The third section attempted to determine the flexibility of the training and whether it fitted the learning style of each employee. The items in section four aimed to measure the level of self-efficacy of employees in undertaking the training. Section five was intended to investigate whether or not management from all levels in the five banks offered social support as well as financial support to employees. In addition, we intended to find out whether knowledge gained from the training offered is implemented in work situations.The questionnaire contained 30 items that included all the elements from the literature. The order of the items was random, and some items applied to more than one proposition. The items were Opinion Question, MCQ, Yes/No, and six-point Likert scales, where each scale was differently numbered in order to keep the respondents alert and to avoid inattentive answers. A descriptive statistical method was be used to analyze the data collected and to examine the evidence about the indicators.Propositions\nResearch results: P1. Training needs assessment plays a very important role in providing effective training\nConclusion: Research results\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - A previous study found that the quality of education in Cambodia is poor compared to other developing countries. However, the working performance of commercial banks in Cambodia is high. It was speculated that effective training was the main factor underlying this contradiction. Therefore, the main purpose of this article is to explore the elements of training conducted by commercial banks in Cambodia and to examine their relationship with training effectiveness.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research focuses on six factors: training needs assessment; training program; flexibility of training; self-efficacy; social support; and transfer of knowledge. The data came in the form of questionnaires and desk research. A descriptive analytical approach is then used to describe these six factors.\nFindings: - The banking industry in Cambodia offers very effective training to its employees. It is also worth noting that more than 80 percent of employees are satisfied with the training, despite few attempts on the part of management to elicit opinions from employees on what training methods should be employed.\nResearch limitations/implications: - As research studies involving Cambodia are relatively rare, it was difficult for to gather primary data. Because of this limitation and the purpose of this study, descriptive data interpretation was employed.\nPractical implications: - Even though training can make up for poor education, it is only a short-term solution. In the long term, education needs to be enhanced to increase working performance.\nOriginality/value: - This research provides a good framework for commercial banks in other developing countries to compare. A cross-cultural study is also proposed for future research.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Consumer engagement in social media: scale comparison analysis
|
[
"Brand engagement",
"Item response theory",
"Consumer engagement",
"Classical test theory",
"Scale comparison"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Consumer or customer engagement is an important construct for marketers and researchers on consumer-brand relationships in social media (Hollebeek et al., 2014). Besides directly influencing sales, engagement with company activities through social media improves corporate reputation (Dijkmans et al., 2015), leading most of the Fortune Global 100 companies (87 per cent) to be active on at least one platform (Burson-Marsteller, 2012). Since 2010, consumer engagement and social media have been among research priority lists of the Marketing Science Institute and several researchers have worked to improve the concept measurement and process, fostering special issues in several journals, such as the Journal of Service Research (2010 and 2011), Journal of Strategic Marketing (2011), Journal of Product & Brand Management (2014), Journal of Strategic Marketing (2015), Journal of Marketing Management (2016), Journal of Service Theory and Practice (2017), Journal of Services Marketing (2017) and Journal of Advertising (2017).\n2. Definitions and measurement of consumer engagement: Algesheimer et al. (2005) were the first to measure the concept in the marketing field, specifically as brand community engagement, the positive influences of identification with brand communities through consumer's intrinsic motivations to interact and co-operate with its members. In 2010, two conceptual articles provided distinct and complementary definitions: Mollen and Wilson (2010, p. 12) defined online engagement as a \"cognitive and affective commitment to an active relationship with the brand\" (as personified by the website), while van Doorn et al. (2010, p. 254) defined customer engagement behaviors \"as the customers' behavioural manifestation towards a brand or firm, beyond purchase, resulting from motivational drivers.\"\n3. Method: We performed an online survey to collect the data. Respondents were people who interacted with brands by means of Facebook in Brazil, the most popular social media platform in the country (Oliveira et al., 2016) and the largest social network in the world, with more than 2.2 billion users (Statista, 2019a). Facebook is the platform mostly used by marketers (Statista, 2019b; de Vries and Carlson, 2014) and it is the most frequent environment for data collection on brand communities in academic research (Dessart et al., 2016; Oliveira et al., 2016; Islam et al., 2017). We added a question in the research instrument to check if respondents were frequent users of Facebook and asked them to name the brand they most often interacted with in the platform, discarding non-frequent users (those who logged in Facebook less than four days a week).\n4. Results and discussion: We excluded respondents who indicated the same degree of agreement for most items; answered the questionnaire very quickly; and/or did not correctly answer the attention checks, keeping 233 valid questionnaires. Most respondents were women (63.1 per cent), married (53.2 per cent), with higher education level (34.8 per cent completed college and 23.2 per cent did not complete), income between US$1,080.00 and US$2,700.00 (36.1 per cent) and mean age of 38.5 (standard deviation 10.3). Of the 153 brands mentioned, the most frequent were in sectors such as media, technology, football clubs, automotive and sports. Regarding the descriptive statistics for the items in the scales, the overall mean was 3.26 with standard deviation of 1.30. The scale of Hollebeek et al. (2014) had the highest average score (3.50); the scale of Vivek et al. (2014) and Hollebeek et al. (2014) presented higher means for the cognitive dimension (3.71 and 3.66, respectively); and the Dessart et al. (2016) scale had the highest mean for the affective dimension (3.56). We tested common method variance by conducting an exploratory factor analysis on the 42 items and did not find method bias as the first factor explained less than 50 per cent of the total variance.\n5. Discussion and concluding remarks: By comparing three consumer engagement scales from 13 measures listed, we show that they are similar in terms of fit, reliability, convergent and discriminant validity and discrimination power. Vivek et al.'s (2014) scale should be used when discrimination between the construct dimensions should be optimized. This may be evidence that this scale is the one that most capture the true score of each dimension and, therefore, is less biased. Another good choice for dimensions discrimination is the reduced scale of Dessart et al. (2016), which researchers might choose when aiming at parsimony.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Engagement is a construct that varies according to the subject, object and context; this has been used to justify the coexistence of a variety of construct definitions and scales. Instead of proposing a new scale, this paper aims to create a procedure for comparing scales and to use it to evaluate brand engagement measures in social media.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study first defines a procedure for the selection, standardization and comparison of scales; this procedure considers both the classical test theory (CTT) and item response theory (IRT). The authors apply the procedure in a survey of 233 respondents to compare three scales for measuring consumer engagement with brands in social media.\nFindings: The establishment of a procedure for scale comparison is useful in assisting researchers to choose specific measures. Results showed that the three scales have similar characteristics, but Vivek et al.'s (2014) scale is recommended when better discrimination between construct dimensions is required, Hollebeek et al.'s (2014) scale could be used as a one-dimensional scale and Dessart et al.'s (2016) reduced scale has better ability to capture information for the affective and cognitive dimensions. None of the scales were very efficient in discriminating weakly and strongly engaged individuals.\nOriginality/value: This study makes a substantive contribution by proposing a procedure for scale comparison that considers CTT and IRT and shows the advantages, limitations and recommendations for using three different scales of consumer engagement.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Adding value to insurance products: the AXA Irish experience
|
[
"Insurance",
"Branding",
"Customer relationship management",
"Loyalty",
"Retention",
"Intermediary",
"Differentiation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this article.\n1. Introduction: Like any service brand, insurance companies are adopting techniques that have traditionally been employed for fast moving consumer goods to differentiate themselves in a homogeneous market (McDonald et al., 2001). Simplicity of insurance products (Devlin, 2001) and technology improving the quality of the sales process (de Chernatony and Segal-Horn, 2003; Yang et al., 2004) are patterns that have revolutionised the industry.\n2. Personal lines in the insurance market in Ireland: 2.1 Industry\n3.AXA insurance company in Ireland: 3.1 Background\n4. AXA plus and AXA leisure breaks: AXA Plus was established in 2005 as a fundamental part of AXA\n5. Discussion and conclusion: Over recent decades, fundamental changes in the worldwide industry of financial intermediation, such as deregulation and advances in technology, had a visible impact on the provision of financial services. Deregulation (the removal of barriers to market entry) has led to the flexible provision of financial services and promoted competition among financial institutions, while technological progress has also increased profitability and facilitated faster processing and monitoring of multiple activities at even lower costs (Artikis et al., 2008a). In this context, the Irish insurance market offers generic regulated products that offer similar levels of service and where pricing, distribution channel (broker or direct underwriter), and method of transacting the channel (branch office/broker, telesales, internet channel) are the differentiating factor that comes under pressure. Other ways of enhancing loyalty beyond the product offering or the service brand then come to the fore.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: While competition within car and home insurance increases through more players and also unfamiliar entrants to the market (supermarkets), the purpose of this paper is to report on a study of one large insurer in Ireland which attempts to differentiate itself from its peers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper does this through a literature review of the insurance market and customer relationship management, and a detailed study of the company loyalty programme and its application to its customers.\nFindings: The loyalty programme employed suits the particular sector in terms of purchase intention and also gives the customer of the insurance brand a sense of belonging and relevance where they can avail themselves of savings on related products.\nResearch limitations/implications: Information sourced is based on published data from the company and other peer reviewed journals. This is a study on a simple loyalty programme that can be applied to low frequency purchases.\nPractical implications: This simplified loyalty programme gives the brand high recognition values in terms of how the brand is made relevant to the customer through discounted related products.\nOriginality/value: As loyalty programmes are not a usual feature of financial services, this paper highlights a unique programme in operation that is being replicated elsewhere.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A model of the Islamic sovereign wealth fund
|
[
"Sovereign wealth funds",
"Islamic sovereign wealth funds",
"Islamic finance",
"Shariah principles",
"Economy",
"G15",
"G23",
"I62",
"I64"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The traditional states are re-designed as advanced secretarial governments have full ownership and control of the institutional investors (Aguilera et al., 2016). States have emerged in the global financial system as a dominant and large player through intensive \"State-Capitalism\" (Musacchio and Lazzarini, 2014). Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are modern vehicles used by the state or government to increase the state-capitalism nationally and internationally. The governments are reacting as commercially oriented global investors to manage the wealth of nations as a legal guardian (Megginson and Fotak, 2015).\n2. Methodology: We applied qualitative methods of research. Qualitative methods are research approaches used to explore a specific field of a study (Given, 2008). We used three important approaches: an exploratory case study approach, to critically examine and rank the existing status of the SWFs (Khalfan, 2004); descriptive analysis; and content analysis, to provide the theoretical model of the ISWFs in comparison of conventional SWFs (Gaur and Kumar, 2018; Potter and Levine-Donnerstein, 1999).\n3. Theoretical analysis of SWFs: 3.1 How to define SWFs and which belong to Muslim and non-Muslim countries?\n4. Conclusion: Currently, 30 SWFs from Muslim countries exist around the world that have total AUM of $3,328.5bn. The funds are under high criticism of having a weak structure, governance and transparency mechanism. Moreover, these SWFs are owned by non-democratic and tyrannical governments, such as Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Russia, China and Kuwait as per definition of democracy by the USA and western countries. The policymakers of several developed countries consider investment by SWFs as a national and commercial risk. As a response to this threating image of SWFs from Muslim countries, many developed host-countries banned or critically examine the SWFs investments. Therefore, it is essential for the SWFs from Muslim countries to overcome this criticism and improve their structure, governance, and transparency by adopting a well-tested and start-of-the-art mechanism based on fundamental principles and laws. The SWFs from Muslim countries have two options: first, to take the arrangement of developed countries SWFs, such as Norway, America and the Netherlands that is based on Santiago principles; and, second, to establish and formulate their mechanism based on Islamic finance principles and Shariah laws. However, the implementation of Shariah law by Muslim countries is more practical and already well-tested in the case of Islamic banking and finance. Consequently, this paper argues that conventional SWFs from Muslim countries required an ISWFs through the implementation of the Islamic finance principles and Shariah laws.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose a model of the Islamic sovereign wealth funds (ISWFs) based on Islamic finance principles to modify the precarious image of SWFs from Muslim countries. The Shariah laws are the cardinal direction for this study.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors applied a qualitative research technique that consists of three approaches: exploratory case study approach to critically examine and rank the existing status of SWFs; descriptive analysis; and content analysis to present a model of ISWFs in comparison of conventional SWFs.\nFindings: The authors propose a model of the \"Islamic Sovereign Wealth Funds\" based on four key pillars: the major Shariah principles; the Islamic corporate governance framework; the Islamic transparency and disclosure framework; and the Islamic corporate social responsibility framework. Furthermore, the authors argue that the potential effect of the ISWFs on Islamic finance and economy will be positive.\nResearch limitations/implications: The model is an initial work and idea to convert SWFs from Muslim countries into ISWFs, which required an in-depth policy review by governments.\nPractical implications: The findings of the paper are useful for policymakers and governments of the Muslim countries to overcome the issues and criticism on SWFs by converting them in ISWFs.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to the literature related to Islamic finance and sovereign wealth fund by presenting a first model of ISWFs for Muslim countries.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Overcoming resistance to product rebranding
|
[
"Emotions",
"Brand name",
"Incomprehension",
"Rebranding",
"Surprise"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this issue.\nIntroduction: The increasingly popular practice of product rebranding removes one brand name (the initial brand name) and replaces that name with another (substitution brand name) for a product, whether a good or service (Collange, 2008). For example, Danone's well-known yogurt Bio became Activia in Belgium, Portugal, France and Spain. HSBC acquired the UK Midland bank and French CCF bank, which took on its name. L'Oreal methodically replaced its makeup brand names Colorama (Brazil), Gemey (France), Jade (Germany) and Missiland (Argentina) by Maybelline. Two main motivations explain such product brand name changes. First, companies want to reduce their brand portfolios which have become too unwieldy after several mergers (Kumar, 2003). Second, firms aim to create global brands as their marketing policies shift from a multidomestic to a global approach (Schuiling and Kapferer, 2004).\nQualitative study: The qualitative study aimed to identify the variables that might influence consumer attitudes toward product brand name change.\nConceptual framework and hypotheses development: We have chosen to rely on the work on the emotion of surprise (Vanhamme, 2000, 2001; Janakiraman et al., 2006), as this literature deals with consumers' reactions to unexpected events, such as brand name change. We aim then to specify the relationships among the variables previously identified, to explain consumers' attitudes toward product rebranding, i.e. their overall evaluation of the brand name change (Blackwell et al., 2001). The research model is presented in Figure 1.\nQuantitative study and test of hypotheses: The quantitative survey included 480 consumers. To test the hypotheses, the second step of the present research also focused on product rebranding in general.\nSummary of findings: The main purpose of the research was to get a better understanding of consumers' reactions to product rebranding. The first result of the two studies we conducted shows that consumers' attitudes toward product rebranding is quite reserved. Indeed, the qualitative study reveals that product rebranding is a practice dividing consumers, with half of respondents expressing a negative opinion about it and another half having a neutral opinion (neither negative nor positive). And the quantitative study confirms that product rebranding is a practice dividing consumers, with 50 per cent of respondents having a negative attitude, whereas 50 per cent have either a neutral or positive view, with an average evaluation of 3.5 on a seven-point Likert scale. This result is in line with the observations made by previous research on rebranding (Aime-Garnier and Roux, 2006; Jaju et al., 2006; Collange, 2008).\nDiscussion and implications: From a theoretical point of view, this is the first time that consumer psychological reactions to product rebranding have been modeled. Prior research on rebranding has focused on brand characteristics (Jaju et al., 2006; Collange, 2008) or on changeover characteristics like pace or size of the change (Aime-Garnier and Roux, 2006; Muzellec and Lambkin, 2006; Kapferer, 2008). This is therefore the first time that a comprehensive model of consumer attitudes toward the practice of product rebranding has been proposed and tested. The research offers then a better understanding of the mental processes involved in the building of consumer attitudes toward brand name change. It contributes to fill the gap in literature regarding consumers' reactions to innovations or large changes in marketing-mix (Ram and Sheth, 1989; Bagozzi and Lee, 1999; Ailawadi et al., 2001; Ellickson et al., 2012). Current research also seems to support the propositions of Berkowitz (1993) and Vanhamme (2000) about the three processes activated by surprise: automatic, higher-order cognitive, higher-order affective. To the best of our knowledge, our study constitutes the first empirical validation of this three-way theory. An additional and interesting contribution is that trust seems to protect firms from the negative emotions generated by the brand name change (Garbarino and Maxwell, 2010).\nLimitations and further research: The present research thereby offers marketing managers clear indications about the strategy to adopt when implementing a brand name change, though several limits exist as well. First, high uncertainty avoidance characterizes the French (Hofstede, 1991). So the current research, conducted in France only, may find relatively high resistance to product rebranding. Second, the focus on consumer psychological reactions puts aside important brand characteristics such as brand equity. Third, the choice to work on brand name changes in general excludes specific cases and ignores other possible changes to the marketing mix (e.g. new packaging) that might prompt resistance. Finally, the present research considers consumer attitudes, but product brand name changes also involve other entities, such as distributors, employees and financial market experts.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this article is to understand how and why consumers resist or accept product rebranding. It seeks to identify and to quantify the drivers of attitudes toward this marketing practice to guide marketing managers in the execution of an effective changeover.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research is conducted in three stages. First, a qualitative study is run among 45 consumers to identify variables that might influence attitudes toward product rebranding. Second, a review of literature on the emotion of surprise is carried out to specify the relationships between the variables previously identified and to formulate hypotheses. Third, a quantitative study is conducted among 480 consumers to test the hypotheses and to quantify the impact of each variable.\nFindings: Surprise impacts attitudes toward product rebranding through a three-way process (automatic, higher-order cognitive, higher-order affective): a direct negative effect, an indirect effect mediated by incomprehension about the reasons for the change and an indirect effect mediated by the negative emotions generated by the change. Moreover, trust in firms diminishes the negative effects of anger, fear and sadness on attitudes toward product rebranding.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research offers a better understanding of processes involved in the building of consumer attitudes toward brand name change. However, it only constitutes a first step in the attempt to understand the phenomena.\nPractical implications: This practice of brand name change is increasingly popular, but marketing managers are skeptical about the best way to implement it. The paper provides a better understanding of consumer reactions to product rebranding, so that marketing managers can make better decisions. It reveals guidance for successful brand name changes.\nOriginality/value: This paper is the first to propose and to test a comprehensive model of the mental processes involved in the building of consumer attitudes toward product rebranding.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Edward Sherwood Mead (1874-1956): a pioneer in finance education
|
[
"Curricula",
"Finance",
"Academic staff",
"Economics",
"Education"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This paper presents a biographical sketch of Edward Sherwood Mead whose academic career extended from 1900 to 1944 at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Mead was a pioneer in the field of Finance, the first to specialize in Corporate Finance at Wharton and a major figure in that field at Wharton until his retirement in 1944. His 1910 textbook on that subject was one of the earliest published. The research reported herein draws primarily on archival materials from the University of Pennsylvania and from an examination of Mead's published work.Intellectual history is a fairly well-developed and growing topic of concern in general business (e.g. Engwall and Zamagni, 1998) and in some specific business disciplines such as Marketing (e.g. Bartels, 1988; Sheth et al., 1988; Shaw and Jones, 2005) and Management (e.g. Wren, 1987). This is not so in the field of Finance. There has been some work, for example, describing the history of the American Finance Association (Kavesh, 1970) and tracing the more important theoretical developments of what Whitley (1986) termed \"modern finance theory\". The latter refers to the period since the early 1960s when there was a \"quantitative revolution in finance\" exemplified by the work of pioneers such as Harry Markowitz, Merton Miller, and William Sharpe (Varian, 1993). The evolution of Finance as a profession has been studied somewhat more (e.g. Baskin and Miranti, 1997; Bernstein, 1992), but the little research that has been done on the history of Finance thought has focused on the developments of the last 40 years or so.Business Finance actually emerged as a separate field of study much earlier than that, at the turn of the twentieth century. At that time it was essentially an applied branch of institutional economics, studied and taught by institutional economists (Solomon, 1966). In that way, the academic study of Finance shares similar origins with the field of Marketing (Jones and Monieson, 1990). This paper presents a biographical sketch of one of those pioneers from the pre-modern period of Finance thought - Edward Sherwood Mead.Source materials and context\nEdward Sherwood Mead: 1874-1956: Edward Mead[1] was born in Medina, Ohio, in 1874 to parents who were both college-trained educators. His mother was a teacher and school principal, while his father was a teacher and school superintendent (Mead, 1972 p. 46). Mead's mother seems to have had a fairly sophisticated understanding of education. She taught the advantages of both inductive and deductive learning and was, at least by one account, a wonderful story-teller (Mead, 1972, p. 47). Edward, whose eventual claim to fame lay arguably more with his teaching of Finance than with his writing about the subject, seems to have had good role models in that connection. Indeed, most of his family was well educated and many were educators. Edward and his wife, Emily, met while both were graduate students at the University of Chicago. Two of his four children earned doctoral degrees. His son became a Professor of Marketing at the University of California and daughter Margaret, the famous anthropologist, was Assistant Curator of the American Museum of Natural History and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University.Edward Mead began his formal education at Oberlin College in Ohio and completed his A.B. degree in 1896 at DePauw University. Following that, he was a Fellow in economics from 1896 to 1898 at the University of Chicago. But it was the University of Pennsylvania that Mead attended in 1898 to complete a PhD in Economics. When Mead arrived at the University of Pennsylvania, the Economics department and hence the School of Business had assumed a distinctive character. Under the direction of Edmund J. James the School had been modeled along the lines of German universities (Sass, 1982, ch. 3).In American colleges at that time the emphasis was on uniformity and discipline. Instruction followed the lecture-and-recitation method. By contrast, German universities were professional schools with an atmosphere of academic freedom and equality between students and professors. For example, economics was commonly taught using seminars rather than lectures. That practice has been credited for influencing the development of the case method of teaching at the Harvard Business School (Jones and Monieson, 1990).More specifically, several of the Wharton faculty had studied under scholars associated with the German Historical School of Economics and were graduates of German universities. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, a scientific model of historicism which came to be known as the Historical School dominated the social sciences in Germany. It was distinctive for its historical, statistical methodology, its pragmatism, and its ideals which included a concern for the application of knowledge and skills to social ends (Herbst, 1965). These were also the characteristics of twentieth-century American institutional economics and, indeed, the influence of the German Historical School on institutionalism has been well documented (Dorfman, 1955; Herbst, 1965; Myles, 1956).A steady stream of German-trained economists began returning to North America during the 1870s including Edmund J. James, Simon N. Patten, Joseph F. Johnson, E.R. Johnson, Roland P. Falkner, Henry R. Seager, and Samuel Lindsay (Farnam, 1908), all of whom became faculty members at the University of Pennsylvania. They followed the German Historical School through their work on social reform, their careful examination of the practical details of economic issues, and their development of a curriculum along very practical lines (Sass, 1982).At Pennsylvania, Mead studied under Patten, Johnson, Faulkner, and Lindsay, while Patten became Mead's supervisor for a dissertation on \"The production and value of gold and silver\". Patten had replaced James in 1895 as chairman of the Economics department and head of the Wharton Business School. Among other things, Patten was known for his pragmatic philosophy. His students were taught \"to learn the truth, to teach the truth and to build truth into the life of the community\" (Sass, 1982, p. 115). He also believed that statistical investigations gave the student a love of facts and that the study of economic history gave insights into policy development (Sass, 1982, p. 97). Even earlier, while Mead was a research fellow at the University of Chicago, he studied under J. Laurence Laughlin who had strong connections with German Historical Economics (Laughlin, 1906); Mead dedicated his text on Corporation Finance to Laughlin \"as a tribute of my appreciation of his work as a teacher\" (Mead, 1910, Preface).Those qualities very much characterized Mead's thinking. As daughter Margaret later observed, he preferred to spend his time finding out about the concrete processes of economic life (Mead, 1972, p. 34). That thinking carried over to his teaching as well. Mead was known for teaching with the case method and usually had his students make original studies of businesses or industries (Mead, 1972, p. 32).These were some of the influences during Mead's graduate education which later shaped his approach to the study and teaching of Finance. In May of 1899 he completed the requirements for his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania but stayed on as a Senior Fellow for one year. Subsequently he became a full-time faculty member holding the rank of Instructor from 1900 until 1904. He spent his entire academic career at Wharton progressing from the rank of Assistant Professor of Banking and Finance (1904-1907) to Professor of Finance (1907-1944). Plate 1 shows Edward Sherwood Mead as a young professor in 1928.The primary business of a university\nSummary: Edward Sherwood Mead was a pioneer scholar in the field of Finance. He did not receive much academic recognition during his life, not that it would have mattered to him anyway (Mead, 1972, pp. 40-1).One of the few comments he ever made about fame or reputation was a remark that the amount of space accorded someone in the obituaries in The New York Times was proportionate to the amount of good a man attempted to do (Mead, 1972, p. 33).By that yardstick, Mead earned little fame or reputation (New York Times, 1956).However, in historical perspective he left an important residue through his \"firsts\" in the Finance discipline. He was the first to specialize in teaching Business Finance at the Wharton School, which was the first university business school in North America, and wrote one of the first, if not the first, college textbooks on Corporate Finance. He founded the Evening School of Accounts and Finance at Wharton and contributed to the founding of the Journal of Accountancy. His teaching and writing reflected the philosophic and methodological assumptions of institutional economics which, especially at the University of Pennsylvania where he studied and taught, drew from German Historical economics.Mead had a deep conviction about trust between people and loyalty to the organization (Mead, 1972 p. 31). He spent his entire career at the Wharton School; yet after he retired, he was offered a position to head up the new Business School at rival Temple University. \"The offer attracted my father, but he felt that to accept it would be treason to his own institution, so he refused\" (Mead, 1972, p. 32).During the last two years of his life Mead was working on a history of the Wharton School which he had hoped to complete for the School's 75th anniversary in 1956 (New York Times, 1956). It was never completed and no record of that history was found in the research for this study. Nevertheless, it is fitting that at the time of his death Mead was working on a history in which he played such an important part.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Mead was one of the first university professors of Finance in North America. The purpose of this article ia to document his career at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania from 1900 to 1944.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This research used traditional historical interpretation of rare archival documents, drew from the autobiography of Mead's more famous daughter, Margaret Mead, and includes an analysis of Mead's published work in Finance.\nFindings: - The findings are reported as an intellectual biography. The paper reports on Mead's life and career as a pioneer Finance scholar.\nOriginality/value: - There has been almost nothing published about the history of the Finance discipline and nothing published about the contributions of Edward Sherwood Mead.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Why are there local shortfalls in anaesthesia consultant staffing? A case study of operational workforce planning
|
[
"Operating theatres",
"Hospitals",
"Modelling",
"Service delivery",
"Manpower planning"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Good workforce planning is designed to ensure that a hospital employs the right number of staff with the right competencies (Department of Health (National Workforce Projects), 2006). Strategic or \"top-down\" planning predicts staffing needs years into the future, taking account of socio-economic, demographic and political factors. An example was the prediction by the National Health Service (NHS) in 2000 that 7,500 more consultants would be needed by 2004 (Department of Health, 2000). Strategic planning can result in qualitative, rather than quantitative conclusions (Department of Health, 2000; Craig et al., 2002; Spargo and Lewis, 2004; Halbeis and Macario, 2006). In contrast, operational or \"bottom-up\" planning more simply aims to match staffing to the immediate demands of the service. For example, if a factory worker is consistently capable of making 1,000 items per year, and there is an annual demand for 100,000 items, then the factory needs to employ 100 workers as an immediate need, regardless of longer-term strategic issues.Reports describing operational/bottom-up analyses are relatively sparse. One study focussed only on the medical risks of inadequate staffing in a European/US system of \"supervision\" of multiple operating rooms (Paoletti and Marty, 2007), rather than on matching staffing to surgical demand. Perhaps other reports have been privately commissioned internal reviews that are not readily accessible. Lack of operational planning in the NHS is recognised as a serious deficiency, with a top-down emphasis not fully built around real service needs. Ideally, both strategic and operational planning should inform each other (Department of Health, 2000).Despite these aspirations, shortfalls in consultant anaesthetic staffing seem to be longstanding. In 1980 Heath observed that staffing calculations, which made no allowance for absences or leave resulted in severe shortfalls, list cancellations and overwork (with detrimental impact on teaching, training and personal development) (Heath, 1980). Why do local shortfalls exist if consultant staffing appears so well discussed or planned at national level? Are these local shortfalls predictable using local data, or are they due to random or ill-defined factors? Is excessive leave-taking a major factor in any disparity between planned staffing and actual service delivery?To address these questions, we wished first to assess whether a local staffing shortfall existed. Then we applied a simple model (which assumed certain reasonable leave-taking behaviour within contractual entitlements) to estimate the service delivery that was possible by the workforce. Our (null) hypothesis was that this model, as a result of its crude simplicity, would not accurately predict the magnitude of any actual shortfall. A second hypothesis was that the data would show excessive leave-taking to be a factor in creating any shortfall.\nMethods: Hospital and department\nResults: Department\nDiscussion: We confirm that a real shortfall of considerable magnitude exists in elective service delivery. Contrary to our hypothesis, a model that factors leave entitlements into an estimate of service capability can accurately predict this real shortfall. The model assumed that 50 per cent of consultants took much less leave than entitlement, while 50 per cent took no more than entitlement and again contrary to our prediction, there was no evidence from the real data set that excessive leave was a contributory factor. There was little variation in leave taken (and hence service delivered) over time. Before we discuss the implications of these results for workforce planning, it is important to consider the strengths and limitations of our approach.Comments on the analysis\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Anecdotally, many hospitals experience shortfalls in anaesthetic consultant staffing. This paper aims to investigate whether these subjective experiences are confirmed objectively.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper hypothesises that a simple model that estimated service delivery capability using consultant entitlements to annual and other types of leave would not (null hypothesis) accurately predict the magnitude of any shortfall that existed. It also hypothesises that excessive leave-taking was an important cause of any shortfall. A comparison is made between the model predictions for total leave taken and service delivery with results from a real data set from a large university teaching hospital's department of anaesthetics.\nFindings: - The model prediction for leave (median total 45 days absence in a year per consultant, range (30-59)) closely matched the reality (median 41 days (tenth-ninetieth deciles 30-69)). Consequently, both model predictions and the real data for annual elective service delivery agreed: median 228 sessions (193-266) vs 232 (183-266) per consultant respectively. Taking into account likely service delivery by trainees (2,304-4,140 elective sessions in total annually) the predicted shortfall of 2,220 sessions was very close to the true elective service shortfall of 2,148 sessions for the department as a whole over the year.\nPractical implications: - Rejecting the null hypothesis, it is concluded that a simple model that estimates elective service delivery using leave entitlements as the main factor can accurately predict actual service capability for a department. There is no evidence that excessive leave-taking occurs.\nOriginality/value: - The paper computes an estimate that 2.2-2.6 consultants per functional operating theatre are necessary to ensure that staffing matches the elective workload.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The significance of reflective conversations for adolescent writers
|
[
"Writing",
"English language arts",
"Teaching writing",
"Literacy teaching"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: On the first day of a young writers' camp at a university in the southeast, camp instructors asked a group of high school campers to collaboratively brainstorm ideas for a published piece due at the end of the week. Three campers, Jackson, Amber and Savannah (ages 15 and 16), turned their chairs towards each other and, in an attempt to brainstorm ideas, explored what it meant to develop characters in a fictive story.Savannah:\nBackground and theory: For decades, scholars have been defining and researching reflection in connection to learning and practice. Dewey understood reflection as a broad construct that viewed reflective thinking as \"active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in light of the grounds that support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends\" (Dewey, 1910, p. 6). Such a view includes not only creating connections and relationships within experiences, but also transforming experience and one's environment as a result. Reflective practice to Schon (1984), a well-known contributor to theories of reflection, occurs when individuals become aware of their values and beliefs related to knowledge and practice and use that reflection to inform their everyday actions. Schon discussed two kinds of reflection:\nReflection: These theories have been put into practice in classrooms for decades. Most educators understand the significance of fostering reflective practices for students to promote learning (Yancey, 2016). Reflection expects students to synthesize material and make connections to previous knowledge and experiences (Costa and Kallick, 2000). Students are often asked to self-assess work and goals to make sense of past learning and how it connects to learning in the future. Thus, reflective activities help students make thinking visible, external and available for teaching, learning and assessment purposes (Di Stefano et al., 2014; Yancey, 2016).\nMethods: This article draws from a larger qualitative study about how campers (Grades 3-12) constructed and enacted their writer identities in a two-week young writers' camp. Five researchers observed, video/audio recorded, engaged in interviews and collected artifacts with 58 campers for ten consecutive days. The central focus of this article is on adolescent writers in Grades 9-12. Specifically, we draw from qualitative analysis (Saldana, 2015) to examine how the adolescent writers engaged in reflective talk to develop understandings about writing. Accordingly, we answer the following research questions:\nFindings: From our analysis, we found that students engaged in four types of reflective talk: prospective, reflective-in-action, introspective and retrospective (Table I).\nDiscussion: As mentioned in the introduction, Yancey (2016) points out that reflection is a medium for telling \"stories of learning\". Here, Yancey stresses the importance of inviting students to be reflective so that they have the opportunity to create personal storylines for what it means to be a writer. While Yancey illustrated how college students wrote reflections about writing in three ways (reflection-in-action, constructive reflection and reflection-in-presentation), we add to that research by highlighting how high school students engaged in reflective talk through four different, but related ways (prospective, reflective-in action, introspective and retrospective talk) during conversations to tell their stories of learning about writing. From these conversations, students learned about what it means to be a writer (how to develop characters), how to improve current writing projects (revising first sentences) and possible writing strategies to use for future work (observing individuals to work through writer's block). These conversations are important because they provide a roadmap for how to be a writer and provide opportunities to close the gap between the writer they are and the writer they want to be (Sfard and Prusak, 2005). In a classroom, we recognize the importance of teaching students how to have such reflective conversations so that they are productive and supportive (Juzwik et al., 2013; Zwiers and Crawford, 2011). Perhaps with more reflective conversations in the classroom that open opportunities for students to see themselves as writers, students might be more willing to engage in the complex and difficult task of composing texts. With that said, this research raises more questions about how reflective conversations foster the identity work related to writing with middle and high school students. To explore this question and more, we discuss implications for practice and research based on the findings of this study.\nImplications for practice: Creating a writing community in the classroom is an important part of reflective talk about writing. On one hand, reflective talk will help build that community over time because both students and teachers are creating a storyline for what writing means to them (e.g. a writer is someone who writes everyday; a writer is someone who articulates human connections). To continue to grow that community, teachers need to provide time for students to write what they choose, talk to published authors, publish their work, and talk reflectively about writing, all of which are possible in a variety of classrooms. Below, we give more detail on how teachers could foster reflective talk within their classroom.\nImplications for research: Reflective conversations like the one's illustrated in this paper, oftentimes occur as an afterthought in classrooms. Perhaps with more scholarship in this area, teachers would know more about the significance of such conversations and how they might foster them in their classroom. In this study, we worked with students in a young writers' camp. While that gave us some insight into this topic, more research needs to be done in secondary classrooms. First, educators would benefit from an overall understanding of the frequency in which reflective conversations occur related to writing (RQ3. How often do reflective conversations related to writing occur in middle and high school English classrooms). Such information could give educators a realistic picture of the time students spend doing this kind of reflection. If students do not have the opportunity to engage in reflective conversations consistently, then one place to start for educators is by providing more space for those conversations.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: For writing instruction, reflection has been an essential tool. Typically, educators ask students to reflect in a structured written, individual format. Less explored is the role that small and whole group reflective conversations have in fostering students' understandings about writing. The purpose of this paper is to explore several conversations from a young writers' camp to examine how three high school students engaged in four different kinds of reflective talk during the writing process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper draws from a larger qualitative study about how campers constructed and enacted their writer identities in a two-week young writers' camp. Five researchers observed, video/audio recorded, engaged in interviews and collected artifacts with 58 campers for ten consecutive days. Qualitative analysis was used to examine how young writers (Grades 9-12) engaged in reflective talk to develop understandings about writing.\nFindings: Data illustrated that students engaged in four types of reflective talk: prospective, reflective-in-action, introspective and retrospective. The paper provides one example for each kind of reflective conversation and provides analysis related to how those conversations shaped campers' understandings about writing.\nOriginality/value: This paper illustrated how adolescent writers used prospective, reflective-in action, introspective and retrospective talk during conversations to tell their stories of learning about writing, a topic less studied in the field. This work offers insight into teaching students how to have such reflective conversations so that they are productive and supportive during writing practices.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Innovation and export performance: a meta-analytic review and theoretical integration
|
[
"Innovation",
"Export performance",
"Meta-analysis",
"Moderator analysis"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Recent decades have been characterized by an increased internationalization of business environments with the effect of two substantial phenomena - globalization and technological change (United Nations, 2009; World Trade Organization, 2004). Being competent in the achievement of export success is regarded as a principal sign of competitiveness in the global market (Roper and Love, 2002). Therefore, a substantial amount of empirical research has been compiled investigating the forces stimulating the export success of companies in the last two decades (Chen et al., 2016). In this sense, the extant literature puts an excessive emphasis on \"innovation concept\" as a means of surviving in these highly competitive and dynamic environments (Azar and Ciabuschi, 2017; Bagheri et al., 2019). Innovation and internationalization are considered as highly related since innovation assists companies in penetrating their business operations by means of exporting (Blyde et al., 2018; Saridakis et al., 2019) and companies that are highly innovative can cope with liability of foreignness by their special technological innovations (Li, 2018).\n2. Theoretical background: The pertinent literature concentrating on the relationship between innovation and export performance can be examined under three classes: nature, antecedents and outcomes. The first stream focuses on innovation concept, discussing their types in terms of technological innovation, consisting of process and product innovation (e.g. Silva et al., 2017; Azar and Ciabuschi, 2017; Azar and Drogendijk, 2016; Azari et al., 2017; Boehe and Cruz, 2010; Boso et al., 2019; Pla-Barber and Alegre, 2007; Faroque et al., 2017; Lages et al., 2009), organizational innovation, involving managerial and marketing innovation (e.g. Bodlaj et al., 2018; Silva et al., 2017; Azar and Ciabuschi, 2017; Azar and Drogendijk, 2016), innovation capabilities (e.g. Oura et al., 2016; Ribau et al., 2017; Arslanagic-Kalajdzic et al., 2017; Rodriguez et al., 2013; Costa et al., 2015; Flor and Oltra, 2005; Guan and Ma, 2003; Hortinha et al., 2011), innovation resources (e.g. Ogasavara et al., 2016; Zhang and Zhu, 2016), innovation performance (e.g. Fernandez-Mesa and Alegre, 2015; Zhang and Zhu, 2016).\n3. Conceptual model and hypotheses: 3.1 Innovation and export performance\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Search criteria\n5. Findings and discussion: In this study, correlations within individual studies were examined through Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (version 2.2.057) software program to test the research hypotheses. Table I summarizes the results of meta-analysis on the relationship between innovation and export performance with a total of 145 effects. In the meta-analysis, the guidelines reported by Cohen and Cohen (1983) and Cohen et al. (2003) was followed, which advocate that a correlation effect size of less than 0.10 is regarded as weak, 0.10-0.30 is moderate and higher than 0.30 represents a strong association. With regard to the H1, innovation was found to have a positive and strong relationship with export strategic performance (r=0.342, p=0.000), which is also supported by the other studies in the literature (e.g. Azar and Ciabuschi, 2017; Costa et al., 2015). In addition, Oura et al. (2016) also concluded that the impact of innovation on the strategic dimension of export performance was found as the highest and significant coefficient in comparison with the other dimensions of export performance, which is inconsistent with the findings of the present study. Moreover, innovative actions of companies will be beneficial to improve their strategic competitiveness and strategic orientations on companies in the markets they operate (Vazquez et al., 2001). In the case of H2, the results show that the relationship between innovation and export financial performance is significant and at a moderate level (r=0.260, p=0.000) and is in contrast with the results of Zhao and Zou (2002), which provides evidence for the negative link between innovation and export financial performance. The finding of the present study gives credibility to the notion that as companies make higher investments in innovation operations regardless of their costs such as new product or process development, companies in fact get higher financial revenues which is parallel with the previous studies in the literature (e.g. Oura et al., 2016; Silva et al., 2017; Aarstad et al., 2015), although there have been some studies which suggest that innovative efforts may not give benefits such as lower costs and damage companies with inadequate resources in terms of performance (Womack et al., 1990). In addition, the results support H3, which focuses on the relation between innovation and export market performance (r=0.157, p=0.000), as can be seen there is a moderate and significant relationship between export performance and innovation, which is in the line with the previous studies advocating that innovative activities of companies enhance their market share performance (e.g. Robinson, 1990). More specifically, O'Cass and Weerawardena (2009) demonstrated that organizational innovation intensity has a significant and positive influence on marketplace performance by the help of concentrating on both technological and non-technological innovations and getting positional advantages in export markets.\n6. Conclusion: Meta-analysis offers valuable insights to understand the global results of various studies done in different markets and societies. This study shows that innovation is a strategic source to achieve competitive advantage in international markets for superior firm performance (Pla-Barber and Alegre, 2007; Sousa et al., 2008; Vazquez et al., 2001). Innovations as vital components for the companies facilitate to engage more efficient production processes, to increase positive reputation, gain a competitive advantage and to achieve a better performance (Gunday et al., 2011). As new technologies are developed, new rivals appear, and consumer expectations change faster than ever, export performance facilitated by innovation will create more undeviating routes for sustainable success international markets.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Since an accumulated body of research has examined the link between innovation and export performance and little attention has been paid to consolidate the existent fragmented findings in the pertinent literature, the purpose of this paper is to systematically integrate empirical findings based on a meta-analysis of relevant research investigating the association between innovation and export performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this research, correlations within individual studies were examined through performing a meta-analysis, which assists to synthesize the entire findings among past individual studies and helps to quantify the aggregated results. In total, 38 articles surveyed 554,227 exporting manufacturing companies were analyzed through a meta-analysis of 145 total effects.\nFindings: This study demonstrates that innovation is a strategic source to achieve competitive advantage with intent to achieve superior performance in export markets. In this sense, the results reveal that while there is a significant relationship between innovation activities of companies and their export performance, export strategic performance dimension captures important facets in this relationship. Moreover, the results indicate that conceptualization of innovation and the development level of countries moderate the link between innovation and export performance. While output-oriented innovation is more influential on innovation-financial export performance association, the input-oriented innovation is more influential on strategic and market performance.\nOriginality/value: This present study attempted to synthesize fragmented results examining innovation-export performance link via revealing potential moderators on the association between innovation and export performance and providing important insights for both practitioners and scholars.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Patterns of change in manufacturing strategy configurations
|
[
"Business planning",
"Manufacturing industries",
"Change management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The theory about manufacturing strategy has evolved significantly, since the seminal work of Skinner (1969), who defined manufacturing strategy as the set of manufacturing system design aspects managers (must) decide on. Based on this model, authors like Buffa (1984), Hayes and Wheelwright (1984), Fine and Hax (1985), Schroeder et al. (1986) and Hill (1989) contributed to the advancement of the discipline, both through empirical research and theoretical studies.More recently, the traditional manufacturing strategy models have been questioned because of their limited power of capturing and interpreting internal links among the elements of manufacturing strategy (internal consistency) and the links of manufacturing decisions with the external environment (external consistency) (Bozarth and McDermott, 1998). In order to address this gap, a number of studies were conducted exploring manufacturing strategy defined as the configuration of strategic priorities the manufacturing system does or will pursue (for a review, see Bozarth and McDermott, 1998; Cagliano, 1998).Although there are many publications on strategic configurations, some limitations seem not to be addressed yet. In particular, most studies have taken a static perspective, studying manufacturing strategies at a specific point in time. Only a few studies (Cagliano, 1998; Frohlich and Dixon, 2001) addressed the robustness and stability of manufacturing strategy configurations over time and concluded that the set of strategic configurations adopted by an industry or industrial sector is fairly stable. However, studies addressing if, how and how often individual companies move between configurations are lacking (Bozarth and McDermott, 1998).The objective of this paper is to address this gap and to identify if and then to analyse and discuss how, companies move between manufacturing strategy configurations. The paper draws on the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS) I, II and III databases.In the next section, we review the literature on strategic configurations and strategic change. Subsequently, we describe the research question and research design. Next, we present and discuss the results and limitations of the study and the main contributions to the theory of manufacturing strategy. Finally, we suggest directions for further research.\nBackground: Manufacturing strategy configurations\nResearch questions: Using three different longitudinal samples, the objective of the research presented in this paper was to identify and analyse if and how companies move among manufacturing strategy configurations. Thus, the study shifts the traditional focus of manufacturing configuration studies from a content (systems design) view of manufacturing strategy to a dynamic, process-oriented perspective.The results of the analyses are expected to answer the following research questions:RQ1. Which is the degree of strategic change of manufacturing companies in the medium and in the long term?\nResearch design: Sample\nResearch methodology: This paper partly relies on the results of previous research by one of the present authors (Cagliano, 1998). In particular, two steps shown in Figure 1 preceded the analysis presented here:1. In-depth review of the literature covering business strategy, manufacturing strategy and organisation classifications. This review led to the selection of the variables on which companies are classified (the taxons) - namely manufacturing competitive priorities.2. Classification of the companies in the three longitudinal samples according to four strategic configurations using cluster analysis. The strategic configurations were based on competitive priorities for manufacturing companies, derived from the IMSS questionnaire and factor-analysed into five dimensions: price, quality, product variety, service and flexibility. More information on the methodology used for classifying companies into strategic configurations is given in the Appendix and is further detailed in Cagliano (1998).In this paper, the classification of companies according to the four configurations is therefore taken as input for studying the stability of the strategic choices. For each of the samples we identified if and how companies moved from one configuration to another, in order to find the prevalent patterns of change. Next, we compared the results for the three longitudinal samples and developed a consolidated picture of strategic change.\nResults: Table II shows the distribution of the sample companies over the four manufacturing strategy configurations. The overall picture emerging is that of relatively little change, although there are some differences. The market-based strategy has grown in importance, especially between 1992 and 1996, but dropped again during the second half of the 1990s. The product-based strategy is the most widely adopted strategy and the proportion of companies pursuing this strategy is rather stable. The capability-based strategy dropped between 1992 and 1996, but grew in importance between 1996 and 2001. The price-based strategy lost ground during the1990s. Overall, the largest change in strategy adoption by the sample companies on the medium-term is +17 per cent (market-based, 1992-1996), the smallest -2 per cent (price-based, 1996-2001). The figures for the long-term are -6 per cent (price-based) and -1 per cent (product-based).Tables III and IV present the movements of the companies in the three time periods, in absolute figures and percentages, respectively. Cohen's Kappa tests on the three samples (IMSS I, II and III) showed that most companies changed manufacturing strategy over time.The data show that more than half of the companies changed their strategy over time: 70 per cent (26 out of 37) during 1992-1996, 55 per cent (34 out of 62) in the 1996-2001 period and 56 per cent (9 out of 16) between 1992 and 2001 changed strategy. Interestingly, strategic change is higher in the first period (1992-1996), while strategies are more stable in the second period (1996-2001) and in the long run (1992-2001).The data also reveal prevalent path sequences among strategic configurations.* Both market-oriented companies involved continued pursuing that strategy during the 1992-1996 period. Between 1996 and 2001, that strategy was very unstable, with nine (64 per cent) of the 14 companies involved adopting a product-based strategy and three (21 per cent) moving to a capability-based strategy. Only two (14 per cent) stuck to their market-based configuration.* Product-based strategies are fairly stable. Although only six (32 per cent) of the 19 companies stuck to their strategy during 1992-1996, this figure increased to 17 (59 per cent) of the 29 companies concerned in the 1996-2001 period. On the long run, this strategy is the most stable one, with five (71 per cent) of the 16 companies responding to both the 1992 and the 2001 survey not changing strategy. The product-oriented companies that changed strategy tended to move to a capability-based strategy (26 per cent and 24 per cent during the two medium term periods, 29 per cent during the 1992-2001 period).* The percentage of companies sticking to their capability-based strategy increased from 11 per cent (one out of nine during 1992-1996) to 42 per cent (5 out of 12 during 1996-2001), while 40 per cent (two out of five) of the capability-oriented companies involved did not change strategy during the 1992-2001 period. If they changed, a move to a product-based strategy prevailed: eight (89 per cent) in the 1992-1996 period and five (42 per cent) during 1996-2001.* Price-based strategies are relatively unstable. While four (57 per cent) of the seven 1996-2001 companies did not change strategy, five (71 per cent) of the seven and all (100 per cent) of the four did so during the 1992-1996 and 1992-2001 periods. An analysis of the preferred alternatives does not give a clear picture.While these are general considerations concerning the three longitudinal samples, there are differences among the samples. Looking at the 37 companies that are included in the 1992-1996 period, we observed:* None of the two market-based companies changed strategy. All other companies were much more dynamic: 13 (68 per cent) of the 19 product-oriented, eight (89 per cent) of the nine capability-oriented and five (71 per cent) of the price-oriented companies changed strategy.* Twelve (75 per cent) of the 16 companies concerned moved from a capability-based or price-based to a product-based strategy.* Eight (42 per cent) of the 19 product-oriented companies took the reverse path by changing to a capability-based (26 per cent) or price-based (16 per cent) strategy.* In addition, five (26 per cent) of the 19 product-oriented and one (14 per cent) of the seven price-oriented companies changed to a market-based strategy.In effect, the number of market-oriented companies increased from two (5 per cent) to eight (22 per cent). Although slightly dropping, from 19 (51 per cent) to 18 (49 per cent), the product-based configuration remained the most popular by far. The other two strategies lost ground.The 1996-2001 period provides the following picture.* Of the 29 product-oriented companies 12 (41 per cent) changed strategy. The figures are also relatively high for the price-based (43 per cent) and capability-based (58 per cent) strategies and very high (86 per cent) for the market-based strategy.* Five (42 per cent) of the 12 capability-oriented companies changed towards a product-based strategy. None of the price-oriented companies did so.* In total ten (34 per cent) of the 29 product-based strategies were replaced by a capability-based (24 per cent) or price-based (10 per cent) strategy.* In addition, two (41 per cent) of the product-based strategies and also one (8 per cent) of the capability-based and one (14 per cent) of the price-based strategies were changed towards a market-based strategy.In effect, the product-based strategy kept its leading position, slightly increasing from 29 (47 per cent) to 31 (49 per cent) companies. The price-based strategy gained some ground, from seven (11 per cent) to eight (13 per cent) companies. Capability-based competition became much more important, increasing from 12 (19 per cent) to 17 (27 per cent) cases. Market-based strategy dropped from 14 (23 per cent) to six (10 per cent) companies.The 16 companies involved in the 1992 and 2001 surveys acted as follows.* Seven (44 per cent) of the companies were stable. Of these companies, five pursued a product-based and two a capability-based strategy. None of the four price-oriented companies were stable. There were no companies pursuing market-based competition in this sample.* Two (22 per cent) of the nine companies concerned moved from a capability-based or price-based strategy to a product-based strategy.* Two (29 per cent) of the product-oriented companies shifted strategy to capability-based competition. None of them decided to move to a price-based strategy.* One (20 per cent) capability-oriented and one price-based (25 per cent) company shifted to a market-oriented strategy. None of the product-oriented companies followed suit.In effect, the market-based strategy won ground, moving from zero to two (13 per cent companies). The number of capability-oriented companies also increased from five (31 per cent) to six (38 per cent). The companies pursuing product-based strategies stayed stable at seven (44 per cent), while price-based competition dropped from four (25 per cent) to just one (6 per cent).\nDiscussion: The data presented in the previous section first of all provide an answer to RQ1:RQ1. Which is the degree of strategic change of manufacturing companies in the medium and in the long term?\nConclusion: Various studies have argued that manufacturing strategies are best interpreted and dealt with in terms of configurations of competitive priorities, rather than by looking at single elements or constructs that characterise them. This paper has taken this configurational perspective as its starting point. Based on the literature and previous studies by the present authors, four strategic configurations (market, product, capability and price-based strategies) were identified and taken as the basis to identifying if and, then, study how, assembly companies change strategic configurations over time.Main findings\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The paper aims to address the question of how and how often companies change their manufacturing strategy in the medium and long run, thus addressing a lack of evidence in the literature.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper explores the movements made by companies among four manufacturing strategy configurations drawn from the literature (market-based, product-based, capability-based and price-based configuration). Analyses are based on three longitudinal samples from the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS) database.\nFindings: - Results show that while strategic configurations are rather stable, many companies do indeed change strategy and identifies which patterns of change prevail. Product-based strategy is the most-widely spread and most stable strategy. Capability-based competition is the rising star. The market-based strategy is struggling and price-based competition is on its way out.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The main limitation is the small size of longitudinal samples, leading to tentative propositions for further testing.\nPractical implications: - No strategic configuration appears to be the final \"maturity\" target for manufacturers. Companies select their configurations according to life cycle of the organization and market competition.\nOriginality/value: - The paper contributes to fill a lack of longitudinal evidence of strategic change and flexibility of manufacturing companies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The story is the message: shaping corporate culture
|
[
"Storytelling",
"Narratives",
"Corporate image",
"Leadership",
"Communication"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A few decades ago, \"corporate culture\" might have referred to a company's dress code or its working hours. Today, however, most business leaders recognize that organizational culture is both more sophisticated and more powerful than anything contained in an employee manual. One of the key elements in developing and defining corporate culture is the narrative: a story told by a leader which becomes not only part of a company's folklore but eventually the unconscious fabric of employees' behavior patterns.While nearly all leaders attempt to align the goals of their employees with organizational goals and communicate a sense of vision and purpose, it is clear that some individuals and companies are distinctly more effective than others. What made Ronald Reagan \"The Great Communicator\"? Why does Southwest Airlines have a more clearly defined corporate culture than most of its competitors? How was MCI able to take on AT&T and succeed when few people outside of the company believed it would be possible?In a series of interviews with leaders in organizations noted for effective corporate storytelling, four distinct characteristics emerged: Purpose, Allusion, People, and Appeal. Narratives told with a particular purpose in mind, which allude to a company's history and role in the market, told by the right person to the proper audience, and that contain an inspiring emotional appeal are far more likely to impact corporate culture and employee behavior than those which fall short on any one of these categories (see Figure 1).Purpose\nLeadership and stories: A quality that distinguishes transformational leaders is the ability to communicate a vision and inspire others to action. According to Phil Harkins (1999), while each leader must develop a unique voice: [...] great leaders often use stories to translate their messages. Stories connect and become part of the lore of the organization. A story can translate a leader's voice, especially when that story is repeated ... throughout the organization. It can reflect values and principles without overburdening the listener with theory.President Ronald Reagan offers a perfect illustration of this ability. In the 1984 campaign, Reagan repeated stories of Americans hit hard by taxes and advocated a plan of \"fundamental tax reform\". His strategy worked: voters embraced his stories, his allusions to America's history of rebellion against taxation, and his plan of action. Reagan won the election in a landslide and his reforms were adopted despite the fact that the opposition party controlled Congress.Although the formula for communication success seems straightforward, many leaders struggle to express their ideas and particularly find the story an unfamiliar and even uncomfortable medium. According to Robert McKee (2003), \"too often, they get lost in the accoutrements of companyspeak: PowerPoint slides, dry memos, and hyperbolic missives from the corporate communications department\". While storytelling is a skill that everyone practices in family and social settings, many find it difficult to employ this skill in the workplace. While \"many people in organizations receive training in the preparation of reports and in making presentations ... [few companies employ] a similar approach to ... storytelling skills\" (Allan et al., 2002). Even with training and practice, few leaders will achieve the charisma and innate ability of Reagan, Kelleher, or McGowan, but all can employ the same strategies and techniques of persuasion and influence.\nConclusion: In an increasingly complex and fast paced world, leaders must penetrate the mire of facts and institutionalized reports if they are to inspire and emotionally appeal to their employees. Stories have a unique ability to, as Allan et al. (2002) put it, \"grab people's attention quickly and economically. Narratives work better than other ways of stimulating learning because they are a central part of human [cognition]\". Just as humans contextualize other parts of life in stories, people want to feel that their work lives are part of larger story in which they play an important role. For this to happen, they must understand the company's history, its values, its present challenges, and where it - and they - will be in the future. A story which contains allusion to the past, a purpose in the present, and an appeal to a shared vision achieves these goals. Truly great stories will bolster morale in times of crisis and motivate employees to accomplish more than they believed possible, and that is the essence of great leadership.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - While all companies hope to create a positive organizational culture, many of the most effective use corporate narratives to communicate company values. The purpose of this article is to identify common techniques used in these organizations and develop a framework for leaders wishing to employ this method.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This article draws heavily on personal interviews conducted with individuals in organizations identified as having effective methods of corporate storytelling. The interview participants ranged from CEOs and other executives to rank-and-file employees. In addition, this article conducts a review of relevant literature on the subject and distills a set of key components of effective corporate storytelling.\nFindings: - This article identifies four distinct characteristics of effective corporate storytelling: purpose, allusion, people, and appeal. Narratives which are told with a particular purpose in mind, which allude to a company's history and role in the market, which are told by the right person to the proper audience, and which contain an inspiring emotional appeal are far more likely to impact corporate culture and employee behavior than those which fall short on any one of these categories.\nOriginality/value: - This article outlines a simple and straightforward framework for corporate storytelling. For both business leaders hoping to use a narrative to enhance or change a company's culture and for those studying effective leadership techniques, this article offers new insights from successful corporate storytellers distilled from personal interviews as well as key ideas from a wide array of existing literature.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Sincerity or ploy? An investigation of corporate social responsibility campaigns
|
[
"Brand authenticity",
"Brand image",
"Brand attitudes",
"Brand-cause campaign",
"CSR attitudes",
"In-store recycling program",
"Message source"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Consumer demand for socially responsible apparel brands are rapidly increasing as consumers become more interested in supporting brands that minimize environmental impacts and give back to the communities in which they operate (Bhaduri and Ha-Brookshire, 2015; Hyllegard et al., 2010; Park and Lennon, 2006; Yoon et al., 2006; Wang and Korschun, 2015). In response to consumer demand, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become increasingly popular among fashion apparel brands (Nan and Heo, 2007). However, when companies are perceived as socially irresponsible or CSR practices are perceived as a ploy or insincere, it can become detrimental to the brand, lowering consumers' attitudes and perceptions toward the company (Eisingerich et al., 2011; Vanhamme et al., 2015; Wagner et al., 2009).\nLiterature review: Corporate social responsibility in the apparel industry\nHypotheses development: Effect of brand image on consumers' perceptions of CSR campaigns\nMethod: Pre-test\nResults: Results of a one-way ANOVA to test H1a-H1c show significant main effects of brand image on perceptions of brand authenticity (MPatagonia = 5.63, MH&M = 4.73, F(1,164) = 33.008, p = 0.000), brand attitudes (MPatagonia = 6.19, MH&M = 5.19, F(1,164) = 22.63, p = 0.000) and CSR attitudes (MPatagonia = 6.45, MH&M = 5.77, F(1,164) = 17.85, p = 0.000). As proposed in H1, consumers develop more favorable perceptions of brand authenticity, brand attitudes and CSR attitudes when they perceive a brand as sustainable rather than disposable.\nDiscussion and implications: Consumer demand for socially responsible apparel brands are increasing as greater public pressure is placed on apparel companies to implement CSR practices (Mann et al., 2014). That is, apparel companies face growing scrutiny for the impact of apparel production on the environment (Beeler, 2017; Lee et al., 2017). As a response, several apparel companies have initiated in-store apparel recycling programs to favorably positioning themselves as more sustainable (Beeler, 2017). However, not all CSR campaigns produce favorable consumer responses because consumers tend to doubt the motives of a company's CSR efforts (Barone et al., 2000; Hibbert et al., 2007; Manuel et al., 2014). When confronted with these doubts, consumers may use attributes about the brand (i.e. brand image as sustainable or disposable) and may seek additional sources of information (i.e. brand's website vs news article) to evaluate a company's content claims. Despite this growing CSR practice, there are several gaps in literature. First, previous research had yet to identity whether consumers' are convinced that particular CSR practices (i.e. in-store recycling program) is a sincere approach at positively impacting the environment, or as a ploy to positively change consumers' brand perception. Second, despite the importance of brand image on consumers' response to CSR practices (Bridges et al., 2000; Torelli et al., 2011), researchers had yet to include the impact of a brand's image as sustainable or disposable on consumers' responses to CSR practices. Third, there is a significant lack of research that focuses on communication and marketing on consumers' responses to CSR activities (White et al., 2017). Particularly, researchers have yet to clearly understand the impact of a message source (i.e. brand website or news source). This is essential given that these channels are how consumers' learn about a company's CSR initiatives.\nConclusions: Although in-store recycling programs have recently become popular among fashion apparel brands as part of their CSR campaigns, researchers had not yet investigated how this strategy affects consumers' responses. Through an experimental study, we investigated how brand image (i.e. sustainable vs disposable brand) and message source (i.e. brand's website vs news article) influence consumers' perceptions of brand authenticity, brand attitudes and CSR attitudes when exposed to messages about CSR campaigns. Results suggest that sustainable brands benefit from CSR campaigns, particularly when the campaign is promoted through the brand's website. Brands that are perceived as sustainable should consider implementing CSR campaigns to favorably influence consumer responses. However, brands that are perceived as disposable (e.g. fast fashion brands) should be more cautious about implementing CSR campaigns as they may not generate favorable consumer responses as they intended.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns have become increasingly popular among fashion apparel brands to reduce environmental impacts of their operations and position themselves as sustainable. In light of attribution theory, this paper aims to investigate how aspects of a CSR campaign affect consumers' perceptions of brand authenticity, brand attitudes and CSR attitudes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This research is based on a 2 (brand image: sustainable vs disposable brand) x 2 (message source: brand website vs news article) between-subjects experimental design with random assignment to conditions and manipulation checks.\nFindings: When exposed to messages about CSR campaigns, consumers have more favorable perceptions of brand authenticity, brand attitudes and CSR attitudes for a sustainable brand than for a disposable brand, particularly when consumers view information about a CSR campaign on the brand's website. However, this is not true for disposable brands when CSR campaigns are promoted through a news source.\nPractical implications: Sustainable brands can derive benefits by strategically partnering with causes through CSR campaigns, particularly when their campaigns are promoted through their brand's website (vs news source). However, brands that offer disposable products (e.g. fast fashion brands) should exercise caution when implementing these campaigns; CSR campaigns may confuse customers as they do not align with the everyday practices of disposable brands.\nOriginality/value: As the apparel industry faces increased scrutiny for negative impacts on the environment, this study helps to understand whether customers perceive CSR campaigns as trustworthy and authentic, or as ploys aimed at creating more positive brand images.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
It's all in the mind: Leadership, moral and the psychological contract
|
[
"Leadership",
"Teacher",
"Empowerment",
"Servant",
"Moral psychology"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nReview: At the end of the seventeenth century, John Locke was the talk of London and the more intellectual parts of Europe following the publication of his Second Treatise on Government (1692), where he laid out his thoughts on how people would, and should, act given free will in society. His ideas, along with those such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau almost a century later, centered around a \"social contract\" where citizens would voluntarily join together to form a neutral government to prevent fear and promote benefits of acting as a society. This form of tacit consent will be familiar to all, and can be especially relevant to deeper understanding of the inner workings of modern firms.\nEmployment contract?: This more contextual approach is favored by the authors Caldwell and Hasan (2016) in their article \"Covenantal leadership and the psychological contract: moral insights for the modern leader\". As a starting point, they look at the notion of a contract in terms of how the relationships within an organization are typically viewed. In essence, they understand such contracts as \"psychological contracts\", which are a set of subjective obligations employees feel toward employers that are not explicitly stated in any physical contract. If one thinks of an organization with a charismatic and just leader - the Pope and the Catholic Church would be the extreme example - then it is not hard to imagine the feelings of trust and devotion from the Pope's followers that would inspire them to go the extra mile.\nThe holy covenant: Key characteristics of such a form of leadership are that it should be embodied by role models and for the long term, have integrity, be flexible, be always involving others, and be constantly learning and adapting to new situations. These broad factors will be present in many leaders and have both psychological and moral dimensions, and as such Caldwell and Hasan are keen to dig further. They propose five specific roles that covenantal leaders can adopt which will optimize their leadership and lead to significant gains in employee engagement, performance, and innovation. These five roles and the implications for moral issues and the psychological contract are:\nComment: The article \"Covenantal leadership and the psychological contract: moral insights for the modern leader\" by Caldwell and Hasan (2016) is perhaps more of a manifesto than a research article. That is not to say it lacks rigor or is some kind of polemic - rather, it is a rare academic paper that proposes something quite radical with deep implications for leadership practice. It refers to potential critics of its central thesis as lacking any kind of measure of output, but it should perhaps be viewed as placing the psychology and morality of leadership alongside the management control side rather than replacing it, as both concerns together will inevitably lead to strong leadership.\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: At the end of the seventeenth century, John Locke was the talk of London and the more intellectual parts of Europe following the publication of his Second Treatise on Government (1692), where he laid out his thoughts on how people would, and should, act given free will in society. His ideas, along with those such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau almost a century later, centered around a \"social contract\" where citizens would voluntarily join together to form a neutral government to prevent fear and promote benefits of acting as a society. This form of tacit consent will be familiar to all, and can be especially relevant to deeper understanding of the inner workings of modern firms.\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"
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] |
SOUL System: secure online USB login system
|
[
"Cryptography",
"Steganography",
"Internet security and online protection",
"User authentication",
"Trusted third party",
"Web framework",
"Secure online system",
"Web applications",
"USB login",
"Data security"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nI. Introduction: Security is one of the major factors people have to consider when browsing the Internet. With the rapid growth of Internet technologies, security risks and flaws are uncovered over time. During the past few years, a lot of government web sites have been attacked by hackers. Countless number of online accounts have been compromised and a lot of private information and identities have been stolen online. In addition to that, money from online bank accounts have been stolen. Password cracking is one of the most widespread forms of security attacks. The most common forms of password cracking are the dictionary attacks, and the variations of the brute-force attack. Other attacks are the man-in-the-middle attacks, password-sniffing attacks, and keystroke logging attacks. These attacks usually involve the presence of viruses and malwares in the unsuspecting user's computer.Most web sites today makes use of the username and password login scheme. This scheme is prone to password-cracking attacks and keystroke logging attacks. Some web sites today can be accessed via HTTPS to secure the transfer of data between the user's computer and the web server. The problem with HTTPS is that SSL certificates cost quite an amount and are not practical for most businesses and web sites. In addition to that, HTTPS does not protect the user from keystroke logging attacks because keyloggers work locally in the user's computer. The addition of another factor to the authentication scheme dramatically increases the security of web sites. The additional factor can be something that the user has that can be used for authentication in addition to the typed password. Many research papers have shown that biometrics can be used as the second factor to identify users from unauthorized people. Unfortunately, biometrics are not foolproof and specialized hardware are necessary for biometric systems to work.Little research has been done on the possibility of using secure tokens as a measure of security for web sites. A security token, also called cryptographic token, is a hardware device used to ease authentication to an authorized user. It may be used in addition to or in place of passwords to prove one's identity electronically. Some of these tokens are already available in the market. However, these tokens cost quite an amount and are not really used by the majority because of their high costs. These tokens also make use of specialized hardware which make it inaccessible to the majority of users.This study aims to transform any ordinary hardware device container such as a USB flash drive into a security token which can be used to authenticate to web sites integrated with the two-factor login system. It aims to design and implement a two-factor authentication system involving a software development kit which will be used by web sites, a security token, and a trusted third party (TTP) web site that will complete the secure system. This research study aims to replace the existing username-password scheme with a secure system that is lowcost, reliable, practical, portable, and flexible.The study aims to design and implement a secure online authentication system using several software development kits for flexible web site integration, a secure USB token, and TTP web site. There is a limited set of studies concerned with online authentication using security tokens. Some solutions are expensive because of the use of specialized and commercial secure tokens. This research project's main goal is to create a secure two-factor authentication system without using specialized hardware components.Specific objectives that should be accomplished during the design process include the implementation of a protocol that allows secure transfer of unbounded data between two entities (e.g. local program and TTP). Another objective involves the secrecy of the data in the security token. The proposed system must be portable and flexible enough that it works in most computers and most operating systems. The system must also be practical enough to handle situations where the security token gets lost, corrupted, or stolen.The SOUL System supports any operating system with Java Runtime Environment installed (JRE 1.6+). The provided SOUL System SDK supports web sites built in Java, Python, and PHP languages. The security token can be any ordinary electronic storage device. Supported files for steganography are 24-bit BMP or PNG format where the user's data is encrypted and hidden.The purpose of the academic research is to provide a low cost and more secure online authentication system that will replace the existing username-password scheme. The system is also designed to ease and automate the integration of the login system with existing sites and web frameworks. It is also intended to speed up the registration and login processes. The design and implementation of the proposed system can provide better security for millions of web sites and online accounts.With the implementation, release, and public use of the proposed system, less accounts will be compromised. More businesses that make use of online web sites will thrive since the system is cost-effective and practical to use.\nII. Related literature: A. Cryptography\nIII. Methodology: The SOUL System is composed of the SOUL System SDK, the security token containing the images where the encrypted user data is hidden, and the TTP where the public keys are stored. The security token is any ordinary hardware storage device that can store the image file with the encrypted hidden data. Public keys for all the registered web sites and the registered security token are stored in the TTP. Also included in the TTP is the signed Java applet that extracts the hidden data inside the image file, allows decryption of data using the user's password, and allows secure authentication to web sites. A TTP is necessary to prevent certain attacks such as the man-in-the-middle attack which exploit the vulnerabilities in the exchange of public keys. From the start, the signed Java applet already has the public key of the TTP which ensures secure transfer of data to the TTP at the initial steps.Hybrid cryptosystem secures the transfer of data between the three major entities using a symmetric-key cryptosystem and an asymmetric-key cryptosystem. The asymmetric-key cryptosystem is used initially to transfer a newly generated key. The symmetric-key cryptosystem uses the newly generated key to encrypt and decrypt data of any length to be transferred. Private and public keys are used to sign and verify the encrypted data, respectively. POST requests are used to send and receive data from web sites.The system is designed to be usable in any environment and by any web site. The protocols created can easily be reproduced in several different languages other than the currently supported languages. The SOUL System supports and operating system that has JRE installed. No other Java libraries need to be installed in the client computer to login or register to web sites. Any ordinary hardware storage device can be used as the security token for authenticating to web sites. The signed Java applet can hide encrypted data inside PNG and 24-bit BMP files inside the security token. Right now, the stenographic functions used varies with the type of file. The password encrypts the data stored before being hidden inside the images. The images still look the same even after the inclusion of encrypted data.The proposed system supports a maximum of two security tokens per account. This was included so that users will still be able to access their accounts even if keys get lost, stolen, or corrupted. When one of the keys is lost, the other key and the email address can be used to deactivate the lost key and then create a new one to replace the deactivated key. A verification email is sent to the email address of the user to complete the deactivation and generation processes. With this kind of setup, even if one of the keys get stolen, the email verification prevents the thief from deactivating the other key and stealing the account completely.A variation of this system include the option to assign different passwords to some of the sites. This is to prevent users from getting immediate access to all accounts using a single password.Web sites can be built using a variety of languages. One of the major challenges when building a secure system is the support for multiple languages and web frameworks. The XLCrypt Library is the cross-language cryptographic library developed for this project. It currently supports Python, Java, and PHP. It provides language-independent libraries for AES, RSA, SHA-512, UUID generation, base-64 encoding and decoding, and serialization and deserialization of strings and string arrays and lists. The AES libraries supports 256-bit keys while the RSA libraries support both 1,024-bit and 2,048-bit keys. 2,048-bit keys for RSA are used at runtime.The SOUL System SDK include the libraries available for the supported languages. Currently, the system supports Java, Python and PHP. The available SDKs can be downloaded from the TTP web sites and then easily integrated to web sites. The SOUL System SDK contains the XLCrypt Library and other tools needed for fast web site integration.The signed Java applet contains the public key of the TTP along with the code which ensures the integrity of the public key of the TTP since altering the contents of the signed Java applet while maintaining the signature is impossible because the applet is signed. The encrypted data of the user hidden inside the image file contains the private key and public key of the security token. The web server of the web site has an encrypted file containing the private key and public key of the web site, and the public key of the TTP. The encrypted file can be decrypted using the web server's own account password during runtime.The TTP acts as the storage for the public keys of the registered web sites and security tokens. Registration of web sites and security tokens allow storage of public keys, hashed passwords, and hashes of image files to be saved inside the TTP which can then be used later on for verification of the integrity of entities.The hybrid cryptosystem involves one request for transmitting the shared key securely and another for transmitting the large chunk of data securely using symmetric cryptography. The SOUL System involves an optimized version of a hybrid cryptosystem that uses public-key scheme to transfer the shared key to be used for symmetric cryptography. A POST request with values for the parameters public key encrypted and shared key encrypted messages is initially sent from the sender (e.g. signed Java applet/web server of web site) to the receiver (e.g. TTP). The public key encrypted value contains the shared key that can be used to decrypt the shared key encrypted value. The public key encrypted value is encrypted with the available public key of the TTP and only the TTP can decrypt the data which includes the shared key.The shared key encrypted value contains a unique symmetric label which is hashed and then associated with a shared key that can decrypt subsequent post requests which are encrypted with the shared key. Subsequent post requests rely on the value of the unique symmetric label by sending the hash of the unique symmetric label and the message encrypted with the shared key associated with the hash of the symmetric label. The unique symmetric label is replaced and updated during every POST request.During the transmission of data between the signed Java applet and the web server of the web site, both parties would obtain a copy of each other's public key from the TTP. These public keys are used to verify the signature of the sent message from the sender. The signed Java applet uses the private key of the security token to sign the encrypted data to be sent to the web server. The web server uses the public key of the security token obtained from the TTP to verify the signature received along with the encrypted message. The same goes for the message and signature sent back to the signed Java applet for processing.The user opens the web site with the SOUL System plugin (SSP) and then mounts the security token. The SSP requests for the user's password and the image file containing the hidden encrypted data. The SSP securely communicates with the TTP with the hybrid cryptosystem to verify the integrity of the image file using SHA-512. After integrity verification, the TTP returns the public key of the web site to the SSP and it is used to encrypt the data to be transferred to the web site using RSA.A shared key, along with other necessary information, is transferred from the SSP to the web site to allow transfer of data of any length between the two entities. The transferred data is encrypted with the public key of the web site inside the SSP and then decrypted with the private key of the web site in the web site's server. Along with the public key encrypted data, the shared key encrypted data is passed along in the same request to reduce the number of POST requests to the server. The integrity of the shared key encrypted data source is verified with the public key of the security token obtained from the TTP.The final GET request to open the web browser and allow access to the user involves a one-time password that is independent of old one-time passwords. This is done to prevent replay attacks and known-key attacks.\nIV. Results: The system has been secured with hybrid cryptosystem and other security features such as UUIDs, message UUIDs, RSA signing and verification, and double password hashing. Attacks that include man-in-the-middle attacks, dictionary attacks, and key logging attacks would not work against the current system. The attacker needs to attack and get both the user's password and security token to have access to the user's accounts.The integrity of the sources and targets during the transfer of data are checked and verified during every step of the processes. The hash of the image file containing the encrypted user data is stored inside the TTP for verification and to prevent cloning of the image file. The SOUL System works in all operating systems with Java installed. Image files can be stored inside any ordinary hardware storage which includes new cellular phones, laptops, and USB flash drives that allow storage for photos and other files.\nV. Discussion: A. Security of private key/public key pairs\nVI. Conclusion and recommendations: The designed two-factor online authentication system is a low cost and secure design alternative to both the username-password scheme and commercially available secure tokens. The developed two-factor login system is not vulnerable to the known attacks that can hack the username-password scheme because of the use of a TTP, a hybrid cryptosystem, and other security techniques.Supporting more languages such as Ruby is another great addition for the system. With the availability of the SOUL System SDK for Ruby, several Ruby web frameworks such as Ruby on Rails, Sinatra, and Cuba can be supported as well. Penetration testing can also be done to secure specific parts of the system.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The SOUL System aims to provide a low-cost secure online two-factor authentication system that involves both a password and a security token in the form of an ordinary electronic container. Its main goal is to design and build a system that can easily be integrated to existing websites to make the login and registration processes more secure.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The three main parts of the system are the website, the ordinary hardware device, and trusted third party. The website must first be integrated with the web API provided and then registered to the trusted third party website to allow two-factor authentication. It must be registered to the trusted third party so that it can be used to register and login to SOUL System integrated websites.\nFindings: - The design and implementation of the proposed two-factor authentication system makes use of the hybrid cryptosystem, one-time passwords, hash functions, trusted third parties, steganographic techniques, signed java applets and cross-language cryptographic libraries. It protects users from well known attacks such as brute-force attacks, collision attacks, dictionary attacks, keylogger attacks, man-in-the-middle attacks, and even replay attacks. Currently, the system can be integrated to websites built in PHP, Python, and Java.\nOriginality/value: - The SOUL System is the first two-factor authentication system that uses both cryptography and steganography to provide secure online authentication with an ordinary USB flash drive. It is designed to work in major operating systems such as Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux with very minimal installation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
An examination of Health Promoting Schools in Ireland
|
[
"Curriculum",
"Health Promoting Schools",
"Policy",
"Partnership",
"School environment"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Defining Health Promoting Schools (HPS)\nMethods: A questionnaire (open and closed questions) was sent to post-primary schools at the national level. In order to enhance validity a pilot study was conducted using a convenience sample and questions asked using Bell's (2010) pilot framework. Following the pilot, changes were made to content and layout, according to the recommendations made by participants. A comprehensive analysis identified that no one survey was fit for purpose, but the surveys utilised by Von Amann (2006) and Geary and Mannix McNamara (2003), were both closely aligned for what was needed. Permission was sought and granted from the authors to utilise their surveys. These were adapted in order to be fit for purpose, and items specific to the HPS were drawn from Von Amann (2006) while items specific to SPHE were drawn from the national instrument used by Geary and Mannix McNamara (2003).\nResults: Demographics of schools\nDiscussion: The aim of the research was to illuminate the current state of the art of post-primary HPS in Ireland. Having received data from 56 per cent of schools nationally the results are particularly relevant.\nConclusion: The data evidenced that there are examples of good HPS practice in post-primary schools in Ireland but that there are also significant challenges. There is great diversity across schools, in terms of health promotion practices. The results in this research study are reflective of the situation in other countries where \"the lack of specific implementation guidelines makes it difficult for the schools to identify concrete actions to achieve a whole school health promotion approach and results in a wide array of practices across schools and countries\" (Samdal and Rowling, 2013, p. 23). More promotion, coherence and awareness are needed for the success of HPS in Ireland.\nLimitations: The questionnaire was a self-reporting instrument which may have had an impact on the answers received, as self-reporting instruments carry with them several sources of potential bias which include selective memory, attribution and exaggeration. It would have been valuable to gain the perspectives of other stakeholders such as, principals, parents, pupils and other teachers. Due to time constraints it was not possible to do follow up interviews with schools but this would have been useful to clarify points, explore areas in more depth and triangulate the results of the questionnaire.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report the results of a national survey that examined the extent of implementation of Health Promoting Schools (HPS) in Ireland.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A quantitative research design was adopted. A questionnaire was administered to all post-primary schools in the country (n=704). Data were analysed with the support of the software packages, SPSS and MaxQDA.\nFindings: A response rate of 56 per cent (n=394) was achieved. Over half of these schools (56 per cent) self-identified as health promoting. Schools reported success in the areas of environment and curriculum and learning, however, partnerships and policy and planning required more attention. Some models of good practice emerged from the data but these were in the minority. Many schools, when asked to describe health promotion in their school, placed emphasis on physical health (diet and exercise) and curriculum predominately rather than the broader whole school conceptualisation. Only 35 per cent of HPS schools had a team supporting HPS developments. Only 36 per cent identified the existence of a school policy to support HPS. This suggests that further coherence for sustained and comprehensive implementation of HPS is necessary.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research was conducted with school staff, in the first instance who self-reported their school's level of HPS engagement.\nOriginality/value: This paper offers the first national baseline data available in relation to engagement in HPS in Ireland. It provides a valuable starting point from which further research with schools in this field can be conducted.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Futures of science with and for society: towards transformative policy orientations
|
[
"Research",
"Innovation",
"Research policy",
"Grand challenges",
"Responsible research and innovation",
"Scenario assessment"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: To produce knowledge is to accept the risk of putting to the test our beliefs and our ignorance without reducing what we do not know to what we already know and without dismissing as irrelevant what we cannot describe because we ignore it, but is also to exercise prudence and precaution when dealing with the unknown or with the possible consequences of our actions (Sousa Santos et al., 2008, p. 31)\nIntroduction: Future scenario methodology, based on analysis-founded narrative storylines, is a way to imagine, in a rich and challenging way, various possible future changes. Such scenarios of future research and innovation (R&I) landscapes embody \"anticipatory intelligence\" that policymakers and other stakeholders can tap into when thinking strategically about their futures, as well as about impacts these anticipated changes may have on them (UNIDO, 2005, p. 23; Kuhlmann et al., 1999, p. 6). The main aim of this paper is to elaborate strategic policy orientations, based on a scenario implication assessment, that address future R&I challenges.\nRole of scenarios in strategic foresight and policymaking: Policymaking in times of rapid social change and complexity requires anticipation (\"anticipatory governance\", Barben et al., 2008), by drawing up visions for a defined future, in everyday decision-making processes where assumptions about future effects of the decision are made or through dedicated foresight exercises (Georghiou et al., 2008; Eriksson and Weber, 2008). Anticipation will draw on available knowledge for assessing problems and taking decisions. The more specific the knowledge used, the more it can be described as \"strategic intelligence\". According to Kuhlmann et al. (1999), there are various forms of \"strategic intelligence\" that may help to enhance policymaking. Creating and assessing future scenarios is a well-known and broadly applied way of having foresight.\nScenario assessment: methodology and framework for analysis: Here we describe a four-step methodology for assessing the scenario implications with regard to RRI goals. In the first step, we present six core dimensions of R&I systems for the assessment of future implications of each scenario (research practices, knowledge production and coordination and types of research; key players; legitimization of public R&I investments; research funding modes; research careers and mobility; and intellectual property rights (IPR) regimes and open access; Box 1).\nScenarios' assessment for responsible research and innovation policy goals: Here we will assess the five RIF scenarios of transformed future R&I systems in terms of their capability to cope with and facilitate a collective and continuous commitment to be anticipatory, reflective, inclusively deliberative and responsive. We first briefly describe the core of each scenario (for more detailed information on the scenario dynamics, see Erdmann and Schirrmeister, 2016) and the scenario report of the RIF project (RIF, 2013). Then we will assess the scenarios systematically along the six core dimensions of R&I systems on the options and limitations to facilitate RRI practices[3].\nCross-scenario analysis: robust policy options for advancing responsible research and innovation goals: The cross-scenario analysis aims to distil some robust policy concerns for the present European and national R&I policy for advancing practices of RRI. Table VI provides an overview of the five scenario assessments on each of the six core dimensions of the future R&I landscapes with the assessment codes and the main features on which the assessment is based.\nContours of a responsible research and innovation system: towards transformative policy orientations: For the sketching of the contours of a responsible R&I system, we will highlight six policy orientations that cover in the main insights of the transformative RIF scenario assessments regarding their openness to RRI practices. Four of these orientations link directly to the analytical core dimensions of the R&I system: type of research, academic careers, research funding and IPR[7]. The two other policy orientations address dynamics of globalization and digitization, both featuring prominently in all RIF scenarios (Erdmann and Schirrmeister, 2016) and thus are seen in the RIF project as essential and robust elements of future R&I landscapes. For each orientation, we accumulated the lessons drawn from the cross-scenario analysis and the challenging new ways of thinking in individual RIF scenarios into building blocks for challenging transformative policy orientations. Each building block is linked to relevant academic discourses by including some core references.\nConclusion: The paper aimed to derive policy implications from five future scenarios of transformed R&I systems. For this purpose, the paper elaborated a three-step methodology for the scenario-assessment (articulation of scenario implications for six core dimensions of R&I systems; identification of opportunities and limitations for transforming R&I systems towards responsibility goals; and elaboration of \"robust\" and \"flexible\" policy options across scenarios). The assessment revealed significant structural and institutional transformations in R&I processes and policies. The paper concluded by outlining the contours of a future-responsible R&I system, together with suggestions for transformative policy orientations that aim to govern towards such a future, as a source of inspiration and reflection.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: How to derive policy implications from five future scenarios of transformed research and innovation (R&I) systems? This paper analyzes methodological and content issues of five future scenarios of transformed R&I systems. The aim of this paper is to provide an outlook on strategic policies capable of facilitating or moderating these transformative changes in R&I practices is discussed in light of overarching intentions to foster \"responsible\" ambitions (in Europe and beyond, discussed as responsible research and innovation, RRI).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper elaborates a four-step methodology to assess the scenario's policy implications: first, by articulating the scenario implications for six core dimensions of R&I systems; second, an RRI assessment framework is developed to assess in each scenario opportunities and limitations for transforming R&I systems towards responsibility goals; the third involves a cross-scenario analysis of similarities and differences between the scenarios, allowing the identification of robust policy options that make sense in more than one scenario. The last analytical step includes again the richness of the individual scenario assessments aiming to provide a broader outlook on transformative policy orientations.\nFindings: The paper concludes with outlining the contours of a future-responsible R&I system together with some suggestions for transformative policy orientations that aim to govern the R&I system towards such a future, as a source of inspiration and reflection.\nResearch limitations/implications: The analysis is based on five future scenarios that do not systematically cover future developments external to the R&I system.\nPractical Implications: An outlook of strategic policies capable of facilitating or moderating these transformative changes in R&I practices is discussed in light of the overarching European Union goal of encouraging the performance of RRI.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides inspirational anticipatory strategic intelligence for fostering the responsible ambitions of research with and for society.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The construction and regulation of collective entrepreneurial identity in student entrepreneurship societies
|
[
"Entrepreneurship",
"Identity work",
"Collective identity",
"Student entrepreneurship society",
"Identity construction and regulation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Higher education institutions (HEIs) have become crucial sites for promoting entrepreneurship in order to secure economic competitiveness in knowledge-driven societies. In this endeavor entrepreneurship education (EE) is the key intervention used for promoting, realizing and institutionalizing entrepreneurship in higher education (Farny et al., 2016). In addition to the academic curriculum, however, learning opportunities that take place outside the classroom have also become an important feature of EE (Brush, 2014; Morris et al., 2013; Pittaway et al., 2010; Rae et al., 2012). In line with this trend, entrepreneurship societies (ESs) and clubs targeted at students have gained an important role and become key promoters of entrepreneurial ecosystems at HEIs (Bjorklund and Krueger, 2016). In the international research literature, ESs have been defined as extra-curricular, informal, non-accredited, student-led, non-profit organizations that aim to promote entrepreneurship by arranging various activities around entrepreneurship (Pittaway et al., 2010; Pittaway et al., 2015; Preedy and Jones, 2017). So far, however, only a few studies have investigated ESs and only very few have focused on ESs in Finland (see, however, Bjorklund and Krueger, 2016; Farny and Kyro, 2015; Parkkari and Kohtakangas, 2018).\nThe construction and regulation of collective entrepreneurial identity: The complexities and ambiguities of current working life and the competitive and crowded graduate labor market (e.g. Brown et al., 2011) accompanied with increased job insecurity make constructing and securing identity and a sense of self a continuous struggle and self-conscious activity (Alvesson and Willmott, 2002). In today's world of work, personal qualities and characteristics have become increasingly important in making oneself appealing to potential employers (Siivonen and Isopahkala-Bouret, 2016). The management of identities and identity work have thus become more salient and critical to pursuing opportunities and success in working life. Individuals are in a constant state of becoming and in need of forming, repairing, maintaining, strengthening or revising their identity constructions (Alvesson and Willmott, 2002).\nData and methods: The data of this study comprise focus group discussions, generated in 2017, with a total of 18 board members and other active members of two ESs affiliated with two universities located in different regions of Finland. Authors refer to the ES cases with the pseudonyms \"Buzz\" and \"Hustle.\" The cases were selected out of 19 ESs in Finland based on their different locations, historical trajectories, levels of financial support and, consequently, their different ways of functioning. The sampling, thus, represents two extreme cases among the ESs in Finland. The choice was based on the methodological and epistemological purpose of the research: it allowed the discursive analysis of both similarities and differences within and between two different kinds of ESs and altogether 18 members with regard to the construction and regulation of collective identity. Focus group discussions make the similarities and differences between the different participants, and also the dynamics between the perspectives on a phenomenon, directly visible (Steyaert and Bouwen, 2004).\nAnybody can be an entrepreneur. It is all about changing the mindset: The ES collective identities were produced on the basis of categorizations such as being a student, being young, sharing an interest in entrepreneurship and engaging collaboratively in activities and events around entrepreneurship as well as the desire to be part of the positive buzz of the start-up scene both in Finland and internationally. The student identity of ES members (see also Parkkari and Kohtakangas, 2018) was enhanced by such identifications and methods of recruitment as \"The core, still pizza and beer, that's never gonna go out of fashion\" (Buzz), \"The original pitch was that you get to do things and party\" (Hustle). Being part of ES was maintaining the cool factor: \"Okay, I heard that if you wanna do cool things, go to Buzz\" (laughter). Having fun, \"grabbing a beer\" and meeting people were important social motives for being part of the community and networking. Actual student status was not required to join, only the readiness to act like a student: what you wear, drinking beer, your humor, and talking about changing the world (Parkkari and Kohtakangas, 2018).\nEntrepreneurs within an association. Doing something good for others: Motives are important indicators of collective identity as they establish what is valued within a group (see also Alvesson and Willmott, 2002). The motives for and benefits of belonging to and cooperating within the ES family were considered by the members to be manifold. An important motive to be part of an ES was the opportunity to be caught up and involved in organizing events and activities around entrepreneurship and, in so doing, to \"get inspired about the possibilities of entrepreneurship\" (Hustle). Taking part in events and activities created a sense of belonging and being part of the positive buzz of the start-up scene, both nationally and globally.\nYou take matters into your own hands: Being part of the ES, then, was not just about \"the cool factor\" but about being ready to confront the inevitably changing world of work; as one member put it: \"the types of work, they just change\" (Buzz). According to Alvesson and Willmott (2002) by describing the zeitgeist in a particular way identity is implicitly invoked and shaped. In both ES focus group discussions, the idea of being active, self-responsible, self-directed and first and foremost entrepreneurial in the uncertain and constantly changing world of work was an important narrative for constructing collective identity: \"[The] future is always uncertain and, and entrepreneurship is maybe a way to deal with the uncertainty in a way, that you take sort of take matters into your own hands\" (Buzz). \"If you decide you want to be there one day then you will be there, it's you who makes the path wherever you want to go\" (Hustle). One's future in the world of work is thus to be built optimistically and creatively. The shared ES narrative and collective identity are paradoxically very much in line with the individualistic neoliberal discourse that places responsibility on the individual (Laalo and Heinonen, 2016; Siivonen and Brunila, 2014) and emphasizes personal qualities and characteristics as crucial in coping in today's world of work. In the present study, the young ES generation was constructed as being \"better prepared\" (Buzz) for the uncertain future and the changes to come:Extract 4. Buzz.\nDiscussion: Student-led ESs affiliated with HEIs have become a student movement (Parkkari and Kohtakangas, 2018) aiming at a wider cultural change toward start-up activities and entrepreneurship. This study focused on the social construction of collective entrepreneurial identities that were actively constructed and regulated by ES members within ESs. ES members and HEI students were encouraged to reflect on and improve themselves and their \"insides\" - their hopes, fears and aspirations (see also Alvesson and Willmott, 2002) - within the framework of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is justified in terms of a freely chosen, optimistic occupational choice for everyone (see also Gill, 2014) and, as such, as a utopian goal of economic freedom for all (see e.g. Ogbor, 2000).\nConclusion: While ESs are a relatively new, emergent phenomenon compared to other forms of organized student activity in Finland, this study suggests that ESs are a powerful movement characterized by positive \"buzz\" and forward-looking optimism. This study contributes to the existing literature on ESs, the definition of ESs and the self-understanding of ES actors by showing how the collective identity of the ESs may also help their members to navigate and survive in the uncertain world of work that places increasing responsibility on the individual regarding both success and failure (see e.g. Laalo and Heinonen, 2016; Siivonen and Brunila, 2014). This strong collective identity and sense of commitment to doing things together may also mitigate the pressures of being entrepreneurial and taking charge of one's own life. In this respect, the ES may act as a buffer in the transition from student life filled with parties and beer to more serious working life. As such, the understanding of ESs should not be limited to the functional roles of inspiring students to consider entrepreneurship as a career and fostering an entrepreneurial mindset by offering them, for example, opportunities to build networks or gain insights from experienced entrepreneurs (Farny and Kyro, 2015). In the zeitgeist of technological innovations disrupting organizations and making it impossible to envision the world of work of even the near future, engagement in collective positive thinking may also support the ES members as a form of self-care.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to critically investigate how collective identity is constructed and regulated by board members and other active members of student entrepreneurship societies (ESs).\nDesign/methodology/approach: A discursive analysis focusing on collective identity construction and regulation based on focus group discussions in two student-led Finnish ESs affiliated with higher education institutions (HEIs).\nFindings: ES members construct and regulate collective entrepreneurial identity based on a shared narrative of entrepreneurship and the affective state of positive energy and thinking, i.e. \"positive buzz.\" Being entrepreneurial was constructed as having the right kind of mentality to cope with uncertain and rapidly changing working life and to break free of old moulds of working. The shared narrative was coherent, and critical reflection on the values or risks of entrepreneurship was mainly silenced.\nResearch limitations/implications: As ESs are a relatively new phenomenon future research could explore ESs in different cultural and regional contexts and compare the identity construction and regulation of ES student members and non-members.\nPractical implications: Strong collective identity and sense of commitment to doing things together may mitigate the pressures of being entrepreneurial and taking charge of one's life.\nSocial implications: Educational practice and research could benefit from better understanding of the informal context in which entrepreneurship education takes place.\nOriginality/value: The paper contributes to the relatively new research stream on ESs as student-led entrepreneurial organizations in HEIs. The research demonstrates how ES members participate in constructing a collective and coherent identity that is regulated by shared values and a positive state of mind. This study extends the understanding of ESs from the functional perspective to viewing them as a social community. It contributes to the definition of ESs and the self-understanding of ES actors.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Future chocolate market growth in four EU countries
|
[
"Chocolate",
"Organic foods",
"Fair trade",
"Consumer behaviour",
"Economic growth"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nChocolate market: recent changes and new concerns: Chocolate market growth\nResearch background and objectives: Information available on the chocolate sector in the four countries suggests that the future of the chocolate market will be characterised by an increased diffusion of chocolate products sold through general retailers and the internet, greater sales increase of organic and fair trade (for simplicity here considered as one - O and/or FT) chocolate products compared to conventional and an increase of importance of quality chocolate products. In addition, more than for conventional chocolate, consumers of O and/or FT chocolate will pay greater attention to concerns towards health, the environment and the living conditions of cocoa growers in developing countries.Given such background information and because of the difficulty in finding exhaustive information on future events, this research intent is to find out the most reliable expert opinions on what will be the future growth of these market sectors and their main drivers in 2015 for the four most important chocolate consuming countries in the EU, so to compare them with existing information in an attempt to provide useful indications for the future of the sector.\nMethodology: The Delphi method\nSelection of experts: A Delphi study does not depend on a statistical sample that attempts to be representative of any population. It is a group decision mechanism requiring qualified experts who have deep understanding of the issues (Okoli and Pawlowski, 2004).When choosing the panel of experts it was kept in mind that \"the statements which comprise the elements of a Delphi exercise inevitably reflect the cultural attitudes, subjective bias, and knowledge of those who formulate them\" (Linstone and Turoff, 1975) and that \"the researcher cannot control or take complete account of the participants' values and assumptions, but his aim should be to mix up opinions from different experts so to balance them\" (Hoghton et al., 1971).Experts selected belong to industry, research institutions and consultancies of the conventional, organic and fair trade cocoa/chocolate world and they come from the four countries under study. Respondents were few in both rounds, but belonged to some of the most important companies and organisations in the cocoa/chocolate world, which together represent more than 20 per cent of the world confectionery market sales value (Rogers, 2006). Moreover, their market shares range between 23 per cent and 56 per cent of the total chocolate market in the four countries under study (Euromonitor International, 2006a,b,c,d).In total 27 experts responded to round I; of these, five belong to the fair trade sector, four to the organic and 18 to the conventional. Seventeen experts out of the 27 participated in round II, ten of whom belong to the conventional sector, two to the fair trade and five to the organic.Although the quality of the experts was quite high, they were limited in number and the study results cannot be generalised; however, this study might be considered a pilot exercise for further research in the field and an important indication of future market trends.Data analysis\nRound I results: Question 1 (Annual growth rate up to 2015)\nRound II results: Question 1 (Annual growth rate up to 2015)\nFurther analysis: To discover which factors will define chocolate market growth in both sectors in the future \"Spearman's r coefficients\" were calculated for round I. They revealed interesting correlations, significant either at the 5 per cent or 1 per cent significance level, between some market variables and the future market growths in both sectors. These correlations were afterwards confirmed by regression models (in the Appendix, a correlation matrix and the results of a regression model are given as an example), where market growth was the dependent variable y and the other variables (x) were the explanatory ones:* Conventional growth was found correlated with consumers (r=+0.54), general retailers (r=+0.48) and price (r=-0.43). Regressions with two and one of these explanatory variables at a time were significant confirming these correlations.* O and/or FT growth showed correlations with general retailers (r=+0.57), NGO's (r=+0.51) and outdoor promotion (r=+0.48). Simple regressions with one explanatory variable confirmed these correlations.Despite the small number of respondents in round II, O and/or FT growth was found positively correlated to environmental sustainability concerns (r=+0.57) confirming the importance of the environment to O and/or FT future consumers.\nConclusions: Growth in both sectors will be driven by consumers and chocolate manufacturers, not by \"political\" forces (EU, WTO and Governments). Nevertheless NGOs are expected to have a higher impact on O and/or FT chocolate market growth, also revealed by a positive correlation, since most respondents agreed that \"the role of NGOs is to raise consumer awareness of the living conditions of cocoa producers, encouraging the consumption of O and/or FT chocolate products\".For both sectors, there will be more information available to consumers on chocolate products, but it is only expected to have a significant stronger influence on O and/or FT purchasers' choice. Such information will most probably come voluntarily from chocolate manufacturers, since policy intervention is expected to remain constant in both sectors.Chocolate consumers are changing and the behaviour of O and/or FT purchasers is different to that of conventional; therefore manufacturers and retailers should devise their strategies for the two sectors around two different sets of customer:* In the conventional sector companies should consider that products with a good quality/price ratio will be preferred by consumers. Companies should communicate quality in the marketing of their products and avoid multi-purchase discounting which can result in a perceived lower quality, such has happened in the frozen food market (e.g. Hibernia foods with Sara Lee). Also, since there is an expected large increase in sales volume through supermarkets (general retailers), chocolate companies should look to innovate in supermarket promotion to catch the eye of the consumer. Moreover, companies are expected to increase their promotion through the internet, which is expected to be the most used channel.* Price is expected to have the smallest increase in influence on O and/or FT consumers than the other product attributes (differently from literature, where it was considered one of the factors most influencing chocolate consumers) because \"consumers are already willing to pay more for O and/or FT products than for conventional ones\". However, as already seen in literature for this sector, quality is expected to increase in influence as well as product availability, which will boost thanks to the forecasted raise of O and/or FT chocolate products in supermarkets/hypermarkets. Differently from conventional, O and/or FT consumers are expected to be more ethical, health and environmentally concerned and more influenced by information availability and label content. Manufacturers attention should be addressed towards promotion channels like internet and word of mouth; albeit outdoor showed a positive correlation and a significant regression with O and/or FT market growth, too. Another relevant product factor is expected to be brand name, which experts believe will have higher influence on O and/or FT consumers, thus suggesting a future presence of big companies and big names just like in the conventional sector.Another important finding is that the only factor considered unimportant for growth in both sectors is direct sales (e.g. internet), suggesting that, in the future the internet will increase in usage as a promotion channel, but will not have the same importance as a distribution one.Results generally agree with literature and they suggest that retailers should consider that the more easily accessible the promotion (internet) and the distribution channel (e.g. supermarkets and hypermarkets) will be, the better it will be for attracting chocolate consumers. Besides, manufacturers should keep in mind that quality is considered by all chocolate consumers to be the most important factor in determining a purchase of a chocolate product, again, in line with the trend found in literature (regarding consumers preferences and manufacturers orientation towards high quality, dark and high cocoa content chocolate products); this suggests that manufacturers should continue to differentiate their products in order to include premium and added value products in their ranges.In addition, for the O and/or FT sector results suggest that manufacturers should pay greater attention also to other factors consumers consider important when buying a chocolate product: health, care for the environment and for the economic concerns surrounding cocoa production. As a consequence, manufacturers of O and/or FT chocolate should consider that information availability and labels are likely to be important factors in the future, as consumers become increasingly aware and interested in cocoa producers conditions in developing countries (product origin) as well as in health concerns (e.g. nutritional values, low-sugar or low-fat indication). Moreover, not only for the conventional sector, but also for the O and/or FT it will be important to focus on the brand.The survey reveals also other important findings about future growth of the chocolate market:* Most actors, product attributes and marketing mix elements are expected to have higher impacts on the O and/or FT sector than the conventional one; this is mostly due to the fact that the conventional sector is already mature while the O and/or FT is still relatively \"young\".* Conventional chocolate in France and Italy is going to grow less than expected from literature, whereas it is expected to grow more in Germany and the UK.* For all four countries O and/or FT chocolate is expected to grow faster than both the forecasted organic food market as a whole (2003-2007) and conventional chocolate.When considering these results, it should be kept in mind that, growth rates are relative to the size of each sector in the market; organic food is a small part of the whole food market and fair trade is even smaller.As a final remark, the limited panel size does not allow the findings to be conclusive. However, such results could be used as guidelines for future research in this area, which may benefit from a higher number of experts. As a matter of fact, since the majority of experts came from the conventional sector, more respondents from the organic and fair trade sectors would allow them to be analysed separately. In addition, more respondents would allow deeper statistical analysis such as the ordered probit models, which can be used to calculate dependent variables with more than two alternatives and would also give a more definite picture on a country by country basis.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to gain better insights into the conventional and organic/fair trade (O and/or FT) future chocolate market in four EU countries: Italy, the UK, France and Germany.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Delphi method was used to investigate several characteristics, actors and marketing mix components which will drive the conventional and organic/fair trade chocolate market in the future by presenting two rounds of questionnaires to experts of the chocolate market.\nFindings: - The findings identify the most influential actors, product attributes, promotion and distribution channels and characteristics of the chocolate market in both sectors. They reveal that they will have more of a positive effect on the O and/or FT sector than on the conventional one, since the first will grow faster than the second.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Despite low expert participation, participants belong to some of the most important companies/organisations in the sector in terms of market share.\nPractical implications: - The paper has important implications for stakeholders in the cocoa-chocolate chain in terms of developing their business strategies in the future; they will need to concentrate upon consumer preferences and marketing mix elements which will have more appeal.\nOriginality/value: - The value of the paper lies in joining together opinions of experts coming from different chain levels (industry, research and consultancy) in an attempt to forecast the chocolate market characteristics and the consumer behaviour of the future.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Information supply beyond text: non-textual information at the German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB) - challenges and planning
|
[
"Academic libraries",
"Data handling",
"Indexing",
"National libraries",
"Germany"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Scientific knowledge is becoming more complex and data-intensive. In most cases, knowledge published through scientific literature often is the last step in a process originating with research data. In its 2007 report Cyberinfrastructure Vision for 21st Century Discovery the National Science Foundation remarks:Science and engineering research and education have become increasingly data-intensive as a result of the proliferation of digital technologies, instrumentation, and pervasive networks through which data are collected, generated, shared and analyzed. Worldwide, scientists and engineers are producing, accessing, analyzing, integrating and storing terabytes of digital data daily through experimentation, observation and simulation. Moreover, the dynamic integration of data generated through observation and simulation is enabling the development of new scientific methods that adapt intelligently to evolving conditions to reveal new understanding (NSF, 2007).Because of the impact of information technology science is changing. Experimental, theoretical, and computational science are all being affected by the data deluge. In the recently published The Fourth Paradigm: Data-intensive Scientific Discovery (Hey et al., 2009), the shift of science paradigms towards eScience is depicted as follows (see Figure 1).From the perspective of libraries, new aspects concerning scientific information are identified as well:Scientific communication, including peer review, is also undergoing fundamental changes. Public digital libraries are taking over the role of holding publications from conventional libraries - because of the expense, the need for timeliness, and the need to keep experimental data and documents about the data together (Hey et al., 2009).As scientific information is more than a published article or a book, libraries have also to open their catalogues to the underlying data. Due to the increasing amount of scientific data, access through a library catalogue no longer implies storage of the content, but knowing where to persistently find it. This means providing the same infrastructure for both articles/books and for different kinds of non-textual content, including datasets (see Figure 2).\n2. Dataset access through TIB's library portal GetInfo: examples: TIB is the German National Library for all areas of engineering as well as architecture, chemistry, information technology, mathematics and physics. It ranks as one of the world's largest specialist libraries, and one of the most efficient document suppliers in its subject areas. GetInfo, a portal for science and technology developed by TIB, bundles access to leading subject databases, publishing house offerings and library catalogues with integrated full text delivery. In doing this GetInfo offers a worldwide unrivalled supply of technical and natural scientific information. At present GetInfo is the only major library portal in Europe to include scientific datasets. The aim is to include all sorts of non-textual information into GetInfo. The following two examples show data already included:1. Library catalogues are classical sources for information, (Inger and Gardner, 2008). When querying for a certain topic, users might not be interested in only receiving all relevant publications as a result, but also additional datasets collected by the corresponding researchers. The assignment of persistent identifiers allows this research data to become directly accessible through library catalogues. Nowadays a selection of more than 1,500 datasets that are part of scientific publications are directly accessible through GetInfo and the German Common Library Network (GBV), (Brase, 2004). Figure 3 shows a drilling core dataset as the result of a query. When the persistent identifier of the dataset is resolved, the user does not directly download megabytes of data but is linked to a preview page where the data center provides metadata and download links to different parts of the data as shown in Figure 4. This workflow is similar to the use of DOI names in scholarly journals, where the resolution of a DOI name of an article directs you to a publisher's page, including the metadata of the article.2. Another example of non-textual content in GetInfo can be seen in Figure 5, where a geological map is displayed as a search result. Again the resolving of the identifier leads towards the preview provided by the specific data center (Figure 6) that includes the relevant information to this scientific object and displays the download link to the map (Figure 7).Within the field of non-textual documents, the number of newly generated multimedia content increases year by year. For instance, the use of 3D models is becoming more and more important in engineers' practice. Soon, 3D models will also be searchable in GetInfo, choosing PROBADO3D (see sections 3 and 4 below) as a database for 3D models, (Blumel, 2009) within the cluster \"External Sources\" (see Figure 8).\n3. Content-based indexing - a component for non textual data: Non-textual documents normally do not carry any describing data if they are not catalogued in a database beforehand. Nowadays, in digital libraries, non-textual documents are indexed and accessed based on textual metadata. A survey of architects carried out by TIB has shown that about 50 per cent of them most likely use keywords when searching for 3D data - instead of, for example, using visual query interfaces. Therefore the most crucial issue is to extract the content from the data. This kind of metadata is expensive to obtain, and in many cases, the content cannot be described completely and be free of ambiguities. Authors are seldom motivated to extend their documents with metadata, even in the presence of suitable tools. It is also nearly impossible to interpret all existing data manually.A goal of TIB being engaged within the ongoing cooperative German digital library project PROBADO is to overcome these limitations and minimize the manual cataloguing work by developing content-based access methods and to generate automatically the appropriate metadata for non-textual documents wherever possible. PROBADO has been funded by the German Research Foundation and is designed to support multimedia objects of different domains. Rather than being a pure research project, it has a special focus to achieve long-term usage of the developed systems and workflows at the cooperating libraries (Blumel et al., 2008) (see Figure 9).The currently supported content-based indexing modules for 3D models either refer to the global shape, (Johnson, 1997) allowing fast retrieval of even large numbers of models, which is crucial in a query-by-example scenario; or to the other concept, Room Connectivity Graphs, is especially tailored to models from the architectural domain and designed for characterizing the structure of buildings, (Wessel et al., 2008). Rooms are represented by vertices, connections like doors, windows, stairs, etc. are represented by edges (Figure 10). The graph can be enriched by semantic attributes such as the dimension of rooms or the type of the connection.\n4. Visual query interfaces - a component for non-textual data: Design and usability of the search interface are a crucial aspect for the acceptance of a service for multimedia files. The PROBADO user interfaces for searching 3D models, browsing and representation, support searching in the textual metadata (e.g. title, description, etc.), browsing using different filters (category, contributor, etc.), uploading query models (query-by-example), constructing room connectivity query graphs and interactive sketching of 3D models (see Figure 11). Different representations allow the user to interactively explore the result sets, e.g. use one result as a new query object or view a 3D preview, (Berndt et al., 2009).Another TIB project for visual search within non-textual data and displaying results \"Visualisation of scientific data\" is starting in, 2010 (see Figure 12). A key issue is to find solutions that adapt representation and searchability of raw research data in GetInfo to new procedures of science communication. Thus a higher transparency and an extended understanding for such information will be reached. By lowering the threshold for use and reproduction of this data, the group of users can be extended. Data have to be found, before they can be used and analyzed.\n5. Persistent identification - a component for non-textual data: Data integration with text is an important aspect of scientific collaboration. It allows verification of scientific results and joint research activities on various aspects of the same problem. Only a very small proportion of the original data are published in conventional scientific journals. Existing policies on data archiving notwithstanding, in today's practice data are primarily stored in private files, not in secure institutional repositories, and effectively are lost, (Lawrence et al., 2001). This lack of access to scientific data is an obstacle to international research. It causes unnecessary duplication of research efforts, and the verification of results becomes difficult, if not impossible, (Dittert et al., 2001). Large amounts of research funds are spent every year to re-create already existing data, (Arzberger et al., 2004)Encouragingly the \"Brussels declaration on STM publishing\" (www.stm-assoc.org/public_affairs_brussels_declaration.php) focuses on dataset identification as a key element for allowing citation and long term integration of datasets into text as well as supporting a variety of data management activities. It would be an incentive to the author if a data publication had the rank of a citeable publication, adding to their reputation and ranking among their peers.TIB developed and promotes the use of Digital Object Identifiers (DOI) for datasets. A DOI is used to cite and link to electronic resources (text as well as research data and other types of content). The DOI System differs from other reference systems commonly used on the internet, such as the URL, since it is permanently linked to the object itself, not just to the place in which the object is located. As a major advantage the use of the DOI system for registration permits the scientists and the publishers to use the same syntax and technical infrastructure for the referencing of datasets that are already established for the referencing of articles. The DOI system offers persistent links as stable references to scientific content and an easy way to connect the article with the underlying data. For example:The dataset:G.Yancheva, N.R. Nowaczyk et al. (2007)Rock magnetism and X-ray fluorescence spectrometry analyses on sediment cores of the Lake Huguang Maar, Southeast China, PANGAEAdoi:10.1594/PANGAEA.587840Is a supplement to the article:G. Ycheva, N.R. Nowaczyk et al. (2007)Influence of the intertropical convergence zone on the East Asian monsoonNature 445, 74-77doi:10.1038/nature05431Since 2005, TIB has been an official DOI Registration Agency with a focus on the registration of research data. The role of TIB is that of the actual DOI registration and the storage of the relevant metadata of the dataset. The research data themselves are not stored at TIB. The registration always takes place in cooperation with data centers or other trustworthy institutions that are responsible for quality assurance, storage and accessibility of the research data and the creation of metadata. In cooperation with several World Data Centers, that have been created to archive and distribute data collected from various scientific disciplines, over 600,000 datasets have been registered by TIB with DOIs as persistent identifiers.\n6. DataCite: Access to research data is nowadays defined as part of the national responsibilities and in recent years most national science organisations have addressed the need to increase the awareness of, and the accessibility to, research data.Nevertheless science itself is international; scientists are involved in global unions and projects, they share their scientific information with colleagues all over the world, they use national as well as foreign information providers.When facing the challenge of increasing access to research data, a possible approach should be global cooperation for data access via national representatives:* a global cooperation, because scientist work globally, scientific data are created and accessed globally.* with national representatives, because most scientists are embedded in their national funding structures and research organisations.The key point of this approach is the establishment of a Global DOI Registration agency for scientific content that will offer to all researchers dataset registration and cataloguing services. DataCite was officially launched on 1 December 2009 in London and has the following information institutions and libraries as members:* German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB);* Australian National Data Service (ANDS);* California Digital Library, USA;* Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI);* German National Library of Medicine (ZB MED);* GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences;* Library of the ETH Zurich, Switzerland;* Library of TU Delft, The Netherlands;* L'Institut de l'Information Scientifique et Technique (INIST), France;* Purdue University, USA;* Technical Information Center of Denmark; and* The British Library.Further countries and organisations are encouraged to join the partnership.The agency will take global leadership for promoting the use of persistent identifiers for datasets, to satisfy the needs of scientists. It will, through its members, establish and promote common methods, best practices, and guidance. The organisations will work independently with data centres and other holders of research data sets in their own domains. From January 2010 on, DataCite officially took the place of the TIB DOI-Registration Agency (see Figure 13). Local Data centers will cooperate with DataCite through the member institutions in their country thus providing a direct local service in a global structure. As science is global with individual researchers working and publishing, DataCite is global with individual local partners to offer services and advice directly where they are needed by the scientists.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to describe the work being done at The German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB) to make non-textual information, for example three dimensional objects, more easily accessible. The goal is to create workflows and develop tools that allow academic libraries to treat this data in the same way as textual documents within the library processing chain. This implies content-based indexing and the offering of new kinds of interfaces for searching and displaying results.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The work of TIB on non textual information is described as well as DataCite and its launch in December 2009.\nFindings: - That the launch of Datacite ensures that this agency will take global leadership for promoting the use of persistent identifiers for datasets, to satisfy the needs of scientists. It will, through its members, establish and promote common methods, best practices, and guidance.\nPractical implications: - The work of TIB and the launch of Datacite will ensure that non textual data will become more easily available to researchers.\nOriginality/value: - The value of this work has been underlined recently with the controversy over the accessibility of climate change data.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Global consciousness and pillars of sustainable development: A study on self-perceptions of the first-year university students
|
[
"Asia-Pacific",
"Sustainability curriculum",
"Eschatological perspective",
"Global higher education",
"Sustainability consciousness",
"Sustainable development model"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: A concept of sustainable development (SD) and its three pillars - economic growth, social inclusion and environmental balance - have been serving as a guiding, grounding and unifying framework for the sustainability movement in higher education (HE) since the late 1980s. Proposed by the United Nations in 1987 (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987), the three-pillared model not only aligns campus sustainability-related policies, strategies and practices with global, national and local development but also applies the SD model across disciplines in university classrooms, aiming to build the awareness of sustainability-minded citizens. Universities generally acknowledge the SD concept as its guiding framework for campus sustainability and practically adapt its three-pillared frame to diverse cultural, political, economic and social contexts outside campus walls. By doing so, the sustainability movement challenges the widely celebrated ideology of development[1] (National Association of Scholars, 2015). On the other hand, the UN-based model has not been giving HE a role of major importance in the process of SD. Those writing about the SD model in HE tend to focus on gaps and challenges of sustainability implementation process on campus, but not on the important role education might play in fostering sustainability-conscious actions, attitudes and values of university students. Sustainability researchers, on their part, have also stopped short of acknowledging HE, and education in general, as a significant agent of SD (Savelyeva et al., 2015).\n2. Related research on sustainability consciousness: Current research discourses on issues related to sustainability consciousness (Gennore, 2009; Jensen, 2002; Kegan, 2000; Maiteny, 2002; O'Donoghue and Lotz-Sisitka, 2002; Rosenthal, 2009; Scott, 2002; Taylor, 1989) tend to focus on:\n3. Advances of sustainability education in Hong Kong: Until recently, local HE institutions followed the international trend of discipline-specific integration of sustainability into science and engineering fields of study (Rusenko, 2010; Vaughter et al., 2013). Recent educational and curricular reforms (Education and Manpower Bureau, 2005; EDB and CDC, 2009) that merged the city's post-colonial educational structure with the Chinese educational schema allowed to break this trend and place sustainability within liberal studies as one of the core aspects of globalization.\n4. Research scope: 4.1 Research design\n5. Results: 5.1 Students' perceptions of the effect of liberal studies program on their sustainability knowledge\n6. Discussion: The quantitative results revealed an increase in the self-perceived knowledge and behavioral aspects of the sustainability consciousness of Hong Kong students. These point at the increase in students' knowledge-attitude-behavior axis due to their immersion in compulsory sustainability education modules within liberal studies programs in secondary through HE. At the same time, students' self-reported engagement in sustainability-related civic, campus or action groups remained low.\n7. Conclusion: Since the inception of sustainability education in the late 1970s, HE institutions are among the frontline agents that advance the underlying UN policy model of SD in research, curricula and community practices. Universities acknowledge the model as their guiding framework and, by implementing it in the diverse cultural, political, social and economic contexts, challenge the overall idea of development. The study pointed to the benefits of a possible shift in research approaches - from the simplistic analysis of students' sustainability behavior and attitudes to a more contextual investigation of their sustainability consciousness. The latter allowed the greater inside into future- and action-oriented mindsets of the students, which were filled with the rhetoric of hope, possibility and harmonization of social contests; openness to alternatives; and a commitment to the better future, much in line with the emerging discussions about eschatological imagination and social imagery. Both quantitative and qualitative results suggest that sustainability education, implemented as part of the formal compulsory liberal studies curriculum in a continuous (secondary to high education levels) manner, increases students' knowledge-attitude-behavior axis and fosters their sustainability consciousness through a process of transformative learning and identity building.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to provide data on the self-perceived state of sustainability consciousness of first-year Hong Kong students.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Within a mixed-method research design framework, the authors conducted 787 questionnaires and collected 989 reflective narratives of first-year students of a university in Hong Kong, who were enrolled in the General Education course.\nFindings: Attributed to students' immersion in compulsory sustainability education modules within liberal studies programs in secondary through higher education (HE), the quantitative results revealed an increase in the self-perceived knowledge and behavioral aspects of sustainability consciousness of Hong Kong students and their low engagement in sustainability-related civic, campus or action groups. However, qualitative results revealed three aspects of the students' sustainability consciousness: intentionality to make a difference; engagement with complex questions about identity, society and nature; and eschatological perspectives, which included imaginative, future-oriented and action-oriented approaches to critical reflection, supported by the rhetoric of hope, promises and commitment for better future.\nOriginality/value: The study provides insights into the challenge of implementation of the United Nations-based sustainable development model in the Hong Kong educational system through the formal liberal studies curriculum. It advances the field by constructing a momentum for conceptual changes in sustainability education research toward design of the non-linear and culturally sensitive frameworks for sustainability implementation in HE. This allows to utilize universities' unique capacities for fostering students' sustainability consciousness in a continuous and systemic way.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Stakeholders
'
expectations of mobile payment in retail: lessons from Sweden
|
[
"Retail",
"Consumer expectations",
"Merchant adoption",
"Mobile payments",
"Organizational adoption",
"Stakeholders’ expectations"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The level of mobile phone penetration in Europe is very high, and an average consumer has 1.2-1.3 mobile subscriptions (Ericsson, 2014). The rate of smartphone penetration continues to grow. The leaders are Norway, Sweden, the UK, and the Netherlands where the level of smartphone penetration is \"above or well above 60 percent\" (Ericsson, 2014, p. 2). As a consequence, the use of mobile services is constantly increasing. Specifically, consulting company Capgemini and The Royal Bank of Scotland forecast a significant growth for mobile payment services. The predicted global annual growth in the number of mobile payment transactions is expected to reach 60.8 per cent through 2015 (a total 47 billion transactions) (Capgemini and RBS, 2014).\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1. Mobile payments\n3. Conceptualisation of stakeholders' expectations: We have developed a conceptual framework based on a literature review analysis. The main dimensions are stakeholders and expectations.\n4. Methodology: 4.1. Methodological choices\n5. Research findings: In the Swedish market, there are three services that are suitable for POS payments: SEQR provided by Seamless, Bart provided by Swedbank, and Payair provided by Payair. Currently, many retail shops and restaurants have deployed SEQR and Bart services. We have excluded Payair from the current research because it has mainly been used in online shops and in printed advertisements.\n6. Discussion and conclusions: We have used the example of two services, Bart and SEQR, to illustrate the expectations of different stakeholders involved in mobile payment services in the Swedish retail industry. In order to be adopted, mobile payment services need to meet expectations of multiple stakeholders. These expectations represent a complex set of factors where all of the factors impact at the same time.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the reasons behind the slow adoption of mobile payment services. The expectations of the main groups of stakeholders - the mobile service providers, the retailers, and the consumers - of the service in the retail industry in Sweden are examined.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors use a qualitative case study of stakeholders' expectations. The conceptual research framework is based on the theory of diffusion of innovations, the technology adoption model, and network externalities. The proposed framework was tested and validated by empirical findings.\nFindings: One of the key findings of the research highlights that acceptance of a mobile payment service depends on the ability of mobile payment providers to build networks of both retailers and consumers simultaneously. The service will attract these stakeholders if it meets their expectations in the best possible way. Another finding is that mobile payment services do not meet expectations on an enhanced purchasing process. This is the area for future service improvement.\nResearch limitations/implications: The main limitation of this study is that only a few retailers were contacted.\nPractical implications: First of all, criteria from the developed research framework can be used as a guide for mobile payment service development. Second, when developing and providing a mobile payment service, mobile payment providers need to have a good understanding of the needs and expectations of retailers and consumers.\nOriginality/value: Stakeholders' expectations have not been a focus for research in previous studies. This is a new research object.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
E-books: how to make them work: a seminar organised by the Multimedia Information and Technology Group (North West) on 10 November 2004 at Liverpool John Moores University
|
[
"Electronic books",
"Higher education"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: This seminar concentrated on the developments in e-books within higher education and the lead taken by this sector in the development of e-book practice.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Aims to provide a review of the seminar which concentrated on the developments in e-books within higher education and the lead taken by this sector in the development of e-book practice.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The article is based on the proceedings of the seminar.\nFindings: - Concludes that the future challenges for e-books include the need to find ways of getting users to choose library resources before the web; the need for libraries to improve awareness of new e-resources; and the need to work closely with academics to embed e-books in VLEs.\nOriginality/value: - Provides some useful insights into the development of e-books within the higher education community.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
I create, you create, we all create - for whom?
|
[
"Brand engagement",
"Social media",
"Online marketing",
"Brand co-creation",
"Celebrity endorsement"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In today's technologically advanced marketplace, consumers are gaining power with their ability to shape a brand. This consumer power results in the phenomena of co-creation. Co-creation is the process where more than one party systematically joins forces to interact, learn and share information to create value (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004; Vargo and Lusch, 2004).\nLiterature background: Co-creation\nStudy 1: The main objective of this study is to examine the effect that a prompted co-creation post from a brand has on brand commitment, purchase intention and co-creation. The second goal of this study is to investigate the effect of a prompted brand co-creation post vs a prompted celebrity co-creation post on brand commitment, purchase intention and co-creation. For this study, a fictitious brand and celebrity were used as the target stimuli to avoid confounds with prior attitudes and knowledge.\nAnalysis and results: Manipulation check\nStudy 2: Study 2 has several objectives. First, it aims to examine and replicate the outcomes of Study 1 through the use of a real brand and a real celebrity. Second, the study investigates the effect of a prompted co-creation post from a brand on co-creation (H1), brand commitment (H2) and purchase intention (H3). Third, brand vs celebrity posts are once again examined on the effects of co-creation (H4), brand commitment (H5) and purchase intention (H6).\nAnalysis and results: Manipulation check\nGeneral discussion: These results extend the current knowledge for attribution theory (Heider, 1958; Settle et al., 1971; Weiner, 1980), source credibility (Kwon et al., 2015; Ohanian, 1990) and celebrity endorsement (Dwivedi et al., 2015; Halonen-Knight and Hurmerinta, 2010; McCracken, 1986, 1988, 1989). Respondents appear to attribute the prompted co-creation message from a celebrity as an advertisement, and are less committed to the brand and have lower purchase intentions as a result. Consumers are likely aware that the celebrity endorser is being paid for their message about the brand which could diminish the consumers' acceptance of the message (McCracken, 1988). These findings further support attachment theory, as consumers become attached to these brands, it appears the consumer prefers to interact directly with the brand rather than engage with a celebrity endorser. Furthermore, this result answers the call that brand managers should be concerned with creating connections with consumers (Malar et al., 2011; Mende et al., 2013; Reibstein et al., 2009).\nTheoretical and practical implications: The results of this study bring the co-creation literature into a new area of research. Extending attachment theory and attribution theory into co-creation creates numerous opportunities to further grow the knowledge of the co-creation phenomena. The findings provide insight into the power that a prompted co-creation message can have on a consumer, either from a brand or celebrity endorser source.\nLimitations and future research: While the present study focused on developing a sound experimental design, some limitations are nevertheless present. First, the study focused exclusively on millennial consumers. While this group now represents over one quarter of the US population (US Census Bureau, 2015), of which some 90 per cent are engaged in social media activities (Duggan et al., 2014), testing the effects of co-creation messages on a more generalizable sample is warranted. Next, the survey takes place in an online social media setting. With the power of social media and e-commerce, this channel is certainly relevant and important to study. However, extending the study to an offline setting could possibly yield different results. Consumers have different personas in their virtual and real life, and exploring these differences could add to the current co-creation literature. Third, respondents were asked to rate their brand commitment and purchase intention before and after the presentation of the social media scenario. This method could limit the findings of the study. Therefore, future research should seek to only measure the constructs after the manipulation is shown. Fourth, the scenario presented for the Polo Ralph Lauren may potentially confuse respondents with the phrase: Polo Ralph Lauren has the latest styles at reasonable prices.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This research aims to propose that prompted co-creation from a brand to a consumer will increase the value of the consumer to the brand through an increase in brand commitment and purchase intention. Additionally, the study compares the differences of a social media post made by a brand and a social media post made by a celebrity who is endorsing the brand.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Two studies were developed. First, a 2 x 2 between-subjects' experimental design analyzes the effects of prompted and non-prompted co-creation posts by a fictitious brand and celebrity. Study 2 looks to confirm the results of Study 1 using a 2 x 2 between-subjects' experimental design with a real brand and celebrity for the social media post. Co-creation, brand commitment and purchase intention are the dependent variables in both studies.\nFindings: The studies reveal that a prompted co-creation post - which is a post explicitly asking for consumer feedback - from a brand can increase brand commitment and purchase intention from consumers. Also, the study reveals that, when compared to a celebrity-endorsed message, a branded message shows an increase in brand commitment and purchase intention. The results support the general notion of attribution theory.\nResearch limitations/implications: First, the study focused exclusively on millennial consumers. While this group has significant purchasing power, testing the effects of co-creation messages on a more generalizable sample is warranted. Next, the survey takes place in an online social media setting. With the power of social media and e-commerce, this channel is certainly important to study.\nPractical implications: The results of this study bring the co-creation literature into a new area of research. Extending attachment theory and attribution theory into co-creation creates numerous opportunities to further grow the knowledge of the co-creation phenomena. The findings provide insight into the power that a prompted co-creation message can have on a consumer, either from a brand or celebrity endorser source. Practitioners can place a value on prompted and non-prompted co-creation messages originating with a brand. In addition, the research will give practitioners insight into how messages of co-creation are received by millennial consumers.\nOriginality/value: This research is the first of its kind for co-creation literature. No research to date examines the effect that a brand or celebrity-endorsed co-creation prompt has on the behavior of millennial consumers. Very little, if any, empirical research has been conducted on the co-creation of brand.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Strategizing in English hospitals: accounting, practical coping and strategic intent
|
[
"Strategizing",
"Strategy",
"NHS",
"Episode",
"Strategic intent",
"Pathway",
"Pluralism",
"Healthcare"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: A traditional definition of strategy is \"the determination of the long-term goals and objectives of an enterprise, and the adoption of courses of action and the allocation of resources necessary for carrying out these goals\" (Chandler, 1962, p. 13). This definition highlights two broad aspects of strategy: first, the formulation of organisational strategy and second, the resource allocations required to implement the strategy. Early accounting and strategy research addressed the latter, focussing on the role of accounting in how strategy is implemented and finding optimal ways of allocating resources to achieve implementation. Such research treated strategy as fairly stable and discrete, offering insight into how accounting achieved pre-determined strategic objectives, thus reducing accounting to an \"output\" of strategy, neglecting its transformative and constitutive powers (Boedker, 2010).\n2. Conceptual background: strategizing as episodic, agential, practical coping: This section delineates our theoretical framework, which encompasses strategizing practices, episodes and agency. Within this work we focus on strategizing agents who, generally, are not deemed strategists and whose work may not, prima facie, appear as strategic. Here, strategizing is treated as episodic, non-deliberate yet purposive practical coping.\n3. Research background: Traditionally, NHS hospitals in England operated with global budgets and limited accounting and costing systems. While the activities and resource allocation decisions of clinicians were central to financial performance, most clinicians were unaware of and uninterested in such financial consequences. As constraints on resources became more apparent in the 1970s and 1980s, governments introduced policies designed to promote more active clinical resource management (Webb and Wistow, 1982). But when clinicians strategized for resources, they favoured their own Directorates over others, and often saw overspending as an indicator of the need for more funding rather than a cause of concern (cf. Brunsson, 2000).\n4. Methodology: The empirical data for this paper were gathered as part of a larger research project, funded by the National Institute for Health Research. We investigated how Clinical Directors used accounting at four case studies of English NHS hospitals. This paper draws on qualitative data from three of these case studies, anonymized as Alpha, Beta and Gamma.\n5. Clinical directors' strategizing with accounting in English hospitals: This section presents three narratives which explore how accounting is implicated in the unfolding of strategizing.\n6. Strategizing: accounting, practical coping and strategic intent in English hospitals: The three narratives trace strategizing pathways as the Clinical Directors practically coped with their Directorates' financial problems identifying when, through an engagement with accounting, strategic intent becomes evident on a pathway. Our contribution is to identify how agents may realise their immanent strategizing through their engagement with accounting practices.\n7. Concluding comments: This paper investigates accounting in the unfolding of strategizing in pluralistic organisations. To date, there has been scant empirical research into the interplay between pluralism, accounting and strategizing. Also, within the work on strategizing, there is little clarity on when practical coping takes on an explicit strategic direction. We show how accounting can begin in practical coping but may also offer a number-based bridge into overt strategic intent. Strategizing is particularly prevalent in pluralistic settings which embed diffuse power. Dwelling in a milieu - such as a profit centre - can lead agents to mobilise accounting practices in pursuit of localised strategies, which may deviate from organizational objectives. The nexus of pluralism, strategizing and accounting offers rich opportunities for observing agents' transition from practical coping to explicit strategic intent within their bounded localities.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the intricate ways in which accounting is implicated in the unfolding of strategizing in a pluralistic setting. The authors treat strategizing as a practical coping mechanism which begins in response to a problem and unfolds over time into an episode. This approach enables the authors to explore strategizing pathways and the ways they can mobilise accounting to advance from practical coping to explicit strategic intent.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with Clinical Directors, Business Managers and Finance personnel at three NHS hospitals. Documents were also collected, such as business cases and financial reports. The authors employed theories on strategizing agency, episodes and practical coping to select examples of strategizing and indicate how strategizing is constructed and performed. The authors present the results of this qualitative analysis in three strategizing narratives.\nFindings: The analysis highlights how Clinical Directors' strategizing with accounting, in response to their financial problems, can take on contesting, conforming and circumventing modes. As the strategizing pathway unfolds, accounting acts as an obligatory passage point through which Clinical Directors pursue their strategic intent. Along each pathway the authors identify, first, where practical coping takes on a clear strategic intent and, second, whether this emergent strategy proves efficacious.\nOriginality/value: The authors contribute to the nascent body of accounting and strategizing studies through seeing strategizing with accounting, not as the formulation of explicit organisational strategy as \"done\" in board rooms and strategy meetings, but as an impromptu response to a critical financial problem within a localised organisational setting. In response to a problem, actors may realise their immanent strategizing through their engagement with accounting practices.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
CGIJ review
|
[
"Clinical effectiveness",
"Clinical governance",
"Clinical guidelines"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nResource management and clinical governance in the Irish healthcare system: While the term \"clinical governance\" was first used in a UK Government white paper in 1997, the concepts sheltered under the clinical governance umbrella have been current in healthcare systems for much longer.\nStaying healthy in a sick world: War and rumours of war, inequality, racism, poverty, ethnic cleansing, global pandemics, famine, recession, environmental catastrophe: the catalogue of ills threatening everyone in the modern world can make one question whether individual health even matters anymore.\nDutch courage: governance and information sharing in the Netherlands: One essential aspect of the clinical governance agenda is effective communication. If information is not shared between clinicians and managers then healthcare improvement becomes short-circuited. Daan Botje and colleagues in the Netherlands selected this component of clinical governance when they surveyed over 100 medical specialists and hospital executives.\nA North American mismatch between spending and health outcomes: Black and Berg (2014) suggest that there is a mismatch between healthcare spending and health outcomes in North America. The analogy they use is commercial aviation, which, if it were as unsafe as North American healthcare, would result in airplanes \"falling out of the sky every day\".\nDon't go down to the woods today...: Or if a Teddy Bear's picnic is planned, ensure all skin surfaces are well covered, especially if your picnic is taking place in a North American forest. Lyme disease, caused by bacteria carried by the deer tick can cause both acute and chronic illness in humans. The acute illness starts with a characteristic bull's eye rash and progresses to flu-like symptoms. A course of antibiotics at this stage will usually clear the infection. The problem occurs when the tick bite remains unrecognized and the illness is dismissed as a common virus. In such cases Lyme disease may go on to cause neurological or cardiac damage and progress to a chronic illness.\nGoverning compliance: One area that seems to be frequently bypassed in discussions about clinical governance is complying with data protection requirements. Confidentiality is a long-standing aspect of ethical healthcare but in today's digital world, this has become vastly more complex. Confidential patient data can be stored, transferred, carried around, hacked or lost much more easily than in the days of paper records. These were usually safe unless the hospital records room was destroyed by fire or flood.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the content of the current issue of CGIJ.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This review is prepared by the review editor to highlight key points within each article.\nFindings: Enables readers to scan content and select articles of most interest or relevance to their needs.\nOriginality/value: CGIJ is the only Emerald health journal providing this service to its readers.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Intellectual capital dimensions: state of the art in 2014
|
[
"Intellectual capital",
"IC",
"IC frameworks",
"IC models",
"Intellectual capital dimensions",
"Systematic literature review"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Ten years ago Marr et al. (2004) reviewed models intended to measure intellectual capital (IC). At that time, measuring IC or knowledge was in a developmental stage, and several academics as well as practitioners tried to come up with frameworks that took the specific nature of IC/knowledge better into consideration. Were they successful in reaching this aim? Has a standard perspective of IC been established (Edvinsson and Kivikas, 2007) which would make the development of more frameworks redundant (Marr and Chatzkel, 2004)? Picking up Marr and Chatzkel's expression, what has happened with IC taxonomies as they have reached the crossroads? The present paper's intention is to delve into this matter and detect what has happened in the field of IC models since 2004.\n2. Methodology: In the review process, the authors adopted the principles of a systematic review as recommended by Jesson et al. (2011) which comprises the following stages: mapping the field through a scoping review; comprehensive search; quality assessment, data extraction; synthesis and write up.\n3. Presentation and discussion of findings: The outcomes of the authors\n4. Presentation of IC Meta model: Having presented the IC frameworks in Table II, in a next step, and in order to better understand the IC dimensions proposed and discussed over time, the authors synthesized our current body of knowledge regarding IC and its dimensions in an IC Meta model (Figure 2).\n5. Conclusion: This study aimed at reviewing the research on IC frameworks in order to get a better understanding of what has happened since Marr et al.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to review extant literature to identify models intended to measure/classify intellectual capital (IC) to establish the current body of knowledge that has been built since the review by Marr et al. (2004).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study consists of a systematic review of peer-reviewed articles on IC classification. The review was conducted for the period 2004-2014 in order to reach the aim. To ensure that all major models are included, important works developed prior to 2004 were captured as well.\nFindings: The review resulted in 83 additional models indicating continued research activities with regard to the topic. These models were merged with prior IC models and mapped on a timeline. The timeline clarifies that 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 represent the years of greatest research activity (outcomes). Additionally, the analysis of the list of IC frameworks resulted in the development of an IC Meta model. It synthesizes research activities in the field and highlights the main IC dimensions and sub-dimensions.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study may not have enabled a complete coverage of all existing peer-reviewed articles in the field of IC classification. Yet, it seems reasonable to assume that the review process covered a large proportion of studies available.\nOriginality/value: By aggregating and consolidating the IC frameworks covered, the study does not only provide an IC Meta model, but also promising directions for future research.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Anticipated regret in time-based work-family conflict
|
[
"Decision making",
"Emotions",
"Work family issues"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: For most people, family and work represent the two most important domains in their life (Mortimer et al., 1986). Considerable research has suggested that positive outcomes such as enhanced performance and mental and physical well-being may accrue with the participation in both family and work roles (Greenhaus and Powell, 2006; Ruderman et al., 2002). However, taking on dual roles may also create tension as individuals are confronted with the difficult challenge of competing time demands from home and work (Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985). When faced with such a conflict, people are required to make a difficult trade-off between two competing options, as no available alternative perfectly satisfies the demands of both roles.\nTheoretical development: Role centrality\nHypotheses development: According to identity theory, individuals develop role expectations for each of the role identities and devote resources to these roles in order to meet expectations (Hirschfeld and Field, 2000). However, individuals also face the constraints of having a fixed amount of resources - such as time - at their disposal, limiting their ability to meet the expectations associated with each role (Goode, 1960). As such, when confronted with conflicting time demands from family and work, this decision rests on the level of centrality for each role. Roles that are high on centrality have significant implications for individuals' self-esteem and well-being, creating the incentive for more time investment into these highly identified roles (Simon, 1992). In contrast, roles that are low on centrality only have marginal implications, even if role expectations are not met (Wayne et al., 2006). This argument is consistent with Dubin and Champoux (1977, p. 367) who stated that \"if an environment is salient to an individual, he may have considerable affective investment in it.\" Dubin et al. (1975) found that where employees oriented their CLI predicted their organizational commitment, such that those with job-oriented CLI were more committed to their organization than their counterparts with nonjob-oriented CLI. As such, we predict:\nMethod: Design, procedure, and participants\nResults: Table I presents descriptive statistics, scale reliabilities (Cronbach's alpha), and inter-correlations among the study variables.\nDiscussion: The present study extends the literature in several ways. First, we respond to the call for more investigations into decisions involving competing demands from work and family by examining the role that centrality plays in reconciling these differences (Greenhaus and Powell, 2012a). Second, past research in decision making has demonstrated that role centrality may be related to individuals' satisfaction with their choice that is either congruent or incongruent with their identity (post-decision regret, LeBoeuf et al., 2010). We advance the literature by showing that centrality may also shape pre-decision emotions such as anticipated regret, thus orienting individuals towards identity-congruent choices.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The primary purpose of this research was to investigate the role of anticipated regret in time-based work-family conflict decisions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A total of 90 working parents responded to a decision making problem describing a time-based conflict between a work event and a family event. Participants' preference for which event to attend constituted the dependent variable. Independent variables were participants' work and family centralities. Anticipated regret for choosing the work option and anticipated regret for choosing the family option were measured as hypothesized mediators.\nFindings: Structural equation modeling revealed that anticipated regret for choosing the family option mediated the relationship between work centrality and preference for the family option. Similarly, it was found that anticipated regret for choosing the work option mediated the relationship between family centrality and preference for the family option.\nOriginality/value: This article contributes to work-family and decision making literatures by studying the intersection of the two fields. Although most work-family research studies ongoing conflict, this study focuses on one decision event. The findings suggest that anticipated regret plays a significant role in how individuals resolve time-based work-family conflict.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Reframing civil disobedience as a communicative action: Toward a critical deliberative theory of civil disobedience
|
[
"Social policy",
"Political sociology",
"Activism",
"Civil society",
"Social movements"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Today's increasing social and economic crises and political contests around the world have prioritized research on socio-political responses to these conflicts. Civil disobedience is often introduced as one of the most effective and praised modes of socio-political response to a conflict in a liberal democracy. John Rawls (1971) famously defined civil disobedience as a public, nonviolent, conscientious act of lawbreaking performed to convince policy/lawmakers to change an unfair policy or law. According to the Rawlsian definition, the purpose of the disobedient must be public, the action must be nonviolent and the disobedient activists should be loyal to the rule of law and thus accept the punishment for their illegal activities. Although this definition has become central for liberal political theory, some theorists from different theoretical traditions have challenged it, suggesting that the liberal definition simplifies civil disobedience and does not account for its political, democratizing and revolutionary aspects.\n2. On liberal understanding of civil disobedience: Numerous liberal political theories on civil disobedience have emerged in the past half-century. Without reviewing these theories in detail, it is assumed that the general understanding of civil disobedience mostly relies on Rawls' (1971) liberal assessment and the act of civil disobedience is often associated with socio-political protests, resulting in positive changes in unjust situations. In distinction to other forms of political protests, civil disobedience is often defined in the liberal political thought as a public, nonviolent, conscientious yet lawbreaking action. Henry David Thoreau's refusal to pay the state poll tax, Mohandas K. Gandhi's refusal to pay the salt tax implemented by the British government, Martin Luther King Jr's activism during the civil rights movement, Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat on the bus, the Occupy movement to protest economic inequality in America, the Egyptians' sit-ins in Cairo to object the Mubarak regime, and so on are some of the famous examples of civil disobedience. These disobedient activists did not comply with the law in order to address unjust situations. For instance, Thoreau claimed that those who paid their taxes to the American government would be supporting slavery and the war in Mexico. If people believe that the war and slavery are wrong, then they should not obey the law that perpetuates the wrong. If a law is not just, then, it does not deserve people's respect (Bedau, 1961; Thoreau, 1849).\n3. Deliberative theory and civil disobedience as a communicative action: In general, democracy is understood as a political arrangement in which the citizens have authority on the policy-making process and outcomes (Budge, 2003). The extent of the citizens' authority may change in accordance with different arrangements of democracy[1]. In the traditional representative democracy, voting is central to legitimate lawmaking, and the winning group legitimately can seek to promote their group's interests. Consequently, most democratic systems aim to satisfy the majority rather than secure just outcomes (Lewis, 2012), and the interests of minorities are not represented equally (Benhabib, 1992; Fraser, 1992). However, an ideal democratic system should be inclusive and efforts to improve free, equal and active citizen participation and equal access to political power. Because of increasing awareness of the importance of public deliberation and political participation, deliberative theory has become very important to understand today's modern democratic actions.\n4. Contributions from critical perspectives: deconstructing ethics: Civil disobedience is generally based on a universal, humanist ethic ground. Emerging studies suggest that the ethical ground of civil activities creates an obstacle for activists engaging in political activities because the notion of human rights and universalism are defined by those who have the power within society[2]. This ethic-based conceptualization limits civil action in accordance with the dominant ideology. Consistently, when people protest against the abuse of powerful political and economic actors, they are accused of being evil, and their action is portrayed as uncivil (Celikates, 2016a). Thus, the notion of ethics, which the most democracy theories are morally based upon, provides ideological cover for the corruption of power (Gelderloos, 2007) and reduces the possibility of alternative modes of acting, thinking, creating and cooperating (Badiou, 2002; Ingram, 2005).\n5. Toward a critical deliberative theory of civil disobedience: Weaving together the critical perspective and deliberative theory, civil disobedience can be redefined by including violence as a political contestation, not a military act or a mere apolitical crime, public support for practical reasons, not for satisfying the dominant ideology, resistance against punishment to publicize injustice, not to revenge and creative tactics forcing policymakers to change unjust situations. When conceptualizing civil disobedience, it is critical to keep in mind, that either violent or nonviolent civil action can be costly for society. However, it may have the potential to democratize the socio-political structure because some policies or laws may produce more severe damage than these unlawful actions.\n6. Concluding Remarks: Although an ideal democracy is expected to be open for popular, diverse and open discussion, in reality, people are not represented equally in society. When those who are in power do not change unequal situations, underrepresented people tend to use different forms of protest to push for a change, reform or revolution. There are many different types of dissent, such as legal protest, revolutionary action, militant action and civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is accepted by many as an efficient and moral stance because of its attributed features of nonviolence, publicity, and a willingness to accept punishment. However, this widely accepted liberal definition overly glorifies civil disobedience and constraints its socio-political domains. This paper sought to criticize the widely accepted liberal approach and modify the theory of civil disobedience by utilizing the deliberative and radical perspectives.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Civil disobedience is often defined as a public, conscientious, nonviolent act of breaking the law in an attempt to change an unjust policy or law. When applied to real-life situations, this widely accepted definition overlooks key features of civil disobedience and ignores civil acts that fundamentally challenge undemocratic institutions or the state and make socio-political changes possible. The purpose of this paper is to criticize and revise the conceptual, ethical and socio-political understandings of civil disobedience by integrating deliberative theory with some radical perspectives on civil disobedience.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper integrates and critically revises previous approaches to the justification and role of civil disobedience in democratic systems. Specifically, the ethical concerns about civil disobedience are discussed and the deliberative concept of civil disobedience is expanded as a form of political contestation by incorporating the socio-political aspects of civil disobedience. Although it is a conceptual discussion, the paper opted for an exploratory approach using empirically related examples to illustrate the theoretical discussion.\nFindings: The paper provides a new perspective to the literature on civil disobedience. The critical review shows that the limited general understanding of civil disobedience conceptually is not useful to analyze various forms of civil disobedience.\nResearch limitations/implications: The reviewed literature is limited due to a limited space.\nPractical implications: The paper includes practical implications for policymakers and authorities when evaluating and responding to civil actions more effectively and for members of civil movements and organizations when creating new forms of civil protest and effective responses to authorities.\nOriginality/value: This paper may be a modest first attempt to reframe the concept of civil disobedience by integrating deliberative democracy theory and some radical perspectives.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The impacts of work-life-balance (WLB) challenges on social sustainability: The experience of Nigerian female medical doctors
|
[
"Nigeria",
"Social sustainability",
"Institutional theory",
"Patriarchy",
"Female medical doctors",
"WLB challenges"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: For many people \"work constitutes the central life interest\" (Chandra, 2012, p. 1040). But work, though fundamental, is only an aspect of the many interests that human beings pursue (Crouter, 1984). Work interferes with social and family life and vice versa. When the pressures of work hinder the pursuit of other life interest, it is likely to generate a crisis and the consequential stress and strain on employees and employers (Guest, 2001). Balancing work and social life demands has become an established area of research and practice particularly in western countries. In western countries, several work have been carried out on work-life-balance (hereafter WLB) to understand the impact this concept has on individuals (employees) and their capacity to manage work and social aspect of their lives (Aldous, 1969; Felstead et al., 2002). For instance, Dex and Bond's (2005) work illustrates WLB in the UK; Hari's (2016) work in Canada; Kinnunen and Mauno's (1998) study in Finland; and Voydanoff (2004) work in the USA. Similar works have been undertaken in Asia including Chandra (2012) and Xiao and Cooke (2012) among others. The overarching theme in these studies is the preoccupation to balance work and social responsibilities without conflict and stress (Staines, 1980).\nMethodology: Research method adopted is qualitative, meaning that words are used for data representation (including descriptive statistics) and analysis. Abductive research procedure is also applied. It explains the process of moving from data to theory in order to make sense of research (Lupu and Sandu, 2017). Additionally, the study is exploratory; this explains a process of getting information or idea, where there is little or no information or insight (Robson, 2002). It can also be applied when there is need to enhance one's understanding of a concept or situation, such as SS, WLB and impacts of work on social life and vice versa. The study is interpretivist. Interpretivism is preoccupied with the notion that reality is not objectively determined; rather, it is socially constructed (Saunders et al., 2012). Thus, three of the authors are Nigerian and have immense knowledge of Nigeria's employment terrain and its cultural underpinnings. As observed from interview and focus group undertaken, this framework afforded us the opportunity to critically examine different stakeholders' (employees') views about WLB challenges and relationship with SS in Nigeria.\nFindings and discussion: The interview and focus group data is analysed using TAA. Such combination demostrates intertextual association of data set when testing for validity, association and comparison (Fairclough, 2014). The findings essentially address the key research question in the study: What are the institutional factors shaping WLB and SS for female medical doctors in Nigeria? In responding to this question, the following section analyses and discusses the responses from both focus group discussants and interviewees. The analysis starts with the theme of worklaod/pressure.\nConclusions, implications, and future research: This study has explored the impacts of WLB challenges on SS within the context of Nigeria with focus on female medical doctors. Seven factors shaping WLB including workload/pressure and long hours, goal orientation, stress of inflexible working style, lack of participation/voice, unsupportive relationship/work environment, gendered role in family and cultural/institutional bias, and lack of social sustainable work were identified and analysed. These issues trigger the imbalance between doctors' social life and work (Adisa et al., 2017) as well as impinge on SS. As observed, these factors are triggered by Nigeria's unique workplace culture and institutional frameworks that impact managing WLB (Fajana, 2006). The findings of this study align with Lewis et al. (2007) hypothesis that imbalance between work and social life precipitates lack of social sustainable work. Again, this insight parallels work done in Europe, where it was identified that the sustainability of current form of work practice is in question in view of the challenges it poses to SS and WLB (Chandra, 2012). Lewis et al. (2007) go an inch to assert that this situation creates stress, sickness absences and poor quality of life as well as increases the discontents of fierce capitalism (Kraniauskas, 2017). Also, our findings indicate that the appropriate interface between HR outcomes such as WLB and social sustainable work, as suggested by both Lewis et al. (2007) and Chandra (2012), to realise female doctors' commitment to work as well as self-fulfilment, personal growth, and stress-free workplace culture, are absent (Otobo, 2016). In sum, Nigeria's institutional frameworks negate balancing work and social life - WLB - as well as social sustainable work.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the implications of work-life-balance (WLB) challenges for Nigerian female medical doctors. This study focusses on Nigeria, which its peculiar socio-cultural, institutional and professional realities constitute WLB as well as social sustainability (SS) challenge for female medical doctors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Relying on qualitative, interpretivist approach and informed by institutional theory, this study explores how Nigeria's institutional environment and workplace realities engender WLB challenges, which consequently impact SS for female doctors. In total, 43 semi-structured interviews and focus group session involving eight participants were utilised for empirical analysis.\nFindings: The study reveals that factors such as work pressure, cultural expectations, unsupportive relationships, challenging work environment, gender role challenges, lack of voice/participation, and high stress level moderate the ability of female medical doctors to manage WLB and SS. It also identifies that socio-cultural and institutional demands on women show that these challenges, while common to female physicians in other countries, are different and more intense in Nigeria because of their unique professional, socio-cultural and institutional frameworks.\nResearch limitations/implications: The implications of the WLB and SS requires scholarship to deepen as well as extend knowledge on contextual disparities in understanding these concepts from developing countries perspective, which is understudied.\nOriginality/value: This study offers fresh insights into the WLB and SS concepts from the non-western context, such as Nigeria, highlighting the previously understudied challenges of WLB and SS and their implications for female doctors.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Business incubator training management model to increase graduate competency
|
[
"Entrepreneurs",
"Management model",
"Business incubator"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: It was reported that in August 2016, the unemployment rate in Indonesia reached 7,031,775 people (Anonymous, 2017). This greatly affected economic development and poverty level in Indonesia. Unemployment problem is caused by the un-matching competence of human resources generated by educational institutions with the need of working world, since the curriculum used has not been oriented towards the working world yet. This is also due to the limit in the business world and the industrial world in terms of hiring graduates, which they still tend to hire specialists of certain required field of expertise. Therefore, there is a gap between the needs of human resources in working world with the generated human resources. Suratna (2010) found that most university graduates in Indonesia were ready to practice, but they have less capability to create jobs. It was therefore the effort to improve the entrepreneurial spirit to build a business can reduce the on-going unemployment rate (Carvalho et al., 2010). Another factor that causes unemployment is the tight competition among domestic and foreign workers, particularly from countries that are members of the ASEAN Economic Community.\n2. Theoretical framework: In August 2016, unemployment rate in Indonesia reached the number of 7,031,775 people (Anonymous, 2017). In addition, the problem of unemployment is also due to the imbalance between the competences of human resources generated by educational institutions with the needs of the world of work. Suratna (2010) found that most university graduates in Indonesia have not been able to create employment, but they are only limited as trained, so they should be directed to improve the entrepreneurial spirit in order to build a business to reduce unemployment (Carvalho et al., 2010). Another factor of unemployment is due to an intense competition between domestic workers and also those from abroad, particularly from countries that are members of the ASEAN Economic Community.\n3. Methodology: Procedure in this research followed ADDIE model which emphasised the five core elements of instructional systems design process including analyse, design, develop, implement and evaluate. The model could be virtually described as given in Figure 1 (Richey et al., 2011).\n4. Results and discussions: 4.1 Analysis\n5. Conclusions and recommendations: The current supporting activities of entrepreneurship, based on observations in the field of Beauty Education, are limited to the basic, not too deep, and there is no media structure that can accommodate student activities that can grow and help students to develop their competence through entrepreneurship such as expert assistance in managing the business. The generated business incubator programme can help students to develop their special competence, particularly in the field of entrepreneurship because business incubator provides facilities that are needed by students in building a business, facilities provided in the form of mentoring for students about business management and finance, mastery of soft skills for entrepreneurship, mastery of entrepreneurship skills and hard skill competence. The facility can be used by students as a material and learning to build a business. Based on the results with the average of 3.85, which was very good, the learning to develop entrepreneurship through management model of business incubator training for beauty major students was very helpful and influential in the establishment of new entrepreneurship. Business incubator programme could be developed and applied maximally to provide competence development of students in the field of entrepreneurship so as to reduce the unemployment rate which becomes one of the problems that cannot be solved yet. The business incubator management programme must be strengthened by the government's role through the established regulations, as this study mainly reflects social development and economic development.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to produce a business incubator training model for students to form graduates in order to have competence in the field of entrepreneurship in an effort to reduce high unemployment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The method used in this study was research and development (R&D) that consisted of the following five stages: first, planning based on the result of initial observation in the field, second, development of training model, third, validity test model, fourth, limited test and fifth, final model determination. This research used and involved 12 beauty successful beauty salon entrepreneurs as validator models of business incubator training management.\nFindings: The test results show that the training model developed is effective in forming entrepreneurship competence of graduates, so it is feasible to be applied in Beauty Education Study Program, Engineering Faculty of Universitas Negeri Semarang.\nPractical implications: The resulted model can be used as a learning model that can develop the skill of entrepreneurship level for students.\nOriginality/value: This study provides contribution to the unemployment level decrease and employment acceleration.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Relational capital disclosure, corporate reporting and company performance: Evidence from Europe
|
[
"Content analysis",
"Financial performance",
"Capital expenditure",
"Enterprise value",
"European listed companies",
"Relational capital disclosure"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Since the early 1990s, research in the field of intellectual capital (IC) has used many definitions and terms to characterise IC or intangible assets (IAs). In different cross-disciplinary studies, scholars have identified IC or IAs as various resources, properties and attributes, or as non-monetary assets that can generate value or future benefit (Choong, 2008). From a non-accounting perspective, several definitions have proposed a categorisation of IC into three components: structural capital, organisational capital and relational or external capital (Sveiby, 1997; Stewart, 1997; Edvinsson and Malone, 1997; Meritum, 2002; Bontis, 2002; Mouritsen et al., 2002; Ordonez de Pablos, 2003b; Marr and Adams, 2004). Drawing on its growing relevance to relational resources, such as customer relationships (Dyer and Singh, 1998; Srivastava et al., 2001; Gulati et al., 2002; Ordonez de Pablos, 2003a; Khalifa, 2004; Duparc, 2012; Sussan, 2012) and social capital (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998; OECD, 2002; Adler and Kwon, 2002; ADECCO, 2007; Arregle et al., 2007; Zahra, 2010; Still et al., 2013), this paper focuses primarily on relational capital (RC). Stewart (1997, p. 186) writes that \"any company that has clients has client capital\". In other words, RC refers to the knowledge embedded in the marketing channels and customer relationships that an organisation develops (Bontis, 1998).\n2. Literature overview: In the past few decades, the steady growth of the importance of IAs has changed company profiles. Specifically, processes of generation and conservation of IAs have assumed particular importance, as they have come to be evaluated, both in terms of their intrinsic characteristics essential for the acquisition and maintenance of competitive advantage and, more generally, in relation to the company's ability to create value. IAs are thus identified as a crucial component of a company's success, as well as a main source of its competitive advantage (Porter, 1987; Itami, 1987; Hamel and Prahalad, 1990, 1994; Lev, 2004). Therefore, it is essential to identify all the distinct IA types, since these represent pivotal resources for companies by enabling them to identify their so-called core competencies, i.e. unique unmatched or company-specific capabilities not owned by competitors (Hofer and Schendel, 1978; Teece et al., 1997). One of these components is RC, which - along with human and structural capital - gives the term IC its traditional meaning.\n3. Research hypotheses development: Prior literature has demonstrated a relationship between RC and financial performance (Ashton, 2005). In particular, some studies have shown that certain items of IC have a stock price impact in isolation. Furthermore, concerning the RC, researchers have recognised the value relevance of brand values and brand quality (Barth et al., 1998; Kallapur and Kwan, 2004), customer satisfaction (Ittner and Larcker, 1998; Yeung and Ennew, 2001; Fornell et al., 2006), customer base and penetration (Amir and Lev, 1996) and alliances. Other studies have shown the relationship between RC and company profitability, highlighting the importance of firm relationships and network for company success and growth (Holland, 1999; Guthrie et al., 2006; Davey et al., 2009; Kianto and Waajakoski, 2010; Hormiga et al., 2011). Thus, there is a growing interest in understanding RCD's contribution to specific company performance (Luo et al., 2004, Chen et al., 2005; Tan et al., 2007; Salehi et al., 2014). In this regard, the current research considers company performance, looking at: the revenue levels; the enterprise value, as a proxy of the company market value; the net operating cash flow; and the capital expenditure. In particular, building on legitimacy theory, it is insightful to suppose that RCD has a positive relationship on company performance, increasing the company's legitimacy towards its stakeholders. Previous studies have suggested that firms may use voluntary and mandatory disclosure to highlight their commitment to operating in ways that are consistent with social values and stakeholder expectations (Guthrie and Parker, 1989; Lindblom, 1994; Guthrie et al., 2005; Abeysekera and Guthrie 2005; Petty and Cuganesan, 2005; Whiting and Miller, 2008). Furthermore, having strong relationships with customers, suppliers, banks, institutions and other stakeholders represents a value source for competitive advantage for a company (Dyer and Singh, 1998). Communicating the existence of these consolidating relationships can stimulate a virtuous circle that can improve a company's reputation and legitimacy in the internal and the external environment. Indeed, company disclosure can be considered a means by which management can influence external perceptions of the organisation (Deegan, 2002; Ousama et al., 2011) by affecting market actors (Unerman et al., 2007). Thus, the dissemination of information about customer trust, customer satisfaction, brand loyalty, corporate image and reputation, business collaborations and licensing agreements, alliances within several networks should therefore produce immediate effects on company performance (Bontis, 1998; Cabrita and Bontis, 2008; Namvar et al., 2010; Sharabati et al., 2010; Steinfield et al., 2010; Kamukama et al., 2011; Mehdivand et al., 2012).\n4. Research design/methodology: The methodology adopted in this paper is CA (Weber, 1990; Krippendorff, 2008, 2013). Hayes and Krippendorff (2007, p. 77) defined CA as \"a systematic interpretation of textual, visual, or audible matter, such as newspaper editorials, television news, advertisements, public speeches, and other verbal and nonverbal units of analysis\". CA is particularly useful in textual analysis and can be considered a valid instrument to analyse the narrative aspect of economic-financial reports, sustainability reports or other reports that provide non-financial information. Using CA it is possible to classify a text into lexical or semantic groups based on a set of conceptual frameworks that measures specific lexical items in terms of quantity and quality (kind, magnitude and frequency of data).\n5. Empirical findings: Table V presents the descriptive statistics. The variable RC_Index ranges from 0 to 23. Thus, in no case did RC cover all the items considered in the research design of this study.\n6. Discussion: Building on the existing literature, this empirical study sought to verify the existence of a link between RCD and certain dependent variables tightly tied to corporate financial performance. These variables are based on both accounting and market information (see Table AI).\n7. Conclusion: This study sought to assess RCD practices over a sample of the largest listed companies in four European countries. Drawing on previous research, the empirical analysis centred around the relationships between RCD and certain company performance indicators. The empirical analysis focused on a single IC category - RC - to assess specific items related to customers, such as client's profile, business collaboration, customer reputation or items related to social capital, such as stakeholders or subsidiaries and associates. The analysis of annual reports and additional voluntary reports shows a positive link between RCD and revenues, net operating cash flow and Capex. There is no statistically significant link between RCD and enterprise value.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the content of relational capital disclosure (RCD) information communicated by a sample of European listed companies. It also investigates the links between RCD and certain corporate financial performance indicators.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This research did a cross-country analysis on a sample of 80 companies and a content analysis based on 51 items inherent to the relational capital (RC) framework of mandatory and voluntary reports. An RCD index has been used in certain bivariate and multivariate statistical analyses to investigate whether RCD is positively correlated to particular indicators adopted as proxies for measuring company performance.\nFindings: The results show that RCD supports statistically significant relationships with revenues, net operating cash flow and capital expenditures. In contrast, there is no statistically significant association with enterprise value.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study evaluates the information disclosed in annual reports or other standalone reports, although companies might communicate such information using other information channels. The main caveat of this study is sample size; therefore, it could be insightful to extend this cross-country study.\nPractical implications: The research could encourage preparers to improve the disclosure of specific items of RC and could offer useful suggestions to policymakers, for instance, to the European Commission, as it has recently announced new requirements for non-financial information reporting (Directive 2014/95/UE).\nOriginality/value: Given the crucial role of RC in company success and RCD's importance for the decision-making process, this study provides interesting insights into the debate on RC reporting's impacts on company performance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Does a surprise strategy need words? The effect of explanations for a surprise strategy on customer delight and expectations
|
[
"Surprise strategy",
"Customer delight",
"Explanations",
"Customer expectation",
"Customers",
"Customer satisfaction",
"Expectation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this article.\nIntroduction: In today\nReview of literature: Surprise\nMethodology of the study: Experimental design and instrument\nResults of the study: Manipulation checks\nResults of hypotheses testing: The effects of explanations for the surprise event on customer delight\nDiscussion: Surprise strategies for delighting customers have been emphasized (Schmitt, 1999; Vanhamme, 2008) and tested in a few empirical studies in the services literature (e.g. Oliver et al., 1997; Berman, 2005; Finn, 2005). However, surprise strategies may bring about a downside - raising customers\nManagerial implications: In the face of ever-escalating competition, many service firms are making concerted efforts to differentiate themselves from competitors by focusing on unique experiences (Pine and Gilmore, 1999; Schmitt, 1999). Positively surprising the customer is one way to exceed their expectations, thus resulting in customer delight. The findings of this study demonstrate the importance of effectively implementing surprise strategies. When a service establishment provides a certain type of pleasant surprise, customer delight will be enhanced due to the arousing nature of surprise. This study\nLimitations and suggestions for future research: This study has several limitations. First, although the participants perceived the hypothetical scenarios as realistic, such stimuli clearly threaten the external validity of our findings. Conducting a field study with observations or interviewing customers would be a useful addition to the present research. Similarly, this study was limited to the focal customers\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Delighting customers by pleasant surprises is a common strategy, yet the potential downside of such a strategy (i.e. raising customer expectations) has received scant attention. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of explanations as a solution to control customers\nDesign/methodology/approach: Hypotheses were tested with a 2 (surprise)x2 (explanation) between-subjects experimental design in two different service contexts (utilitarian and hedonic). University staff and faculty members served as the participant pool.\nFindings: The results indicate that providing an explanation helps to avoid raising customer expectations to unsustainable levels and enhances customer delight.\nResearch limitations/implications: Using hypothetical scenarios, single test for each context, and having the participants with high educational and income levels are identified as limitations in this study.\nPractical implications: This study demonstrates that providing appropriate explanations can reduce escalating expectations for future consumption episodes and thus help service firms to effectively delight their customers.\nOriginality/value: This is the first empirical study to test the use of explanation as a possible solution for problems associated with surprise strategies, therefore extending the relevant literature.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Governance in the Sendai: a way ahead?
|
[
"Governance",
"Accountability",
"Disaster risk reduction",
"Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) 2005-2015",
"Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) 2015-2030"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Against the background of increasing impacts of disasters, 2015 was a pivotal year for the adoption of various international frameworks (Kelman et al., 2015). They are the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (hereinafter, \"SFDRR\" or \"Sendai\") 2015-2030; the sustainable development goals (SDGs), and the Paris Agreement on Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC).\n2. Shifts in paradigm - the governance road: 2.1 DRG\n3. Accountability and the SFDRR: Accountability being one key feature of governance, in this section notions of accountability, how it has been understood in disasters, and how it appears in the SFDRR and elsewhere are discussed, notably in supranational human rights monitoring mechanisms and national legal frameworks.\n4. Challenges and possible ways ahead: 4.1 Getting the focus right: institutions, vulnerability and accountability\n5. Conclusion: Starting with the idea of \"governance\", and focussing on \"accountability\" as one of its particular features, in this paper we considered how these issues appear in the recently adopted SFDRR. Furthermore, we highlighted these notions in disaster literature, together with their main operational challenges. This paper is an attempt in putting forward possible ways of tackling the accountability conundrum.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify how governance and accountability have been addressed in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) 2015-2030.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research is mainly based on the analysis of the SFDRR; scientific literature, particularly recent publications covering the SFDRR. The paper also takes into account grey literature.\nFindings: The SFDRR does address issues of governance and accountability in disasters. However, more needs to be done to translate it into practice - particularly with regard to accountability.\nOriginality/value: The paper covers a topic that has not attracted considerable academic attention, despite the fact that the need to address accountability in disaster risk management, notably in DRR, has been generally acknowledged. By addressing governance and accountability in the most recent international DRR framework the paper adds value to the literature.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer lawyers learn from time-traveling secret agents: Online course raises awareness of e-mail best practice
|
[
"Legal profession",
"Electronic mail",
"Computer based training"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Lawyers staring intently at their computer screens, watching the adventures of time-traveling secret agents, were not wasting their time at the office but reducing the risk and improving the consistency of e-mail usage.\nThe problem: The firm - with more than 2,400 lawyers in 28 offices across 18 countries - sends and receives more than 1.75 million e-mail messages in a typical month. \"Although we have not experienced serious negative repercussions from careless or inappropriate e-mail usage, we were keen to initiate an e-mail training program to reduce risk and ensure best practice,\" commented James Wood, corporate partner. \"We also wanted to lead by example and implement a consistent approach to e-mail communication across the firm.\"He continued: \"There has been a dramatic explosion in people using e-mail - very few of our staff regularly use fax or write letters now. But no one has ever stopped and thought about the best way to use e-mail for communication, its limitations as a communication tool, some of the risk elements and so on.\"People need to stop and think before they press 'send'. That applies to everything - to the length of the e-mail to your client, to whether you should be sending it at all. Every time one of our team sends an e-mail, he or she should be asking, 'Is it sensible for me to be sending this?'\"With this in mind, and concerned that a standard memorandum, e-mail or classroom-based training course would not achieve the right level of impact, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer gave Fuel the task of conveying the importance of e-mail best practice in a way that would generate maximum impact and retention for a diverse audience of lawyers around the world.As part of the project, the Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer e-mail advisory group developed a set of guidelines that staff should adhere to when communicating by e-mail. These points, along with an understanding of the risks involved in poor e-mail practices, needed to be communicated to all lawyers, regardless of their seniority, department or location.Targeting more than 2,400 fee-earners across different areas of practice and geographies, the course needed to be instantly appealing and relevant to its users, while at the same time not giving too much bias to any one department.\"The key challenge was to develop a piece of learning that would relate to such a large number of people spread over a wide geographical area,\" explained Steve Dineen, chief executive and co-founder of Fuel. \"A further consideration was the competing demands on the fee earners' time. They are extremely busy, so the course had to generate sufficient impact to ensure it would warrant, and keep, the lawyers' full attention - and it had to be delivered as quickly as possible.\"\nThe solution: Time and thought were given to ensure that the training approach was entertaining without being frivolous. Using the international secret-agent theme, Fuel developed a scenario-based course that was pertinent to the lawyers' day-to-day work. To create extra impact, the company included cameo appearances from various partners and members of the firm's risk committee.\"By using a recognizable theme as a framework for the course, the learning is immediately engaging,\" enthused Steve Dineen. \"We then applied our understanding of educational psychology to communicate the key messages in a way that was entertaining, informative and, most importantly, easy to retain.\"\"Mindful of the limited time available for this form of training, Fuel designed the course in five bite-size modules, each around five to ten minutes long. These were then delivered weekly during February and March 2006. This enabled the lawyers to gain access to the training around their client work and without taking too much time in one sitting.\"David Fitch, head of knowledge-management systems and projects at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, commented: \"Fuel worked closely with us throughout the project. It was a difficult brief to create a course that would resonate with lawyers internationally. The commitment Fuel had to making it work really helped us to see it through.\"\nThe benefits: As a result of the course, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer was able to give its e-mail guidelines the importance and impact required. The imaginative approach to delivering consistent and clear messages helped to raise awareness of the importance of e-mail best practice and reduce the risk of careless usage.Providing access to the course through the corporate intranet enabled the firm to reach a wide number of fee earners, regardless of where in the world they were based. This also helped the firm to achieve up to 85 percent completion rates on the modules. High-quality, media-rich graphics turned the essentially dry guidelines into a memorable experience. The creativity and unusual approach also prompted conversation around the offices, bringing even greater awareness to the issues raised.More than 2,000 staff undertook the training. Although the course was primarily aimed at fee-earners, members of the various business-service teams were also given access. The program was cost effective, with the investment providing ongoing benefit as all new joiners will take the course as part of their induction. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has also made the course available to staff via its intranet, alongside the e-mail guidelines that were published in 11 languages.David Fitch, of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, concluded: \"This has been a successful project for the firm in that we have succeeded in raising awareness about e-mail usage and we have successfully tested the concept of online education. We are already working on a second program.\"\nNote: David Pollitt, Human Resource Management International Digest editor, wrote this article.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Describes a media-rich online course that helped to raise awareness of e-mail best practice at international law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Draws on information from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and from Fuel, a compliance-education specialist, which helped to design the course.\nFindings: - Reveals that the course was delivered in five weekly modules, each between five and ten minutes long, to enable the lawyers to fit the training into busy schedules. More than 2,000 staff undertook the training.\nPractical implications: - Highlights the effectiveness of e-learning in a company with more than 2,400 fee earners across 18 countries.\nOriginality/value: - Provides details of a course that was cost-effective to design and deploy.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The future of doctoral education in business administration
|
[
"Doctoral education",
"Business schools",
"Knowledge society",
"Management research"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: We need more and better adapted PhD graduates of higher quality in Business Administration and/or Management. The simultaneous growth in the demand for education in business and management, and the intention of governments and private providers to improve the quality of the teaching has led and will continue to lead to an increased demand in PhDs in management or DBAs[1]. This is in particular the case in emerging economies, e.g. China, Indonesia, India or Brazil (Cervantes, 2012).For example in China we witness a very high growth of the number of university students over the last 20 years, and the trend line is not yet changing (Gallagher et al., 2009). Therefore universities have been recruiting increased numbers of faculty with a PhD. In many cases the best of these are returnees from studies overseas. But such international recruiting is obviously a costly exercise: many of these graduates do have employment opportunities in overseas institutions or companies, and thus require internationally competitive salaries. Therefore we notice that there is a rising trend to educate PhDs in business administration at China's universities, who often look for international partners to support them with joint supervision. A similar trend is true for India, where the expected liberalization of higher education and in particular in business may lead to a significant growth in the number of institutions, and thus demand for good and well trained teachers. It is expected by some that the current supply of PhD holders in India is merely 40 percent of what will be needed (Ministry of Human Resource Development of India, 2011).Similarly in Indonesia the Parliament has passed a bill in 2012 to revamp higher education. Its intention is to improve the quality of the education, enhance the autonomy of the universities and regulate access of foreign institutions. One can expect that in the future there will be a requirement to have a doctoral degree in order to be able to be a university teacher. The current reality is that many, if not most, of the university teachers in Indonesia have a Master's degree. Thus we may expect a rush to apply for PhD programs.One can argue that this is an evolution that is specific to a few high-growth countries, and that it may have less effect on universities in traditional industrialized countries. That will not be true. The market for PhD holders is an international one. Many of the universities in the USA, UK, Australia or continental Europe are relying heavily on faculty who originally come from China and India. Increased demand and improved working conditions in India and China will have a significant effect on the supply of PhD holders for positions at the traditional universities and create a shortage for teachers in business schools in the industrialized world (Cervantes, 2012; Hawawini, 2005).At the same time there are indications that there is stagnation if not a decline in the output of the traditional top-quality PhD suppliers, in particular in the USA and the UK (Hawawini, 2005; AACSB, 2002). Similar trends may be true in the best European institutions, where the need to rationalize and reduce the cost of higher education will no doubt have a negative impact on the availability of grants and bursaries for potential PhD candidates.This is partially compensated by the creation of new forms of doctoral studies: we see the rise of DBAs, part time PhDs, executive PhDs, practice doctorates, etc. (Kot and Hendel, 2012). Some of these can alleviate the demand for good faculty, on condition of course that these are programs of high quality. These different types of doctoral education may well be better adapted to the needs of lots of the emerging educational institutions in management or business administration.In the rest of this paper I will briefly touch on the origins of doctoral education, describe some of the challenges to the traditional view of what a doctorate is all about, and suggest the broad outline for how doctoral education in business administration and management can evolve.\nThe roots of doctoral education: The current model of doctoral education was created in the early nineteenth century in the context of the then new German model of University education. This model was developed in first instance at the Von Humboldt University in Berlin, and it was rooted in the ideas of the eighteenth century philosopher Immanuel Kant (Pedersen, 1997). In this view Universities are supposed to practice \"high science,\" and this can be best performed in an organization which is organized by disciplines. Education in this model is a by-product, mainly to educate the elite that would serve the nation state. Universities had a certain level of autonomy, and therefore performance appraisal and evaluation was performed by a kind of peer-review system. A PhD was basically a form of cooptation into the elite that would teach and research at Universities. Therefore PhD education was characterized by a discipline-based research effort with a value system that is about the search for new knowledge. In such a system the individual has an individual responsibility for the research and its outcomes. And to some extent the education was rooted in the tradition of the quasi-medieval guilds: the thesis is a master piece that you have to deliver to be adopted into the \"guild of masters.\"This originally German approach spread rapidly to the USA, where it was among others imported by Charles W. Elliott who led Harvard university from 1869 to 1909 (Christensen and Eyring, 2011), and later on to the UK and Australia. In that diffusion process doctoral education has seen many adaptations. Therefore the current requirements for a PhD do vary between countries, universities and subjects. In some cases there are strict course requirements, e.g. in the USA, Canada or Denmark. In others, e.g. the UK, the education is to a large extent an apprentice relationship between a supervisor and his or her pupil. But the basic value system remained unchanged.A professional PhD such as the one in Business Administration is a relatively recent one. Some of the programs are quite established, but the real drive for a doctoral education in this field was a consequence of a few influential reports in the USA and the UK in the late 1950s and the early 1960s, that called for a more rigorous and scientific approach to management education[2].\nDoctoral education in business administration needs to change: I will argue that this model of PhD education, though allowing for some variety, is insufficient for our future needs. I see broadly speaking four drivers for this.The development of the knowledge economy requires more and cheaper PhD graduates\nAdditional challenges for the current model of doctoral education in business and management: In addition to the drivers for change that I described in the previous sections, one hears quite a few more operational criticisms on how we organize doctoral education today.The organization of doctoral programs is inefficient\nToward a revision of our doctoral programs: In recent years we have seen a growing dichotomy in the type of PhD education as it is practiced at our universities (Bond and Lee, 2009). The first type of PhD education is what I will call \"postgraduate research.\" It is the natural successor to the nineteenth and twentieth century approach to PhD training. The second one is more of a generic \"doctoral education\" (Table I).In the first one the supervisory relationship is the core element of the education. The PhD graduate student is an apprentice to a \"master\" from whom he/she learns all the tricks of the trade. Course work may exist, but its role is to support the apprentice relationship. The focus of the output is really on the thesis, which is often discipline based, and quite narrow in perspective. While it needs to be original it is also a license to practice as a researcher. It may or may not be the onset of the \"opus magnum\" that will establish your name as a researcher, but it must be meaningful to the research community. The model assumes that there are relatively few graduates: after all a supervisor can have only a handful of apprentices. As a consequence the successful graduate will also become a steward of the discipline, whose task it will be to protect and enhance the discipline and its standing (Golde and Walker, 2006).The second model is one that enables much larger groups to pursue a PhD degree. The core element here is the course work, which can and preferably should be performed in larger groups. The ultimate purpose of the study is not to produce a thesis, but to know the subject and the process of how to do research. The thesis becomes more of a proof that one has understood all the different intricacies of the area of study, and the originality of the output is perhaps not that relevant. Topics can be real problems as formulated by companies, institutions or society, and may require multi-disciplinary solutions. Often the researchers will work in teams, and the really relevant output may well be the sum of the work of many - engineering has practiced this type of doctoral studies for quite a while - the ultimate output for society is not to create stewards of a discipline, but knowledge workers, who are able to operate in larger institutional frameworks, and who can creatively contribute to problem solving.What are the implications of this evolution?Horses for courses: there will be a growing number of distinctive programs\nConclusion: PhD education will have to change. There is a growing demand for PhD holders in the knowledge society, but at the same time there will be a need for more diversity, and more efficiency in the delivery of the PhD education.The classic model of postgraduate research no doubt will and has to survive, but perhaps on a smaller scale. At the same time I am convinced that we will see a growing variety in the models for doctoral education with which universities all over the world will experiment. Based on what I argued in this paper I summarize that these new models of PhD education will share some of the following characteristics:\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Doctoral education in business administration needs to change in order to cope with the fast growing demand for PhD holders, who can teach and perform research at a high quality level. Additionally, society has a rapidly growing need for knowledge workers who have a doctoral education or an equivalent. The traditional apprentice approach may not be able to cope with that demand. Society has also criticized the inefficiency and cost associated with the current model of PhD education in management or business administration. The purpose of this paper is to provide a reflection for leaders in business education on how we can design a portfolio of different avenues for doctoral education.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper is based on the author's own experience with INSEAD, the University of Cambridge and Singapore Management University, as well as his observations of other universities. It is thus anchored in a few case studies.\nFindings: - The author pleads for more diversity in doctoral education. It is proposed that we may need to add different models of doctoral education, characterized by more interdisciplinary work and a more diverse career path. Business Schools will have to find new ways to deliver the education and to develop the communities of practice that will share the values of scientific research.\nSocial implications: - Society needs more knowledge works. Many of these will have the ambition to obtain a research degree, for example, a PhD. This article provides some suggestions and guidelines on how to innovate in the design and delivery of doctoral education in business administration. This should help society to be able to count on more and better adapted PhD graduates.\nOriginality/value: - The paper brings new insights based on extensive experience with leading institutions that groom leaders in business administration.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Technology adoption by apparel manufacturers in Tirupur town, India
|
[
"Garment industry",
"India",
"Textile manufacturing processes",
"Production innovation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: During the last three decades, developing countries have gained a significant market share in textiles and apparel exports. Developing countries account for approximately half of total world textile exports and almost three-quarters of total world apparel exports (International Labor Organization, 2005). Developing countries such as India started to become successful competitors in textiles and apparel manufacturing because of their low-cost labor and supplies.In 2005, the Multi Fiber Arrangement (MFA), which had limited the textile and apparel trade for almost 30 years, was ended by the World Trade Organization. The removal of the quota system has launched even more opportunities for developing countries in the textiles and apparel trade. In the quota-free environment, trade experts have predicted that China and India will control about 80 percent of the global textile market (Richard, 2005). Along with China, India exhibits significant growth potential in the global market, with its advantages of low production costs, abundance of raw material resources, and skilled labor force (Haber, 2004; Padhi et al., 2004). Thus, the Indian apparel industry faces both opportunities and competition that challenge it to upgrade its systems. The textiles and apparel industry is India's second largest industry and the largest export sector of manufacturing goods. At the same time, due to the increased level of competition after the removal of quotas, there is increased pressure to improve productivity, performance, production quality, and management systems (Premkumar et al., 1997; Ungan, 2005).The apparel industry has been highly labor-intensive, with a great deal of manual operations, and production-oriented. Recently, however, faced with increasing labor costs, advanced technologies for apparel manufacturing have been called for as a means to increase productivity and produce better quality goods, in high volume, in short time cycles, and at lower cost (Dutta, 2003; Haber, 2004). Therefore, the adoption of advanced technologies has become an important decision for manufacturers in order to maintain or achieve competitiveness. While technology adoption has emerged as an important determinant of competitiveness, research in the technology adoption of the apparel manufacturing firms and understanding of what fosters their technology adoption, especially in developing countries, is scarce. The purpose of this study was to examine the technology adoption status of apparel firms in India, and the factors that affect their level of technology adoption. Specifically, this study examined the effects of organizational factors (i.e. firm size, export orientation, top management's commitment, cost of capital, technical skills, and competitive advantage) on technology adoption.In this study, technology adoption is described as the adoption or acceptance of new equipment or innovation activities of the firm. The technology adoption level of a firm considers both the installation status of the various technologies and the firm's usage level of each technology installed. This study initiates apparel manufacturing technology research in developing countries using the case of India.\nLiterature review: Indian textiles and apparel industry\nMethod: An online survey was used to collect the data. This method was chosen because:* all the businesses that are involved in international trade use electronic communication methods (e.g. e-mail); and* it reduces the cost of mailing and incidents in which international mail gets lost.This method also saves time in data collection and data management processes. The survey was approved for an exemption by the Human Subject Institutional Review Board.Apparel manufacturing firms located in Tirupur town, Coimbatore district, Tamil Nadu State, South India were chosen as the population of this study. The firms in the town are highly engaged in apparel manufacturing and exporting, and thus were deemed appropriate due to the nature of the study. Tirupur is the biggest supplier of knitted goods in India and a leading source of casual apparel and sportswear as well. Tirupur is also known as \"Dollar City\", \"Knit City\", and \"Cotton City\", but mainly \"Hosiery Centre\". Buyers from 35 countries frequently visit Tirupur for business. Quick delivery and quality products are additional benefits of Tirupur as a centre of outsourcing for buyers from all around the world. Besides apparel manufacturing units, there are a large number of other ancillary industrial units that manufacture elastic tapes, cartons, name tags, labels, polythene bags and other packing materials in Tirupur.Five hundred firms with web access (web site or e-mail) were randomly chosen from the Directory of Apparel Exporters of the Apparel Export Promotion Council of India (Apparel Export Promotion Council, 2005). Participation in the study was voluntary and participants were assured that their responses would remain confidential. An individualized e-mail with an invitation to the online survey was sent to each company. One week later the initial e-mailing a first reminder and two weeks later a final reminder e-mail were sent. Of the 500 e-mails that were sent, 332 were successfully delivered. A total of 114 completed responses were received, resulting in a response rate of 34.3 percent. Three responses were deemed unusable because of a significant number of missing values. Therefore, a total of 111 responses were deemed usable and were included in the analysis.A pilot study was conducted to ensure the content validity of the instrument and reduce confusion and misunderstandings on the part of respondents when answering the survey. The first section of the online questionnaire was designed to assess the degree of a firm's adoption of technologies. Respondents were presented with each technology along with a description and asked to indicate the firm's adoption status of the technology. (i.e. \"adopted\", \"not adopted\", \"not applicable\"). Table I shows the various apparel technologies and their descriptions based on the current availability and usage of these technologies in the apparel manufacturing industry. Respondents were also asked to indicate the frequency (i.e. \"frequently\", \"often\", \"sometimes\", \"rarely\", \"never\") of using that technology if they adopted it.The second section included items for measuring the organizational variables. The size of the firm was measured by the number of employees. All the items, except firm size, used a Likert-type scale ranging from \"strongly disagree\" (1) to \"strongly agree\" (5). The export orientation scale (four items) was adapted from Francis and Collins-Dodd (2000), and was designed to assess a firm's commitment and openness towards exports. Top management's commitment, cost of capital, and competitive advantage scales were adapted from Premkumar (2003). Top management's commitment items (three items) was designed to measure the degree to which top management is committed to technology adoption. Cost of capital (two items) assessed the degree to which cost constraints interfere with adopting technologies in the firm. Competitive advantage (three items) assessed the firm's need for advanced technologies to compete in the market. Four items for technical skill were adapted from Igbaria et al. (1997). The technical skills scale assessed the availability of technical support from specialists, in terms of technical assistance.\nAnalysis and results: Of 108 respondents, 16 (15 percent) were female and 92 (85 percent) were male. The average length of working experience at the current firm (tenure) was six years. Most of the respondents held a management position (e.g. the owner or a senior officer). The average annual sales volume of the firms was $US4 million. The average age of a firm was about 12 years and the average number of employees was 274. The average percentage of export revenue reported was 60 percent.Cronbach's a for export orientation was 0.81, while it was 0.80 for top management's commitment, 0.66 for cost of capital, 0.78 for technical skills, and 0.72 for competitive advantage, respectively. Four of the five variables achieved a reliability coefficient a value greater than the suggested cut-off value of 0.70 (Premkumar, 2003). The value of a for cost of capital was slightly lower than the cut-off. This variable was measured using two items and the low coefficient can be attributed to the fact that Cronbach's a tends to be low for a construct measured by a few items, in which case a values above 0.6 are considered to be acceptable (Premkumar, 2003). The summed scores of the items for each construct were used in further analysis. The mean score of export orientation was 15.3 (SD=2.8), while it was 10.5 (SD=2.4) for top management's commitment, 7.9 (SD=1.5) for cost of capital, 13.8 (SD=2.8) for technical skills, and 11.2 (SD=2.0) for competitive advantage.Technology adoption\nDiscussion: The purpose of this study was to examine the status of technology adoption and the organizational factors that influence the technology adoption level of apparel manufacturing firms in India. The results indicated a high level of advanced information and communication technology (ICT) usage. The internet and information technology provide apparel manufacturers with a powerful tool to market their products and creates an opportunity for them to reach target consumers directly on a global scale. Further, ICT continues to evolve as an important tool for the implementation of online solutions and access to global market information any time, anywhere. The least frequently adopted technologies found in this study were highly automated systems such as pick-up and place robots, and other robots. This indicates limited automation at the present time, at least by Indian garment manufacturers.The results indicate that larger and less export-orientated firms tend to install technologies more extensively and use them more frequently than smaller, more export-oriented firms. The significant effect of firm size is consistent with the technology literature (e.g. Mansfield et al., 1997; Rogers, 1995). Premkumar et al. (1997) found that larger firms exhibited a greater propensity to adopt advanced technologies, especially in industries where a large number of small businesses were dominant. The apparel industry is characterized by a large number of relatively small firms, and this may have limited the technology activities of small firms. The resources required to implement technology adoption are probably the main reason why large firms are more likely to adopt than small firms (Rogers, 1995; Wagner and Hansen, 2005). In contrast, smaller firms may be constrained by the available resources that can be allocated to the adoption of advanced technologies. This result warns that small firms may encounter obstacles in responding to global competition through technology adoption, and may need institutional or industrial support to overcome these barriers. These firms also need to realize the benefits and strategic implications of technologies to survive competition in the global market.A significant influence of export orientation on technology adoption was found in this study. Interestingly however, the effect was negative. This is inconsistent with previous studies, where a firm's adoption of advanced manufacturing technology was found to be positively related to the export orientation of the firm (e.g. Mechling et al., 1995). The most successful firms in export manufacturing business are more proactive in adopting new technologies (Nassimbeni, 2001). The negative effect of export orientation found in this study implies that Indian firms may have become less adoptive of technologies because of the intensified price competition and the downward pressure of costs in the freer trade environment. It may be that customers who source from India mainly focus on labor-intensive products with lower technology requirements. To confirm the reason why the effect is negative, the relationship between export and price orientation and their effects on technology adoption are to be explored in future research.The moderate significance of the influence of competitive advantage indicates that the competitive advantage gained through technology adoption may be a reason for technology adoption. Competition, environmental changes, and the resulting competitive pressure may force firms to seek new technologies. It may be that a firm chooses to adopt advanced technologies simply because of a fear of losing business to competitors. A recent study on information technology implementation by Premkumar (2003) emphasized gaining competitive advantage as an important motivation for technology implementation. Even small firms may adopt technologies if their suppliers insist on using advanced technologies for doing business with them. Future research needs to confirm the relationship between competitive advantage, customer relations, and technology adoption.On the other hand, the effects of cost of capital, top management's commitment, and technical skills on technology adoption were not significant. This result indicates that cost may not be a significant constraint for technology adoption. It may be that the cost of establishing and maintaining these technologies for apparel manufacturing is low, and thus insignificant in the adoption decision. Although most prior studies found that top management's support is a significant factor (Igbaria et al., 1997; Premkumar et al., 1997; Premkumar, 2003), this study did not find it to be significant. According to previous studies, the primary decision maker is the owner or top management of the business (Carpenter et al., 2004; Premkumar, 2003), and his or her vision for the use of these technologies determines the level of support for technology adoption (Useem, 1993). The contrasting result in this study may be due to the environmental characteristics of apparel business. The traditional innovation adoption studies emphasized the support/commitment of the adopter as a primary force of adoption, while recent scholars emphasize the importance of external factors rather than internal commitment. One possible explanation for the insignificant result is that most of the apparel firms adopting technologies seem to be influenced by variables that are directly relevant to current business environments rather than by the internal decision makers' perspective. The free trade trends that have taken place recently in the industry may have created an environment where exporting opportunities and competitive pressure are the primary motivation for business decisions (Premkumar, 2003). Such new opportunities make firms respond to external forces and industry demands more extensively, rather than considering internal managerial commitments.The insignificant effect of availability of technical skills may be attributed to the fact that the typical production process in apparel manufacturing still involves a great deal of manual operation of machines and automated assembly. Due to this labor intensiveness, the need for technical support may be inconsequential in apparel manufacturing. According to Noori (1997), there are lesser needs for additional technical support unless manufacturing technologies become more advanced and sophisticated.In an increasingly globalized and knowledge-based world economy, there is a need to further knowledge to the global level. This study contributes to the knowledge of technology adoption in developing countries like India by filling a void in the literature. This case deepens the international knowledge and initiates further research on technology adoption. For industry practitioners, it increases understanding for buyers from developed countries regarding technology adoption activities in the Indian apparel industry. This study provides information that contributes to the development of advanced and efficient apparel manufacturing and supply chain systems by identifying the factors influencing technology adoption. Particularly, the information is valuable because technology adoption is a challenge for apparel manufacturing firms in developing countries to achieve competitiveness (Kumar and Siddharthan, 1994).Although the results provide insights into the technology adoption of apparel firms, they may have limited generalizability because the responses were from apparel manufacturing firms with web access in a certain geographical location (i.e. one industrial city). In addition, further research needs to be done on the variables that were found to be insignificant in this study by using different instruments or measurements to confirm the findings of this study.\n",
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},
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"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine the status of technology adoption of Indian apparel manufacturing firms and the organizational factors that affect the level of technology adoption.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Fourteen technologies applicable to apparel manufacturing were examined. A survey with an online questionnaire to apparel manufacturers in India was conducted to collect the data.\nFindings: - The most frequently adopted technology was the internet. The least frequently adopted technologies found in this study were robot-related. The level of a firm's technology adoption was found to be significantly related to firm size positively and its export orientation negatively. It was also moderately related to competitive advantage. The effects of top management commitment, cost of capital, and technical skills were not significant.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Generalizability of the results is cautioned because the data were from the firms in one industrial town. The results indicate that technology adoption is related to the recent, intensified trade competition. The relationships among export orientation, price competition, and technology adoption need to be studied further.\nOriginality/value: - Given the importance of upgrading in today's competitive global trade environment, this study builds a knowledge base of the technology adoption in apparel manufacturing and influential factors in developing countries.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Training for the coaching leader: how organizations can support managers
|
[
"Leadership development",
"Leadership",
"Management education",
"Managerial coaching",
"Training management",
"Executive training"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Coaching is a skillset involving a dialogue between a coach and one or more coachees (those being coached). Coaching accentuates collaboration between coach and coachee and aims to enhance the potential of the coachee (Standards Australia, 2011). However, studies of coaching and its effectiveness are complicated by the fact that there are different types of coaching both formal and informal (D'Abate et al., 2003). In this paper, references are specifically to managerial coaching or the \"leader as coach.\"\nMethod: The study asked managers in Australia about the level of training and support for coaching offered by their organizations. In this way, the study was designed to explore possible directions and strategies to enable organizations to maximize the impact of managerial coaching.\nResults: This section reports the findings of the research questions, beginning by reporting the data related to the amount and type of training received (RQ1). Followed by a discussion of the support available to managers in their organizations (RQ2), comparing this with the responses related to the training and support that managers reported they would like to receive (RQ3).\nDiscussion: This study contributes to the emerging empirical research field of managerial coaching by first looking at the training of managerial coaches. It was found that training is an important cornerstone of equipping managers with coaching skills. Coaching behaviors such as listening and questioning might seem, at first glance, to be quite straightforward; however, managers may be more used to \"telling\" rather than \"asking\" or \"listening.\" Participants pointed out that managers often do not possess these skills, suggesting that training in coaching might be highly desirable. Our results indicate that where managers have received coaching training, it is generic coaching training and not tailored to the context of manager as coach. Ellinger et al. (2011) cautioned that training programs need to help managers to understand the appropriate amount of and situation for coaching, as excessive coaching might not be effective. The findings from our study support this view, as managers noted that they would like to know when and how to use coaching as a leader and when not to use it. Formal training courses are only one way of helping participants to achieve learning outcomes. Lombardo and Eichinger (1996) proposed a hybrid approach, the 70-20-10 model of learning and training, with 70 percent occurring through \"on-the-job\" learning, 20 percent via feedback and 10 percent via formal training courses or reading. This suggests that organizations and training providers need to consider initiatives that go beyond \"classroom\" training (Figgis et al., 2001). Our results showed that many learning activities fall into the \"70 percent\" category. This could be connected to the limited time and budget available for coaching initiatives.\nConclusions: Based on our findings, organizations wishing to foster a coaching leadership style would benefit from the following strategies:\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: The demand for leaders to coach their employees is increasing as the benefits become more and more evident. However, little is known about the training managers have received in coaching or what support is available/required from their organizations. The paper aims to discuss this issue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper encompassed a survey of 580 managers in Australian organizations with more than 200 employees. The authors used qualitative thematic analysis to examine the extensive free text answers.\nFindings: The findings indicated that while some managers had received some form of training in coaching (30-40 percent, depending on training type), 40 percent of them expressed a desire for introductory and/or further training. The findings suggest that training should be tailored to the managerial context instead of a generic coaching training, with a more structured and coordinated approach to organizational coaching required.\nPractical implications: Organizations could benefit from supporting managers with the following strategies: Why - Organizations need to explain clearly why a coaching leadership style is beneficial. How - Training can come in many forms from workshops to \"on-the-job\" learning. When - Managers want more insights into when and when not to use a coaching style. What - it should not be assumed that all leaders possess coaching skills but rather those coaching skills need to be acquired and developed.\nOriginality/value: This paper offers insight into current training and support structures for \"leadership coaching\", and suggests strategies to help managers to implement coaching as a leadership skillset.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The influence of market orientation on new product success
|
[
"Customer orientation",
"Competitor orientation",
"Market orientation",
"Research and development",
"New product development",
"New product success"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the age of product orientation, considerable resources were allocated by firms for developing superior products, improving them over time and positioning them correctly in markets (Kotler et al., 1999). With such products, the main task of marketing then was market segmentation, market positioning and the manipulation of marketing mixes (Bowman and McCormick, 1961; Doyle and Saunders, 1985). However, firms soon realised that product orientation alone would not get them very far. To stay competitive, firms need to have a comprehensive understanding of the interplay of competitive forces within markets and position themselves having regard to both external and internal factors, including their unique resources and capabilities (Brown et al., 2003; Christmann, 2000; Kleinschmidt et al., 2007). As buyers might not have full knowledge of what is available in the market and what might best meet their needs, a firm that understands the market and its customers well, enjoys a significant competitive advantage over its competitors (Slater and Narver, 1994).Market orientation can be understood from either operative (Kohli and Jaworski, 1990) or cultural perspectives (Narver and Slater, 1990). Market orientation as an operative process covers activities including intelligence generation, intelligence dissemination and responsiveness (Kohli and Jaworski, 1990). Market orientation as an organizational culture emphasizes the use of firm-wide cooperation to create superior values for its customers, to outperform competitors and eventually to generate more profit for a firm (Baker and Sinkula, 2007; Li et al., 2010; Narver and Slater, 1990). Since Narver and Slater proposed their model in 1990 on the three core elements of market orientation, i.e. customer orientation, competitor orientation and cross-functional cooperation (CFC), most studies on the link between R&D and marketing cooperation (RMC) and new product success (NPS) take the three elements of market orientation as a single concept (e.g. Baker and Sinkula, 2007; Davis et al., 2010). Only recently did studies on the respective influences of each of the three core elements on NPS (e.g. Ingenbleek et al., 2010; Luca et al., 2010) begin to emerge. Despite the interest in the study of NPS, its relationship with market orientation remains unclear, especially in terms of how the elements of customer orientation and competitor orientation moderate the development of successful new products.1.1 Background of the study\n2. Literature review and hypotheses development: 2.1 New product success\n3. Methodology: This research used a quantitative method to examine the links between RMC and NPS. An online questionnaire was used to carry out the research as the inherent anonymity encouraged respondents to express their true perceptions.3.1 Sample\n4. Findings: 4.1 Characteristics of the sample\n5. Discussion: The demographic data of this research showed that most NPD projects were led by personnel from either R&D or marketing departments. The data also confirmed that R&D and marketing were the two most important departments in NPD in China's electronics industry. Therefore, this supported the hypothesis that RMC was critical to NPS and hence the overall performance of a firm.RMC was found to have a significantly positive influence on NPS. RMC explained the considerable amount of variance in NPS (R2 =0.354). This supported the hypothesis that RMC was positively related to NPS (H1). The finding shows that 35 per cent of new product performance was influenced by RMC of the firms under study.The findings of H2 show that customer orientation had a significantly positive influence on NPS. Customer orientation also explained the considerable amount of 34.2 per cent variance in NPS. On the other hand, findings of H3 show that competitor orientation had a significantly positive influence on NPS. Even though competitor orientation only explained 8.5 per cent of variance in NPS, the influence was positive and significant.The results indicated that both customer orientation and competitor orientation had a moderating effect on new product performance (H4 and H5): the moderating effect of the former increased the explanation power of the model by 3.3 per cent; and that of the later increased by 2.6 per cent.\n6. Implications: This research contributes to multiple areas of NPD research. Grounded in marketing, innovation and NPD literature, a research model that portrayed and projected the effects of RMC, customer orientation and competitor orientation on NPS in the context of China's electronics industry was developed and empirically tested.The findings of this research have several theoretical implications. One major implication is the confirmation of the moderating effects of customer orientation and competitor orientation on the RMC-NPS relationship. Previous studies of NPD have mainly focused on the direct influence of customer and competitor orientations on NPS. In this research, the research scope was extended to the more complicated moderating effects of customer orientation and competitor orientation on NPD research.Market orientation, has been generally considered as a single concept by many scholars and researchers (Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1993; Hult and Ketchen, 2001). However, the varying levels of influences that RMC, customer orientation and competitor orientation exert on NPS, as revealed by this research, indicate that in the context of NPD research, market orientation should instead be studied and understood from three separate perspectives, i.e. the perspectives of customer orientation, competitor orientation and R&D and marketing CFC. The findings show that each of the perspectives has a varying level of influence on NPS. Such influence interacts with and further strengthens the influences exerted by the other two perspectives on the construct of NPS. This study found that of the three perspectives, competitor orientation exerted the least influence on NPS when compared to those exerted by RMC and customer orientation. This finding sends a clear signal to firms that the most effective way to secure NPS under resource constraints is to foster RMC and strengthen the firm's customer orientation capabilities. As and when more resources become available, the firm can then channel part of the resources in building up competitor orientation capabilities to pre-empt competitors' moves.6.1 Management implications\n7. Limitations and future research: While the research is expected to make a significant contribution to the identification of empirical links among RMC, customer and competitor orientations and new product performance, the findings of the research are limited in certain ways. The testable nature of quantitative findings is considered less vulnerable to bias as compared to that of a qualitative research (Cavana et al., 2001). The use of an online questionnaire for this study enabled respondents from different geographical locations to take part in the survey. Though the rich cultural base enhanced the generalizability of the study, uncertainty in sampling caused by the failure of respondents to represent the population adequately may influence the applicability of the research. Further studies should be conducted to confirm how applicable the findings would be to individual settings and practitioners.Similar to other cross-sectional studies, this research attempted to understand the dynamics of a phenomenon by analysing a static snapshot of it (Sriram and Stump, 2004). The research did not investigate whether NPD project leaders' perceptions changed over time due to experience gained from their current and previous projects. There may be a time lag between cause and effect and the direction of causal relationships may be reversed.There are many opportunities for overcoming the limitations identified previously by using this research as a base for further research. First, the sample frame can be extended to NPD team members so as to gain a more holistic understanding of the relationships among RMC, customer orientation, competitor orientation and NPS. Second, future studies that combine qualitative and quantitative methods can be conducted to overcome the limitations of quantitative research. Qualitative research can be conducted to explore the existence of other antecedents of NPS to yield more comprehensive results.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This research seeks to investigate key determinants of new product success (NPS) from the perspective of new product development (NPD) team leaders in the electronics industry in China. A model is proposed investigating the interplay among elements of market orientation and the moderating effects of customer and competitor orientations on the relationship between R&D-Marketing cooperation and NPS.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were collected from 217 respondents to an online questionnaire that had been sent to 3,000 potential participants randomly selected from electronics firms across China. Regression analysis was used to analyse the data.\nFindings: - Results from the research support the hypotheses that NPS is driven by R&D-Marketing cooperation, customer and competitor orientations. Also, the association between R&D-Marketing cooperation and NPS is moderated by customer and competitor orientations.\nPractical implications: - This research confirms the positive role that R&D-Marketing cooperation plays in NPS and the moderating effects of customer and competitor orientations on the association between R&D-Marketing cooperation and NPS. The findings are of relevance to management practitioners as developing successful new products has become an ever more pressing issue in the wake of rising labour cost and increasing market competition.\nOriginality/value: - Previous NPD literature has focused primarily on NPD activities in Western and developed countries. This research fills the research gap by identifying the empirical links between R&D-Marketing cooperation and NPS. It is the first to examine the moderating effects of customer and competitor orientations in the relationship between R&D-Marketing cooperation and NPS of electronics firms in China.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Diversity management strategies of global hotel groups: A corporate web site based exploration
|
[
"Equal opportunities",
"Corporate image",
"Web sites",
"Hotels"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Based on world-wide demographic, economic, political, technological development and changes many organizations have expanded beyond their national borders (Groschl et al., 2008; Brodbeck et al., 2000). One of the key players in this movement towards globalization is the hotel industry (Littlejohn, 2003; Olsen and Zhao, 2008). Due to internationalization, hotel organizations are confronted with the issues of managing increasingly culturally diverse workforces.Aside from the cultural diversity challenges that accompany the globalization process of many multi-national hotel companies, some of the dramatic demographic developments (e.g. aging populations in Europe and Asia) combined with being a labor intensive industry (Barrows and Powers, 2008) enforce the issues of managing increasingly diverse human resources in hotel organizations around the globe. According to Groschl and Takagi (2008, p. 16) the basic notion of managing diversity is \"an evolving dialectic from inequality, fair representation and assimilation to respect, co-existence and performance\".Outlined in the subsequent section, the concept of diversity management has been hailed as an effective managerial response to the challenges of managing increasingly diverse workforces. Responding to challenges with sound diversity management strategies and concrete practices requires commitment by top management and is often reflected in clear and transparent corporate diversity policies. The policies are necessary to provide direction and guidance for management and employees crucial in an area as complex, multifaceted and comprehensive as workforce diversity.To date, however, little research has been conducted in the area of corporate diversity management in the global hotel industry. Several studies have focused on either specific geographic regions (see, for example, Groschl, 2004), specific types or dimensions such as persons with disability (see for example, Groschl, 2007) the processes of training and development of diversity (see, for example, Weaver et al., 2003), and other hotel related sectors such as the restaurant or casino industry (see, for example, Schaap et al., 2008; Woods, 1995). In order to develop this under-researched area, this study explores major internationally operating hotel groups and their corporate diversity statements, communicated via their firms' corporate web sites. An understanding of these statements is critical for the analysis of workforce diversity actions, as the former shape the policy framework and basis for any diversity management (DM) program or initiative.The first part of this paper provides a brief introduction to the concept of diversity and diversity management, and a more detailed overview of the past and current diversity management related research within the hotel or hotel related sectors. This is followed by an outline of the methodological approach to this study, and the presentation and discussion of the findings. The final part of this paper puts forward conclusions and recommendations, and the limitations of this study.\n2. Literature review: Diversity and diversity management\n3. Methodology: In line with a range of other studies within the DM area, the author believes that when exploring DM in general and DM at a strategic or corporate level an indicative starting point is a content analysis of corporate web sites. According to Winter et al. (2003) corporate web sites constitute an increasingly important data source as well as a tool for public relations. Using corporate web sites, Point and Singh (2003) explored 241 companies, across eight European countries, and their definitions of diversity and its different dimensions. The two authors revealed that the term diversity and its dimensions are defined differently across the eight European countries.Based on Hotels' (2008), Corporate 300 rankings, 25 hotel organizations from among the 60 largest companies (by room numbers) were selected. Large, internationally operating hotel organizations are more likely to have in place sophisticated HR related policies and practices (see, for example, D'Annunzio-Green et al., 2002), and to operate corporate web sites (in English). The author's selection criteria included a certain level of internationalization as hotel groups operating in a wide range of geographically, demographically, and legally different contexts are more likely to be confronted with, and thus have to respond to, workforce diversity related challenges (Groschl et al., 2008). Thus, companies such as Red Roof Inns, Drury Inns Inc. and Prince Hotels were excluded as their locations are solely in one country. Other companies such as TUI, Club Mediterranee, and the MGM Mirage were excluded as their core businesses have not traditionally been the hotel sector but the tour operator business and the casino industry. Finally, to create a balanced set of US and non US-based hotel groups (in 2007, eight out of the top ten companies were US-based), and to get a global view across continents, companies from other parts of the world were selected including Movenpick Hotel and Resorts (Switzerland), Rezidor SAS (Belgium), Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts (Canada), and Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts (China). In total, out of the 25 sample hotel firms 14 companies were from North America - including 11 hotel groups from the USA, two from Canada and one from Mexico. Eight sample hotel groups had their headquarters in Europe, while three organizations operated out of Asia.Table I gives a full list of the selected companies detailing their corporate country of origin and size in terms of number of rooms.Starting in 2008 the author accessed the selected companies' corporate web sites to retrieve all diversity and diversity management related statements, aspects and information. The web content search included keywords such as diversity and diversity management, different forms or dimensions of diversity including disability, gender, age, etc, and diversity related concepts and terms including equal opportunities, equality, culture, etc. The author and a colleague accessed and searched, separately and as a pair, each company web site repeatedly throughout 2008 - ensuring the accuracy and reliability of the data collection process. All relevant web sites and information were stored as text files and at the same time transferred into Nudist 6.0 software. In the first stage of the data analysis, the author focused on the text files and evaluated the data manually, supporting the study's interpretative and qualitative approach to the analysis of the data. Based on Krippendorff's (2004) coding guidelines and the author's strong closeness to the data, a coding scheme was developed and implemented in the second stage. Throughout the latter each category was discussed to limit the subjective nature of the coding process. After several rounds of fine coding, cross-checking and changes in the coding structure, 100 different codes were identified and imported into matrix structures. Some of the key categories that were identified were definitions and dimensions of diversity, DM or DM related policies and practices, and the drivers behind DM initiatives.Throughout the data analysis and evaluation the data was not treated in statistical terms or in any quantifiable measures due to the study's rather exploratory and inductive nature. The author moved away from traditional forms of validity and reliability and, instead, applied Denzin and Lincoln's (2000) authenticity criteria including fairness, ontological and educative authenticity, and catalytic and tactical authenticities, as they seemed the most valid judgment tool for this study's findings (see Table II).In line with these \"alternative\" judgement criteria the author does not aim to develop scientific theories and laws or to statistically generalise the empirical findings. Instead, the author wants to provide a starting point in the exploration of strategic and corporate approaches to managing successfully the increasingly diverse workforces within the international hotel industry. As mentioned in the introduction an understanding of these approaches seems crucial and an important first step as they form the framework and basis for any subsequent workforce diversity management related actions and initiatives.\n4. Findings and discussion: The lack of communicating diversity\nConclusions, limitations and recommendations: This paper examined a group of major international hotel organizations and analyzed their corporate diversity management statements and policies. An understanding of these policies seemed crucial and an important first step in the exploration of any subsequent workforce diversity management related actions as they form the framework in which operational initiatives are embedded. The qualitative content analysis of the selected companies' corporate web sites confirmed the complexity of the concept of diversity - the difficulties to define, grasp, understand and measure it; and, at the same time, revealed several surprises.As highlighted in the introductory part of this paper, corporate web sites are important data sources as well as valuable tools for public relations. In many non-hospitality multinational companies diversity management plays a key strategic role and is communicated extensively via corporate web sites. Yet, more than half of the selected hotel companies in this study did not have any mention of diversity or diversity related terms and concepts in their corporate web sites.A second surprise was that hardly any company that communicated about their DM strategies and policies justified their DM approaches with business case arguments (e.g. increased productivity, quality improvements, and enhanced creativity and innovation). For most companies the key rationale behind their DM strategies and initiatives was based on anti-discrimination related claims. Focusing on anti-discrimination arguments and employee targets as a key performance indicator has led the author to believe that many of the sample companies follow a diversity enlargement and/or a reactive diversification strategy.At the same time, it came as a surprise to observe the strong investment in the resources and support of some of the companies' DM structures, and how DM seems not to be merely another HR function but a central strategic aspect in those companies. Of course, any of the sample companies that have not communicated about diversity or diversity related terms and concepts in their corporate web sites could have equally sophisticated DM support structures, proactive DM strategies and policies, and well organized and implemented DM actions and initiatives. The author is aware that as a result some of his work and conclusions presented in this paper seem hypothetical and need to be reconfirmed with, for example, more case-study based explorations of corporate DM policies and their translation into operational actions and programs.What is certain, however, is the need for hotel companies which have DM strategies and policies to communicate more extensively and clearly their DM activities and actions via their corporate web sites. Such communication will help support hotel organizations' employee recruitment efforts, attraction of talents with different educational and cultural backgrounds, development of multiple (minority) supplier relations and CSR image, and accessibility into new markets - as many companies in other industries have already recognized and proven.For hotel companies which have not communicated because they have no corporate or operational DM strategies or activities the author strongly recommends to make this aspect a key priority at all organizational levels - in particular when considering the global demographic changes and the labour intensive nature and global presence of the hotel industry.Companies deciding to develop a strategic approach towards better managing their increasingly diverse workforce need to invest human and financial resources in the creation of their DM framework and support structure. It is important to separate DM positions from the HR function, to create its own identity that thrives from a decision making level down to all managerial and operational levels - showing that diversity is not \"just another HR responsibility\" but has emerged as a key organizational and managerial priority that is supporting the overall business strategy and goals.Despite the pressure of the current financial crisis, companies need to think long-term - changes to individual and organizational thinking and behaviours cannot be expected over night. Moving to an inclusive organizational culture with a strong focus on the individual, and to a more business case oriented approach will take time and requires the freedom to pilot and experiment.A corporate DM framework with actions and initiatives requires a monitoring and evaluation element. The author recommends moving away from solely focusing on quotas and targets. As the current economic crisis has shown - a shift towards more qualitative (e.g. organizational climate, interpersonal skill set development, communication) rather than quantitative indicators (e.g. productivity, product quality improvements) is appropriate and necessary.Companies deciding to respond in a more effective and structured way to the challenges deriving from their increasingly diverse workforces will also more likely to be able to see the current economic crisis as an opportunity rather than as a challenge - starting with re-evaluating and readjusting organizational values to redefining and assessing managerial processes and practices.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The study aims to explore major internationally operating hotel groups and their corporate diversity statements. An understanding of these statements is critical for the analysis of workforce diversity actions, as they shape the policy framework and basis for any diversity management (DM) program or initiative.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study applied a qualitative content analysis of corporate web sites. The analysis and evaluation of the data was not treated in statistical terms or in any quantifiable measures due to the study's rather exploratory and inductive nature. Moving away from traditional forms of validity and reliability, this study applied Denzin and Lincoln's authenticity criteria.\nFindings: - Most of the selected hotel companies with diversity management strategies and policies need to communicate their diversity management activities and actions more extensively and clearly via their corporate web sites to help support employee recruitment efforts, attraction of talents with different educational and cultural backgrounds, development of multiple (minority) supplier relations and corporate social responsibility (CSR) image, and accessibility into new markets.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This study should be seen as a starting point with some of the arguments and conclusions to be reconfirmed with more case-study based explorations of corporate DM policies and their translation into operational actions and programs.\nPractical implications: - Communicating in a more effective and structured way, corporate or operational diversity strategies and activities via corporate web sites will provide hotel organizations with a key sustainable competitive advantage in talent recruitment, CSR and market accessibility.\nOriginality/value: - This study provides a starting point for better understanding corporate diversity management in the global hotel industry.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A contractor's classification of owner payment practices
|
[
"Contractual claims",
"Uncertainty",
"Risk",
"Owner classification",
"Regression tree",
"Contractor payment",
"Credit rating",
"Risk management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The failure of contractor businesses has occupied the minds of many (e.g. the summary given in Balatbat et al., 2010). Russell (1991) points out that over 60 per cent of construction contractor failures involve an economic factor. Lack of liquidity for supporting daily activities is a more common reason for failure compared to incompetent management of other resources (Navon, 1996). Effective cash management is therefore of central importance to contractors.Generally, the conditions of contract outline the timing and manner of payments to contractors for work done. While special payments such as up-front or mobilisation payments may occur, commonly contractors pay for work performed and then invoice the owner based on this work. Claims may be submitted on a regular basis, assessed by the owner before being approved, and then paid in full or in part. In such cases, the contractor's cash flow and financial status largely depend on how timely the payments are. Late and/or incomplete payments can seriously affect this status (Carmichael and Balatbat, 2010). When payments are delayed or less than expected, flow-on payments to suppliers and subcontractors are affected, additional bank interest may be incurred, and if the claim has to go to a dispute resolution forum, this adds extra time and cost to projects. And not all contractors are financially capable of withstanding a long dispute resolution period before recovering money owed (El-Adaway and Kandil, 2009).Uncertainties in payments have been addressed and successfully modelled as Markov chains to estimate the likelihood of late and incomplete payments and contractor accounts information by Carmichael and Balatbat (2010). This paper extends such ideas and presents a classification system of owners based on their historical payment practices. A credit rating technique called a classification and regression tree (CART) is adopted. The tree form classifier is constructed by repeating binary splits of subsets of the owner population into two descendant subsets. Each terminal node of the tree is labelled according to different groups of owners, ranging from the best to the worst practice. The classification model is validated using payment data from recently completed projects.The classification addresses the key characteristics of claim payments outlined in Carmichael and Balatbat (2010), namely, the delay time in receiving payment; the proportion of a claim likely to be paid by the owner; and the timing and proportion of subsequent instalments (if any) following initial payment. The paper is a contribution to current contractor pre-tendering risk analysis practices and an extension to the contractor claim-payment analysis initiated by Carmichael and Balatbat (2010). The analysis allows contractors to classify owners into different groups, thereby explaining and categorising the typical payment behaviour of various owners. The identified typical payment profile feeds into a Markov chain analysis for the estimation of payment probabilities and amounts collectible. Typical cash flow patterns and project feasibility calculations can be made for each group, so that they are ready to use during the tendering period, and subsequently during contract administration.The approach is intended to be used internally within a contractor's organisation to assist in decision making. The approach can also be used by subcontractors, suppliers and consultants who pay for work done and subsequently get reimbursed. It is argued that by contractors having a better understanding of owner payment behaviour, fewer disputes and contractor business failures will occur. Owners may use the approach reflectively to improve their own practices, to save time and cost by reducing disputes, and to develop better owner-contractor relationships.The following sections successively look at the background to the paper, some typical payment data and an outline of the tree classification. Classification for a case study project is demonstrated and a summary of the approach for contractors is given. This paper represents an original approach, and an original contribution to contractor risk management. The paper will be of interest to contractors concerned with managing their cash positions, as well as those persons looking at contractor-owner relationships.\nBackground: The issue of payments to contractors, subcontractors and consultants has been addressed in many studies. While \"payment is important to most firms involved in the construction process\" (Hinze and Tracey, 1994, p. 283), contractors face many variabilities and uncertainties in payments (Carmichael, 2002; Carmichael and Balatbat, 2010; Wu et al., 2008; Wu et al., 2011). The adverse influence of late and incomplete payments on a contractor's business and performance has been highlighted; for example, contractor non-payment is a cause of disputes escalating (Carmichael, 2000, 2002), and \"the risk of late payments [...] is very common in the industry and has driven many consulting firms to the edge of bankruptcy\" (Kometa et al., 1996a, p. 275). The survey by Odeyinka and Kaka (2005) shows that UK contractors are dissatisfied with the time lag between the defined contractual receipt time and the actual time, and percentage of contract sum retained. That paper also emphasises the need for means for dealing with retention and delayed payments. The situation is similar for subcontractors and specialist contractors. The survey by Hinze and Tracey (1994) shows that the majority of subcontractors are not satisfied with the percentage withheld by their head contractors, and (p. 283) \"that retainage on [...] a subcontractor's work could be substantial and the interest that might be generated would not be trivial\". El-Adaway and Kandil (2009) propose a risk retention measure for the contractor by buying insurance to relieve the financial burden of construction claims. Dayanand and Padman (2001) look at delays in payments to contractors from the owner's point of view. Brand and Uher (2010) investigate the effectiveness of payment legislation in reducing payment arrears.Variabilities in payments to contractors have been quantitatively modelled in several studies, mostly in cash flow calculations. Chen et al. (2005) make extensive use of project estimate and schedule data, including payment times in cash flow calculations. However, these authors acknowledge that an extension of the approach to include more detailed payment conditions, various payment time lags and payment frequency is needed. The cash flow model introduced by Park et al. (2005) allows users to take into account uncertainties caused by delayed payments due to owner's circumstances. Other cash flow studies that discuss uncertainties in cash inflow are Kaka and Price (1991) and Kaka (1996). Nevertheless, none of the cash flow studies have attempted to incorporate past payment experience in estimating cash inflow uncertainties.Since the introduction of discriminant analysis, the original classification tool, a variety of credit rating techniques have been used, covering many applications. In the broad field of project management, regression analysis and neural networks have been used, for example, in estimating construction costs (Kim et al., 2004) or identifying critical managerial factors affecting project success (Dvir et al., 2006). A review of applications of statistical credit rating techniques is given in Paliwal and Kumar (2009). Compared to some other popular statistical classification techniques, CART, which is adopted in this paper, achieves high accuracy in classification and prediction; a study by Lee et al. (2006) shows that CART gives a significantly higher average correct classification rate than that given by linear discriminant analysis and logistic regression.The idea advanced in this paper of classifying, or credit rating, an owner in terms of payment practices is new. Owners are often grouped according to their nature, for example, public-sector and private-sector owners (Flanagan and Norman, 1993), or based on their needs (Chinyio et al., 1998). Kometa et al. (1995) develop a model to quantify the owner-generated risks to project consultants, which was subsequently reviewed and tested in Kometa et al. (1996a, b). The model allows consultants to rate an owner against a set of criteria, which are identified and weighted using a survey. Nevertheless, the weightings are fixed and limited to a localised situation; therefore, the model's accuracy level is relatively low (35 per cent) as shown in Kometa et al. (1996b). Chinyio et al. (1998) use cluster analysis to construct a needs-based classification of owners. However, Mills and Skitmore (1999) suggest that an explicit grouping function needs to be derived in order to allow any new, and as yet unclassified, owner to be placed into the appropriate group. Lim and Ling (2002) use linear regression analysis based on 20 client-related criteria to evaluate an owner's contribution to project success. Although all 20 criteria are claimed to have an effect on project performance, the quantification of an owner's contribution to project success is only based on five of the most important criteria. Soetanto and Proverbs (2002) present a contractor's assessment of owners in the form of contractor satisfaction levels; however, there is a need for a model to reflect the overall quality of the owner.\nTree model preliminaries: CART, introduced by Breiman et al. (1984), gives a classification tree if the dependent variable is categorical or a regression tree if the dependent variable is numerical. CART gives the final classification in a simple form and requires no complicated skills to use, but still efficiently classifies new data. The construction of a classification tree requires a learning sample which, in the subject of this paper, consists of various owner payment profiles observed in the past. Then the tree form classifier is constructed by repeating binary splits of subsets of the population into two descendant subsets. For this purpose, an owner population containing a variety of payment profiles ranging from excellent practice to very poor practice is simulated. The construction of a tree revolves around three elements: the selection of the splits; the decisions when to declare a node terminal or to continue splitting it; and the assignment of each terminal node to a class.Form of payment data\nTree model development: Tree splitting\nClassification results: Incomplete payment case\nClassification of actual project data: Data from 12 actual projects are used to validate the model. Figure 11 plots the summary of outstanding project money at weeks following claim lodgement based on these data. In project 1 and project 2, variation claims and progress claims are separated, resulting in 14 payment profiles.The values of the predictor variables y0, t0 and a are obtained directly from these payment profile plots. The payment profiles are classified as in the example above, and their real values of MARK, calculated using Equation (1) are compared with the predicted MARK given by the tree in Figure 9. The differences in the predicted and actual MARK values are shown in Table IV.Of the above tested 14 payment profiles, seven give relatively satisfactory classification with a predicted MARK <10 per cent difference from the actual MARK. The classification of project 5 and project 2 (variation claims only) is also satisfactory although the actual values of MARK calculated based on their y0, t0 and a are far lower than the average MARK for Group I1. This gives a satisfactory classification rate of 64.3 per cent, supporting the accuracy of the model.\nApproach for a contractor: The classification for the case study data above demonstrates that, with pre-established owner payment behaviour groups, the remaining tasks for contractors are straightforward. In order to perform a classification, the steps to be taken by a contractor are as follows:(1) Use information from projects which are similar to the upcoming project in terms of type, financial conditions, payment terms, etc. For such projects, choose a unit of time measurement (days, weeks, months), and the number of time periods (n) that pass before a claim could be classed as needing to be resolved.(2) Summarise total outstanding amounts against time to give the payment profile. From that calculate:* the proportion of the total claimed amount ending up being paid by the owner within n time periods (y0 value);* the time following the claim lodgement that the owner waits before making the first payment (t0); and* the consistency in processing time of claims, by selecting a value of a which most closely represents the payment rate of the owner.\nConclusion: The tree form classification model provides a simple and practical way for a contractor to classify an owner's payment practices. Based on the contractor's knowledge of past payment practices of an owner, the contractor can determine which group that owner belongs to, and consequently characterise its typical payment behaviour. Information about the owner classification can be combined with the results from the Markov chain modelling in Carmichael and Balatbat (2010) to serve as inputs to the contractor's cash flow estimation and financial analysis.The calculations can be performed in a few simple steps and the tree is ready to use. It requires simple processing of data, which the contractor already has in hand. The analysis can be done for individual claim types (e.g. progress, variation, delay or latent conditions), or combinations of claim types depending on the contractor's wish. The choice of time unit and allotted duration is up to the contractor, and the tree remains valid.Future work\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - A common distraction to contractors is that of cash management, and particularly incoming payments. In the extreme, a failure to manage a project's cash flows may bring about business failure. A contractor's financial viability rests on how actual payments from an owner are received. The purpose of this paper is to present a method for contractors to evaluate the punctuality and fullness of owner payments based on historical behaviour.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Owners are classified according to their late and incomplete payment practices. The payment profile of an owner, in the form of aging payments received based on claims, is used as a basis for the method's development. Regression trees are constructed based on three predictor variables, namely, the average time to payment following a claim, the total amount ending up being paid within a certain period and the level of variability in claim response times.\nFindings: - The method will be of interest to contractors concerned with managing their cash positions, as well as those persons looking at contractor-owner relationships.\nPractical implications: - The method is intended to be used internally within a contractor's organisation to assist in decision making. The method can also be used by subcontractors, suppliers, and consultants. Owners may use the method reflectively to improve their own practices, to save time and cost by reducing disputes, and to develop better owner-contractor relationships.\nOriginality/value: - This paper represents an original approach, and an original contribution to contractor pre-tendering risk analysis practices, and an extension to contractor claim-payment analysis.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Multi-unit management key success factors in the casual dining restaurant industry: A case study
|
[
"Restaurants",
"Training",
"Research"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Multi-unit restaurants or \"chain\" casual restaurants represent a large portion of the US foodservice industry. Over the past 50 years, the restaurant industry has grown to be a staple of the American diet, and large national chain restaurants lead the pack when it comes to growth and expansion. Overall, the foodservice industry represents $476 billion in revenue and over 4 percent of the gross domestic product of the US (National Restaurant Association, 2005). Over 50 percent of the total annual domestic restaurant sales are accounted for by the leading chain restaurant organizations (Muller and Woods, 1994; National Restaurant Association, 2005).There are over 900,000 restaurant units, with approximately 270,000 of them representing chain restaurants (National Restaurant Association, 2005). With an estimated span of control of between two and 15 restaurants per multi-unit operator, this means that there are approximately 38,571 multi-unit managers working in US chain restaurants today (Goss-Turner, 1999; Umbreit, 1989). While the US foodservice industry is growing in revenue at a rate of approximately 4 percent annually, the top 25 chain restaurants grew approximately 5.1 percent in total revenue during the same time period (National Restaurant Association, 2005; Technomics, Inc., 2004).This continued growth and the corresponding organizational challenges it brings suggests there is a distinct need in the market for well-trained and qualified multi-unit managers. These multi-unit managers (MUMs) are the professional knowledge workers who Peter Drucker called the \"manager of managers\" (Drucker, 1955, p. 24). There is a need to identify and empirically test the key success factors (KSFs) in various segments of the foodservice industry in order to help MUMs to be successful in their role. Additionally, KSFs are needed in order to be able to develop human resources practices and policies that can help to recruit and train for these KSFs. Many multi-unit operators come from the ranks of single unit managers without much additional training or development, and the past literature has shown us that the skill sets for the various levels of management are different (Muller and Campbell, 1995; Umbreit, 1989, 2001; Umbreit and Smith, 1991).There has been limited research done in the area of multi-unit management in the restaurant industry (Muller and Campbell, 1995; Umbreit, 1989, 2001). Much of that research has been done in the quick service restaurant industry. Existing research in the area has shown that the attributes of the single unit manager (including the success factors that are part of their job set) are very different from the attributes of a multi-unit manager. The current study is designed to add to the research regarding casual dining restaurant MUMs and their perceptions on the key success factors needed to be successful in their careers.\nBackground literature: Multi-unit management\nMethodology: Case study research methodology\nResults: Profile of respondents\nDiscussion: The current study helped to expand the research currently available in the casual dining restaurant industry regarding the key success factors that MUMs need to be successful in their jobs. The study used a multi-site case study approach and looked in depth at the MUMs and top executives in a single, large multi-national organization with multiple brands of casual dining restaurants. In response to the research question, what are the job characteristics or key success factors that current MUMs perceive are important for their success in their current job as a multi-unit manager, the factor analysis helped to narrow the number of survey items down from 24 to eight factors that describe the key performance areas that are related to the successful performance of a multi-unit manager.The eight factors that came out of the current study are: single unit operations, standard operating procedures, multi-unit strategic planning, interpersonal and social responsibilities, travel and visiting units, human relations, effective leadership, and unit level finances. These areas are considered by the respondents to be the eight factors that have explained over 75 percent of the variance in the responses. When exploring the means or importance level of these factors, it is clear that the factors of effective leadership, visiting restaurants, and human relations are the most important based on the mean scores of the various components that comprise the factors. In reviewing these eight factors, it is interesting to note that there were only five factors revealed in previous studies by Muller and Campbell (1995) and Umbreit (1989). This could be due to the fact that as organizations have matured, more skills are necessary in order to be successful, or that the other studies combined some of the attributes together. For example, standard operating procedures and daily restaurant operations could have been combined along with visiting restaurants. The current study shows the importance of all of these factors.When comparing the current findings with the past studies on multi-unit management, it is clear that as organizations have continued to develop, the \"soft\" skills of management and managing human resources have continued to be important (Umbreit, 2001). Factors 4, 6 and 7 all have the components of working with and through people as major components of the factor. Organizations need to realize the importance of this theme and strive to work with single unit managers and multi-unit managers to encourage development of that skill.Another finding from the demographic information presented in the current study is that there are not many females in the sample. This is indicative of the current state of top management in the restaurant industry. In the current study, there are approximately 10 percent of the sample that are females. The restaurant industry, and specifically the casual dining restaurant industry does not have an equal representation in the top level management positions (including multi-unit management positions) that are filled by women. This is something that should be addressed by focusing on working with the KSFs identified in the current study and developing training programs to fill in the gaps between the single unit manager ranks and the multi-unit management ranks.There are also no MUMs under the age of 35 in the current study. This could be indicative of the long tenure that people have with the company and how long they have been in their current position. As the new generation of employees moves into management ranks, it becomes even more important that some of the higher-level managers in the company can understand and relate to this generation. Having a development program in place that can help people move through the ranks in management could help develop the KSFs at a younger age. The importance to organizations of knowing the key success factors for MUMs in their organizations and to create development programs that encourage growth in the factors will help them to continue to grow and thrive in a very competitive industry.\nImplications for practitioners: The current study helps to inform academics of the responses of a large percentage of the MUMs for one specific organization. This information can help to guide future studies in the area of MUMs' key success factors and could allow for a comparison of various organizations and/or various segments of the restaurant industry. By analyzing the eight KSFs that emerged from the current study, development programs can be created for that organization in order to help to focus their management team on how to create MUMs that have the skills required to work in a multi-unit organization successfully.The current study can help guide the organization studied in developing training programs for their MUMs in order to facilitate them in performing their jobs more effectively, and it can also inform them regarding their human resource practices regarding hiring people to fill those positions. One of the most difficult issues that restaurant organizations face is the turnover of their unit managers and MUMs (Berta, 2005). The current study gives a blueprint, through Figure 1, on the various components of a well-rounded development program for new MUMs.In order to benefit from the current research, organizations should look at the role of the MUM and determine which of the factors is critical to successful performance in their own unique environment. From the list of key success factors, it can be seen that Factor 1 explains the most variance in the factors at 17 percent. This factor of single unit operations is the most heavily loaded, meaning that an expert knowledge of single unit operations is important in the job of a MUM. By reviewing the other factors though, it is clear that Factor 1 is not the only important factor. Factors 4, 6 and 7 which all relate to the human resource factors load at a combined rate of 24 percent, thus showing how critical human resource development is. An organization would be wise to create development programs where human resource practices are evaluated and emphasized at the multi-unit level. It is also essential that single unit managers are given training and development in these areas because of the large number of organizations that promote MUMs from within.Some of the key findings in the current study are that: females are an underrepresented group in the MUM ranks and need to be developed within firms in order to create a more gender balanced workforce; younger people would benefit from development in key success factors in order to groom them for positions at higher levels in organizations; and, leadership, single-unit restaurant operations, and human resource skills are important factors for success in casual dining multi-unit management.The restaurant industry in the US is the largest private sector employer and the largest sector of the hospitality industry, and therefore improving the performance of industry managers should help increase overall revenues and guest satisfaction in the hospitality industry. By identifying a list of key success factors for multi unit managers in the industry and conducting a more in-depth exploration of these practices, organizational policies and practices can be aligned to help improve overall performance in the US casual dining industry.\nConclusions: The use of a case study methodology helps to focus the research in one particular organization, but it also gives academics and practitioners alike a glance into the process of research regarding multi-unit management. The casual dining restaurant industry, along with the rest of the foodservice industry, is continuing to grow at a rapid pace. This growth is causing the need for increased numbers of MUMs and the need for specific training programs to help them to succeed in hiring and developing people in the most effective way. Additional research could be done with a larger and more varied group of MUMs that would help with the generalization of the data beyond the current organization.Additional research could also investigate if there are differences in the perception of the KSFs between managers from different multi-unit restaurant concepts and different segments of the restaurant industry. The current study is limited in its generalizability, but it helps to create a starting point for casual dining restaurant organizations to look at how the MUMs that work in the segment perceive their roles and their need for further training and development.If the chain restaurant industry is going to continue to grow it needs to gain a better understanding of the success factors that impact MUMs and exacerbate turnover and cause burnout. More research is needed to determine the degree of influence other KSFs have on managers for different companies in the restaurant business and hospitality industry. Additional variables should be included in future research including, quality of work/life, growth opportunity, and burnout just to name some possibilities. The sample size and population should be expanded to include a broader cross section of restaurant companies and number of managers. A longitudinal study could be conducted to examine the impact of time on the perceptions of MUMs in the casual restaurant sector regarding KSFs.Due to the use of the case study method, the results cannot be generalized to all multi-unit restaurant companies, but the study further aids in understanding the differences between MUMs and single unit managers. The survey instrument used in the research could be enhanced to ask more refined questions based on the findings of the eight factors in the current study. With the future growth of the casual restaurant sector dependent to an extent on its ability to find managers to operate units and MUMs to expand in other regions, the need to understand the KSFs are paramount.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to determine the job characteristics or key success factors of current multi-unit managers (MUMs) in a large casual dining restaurant organization.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper is a case study methodology which was used to survey a group of 71 MUMs in one organization regarding characteristics of their job. There were a total of 53 respondents for a 74.65 percent response rate. Factor analysis was used to determine whether any of the 24 characteristics could be condensed into \"factors\".\nFindings: - The paper finds that the eight factors that emerged as key success factors were: single unit operations, standard operating procedures, multi-unit strategic planning, interpersonal and social responsibilities, travel and visiting units, human relations, effective leadership, and unit level finances, which explained 75 percent of the variance among the individual items.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The paper shows that the current study is limited in its generalizeability as the case study methodology is used. The current study does give researchers a start on categorizing key success factors of MUMs in the twenty-first century.\nPractical implications: - The paper can help practitioners to develop training programs for MUMs, as well as to help them recruit people for their MUM ranks that exhibit the skills and knowledge needed to perform the key factors that emerged from the study.\nOriginality/value: - The paper takes the topic of multi-unit management and develops a model for the key success factors needed for successful operation at that level in an organization. This paper is important for researchers in order to help develop research questions for the future. It is valuable for top management in organizations in order to help them to create development programs and to focus recruitment efforts. MUM is underrepresented in the restaurant industry by females and younger people and this study can help to develop people in these groups.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Group dynamics and the role of ICT in the life cycle analysis of community of practice-based product development: a case study
|
[
"Communities of practice",
"Information technology",
"Open innovation",
"Social networks",
"Knowledge creation",
"Group dynamics"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: According to Cartwright and Zander (1960, p. 7), group dynamics apply to a \"field of inquiry dedicated to advancing knowledge about the nature of groups, the laws of their development, and their interrelations with individuals, other groups, and larger institutions\". Group dynamics assign a set of norms, roles and relations in a certain social group with a common goal. Members of the group create interdependency, through which the behaviours, attitudes, opinions and experiences of the members are collectively influenced by all other group members (Wageman, 1995). Some argue that the business community is missing an understanding of what kind of social structure can effectively promote learning, develop skills and manage information (Uzzi, 1997; Wenger et al., 2002; Zahra and George, 2002). Communities of practice (CoPs) as open-innovation platforms have been regarded as useful tools to share and manage knowledge internally and with other stakeholders (Hafkesbrink and Schroll, 2011; Michaelides and Kehoe, 2007).\n2. Communities of practice and virtuality: Lave and Wenger (1991) initially defined a CoP as a naturally occurring, informal and self-organizing community that elects its members. Wenger et al. (2002, p. 4) later revised this definition by stating that CoPs are \"groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis\". Wenger et al. (2002) continue by saying that the CoP can also be generated on purpose, and it may be a semiformal part of an organization. The original definition of a CoP is as a relatively stable community where members work in close interaction near to one another and in which identity is formed through participation and negotiation, all of which is central to learning and knowledge creation (Amin and Roberts, 2008). Kodama (2005) states that the organization's ability to share tacit knowledge affects the organization's innovation processes. CoPs have also been considered an innovative way to manage information and maintain\n3. Research settings and methods: Electric Cars - Now! is a collective venture aiming at making electric cars affordable for everybody. This open-source community was established in 2007 in Finland. The community webpages and wikis offer open-source blueprints for electric car conversion kits worldwide and leave the manufacturing of the kits to the markets. When this study was conducted, the community core consisted of a few individuals, while the active group totalled 27 members. The entity had a large number of followers, who were supported by many companies and organizations.\n4. Life cycle analysis: 4.1 An early stage - motives and expectations\n5. Lessons learned: This section concludes by discussing some issues that explain the changes in the group dynamics during the life cycle of the eCars - Now! community. There were some pivotal situations which caused big changes. The community was relatively successful and productive up to the point where they decided to adopt an external stakeholder. Although the community was created with passion, they forgot many things that they should have taken care of in the beginning. The community was surprised by the expertise and money they required for product development and the need for a physical meeting place. One big setback was the lack of blueprints and design in the development process. These factors caused the community to disintegrate and thus prevented it from fully attaining its goals. If any of these people try to set up the community again, they should take care of the factors described in this section.\n6. Conclusions: This research examined group dynamics in a CoP through a case study. According to the results, group dynamics seemed relevant in understanding why a CoP either maintains its vitality or dissipates. At a personal level, the driving force was individualistic motivation, and at the community level, its objectives and goals were the driving force. Shared interest was also a combining force. However, shared interest was affected by conflicting motives and the realization of plans, by the pace at which the CoP evolved and by the sense of communality.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine the dynamics of a community of practice (CoP) through a case study of eCars - Now! They offer open-source blueprints of the electric conversion kits globally. The authors analysed the CoP by considering its entire life cycle, starting from the motives for its establishment, through its active performance, up to the current stage, where the members need to decide whether the community will remain viable. Particular attention was paid to the group dynamics and issues that seemed relevant to the change in dynamics which determine whether a CoP maintains its vitality or dissipates.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The qualitative case study was chosen as the research strategy (Yin, 1984) to answer the research question and understand the target phenomenon of the CoP by analysing textual data. This particular case was chosen because of its unusual revelatory value for the case CoP which aims at creating a tangible innovation by using a platform that normally aims at intangible problem-solving (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007). In the data collection, the authors used method and researcher triangulation (Patton, 1990).\nFindings: Life cycle analysis revealed four themes that explained the change in the group dynamics and the dispersal of the community: differentiation and dispersal of interests, growth that resulted in role differentiation, virtuality in community development and inclusion of investors. The themes were all related to the fact that the case community operated with not only knowledge, but also with a tangible product. Therefore, the tangibility of a problem to be solved seems to play a pivotal role in a CoP's operations and dynamics and, in part, also explains the changing role of information and communications technology (ICT) in the process.\nResearch limitations/implications: However, this paper identified also different ways to characterize community participation, which was also relevant from group dynamics point of view. Thus, the topic should be studied further. Group dynamics in general, as it relates to the success of CoPs, should be also investigated further. Additional studies should implement the inclusion of external resources in the community. Further research is also needed to investigate tangible and intangible outcomes achieved through CoPs. Much of the available research was conducted over short periods; prolonged interactions in a CoP context could show different results.\nPractical implications: In conclusion, at the beginning of the life cycle of the eCars community, ICT played a significant role. It helped increase awareness of the community in the first place and enabled people to join in, which thus enabled the community to evolve. When the operations evolved and the life cycle progressed, both the physical meeting place as well as personal interaction and communication became emphasized and much more important. In the maturing stage, the role of ICT, and especially social media, is the essential part of the community.\nSocial implications: This analysis suggests that at the early stage of a community, the plans can be somewhat random, even utopian, but when the community evolves, this uncertainty can become a problem. First, it affects achieving the actual, and in this case, concrete results. Second, uncertainty and unclarity dampen enthusiasm and motivation, which are of utmost importance due to the voluntary participation. This paper also concludes that when the operations evolved and the life cycle progressed, both the physical meeting place as well as personal interaction and communication became increasingly important.\nOriginality/value: This paper argues that the ideological basis for this kind of community should be openness. All information should be available for everyone who registers to the community platform on the internet. This community was working in the mindset of open innovation. Technical documentation and all other material were available for everyone in the community's wiki pages, which attracted a lot of people who were delighted by eCars. Many advisors delivered technical information and good advice to the practitioners of the community through the platform. The hang arounds were also very well-informed in this stage regarding how the core group was working.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Further evidence on the association between corporate social responsibility and financial performance
|
[
"Corporate social responsibility",
"Financial performance",
"Age of long‐term assets",
"Assets",
"Assets management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Cochran and Wood (1984) examine the association between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and financial performance by using approximately 400 firm-year observations. They find that, after controlling for firm size, risk, industry, and the age of long-term assets, CSR is positively associated with financial performance at a significant level. One interesting finding in their study is that the age of long-term assets is significantly related to CSR ratings. That is, firms with younger assets seem to have better CSR performance than firms with older assets. Cochran and Wood (1984) call for more empirical evidence on the association between CSR and financial performance, and also on the link between the age of long-term assets and CSR.The purpose of this paper is to extend Cochran and Wood (1984) by using a larger and more recent sample to examine the association between CSR and financial performance of a firm. I also investigate whether the age of long-term assets is highly related to CSR. I obtain CSR data from Kinder, Lydenberg, and Domini's (KLD's) database. The sample consists of 11,432 firm-year observations for the period of 1999-2009. This study documents two major findings. First, regression analysis reveals a significant and positive association between CSR and financial performance. This evidence, consistent with many prior studies, suggests doing CSR can be beneficial to firms. Second, the age of long-term assets is highly correlated with CSR. This suggests that firms with younger assets demonstrate better CSR performance than firms with older assets.This study makes several contributions. First, it extends Cochran and Wood (1984) by using a larger and more recent sample and delivers new evidence on the association between CSR and financial performance of a firm. It contributes to the CSR literature. Second, it responds to the Cochran and Wood (1984) call for more empirical evidence on the association between CSR and the age of long-term assets. Although there are many studies examining the relationship between CSR and financial performance, very few studies have examined the correlation between the age of long-term assets and CSR. I deliver new empirical evidence on the relation between CSR and the age of long-term assets. This significant correlation between CSR and the age of long-term assets suggests that future CSR studies need to include the age of long-term assets as a control variable in their regression analysis. Last, from a practical perspective, the results should be of interest to managers who contemplate engaging in socially responsible activities, investors and financial analysts who assess firm performance, and policy makers who design and implement guidelines on CSR.The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. The second section reviews prior research. The third section describes the research design. The fourth section describes sample selection and descriptive statistics, while the fifth section reports the results from the regression analysis. The sixth section summarizes the study.\nReview of prior research: CSR is defined as \"the voluntary integration of social and environmental concerns into business operations and into their interaction with stakeholders\" (European Commission, 2002). Vilannova et al. (2008) propose that the definition of CSR consists of five dimensions, including vision (Carter et al., 2003; Freeman, 1999; Humble et al., 1994; Joyner and Payne, 2002; Pruzan and Thyssen, 1990; Sison, 2000), community relations (Freeman, 1999; Frooman, 1999; Grey, 1996; Hess et al., 2002; Jones, 1995; Jones and Wicks, 1999), workplace (European Commission, 2002; United Nations Global Compact, 2000; International Labor Organization, 2007; Sum and Nagi, 2005), accountability (Elkington, 1998; Global Reporting Initiative, 2002), and marketplace (Fan, 2005; Schnietz and Epstein, 2005; Whetten et al., 2001). For example, vision includes CSR conceptual development, codes, and value within the organization. Community relations include partnerships with different stakeholders, like customers, supplier, etc. Workplace includes human rights and labor practices within the organization. Accountability includes the transparency in communication and financial reporting. Marketplace includes the relationship between CSR and core business processes, like sales, purchase process, etc.The topic of CSR has received increasing attention in recent years. The practice of CSR is still controversial since it requires firms to undertake additional investments in CSR. These CSR investments are often examined through the economic cost-benefit analytical lens, and assumed benefits from CSR activities drive CSR decisions. Some argue that CSR activities increase costs without sufficient offsetting benefits, hurt performance and compete with value-maximizing activities. Examples of these additional costs include making charitable donations, developing plans for community improvement, and establishing procedures to reduce pollution. The majority of CSR studies have focused on examining the link between CSR and financial performance of a firm. Empirical results are somewhat mixed. For example, Aupperle et al. (1985) use survey to assess chief executive officer (CEO)'s perspectives on CSR activities and report a significant and negative association between CSR and accounting-based performance measures. Moore (2001) focuses on eight main companies in the UK supermarket industry and finds a negative temporaneous relationship between CSR and financial performance. Nelling and Webb (2009) use the KLD index as the measure of CSR and return on assets (ROA) to measure financial performance. They find no evidence that CSR is related to a firm's financial performance.Many other CSR-financial performance studies document a positive relationship between CSR and financial performance. Early work by Cochran and Wood (1984) find a positive link between CSR and financial performance. Cochran and Wood (1984) point out that more comprehensive measures of CSR are needed to further research in this area. McGuire et al. (1988) document a positive association between CSR and accounting-based and market-based financial performance measures. In particular, their results suggest that, compared to a firm's subsequent performance, its prior performance is more closely related to CSR. Waddock and Graves (1997) use KLD data to measure CSR performance, ROA, return on equity (ROE), and return on sales (ROS) to measure financial performance, and document two major findings:1. better financial performance leads to better future CSR performance; and2. better CSR performance leads to better future financial performance.Similar to Waddock and Graves (1997) and Tsoutsoura (2004) uses firms selected on the S&P 500 Index for the period of 1996-2000 to measure the effect of CSR on financial performance measures. Tsoutsoura (2004) finds a significant and positive association between KLD data and financial performance, including ROA, ROE, and ROS. Dhaliwal et al. (2011) find firms with a high cost of capital in the previous year are more likely to disclose CSR activities in current year, and those firms with superior CSR performance receive a low cost of capital in subsequent year. In addition, those firms with superior CSR performance also receive favorable analyst coverage and achieve lower absolute forecast errors and dispersion. Thus, Dhaliwal et al. (2011) conclude that engaging in CSR activities may bring future benefits to firms.A recent literature review (Beurden and Gossling, 2008) and meta-analysis (Orlitzky et al., 2003) both conclude a positive relationship between CSR and financial performance. They suggest that being socially responsible can bring firms economic benefits that contribute to wealth maximization. CSR activities improve relationships with stakeholders which can ultimately lead to improved returns. A socially responsible firm may face fewer labor problems, fewer complaints from the community, and fewer environmental concerns from the government. In addition, socially responsible firms may have improved relationships with their investors, bankers, and government officials. The above factors suggest that firms that care about their social responsibilities may perform well in today's society.\nResearch design: Measurement of the dependent variable - CSR\nSample selection and descriptive statistics: I begin my sample selection process by downloading KLD data, including the seven major areas and six controversial issues, during the period from 1999 to 2009. The KLD sample consists of 24,283 firm-year observations. Next, I use Compustat to obtain financial statement data, which include total assets, total liabilities, net value of property, plant and equipment (PPE), gross value of PPE, operating income, depreciation and amortization, and total net sales. I merge the two samples, based on the first six digits of the Committee on Uniform Security Identification Procedures. A few observations are lost due to missing values. The final sample consist 11,432 firm-year observations with complete data. Table I provides the descriptive statistics for sample firms.Panel A of Table I reports the mean value of CSR performance (KLD), ROA, total assets, total sales, leverage ratio, and the age of long-term assets by year. For example, the mean values of the KLD rating are negative after 2000. The mean value of the age of long-term assets (ASSETAGE) is the lowest (0.478) in 2009. This suggests that firms have younger assets in 2009 than in other years. Panel B reports the mean value of CSR performance (KLD), ROA, total assets, total sales, leverage ratio, and the age of long-term assets by industry category. For example, the chemical industry category (SIC=2800-2899) has the highest mean value of the KLD scores. This suggests that chemical firms engage in more CSR activities, relative to other industries. This is not surprising, since chemical firms are normally subject to tough mandatory regulations on pollution reduction. The transportation industry (SIC=4000-4789) has the highest mean value of the age of long-term assets (ASSETAGE). This suggests that the transportation industry has older assets than other industries in this study. Panel C of Table I reports the mean, standard deviation, minimum and maximum values of CSR performance (KLD), ROA, total assets, total sales, leverage ratio, and the age of long-term assets for the entire sample firms. For example, the mean value of KLD is -0.586, while the minimum value and the maximum value of KLD are -11 and 15, respectively.Table II provides the correlation matrices for the key variables for the years 1999-2009. Those variables include KLD, ROA, ASSETS, SALES, COGS, LEV, and ASSETAGE. For each pair of variables, the Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients and related p-values are provided. Both Pearson and Spearman correlations indicate a positive and significant association between CSR (KLD) and financial performance (ROA). This association provides initial evidence supporting a positive association between CSR and financial performance. Table II also indicates that CSR (KLD) is positively and significantly (p<0.0001 under both Pearson and Spearman correlation) related to total assets. This suggests that larger firms have better CSR performance than smaller firms. Results in Table II reveal a positive and significant (p<0.0001 under both Pearson and Spearman correlation) association between CSR and the age of assets (ASSETAGE). This finding suggests that firms with younger assets demonstrate better CSR performance than firms with older assets.\nResults: Consistent with prior research, I predict a positive association between CSR and financial performance. As shown in Table III, the interaction between CSR and financial performance (ROA) is positive and statistically significant (p<0.0001), supporting a positive relation between CSR and financial performance. This suggests that firms have better financial performance also do better in CSR activities.The regression model includes four additional variables to control for size (ASSETS), risk (LEV), industry (IND), and the age of long-term assets (ASSETAGE). Results indicate a significantly positive relation between CSR and firm size (ASSETS) and the age of long-term assets (ASSETAGE), and a significantly negative association between CSR and risk (LEV). The above findings suggest that:* Larger firms demonstrate better CSR performance than smaller firms. This finding is consistent with Udayasankar (2007), which suggests small firms and/or large firms are equally motivated to participate in CSR activities. However, compared to smaller firms, larger firms tend to do better in CSR, due to higher visibility, greater resource access, and better internal operating system.* Firms with lower leverage ratios demonstrate better CSR performance than firms with higher leverage ratios.* Firms with younger assets demonstrate better CSR performance than firms with older assets.This association between CSR and the age of long-term assets is consistent with the findings in Cochran and Wood (1984). One explanation is that firms with older assets may simply be less responsive in social dimensions than firms with younger assets. Specifically, managers of firms with younger assets are more likely to engage in CSR activities than managers of firms with older assets.Another explanation is that firms with older assets may build plants or purchase equipment in a period when regulatory constraints were less severe than they are today. For example, government agencies, like Environmental Protection Agency, impose tougher environmental regulations on companies. Thus, firms with younger assets can deal with tougher regulations better than firms with older assets, since younger/newer assets may have already been designed to meet the regulatory needs. On the other hand, firms with older assets may need to spend more to upgrade their facilities to satisfy regulatory needs.\nConclusion: In this study, I extend Cochran and Wood (1984) by using a larger and more recent sample to examine the association between financial performance and CSR of a firm. I also investigate whether the age of long-term assets is highly related to CSR. Regression analysis reveals a positive and significant association between CSR and financial performance, after controlling for size, risk, industry, and the age of long-term assets. This evidence, consistent with many prior studies, suggests doing CSR can bring benefits to firms. In addition, the significant association between CSR and the age of long-term assets suggest that future CSR studies need to include the age of long-term assets in their regression analysis. This study has several limitations. First, firms often participate in CSR activities gradually, and the stages of such participation can be difficult to determine. Second, this study, like other prior studies, may be subject to selection bias. That is, firms selected and rated by KLD database may already be good CSR performers.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine the association between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and financial performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper performs an empirical test on the association between CSR and financial performance of a firm.\nFindings: - The regression analysis reveals a significant and positive association between CSR and financial performance. In addition, it finds that the age of long-term assets is highly correlated with CSR.\nOriginality/value: - This paper extends Cochran and Wood by using a larger and more recent sample to examine the association between CSR and financial performance of a firm. It contributes to the CSR literature.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Characteristics of eating occasions that contain fruit
|
[
"24‐hour food recall diary",
"Fruit consumption",
"Longitudinal study",
"New Zealand",
"Quantitative analysis",
"Contextual aspects of consumption",
"Fruits",
"Memory",
"Sensory perception"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Adequate fruit consumption is promoted as fundamental to a healthy, balanced diet (Crawford et al., 2007; Brug et al., 1995; Busick et al., 2008). However, compliance with dietary guidelines for fruit intake remains poor and further research can provide options and advice for overcoming consumption barriers (Crawford et al., 2007; Jack et al., 1997). Different fruits are used in diverse ways (Bisogni et al., 2007; Jaeger, 2003), but there is a paucity of data that identifies specific ways that fruits are incorporated into the diet. Nutritional studies predominantly seek to understand the quantity of fruit consumed (e.g. Bazzano et al., 2002). Amongst others, perceptions of freshness, psychosocial, environmental and life-course factors have been explored to obtain a more holistic perspective of the factors influencing fruit consumption (Brug et al., 1995; Kamphuis et al., 2006; Devine et al., 1998; Peneau et al., 2009) but there is a continuing need for research that identifies specific ways for improving fruit consumption.Fruit are often recommended as convenient and healthy snacks (Jack et al., 1997). Many are portable, and have been reported to appeal to people who crave sweet snacks (Wansink, 2006). The promotion of fruit as snacks is sensible given that integrating fruit into the diet requires limited preparation or cooking skills (Marshall et al., 1994; Kamphuis et al., 2006). Despite the seeming simplicity of this recommendation, increasing daily fruit consumption remains a challenge, indicating that there are additional factors that influence fruit consumption which remain relatively unexplored. The literature tends to focus on infrequent fruit consumers; however, there has recently been increasing realisation that detail around the practices of regular fruit consumers would be of value (Wansink, 2006; Crawford et al., 2007). Having such insights would help expand our understanding of the ways fruit are incorporated into the diet; and could in turn contribute to the development of more effective fruit promotion strategies.Contextual factors are fundamental to understanding how fruit together with other foods and beverages are incorporated into the diet. This area of limited attention has been suggested as key to understanding why people consume the foods that they do (Belk, 1975). People's food choices involve trade-offs (Bava et al., 2008) and the social settings within which eating occurs are also subject to a variety of influences (Lake et al., 2009). Contextual factors can reveal patterns of behaviour both at the population level as well as at the individual level. The latter can reveal whether some foods are consumed more commonly at certain times of the day, or only in social situations with friends for example. Melon, pineapple and tropical fruits, for example, are more likely to feature on fruit platters at social events than be regularly incorporated into the daily diet because of the cost and preparation involved (Jaeger, 2003, 2005). In this study, we aimed to expand our knowledge of daily fruit choice and consumption through obtaining insights into the use of fruit. We aim to explore this both at the sample population level to explore patterns, as well as at the individual level, to explore situational differences. Differences between individuals lead to unique choice decisions (Cullen et al., 2002; Blake, 2008) and exploring these differences may help develop effective strategies for increasing fruit consumption.\nMethodology: Although capturing insights into food consumption practices is methodologically challenging; 24-hour recall is a commonly used method (Jaeger et al., 2009; Arab et al., 2010). Participants were asked to record the food and beverage items consumed in up to six eating occasions per 24-hour period. An eating occasion was defined as any instance where a food item was consumed and excluded when beverages alone were consumed. Participants provided open-ended responses including the name of the meal, the time it was consumed, and the six main food components eaten. Contextual information, including duration of meal, with whom the meal was consumed and where was recorded. Quantities of food and beverage items were not requested.Data collection\nResults: Types of fruit reported and accompanying food and beverage items\nDiscussion: This exploratory study evaluated the way fruit are incorporated into the diet by capturing detailed contexts in which fruit are consumed. Three main findings emerged. First, there was variation between the contextual characteristics of when individual fruit types were consumed. Second, when consumed with other foods, fruit were as likely to accompany a meal as to feature as snacks. Third, diversity was observed within and between an individual's use of different fruit types.Exploring variation between the foods and beverages consumed with specific fruit types\nLimitations and suggestions for future research: This study focused on information about fruit consumption in the context of daily use. The small size of our group made this exploratory study manageable, but limits the applicability of the results to other sample groups. The majority of participants were in less than 15 hours' paid employment per week, and consequently most eating occasions occurred within the home. Selecting participants that were in paid employment for more hours per week may result in a higher frequency of eating occasions out of the home and subsequently a broader spectrum of consumption behaviour. The variety of fruit reported as well as the contexts of when fruit were used may also vary over the summer months, since people perceive fruit to be cheaper, tastier, more readily available and better for health in summer than in winter (Brug et al., 1995).Increasing the size of the sample population may also increase the likelihood of observing diversity between people who use fruit more frequently as snacks versus those who mainly eat them with meals. Patterns within this relatively small and homogenous sample are promising, and exploring the contextual characteristics around the diets of a broader demographic group would be a valuable progression from the current study. Jaeger et al. (2011) recently published a conceptual framework for exploring patterns and variability in a broader range of food choice events for the combined study of \"product\", \"place and \"person\".The aspects to be explored in relation to fruit consumption are vast but one avenue worth pursuing may be parents' use of fruit and how this may affect the development of fruit consumption practices in children. The promotion of fruit consumption amongst children is very topical, and understanding how habits are formed can help build an understanding of how fruit consumption can be promoted (Busick et al., 2008). Exposure to different fruits and vegetables is known to encourage children to be open to trying a wider range of food types (Busick et al., 2008). Parents' food practices influence how children integrate fruits into their diet (Busick et al., 2008; Brug et al., 1995), so details about how such practices are formed may assist with the development of recommendations which assist parents to develop healthful practices.\nConclusion: This exploratory study provides detail about the types of fruit commonly consumed, the food and beverage items that accompanied fruit when consumed as snacks or alongside a meal, and the contextual characteristics of eating occasions containing fruit. Amongst the small relatively homogenous sample population studied, individual fruit types were integrated into the diet in diverse ways. By delving into the individual's dietary, examples were uncovered of the varying ways that specific fruit types were used, including the contextual characteristics of eating occasions containing fruit. Findings may contribute to tailoring initiatives to promote fruit consumption. Future research with a larger sample size and broadened demographic criteria may obtain insights into a more varied range of eating occasions outside the home. Such insights, together with those from other fruit-related studies, would build a more comprehensive understanding of the way fruit are incorporated into the diet, which could be used to develop healthful food policies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This exploratory study seeks to examine self-reported recall of eating occasions that contain fruit. The aim is to obtain insights around the use of fruit in a range of eating occasions, and to identify the ways that various fruit types are incorporated into the diet.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A longitudinal study obtained detail about eating occasions using 24-hour dietary recall over a three-month period. A total of 25 women aged between 35-66 years with a moderate to high annual household income took part. There were 5,791 eating occasions reported, of which 29 per cent contained fruit.\nFindings: - Individual fruit types were integrated into the diet in varying ways. Diversity was observed within and between participants in terms of the foods and beverages that were typically consumed during eating occasions that contained fruit. The paper documents contextual characteristics of eating occasions that featured individual fruit types.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The study comprised a small, relatively homogeneous sample population, and no quantities of fruit consumed were measured. However, the longitudinal design enabled a broad range of eating occasions containing fruit to be captured for each participant.\nOriginality/value: - The findings help build a more comprehensive understanding of how fruits are incorporated into the diet. The approach can be applied to a larger and more diverse sample population to explore fruit consumption further. Typical usage patterns for individual fruit may then be used to develop effective suggestions for promoting fruit consumption.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
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