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Human capital, foreign direct investment stock, trade and the technology diffusion in Saudi Arabia 1974-2011	[ "Human capital", "Saudi Arabia", "Co-integration", "Oil sector trade", "Technology diffusion", "Economic modernization" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Technology is the way the human and physical resources can be mixed to produce the output. This technology can be tangible such as new equipment, and it can be intangible such as a new prototype design that can be followed to produce a certain outcome. Technology when adopted, and diffused enhances the productivity of labour, and hence the economic output. In economic equilibrium models, technology is given and its users are treated as similar. The technology adoption in these models is delayed or precluded only by the lack of information about it. Economic equilibrium models assume there is no uncertainty about the application, evolution and use of technology. The firms take this technology as given and maximize their profits to attain competitive welfare maximising equilibrium. The varying degrees of access to information about the technology among the firms result in the sigmoid curve of the time diffusion as some firms are early adopters and others laggards (Sarkar, 1998; Jensen, 1982; McCardle, 1985). Comin et al. (2008) have surveyed 115 technologies in 150 countries for the last 200 years in an attempt to identify the time shape of the technology diffusion, and they found no evidence that technologies diffused in a logistic way. Technology can also diffuse in uncertain environments as evolutionary economic models suggest. These models assume that technology adoption and diffusion happen in uncertain environment with limited information. In these models marginal analysis of equilibrium models cannot be employed to describe the behaviour of the firms in technology adoption. In these models firm learn by doing, and the original technology can be changed and adopted by various users (Hall, 2005). Evolutionary models take into account the industry-specific and firm-specific characters of knowledge. Evolutionary models are microeconomic in nature and complex to estimate. In contrast, equilibrium models are macroeconomic in nature and easy to estimate (Hanel and Niosi, 2007; Nelson, 1968; Nelson and Winter, 1982). Yet there are three other models that explain the diffusion of technology as summarized by Baptista (1999). They are strategic interaction, supply side and geography or networking, models. Under strategic interaction, firms learn progressively by observing the users, and they prefer to delay their adoption until others adopt. This process forms a sequence of waiting contestants, and hence resulting in a game theoretic sequential adoption of a new technology (Jensen, 1982; McCardle, 1985). The proponents of supply side argue that the adoption of a new technology is not only determined by the behaviour of the users and the potential users - demand side, but also by the behaviour of the suppliers of the new technology. The market structure of the suppliers and their cost characteristics can influence the extent of the technology diffusion (Stoneman and Ireland, 1983). The geography or networking models suggest that the diffusion of a new technology takes place simultaneously in time and space, and that the spatial variations in the availability of the new technology determine the spread and speed of diffusion (Keller, 2002a,b).\nSome relevant literature: In this section, I discuss some relevant literature in relation to the determinants of technology diffusion and transfer. I specifically look for evidence for the roles of human capital, FDI, capital goods imports, research and development (R&D) expenditure, and trade in transferring technology from one location to another and in diffusing it. Beyond these five major determinants of technology diffusion, I also discuss other issues relating the technology diffusion such as endogeneity and exogeneity of technology, and speed of technology diffusion.\nMethods and data: Technology transfer as the literature review shows takes place through international trade in intermediate goods and spill overs from international research and development. It's defused into the local economy through the skilled labour and the domestic research and development. Technology however is tacit knowledge and intangible that cannot be directly and fully measured. There are three ways, as indicated by Keller (2004), to quantify technology. These methods are inputs, output and effects. By input method, technology is measured in terms of the R&D expenditure. Three issues make R&D expenditure an implausible measure of technology; one is the reliability of R&D expenditure across countries, another is the difficulty of disaggregating the data. The R&D expenditure in innovation, which is the new technology, should be separated from those expenditures spent on imitation and technology adoption and adaptation. The other issue regarding R &D expenditure being a measure of technology is the fact that the R&D expenditure of the current period does not often represent the innovation of that period. Patents are another measure of technology, and they represent the codified technology. This means patents underestimate the technology as the large set of innovations is not patented. The other measure of technology is to examine the effect of technology instead of trying to directly measure and analyse the technology (Keller, 2004). For example, from Solow's growth according assume that Y=output, k=capital, L=labour and A=technology, the production function becomes:\nData analysis: The model in Equation (7) cannot be estimated by ordinary least squares (OLS) method at the level values of the variables unless all the variables are stationary or integrated of order zero, I(0). Time series variables trend and drift continuously, and regressing one trending variable on another can produce some relationship even though there exists no theoretical basis for such relationship. To minimize having false relationship time series variable are diagnosed for the presence of unit root. If a time series variable has a unit root, it means its mean and variance are not stationary and hence in OLS regression can result in false relationship. A variable is diagnosed for unit root at its level value, and if it is found non-stationary, it is diagnosed at the first differenced value, and if it is found non-stationary, it is further differenced until it is found stationary. If a variable is stationary at its level value, it is called to be integrated of order zero, I(0); and it is called integrated of order one, I(1) when it is stationary at its first differenced value. I(0) variables can be used in the OLS regressions and the relationships will not be spurious, whereas I(1) variables are susceptible to spurious relationships when their level values are used in OLS estimations. In the case of I(1) variables, the long run coefficients of the level values of the variables are estimated using co-integration methods. If the variables appear to of varying orders of integration, then Pesaran method can employed to derive the long coefficients of the level values of the variables. Table I below presents the test results of the unit root for the level and first differenced values of the variables.\nConclusions and implications: The findings of this paper provide some five relevant results concerning the factors of technology diffusion in Saudi Arabia. The first result shown by the model is that technology, either measured by total factor productivity or embodied in the capital goods imports, is endogenous in the presence of human capital. The human capital is found to be weakly exogenous, and it is a key factor in the technology diffusion. The second result suggested by the model is the consistent relevance and importance of FDIs in transferring technologies across countries. The third result presented by the model is the irrelevance of oil sector trade exports to the technology diffusion; and the non-oil sector trade export is found to be negatively associated with the technology diffusion. In effect, the international trade exports of Saudi Arabia do not enhance and promote international technology transfer for Saudi Arabia. The fourth results implied by the model is that the measure of capital goods imports using machine and transport equipment imports does not appear to improve factor productivity. The final result found in the model is the negative association between the technology diffusion and the domestic R&D expenditure. Given the limited data on this variable and the fact that most of its values are calculated by the author it is likely that a measurement error could be responsible for the negative association. The paper appears to make two significant contributions and three results that seem to confirm some of findings in the literature. The first contribution is that fact that this study is one of its kind for the case of Saudi Arabia, a country that has embarked on high gears of economic modernization that supposed to be driven by technology and knowledge. Thus, an up-to-date research on the factors of technology diffusion in the country is expected to be of high-valued contribution. The other contribution the paper seems to make is the finding that international trade, particularly oil sector trade, of the Saudi Arabia appears to be of no relevance to transferring technology to the country, and the finding that the efforts to diversify the sources of the economic growth, measured here by the non-oil sector trade export, to be negatively associated with technology transfer, raises an important question for researchers and policy makers. Thus, further research is recommended to ascertain the role of non-oil sector trade in the technology diffusion process for Saudi Arabia. The paper confirms that technology is an endogenous variable in the presence of human capital; and that the higher levels of educational attainments are found to significantly improve factor productivity. The FDI stock is confirmed by the paper to a consistent and important factor in the process of technology diffusion.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors of technology diffusion in Saudi Arabia. It is a relevant study for Saudi Arabia, which has embarked on high gears of economic modernization that is supposed to be driven by technology and knowledge. Thus, an up-to-date research on the factors of technology diffusion in the country is expected to be of high-valued contribution.\nDesign/methodology/approach: It employs co-integration method to analyse the long run relations between the technology diffusion and its determinants.\nFindings: The study finds that the international trade, particularly the oil sector trade, of the Saudi Arabia appears to play no relevant role in the international technology transfer for Saudi Arabia. The study confirms that technology is an endogenous variable in the presence of human capital; and that the higher levels of educational attainments are found to significantly improve factor productivity. The foreign direct investment (FDI) stock is confirmed to be a consistent and important factor in the process of technology diffusion. The capital goods imports and the domestic R&D expenditure are found to be negatively associated with the technology diffusion.\nResearch limitations/implications: The machine and transport equipment imports are used by the study as a measure of capital goods imports, and thus a better measure is needed in a further research. Similarly, the limited data on the domestic R&D expenditure has forced the author to rely on estimates and own calculations. Thus, these data limitations could not allow us to have better understanding of the impacts of capital goods imports and domestic R&D on the technology diffusion.\nPractical implications: Human capital and FDIs are the key drivers the Saudi authorities should consider for transferring and diffusing technology in the country and expanding non-oil sources of economic growth.\nOriginality/value: This paper is a first of its kind for the case of Saudi Arabia to analyze the determinants of technology diffusion and investigate the role of the its oil sector trade in the technology diffusion. The oil sector trade is found insignificant in the international technology diffusion process; thus the authorities should refocus the oil sector trade towards technology localization and adoption to increase integrative by-product industries in the country.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A cost-benefit analysis model for the retrofit of sustainable urban drainage systems towards improved flood risk mitigation	[ "Flood risk", "Commercial properties", "Conceptual framework", "Costs", "Benefits" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Globally, more than 80 per cent of the population living on land are prone to flooding (Winsemius et al., 2018). In 2007, the worst flooding experience in the UK since 1947 coincided with the start of the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. These had a major impact on people, properties and businesses and brought the need for a better risk management system. In the UK, the environment agency estimates that one in six homes in England (approximately 5.2m properties) are at risk from flooding. Included in this statistic is an average of 10,000 homes which are built on flood plains yearly, while 185,000 commercial properties are located in flood-prone areas. These properties are valued at over PS801bn which accounts for 15.8 per cent of the value of total buildings and 2.2 per cent of total assets in the UK (Bhattacharya et al., 2013). One in six residential and commercial properties, which form about 2.4m in England are at risk of flooding from main rivers or the sea.\n2. Sustainable Urban drainage systems: SuDs is a generic term that refers to various measures used to control the effect of surface water runoff in the environment (Locatelli, 2016). Charlesworth and Booth (2017) defined sustainable drainage as the management of rainwater which includes snow and other precipitation, with the aim of reducing damages caused by flooding events, improving the quality of water, the improvement and protection of the environment, the improvement and safety of the health of the residents and the process of ensuring the effective stability and durability of drainage systems. Baron and Petersen (2016) further described SuDs as an important contribution to urban climate change adaptation.\n3. Cost-benefit analysis approaches: In approaching real-life problems, a number of decision-making tools have been developed such as CBA, cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA), cost-utility analysis (CUA), risk-benefit analysis (RBA), economic impact analysis (EIA), fiscal impact analysis (FIA) and social return on investment analysis (Greco et al., 2007; Snell, 2011).\n4. Evaluation of the costs and benefits of suds retrofit: One of the important recommendations from the Mayes (2008) review was to encourage property owners to take up the responsibility of reducing the effect of flood events on their properties by the uptake of available flood risk measures. Although the uptake of SuDs remains challenging owing to the complexity in its monetary and non-monetary benefits, there is continuous growth in public interest (Ossa-Moreno et al., 2017). The proposed CBA conceptual framework has taken into consideration the key components associated with the cost and benefits of SuDs retrofit and could help support further uptake.\n5. The benefits of SUDS retrofit: The uptake of SuDS as a retrofit could be of benefit to different stakeholders including property owners and users, insurance companies, flood management professionals and the government. The benefits of SuDS retrofit can be grouped into tangible benefits (Monetary) and intangible benefits (non-monetary) as shown in Figure 2.\n6. Willingness to pay (WTP): Intangible benefits by their subjective nature are difficult to quantify and are said to be more personal to the victim of a flood event (Joseph & University of the West of England, 2014). This impact depends on the relationship of the individual to the loss or damage which had been experienced from the flood. Therefore, ignoring the intangible benefits of SuDS retrofit can lead to an incomplete understanding of the full benefits. Non-availability of locations, where intangible benefits of flooding are being considered, makes its evaluation more difficult (Joseph & University of the West of England, 2014; Markantonis et al., 2012), this is why it is usually left out of the CBA appraisal for flood adaptation measures.\n7. The conceptual framework: Figure 3 represents the CBA framework for comparing the costs and benefits of SuDs retrofit in commercial properties. This CBA framework gives a detailed description of the monetary and non-monetary value of the installation of SuDs retrofit in a commercial property. Oladunjoye et al. (2017) identify this as a gap that has resulted in a reluctance towards the uptake of SuDs retrofit to mitigate flood risks, hence the need for a detailed framework that will give a robust understanding of the monetary values.\n8. Conclusions: The development of a CBA conceptual framework for the costs and benefits of SuDs retrofit has been discussed and presented. This framework highlights the essential elements of the costs and benefits of SuDs retrofit which need to be examined in the context of commercial properties. The CBA framework provides an in-depth means of assessing the actual cost and benefits of the installation of SuDs retrofit. By combining the relevant elements in each section of the framework, the full costs and benefits of retrofitting SuDs can be established. This would help in the decision-making process when faced with choosing to invest in any type of SuDs retrofit.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The Environment Agency estimates that one in six homes in England (approximately 5.2m properties) are at risk from flooding and 185,000 commercial properties are located in flood-prone areas. Further, an estimate of 10,000 new homes are built on flood plains yearly. The UK has witnessed a significant increase in flood events over the past 10 years. During this period, there has been growing research attention into measures to mitigate the effects of flooding, including the benefits of deploying sustainable urban drainage systems (SuDs) in new developments or as a retrofit. The purpose of this paper is to present the development of a cost-benefit analysis model for the retrofit of SuDs focusing on the potential for improved flood risk mitigation in the context of commercial properties.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A synthesis of flood risk management and SuDs literature is used to inform the development of a conceptual cost-benefit analysis model for the retrofit of SuDs and focusing on the potential for improved flood risk mitigation in the context of commercial properties.\nFindings: SuDs have been applied successfully in different parts of the world; however, the uptake of SuDs, in particular, the retrofit of SuDs, has been restricted by a number of issues including a lack of experience and trust in their performance and a lack of understanding in their true benefits. In particular, there is the limited experience of retrofitting SuDs and there are no well-established procedures for evaluating the feasibility, value or cost effectiveness of doing this.\nSocial implications: This offers the potential to support the UK government's flood risk management policy by helping to increase the resilience of properties, whilst offering other benefits to communities such as improvements in air quality and biodiversity and also presenting a clearer understanding of the monetary and non-monetary implication to owners of commercial properties for a more informed and acceptable uptake of SuDs retrofit.\nOriginality/value: The proposed model will allow a more comprehensive understanding of the costs and associated benefits associated with SuDs retrofit, highlighting the flood risk mitigation benefits that might accrue over a period of time for commercial property.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Benchmarking supplier external risk factors in electronic equipment industry supply chains	[ "Supply chain risk", "Global supply chains", "Bayesian networks", "Electronic equipment industry", "Supplier external risk events", "Supplier risk management", "VAR analysis", "Supplier risk management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The global electronic equipment industry has evolved into one of the most innovative technology-based business sectors to transpire in the last three decades (Digitivity.com, 2017). This industry includes producers of electronic equipment, instruments, electronic components and electronic equipment mainly for the original equipment manufacturers markets. Their products include analytical, electronic test and measurement instruments, electronic components, connection devices, equipment not classified elsewhere and distributors of technology hardware and equipment (Fidelity, 2017). The industry enjoys a current market capitalization of $323.2bn, a 7.05 percent revenue growth rate over the previous 12 months, and an 8.61 percent return on investment (Fidelity, 2017). Much of its success has been attributed to effective supply chain management (SCM). For example, one of the most lucrative companies in the electronic equipment industry is Apple, Inc. Korkeamaki and Takalo (2013) conducted a study of Apple Inc.'s global supply chain for its iPhone product. The study estimates that 10 to 13 percent of the firm's market capitalization is generated within this supply chain. The authors argue that much of the value created within the iPhone supply chain comes from the firm's uniquely dynamic managerial and organizational capabilities in globally competitive and innovative industries.\nLiterature review: The commencement of the twenty-first century has been marked by widespread disruptions in supply chains caused by fuel protests, disease outbreaks, terrorist attacks and the threat of weapons of mass destruction (Juttner, 2006; Wagner and Neshat, 2012). Thus, the research literature has reflected a growing interest in supply chain risk management by academics and practitioners over the past 16 years (Harland et al., 2003; Hallikas et al., 2005; Juha and Pentti, 2008; Micheli et al., 2009; Foerstl et al., 2010; Lavastre et al., 2014; Micheli et al., 2014; Ali and Shukran, 2016; Kirilmaz and Erol, 2017). Risk can be defined as the probability of variance in an expected outcome (Spekman and Davis, 2004). Therefore, it is possible to quantify risk since it is possible to assign probability estimates to these outcomes (Khan and Burnes, 2007). However, uncertainty is not quantifiable, and the probabilities of its possible outcomes are not known (Knight, 1921). A joint assessment of risk and uncertainty conducted by Yates and Stone (1992) reveals that risk implies the existence of uncertainty associated with a given outcome, for if the probability of an outcome is known, there is no unknown risk. Thus, uncertainty can be viewed as a key determinant of risk that may not be entirely eradicated but can be mitigated through the deployment of risk reduction action steps (Slack and Lewis, 2001). In business environments, managers are expected to reduce the firm's exposure to uncertainty through the deployment of effective risk management strategies. Thus, firms need to adopt systematic approaches for the management of supply chain risks (Juttner, 2006; Oehmen et al., 2009; Wagner and Neshat, 2012; Macdonald and Corsi, 2013; Hachicha and Elmsalmic, 2014; Lavastre et al., 2014; Manuj et al., 2014; Micheli et al., 2014; Rajesh et al., 2015; Ali and Shukran, 2016).\nResearch methodology: This study employs a research methodology that includes empirical data retrieved from the Bloomberg Supply Chain Analysis Database (BSCAD), and the creation of Bayesian networks used to construct external risk profiles for key suppliers to seven of the leading global electronic equipment companies. The following is an overview of Bayesian networks, along with a discussion of these suppliers.\nData integration and analysis: The supplier external risk profiles for key suppliers in the global electronic equipment industry are illustrated in Tables IX-XV. These profiles were constructed using the collected data from the previously discussed sources. The profiles also reflect the ranking systems associated with the data source for a particular risk event. For example, the LPI uses a five-point scale ranging from the lowest (1) to highest (5) score. Therefore, the level of logistics risk associated with each of the leading global electronic equipment companies' key suppliers was ranked accordingly. Note that the LPI percentage ranking is also included in the table. This ranking is a relative measure of logistics risk based upon the country with the highest LPI ranking (Germany).\nResults: Bayesian networks were constructed for each of the key suppliers in the global electronic equipment industry using the a-priori probabilities provided in Tables XVII-XXIII. The results of this analysis are presented in Tables XXIV-XXX. An examination of these tables reveals that Telefonaktiebolaget's Indian supplier (Tata Consultancy Services Ltd) possess the highest probability of supply chain failure due to an external risk event, while the German suppliers (SAP SE and Schneider Electronics) have the lowest risk of failure as a consequence of experiencing such an event. The industry's South Korean suppliers (iMarket Korea Inc.; LG Chem Ltd; LG Display Co. Ltd; LG Innotek Co. Ltd; LG International Co. Ltd; LS Corporation; Samsung Electronics; and Samsung Engineering) have the second highest probability of supply chain failure due to an external risk event, followed by its Taiwanese (AU Optronics Corporation; Compal Electronics; FIH Mobile Ltd; Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.; Inventec Corporation; Media Tek Inc.; Pegatron Corporation; Quanta Computer Inc.; Taiwan Semiconductor; and Wistron Corporation), Japanese (Canon Inc.; FANUC Corporation; GungHo Online Entertainment; Japan Display Inc.; Nihon Denkei Co.; Sharp Corp./Japan; Toenec Corporation; and Tokyo Electric), French (Sodexo Corporation), American (Activision Blizzard; Amazon.com Inc.; Apple Inc.; Applied Materials Int'l; Broadcom Ltd; Ciena Corporation; Emerson Electric Co.; Flextronics International Ltd; General Electric Co.; Ingram Micro Inc.; Intel Corporation; Jabil Circuit Inc.; Juniper Networks Inc.; KLA-Tencor Corporation; Lam Research Corporation; Microsoft Corporation; Sanmina Corporation; Seagate Technology; Toenec Corporation; Qualcomm Inc.; and VMware Inc.), Dutch (ASML Holding NV) and Canadian (Celestica Inc.) suppliers.\nConclusions: This study examines external risk factors associated with key suppliers in the electronic equipment industry through the creation of Bayesian networks which can be used to benchmark external risks among these suppliers. The results of the analysis illustrated in Table XXXI suggest that the industry collectively exhibits a moderate risk (32.73 percent) of experiencing a disruption due to an external risk event occurrence with a key supplier. The probability of failure due to such an event for the leading global electronic equipment companies examined in this study ranges from 30 to 35 percent. However, as illustrated in Tables XXIV-XXX, the probability of failure due to an external risk event for key suppliers in the electronic equipment industry ranges from 25 to 41 percent. This suggest that these electronic equipment companies may have an opportunity to mitigate their exposure to the types of external risk examined in this study by reconfiguring their supply chain toward those suppliers with the lowest probability of experiencing such an event. For example, LG's top two suppliers are in a country with the second highest probability of failure due to an external risk event (South Korea), and its supply chain contains a total of five suppliers from this country. Thus, LG may be able to reduce its external risk exposure by re-orienting its supply chain activities in the direction of suppliers exhibiting lower levels of risk in this area. Table XXVIII reveals that six of LG's 12 key suppliers in the electronic equipment industry are based in the USA. This country has the sixth highest probability supplier failure due to an external risk event. Therefore, LG may consider shifting a larger portion of their cost exposure toward these suppliers.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The global electronic equipment industry has evolved into one of the most innovative technology-based business sectors to transpire in the last three decades. Much of its success has been attributed to effective supply chain management. The purpose of this paper is to provide an examination of external risk factors associated with the industry's key suppliers through the creation of Bayesian networks which can be used to benchmark external risks among these suppliers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study sample consists of the suppliers to seven of the leading global electronic equipment companies. Bayesian networks are used as a methodology for examining the supplier external risk profiles of the study sample.\nFindings: The results of this study show that Bayesian networks can be effectively used to assist managers in making decisions regarding current and prospective suppliers with respect to their potential impact on supply chains as illustrated through their corresponding external risk profiles.\nResearch limitations/implications: A limitation to the use of Bayesian networks for modeling external risk profiles is the proper identification of risk events and risk categories that can impact a supply chain.\nPractical implications: The methodology used in this study can be adopted by managers to assist them in making decisions regarding current or prospective suppliers vis-a-vis their corresponding external risk profiles.\nOriginality/value: As part of a comprehensive supplier risk management program, companies along with their suppliers can develop specific strategies and tactics to minimize the effects of supply chain external risk events.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Test of a mediational model of organization mission fulfillment: evidence from the hotel industry	[ "Emotional exhaustion", "Hotel employees", "Job outcomes", "Mission fulfillment" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Customer-contact employees having frequent face-to-face or voice-to-voice interactions with customers are the main actors in service delivery and complaint handling processes. They are expected to meet discerning customers' expectations about service excellence as well as management's expectations about productivity and performance requirements (Babakus et al., 2009). With this realization, any factors that reduce or stimulate customer-contact employees' motivation and job outcomes are important to understand (Suh et al., 2011). It appears that the presence of effective mission statements prepared in light of significant criteria such as customers, products, social responsibility, employees, profitability, technology, philosophy, markets and self-concept will send powerful messages to both internal (e.g. employees) and external audiences (e.g. customers) about what the organization wants to achieve (David, 2013; Milman and Dickson, 2014; Nyahunzvi, 2013).\nConceptual model and hypotheses: Conceptual model\nMethod: Participants and data collection\nResults: Measurement results\nDiscussion: Empirical findings\nConclusions: Theoretical implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to propose and test a conceptual model, guided by conservation of resources theory, that examines whether emotional exhaustion is a mediator between organization mission fulfillment and critical outcomes such as turnover intentions, lateness attitude, job performance and extra-role customer service.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The aforesaid relationships were assessed via data gathered from customer-contact employees two weeks apart in three waves and their immediate supervisors in the international five-star chain hotels in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The relationships in the model were gauged via structural equation modeling.\nFindings: The results reveal that organization mission fulfillment influences the above-mentioned outcomes only through emotional exhaustion. Specifically, organization mission fulfillment mitigates customer-contact employees' emotional exhaustion. Under these circumstances, these employees report desirable outcomes such as low levels of quitting intentions and lateness attitude as well as higher in- and extra-role performances.\nResearch limitations/implications: In future research, collecting data from different service settings in different countries would enable the researcher to conduct a cross-national study and make further generalizations. In future research, including actual turnover and absenteeism as well creative and service recovery performances in the model would enrich the understanding about the outcomes of organization mission fulfillment and emotional exhaustion.\nPractical implications: Management needs to use several intra-organizational communication tools so that customer-contact employees can have an understanding of how the organization is trying to accomplish its mission. When employees participate in and contribute to the preparation of the organization's mission statement, they own the mission statement and do their best to achieve the organizational objectives. Management should also offer a work environment where employees can avail themselves of psychosocial support to be provided by mentors. Such psychosocial support would enable employees to manage problems emerging from emotional exhaustion.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to current knowledge by testing the effect of the organization's fidelity to its mission statement on emotional exhaustion and the above-mentioned job outcomes using data obtained from employees in frontline service jobs in the hotel industry.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Context, agency and professional workplace learning: Trainee accountants in large and small practices	[ "Professional learning", "Accountancy", "Agency", "Workplace learning", "Small firms", "Co-participation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Recent studies of professional learning have sought to refocus attention away from formal processes of education and training, and on to the ways in which learning is shaped by the social and structural arrangements of the workplace (e.g. Brown et al., 2007; Reich et al., 2015). This paper follows broadly in the tradition of this \"practice-based\" view, but in doing so it also seeks to highlight a further dimension; that of individual agency.\nProfessional learning in the workplace: the practice-based view: Influenced by the \"communities of practice\" perspective (Lave and Wenger, 1991) many researchers have investigated the workplace conditions that shape learning processes (see, e.g. Fuller and Unwin, 2003; Ellstrom, 2011). As Gold et al. (2007) note, this approach has had a significant impact upon theories of professional learning. Such theories were traditionally focussed less on the workplace context of learning and more on the stages of individual cognitive development involved in assimilating a corpus of professional knowledge (see, e.g. Dreyfus and Dreyfus, 1986). However, this began to change as attention turned away from formal, structured processes of professional education towards more practice-based accounts of professional learning (e.g. St Hill and Yazici, 2014; Reich et al., 2015). This turn has expanded our understanding of the ways in which learning is moulded by aspects of the workplace environment.\nAgency and \"Co-participation\" in professional workplace learning: As noted above, some researchers (e.g. Fuller and Unwin, 2003; Eraut, 2004, 2007) have provided detailed accounts of the workplace characteristics that frame the learning opportunities and inducements available to employees (e.g. systems of work allocation, regimes of workplace interaction, incentives for sharing knowledge, etc.). Billett (2001) describes these opportunities and incentives as \"affordances\":[W]orkers restricted to familiar tasks may never learn a widening range of tasks or diverse applications of their knowledge [...]. Coworkers' willingness to guide and assist learners [...] is particularly salient for individuals' access to and the development of this knowledge. These affordances are [...] shaped by workplace hierarchies, group affiliations, personal relations, workplace cliques, and cultural practices(Billett, 2001, p. 67).\nProfessional learning in the small firm: A growing body of research has illuminated the nature of learning processes within the context of the small firm. For example, Bishop (2012) observes that, in contrast to most large organisations, small firms rarely possess specialist human resource functions or extensive resources to invest in training. Furthermore, their smaller workforces make it difficult to absorb the costs of time and personnel committed to training. Such factors militate against extensive investment in formal, structured training activity, and promote a greater reliance on informal workplace learning (e.g. learning by doing or by observing, and without an explicit structuring framework) (see also Kitching, 2007; Nolan and Garavan, 2015).\nMethods: In order to access trainees' interpretations of and engagement with workplace learning affordances, a qualitative, comparative approach was used, involving research within five accountancy practices. Two \"large\" firms were chosen (i.e. 250 or more employees), and three \"small\" firms (1-49 employees), two of which fell into the \"micro-firm\" sub-category (one to nine employees). In order to qualify for selection, each firm needed currently to employ at least one graduate trainee following the ICAEW qualifying route to ACA[3] status. All of the firms were located in England. Further details concerning the five firms studied are provided in Table I, and demographic information about the trainees is provided in Table II.\nFindings: The next four sections present an overview of the main findings. The first two address the two large firms (RTP and Vantas), while the third and fourth address the three small firms (Conways, Johnson Harris and Alexander and Co.). The findings are presented with reference to two key themes: first, the workplace learning affordances available to trainees and how these differed between the large and small practices, and second the ways in which processes of co-participation between agency and affordance differed between the two contexts.\nDiscussion and conclusions: The findings suggest two things. First - and in line with existing research (see Bishop, 2012) - while a range of workplace learning affordances was in evidence in all of the firms visited, the nature and configuration of these affordances differed markedly between the large and small practices. So for example, in the larger practices the training function ensured that trainees were systematically exposed to working alongside more senior staff, that their progress in terms of task competence was formally reviewed at regular intervals against the organisational competency framework, and that their development needs were explicitly considered in deliberations concerning work allocation. Eraut (2007) and Watkins and Cervero (2000) identify such characteristics as being supportive of professional workplace learning.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ways in which organisational context and individual agency interact (co-participate) to shape the workplace learning of graduate trainee accountants, and to examine the role of firm size in conditioning this interaction.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A qualitative, comparative approach was used, involving interviews with 20 respondents across two large and three small accountancy firms in England.\nFindings: Differences in individual learner biographies and trajectories generate divergent dispositions with regard to workplace learning. In turn, these dispositions influence the extent to which the generally less formal learning environment of the small firm is interpreted either positively or negatively.\nResearch limitations/implications: Further research is needed on processes of agency/context interaction across a wider range of organisational and professional environments.\nPractical implications: Individual dispositions play an important role in determining the optimal approach towards professional development in practice.\nOriginality/value: The paper offers a novel insight into how variations in both context and agency - and the relationship between them - can generate significant divergences in the professional learning process.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Learning and development functions still don't get it: beyond fads and sameness	[ "Human resources", "Learning and development", "People development", "Career development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Recently I have been clearing out old files in my office. One thing that they reminded me of is how similarly organizations having been behaving. When I started out, every major organization had a personnel function with training as part of it. Then human resources (HR) came along and everyone had an HR department - personnel was old hat. Training gradually became learning and development (L&D) - a noble idea that many of us promoted. But still the assumptions of training regimes have dominated. Competence models proliferated with consultancy firms earning fat fees by their use of the cut-and-paste facilities of computer software to sell the same supposed tailored approach to various clients (in the past it required Tippex to blank out one company's name to replace it with another). Then \"talent\" came along and clients from Nestle to Nike appointed talent management people. Organizations have slavishly copied each other.\n1 People development: Another fad now is engagement - and that will no doubt fade away to be replaced by another global fad. Only smaller businesses seem to have stood out from the crowd. I worked with a lovely small financial business in England called Birmingham Midshires (the brand still exists but the organization was taken over a long time ago). It formed a People Development department over 20 years ago and it did creative things. This contributed to the firm winning customer service and innovation awards - and doing good business. Note that there was no fancy title for the department - it was there to assist in developing people so that is what it was called. People are not resources - as per the HR dogma - they are human beings with their own needs and motivations.One example of their different approach was when the new manager for the new People Development department took over what was a training department before. The staff were about to send out the obligatory annual schedule of training courses. The new manager stopped it going out and said that they should wait to see what managers actually asked for. It was months before anyone asked about the schedule. In the meantime the People Development team worked in the business to help to create approaches to meet the needs of individual business teams. For instance, teams were provided with a team coach to work alongside the team leader and to support development activity that met individual and team needs. And this was a long time before coaching was being promoted in large organizations.What was interesting in the Birmingham Midshires approach at the time was the recognition of the need for integration of individual and collective development. And none of this had anything to do with courses and training.\n2 Organization development and learning and development: Organization development (OD) came in during the 1960s as a way of tackling the failures of standardized training. However it shrank or disappeared in many organizations in the latter part of the last century only for it to reappear in this century.In a 2008 article (Cunningham, 2008) I argued that OD and L&D need integrating as it is not an either/or choice (develop the organization or develop the individual) - both are needed. However in integrating such approaches the fact of individual differences needs to be accommodated. Belbin (2001) and Page (2007) have both shown that teams with different capabilities, attitudes and backgrounds outperform sameness. Cloning is an extremely bad idea. The banking crisis came about largely because teams responsible for derivatives and other financial instruments were too similar and dissenting voices were not heard. They existed outside the organization in the likes of the investment genius Warren Buffet, but clearly not in the teams that completely misjudged the risks that they were taking.Organizations need to encourage difference and to build in such encouragement into L&D practice. OD and L&D practices that encourage sameness and uniformity are dangerous. This also links back to my point about fads. Competitive advantage does not come from doing what everyone else is doing and applying the same processes to all situations. Business focused L&D (see Cunningham and Gimson, 2008) needs to respond to business differences.Birmingham Midshires had a team oriented approach but that is not necessary in all organizations - it suited them at that time, that's all. The approach met business and individual needs as they were manifest then. What they did was to avoid fads that assume universal solutions. Instead, they supported what the business and individuals needed.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The article aims to exposes error in practice in HR and learning and development (L&D), particularly the habit of following the crowd and the lack of company specific practice.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The article draws on a specific case of a highly successful company that did not follow the crowd.\nFindings: - The case shows what can be done in practice.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Research was based on one case but it exemplifies an important issue.\nPractical implications: - The implications for practice are the need for organization-specific approaches to learning and development and the need to integrate individual development with organizational development.\nOriginality/value: - The article is new in using a real, unpublished case to expose the errors in HR and L&D strategy and practice.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
"Some people claim there's a woman to blame": Gender sentencing disparity in male-dominated professions: evidence from AICPA infraction data	[ "Gender", "Accountants" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Workplace crime is costly for society[1]. The trends in white-collar crime suggest that although the total number of white-collar crimes is decreasing, their magnitude is still significant to society, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation suggesting an annual cost to US businesses of $300bn in 2012, and the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners stating that over 1,000 cases of white-collar crime occurred in 2016 in the USA, accounting for 5 per cent of revenues for a typical business, or $895bn in losses that year [Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), 2016]. These crimes are gender dependent with infractions by women occurring at higher rates in asset misappropriation, and infractions by men occurring at higher rates in financial statement fraud [Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), 2016]. These findings warrant further investigation into whether gendered penalties exist in the workplace when those found guilty are punished for their infractions.\n2. Research questions: Today, women are expected not only to establish and maintain a household, but also to carry on a career to the best of their abilities; while men are taking on increased responsibilities in the home, their participation in the home has not achieved parity with women despite their female counterparts' increased involvement in out-of-home employment (Boushey and O'Leary, 2009). Past Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports indicates very slow movement since 2003 of the percentage of gendered household duties from women to men. Ultimately, this creates an imbalance in which women take on more than their fair share of responsibility within the home (ONS Digital, 2016, ATUS US-BLS). Moreover, the female departure from traditional home making and their transition into historically male-gendered roles in society - such as accountancy as a profession - may induce within society the idea that females are shunning their roles entirely. Female workplace evolution may result in inordinate penalties in a social structure that is institutionally dominated by men as arbiters of punishment. As such, women who commit crimes when outside of their traditional caregiving or homemaking role may see a set of disciplinary outcomes that differ from those imposed on men.\n3. Data and methodology: 3.1 A description of the American institute of certified public accountants violation review system\n4. Analysis and results: We test the effects of infraction ranks on suspension terms by first dealing with the censored nature of the data using Tobit estimations censored-right. This allows us to apply a latent variable to the suspensions that relate to indefinite/permanent sentences (long-term suspensions) and observe these effects upon gender (female) and the infraction ranks. The first test run (model 1) estimates the effects of the female and the 19 infraction ranks used as dummies in the model along with state and year fixed effects. Our initial finding reporting the average marginal effects (AMEs) of the expectation of the latent variable (long-term suspension), is that females on average are receive a longer-term suspension than males. We do not report the AMEs for each of the 19 infraction ranks for brevity - but we can see the effects of each rank upon the likelihood of suspension using the same estimation with infraction rank (5) for dummies and reporting the AMEs for each. Each AME represents the marginal increase in the expected outcome moving from one rank up where Infraction Rank (5)-1 is the base rank (and so has no reported AME). In this second model, we see that females are again likely to receive a longer-term sentence, with slight significance, and that there is an increase for either gender in the amount of time they can expect to receive given an increasing rank. This result helps to show not only that females are expected to receive harsher sentences than men but that our rank index proportionally distributes suspension increasing with rank - in an increasing fashion as well.\n5. Discussion and conclusion: Crew (1991) argues that females may be punished less harshly for crimes that are less severe than men who commit those same crimes. While we find that women are indeed punished less harshly for crimes that are less severe, we also find some evidence to suggest that regardless of the crime, in a male-dominated field such as accounting, women categorically receive harsher treatment, and that this effect increases with the severity of the crime.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate gender-based punishment bias in the type and severity of punishments imposed on a male-dominated profession using the accounting profession as a proxy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were hand-collected from the population of certified public accountants disciplined for violations of the Code of Professional Conduct. Disciplinary actions were obtained from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountant's website. A total of 404 observations were obtained for the study over a five-year period from January 2009 through June 2015, comprising the population of the captured infractions committed during this time frame.\nFindings: Women are punished more harshly than men for equivalent infractions; the disparity in punishment between women and men increases with the severity of the infraction.\nOriginality/value: This paper answers the call by Wren (2006) for an increased examination of workplace punishment's relationship to gender using real-world scenarios and data. This study provides empirical evidence of the gender-based punishment bias, which calls into question the neutrality of workplace punishment as executed by a male-dominated profession.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Examining architects' performance in Nigerian private and public sectors building projects	[ "Architecture", "Performance management", "Nigeria", "Customers", "Public sector organizations", "Private sector organizations" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The performance of the construction industry in Nigeria has consistently been a source of concern to both public and private sector clients (Okuwoga, 1998). The industry is characterised by repeated delays, cost overruns and collapse of buildings (Okpala and Aniekwu, 1988; Elinwa and Buba, 1993; Mansfield et al., 1994). In many instances, these problems are so severe that serious questions as to the efficiency of human factors in the construction process have started to emerge. While some would blame the client or contractor, the majority would hold the architect who conceptualises the design responsible. A major reason for this is that the architect is perceived not only responsible for providing an appropriate design but also to provide efficient construction supervision and the successful delivery of the building. Chappell and Willis (2000) noted that architects are dependent on other people to interpret their designs and their involvement during the erection of the building is as important to its ultimate success. Unfortunately, most architects are over enthusiastic about design at the expense of the other elements and make the design an end itself: design for design's sake. The act can be both intoxicating and addictive, but design is not the only differentiating factor when clients make their choice of consultants (Emmitt, 1999), and over design is likely to be one of the key reasons for project failure (Dallas, 1992).According to Emmitt (1999) the manner in which a building is designed and then built is rarely a neat, ordered process. There are many changes to both the design and the programme as the project moves from conception to a completed building. Architects are able to navigate this process because they have a conceptual framework in their mind, which enables them to understand the process and also to accommodate changes that are often out of sequence (Hubbard, 1995). Therefore the performance of the architect, who is a key contributor not only during the design stage but the whole building delivery process, demands serious attention. Dallas (1992) pointed out that poor performance by key contributors is one of the key reasons for project failure which will affect not just the responsibilities of the poor performer but will often have significant knock on effects to others. The results can be very costly in terms of quality, progress and cost. There is the need to evaluate the performance of the architect in relation to the client's priorities. According to Tong and Youjie (1992) and Wilson (1982), if the clients and consultants understand the fundamental needs of one another, and if they are prepared to take an effective role in construction process, the chances of producing successful projects will improve.The aim of this paper is to examine and compare the performance of architects with respect to clients' rating of importance over a set of performance criteria in Nigerian public and private sector building projects. This provides feedback which can be incorporated in architects' future projects so as to ensure successful project implementation in the building delivery process.The research was carried out using a questionnaire survey of clients from both public and private sectors of recently completed building projects in Nigeria. Data analysis included comparing similarities and differences using standardized ratio of importance and performance index. Mann Whitney and Wilcoxon tests were also used to determine differences in the mean importance and the mean performance.\nTheoretical framework: Various attempts have been made by different researchers to determine architects' responsibilities within the building delivery process (Symes et al., 1995; Chang and Ibbs, 1998; Banks and Nicholson, 1993; Emmitt, 1999). The literature abounds with lists of criteria associated with the domain of architect/consultant responsibilities. Although there are some commonly identified criteria such as design criteria in relation to time, cost, and quality, there is however no general agreement on a suitable criteria set. From the literature, a set of 28 criteria were identified and grouped under the headings: client focus, buildability of design, quality of works and management systems. These are presented in a framework shown in Figure 1.Client focus\nPerformance analysis: Fundamentally performance is the measurement of achievement against intention (Rush, 1986). Within the context of this paper, performance is represented as the ratio of the level of achievement to the corresponding level of importance of any performance criteria:Equation 1For any particular criterion, any value above one means that achievement is greater than importance indicating that the architect has \"over-performed relative to importance\". Values of \"one\" indicates that \"optimum\" performance has been achieved, while a value below one indicates that the architect has \"under-performed\". This highlights a need for some improvement in this aspect. The average performance (Av. Perf.) of a criterion is the arithmetic mean of all performance evaluated by the respondents on that criterion. Mathematically it can be written as:Equation 2Where mp is the performance arithmetic mean on a particular criterion; i=1, 2, 3...N and N is the number of respondents of that criterion.However the mean may not fully represent the data if the data have high standard deviations, as noted by Pongpeng and Liston (2003). A standardised ratio has been advocated by Lehmann (1989) and was used by Pongpeng and Liston (2003) in evaluating contractor's ability in Thailand. This same concept shown in equation 3 is used to rank the importance, achievement and performance of each criterion. This leads to the formulation of importance index (Imp. Index), achievement index (Achi. Index) and performance index (Perf. Index):Equation 3It should be noted that this standardised ratio is also used in the theory of structural reliability, where reliability index is the ratio of mean to standard deviation (Ang and Tang, 1984; Melchers, 2001). Any reliability index above three is said to be good, four is very good and five is excellent. Thus for any performance index of a criterion above three, it means the architect's performance is satisfactory for that criterion.\nResearch methodology: The research was carried out using a questionnaire survey from the criteria identified above. A questionnaire survey of clients from both private and public sectors was undertaken with respect to a \"recently completed building project\". Clients from both sectors were asked to rate the importance of each criterion on a five-point Likert-scale ranging from 1 to 5, where 1 represents \"not important\", and 5 represents \"extremely important\". The clients were also asked to assess the level of achievement from the architect for each criterion on a five-point scale ranging from 1 to 5, where 1 represents \"strongly disagree\" and 5 represents \"strongly agree\". This strategy was adopted to evaluate how important these factors are perceived to be by the clients to establish the performance of the architect in relation to a set of specified intentions.\nSample characteristics: A sample of 135 experienced clients comprising 75 private and 60 public sector clients was surveyed. The respondents for the private constructed building projects included retailers, developers and investors (mortgage and financial institutions). For the developers, the questionnaires were sent to the managing directors while for the retailers and investors they were sent to the project directors. The public clients included, local government councils, state ministries of works and housing, housing and property development corporations. The questionnaires were sent through mail, followed by an interview for those willing to cooperate. During the interview the authors had the opportunity to clarify ambiguities the respondents might have encountered. A total of 48.6 per cent of the buildings from the survey were residential and were 51.4 per cent commercial institutional buildings. The average years of experience of the clients from the private sectors was 16 years. On an average the clients had handled 15 projects up to the year 2002. The average years of experience for the public sector was more than 25 years; on average they handled more than 40 projects up to 2002. A total of 71 complete responses were obtained, comprising 38 (50.7 per cent) and 33 (55 per cent) responses for the private and public clients respectively. This was considered adequate for analysis based on the assertion by Moser and Kalton (1971) that results of a survey could be considered as biased and of little importance if the return rate was lower than 30-40 per cent. Also Babie (1989) suggests that any rate over 50 per cent can be reported, over 60 per cent is good and 70 per cent is excellent.\nData analysis and discussions: The data were analysed as follows:* Comparison of standardised ratio of importance and performance indexes in both private and public sector building projects.* To find similarities and differences between the mean importance and mean performance of private and public sectors building project using Mann Whitney U and Wilcoxon tests.The performance of architects for the private and public sectors are summarized in Tables I and II respectively.Comparison of ranking order of importance index across sectors\nConclusion: This study examines and compares the performance of architects with respect to clients' importance over a set of performance criteria in Nigerian private and public sector building projects. Two main analyses focusing on similarities and differences of the two sectors over a set of selected criteria identified from the literature were performed. The first analysis compared the importance attributed by the clients in both private and public sector building projects based on the importance index, and hypothesis testing of differences in mean importance. The results revealed that private sector clients are likely to be concerned primarily with cost while the public sector clients with buildability of design. The hypothesis testing based on the Mann Whitney U and Wilcoxon tests also revealed that 79 per cent of the criteria are not statistically different with respect to their importance. However, key project performance criteria such as \"the project was designed within budget\" and \"the design was been completed to time\" were found to be statistically different in terms of their mean importance.The second analysis examined architects' performance in the private and public sectors. The performance was satisfactory in 32 per cent of the 28 criteria in the private sector as compared to the 46 per cent in the public sector. The results reveals that architects need to improve their performance in about 82 per cent of the 28 criteria. The Mann Whitney U and Wilcoxon tests also revealed that 14 per cent of the criteria were indicated as statistically different (at the 95 per cent confidence level) between the private and the public sectors in terms of performance. Key project performance criteria namely \"quality management strategy were produced\", \"the project was designed within budget\" and \"the design was been completed to time\" were found to be statistically different. A possible reason is that private sector clients are more time and cost conscious than the public sector clients who are characterised by poor budgetary control, abandoning many projects at various stages of completion (Okuwoga, 1998).The findings from this research provide feedback to architects in future projects. Information revealed the priorities for clients from the private and public sectors, which would also be informative for ther project participants, such as the contractors, engineers and project managers.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The aim of this paper is to examine and compare the performance of architects with respect to clients' rating of importance over a set of performance criteria in Nigerian public and private sector building projects.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A survey involving clients from both public and private sectors of recently completed building projects in Nigeria was undertaken. Data analysis includes comparing similarities and differences using standardised ratio, Mann Whitney U and Wilcoxon tests.\nFindings: - The results show that private sector clients are likely to be more concerned with cost, while public sector clients are more concerned with buildability of design. A total of 79 per cent of the criteria were similarly selected by both sectors with respect to importance of the criteria. Architects need to improve their performance significantly in about 82 per cent of the whole set of 28 criteria. The architects performed better in the public sector than the private sector and 14 per cent of the criteria were indicated as being statistically different in terms of architects' performance.\nOriginality/value: - The results provide feedback which can be incorporated in architects' future projects so as to ensure successful project implementation in the building delivery process.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Communicating corporate social responsibility (CSR) on social media: How do message source and types of CSR messages influence stakeholders' perceptions?	[ "Social media", "Corporate social responsibility", "Social CEO", "Internal CSR", "External CSR", "Organization-public relationship" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the field of public relations, organizations and CEOs often use three different platforms to communicate with their stakeholders: company intranet, company website, and social media (Weber Shandwick, 2012). Among these three platforms, social media is probably the most popular one in that about 67 percent of CEOs have a public Facebook page (Weber Shandwick, 2012) and more than 15 million organizations have a public Facebook page (Tune, 2013). Research has shown that both organizations and CEOs often post contents related to program or services, achievements, and awards on their Facebook pages (Haigh et al., 2013; Weber Shandwick, 2012). For for-profit organizations, they prefer to use the corporate ability communication strategy when they generate Facebook posts (Haigh et al., 2013). Corporate ability communication strategy refers to companies promoting the quality of the products or services (Kim and Rader, 2010). Besides the aforementioned contents, another important content on an organization or a CEO's social media account is corporate social responsibility (CSR). It is found that big organizations such as the Red Cross used social media to communicate CSR (i.e. Briones et al., 2011; Morsing and Schultz, 2006).\nLiterature review: The following section will review the existing literature on CSR communication and social CEO and explain why they may influence the organization-public relationship (OPR) and stakeholders' behavioral intention.\nResearch questions: Previous internal CSR vs external CSR studies have examined the impact of different types of CSR messages on organizational identification (i.e. Hameed et al., 2016) and organizational commitment (i.e. Al-bdour et al., 2010). A previous study has also examined the impact of different CSR communication strategies on stakeholders' perceptions of OPR, CSR, and purchase intent (Haigh et al., 2013). However, the impact of different types of CSR messages (especially internal CSR vs external CSR) on stakeholders' perceptions of OPR and behavioral intention toward the organization is unknown. Thus, the following research question is raised:\nMethod: Study design and participants\nResults: Manipulation check\nDiscussion: This study examined the effects of message source (CEO's social media account vs organization's social media account) and types of the CSR messages (internal CSR vs external CSR vs non-CSR) on stakeholders' perceptions of OPR and behavioral intention toward the organization. Previous study has examined how internal CSR and external CSR influence organizational identification (i.e. Hameed et al., 2016) and organizational commitment (i.e. Al-bdour et al., 2010). The current study is innovative in that it is one of the few studies examining how organizations and CEOs utilize different CSR messages to influence stakeholders' perceptions of OPR and behavioral intention toward the organization. The study contributes to current research on CSR communication and CEO communication on social media.\nConclusion: To conclude, this study examined how message source and different types of CSR message on social media influence stakeholders' perceptions. Results showed the internal CSR message elicited greater perceptions of trust, satisfaction, control mutuality, and commitment toward the organization among the stakeholders than the external CSR message and the message about the CEO's personal life. On the organization's Facebook account, communicating the external CSR message and the internal CSR message triggered greater behavioral intention toward the organization than communicating the non-CSR message. On the CEO's Facebook account, communicating internal CSR messages or messages about the CEO's life elicited greater behavioral intention toward the organization than communicating the external CSR messages.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of message source and types of corporate social responsibility (CSR) message on stakeholder's perception toward CSR and behavioral intention toward the company.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A 2 (message source: CEO's Facebook account vs organization's Facebook account) x 3 (types of CSR messages: internal CSR vs external CSR vs control) between-subjects online experiment (n=242) was conducted online.\nFindings: Internal CSR message elicited greater perceptions of trust, satisfaction, control mutuality, and commitment toward the organization among the stakeholders than the external CSR message and the CEO's personal life message. A significant two-way interaction between the message source and the type of CSR message on behavior intention toward the organization was obtained.\nOriginality/value: Internal CSR message does matter when it comes to social media posting. The general public do pay attention to what the CEO and the organizations are posting on their social media accounts. Message source does not matter when it comes to social media message posting. However, organizations and CEOs should try to stay consistent when it comes to creating a public CSR message.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The impact of transaction costs in portfolio optimization: A comparative analysis between the cost of trading in Peru and the United States	[ "Transaction costs", "Portfolio optimization", "Portfolio turnover", "G11", "G12" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The Peruvian stock exchange, known as the Bolsa de Valores de Lima (BVL), currently lists 278 securities with a total market capitalization of about US$130bn[1]. It is regulated by the Superintendencia del Mercado de Valores and has a limited exchange self-regulatory organization. The BVL is currently facing serious liquidity and low transaction volume problems[2], and its average daily trading volume in 2016 was US$18.26m. On the other hand, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is the biggest stock market in the world with a market capitalization of nearly US$20.6tn[3]. It is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The NYSE is characterized by its high liquidity and its large stock inflows and outflows that incur on a daily basis, around US$42bn are traded every day and has more than 2,700 listed firms. The Sustainable Stock Exchange Initiative considers the NYSE as one of the most advanced stock exchanges in the world. Because of its quality standards, the NYSE has been selected as a benchmark to compare transaction costs (TC) with the ones of the BVL.\n2. Methodology: This section defines the different trading strategies and the three types of TC used in this paper. It also shows how we measure the impact of TC in portfolio performance and how it is calculated.\n3. Analysis: TC can have a different impact on portfolio performance depending on the composition of the portfolio, the holding period and the adopted trading strategy. Next we will analyze the interaction of these factors with the types of TC described in Section 2. The analysis is mainly conducted from the perspective of a retail investor trading in the Peruvian market. Nevertheless, US stocks and transaction fees are included to enhance the scope of our analysis.\n4. Making the TC per percentage competitive: It has been concluded in Section 3 that TC per percentage is the most expensive TC structure. Its fixed component bi is actually very high: an investor trading on the BVL and using a broker has to pay a minimum trading cost of $25. In this section, we explain the last experiment we ran with the objective to make TC per percentage competitive and see how the parameters described in Section 3.4 should change in order for an investor to be able to actively trade on the BVL. The experiment has been run for the PBC portfolio, under an EW strategy, and over a five-year period.\n5. Conclusions and recommendations: The impact of different types of TC (per share, per percentage and per trade) has been analyzed while focusing on different dimensions: type and number of stocks in the portfolios, holding periods and trading strategies.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to analyze the impact of transaction costs in portfolio optimization in Peru. The study aims to compare the transaction costs structure applied in Peru with respect to the ones applied in the USA, and over a few dimensions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper opted for an empirical study analyzing the cost of rebalancing portfolios over a set period and dimensions. Stocks have been carefully selected using Bloomberg terminals, and portfolio designed then rebalanced using VBA programming. Over a few dimensions as type and number of stocks, holding period and trading strategy, the behavior of these different transaction costs has been compared. The analysis has been done for four different portfolios.\nFindings: The paper provides empirical insights about how a retail investor actively trading in Peru can pay up to 14 times more in transaction costs than trading the same portfolio in the USA. These comparatively high transaction costs prevent retail investors to trade in the Peruvian stock market while fueling illiquidity to this market.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper deals with a limited amount of Peruvian stocks. Researchers are encouraged to test the proposition further, including other dimensions.\nPractical implications: The paper includes implications for any retail investor that wants to invest in Peruvian stocks, giving an insight about how expensive it is to actively rebalance a portfolio in Peru.\nOriginality/value: This paper fulfils an identified need to study how much it costs to actively invest on the stock market in Peru.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The effect of suspicious executives on tax shelters in Iran	[ "Firm value", "Suspect executives", "Tax sheltering" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: According to the agency theory, conflict exists between majority owners and shareholders' interests. Conventional corporate control mechanisms could lead to agency problems (Fan and Wong, 2005). The state levies tax expenses for all profits of firms. So, it is expected that companies and legal entities prefer to reduce taxes paid. Corporations' cash tax payments are different. Tax expenses function as earnings of firms (Waegenaere et al., 2015). Creating optimal financial structures for each company could increase their earnings as well as decrease their financing expenditures. Obtaining an appropriate financial position is the main goal (Armstrong et al., 2010). Long-term financial decisions are one of the major duties of managers in determining financial policy. In this purpose, managers use financial instruments like tax shelters, financial leverage, etc. (Chyz, 2013; Lin et al., 2014). Companies' use of tax shelters to avoid taxes leads to the minimal amount of taxes paid, sometimes none at all, and improves security by regulatory authorities and policy makers especially in a fiscal crisis, recently (Maffini, 2012; Markle and Shackelford, 2012; Taylor and Richardson, 2012). Managers play an important role in creating tax policy. The CEO for tax policy trades the marginal benefits with the marginal costs (Molero and Pujol, 2012). If a manager opts for tax dodging or tax evasion as a long-term strategy, they could control the financial position for shareholders (Dyreng et al., 2008). Reducing tax expenses and tax aggressiveness due to rising shareholder wealth can optimize a company's value (Lin et al., 2014). As a result, companies adopt financial policy slanted in favor of corporate interests. Management pays attention to expenditures associated with aggressive tax policy, such as opportunity costs, agency costs, and increasing tax reserves (Minnick and Noga, 2010). Public and private companies use tax shelters as a tax avoidance mechanism. But, private firms are more willing to use tax shelters than public companies (Peek et al., 2010; Kosi and Valentincic, 2013). With regard to the board of directors' role in commercial law and the emphasis on regulating corporate governance published by the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) of Iran, the board of directors strongly impact various corporate policies, such as tax policy (Abdoli et al., 2013). Currently, there is no financial reporting on International Accounting Standard and all current financial reporting is on Article 272 of tax law in Iran (Arabmazar et al., 2012).\n2. Theoretical framework, literature review, and developed hypotheses: 2.1 Tax shelters\n3. Study population, sample: The population in this study is comprised of all companies listed on TSE during 2008-2015, a period of seven years.\n4. Data collection methods and statistical tests: In this study, the data are based on archival method. Thus, the data are collected from the following:\n5. Empirical model: H1. There is a direct relationship between corporate tax shelters and the presence of suspicious executives.\n6. Descriptive statistics: The first step in statistical analysis is descriptive statistics. Table I represents the descriptive statistics of all 155 companies in a period of seven years, 2008 to 2015. I used adjusted R2 for descriptive statistics in Table I.\n7. Inferential statistics: To determine the appropriate model of AIC, the amounts are calculated. The lower amount represents the best AIC model. Using the five-model logistic regression, effects of time-logistic regression, fixed effects logistic panel, and random effects logistic panel are pooled for index AIC. So, the mentioned models are compared. According to Table IV, the comparison of various models determines the appropriate model.\n8. Conclusion: Managers play a crucial role in companies. The boards of directors decide financial policy, such as taxes. They determine whether to adopt an aggressive or passive attitude toward taxes. Tax shelters are the most aggressive form of tax policy. Based on financing and accounting research, executives' individual characteristics lead to an effect on firm-level economic outcomes. These findings are vital because they can help future studies and solve economic problems. According to the results of tests shown in Table XI, all of the hypotheses are rejected. The results of hypotheses show that the presence of suspicious executives is not associated with tax shelters or the firm value or both (tax shelters and the firm value). This finding contrasts with Park and et al. (2015), Chyz (2013), Weisbach (1988), Jensen (1993), and Yermack (1996). Chyz (2013) measured suspicious executives' use of stock options to exercise backdating at the end of the fiscal year that is not used in Iran; in addition, there is no tax shelter in financial statement in Iran as a separate item, this case has effect on this study. Countries use various corporate governance systems for various reasons including legal, capital market characteristics and culture, history, and industrial organizations (Garcia-Meca and Sanchez-Ballesta, 2009). Tax shelters decrease taxes paid to the state, but do not increase the firm's value, only increase the individual directors' benefits. Senior executives could possibly hide earnings, gifts for management, and bonuses which can cause losses for shareholders. This study is subject to several limitations. First, the fiscal year of companies is the end of March 20. If other companies with different fiscal years are considered, the results will be closer to the fact. Second, TSE considers capital market characteristics and specific regulations and standards related to Iran. Third, in collecting the required data, we utilized various sources such as TSE, RDIS, CODAL, TSETMC, and Rahavard Novin. In some cases, data collected from diverse software were contradictory. Therefore, the effects of society on companies should be considered. Future research on similar subjects could consider several important issues. First, non-manufacturing companies are not considered in samples, such as banks and financial institutions (investing, insurance, financial intermediate, holding and leasing companies). This suggests that future studies be considered. Second, utilizing different methodologies to measure suspicious executives (another factor of corporate governance) and tax shelters could be a way to conduct these studies. Our desire is this research would provide help to society and to companies. It is recommended that the state should enact legislature to prevent tax evasion and enhance the quantity and quality of the financial information companies disclose. This would improve the transparency of company's tax returns and increase the financial and non-financial penalties for tax dodging. It is suggested to capital markets with companies which use tax shelters hire competent, outside, independent, experienced, and knowledgeable managers.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between suspicious executives and tax shelters.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Sample includes the 155 companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange during a period of seven years, from 2008 to 2015. Data were analyzed by using logistic panel regression with R software.\nFindings: The results show that there is no association between the presence of suspicious executives and tax shelters or the firm value or both of them (tax shelters and the firm value).\nOriginality/value: The authors also investigated the implications of the firm value on suspicious executives. These findings are crucial to the state. However, several studies with similar subjects have been conducted in different countries. The current research is the first study in Iran.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Managing enterprises and ERP systems: a contingency model for the enterprization of operations	[ "Supply chain management", "Enterprise resource planning", "Management of enterprises", "Operations strategy", "Inter-organisational collaboration", "Strategic alliances", "ERPII", "ERPIII" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems for manufacturing organisations have developed extensively over recent decades in response to changing business requirements, technological developments, and new organizational strategies (Palaniswamy and Frank, 2000). However, studies on ERP systems development tend to focus on ERP functional improvements (He, 2004; Michel, 2000; Chen, 2001) rather than on how ERP systems fit with operations spanning inter-organisational boundaries to implement collaborative strategies. Therefore, this research attempts to explain how different types of ERP systems fit to different types of enterprises to create sustainable competitive advantage.\nLiterary context: From ERP to ERPII and on towards ERPIII\nResearch methodology: The CEG concept, as shown in Figure 3, was used to build an empirical case study because it considers an enterprise to be made up of parts of different companies; where each part is built around highly specific competencies (e.g. physical resources and intangible knowledge) integrated with other less specific capabilities (e.g. processes and IS) (Binder and Clegg, 2007a, b); thus making it suitable to investigate ERP and enterprise management trends.\nCase study: Zoomlion: Zoomlion was founded as the Heavy Industry Science & Technology Development Company Ltd in 1992. Its headquarters are in Changsha and its main manufacturing plant is located in mainland China. Initially Zoomlion was a hi-tech public company producing cranes and other machines for the manufacturing and construction fields, with nearly 20,000 employees spread across many different separate businesses. At present, Zoomlion's production line serves China and the Western world, and the company has also now become a multi-national manufacturer of consumer products, with a market capitalization of nearly 1 bn USD in 2010. Zoomlion has its own international sales network, management systems for technical development, manufacturing processes and logistics. Zoomlion has achieved rapid development by building up a knowledge-based learning enterprise; and producing quality innovative products with enhanced services delivered to end-users. Zoomlion's case is now discussed in detail with respect to Galliers' IS strategy formulation model and Binder and Clegg's CEG. It focuses on the manufacture of cranes.\nDiscussion of the generalizable findings: theory and practice: Figure 7 is a summary of the generalizable findings from the above Zoomlion case study presented as a contingency framework known as the dynamic enterprise resource grid for ERP (DERG-ERP) which demonstrates how Binder and Clegg's (2007a, b) CEG and Galliers' (1994) IS strategy formulation model have been combined to guide the interactions between ERP and the management of enterprises; the authors believe it is a valuable and significant generalizable conceptual deliverable from this research.\nSummary: The objectives of this paper were to:\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems development and emerging practices in the management of enterprises (i.e. parts of companies working with parts of other companies to deliver a complex product and/or service) and identify any apparent correlations. Suitable a priori contingency frameworks are then used and extended to explain apparent correlations. Discussion is given to provide guidance for researchers and practitioners to deliver better strategic, structural and operational competitive advantage through this approach; coined here as the \"enterprization of operations\".\nDesign/methodology/approach: Theoretical induction uses a new empirical longitudinal case study from Zoomlion (a Chinese manufacturing company) built using an adapted form of template analysis to produce a new contingency framework.\nFindings: Three main types of enterprises and the three main types of ERP systems are defined and correlations between them are explained. Two relevant a priori frameworks are used to induct a new contingency model to support the enterprization of operations; known as the dynamic enterprise reference grid for ERP (DERG-ERP).\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings are based on one longitudinal case study. Further case studies are currently being conducted in the UK and China.\nPractical implications: The new contingency model, the DERG-ERP, serves as a guide for ERP vendors, information systems management and operations managers hoping to grow and sustain their competitive advantage with respect to effective enterprise strategy, enterprise structure and ERP systems.\nOriginality/value: This research explains how ERP systems and the effective management of enterprises should develop in order to sustain competitive advantage with respect to enterprise strategy, enterprise structure and ERP systems use.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Enhancing performance with Investors in People recognition: exploring the alleged link	[ "Investors in people", "Training", "Profit", "Performance management", "Quality improvement" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The application of quality improvement tools/techniques remains high on international agendas for many organizations worldwide in their attempts to heighten performance and competitiveness. Debates surrounding the actual contribution of these industry accredited quality tools/techniques towards increased performance and profitability have remained ongoing and inconclusive. This article considers the experience and lessons gleaned from the UK's Investors in People (IIP) standard.\nAt last, the news IIP UK wanted to hear: A report by the Institute for Employment Studies (IES), \"People and the bottom line\" (Tamkin et al., 2008), has at last delivered the news IIP UK has been waiting to hear. The report claims there is a casual link between organizations having IIP recognition and improved business performance. As a result of this report, IIP UK (2008) suggests \"it's official - Investors in People can boost your performance and your profit\". This is supported by another report by the IES (Cowling, 2008) that argues an average non-IIP organization is losing out on PS176.35 in gross profit per employee per year.\nAsking the right questions: Although there may appear to be an a priori causal link between an organization having IIP and increased performance and profitability, the precise nature of this link is unclear. Opinions within the literature as to the existence of such benefits through IIP recognition are often split and inconclusive at best. The IES reports mentioned are less forthcoming concerning as to why the link exists. There seems to be an assumption that IIP is in some way directly responsible for increased performance and profitability. The findings presented here begin to question the substance of this claim by offering alternative reasons as to why IIP recognized organizations allegedly achieve greater performance and profitability than non-IIP organizations.\nThe organizations involved and their limitations: The case studies cover four organizational sectors: secondary education, catering within an NHS trust, defense systems and transport. All organizations are large (i.e. greater than 250 employees), although the catering department has independent IIP status from the rest of the trust. Three of the four organizations are IIP recognized with the defense organization ceasing accreditation in 2001.\nResearch design: With regard to the research design, recorded and transcribed semi-structured interviews are used to gain the required in-depth data for analysis. A total of 24 randomly selected interviews with various managers and other employees within mixed and varying roles in the organizations studied provide the insights required.\nResults question any direct link: The major issue to come out of all of the case studies is one that questions a direct link between IIP recognition and increased organizational performance and profitability. All four organizations decided to gain IIP recognition after making large changes to their existing approaches towards quality performance through people. These organizations made no attempt to pursue, or even consider, IIP recognition at the time of making performance enhancing changes - it was an afterthought. This meant that when it came to the assessment for IIP, these organizations passed straight through without initial changes in practice being required. These quotes from interviewees within the organizations typify the approach to gaining IIP:We actually got a gong for something we're already doing, rather than chasing a gong and having to put something in place to get the gong.It just rubberstamps a lot of the things we're doing already.Investors in People is just saying \"well yeah, you're doing it\".This helps to suggest that gaining IIP recognition did not lead to increased performance and profitability; rather, it was the change in mindset previously and independently that led to such benefits. IIP was not used to help achieve these increases in performance and profitability; instead, the standard acted as a mere depiction of the achievements already achieved. Furthermore, the defense organization has ceased recognition because they feel they have now grown beyond its limited contribution. This helps to explore potential reasons as to the increased performance and profitability nexus within IIP recognized organizations compared to non-IIP organizations.Other findings consistent throughout all the organizations studied support this argument:* Existing conducive cultures for quality performance improvement.* Appropriate management/leadership styles that contributed towards quality performance improvement.* A general lack of knowledge and understanding of IIP throughout the workforces meaning staff cannot engage directly with the requirements of the standard.These issues build on the major issue proposed to offer alternative reasons as to why an IIP recognized organization performs better than a non-IIP organization. The list of reasons suggested is not exhaustive. There could be other factors (rather than just IIP recognition and performance/profitability) within the complex micro and macro-environments influencing the increased business performance and profitability rather than the alleged causal relationship between these organizational variables. Further in-depth research can contribute towards the findings here.\nConclusion: This paper provides genuine possibilities for understanding why performance and profitability may be higher in IIP organizations compared to non-IIP organizations. Within the four organizations studied, the pursuit and attainment of quality performance improvement before any consideration of IIP recognition provide reasons as to why an organization with IIP status performs better.Of course, these findings will not be the same for all IIP recognized organizations. In addition, it is recognized that having identified problems with IIP status and the profit/performance nexus, there is scope to go beyond these initial findings to examine other diverse organizational factors at play in relation to organizational performance and profitability. Further research is needed to fully explore the reasons why the presumed causal link of IIP recognition and greater performance and profitability prevails.To close, this research has begun a process of questioning the assumed direct nature of the relationship between IIP recognition and increased business performance and profitability suggested by the IES reports and IIP UK. HR practitioners and managers need to think carefully about pursuing IIP in the belief that it will lead to enhanced performance and profitability.Due to the alleged causal relationship not being as apparent as claimed, the UK IIP experience has implications for comparable international contexts. This article would advocate a reflective and cautionary stance for HR practitioners and managers within wider international contexts seeking to increase performance and competitiveness through quality improvement tools/techniques.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To explore the alleged causal link between Investors in People (IIP) recognition and improved business performance and profitability.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Four in-depth case studies using semi-structured interviews are used to gather the appropriate data.\nFindings: - The data collected challenges the direct relationship frequently proposed between IIP recognition and increases in business performance and profitability. Although it could be argued that changes are usually necessary in companies in order to align the organization with IIP standards and requirements, the cases explored instigated such changes independently of the pursuit of IIP. Only after these changes had taken place did the organizations consider a pursuit for IIP recognition. Thus, the findings point to a complex amalgam of factors at play in the micro and macro environments of the organizations studied rather than just an IIP-profit/performance cause and effect nexus. In consequence, the reasons for these IIP recognized organizations performing better than non-IIP organizations were due to their efforts prior to recognition and not because of it.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Further research is needed to explore and generalize the rhetoric and realities behind the alleged causal link between IIP recognition and increased business performance and profitability.\nPractical implications: - HR practitioners and managers need to exhibit caution before considering IIP recognition. The potential benefits suggested by advocates of the standard are not guaranteed, regardless of any alleged casual link.\nOriginality/value: - This gives HR practitioners and managers a valuable and timely alternative discourse and perspective when considering employee development towards IIP recognition and the possibility of improved business performance and profitability.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A benchmark modelling for participation-based tax increment financing	[ "Public finance", "Tax increment financing", "Islamic finance and banking", "Stochastic modelling" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the current world, particularly after the start of the modern era, the transformations led by industrialization have had some significant effects on various phenomena in the economy. One of the most prominent effects is urbanization. Urbanization worldwide is reported at around 54% as of 2018; this is anticipated to increase to 68% by 2050 (United Nations, 2019). Because of increasing urbanization, today municipalities have to manage a complex and competitive urban setup. They have to manage their development and consumption expenditure from an increasingly limited local government revenue share. Because of fiscal constraints, municipalities face a trade-off between consumption and development/redevelopment expenditure. To augment public infrastructure development or to upgrade decaying infrastructure, municipalities have to look for alternative financing mechanisms. Tax increment financing (TIF) is one such mechanism used by local government authorities to combat fiscal constraints and upgrade local infrastructure.\nLiterature review: The literature generally discusses TIF as a tool of economic development and its relation with property values. Practically, TIF has been largely adopted by municipalities. In his study, Anderson (1990) uses a structural probit model to analyse some American cities that have adopted TIF plans and their impact on property values. The author finds that cities adopting TIF plans experience greater property values compared to cities not adopting TIF. This positive association between TIF adoption and property values does not, however, directly imply that TIF causes growth in property values. Similarly, Man and Rosentraub (1998) analyse the impact of TIF plans on property values by using panel data of Indiana cities. Using a first-difference model, they find that TIF plans increased median housing value by 11%.\nModel: The studies mentioned in the previous section have not sufficiently investigated the technical background of TIF-based methods and alternatives. In this study, while the participation of both the lender and the borrower is included in a given TIF contract, called the P-TIF, a benchmark model for P-TIF is also introduced by incorporating stochastic modelling. In this direction, a financing model in P-TIF is established with the benefit of various stochastic processes.\nPossible implications and challenges: The P-TIF is easily applicable to urban transformation projects to create new urban settlement areas. Old cities may host risky building stocks in some districts where illegal housing or unpermitted buildings were tolerated and eventually recorded as legal. Current owners of housings and buildings pay regular property tax to municipalities, but the annual total amount of property tax that local authorities collect is insufficient to compensate for rehabilitation and regeneration of such areas. Instead, local municipals (the borrower in our model) and construction companies (the lender in our model) can make an agreement based on our suggested model. It is significant to note that property tax on buildings in any district tends to increase after urban transformation, as many positive externalities emerge in new urban settlements; for example, new and broad green areas, social reinforcement areas, planned infrastructure, earthquake-resistant designs and so on. The expected higher future property tax influences the participation rate for tax increment in our model. Besides urban transformation, P-TIF is also used for funding infrastructure development projects of commercial or industrial districts where some portion of the future income of these districts is transferred to the lenders that will undertake the infrastructure development.\nConcluding remarks: TIF is a public finance instrument in which future tax revenues of the renovated district are sold or assigned to a third party in exchange for a cash payment to cover the cost of designation. This type of financing method might come at the forefront, particularly when local authorities such as municipalities lack sufficient funding sources. Compared to other income-generating models such as sale of municipal land or services, TIF provides a long-term solution to the shortage in municipal budgets. Although various modern implications of TIF practices have been widely observed in developed countries such as the USA and Canada, its different versions have been used as a traditional borrowing method by the Ottoman Empire and in many European countries as well.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to present the theoretical and conceptual framework of a new method in public finance called \"participation based tax increment financing (P-TIF)\" by combining conventional tax increment financing (TIF) within the Shari'ah-compliance structure.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study develops a benchmark model for P-TIF, which offers a participative contract between both lender and borrower. With the help of this model, a financing schema in P-TIF is established by incorporating stochastic modelling. Possible implications and alternative options of application are also explored with a discussion of challenges.\nFindings: The results mainly indicate that P-TIF promises lenders to be a part of increment from tax earnings, in return for a reduced interest rate. They show how a rise in participation of the lender in a given contract lowers the interest rate. Under the base case scenario, the interest rate is reduced to zero when the participation of the lender in tax increment is set at 50%.\nPractical implications: With the feature of being interest-free, P-TIF can be implied also within the Shari'ah-compliance framework, thanks to the model it is based on. Additionally, as the model in this paper is parametric, it can be applicable to various cases in Islamic finance.\nOriginality/value: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper in the literature in the sense that it provides a conceptual idea and respective model for TIF method within a Shari'ah-compliance framework.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The ideal employee: context and leaders' implicit follower theories	[ "Leadership", "Exploitation", "Context effects", "Exploration", "Prototype", "Implicit follower theories" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Studies about implicit follower theories (IFT) are experiencing a renaissance in leadership research. Generally, implicit theories are cognitive schemas, or organized patterns of thought that simplify information processing (Lord and Maher, 1994) by guiding and enabling our perceptions and judgments of other people on the basis of prototypes (Hall et al., 1998). IFT describe assumptions and folk theories about follower characteristics, better described as \"naive theories about the way people imagine a typical follower to be\" (Sy, 2010). Leaders' implicit theories about followers are important elements in the leader-follower relationship (Shondrick and Lord, 2010; van Gils et al., 2010) and historically, we can find a variety of approaches to this phenomenon (Fiedler, 1964; Miles, 1964; McGregor, 1966; Shondrick and Lord, 2010). To date we find a handful of empirical studies about IFT. Some provide important insights into the structure and content of prototypical and anti-prototypical IFT (Whiteley et al., 2012; Sy, 2010; Borman, 1987; Wernimont, 1971); others show that leaders' follower schemas can affect their judgment as well as treatment of followers (Sy, 2010; Sanders, 1999). We learned from previous research that IFT held by leaders can have positive and negative effects on the leader-follower relationship. For example, Whiteley et al. (2012) investigated positive associations between naturally occurring Pygmalion effects or positive IFT and follower performance, showing that positive leader expectations towards employees can positively improve their performance outcomes. However, leader's implicit theories can also have adverse effects. Categorization theorists have consistently pointed out that leaders might rely more on their IFT rather than actual, observed employee behaviours (Lord and Maher, 1994; Shondrick and Lord, 2010). In other words, in case of a mismatch between leaders' IFT and actually perceived employee characteristics, leaders might develop a bias that could potentially lead to erroneous and destructive personnel decisions in performance reviews or recruiting situations (Sanders, 1999). In summary, the relevance of leaders' mental schemas or employee prototypes is reasonably well documented in the literature and previous studies provide important insights about the structure, content and potential impact of leaders' IFT. However, despite frequent acknowledgements about the role of context in the development of implicit theories (Shondrick and Lord, 2010; Epitropaki and Martin, 2004; Lord et al., 2001a) none of the existing studies about IFT (Whiteley et al., 2012; Sy, 2010; Sanders, 1999; Borman, 1987; Wernimont, 1971) considered the role of work context, or leaders' perceptions thereof, as influencing factor on the emergence of leaders' employee schemas. For example, it is unknown if and to what degree leaders' perception of the prevailing market conditions surrounding their organizations, or the coordination mechanisms directing their work from within their organizations, may influence the development of their prototypical implicit follower theories (pIFT). With the present paper we address this gap and contribute to the field of leadership research in the following ways.\n2. The dual structure of pIFT: In contrast to a neutral view on employee characteristics or central tendency prototypes that describe \"how followers are\", we took a goal-derived perspective on \"how followers should be\" (Sy, 2010) and investigated what we call leaders' pIFT. Our intention was thereby not to discover a \"follower blueprint\" as critically seen by Collinson (2006), or to pursue an \"ideal configuration of person attributes\" (Cottrell et al., 2007) for the perfect employee role. Instead, our intent was to show that parts of leaders' pIFT emerge in response to a context that is constituted by a relatively specific configuration of task and behavioural cues and pressures. However, we believe that only certain aspects of leaders' employee prototype is context-sensitive as they are formed in response to leaders' individual work setting; others might be independent of context because they are abstract and universally valid for leaders in most leadership settings.\n3. Contextual effects on pIFT: The term context describes a \"situational setting in which workplace phenomena occur\" (Joshi and Roh, 2009). Connectionist models about implicit theories include contextual influences such as tasks, hierarchical level, national culture, age, tenure, experience and gender factors (Johnson et al., 2008; Epitropaki and Martin, 2004). They hold that individuals' implicit theories keep being redeveloped through diverse situational restraints (Smothers et al., 2011; Shondrick and Lord, 2010; Medvedeff and Lord, 2007; Lord and Emrich, 2001) because they are \"evoked rather than found\" (Hanges et al., 2000). However, despite the fact that context is an often mentioned factor in organizational behaviour research in general (Uhl-Bien and Pillai, 2007; Johns, 2006) but particularly in respect to implicit leader and follower theories (Shondrick and Lord, 2010; Epitropaki and Martin, 2004; Lord et al., 2001a), empirical research on the impact of contextual restraints on implicit theories is rare. So far, only Smothers et al. (2011) offered first insights into context-specific differences in implicit leader theories with their study about conceptualizations and traits of ideal leaders in private and public universities. In order to close the gap in the current literature about IFT which all but omits the inclusion of contextual factors on the development of IFT (Whiteley et al., 2012; Sy, 2010; Sanders, 1999; Borman, 1987; Wernimont, 1971) we built a theoretical framework that allows the establishment of meaningful associations between market environment, organizational setting and leaders' preferences for certain employee qualities.\n4. Hypotheses building: As we see it, leaders' pIFT have an inherently dual structure. The abstract level of leaders' pIFT refers to leaders' preference for employee traits that are relatively independent of context; we assume them to be shared by a larger variety of leaders in many different work contexts. Prominent examples of the abstract level of leaders' IFT are qualities such as \"hardworking\", \"loyal\" and \"productive\" as found by Sy (2010) and Wernimont (1971). The specific category level of pIFT, on the other hand, represents employee behaviours that show individual level differences in their relevance to leaders. For instance, depending on work context and task requirements, leaders' employee prototype might consist of work behaviours related to creativity and innovation, as opposed to efficiency or routine oriented work activities. This notion of a dual structure of pIFT corresponds to similar concepts in the history of leader's IFT. For example, Fiedler's (1964) typology of the least preferred co-worker posits that managers recognize favourable aspects even in \"poor\" co-workers (\"Even if I can't work with him, he may still be a very nice and valuable person\"), hinting at a personal and a functional level of the way managers think of subordinates. Equally, Beehr et al. (1994) described an entity aspect (\"liking people for what they are\") and a functional aspect (\"ways that the subordinate behaves that might be preferred and expected\") to the leader-follower relationship, and Engle and Lord (1997) saw leader's consideration of subordinates as expression of perceived attitudinal similarity and implicit performance theories with them. Hence, our approach in the present study is based on the idea that leaders' pIFT are made up of desired traits (\"what employees ideally are\") referring to the abstract category level, and desired behaviours (\"what employees ideally do\") on the specific category level.\n5. Method, materials and measures: Participants\n6. Analysis and results: Descriptive statistics\n7. Discussion: The principal results of the present study can be summarized as follows: in contrast to our initial expectations, leaders' work context does not only influence the specific category level of their pIFT but also the abstract level. In other words, leaders' perceptions of certain aspects in the market conditions and coordination mechanisms surrounding their daily work routines seem to affect not only their preference for certain employee behaviours but also for certain employee traits. For example, dynamic market conditions are associated with explorative behaviours and traits referring to Industriousness and Good Citizenship; formalization is related to explorative and exploitative behaviours, as well as Enthusiasm and Good Citizenship, but negatively with Industriousness. Adding all context variables up we find that leaders' perceptions of formalized coordination mechanisms have the strongest effect on their emphasis on exploitation and Enthusiasm in employees.\n8. Contribution and limitations: Our study contributes to the current literature about IFT in theory and practice. The first theoretical contribution pertains to the structure of IFT. We expand existing research with insights from categorization theory and suggest viewing leaders' employee prototype in terms of a functional and an entity level. That way we gain a more precise understanding of the different types of qualities, namely traits and behaviours, leaders might be expecting from employees. The second major contribution of our study is the definition and empirical investigation of leaders' perceptions of specific context factors that affect the content of their pIFT. The utilization of exploration and exploitation principles as guidelines to study the relationships between work processes and preferred employee prototype allows a realistic and theoretically sound approach that can serve for further research on implicit theories. Third, our study provides supporting evidence for the argument that IFT held by leaders are context-sensitive on both the abstract and the specific level of their ideal employee category.\n9. Conclusion: Organizations that realize that their leadership force might hold IFT that stand in contrast to organizational goals and strategies can take action on two levels: first, they can provide or change work processes to accommodate a tendency towards the preferred mode of operation, for example, by de-formalizing processes in order to encourage more exploration in leaders. Such change of processes could encourage the formation of more explorative tendencies in leaders' pIFT and enable managers to foster desired behaviours. Second, increasing awareness of attitudes and assumption about employees (Kopelman et al., 2008) as well as improving positive IFT via frequent team building exercises (Whiteley et al., 2012) could lead to an enhancement of these relationships. Organizations can support leaders directly via leadership training programs that initiate and increase awareness of the existence and nature of IFT and the social contexts in which they develop (Schyns et al., 2011). We believe that the approach and the results of our study are encouraging for organizations that struggle with difficulties relating to interpersonal issues between leaders and followers, as much as with mismatches between organizational strategy and its alignment with desired explorative and exploitative work processes, managerial decisions and subsequent employee behaviours. They also highlight the relevance and risk of individuals' perceptions of work context dynamics and their associations with preferences in others - perceptions which might not always reflect the \"objective\" reality of market and organization but nevertheless may provide important input for decision-making processes.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between leaders' work context and their prototypical implicit follower theories (pIFT). The authors assume a dual structure of pIFT and argue that leader preferences for certain employee traits and behaviours are influenced by their perception of the prevailing market conditions and organizational coordination mechanisms.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study was conducted via an online-questionnaire with 182 US leaders from different industries. It surveyed leader's preferences for abstract and specific employee traits and behaviours, as well as their perceptions of the explorative and exploitative elements in their work context. To test for associations of corresponding variables representing leaders' context and their employee prototype, data analysis was performed via multiple linear regression analysis.\nFindings: The paper provides evidence for associations between leaders' pIFT and their work context. The data suggest that leaders who perceive their organizational work environment as formalized consider Enthusiasm (p=0.003) and the pursuit of exploitative activities (p=0.023) as important employee characteristics, and those who experience the market conditions as dynamic show a preference for Good Citizenship behaviours (p=0.027) and the search for explorative activities (p=0.034). In terms of control variables the authors found that more mature leaders favour both exploration and exploitation in employees, while managers of larger teams emphasize exploitation in their pIFT.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study was conducted with leaders in the USA; results are cross-sectional and representative for for-profit organizations. Potential limitations arise from a lack of generalizability of the results to others forms of organizations, cultures and work settings.\nPractical implications: The paper provides the outline of an \"ideal employee profile\" for the leaders in the sample and describes potential implications of pIFT for organizational strategy relating to personnel-related decisions.\nOriginality/value: This study provides the first empirical link between leaders' ideal employee image and work context, and enables a deeper understanding of the structure and content of pIFT.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Knowledge and skills transfer between MBA and workplace	[ "Performance", "Knowledge transfer", "Management education", "Learning orientation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Part-time graduate business education requires from students a protracted and arduous investment while balancing work and studies. This investment in career capital also involves an ongoing individual transfer of training between the two settings. There is a serious dearth of empirical research concerning part-time Masters of Business Administration (MBA) programs and the issue of ongoing transfer of knowledge and skills. The few relevant studies that are available have investigated transfer from MBA to organizations, using accounts of the MBA experience primarily associated with MBA post-graduate workplace experiences and outcomes (Cheng, 2000; Hay, 2006; Legge et al., 2010; Pham et al., 2011a; 2011b, 2012).\nTheory and hypotheses: Reciprocal transfer of knowledge and skills\nTransfer of knowledge and skills, and job performance competence: Goal-setting theory also offers a cogent frame of reference for the effects of transfer of knowledge and skills on competence. In workplace settings, commitment to assigned or self-directed goals motivates task-specific plans that use transferable knowledge and skills for competent goal attainment.\nMethods: Sample\nResults: Descriptive results\nDiscussion: A primary purpose of marketing education is to promote mastery of business knowledge and skills and, in the process, prepare students to perform their jobs effectively. Superior job performance relies on the transferability of MBA-imparted knowledge (Ramocki, 2012). The present study addressed the premise but broadened it through the understanding of reciprocal transferability of knowledge between academia and the workplace. Results support goal-setting theory (Latham and Locke, 2002).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to use goal-setting theory to explain the transfer of knowledge and skills between master of business administration (MBA) and the workplace.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were obtained by an online survey of MBA students enrolled in at four US graduate business schools. These were a public and private institution in the Northeast region, a private sectarian institution in the Midwest region and a private institution in the Pacific region. All students worked while attending the university. The sampling frame consisted of each school's MBA enrollees. Questionnaires were distributed to a random cross-section of part-time students at each graduate school of business representative of returned by 144 students. The profiles of responders were consistent with parameters for the entire MBA student population.\nFindings: The research shows that multiple goals of reciprocal knowledge and skills transfer may be in harmony and mutually reinforcing. In principle, each goal is more likely to be attained with greater economy of effort than might be surmised. Additionally, the same forces may act similarly to facilitate attainment of two well-integrated goals, in this case transfer between MBA studies and work, as well as between work and MBA studies.\nResearch limitations/implications: The present study involved participants from part-time public and private MBA granting institutions in the USA. The study tested and extended goal-setting theory and introduced the innovative concept of reciprocal transfer. Future studies should seek to generalize the findings to a broader population of part-time MBA students, especially from other nations. Despite its strengths, the findings of this study need to be interpreted in the perspective of some limitations. The current study did not measure transfer climates in either the organization or university settings. Transfer climates undoubtedly have an important bearing on transfer outcomes.\nPractical implications: Review of the present study suggests that a positive MBA environment is needed to influence motivation to learn and perceptions of the MBA program's utility, thereby promoting transfer of knowledge and skills to MBA studies from the workplace. A supportive work-to-MBA-studies transfer climate will lead to more active learning of course content that has greater relevance for achieving career goals. Potentially generalizable from the organizational transfer climate literature (Rouiller and Goldstein 1990; Rouiller and Goldstein 1993), positive transfer from work to MBA studies will occur when appropriate situational cues and consequences are present in the program.\nSocial implications: A constructive implication suggested by the findings of this study would be the intervention and transfer management by educators to structure and strengthen the university transfer climate of their part-time MBA programs. Traditionally, the concept of transfer climate has been primarily applied to employee workplace training activity and job performance. The university culture of the MBA student might emphasize and reward continuous learning from workplace experiences. Opportunities at the university should be provided for the exercise of newly acquired workplace skills that reinforce MBA learning experiences.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study that shows how learning goals and performance goals are integrated in the context of a new concept, i.e. reciprocal transfer of knowledge and skills between MBA and workplace settings. It also demonstrates, for the first time, the impact of learning and motivation for MBA studies and perceived utility of MBA program on the extent of transfer of learning and skills from the workplace to the university setting.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Unethical consumer behavior: the role of institutional and socio-cultural factors	[ "Consumer behavior", "Consumer ethics" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The issue of unethical consumer behavior (UCB) is a seldom explored area in the field of consumer marketing. Studies in this field have focused on:\nTheoretical background: Theoretical foundations of consumer ethics\nMethodology - Qualitative phase: In the qualitative phase, through in-depth interviews, a list of likely unethical activities prevalent among Indian consumers and motivations for the same were obtained. For recruiting respondents, a marketing research firm, based in the national capital of India, Delhi, sent emails to 213 respondents across Tier 1, 2, and 3 cities[2] inviting them to participate in the study. In the email:\nResults and analysis - Qualitative phase: Data obtained through qualitative interviews were first content analyzed regarding consumers motivations to indulge into unethical activities. Thus, one of the author content analyzed all the statements. Subsequently, two postgraduate students who were briefed apriori about the content analysis technique again cross-checked 45 per cent of the statements and reached the same conclusion as the author (who did the content analysis) regarding the motivation for unethical activities. The inter-coder reliability was an acceptable 94 per cent.\nMethodology - Quantitative phase: In the second phase, a quantitative research was conducted to examine how institutional environment, frugal and materialistic values influence different unethical activities. First, the 21 listed unethical activities obtained through qualitative research were used to develop a consumer ethics questionnaire to measure the ethical disposition of consumers. Each of the 21 items was measured using a seven-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree. Thus, a high score indicated that consumers considered a particular action as less unethical or more acceptable. Next, consumers responded to a five-item institutional trust scale (Villoria et al., 2013) which was used to measure perceived institutional void; a four-item consumer frugality scale adapted from Lastovicka et al. (1999) and a seven-item materialism scale (Cleveland et al., 2009). For the institutional trust scale items, a Likert scale ranging from 1 = absolute trust and 7 = absolutely no trust was used. For the consumer frugality and materialism scales, the scale items range between 1 = strongly disagree and 7 = strongly agree.\nResults and analysis - Quantitative phase: The survey data on the 21 unethical consumer activities was subjected to an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with varimax rotation to explore the common underlying constructs. Table V presents the items and the factor loadings.\nDiscussion: The findings of the present study highlight the underlying motives of UCB in India and they explain how the institutional and socio-cultural environment influences UCB. This investigation contributes to the motivational drivers of unethical consumer behavior. Its findings clearly indicate that the lack of institutional trust and a frugal attitude influences consumer involvement in all types of unethical activities, whereas materialism influences all but not NOH. While a plethora of research explains the behavior of frugal consumers, including the lifestyle of the consumer (Lastovicka et al., 1999), brand engagement (Goldsmith et al., 2014), etc., previous studies do not explain the implications for unethical consumer behavior. The findings of the present study indicate that such consumers are also more likely to engage in different types of unethical activities. Similarly, the extant literature suggests that a corrupt institutional environment enhances corruption in organizations as well (Ashforth et al., 2008). The present study extends the role of the institutional environment onto the consumer behavior and its findings indicate that, similar to executives, consumers are also likely to behave unethically when they do not trust the institutional environment. The findings regarding materialism are in agreement with those of Vitell et al. (2005), in which materialism was found to influence illegal activities significantly.\nConclusion, limitations and future research: The limitations of the present research are as follows. First, the immense size and magnitude of the diversity in India, coupled with marked differences in different tiered cities, presents a major challenge of sampling while conducting investigations of this nature. Given the scope of the present research, it was not possible to study a sample from every part of the country. Consequently, a sample from different tiered cities may not be a complete reflection of the magnitude of the unethical activities across India. As the list of items so generated could vary for other emerging markets, the findings from an Indian context cannot be generalized to other emerging markets. Nevertheless, this study can certainly be used as a foundation from which to explore the drivers of unethical behavior in other emerging markets. Second, with only 33 participants, the size of the qualitative component of the research was small. Therefore, it may be difficult to draw a population inference from the qualitative study (Bergman, 2011). Third, although the face to face data collection method allowed a better coverage of the population (in terms of socio-demographic profiles), it also increased chances of desirability bias as some respondents might have been reluctant to acknowledge their unethical behaviors or intentions.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore how institutional trust, frugality and materialism motivate consumers' unethical behavior.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors conducted the study in two phases - qualitative and quantitative. In the qualitative phase through a content analysis of semi-structured interviews, a list of unethical activities was obtained. In the quantitative phase, a questionnaire was developed, which had questions related to the unethical activities. Data collection for the quantitative phase was achieved through mall intercept surveys. The collected data were subjected to exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and multivariate regression analysis.\nFindings: Poor institutional environment, frugal attitude and materialistic values motivate consumers from an emerging economy to indulge in unethical acts some of which were not explored before such as booking a cab but not boarding or stealing electricity.\nOriginality/value: Research evidence on unethical consumer behavior is lacking from emerging markets. Furthermore, extant studies have used mainly national culture models to explore unethical behavior, and finally, the role of institutional trust and frugality has not been explored in previous studies. The present study tries to fill these gaps by considering these elements as the cornerstone of this study.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Leadership for school success: lessons from effective principals	[ "School leadership", "Persistence", "Building leadership capacity", "Leadership sustainability", "Resiliency", "Successful schools" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction and overview: The notion of sustainability in education remains ambiguous. As with many maturing concepts, the application of the concept widens, in this case to a point where it seems that it can be applied almost to anything and everything, including educational leadership (Blankstein et al., 2009; Davies, 2007; Fullan, 2005; Hargreaves and Fink, 2006). The edited collections by Blankstein et al. (2009) and Davies (2007) illustrate this well with more than 20 chapters by eminent writers in educational leadership, but little consensus as to what sustainable educational leadership means. In our earlier writing (Jacobson et al., 2009) we defined sustainable educational leadership as leadership that maintains school performance at a high level, or improves it over time, and argued that sustaining school success over time is different from building short-term capacity to meet externally imposed organizational goals (Giles and Hargreaves, 2006). Sustainability requires schools to develop the capacity to self-renew, and for this to be sustained over time, supportive external and internal conditions are necessary (Hargreaves and Fink, 2006; Marks and Printy, 2003; Stoll, 1999). Davies (2007, p. 11) describes sustainable leadership as \"the key factors that underpin the longer-term development of the school. It builds a leadership culture based on moral purpose which provides success that is accessible to all.\" This definition perhaps captures our earlier focus on sustained or improving school performance, with, as we will see, the importance of leadership establishing an improvement culture driven by social justice and democratic ideals.\nConnection with ISSPP research: There have been three project books of the ISSPP that have attempted to bring together key understandings from the more than 100 multiple perspective cases studies across more than 20 countries, and a fourth that captures the stories of successful principals (Day and Gurr, 2014). We will use the first three books to frame the initial part of this discussion.\nMethodology: Since its inception in 2002 the ISSPP has had a common methodology. For this paper, we revisited schools that had been studied five or more years prior as part of the ISSPP. The focus of the case studies was on the leadership of principals, with selection criteria based on the reputation of the schools, the acknowledged success of the principals by peers and evidence of improved student outcomes over time.\nJan Shrimpton and Bella Irlicht, Melbourne, Australia: This section draws upon Drysdale and Gurr (2011). In Melbourne, we have revisited two schools, with the purpose to focus on the sustainability of school success, and of the successful leadership of the principals (further details are contained in Drysdale et al., 2009, 2011; Gurr et al., 2011). The two principals (real names) that we report here are Jan Shrimpton at Morang South Primary School, and Bella Irlicht at Port Phillip Specialist School; both have now retired from full-time work in education. Both have led successful schools but they have somewhat different orientations to change. For Bella change is a constant, while Jan has a more instrumental view in that change is used to bring about an end-point.\nLaura Martinez San Antonio, TX, USA: Ms Laura Martinez was identified as a successful educational leader in our original ISSPP case study research (Merchant et al., 2013). All of her teaching and administrative positions were in Mira Vista Independent School District (MVISD, a pseudonym) the same district that she had attended as a child. Located in a city of 1.5 million inhabitants in south Texas. MVISD is a school district with 110 schools and an enrollment of 55,086. Hispanic students comprise 90 percent of the district's enrollment of which 68 percent are classified as at-risk, 93 percent are economically disadvantaged, and 16 percent are receive special education services (TEA, 2010).\nPaulette Wilson, Buffalo, NY, USA: Our team studied Dr Paulette Wilson, an African American principal who led a kindergarten through grade 8 school of approximately 600 students and 40 teachers for 17 years, from 1994 until her retirement in 2011[1]. When we first studied this once-failing, high poverty, urban school in 2001, we reported a remarkable turnaround in student performance that coincided with the formation of a bank partnership and the arrival of this exemplary principal (Giles et al., 2005). When we returned to Fraser five years later, Paulette was still the central figure in sustaining the school's direction and success, primarily because she had remained faithful to holding everyone accountable for children learning at mastery levels within a caring and nurturing environment. But a significant change in governance structure had also been required to assure Fraser's continued success.\nFindings: There are some interesting similarities among our principals. All are female, were principals at their schools for extended periods (between five and 24 years), and these schools were their last appointment before retiring or moving out of the principalship. Three had been principals prior to this last appointment; only Irlicht had one principalship. One principal, Martinez, had been studied as she led two schools (one for eight years, and the other for five years). They were experienced and talented principals who had demonstrated over considerable time a strong commitment to the sustained success of their schools. As such, they are exemplary principals to study the sustainability of successful school leadership.\nImplications for practice/sustainability: As previously discussed, the notion of sustainability as it pertains to school leadership remains ambiguous. However, there are several implications for practice that we can draw from our findings. If school superintendents expect their principals to sustain high levels of success over time, they must consider the following implications: first, our findings clearly suggest that principals need a prolonged period of engagement to effect positive change. All the principals in our study served five or more years. Leadership also needs to be sustained over a period of time; second, the process of selection and appointment of principals must include strategies to screen for candidates that demonstrate strong dispositions for social justice; third, principals who are successful strategically focus on building teacher leadership capacity; fourth, successful schools can serve as training \"labs\" for the next generation of principals. The successful principals serve as trainers for their successors. It is a common practice to transfer effective principals to schools that need to be turned around at the expense of the successful school they are leaving behind; and last, it is critically important to develop a formal and structured leadership succession transition plan if success is to be sustained.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine four case studies from the International Successful School Principalship Project to explore and highlight how the role of the principal is critically important to sustaining school success. Implications for improving the preparation of aspiring and practicing school leaders are discussed.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected using multiple sources, including documents and interviews with a variety of people including the principal, other school leaders, teachers, school council/board members, parents and students. Each case study was analyzed to understand how the principal and other leadership contributed to school success.\nFindings: There were several core dimensions of the principals' leadership that led to sustained school success. Principals clearly articulated views on education and helped their schools set appropriate directions. They were all concerned with the professional development of teachers to build capacity and teacher leadership. All principals were instructional leaders who influenced teaching and learning and were committed to making a difference. They exhibited other qualities such as resilience and their motivation to sustain their efforts over time. Another important dimension was building community. These principals reached out to their communities. They clearly understood that they could not succeed in isolation.\nOriginality/value: The notion of sustainability in education remains ambiguous and this paper provides some empirical evidence of how successful school principals maintain school success over an extended period. Importantly, it considers how aspirant and practicing principals can be developed and supported in their efforts to lead and sustain successful schools.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The contribution of a brand spokesperson's voice to consumer-based brand equity	[ "Advertising", "Brand awareness", "Brand identity", "Brand communication", "Consumer brand equity", "Gender studies", "Audio branding", "Pitch", "Sensory marketing", "Spokesperson’s voice" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Voices are commonly used in a wide variety of marketing messages. In fact, evidence from psychology suggests that a speaker's voice can be a powerful persuasion tool that conveys rich emotions and imagery (Mehrabian and Wiener, 1967) as well as provides a focal point in advertisements, unbeknownst to the consumers (Chattonadhyay et al., 2003). Consequently, numerous brands use the specific voice of a spokesperson to represent themselves, sometimes for years and across multiple channels. For instance, Apple used the same instructive, neutral male voice-over in its iPhone ads until 2014. Subsequently, for the first time in its history, the company switched to the lively voice of a young woman (actor Lake Bell).\nLiterature review: the influence of voice pitch on message recipients' responses: Although marketing research on speakers' voices is somewhat limited (Labarbera and MacLachlan, 1979; Nickell and Pinto, 1984; Moore et al., 1986; Whipple and McManamon, 2002; Chattonadhyay et al., 2003; Wiener and Chartrand, 2014), there is extensive literature in psychology on the subject, especially regarding voice pitch. Voice pitch is the perceived \"highness\" or \"lowness\" of a voice, which is determined by the voice's fundamental frequency [f0, measured in Hertz (Hz)], that is, \"the number of vibrations per second made by the vocal folds [i.e. vocal cords] to produce a vocalization\" (Tusing and Dillard, 2000, p. 150). The f0 can vary from 40 Hz for low-pitched voices to 600 Hz for children or high-pitched voices (Huang et al., 2001). Male voices are typically lower than female voices; nevertheless, a noticeable proportion of the population possesses medium-pitched voices, regardless of the gender (Titze, 1994). Overall, voice pitch is considered as one of the most important vocal characteristics, which allows the listener to identify the speaker. In addition, it is a key determinant of voice perception and influence (Belin et al., 2011; Hancock and Garabedian, 2013).\nConceptual framework: the contribution of a brand spokesperson's voice to consumer-based brand equity: According to the associative network memory model (ANMM) (Anderson, 1983; Keller, 1993), human memory consists of a network of interconnected nodes that are used for storing information. In particular, the brand, as well as the external cues paired with the brand (e.g. appearing along with the brand in advertisements), consist of two connected nodes of information that are stored in a consumer's memory (Keller, 1993). According to Dimofte and Yalch (2011), the exposure to a brand cue can activate the brand node, thus triggering brand recall (a dimension of CBBE). The brand cue can also transfer its associations and its affect to the brand (Dimofte and Yalch, 2011), thus influencing brand associations and brand attitude (two dimensions of CBBE). As a result, brand voice can influence brand recall and transfer its associations and affect to the brand itself which, in turn, influences CBBE. The present study draws on the previous connectionist research to suggest a conceptual framework for a brand spokesperson's voice (Figure 1) as well as formulate the following hypotheses.\nMethod: Study overview, sample and protocol\nFindings: Direct effects of a spokesperson's voice pitch on consumers' responses\nDiscussion and conclusion: Conceptual contributions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to explore the characteristics of a brand spokesperson's voice that are the most valuable for consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) and evaluates various explanations in previous research regarding the influences of a speaker's voice.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Brand identities can transfer their associations and affect as well as influence brand recall, thus contributing to CBBE. In addition, the pitch and gender of a speaker's voice are considered as key characteristics of voice perception. This experimental study exposed 521 respondents to 12 different voices and measured the effects of a spokesperson's voice pitch and gender on associations, attitude toward the voice and brand recall.\nFindings: This study presents a model that explains the influence of a brand spokesperson's voice on CBBE. The findings show that low-pitched voices induced distinctive, positive associations and led to a more positive attitude toward the voice and greater brand recall, regardless of the gender of the spokesperson and that of the respondent. Moreover, voice associations partially mediated the effects on attitude toward the voice and completely mediated the effects on brand recall.\nOriginality/value: While numerous brands have resorted to specific voices to represent themselves, brand spokesperson's voice and its associations have not been studied. This study highlights the importance of a spokesperson's voice pitch and its associations in building CBBE and nuances the roles of spokespersons' and respondents' gender.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Graphic Packaging International slims costs with lean manufacturing: Firm taps into employee creativity and innovation	[ "Lean production", "Packaging", "Employee development", "Organizational culture" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The UK manufacturing plant of an international packaging producer estimates it is saving PS175,000 a year through quality improvements by tapping into the creativity and capacity for innovation of its employees.\nBreakthrough ideas take discipline and insight: \"Breakthrough ideas simply do not come by accident,\" says the company. \"It takes discipline and insight as well as expertise and inspiration to be genuinely creative. Simple on the surface, yet deep in value, all our packaging solutions are designed and manufactured to make our clients' product stand out on the retail shelf.\"The company's beverages division has a 200-employee manufacturing plant at Bristol, UK. The plant is working with Breakthrough Management Group International (BMGI) - a specialist in strategic problem solving that works with companies around the globe to help to \"in-source\" new capability and develop new core competencies - to develop and execute a lean-manufacturing program.GPI's management team first worked with BMGI consultants to identify the site's performance issues and then quantify and prioritise opportunities for improvement. BMGI consultants worked with a team of cross-functional employees to implement lean principles, eliminating waste and variation while seeking to improve customer satisfaction.Jeff Goold, GPI's UK site and European manufacturing director, commented: \"BMGI helped us in three critical areas: we dramatically reduced waste and cost; we transformed the speed of our manufacturing processes; and ultimately we improved the experience we are able to offer our customers.\"\nMaximising return on improvement projects: To run the kaizen events successfully, improvement teams were formed and trained using BMGI's Score (select, clarify, organize, run and evaluate) method of maximizing return on lean improvement projects. During these events at the Bristol facility, GPI's machine operators not only highlighted key areas for improvement, but also signaled the beginning of a dramatic shift in the company culture. This, in turn, has had a profound effect on the results achieved.Jeff Goold continued: \"Working with consultants not only gives us a clear structure to follow but also the confidence to make the changes that lead to success. It has been a partnership from the beginning.\"The main goals of the partnership were to improve upon on-time delivery to customers and to reduce operating costs by eliminating waste and improving product quality. Overall, the Bristol plant has saved PS175,000 a year, which represents a 3:1 return on investment. The assignment has increased the manufacturers' productivity by 90 percent, enabling better customer service and a significant reduction in overtime.\"By involving everyone in the process the results have become absolutely sustainable. Even in its infancy this exercise proved to be incredibly powerful. The willingness to move forward is remarkable and more beneficial than anything we have ever implemented before. Employees on the shop floor are now driving themselves and have adopted a proactive, can-do attitude,\" said Kevin Brown, GPI's finishing-area production manager.\nReducing waste and variation: BMGI and GPI are now working together in other European countries and in the US. GPI's beverage-packaging business in Igualada, Spain, launched a lean project using a similar approach to the one in Bristol, while a third European beverage-packaging plant has begun its lean effort in Masnieres, France.BMGI will make full use of its global footprint and local language capabilities to continue to drive global results through localized execution.\"As GPI's success demonstrates, focused business improvement initiatives that use bespoke, experiential learning solutions are proven to reduce waste and variation while improving the bottom line,\" said a BMGI spokesman.\"We began building a legacy of innovation from the very beginning, and those same principles drive us today,\" said a GPI spokesman. \"We face every challenge by asking one deceptively simple question, 'What if?' The ground-breaking packaging solutions that result truly connect with consumers to generate excitement and build brands. We have the patents and our customers have the sales increases to prove it.\"\nNote: David Pollitt, Human Resource Management International Digest editor, wrote this article.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to describe the benefits from lean production at the UK manufacturing plant of Graphic Packaging International.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper outlines the origins of the reforms, how they were introduced and the results they have achieved.\nFindings: - The paper reveals that improvement teams were formed and trained using a Score (select, clarify, organize, run and evaluate) method of maximizing return on lean improvement projects. Machine operators not only highlighted key areas for improvement, but also signaled the beginning of a dramatic shift in the company culture.\nPractical implications: - The paper reveals that the Bristol plant has saved PS175,000 a year, which represents a 3:1 return on investment. The assignment has increased the manufacturers' productivity by 90 percent, enabling better customer service and a significant reduction in overtime.\nOriginality/value: - The paper highlights the ways in which lean manufacturing helped the plant to cut waste and cost, increase the speed of manufacturing and improve the customer experience.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Initial trends in corporate disclosures following the introduction of integrated reporting practice in South Africa	[ "South Africa", "Disclosure", "Content analysis", "Integrated reporting", "Legitimacy theory" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: There is a growing recognition of, and interest in, wider organisational reporting practice which takes into consideration salient non-financial performance indicators (de Villiers, Low and Samkin, 2014). At the corporate level, there has been a significant increase in the number of companies incorporating non-financial information in corporate reports over time (KPMG, 2008, 2011). At the regulatory level, a growing number of countries and regional zones worldwide have enacted specific regulatory requirements for non-financial reporting. For example, the UK government introduced a Strategic Report in August 2013, which requires all public-listed entities to disclose material non-financial information on their strategy, business model, discussion of main trends and, in particular, information relating to the environment, employees, social, and the community. Similarly, in September 2014, the EU Council agreed to a directive of non-financial reporting which will, from 2017, require companies to provide non-financial information on issues such as policies, outcomes and risk-related aspects (Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), 2015). Similarly, a number of countries in Australasia such as Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and Japan have introduced, or are considering, reforms in non-financial reporting practice (Ahmed Haji, 2013; de Villiers, Low and Samkin, 2014; Higgins et al., 2014).\n2. Literature review: IR research is growing rapidly and continues to receive the attention from academic researchers as well as professional bodies (PwC, 2013; Wild and van Staden, 2013; Ernst & Young, 2014; de Villiers, Low and Samkin, 2014; Higgins et al., 2014; Stent and Dowler, 2015; Veltri and Silvestri, 2015). Albeit at this early stage, majority of the extant literature on IR is conceptual in nature (Abeysekera, 2013; Brown and Dillard, 2014; Flower, 2015; Adams, 2015; Coulson et al., 2015; Dumay et al., 2016), there is nonetheless a growing number of empirical studies (e.g. Solomon and Maroun, 2012; Higgins et al., 2014; Melloni, 2015; Setia et al., 2015; Ahmed Haji and Anifowose, 2016).\n3. Legitimacy theory and corporate disclosures: Researchers have drawn from a diverse, often complementary, theoretical perspectives including stakeholder theory, legitimacy theory, political economy theory and impression management theory to explain the nature of, and motivations for, voluntary disclosure practices (Gray et al., 1995; Deegan et al., 2000; O'Donovan, 2002; de Villiers and van Staden, 2006; Ahmed Haji and Mohd Ghazali, 2012b; Williams and Adams, 2013; Dumay et al., 2015). Of particular significance within the voluntary disclosure literature is legitimacy theory which researchers use to expose corporate tendency to create an inaccurate picture of organisational performance (Williams and Adams, 2013; Ahmed Haji and Mohd Ghazali, 2012b; Dumay et al., 2015). Suchman (1995, p. 574) defines legitimacy as \"a generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs, and definitions\". In other words, legitimacy is a status or condition which exists when the value system of an entity is congruent with the value system of the larger social system of which the entity is a part (Lindblom, 1994). Based on extensive review of organisational literature, Suchman (1995) identified \"strategic and institutional\" perspectives of legitimacy. Suchman contrasts the strategic (internal) techniques which corporate management uses to influence (change) external perceptions of the company and the institutional (external) pressures that shape organisational legitimation. The distinction between the strategic and institutional camps of legitimacy theory is \"a matter of perspective, with strategic theorists adopting the viewpoint of organizational managers looking 'out', whereas institutional theorists adopt the viewpoint of society looking 'in'\" (Suchman, 1995, p. 577). However, although researchers have used the strategic and institutional perspectives in isolation, they are complementary, rather than conflicting (Suchman, 1995; Milne and Patten, 2002; Islam and Deegan, 2008). For instance, Dumay et al. (2015, p. 20) present a model of \"material legitimacy\" which arises when companies try to achieve \"a mutually beneficial 'win-win' outcome for themselves and their stakeholders\" by blending \"what is important to the organisation (strategic legitimacy) with the primary concerns of its major stakeholders (institutional legitimacy)\".\n4. Research methods: 4.1 Sample selection\n5. Research findings: To reiterate, the overarching objective of this study is to explore the implications of IR practice on corporate disclosure practices following the introduction of IR requirement in South Africa. In line with this research objective, we explore three specific research questions as discussed in the theory section. To frame the discussion of the research findings, we present the results based on the three research objectives.\n6. Discussion and conclusion: The overarching purpose of this study is to explore the implications of IR reforms on corporate disclosure practices of South African companies following the adoption of IR requirement. In particular, this study focusses on three specific research objectives. The first research objective explores whether \"there has been a change in the amount of corporate disclosures over time following the adoption of IR framework\". We draw from the strategic perspective of legitimacy theory to make sense of the nature of corporate disclosures in integrated reports. The results show an increase in the overall amount of corporate disclosure practices, with IC and human capital disclosure categories, in particular, showing an increasing trend over time. The findings, which are consistent with recent empirical studies in South Africa (e.g. Solomon and Maroun, 2012; Setia et al., 2015), indicate that companies use different disclosure strategies imbued with specific legitimation strategies to respond to regulatory changes. However, such disclosure strategies do not necessarily reflect improved disclosure quality (Solomon and Maroun, 2012; Melloni, 2015). This is, however, inconsistent with the expectations of South African policymakers and other stakeholders (e.g. institutional investors) who view the IR framework as an improvement on the conventional annual reports (King III, 2009; Atkins and Maroun, 2015).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the implications of IR reforms in South Africa on corporate disclosure practices of South African companies. In particular, the authors explore initial trends in corporate disclosures following the adoption of IR practice.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Drawing from Suchman's (1995) framework of strategic and institutional legitimacy, the authors use content analysis to examine corporate disclosure practices. The authors conduct industry-specific analyses based on various industries to explore corporate disclosures practices across and within various industries in South Africa. The evidence is drawn from 246 integrated reports of large South African companies across six major industries over a three-year period (2011-2013), a period following the introduction of an \"apply or explain\" IR requirement in South Africa.\nFindings: The results first show a significant increase in the overall amount of corporate disclosures following the adoption of IR practice. In particular, the authors find that intellectual capital and human capital disclosure categories have increased over time, with relational capital disclosures showing a decreasing trend. Second, the authors find that corporate disclosures are increasingly becoming institutionalised over time across and within industries following the adoption of IR practice. However, companies fail to provide meaningful disclosures on the interdependencies and trade-offs between the capitals, or components of a capital following the adoption of IR practice. Overall, the authors find that companies use specific disclosure strategies to respond to external pressures (strategic legitimacy), and that such disclosure strategies are increasingly becoming institutionalised across and within various industries (institutional legitimacy).\nPractical implications: The theoretical implication of this study is that the strategic and institutional perspectives of legitimacy theory are complementary, rather than conflicting, and dovetail to explain corporate reporting practices. In terms of practical implications, the adoption of specific reporting frameworks such as the emerging IR framework is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, such reporting frameworks could potentially enhance comparability and consistency of organisational reports across and within industries. On the other hand, corporate reports could become a set of monotonous reports motivated by considerations other organisational accountability. Hence, to overcome the latter, this study emphasises the importance of specific accountability metrics and reporting guidelines, rather than the current generic IR guidelines, to enhance organisational reporting practices.\nOriginality/value: The paper's longitudinal analysis of a large sample of integrated reports following the adoption of IR practice has the potential to inform growing academic research and ongoing policy initiatives for the emerging IR agenda.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Ownership concentration, earnings management and stock market liquidity: evidence from Malaysia	[ "Malaysia", "Ownership concentration", "Earnings management", "Stock market liquidity" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: It is important for developed and emerging countries to have a liquid market. A highly liquid market results in efficient allocations. Consequently, efficient allocations are a critical pre-condition for financial market growth and development (Wang, 2013). Greater liquidity also contributes to increasing a firm's value and reducing its cost of capital. Prior studies state that stock liquidity differences are derived from legal protection and the nature of the information environment (Bacidore and Sofianos, 2002; Brockman and Chung, 2003; Chung, 2006). Hence, governments introduce corporate governance reforms with an aim to mitigate agency costs, enhance investors' confidence and broaden and deepen the capital market[1] (Chung et al., 2010; Kanagaretnam et al., 2007).\n2. Literature review and hypotheses development: 2.1 Ownership concentration and liquidity\n3. Research design and sample construction: 3.1 Research design\n4. Data description: 4.1 Liquidity measure\n5. Results and discussion: 5.1 Summary of statistics\n6. Conclusions: The primary purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of ownership concentration and earnings management on stock market liquidity. The findings of this study show a significantly negative association between the ownership concentration and stock liquidity, suggesting that the market perception of the adverse selection problem associated with concentrated ownership is high. This finding reveals that the ownership concentration in Malaysia is a detrimental factor that curbs stock market liquidity. This finding is supporting the adverse selection hypothesis and consistent with the previous studies who found that an increase in the concentration of shareholding increases information asymmetry, which leads to reduced liquidity (Heflin and Shaw, 2000; Jacoby and Zheng, 2010). The finding also provides implications for stock market regulators to actively reduce ownership concentration and promote plurality by strengthening their enforcement of legal shareholder protection.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine whether ownership concentration and earnings management affect the stock market liquidity of Malaysian firms.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study uses a sample of 2,020 yearly firm observations in Bursa Malaysia over the period 2009-2012. The ordinary least square regression is used to examine the relationships. The study undertakes a sensitivity test by regressing the main study variables by using different measurements. Another robustness test is then used, where a regression based on the change in variables and a one-year lag of the independent variables are used. Furthermore, to alleviate the concern of possible endogeneity, the simultaneity and reverse causality are checked using the lag of the dependent variable, fixed effect regression, two-stage least squares using the instrumental variables and the generalized method of moments using instrumental variables analysis.\nFindings: The study finds that firms with a high level of ownership concentration have discrepancies in information between informed and uninformed traders, which impair the stock market liquidity. In addition, this study finds that firms with high earnings management experience greater liquidity. A possible explanation for this is that firms might manage earnings to convey private information to enhance the information content of the earnings. Overall, the evidence suggests that manipulating earnings signals information informatively, particularly in a country with a higher level of ownership concentration and a higher likelihood of expropriating minority shareholders.\nOriginality/value: This study enriches the limited empirical research devoted to the impact of earnings management and ownership concentration on stock market liquidity especially in the context of emerging economies. The findings of this study are robust to alternative liquidity measurements, to alternative estimation methods, and to endogeneity bias.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Internationalisation at home for tourism training programmes: case studies from Vietnam	[ "Internationalization", "Graduate employability", "English language teaching", "Tourism curriculum", "Vietnamese higher education", "Vietnamese tertiary education", "Vietnamese education", "Internationalization of the curriculum" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the era of globalisation with the \"massive movement of people to virtually every corner of the world\" (Wood, 1997, p. 2), Vietnam, a developing and non-English-speaking country in Southeast Asia endowed with numerous natural tourist attractions and being rich in culture and, less fortunately, with many battlefield sites, welcomes a significant number of international tourists each year. In 2013 alone, the country attracted over 7.5 m international tourists, particularly Chinese (25.2 per cent), South Korean (9.9 per cent per cent), Japanese (8 per cent), American (5.7 per cent), Taiwanese (5.3 per cent) and Cambodian (4.5 per cent), according to the Vietnamese General Statistics Office (2013). In addition to globalisation and regionalisation, tourism has become an important service export to Vietnam, generating US$7.3 bn to the national economy in 2014. The direct contribution of travel and tourism to GDP in 2014 was US$8.0 bn (4.6 per cent of GDP) (World Travel and Tourism Council, 2015, pp. 3-5).\nInternationalisation of education: definitions, significance and key factors: Internationalisation is considered as \"the process of integrating an international, intercultural, or global dimension (e.g. a perspective, activity or programme) into the purpose, functions or delivery of postsecondary education\" (Knight, 2003, p. 2) to produce graduates who can function effectively in increasingly culturally diverse environments such as the tourism industry. Haigh (2002) explains in detail the significance of this process by arguing that this idea can enable students to develop: global and inclusive thoughts to consider issues from various angles; a grasp of the fundamental tenets of intercultural viewpoints; an awareness of their own cultural traditions and perspectives in relation to other cultures and their perspectives; and an appreciation of the relation between their academic disciplines locally and globally. Black (2004) and Hobson and Josiam (1996) agree that graduates who are in contact with clients from various nationalities and cultural backgrounds (such as those who work in the tourism industry) will need the knowledge and skills that enhance their capability to adapt to a foreign culture and to operate in a socially and culturally diverse environment.\nMethodology: The research addresses whether and to what extent tourism training programmes in Vietnam are internationalised in response to the needs of the Vietnamese tourism industry and to the increase emphasis on internationalisation by the Vietnamese Government's HE agenda. The case study approach was chosen to be the main research method because it is the most widely employed method throughout the field of education (Gall et al., 2007; Grady, 1998; Merriam, 1998) and is suitable to the aims and nature of this research. The multiple case study approach was selected here to gain a nuanced understanding of the multifaceted aspects and distinctive nature of different types of institutions which are involved in providing tourism training programs across different regions in Vietnam. It was designed based on \"the logic of replication\" in which the researcher replicated the procedures for each case (Creswell, 2007, p. 74). There was a total of six case studies representing different types of tourism training institutions in Vietnam. Of these, three were public vocational colleges (Institutions A, B and C) under the management of Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA). One was a public university (Institution D), and two were private universities (Institutions E and F) under the management of the MOET. The terms \"public\" and \"private\" universities or vocational colleges will be used to refer to institutions in public and private sectors, respectively. These institutions were selected to represent a diversity of education forms managed by different authorised ministries and operating in different ways (Hayden and Lam, 2010).\nTourism lecturing staff in response to the internationalisation trend: This section provides an overview picture of the faculty members, encompassing their qualifications, levels of foreign language proficiency, research activeness and other activities pertaining to their responsiveness to the internationalisation trend of the training organisations and also the hurdles they encounter on the way to develop their intercultural competence as proposed by Deardorff (2009).\nInternationalisation elements in tourism training curricula: Outcomes of tourism programmes\nConclusion: This study sought to examine the internationalisation elements of six tourism training programmes in both the higher education and vocational education training sectors in Vietnam. The ultimate aim was to see whether these programs prepare students with global competence to serve international tourists effectively in the context of a growing Vietnamese tourism industry and where the Vietnamese Government launches the HERA to promote internationalisation of education. A case study approach was employed to investigate six tourism training providers. The instruments of data collection included document analysis from the tourism training curricula and the websites of the institutions along with the interviews of the lecturing staff.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Tourism is one of the most notable features of the contemporary globalised world. The tourism industry is becoming increasingly vital to the economy of many developing and developed countries around the globe. The demand of the tourism industry has posed a challenge for tourism training providers to move towards a more responsive and internationalised curriculum to enhance work readiness for tourism graduates who are expected to work with an increased number of international tourists. The purpose of this paper is analyse whether and how internationalisation has been implemented in the tourism training programmes across six institutions in Vietnam.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research deployed case studies as research strategy with interviews and document analysis as two instruments of data collection.\nFindings: The major findings show that even though the tourism industry demands graduates to possess global competency, knowledge and skills, the curriculum does not prioritise the internationalisation dimensions and the faculty members are not facilitated to be internationally active in their roles. Overall, internationalisation is still fragmented and ad hoc in these institutions even though the private institutions in this research appear to be more responsive to the trend of internationalisation in education than their public counterparts.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper provides recommendations on how to effectively embed internationalisation components into local tourism training programs in Vietnam.\nOriginality/value: The research bridges the gap in the literature on internationalisation of the local tourism programme in non-English-speaking countries.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Beyond Brexit's uncertainty: the foreseeable Britain's innovative stagnation	[ "UK", "Time-series models", "VAR", "Co-integration", "Research and development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Following the UK's withdrawal from the European Union (EU) many questions have arisen regarding sensitive aspects of its links with the international community. From issues ranging from geopolitics to the review of economic aid to developing countries, there is no doubt that the coming governments will face new challenges. In view of this, the commitments made by the UK to the EU are considerable and its dismantling will not be very easy. In fact, the issue of the implementation of social, economic and political policies in the UK in the post-Brexit phase has already been analyzed. For example, there are already studies on the impact of Brexit on trade in goods and services and on foreign investment (Dhingra et al., 2016a, b; Ottaviano, 2016). The impact on the firms' value (Oehler et al., 2017; Tielmann and Schiereck, 2017), money market (Plakandaras et al., 2017) and information technology and telecommunications standards (Lloyd, 2017) has also been investigated. However, in the context of its separation from the EU, there has been a state of uncertainty in the rest of the economies for the future.\n2. Research framework and hypotheses: 2.1 Research framework\n3. Data and methodology: In order to explain the evolution of R&D as a percent of GDP (r&d), the following variables are selected: UK exports of goods and services as a percent of GDP; UK's number of patents applications; number of students registered in UK universities; UK military expenditure as a percent of GDP; EU GDP per capita; USA GDP per capita; and Conservative. The source of these variables is the World Bank Database (2017). All variables are taken in natural logarithms, except the dichotomous variable tory.\n4. Model results: 4.1 Unit root test\n5. Discussion: The dynamics of the UK economy and specifically investment in civilian R&D have been detrimental. The most important macroeconomic variables of this economy in the last decade have plummeted, as shown in Figure 3. It should be noted that these results are not necessarily a consequence of Brexit. In fact, the analysis of some macroeconomic variables, after a few months, has shown a moderate behavior in relation to variables such as the value of firms' shares, exports and dependence on export activities in general (Jackowicz et al., 2017).\n6. Conclusions: In this analytical exercise, we try to explain why the UK's civil expenditure on R&D shows a declining trend over a 54-year period, beyond the implementation of Brexit. Three conclusions can be drawn. First, variables such as the GDP of the EU, exports and military expenditure have a long-term relationship with the UK's investment on R&D. Second, the relationship of co-integration between R&D and all independent variables stands out. In addition, we also obtained the long-term elasticity of each explanatory variable with respect to the UK's investment on R&D. This cointegration relationship could be interpreted as a symptom of the deterioration of the UK's innovative influence in the world, considering the scope and impact of each variable on R&D over the last decade. A prospective analysis beyond Brexit, making use of the cointegration relationships found, allows us to observe a greater loss of dynamism in the innovative influence of the UK. Third, we find Granger's unidirectional causality between military expenditure and the UK's investment on R&D.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the causes that determine the UK's civilian research and development (R&D) expenditure to forecast its possible evolution in a post-Brexit scenario.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors use the Johansen's co-integration analysis for time series.\nFindings: The authors find a co-integration relationship between R&D and variables such as exports, military expenditure, patents, EU GDP per capita and USA GDP per capita. The authors also observed a stagnation in the foreseen R&D expenditure over the next five years.\nResearch limitations/implications: The authors warned that the results can only be viewed as a glance into the understanding of the complex elements that undergird the UK's civilian, scientific and technological policy-making. But the authors see them as an interesting starting point for scrutinizing current shortcomings in policy-making, while providing clues for corrective action that would otherwise lead the UK to a structural crisis in its economic performance.\nOriginality/value: This study constitutes a first attempt to account for the loss of the UK's innovative influence all over the world.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The diversity of systemic innovation thinking: The theoretical underpinnings of NIS and IMP and the different assessment of an industry	[ "Innovation", "System", "Disentangled", "Engtangled", "IMP", "NIS" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Swedish actors have had a long tradition of successfully bringing radical life science innovations to worldwide markets. Flat, non-hierarchical organizations, excellent research, an innovation-friendly healthcare system and traditions of multi-disciplinary collaboration between different sectors in society have generated a creative climate for the iterative, evolutionary life science innovation processes (Sandstrom, 2012).\n2. What lies under the surface of \"systemic innovation thinking\"?: At a first sight it seems as if the studies that make the different assessments of the Swedish life science industry are resting on a common theoretical ground. All of the utilized approaches; NIS, Cluster, the IMP Network perspective as well as the historically oriented studies, seem to challenge the idea of an independent business landscape. However, a closer look at the basic assumptions that these studies are resting on reveals some rather significant differences. In order to shed light on these we propose an ideal-typical distinction between two types of system perspectives: those that view technology as entangled in its environment and those that view technology as disentangled from its environment (Eklund, 2013b). But first, let us consider what is specific with a \"systemic perspective\".\n3. The assessment of innovation and industrial renewal - a question of imprints of disentangled or entangled analytical models: If we return to the research question of the factors behind the different assessments of the Swedish life science industry's innovation and renewal ability, and different actors' ability to economize on such processes, our ideal-typical distinction underlines that any answer of these questions is strongly colored by the presuppositions embedded into the utilized analytical tool.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the different assessments of a particular industry and its ability to innovative, renew and prosper, but also to look into the underlying assumptions that are hiding behind the systemic approaches utilized in these assessments. The point of departure is an empirical puzzle: one group of studies presents a rather optimistic view of the Swedish life science industry and its ability to economize on research, policy and industrial investments. Another group of studies presents much a darker view, questioning the capacity of new companies to reach economic endurance, as well as the possibility of keeping the actually successful companies within the country. At a first sight it appears as if the two groups of studies are resting on a common theoretical ground: all seem to depart from a systemic innovation perspective that challenges the idea of an independent business landscape.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The difference between the assessments becomes comprehensible once the authors allow for a variety of systemic approaches in innovation thinking. The authors propose an ideal-typical distinction between two types of system perspectives; those that view technology as entangled in its environment and those that view technology as disentangled from its environment. The authors use the national innovation system (NIS) and the industrial network (IMP) approaches to exemplify the two perspectives.\nFindings: An implication of the study is that the term \"systemic perspective\" is very broad and encompassing, something that in turn points to the importance of being clear about what the authors mean with a system, but also with what the theoretical assumptions focus on and abstract away from.\nOriginality/value: The ideal-typical distinction between two types of system perspectives; those that view technology as entangled in its environment and those that view technology as disentangled from its environment. The authors use the NIS and the IMP approaches to exemplify the two perspectives.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Mega event management of formula one grand prix: an analysis of literature	[ "Mega event management", "VOSviewer", "Logistics management", "Event orchestration", "Mitigation", "Mega sporting event" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: A mega sporting event can comprise of any type of sporting event of significant scale, including: Summer or Winter Olympics (Essex and Chalkley, 2004); Commonwealth Games (Carlsen and Taylor, 2003); FIFA World Cup (Lee and Taylor, 2005); Formula One Grand Prix (Gezici and Er, 2014); and MotoGP (Dolles and Soderman, 2008). Such events pay considerable dividends to spectators and organisers should they become commercial successes and as a consequence, they reflect well upon the hosting nation (Carlsen et al., 2010). However, organising and hosting a mega public event is a challenging feat for any organisation to undertake (Gursoy and Kendall, 2006) due to the extreme and dynamic logistical, technical and practical challenges encountered, where problems can arise unexpectedly (Malfas et al., 2004). For example, during the Super Bowl XLVII, hosted in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in 2013, a power outage occurred (due to a defective electrical relay device), which caused the entire stadium to be plunged into darkness for 22 min and resulted in a 34 min stoppage mid-game (Hanna, 2013; Belson, 2013). Effective testing should have been conducted prior to the event's commencement to mitigate the risks posed (Pengelly, 2013). This example illustrates how failure to test systems and a lack of awareness of temperamental components can disrupt or halt a major event, in this instance due to a severe power loss. Such challenges must be overcome throughout an event's whole life cycle (i.e. before, during and after the event) as problems arising threaten non-continuation and can manifest in substantial penalty fines (Getz, 2008).\nResearch approach: An inductive research methodological approach was adopted using an interpretivist (with elements of positivist) epistemological design (Aristizabal, 2016). Within this overarching approach, a mixed methods research design was adopted to analyse extant literature; where literature represented the sample data (Liping and Hsin-Hui, 2017). Both qualitative and quantitative data were used to allow a greater synthesis of the research problem domain and generate more valid and reliable findings (Green et al., 2014). An iterative three-stage literature review was then conducted; namely:\nImpact assessment of mega events: Mega events are classified as major one time or recurring events of limited duration, developed primarily to enhance the awareness, appeal and profitability of a tourism destination (Ritchie and Crouch, 2006). These events must fulfill four prerequisites for them to be classified as such, namely:\nPlanning and management of a formula one grand prix: The geographical location of a FOGP event may provide unique meteorological hazards that are peculiar to that country. For example, in a tropical climate frequent thunderstorms and excessive rainfall can wreak havoc upon infrastructure and electrical works - such natural force majeure events are difficult to mitigate against. Consequently, climate prediction and forward preparation of suitable mitigation strategies is vital to achieving a successful event orchestration. In addition, event organisers actively seek to develop new consumer experiences year-on-year that will showcase the event in a new light, with ambitions to: keep exist patrons captivated; attract new customer demographics; and increase consumer spending (Ramchandani, 2017). These experiences could include new trackside activities, larger capacity entertainment venues and more refined hospitality suites for spectators. Creating a more vibrant and opulent atmosphere for a FOGP seeks to attract a greater influx of race attendees (Fhoong, 2017). In terms of preparing and staging the event itself, an expanded event will create an additional workload to schedule the construction and reestablishment of any temporary infrastructures. Stringent programme timescales and immovable deadlines stipulated for circuit and facilities delivery have made carefully coordinated night work arrangements justifiable for many circuits. However, night environments reduce visibility for the workforce even with supplementary artificial lighting. Therefore, works scheduled during this period should require a lesser degree of workmanship because highly skilled tasks such as fitting out hospitality suites would not produce the quality finish expected (Shepard and Cottrell, 1986).\nProject dynamism and complexity: A major concern for the organisers of a FOGP event is any changes that may arise and the management of these during the project's life cycle (Hwang and Low, 2012). Such works create uncertainty (Guido et al., 2015) and could include: additional requirements; omission of works; and/or modifications to the existing scope of works by stakeholders - all of which cause project disruption (Hwang and Low, 2012; Charles et al., 2015). The uncertainty of potential changes creates a dynamic environment within which mega events are orchestrated and elevates the risk of such events becoming unstable (Collyer and Warren, 2009). Because mega events operate within fluid environments that invoke greater project dynamism (Shenhar and Wideman, 2000), they can be classified in relation to complexity and types of technology used during the project life cycle. FOGP events are classified as \"high-tech\" because the grand prix has developed and implemented advanced systems and technologies over time to attain operational efficiencies and mitigate risks that plagued inaugural events (Collyer and Warren, 2009). This degree of project complexity is further exacerbated by the interrelation of numerous sub-projects, which must be delivered in synchronicity to achieve a successful orchestration. These sub-projects are inextricably interwoven with each other due to logistical, geographical and managerial restrictions - therefore, non-accomplishment of one sub-project can instigate failure of the entire project (Zeng et al., 2007). For example, the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics (held from 9th-25th February 2018) was a prime example of a mega event of exponential magnitude comprising of a series of miniature projects that required appropriate planning, execution and management to ensure that established deadlines were accomplished (Ceil, 2015).\nVOSviewer findings: A VOSviewer network was created using a nodularity based clustering technique to illustrate prominent authors who have published in the field of mega events management and hospitality studies. The author field was extracted from the WoS data file and the frequency of occurrence displayed on a digital \"nodular\" map. Research articles selected for review were peer reviewed academic journal papers published between 2008-2018. WoS initially returned 189 relevant papers for entry into the VOSviewer software to create a visual network based on paper authorship and co-citations of authors. In Figure 1, nodes of varying size proportionally depict the number of occurrences and co-occurrences of citations and co-citations used by the publications' authors. The most prominent author with the highest visible weighting is Donald Getz, a renowned academic from Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, Canada. Getz's research focusses upon international tourism and event-studies but he has specific expertise in: evaluation and impact assessment of events by residents and stakeholders; and strategic planning for tourism and events. Prof. Dogan Gursoy from the School of Hospitality Business Management, WA State University, USA is another influential academic scholar identified whose focus is upon international tourism and hospitality management. These two prominent authors have numerous interconnectivities with scholars in the centre and periphery of the cluster map.\nDiscussion: The analysis reveals a plethora of factors that could potentially disrupt successful FOGP event orchestration, the status of the local economy and the trickle-down effect upon the liquidity of multi-national corporations that provide invaluable sponsorship funding, where the latter is vital to planning and managing mega events. The capital required to run a recurrent FOGP year-on-year should fall due to the linearity and repetitiveness of the orchestration and reinstatement processes, despite a natural rise in inflation. This is partly due to the exclusive use of selective \"specialist\" contractors and subcontractors whose experience and knowledge of circuit construction ensures that initial expenditure is sustained at a low level - in turn, this allows capital and resources to be diverted to more risk adverse and time-bound areas of the FOGP orchestration process. However, repeated usage of selective contractors increases the risk that such companies demand greater reimbursement given their expertise in orchestrating and hosting a live global night-time race. Diversifying the workforce by including local contractors could represent a viable risk mitigation strategy and be beneficial to the local economy and stimulating further growth locally and city state wide. By encouraging global workforces to compete with local contractors, costs should be driven down to the benefit of the stakeholders without sacrificing the quality of the workforce used.\nConclusions: Hosting a mega sporting event can provide many palpable economic, social and cultural benefits should it become a commercial success. Included amongst these are: employment opportunities for local people; long term infrastructure investment for the host city and/or nation; short term economic growth from investors and foreign tourists; and augmented national profile and enthusiasm of the populous. However, organising and hosting a mega public event is a challenging feat for any organisation to undertake because organisers face extreme and dynamic logistical, technical and practical challenges where problems can arise unexpectedly. Such challenges can expose the event to various disadvantages such as: the high costs incurred not being adequately covered by income generated; tax hikes to cover costs incurred; the short term use of building and infrastructure and its impact upon the environment; and negative publicity.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: A comprehensive literature review of mega event management of dynamic sporting events is presented. The purpose of this paper is to learn from these mega events to prescribe mitigation strategies for improving cost performance while simultaneously minimising public disruption on formula one grand prix events. Knowledge accrued of challenges posed is theoretically applied to circuit construction and reestablishment processes involved in orchestrating a \"street circuit\" grand prix event.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An inductive research methodological approach was adopted using an interpretivist epistemological design. A mixed methods analysis of pertinent extant literature of mega events afforded greater synthesis of the research problem domain and generated more valid and reliable findings. The software VOSviewer was used to conduct a qualitative bibliographic analysis of pertinent extant literature.\nFindings: Three thematic groups of past research endeavour emerged from the analysis and were assigned appropriate nomenclature, namely: customer experience; geographical location; and research methods and approaches adopted. Analysis of these clusters revealed common factors that impact upon construction works during mega sporting events including: inclement weather conditions; miscommunication between project stakeholders; and economic impact upon the local community. Factors for mitigating these risks were also proposed, namely: traffic management plans; shift working; and wider public consultation.\nOriginality/value: This unique study provides invaluable insight into construction works commissioned and implemented at a mega \"motor sports\" public event. Although the research context was narrowly defined, findings presented are equally applicable to contractors, organisers and public authorities orchestrating other types of public event. The research concludes with direction for future work that seeks to apply the lessons learnt and measure the impact of findings presented herein.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Operational capabilities in an emerging country: quality and the cost trade-off effect	[ "Emerging countries", "Sand cone model", "Cost capability", "Operational capabilities", "Quality capability", "Brazilian industry" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Over the years, the focus of operational capabilities has been on both the trade-off process and whether there exists an ideal sequence for composing capabilities. Several authors legitimized the so-called sand cone model (quality, delivery, flexibility and cost), while others sought new prospects for it (Noble, 1995; Flynn and Flynn, 2004; Schroeder et al., 2011). Operational capabilities are considered to be a differentiator in operational management. This topic has been discussed in several empirical studies (Kathuria, 2000; Corbett and Whybark, 2001; Rosenzweig and Roth, 2004; Grossler and Grubner, 2006; Amoako-Gyampah and Meredith, 2007; Hallgren et al., 2011; Liu et al., 2011; Schoenherr et al., 2012). Some of these studies suggest that operational capabilities are a source of competitive advantage. For example, Flynn and Flynn (2004) and Kortmann et al. (2014) found a strong evidence linking operational capabilities and performance. Ferdows and De Meyer (1990) showed that plants which develop quality and reliable delivery systems respond more quickly to the market, while still being able to maintain lower costs.\n2. Literature review: This section presents the evolution of cumulative capabilities as well as their operationalization in empirical studies.\n3. Brazil-labor cost and productivity in the manufacturing industry: Firms located in emerging countries, such as Brazil, adopt fewer operational practices than firms located in industrialized countries. One possible explanation is that these firms have certain culture characteristics that reduce the attractiveness of adopting a wider set of practices. In addition, in countries with precarious education - Brazil tops the ranking among developing countries - (OECD, 2016), employees are normally poorly qualified, making it difficult for them to learn and exchange knowledge. The firm needs to train its employees, but before it does so, it needs to provide them with access to education, which generates additional costs.\n4. Research method: In developing this research, a framework was established that was taken from several past studies. The questionnaire was based on a detailed review of the literature. Articles were selected and their abstracts were evaluated in order to remove those that did not address operational capability. From this initial screening, there remained 89 articles, which were re-evaluated, leaving 31 articles. They were analyzed in detail considering their references, constructs and metrics. After this review, five constructs were selected and some questions for each construct were established (see Table III). To ensure reliability, the terms were reviewed and the scale was validated by way of the Q-sort method. Five individuals were involved in this stage: two professors of operational management, and three managers from the manufacturing industry. The level of reliability of some of the items in the first round was low. Nahm et al. (2002) argued that scores are excellent (0.76-1.00), fair to moderate (0.40-0.75) and poor (0.39 or less).Thus, some questions were discarded. The final questionnaire contained six constructs and twenty questions.\n5. Data analysis: The unidimensionality of the key constructs was assessed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). There are various statistical indexes of overall model fit, but there is a minimal set of fit indexes that should be reported and interpreted when reporting the results of SEM analyses, such as, the values of the NFI; the IFI; the Tucker-Lewis index (TLI); and the CFI that were all evaluated; the recommended values are over 0.80 (Hu and Bentler, 1999). For the RMSEA, the recommended value is <1. These fit index values indicate the overall fit of a model.\n6. Discussion and conclusion: Studies about operational capabilities provide a variety of results. The research initially had the objective of identifying whether Brazilian companies were able to develop the operational capabilities proposed by Ferdows and De Meyer (1990). Some studies support the sand cone model whilst others do not.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the operational capabilities in an emerging country, and to analyze the trade-off effect between the quality capability and the cost capability.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The empirical data were drawn from 160 firms in Brazil. Scales were validated using the Q-sort method and confirmatory factor analysis. Different techniques were adopted to reduce common method variance. Data were analyzed using multiple line regression.\nFindings: The results showed that quality has a positive relationship with delivery, flexibility, innovation and sustainability capabilities. However, it was not possible to observe a positive relationship between quality and cost that confirmed the presence of a trade-off between these two capabilities.\nPractical implications: An important practical contribution of this study is that it brings a new perspective to the relationship between quality and cost. Although quality is an important capability for the firm, emerging country managers need to understand that its implementation will take time and money; quality does not indicate an immediate reduction in cost.\nOriginality/value: This study helps expand research into operational capabilities in lesser-developed countries, such as Brazil. Most of the research on operational capabilities is conducted in industrialized countries. The paper also discusses the trade-off between the quality capability and cost capability. The results show that quality does not always lead to a reduction in cost.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Value proposition preferences of credit union members and patronage activity	[ "Services marketing", "Value", "Relationship", "Organizational restructuring", "Credit unions", "Co-operative banks" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: As a value proposition is the distinctive offering of a company to its customers (Kaplan and Norton, 2004), it is central to competitive advantage and strategy. Value propositions - both technical and relational - have been at the centre of the recent and on-going debate on the restructuring of credit unions in Ireland. In this paper, we define the technical value proposition as that which puts a primary focus on the physical products and services. A relational value proposition is that which puts a primary focus on the relationship between the member and the credit union and where the physical products and services are secondary.\n2. What is the meaning of member value?: In our discussion of member value, we ask a number of questions: How is value defined? How is value created? How is value measured?\n3. Member value and activity: A number of studies have found a positive relationship between emotional value and constructs such as loyalty (Gwinner et al., 1998; Hennig-Thurau et al., 2002; Roig et al., 2009; Mazzarol et al., 2012), buying intentions (Sweeney and Soutar, 2001) and positive word of mouth (Gwinner et al., 1998; Goldman, 2011). In Sweeney and Soutar's (2001) study, emotional value far surpassed the other technical or social values as a predictor of consumer willingness to buy. Goldman (2011), in his study of credit unions, found that members' experience of empathy from the credit union is a key driver of member advocacy for the credit union. Heinonen (2009) takes a different approach and directly links each dimension of value to activity, where she asks the consumer if certain dimensions would increase or decrease their likelihood of using the service. In doing so, she shifts the traditional cognitive focus of consumer value to behavioural and experiential one (Gronroos and Voima, 2011, 2013). She found no association between technical value and activity, but that there was an association between process dimensions (how the service was delivered) and activity level. Heinonen's (2009) study was within an e-service context. She calls for greater quantitative testing of this relationship and within different contexts. We examine the relationship between value proposition preferences and patronage activity within the traditional face-to-face context of a credit union.\n4. Research methodology: 4.1 Data collection\n5. Findings: 5.1 Value proposition\nDiscussion and contributions: The focus of this paper was to examine the technical and relational value proposition preferences of members. It was found that a significant majority of members in the studied credit unions value the relational over, or to the same extent as, the technical dimensions of the credit union. It was also found that those who express relational value dominance are more likely to be active patrons of the credit union. Hence, relational as well as technical value must be considered in both strategic and operational decisions in the credit union, particularly in relation to restructuring. Otherwise, the credit union will, as Rokholt (1999, p. 2) warns, end up with a restructuring model which may \"stamp out the strengths\" in its drive to reduce weaknesses.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the technical and relational value proposition preferences of credit union members and to examine the relationship between their preference and patronage activity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A total of 800 members of credit unions were surveyed. Exploratory factor analysis was used and four factors were extracted incorporating technical and relational dimensions of the credit union service. Member value proposition preferences are examined and the relationship to patronage activity of the credit union was explored.\nFindings: The majority of members express a higher or equal preference for a relational rather than a technical value proposition. Those that express a greater or equal preference for relational value are more likely to have a higher level of patronage activity.\nResearch limitations/implications: Credit unions are member-owned financial institutions and hence the study is context dependent. Credit unions are member-owned financial institutions and hence relational value may be more significant than in the case of non-member owned entities.\nPractical implications: The research highlights the importance of consideration of relational value in financial services entities whose competitive advantage lies in the relational. In terms of the credit union, the impact on the relational value proposition of the credit union must be considered in the design and implementation of industry restructuring.\nOriginality/value: This paper extends the emotional value and interactive quality construct to incorporate a greater relational focus which the paper suggests is of greater relevance to high-contact financial services. The research in this paper also extends beyond the criticised static focus of consumer perceived scales (consumer perceived value) and the episode focused service quality scales. Hence, it has a more longitudinal and holistic focus. The paper also incorporates a preference between benefits approach rather than an evaluative or trade-off between benefits and costs framework.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Added worker effect during the Great Recession: evidence from Italy	[ "Gender", "Italy", "Unemployment", "Crisis", "Added worker effect", "Inactivity", "D10", "J16", "J22" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Growing unemployment has become an issue of concern during the recent economic crisis. At the same time, there are important country and gender differences behind it. In Italy, the newly unemployed men are mainly those who lost their job, whereas the number of unemployed women increased also due to some of the previously inactive women starting to search for a job. The loss of jobs by male partners could in fact be a push factor for women to enter the labour force in order to compensate for the loss of family income. This has been termed added worker effect (AWE)[1] (Woytinsky, 1940).\n2. Related literature: Female employment is known to depend on male partners' income, with cross-elasticities generally having a negative sign (see e.g. Aaberge et al., 1999). This means that higher husband's earnings tend to discourage female participation, while the reduction of male earnings (or job loss as an extreme case) may be a push factor for women to enter the labour force. This is what lies behind the added worker hypothesis proposed back in the forties (Woytinsky, 1940), when the outcomes of the Great Depression were analysed. It predicts the increase in female participation during the periods of high unemployment, in order to compensate for the loss of male earnings. The discouraged worker hypothesis, on the contrary, sustains that the number of additional workers brought into play during the crisis is minor compared to those who withdraw from the labour force discouraged by the lack of jobs (Long, 1958; see also Mincer, 1962).\n3. Female labour force participation in Italy, before and during the crisis: Italy has one of the lowest female labour force participation rates in Europe, with every second working-age woman being out of work (ISTAT, 2014). Arguably, this can be seen as a result of a familistic tradition and the lack of childcare services (see e.g. Testa, 2006, for a summary of the findings on these issues from Eurobarometer). Most of the women who withdraw from the labour market do it after the birth of the first child (Testa, 2006). This reinforces the male-breadwinner model and leaves little opportunity to redesign the traditional gender roles within the Italian families, which is a prerequisite for a higher integration of women into the labour market. The external shock, like the ongoing economic crisis which undermined the dominant position of men, can probably give rise to a change.\n4. Data and modelling strategy: The empirical part of this paper is based on four consecutive waves of the Bank of Italy SHIW, years 2006/2008/2010/2012. The survey is repeated biennially, so the change in the work status can be traced over a period of two years[9].\n5. Main findings: In the model which links the participation decision of a wife with the employment status of her husband, we first used as a key explanatory variable the dummy for job loss by the male partner (as in Equation (1)). In this variant, we found neither AWE nor DWE during the period 2006-2008, whereas the AWE starts manifesting itself in 2008-2010 and gets stronger in 2010-2012. The probability of transition into the labour force was 4.9 p.p. higher for women whose husband became unemployed over 2010-2012 (Table AIII). The reason why the AWE did not manifest before then may be that during the first years of the crisis many Italian men moved into CIG and did not appear as having lost their job (see Figure 1). In order to take this into account, we used as an alternative explanatory variable the more general case of reduction in male partner's income, which in extreme cases coincides with a reduction down to 0 or the loss of a job. After this refinement, the AWE occurs in 2008, less so in 2010 and almost vanishes in 2012 (see Table AIII). It appears that in the earlier years of the crisis women responded more to the loss of earnings rather than the loss of job, and the opposite way around with the crisis progressing. The reason could be that over the period 2006-2008, the number of job losses was still contained, but some men already started losing part of their earnings (with or without moving into CIG)[15]. As long as job losses became more frequent, in 2008-2010 and even more so in 2010-2012, women became more responsive to the male partner's transition to unemployment and less so to the mere reduction in income[16]. At the same time, when the reduction in male income gets coupled with the reduction in male hours of work, the AWE manifests throughout the period considered, also in 2012, as captured by the variable Male_pay cut_less hours in Table AIII (differently from cases of income reduction alongside stable work hours by male partner associated to the variable Male_pay cut_fixed hours). This can be revealing of the possible redistribution of housework between partners[17], although there are studies which point out to resistance in this respect. In particular, Gush et al. (2013) find that, regardless of whether job loss is anticipated, couples in the UK seek to maintain or regain their pre-shock share of paid and unpaid household labour by employing income smoothing techniques[18].\n6. Concluding remarks: Similar to other European countries, men in Italy were hit more than women during the Great Recession. This might have given rise to the AWE, whereby previously inactive women enter the labour force in order to substitute for the loss of family income.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to check the existence of the added worker effect (AWE) in Italy during the Great Recession.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors used the Bank of Italy Survey on Household Income and Wealth to study factors driving the change in female work status over the period 2006-2012. The probit model was used to identify the timing, significance and the magnitude of the AWE. The authors also performed panel estimates to understand how women, positioned at either extensive or intensive margins, respond to the reduction in male hours of work which appear to be crucial for the AWE to manifest.\nFindings: The authors find that with the crisis progressing, Italian women respond ever less to the reduction in male earnings, at the same time they become more responsive to the job loss by male partner which is the worst outcome. This means that the AWE survives, even if only in cases of serious hardship. It also remains when the reduction in male incomes is coupled with the reduction in their hours of work, suggesting that the redistribution of household chores is an important prerequisite for women to get into work.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides evidence on the AWE in Italy during the Great Recession. The authors took into account the peculiarity of the Italian labour market whose performance was affected by the use of the Wage Supplementation Fund. It masks part of the AWE when the standard methodology is used. By looking at the reduction in male earnings with or without a change in their work hours, the authors were able to reveal additional channels through which the AWE operates in Italy.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
What you get is not what you saw: exploring the impacts of misleading hotel website photos	[ "Hotels", "Brands", "Emotional responses", "Brand trust", "Misleading hotel website photos", "WOM intention" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: One characteristic of service is intangibility. Services cannot be easily evaluated before consumption, making it more challenging to price and advertise service products. To address the challenges associated with intangibility, tangible evidences such as pictures are often used in both traditional and Internet advertising to help consumers \"experience\" the services before purchasing (Jeong and Choi, 2004; Klein, 2003; Koernig, 2003). When booking hotels, both experienced and novice consumers rely heavily on the information available on the Internet. Research has shown that website contents, particularly photo images, have direct influences on customer preferences and purchase decisions (Jeong and Choi, 2004; Ting et al., 2012). However, to make their properties look more appealing to prospective customers, many hotel companies use \"perfect\" photos on the websites. The truthfulness of these photos becomes questionable, which is the focus of some hotel review websites such as Oyster.com. As of October 2014, a keyword search of \"misleading photos\" on TripAdvisor.com generated over 5,600 results in the review category, which suggests that this phenomenon is not uncommon and warrants further investigation. A content analysis of some narrative reviews regarding misleading photos on TripAdvisor.com indicates that hotel guests considered website photos misleading in one or more of the following situations:\n2. Research backgrounds and research hypotheses: 2.1 Misleading advertising\n3. Research design: This study employed a 2 (hotel segment: economy vs upscale) x 2 (expected product experience: hedonic vs utilitarian) scenario-based experimental design. Four hotel stay scenarios were created. Due to the sensitive nature of the study and to eliminate the effect of pre-experimental brand loyalty, a hypothetical brand name (Hotel X) was used in the scenarios. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the four experimental conditions. Participants first read the hotel stay scenario that provided information for the expected product experience (hedonic or utilitarian), hotel segment (economy or upscale) and price (economy: $69; upscale: $199). In the hedonic expected produce experience condition, participants were told to imagine themselves taking a vacation with their family and spending a significant amount of time at the hotel. In the utilitarian expected product experience condition, participants were told to imagine themselves staying at the hotel due to a business trip and going to bed right after a long day at work. After reading the hotel stay scenario, participants viewed the hotel website guest room photos. They were subsequently presented the real photos taken by hotel guests (a proxy for how the guest room looks in reality). The photos used in the scenarios were based on real incidents revealed on TripAdvisor.com. Participants were asked to imagine themselves in the situation and complete the questions. The study instrument is attached in Appendix.\n4. Results: 4.1 Participant profile and descriptive statistics\n5. Conclusion and discussion: Through this exploratory research, we found that female and married consumers cared more about hotel physical environment. For consumers who had no previous experiences with a hotel brand, misleading hotel website photos would result in negative brand trust and brand trust tended to be lower for the upscale hotel than the economy hotel. Because brand trust is a significant antecedent to brand loyalty (Chaudhuri and Holbrook, 2001; Delgado-Ballester and Munuera-Aleman, 2001; Lau and Lee, 1999), this finding suggests that an upscale hotel brand could be more vulnerable to misleading website photos. As for consumers' emotional responses to misleading website photos, we found that participants were most angry when staying at an upscale hotel for a hedonic purpose, which confirms previous studies' results (Walls et al., 2011; Wu and Liang, 2009) that consumers staying at an upscale hotel for a hedonic purpose are more likely to focus on the ambience and multisensory cues. In terms of regret, we found that people experienced greater regret in the upscale hotel situation. With regards to WOM intention, when hotel website photos were misleading, participants demonstrated relatively higher intention to spread negative personal WOM. However, they were less likely to spread negative eWOM. This could be explained by the fact that most consumers are not motivated to spend time and efforts in writing reviews about their hotel stays on the Internet. Hence, the phenomenon of misleading hotel website photos might be more prevalent than it appears. It is noteworthy that our study found people demonstrated higher intention to spread negative eWOM in the upscale hotel situation. In sum, one significant implication of our study is that upscale hotels should make an effort to employ truthful and realistic photos on their websites.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This research aims to investigate the impacts of misleading hotel website photos on consumers' brand trust, emotional responses and negative word-of-mouth (WOM) intention. The magnitude of these impacts in different contexts was examined.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study employed a 2 (hotel segment: economy vs upscale) x 2 (expected product experience: hedonic vs utilitarian) scenario-based experimental design. A total of 240 consumers participated in this study.\nFindings: The study results show that, in the case of misleading hotel website photos, brand trust was lower for the upscale hotel. Consumers experienced greater anger and regret in the upscale hotel situation and were most angry if they stayed at an upscale hotel for a hedonic purpose. The eWOM intention was higher in the upscale hotel situation. In addition, it was found that hotel physical environment was more important for female and married consumers.\nResearch limitations/implications: A hypothetical brand name was used in this study. Therefore, brand attitude changes and the influences of brand loyalty on consumers' responses to misleading website photos were not examined.\nPractical implications: Upscale hotels and hotels that target leisure consumers need to make an effort to use truthful website photos and ensure that the physical environment is well maintained.\nOriginality/value: No prior research investigated the impact of misleading hotel website photos. This research fills this gap in the hospitality literature.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Total quality management practices and organizational performance in the construction chemicals companies in Jordan	[ "Total quality management", "Jordan", "Organizational performance", "Construction chemicals" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Quality is considered an essential factor in projects, especially in the construction industry. It can be defined as meeting all the requirements of a project, product or service without any deficiencies (Al-Ani and Al-Adhmawi, 2011). Due to continuous development and growing awareness regarding the importance of construction quality, the construction industry is facing a significant growth. In Jordan, the construction sector accounted for 4.5 percent of GDP in 2014 and it witnessed a continuous improvement since it grew up by 9.1 percent in 2014 compared to an expansion of 8.3 percent in 2013. Several large projects are driving the construction sector in Jordan, such as the relocation of Aqaba port, the exploitation of Jordan's mineral resources, the Red Sea Atrium project and Porto Dead Sea development in addition to the transportation and rail projects such as the rail link between the southern Red Sea port of Aqaba and Chidiya area in the south of Jordan in order to transport phosphates to the export terminal (Jordan Economic Report, 2015).\nLiterature review: Construction chemicals industry\nResearch framework: Based on the literature review, a framework was developed to discuss the relationship between TQM practices and organizational performance in the Jordanian construction chemicals companies as shown in Figure 1.\nResearch methodology: Research measures, sample and population\nResults and analysis: Exploratory factor analysis\nConclusions and recommendations: The purpose of this research was to measure the effect of TQM practices on the organizational performance of the Jordanian construction chemicals companies. This research confirmed that the studied TQM Practices positively and significantly affect the organizational performance. The results generated from this research provide empirical support that the implementation of TQM in manufacturing organizations will contribute to the performance and survival of such organizations (R=78.1 percent) as mentioned above. The research has also verified that Jordanian construction chemicals companies believe that TQM is a key-contributing factor to firm's survival. It also provides better understanding for the field of TQM through investigating the relationship between the variables of TQM and organizational performance. These results agree with many studies that have reported positive relationship between TQM practices and organizational performance, such as: Ngambi and Nkemkiafu (2015), who stated that the organizational performance of manufacturing enterprises in Cameroon can be significantly improved by TQM. Moreover, Eskildsen et al. (2013) stated that there is a general empirical agreement that the adoption of TQM practices exerts a positive impression on the organizational performance. Herzallah et al. (2014) also found that adopting TQM and pursuing product quality will improve the competitive position and business success for the organizations as well. Sadikoglu and Olcay (2014) also approved that TQM practices, in general, improve the performance of the firms related to the Turkish Quality Association and Kocaeli-Gebze Organized Industrial Zone. Wahjudi et al. (2015) in their study of examining mediating role of TQM on the relationship between product quality as competitive priority and firm performance found that there's a positive correlation between TQM implementation and firm performance.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between total quality management practices and the organizational performance in the Jordanian construction chemicals companies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In this research, ten constructs were used to measure TQM practices, whereas six constructs were used to measure the organizational performance. A total of 160 questionnaires were distributed to 28 companies. Of these 131 questionnaires were completed and used for the analysis, representing a response rate of 81.9 percent.\nFindings: Analysis has shown that TQM practices positively affect the organizational performance, with a significant value for top management commitment, customer focus, supplier management, process control and continuous improvement.\nResearch limitations/implications: Results were based on perceptual data provided by participants working in different sectors of the organization, which may not provide a clear picture. It would be appropriate to consider collecting information from several stakeholders such as customers and suppliers. Willingness of respondents and delivering data within time were a big challenge though efforts were made to guarantee the confidentiality of the respondents.\nPractical implications: Results from this research points out that TQM is considered as a key-contributing factor to firm's survival. It also provides empirical support that TQM implementation in manufacturing organizations contributes to the performance and survival of such organizations. This research also provides an understanding of the dynamic role of TQM practices that would help managers pay attention to the fundamental practices that have a direct impact on the firms' performance. This will help the organizations to dedicate efforts and allocate resources to get the best long-term outcomes and to figure out their strengths and weaknesses to develop and implement a new strategy to enhance their competitive position.\nOriginality/value: Construction sector in Jordan is a competitive sector. Therefore, quality in such industry is vital. Many companies in Jordan have much interest in implementing TQM practices. However, research efforts related to this field are rare. No research papers investigating the relationship between TQM practices and performance in Jordanian construction chemicals companies have been found. This research, therefore, seeks to examine the relationship between TQM practices and the construction chemicals firms' performance in Jordan.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The effect of perceived external prestige on Greek public employees' organizational identification: Gender as a moderator	[ "Greece", "Public sector organizations", "Employee behaviour", "Corporate identity", "Perceived external prestige", "Organizational identification", "Gender", "Self‐esteem", "Citizens Service Centres" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Organizational identification has received increased attention in the extant literature. For many years scholars have neglected organizational identification compared with other important variables (Riketta, 2005). Recently, though, an emerging stream of research has focused on this construct as it is considered a key factor for organizational effectiveness. Employees experiencing high levels of identification with their organizations are more likely to act in a supportive way towards them (Ashforth and Mael, 1989). Moreover, scholars have examined the influence of organizational identification on various outcomes such as, organizational citizenship behavior (Dukerich et al., 2002; van Dick et al., 2006; Restubog et al., 2008), turnover intentions (van Dick et al., 2004), creative behavior (Carmeli et al., 2007), job satisfaction and job involvement (van Knippenberg and van Schie, 2000).Apart from organizational identification outcomes, extant research encompasses numerous studies focusing on its antecedents and, mostly, on the relationship with organizational prestige (Mael and Ashforth, 1992; Dutton et al., 1994; Smidts et al., 2001; Riketta, 2005; Carmeli et al., 2006; Fuller et al., 2006a, b; Bartels et al., 2007; Carmeli and Freund, 2009; Cohen-Meitar et al., 2009). However, there is a research dearth regarding interactional models which explains the mechanisms that account for this relationship (Fuller et al., 2006b). In this regard, the purpose of this paper is twofold: to examine the impact of perceived external prestige (PEP) on organizational identification in a different sample, that is Greek public sector and, further, to examine gender as a moderator in the above relationship. To address these relationships a survey has been conducted on employees working in Greek Citizens Service (the so-called KEPs in Greek context), one of the most popular Greek public organizations with respect to user satisfaction and acknowledgement from Greek citizens (VPRC, 2008).\nLiterature review and hypotheses: Citizens Service Centers\nMethod: Data and sample\nResults: Table II presents the results of the moderated hierarchical regression analysis. The results for the first step indicate that control variables, age, education, family status and tenure, have a non-significant relationship with organizational identification. H1 predicted that PEP was positively related to organizational identification. After controlling for the effects of control variables, the results for step 2 shows that there exists a statistically significant relationship between PEP and organizational identification (b=0.33, p<0.001). Thus, H1 was supported. H2 predicted that gender would moderate the relationship between PEP and organizational identification. The results for step 3 found support for the interaction of PEP and gender when influencing organizational identification (b=-0.29, p<0.05). Also, the incremental variance explained by the interaction term was statistically significant (DR2 =0.02, p<0.05). Thus, the present results supported H2.\nDiscussion: The purpose of this paper was to support and extend existing research as regards the relationship between PEP and organizational identification. Although few studies have examined the impact of PEP on organizational identification, there is no sufficient empirical evidence for this association in various contexts and sectors. Therefore, the present study attempted to fill this void by examining the relationship between PEP and organizational identification in one of the most prestigious Greek public organizations, namely Citizens Service Centers. Congruent with previous studies, the present results replicated this finding extending, thus, the generalizability of the critical role of PEP on enhancing organizational identification. As such, these results show that, similarly to other samples, Greek public employees identify with the specific organization when they believe that are positively evaluated by outsiders. In addition, although not hypothesized, the moderated hierarchical regression analysis demonstrated that control variables, such as age, education, family status and tenure as well as gender had no effect on organizational identification. These findings are similar to previous studies that examined these variables in relation to organizational identification (Carmeli et al., 2006; Fuller et al., 2006a, b).Also, there is a dearth in the literature vis-a-vis possible moderators in the association between PEP and organizational identification (Fuller et al., 2006a, b). Hence, the present paper contributed to this gap by investigating gender as a moderator in the above relationship. In consistence with our hypothesis, the results demonstrated that the effect of PEP on organizational identification varies across gender. More specifically, the effect of PEP on organizational identification was stronger for men than for women. This is possibly attributed to the different traits and orientation between men and women. For instance, authors (Putrevu, 2001; Robins et al., 2001) have argued that men are more achievement oriented, more aggressive than women who are more communal oriented. In this vein, men are perceived to experience higher levels of self-esteem (Feingold, 1994; Kling et al., 1999), status and prestige (Gerber, 2009) compared to women. Thus, we showed that men when being identified with their organization they place higher importance on PEP than women as a route to fulfill their self-enhancement needs such as the need for self-esteem.\nLimitations and future research: The present results have some limitations, though. This study, based on data from employees working in Citizens Service Centers, allows us to make limited inference to other private and public organizations. Notably, Citizens Service Centers are considered as a highly prestigious public organization and, consequently, this may influence the magnitude of the relationship between PEP and organizational identification. Another limitation is related to the cross-sectional analysis of the data which cannot directly assess causality. Further, because both constructs were measured with self-report questionnaires from the same employees, relationships might be inflated due to common method variance.These limitations suggest directions for future research. The present findings should be replicated in other, both public and private, contexts. Also, future studies should adopt a longitudinal design to strengthen the causal relationships examined. Moreover, an avenue of future empirical research is to extend the present model by examining the moderating role of other demographic variables such as, age, tenure, employment status on the relationship between PEP and organizational identification.\nManagerial implications: Organizational identification is considered as an important variable that will lead employees to contribute to organizational functioning (Pratt, 1998). If managers wish to foster identification with the organization, then our results support the need for focusing on the status and image of the organization. Therefore, organization should incorporate practices that will ameliorate employees' perceptions regarding their prestige. For instance, this may be achieved by enhancing the status of the organization and exhibiting its accomplishments both internally (e.g. via e-mail) and externally (e.g. newspapers, advertising) (Fuller et al., 2006a). Also, management practices should focus upon elements of corporate culture and industrial relations. That is, if workplace is characterized by strong corporate culture and positive industrial relations climate, then PEP is likely to be enhanced (Carmeli, 2004).Particularly, in the Greek problematic context, the present results are valuable since they demonstrate that embellishing Citizens Service Centers' prestige may be a relatively costless, yet useful, tool in order to increase employees' feelings of organizational identification. Therefore, in an attempt to reinforce their image and prestige, top management may communicate citizens' favorable opinion regarding their effective operation. As such, when employees perceive that their organization is positively seen by the outsiders, this will increase their feelings of pride and, in turn, identification. Apart from that, the present paper illustrates an additional useful implication. The results show that men and women are differently influenced by PEP when identify with organization. More specifically, the influence of what outsiders think about organizational prestige on organizational identification is stronger for men than women. This is not to suggest that top management should address the issue of communicating its achievements and its prestige solely to men neglecting women. However, according to our results male employees' perceptions concerning the image and prestige of organization must be the target of a more elaborate and effective strategy, implementing, thus, a segmented approach (Smidts et al., 2001).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of perceived external prestige on organizational identification in the context of a Greek public organization and to address the moderating role of gender in the relationship between perceived external prestige and organizational identification.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were obtained from a sample of 159 employees working in Citizens Service Centers. Analysis was conducted using moderated hierarchical regression analysis.\nFindings: - Perceived external prestige is positively related with organizational identification (b=0.33, p<0.001). The influence of the interaction of perceived external prestige and gender on organizational identification is also supported (b=-0.29, p<0.05). In particular, the effect of perceived external prestige on organizational identification was stronger for men.\nResearch limitations/implications: - There is limited inference to other private and public organizations because data are based on one public organization. The cross-sectional analysis of the data cannot directly assess causality.\nOriginality/value: - This is the first study to examine the moderating role of gender in the relationship between perceived external prestige and organizational identification.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Occupational stress in the chef profession	[ "Stress", "Food industry", "Hospitality services" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Occupational stress depends on an appraisal of the situation and on the coping strategies one can draw on. Increasing evidence over the last 15-20 years has documented the marked occupational stress experienced by chefs and within the hospitality and leisure industry generally, compared to other occupational groups. Within the hospitality industry a large proportion of employees work short hours due to their part-time status. However, overtime is common with a higher than average number of people working in excess of 65 hours a week (Smith and Carroll, 2006).According to the National Skills Task Force (1999) report, employees within the hospitality and leisure industry earn 68 per cent of average earnings in Northern Ireland and, in relation to the chef profession, skill shortages and unattractive terms and conditions are commonly cited reasons for recruitment and retention difficulties. Dissatisfaction with pay and treatment by supervisors were important sources of stress, followed closely by length of hours worked and pressures on work. Such a finding is undoubtedly linked to the finding that the proportion of the workforce in a trade union in the hospitality industry is considerably lower than the general average across other industries (Smith and Carroll, 2006).In an interview survey of UK chefs, Johns and Menzel (1999) reported widespread physical violence and psychological abuse in kitchens. This varied from kicking, pushing and throwing objects, to deliberate burning with hot food or equipment. The study drew a link between such acts and the stressed work environment, both in terms of the physical conditions, such as a crowded, hot and noisy environment, and the psychological ones, such as the pressure to conform to the norms in the kitchen. Such norms include adherence to the strict hierarchy of authority in place and the notion that the head chef is \"an artist\", whose aggressive behaviour is born out of artistry and creativity, with the tacit agreement that such aggressive tactics are necessary to motivate junior chefs and other kitchen staff. There is also considerable anecdotal evidence that high levels of pressure and aggressive management styles have played their part in a large number of UK chefs' decisions to leave the profession (Leith, 2002).One manifestation of the adverse effects of occupational stress is burnout. This is defined as \"a psychological syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and reduced personal achievement that can occur among individuals who work with other people\" (Maslach, 1993, p. 76) and it is a recognised consequence of a stressful working environment within the service industry. Krone et al. (1988), for example, administered the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) to over 200 food service managers and found that 30 per cent reported high emotional exhaustion; 24 per cent high depersonalisation and 50 per cent a low level of personal achievement. This exceeds the findings in the normative data provided by Maslach and Jackson (1986). Krone et al. (1988) found in addition that of those single, women suffered most, with married respondents suffering least, and whilst reported stress was still evident, this finding does illustrate the buffer effect of social support.Rowley and Purcell (2001) examined occupational stress and burnout within the hospitality industry for a Northern Ireland Skills Task Force (2002) report. Of all the occupational groups surveyed, chefs were amongst the highest in burnout. Common coping responses included increased consumption of foods high in sugars, fats and caffeine and increased alcohol intake and other drug use. Fatigue, high emotional exhaustion and low personal achievement were also characteristic. Similar results were also found by Ledgerwood et al. (1998), Buick and Thomas (2001) and Conte et al. (2001).Implicit in these findings is the feeling of being out of control. This may be attributable to the nature of work in a commercial kitchen and, for some, compounded by poor management, but it might equally relate to the degree to which the individual has the tendency to initiate change and take control.The term \"locus of control\" was coined by Rotter (1966) and it refers to beliefs about the extent to which one has control over outcomes. Those who believe events are a consequence of their behaviour and effort are described as having an internal locus of control. Those who believe that events are more a product of luck, fate, God or significant others and that one is unable to intervene are described as having an external locus of control.Brymer et al. (1991) carried out an extensive study of occupational stress in the hospitality industry. It included 440 respondents across 22 organisations. They identified considerable evidence of stress, including physical, behavioural and cognitive indicators. In common with other studies (e.g. Vallen, 1993), they recommended increasing employee control to reduce work strain.In a survey of employees, chefs and managers employed in four Canadian hotels (n=161), major stressors included role ambiguity; workload pressures and low decision latitude or a lack of control over their work (Zohar, 1994). A lack of control over demands was seen as a strong predictor of work stress. This supports the Lazarus and Folkman (1984) cognitive model of stress - that where perceived demands exceed the resources one can draw on to cope, distress will follow. The stress is the result of being in charge but not in control and is supported by Karasek and Theorell's (1990) demand-control-support model, the most cited model of occupational stress. This model proposes that distress is the consequence of high job demands and low control.There have been other studies in the industry (Marshall, 1986; Ross, 1995, 1997) that have identified that increasing employee control and autonomy have contributed to renewed enthusiasm and motivation towards work. Faulkner and Patiar (1997) argue for empowerment of employees within the hospitality industry as an important means of stress reduction. Boles and Babin (1996) are more specific still - more flexible work schedules, occasional weekends off and increased authority and flexibility are strategies for increasing employee control and reducing stress. What is not clear, however, is whether offering more opportunity for autonomy and control at work simply gives space to those who have an internal locus of control or whether such a change in work conditions actually nurtures this tendency.Taken together, there is considerable evidence of occupational stress within the hospitality and leisure industry and within the chef profession. Sources of stress include the norms in the kitchen, hours worked, unsociable hours and the pace of work, together with feeling out of control, being unqualified or working alongside unqualified people. Behavioural responses include increased physiological stress and burnout. Coping responses were often ineffective but there is evidence that social support and perceived control can buffer against the adverse effects of stress.Hypotheses sought to establish the extent to which locus of control was able to predict the occupational stress reported, and to look for differences in reported sources of stress and the development of stress-related symptoms (i.e. were those who reported more severe and frequent occupational stress more likely to experience stress-related symptoms?).By implication these findings allow interpretations to be made about the coping styles used.\nMethod: Design\nResults, analyses and discussion: Demographics and reported stress\nConclusions and recommendations: In interpreting these results it is important to bear in mind a number of limiting variables. An important one is the impact of the wider environment and the history of political violence in the province on the stress and coping behaviour of people, whatever their profession. Whilst this study was done more than a decade after the Peace Agreement, divided communities remain and the uncertainties of a return to political violence may have had some affect on the stress and coping patterns observed. However, this has to be offset against some of the positive effects of the peace, not least the surge of tourism and the dramatic increase in employment opportunities within the hospitality industry.More specific to the study, the sample size and type and the common problems involved in the methodology used, notably those that relate to self-reporting and non-response mean, one has to be cautious in the conclusions drawn. A further problem in interpreting reported stress levels is that:... ego-defensive processes [such as the use of denial] lead to the under-reporting of sources of stress which imply personal failure or deficiencies (Caspari, 1976).It may be that the reported stress may be an underestimate of actual stress levels.There is a clear need for increased communication in the kitchen and with management. In particular, it is important that relations are developed to nurture a more supportive environment in and out of the kitchen. Not only will a supportive environment make one feel more valued and want to communicate, it will be a critical step in tackling the problem of bullying and, for some, threats of violence, as well as challenging the norm of aggressive behaviour in the kitchen.Building in job design features that increase the variety in work is likely to increase interest and motivation and will make junior chefs more qualified for openings and these points could be addressed through staff appraisals.It would be worth considering how changes in a chef's work - be it an increased workload or job rotation - affect stress levels given the finding here of a reduced GHQ score among those who reported a considerable increase in workload. Where increases in workload occur they may be managed best if the increase involves more variety and challenge and it is important that employers address the clear problem of an excessive workload both from the point of view of employee stress and legislative requirements such as the Health and Safety at Work Act and the European 48 hour working-week Directive.It would be interesting to explore why locus of control was not able to predict those likely to report considerable stress. It may be that, irrespective of a chef's locus of control, distress is inherent and unavoidable in the kitchen. It may be that the experience and time in post of most chefs here meant many had developed a stronger internalising tendency in work compared to their locus of control outside work, and whilst their reported stress was high it might have been higher had this not occurred.It would be worth considering further the possible explanations as to why some internalisers adopt the same ineffective coping strategies (excessive eating, drinking, smoking, not exercising, etc.) as externalisers. It may be that they adopt these coping behaviours because they have a surplus of coping ability and simply do not perceive as stressful factors the same things that externalisers do. It would be useful to broaden the measures of stress to include well-being measures (for example, by including physiological as well as the self-reported measures of stress), to explore more fully the coping strategies used and to consider sources of job satisfaction, and eustress, or the stress that enhances performance as well as the distress that inhibits it.\nPractical implications: Chefs and managers need to challenge the acceptance of aggressive tactics in the kitchen, and they would do well to encourage more open communication. Chefs should be appointed not just on their competence in food preparation but on their ability to motivate and be supportive. It is imperative that a chef or manager find some time periodically to offer support to those in their charge. Only a few minutes is needed but it is important that it is the right kind of support offered - it might be tangible support in completing a task or information related to some aspect of performance or an acknowledgement of good work done. Such support will meet an important employee need and is likely to improve commitment and motivation.Managers should consider, perhaps in the appraisal process, the benefits of job rotation and variety in work and an appraisal also provides a forum in which to offer support. Given the legislative requirements, under the Health and Safety Executive, on employers to consider employee stress, the appraisal process provides an opportunity to consider an employee's coping style, and to challenge occasions where an individual might engage in behaviours that increase ill-health but which they perceive do not, such as the internalisers and externalisers here who engaged in excessive eating, drinking, smoking and not exercising.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to consider the occupational stress experienced by chefs and the moderating influence of coping behaviour and locus of control on stress outcomes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A total of 40 working chefs were surveyed. They were asked to complete an occupational stress questionnaire, the General Health Questionnaire. Differences were sought between gender and locus of control and stress measures, and correlations were carried out between key variables.\nFindings: - The reported stress was markedly higher than in previous research. Excessive workload, feeling undervalued and communication issues were common and bullying and threats of violence were present for some. Unexpectedly, locus of control was unable to predict stress experiences. Explanations were offered, such as the possibility that those who perceive they have a strong sense of control may believe that this, paradoxically, affords them the opportunity to engage in unhealthy behaviours.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Limitations of the research include the influence of the wider environment, specifically the history of political violence in the province, and its possible effect on stress outcomes. However, this may be negated by the many positive effects peace has brought over the last decade. In drawing conclusions it is important to note the limitations of the sample size and the self-reporting nature of survey responses. Further research could usefully incorporate well-being as well as stress measures, including physiological ones. It would be worth exploring further how one's sense of control affects perceptions of stress and, in turn, the coping behaviours engaged in.\nPractical implications: - Practical implications include the need for managers and head chefs to provide more feedback to employees, to validate their good work and to foster a supportive working environment. Norms in the working environment endorsing aggressive behaviour must be challenged. Staff appraisals should consider the need to have work that involves variety and challenge, especially where changes involve increases in workload.\nOriginality/value: - This paper identifies some important ingredients to reduce distress and it will be of value to chefs and other kitchen staff and, more broadly, to those involved in people management.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Heuristic-driven bias in property investment decision-making in South Africa	[ "Behavioural finance", "Emerging markets", "Herding behaviour", "Anchoring and adjustment", "Heuristic-driven bias", "Property fund managers" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Property is a valuable asset which is often regarded as symbolic of stability and independence. Decisions regarding property and, in particular, property investments, have an effect on the productivity, wealth and growth of a society. The influence of human behaviour on decision making is still a relatively new concept in property investment. Roulac and Distad (2004) suggest that most of the literature available on property from an educational paradigm focuses on law and brokerage, and they conclude that it is likely that the probability of wrong calculations and decisions that rely on textbook material may well lead to market inefficiency.\n2. A background on the South African property fund market: South Africa is an emerging economy with a turbulent political history and a diverse population. Table I gives a general socio-economic profile of South Africa as at the end of 2013.\n3. The concept of heuristic-driven bias: Modern finance theory is applied by fund managers to construct portfolios in such a way that returns are optimised, taking into account the different risk preferences of the fund managers. An efficient market assumes completely informed markets that take into consideration all new information and relies on the modern finance assumption that all information is available. It is on the basis of this concept that fund managers strive to maximise return whilst minimising risk through diversification (MacCowan and Orr, 2008).\n4. Heuristic-driven bias in property investment decision making: Investment in property is one of various types of investment vehicles available to investors. However, other than with the equity and bond investment markets, where shares and bonds are traded both primarily and secondarily, the property market is more complex than most other markets. The property market consists of separate developments which create investor and rental markets, resulting in capital gain and/or fixed rental income streams (Hoesli and MacGregor, 2000).\n5. Research method: In order to investigate the influence of anchoring and adjustment and herding behaviour on property investment decision making, a survey-based design using survey-based data was adapted. The research instrument used in this study was a questionnaire. A preliminary questionnaire was designed to obtain sufficient information to draw usable conclusions in respect of the possible influence of anchoring and adjustment and herding behaviour on property fund managers' investment decision making. The effectiveness of the questionnaire in gathering the required information was pre-tested in a pilot study. The questionnaire was designed to be as brief and as practical as possible to complete, in view of the amount of information needed. The questions asked and topic areas identified were based on the review of the related literature.\n6. Results and discussion: In this section and in line with the main aim of this study, the possible influence of anchoring and adjustment and herding behaviour on listed property fund managers in South Africa's decision framework is empirically investigated.\n7. Conclusion and recommendations: The results in this study focused on the main aim of this study, which set out to establish whether anchoring and adjustment as heuristic-driven bias and herding behaviour influences the investment decisions made by listed property fund managers in South Africa.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine whether anchoring and adjustment as heuristic-driven bias and herding behaviour influences listed property fund managers in South Africa's property investment decisions. The study contributes to the understanding of the influence of heuristic-driven bias and herding behaviour on property investment decisions made in a highly volatile environment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study is focused on the subject field of behavioural finance and follows a survey-based design. A questionnaire was finalised after completion of the pilot study and was sent via e-mail to fund managers of all South African-based property funds listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange. Non-parametric statistical measures were used.\nFindings: Consistency with other studies suggests that anchoring and adjustment may exist in the decisions made by listed property fund managers. However, fund managers tend to not adjust to new information due to the current socio-political environment in South Africa rather than a lack of understanding of the new information.\nPractical implications: It is recommended that investors form developed and emerging economies take notice of the highly volatile circumstances in which property fund managers in an emerging economy such as South Africa have to make investment decisions. The probability of missed gains as a result of conservative investment strategies may have an impact on future returns.\nOriginality/value: This study enhanced the understanding of the role that heuristic-driven bias plays in the South African property industry and more importantly, it went some way towards enhancing understanding of behavioural aspects and their influence on property investment decision making in an emerging market.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The French in the Australian wine industry: 1788-2009	[ "Wines", "Australia", "History", "French influence", "Winemaking" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Part of the \"new world\" of winemaking, Australia's wine industry has been influenced by numerous different cultures, developing production methods, wine styles, tastes and consumption habits. This historical study traces the dispersed yet influential presence of the French in the Australian wine industry from the beginning of the industry until the present day.Historical research into the French in Australia is a growing field, as witnessed by the journal Explorations, dedicated to the study of French-Australian relations. However, research that focuses on the French in the Australian wine industry is rare. Bouvet and Roberts's (2004) preliminary investigations into early French vignerons in South Australia is one of the few publications examining the specific area. This study brings together information from texts about the French in Australia and those concerning the history of Australian wine industry, while also drawing on the socio-cultural history of Australian society. General texts tracing the French in Australia, such as Any Stuer's The French in Australia (1982), and Jean Guillou's The French Presence in Australia: Sailors, Settlers and Ships (1994) provide a context for French immigration and settlement, while texts detailing the history of wine in Australia, such as Nicholas Faith's Liquid Gold: The Story of Australian Wine and Its Makers (2002) and David Dunstan's Better than Pommard! A History of Wine in Victoria (1994), allow us to situate the French in the Australian wine world. These general histories have then been augmented with details from a range of academic and popular sources to elaborate the presence and influence of the French in the Australian wine industry.In articulating this particular aspect of Australian wine history, this study aids the understanding of the development of both the industry and the culture of wine consumption in Australia. It may also be useful in furthering research on the importance of country of origin in the Australian wine market. Research on country of origin implications for the wine industry makes strong arguments for the importance of this area (Felzensztein and Dinnie, 2006; Chaney, 2002; Orth et al., 2005), particularly in the context of \"old\" and \"new\" world wine producing nations (Areni, 1999). In the Australian context, we see that the French involvement in wine is small but persistent, a factor which undoubtedly impacts on contemporary consumer choices. Knowledge of the French contribution to Australian wine from an historical perspective enhances our understanding of the development of wine in Australia and Australian attitudes to both domestic and foreign wines.\nContext: a brief history of wine in Australia: The story of wine in Australia has been influenced by many cultures since its inception more than two centuries ago. With the arrival of the British in 1788 came the idea that wine could be a profitable export product from the new colony. However, the first attempts to grow grapes and produce wine came to nothing. Around 1820, three colonials, Gregory Blaxland, William MacArthur and James Busby[1], all three passionate about wine, began cultivating vitis vinifera (the grape variety used for wine production) in New South Wales, in the full knowledge that there was not a single viticulturalist in the colony or on the continent, equating to \"an almost entire absence of practical acquaintance with its details.\" (Dunstan, 1994).The publication of several books on the subject of growing grape vines and producing wine (such as James Busby's A Manual of Plain Directions for Planting and Cultivating Vineyards, and for Making Wines in New South Wales in 1830, and George McEwin's The South Australian Vigneron and Gardeners' Manual in 1843) followed by the arrival of a number of European emigrants helped the industry to make some progress during the nineteenth century, but this progress was very slow. This early part of the century saw the beginning of viticulture in South Australia and Western Australian (Faith, 2002), and during the 1820s, Australian winemakers managed to produce some wines deemed worthy of a medal from the Royal Society of Arts in London (State Library of South Australia, 2003). However, the second part of the century brought with it a number of problems: the absence of a market for wine, due to a small Anglo-Saxon population who much preferred beer over wine; the attitude that colonial wine was inferior to European wine; and the appearance of the vine aphid phylloxera in 1877 which had devastating effects in most of Australia's wine-growing regions.Despite the negative effect of the Great Depression of 1929, the twentieth century heralded a more positive era for the Australian wine industry. Marketing of Australian wine both overseas and in Australia, the continental influence of the Second World War, and the consequent arrival of significant numbers of European emigrants, encouraged Australians to drink wine. Advancements in distribution, especially the invention of the \"bag-in-a-box\", increased consumption as wine became much more accessible to the general public. From the 1970s onward, the industry has continued to expand, resulting in an industry that is one of the world leaders in wine research and technology, and is, according to James Halliday \"lean, mean and tough, but vibrantly diverse\" (1994).\nThe French presence and influence in the Australian wine industry: Having briefly summarised the broad history of the Australian wine industry, we will return the beginnings of the industry in order to reveal the French presence therein.In the beginning [...]: until 1900\nConclusion: The transformation of parts of Australia into a fertile viticultural \"terroir\" is as fascinating as the transformation of grapes into wine. The French have been involved in the creation and (re)invention of the wine industry throughout its 200 year history, and have had significant influence on both production and consumption habits. Historically, the French presence has never been great, from its humble beginnings at the start of the nineteenth century through to the modern industry. Despite this, the reputation of French wines adds weight to their presence and continues to bestow a certain superiority on those with French connections. The French influence exerts its power through the image and cliche of France and French wine. French wine is still the point of reference for the Australian wine industry (indeed for most countries in the world) and Australian winemaking is regularly compared with that of France in terms of methods, experience, style and quality.One could argue, however, that the greatest French influence has not come from winemakers or industry professionals, but from the experience and knowledge that Australian consumers - be they the Second World War soldiers, aspiring socialites, emigrants, or travellers - have brought to Australian society. Wine has carved its place at Australian tables - Australians drank 22.3 litres per capita in 2006 - and Australian wine production has grown in quantity and quality to supply that market and the significant export market. However, for many, French wine holds its status as the authority on wine and the best in the world. Historical influences no doubt contribute to this attitude.The hypothesis that French wine enjoys a higher status than Australian wine in Australia, and that consumers are prepared to pay significantly more for it, would also appear to be supported by economic data. According to Global Wine Supply Monitor (2009), Australia is the 6th largest wine producer by volume in the world. In 2008-2009, domestic sales accounted for 430 million litres/$1,962 million, while 62 million litres/$473 million of wine was imported. French wine accounts for more than 25 percent of total imports by value with an average of $17.95 per litre. This is almost four times the average price per litre of only $4.60 for Australian wine sales (in Australia). Even considering market differences for domestic products versus imported products, this figure suggests that French wine is more highly valued by the Australian consumer, which can be partly explained by historical influences and perceptions.\nPracticality: Education has also been linked to the influence of country of origin in consumer wine selection. Felzensztein and Dinnie (2006) noted in their study of wine choices in the USA that French wines \"were preferred by those with the lowest level of education.\" One approach to reducing the French country of origin advantage in wine choice in Australia could focus on consumer education: a better understanding of Australian wine could raise its profile, while a better understanding of French wine could demystify the foreign product and thus reduce its advantage. Education may be a significant factor in changing the French-influenced values and constraints that are so entrenched in Australian thinking. For an industry built on adapting old world traditions to a new world environment, this would not seem to be an impossible task.\nResearch implications: Further research on attitudes to wine in Australia (and specifically French wine) and the importance of country of origin in consumer wine choices in Australia is needed to better understand the market.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to trace the dispersed yet influential presence of the French in the Australian wine industry from the beginning of the industry until the present day. It looks at the physical presence of the French on Australian soil (e.g. winemakers, companies, vines) and the French cultural influence (e.g. publications, stereotypes, promotion). It aims to provide an historical context in which to place questions concerning contemporary Australian attitudes to French wine and to wine in general.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Historical review of French presence and influence on the Australian wine industry using historical and contemporary documents and records.\nFindings: - While the French presence in Australia has always been minimal, it exerts a powerful influence on the Australian wine industry. Throughout the history of the industry, French individuals and culture have maintained the image of \"French expertise\", thus French wine is still the point of reference for the Australian wine industry and consumer. The high status enjoyed by French wine can be attributed in part to the historical influence of the French on Australian wine.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Further research into attitudes to French wine in Australia is needed to understand consumer preferences.\nOriginality/value: - The paper represents one of the first attempts to investigate the presence and influence of French wines and winemaking in the Australian wine industry. It presents an historical account of the French in the Australian wine industry and the influence of French culture on Australian wine.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Transit advertising in corporate branding: a multilevel study	[ "Advertising effectiveness", "Advertising design", "Corporate brand equity", "Message response involvement theory", "Transit advertising" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Even when organizations are able to provide a superb service and deliver an excellent product, their effort is to no avail if there is little or no awareness of it. To that end, gaming and hotel operators have acknowledged the importance of communicating their products and services to prospective customers. However, traditional advertising platforms (TV, radio or local magazines) are unfavorable for reaching tourists, who are mostly keen to engage in outdoor activities (Shoval et al., 2011). Emerging channels of advertisement, such as online marketing, may also be far from satisfactory for this market segment due to the limited internet access during the trip (Neuhofer et al., 2015). Out-of-home (OOH) advertising platforms, by contrast, offer unparalleled coverage and are effective in attracting customers on-the-go. As a subset of OOH, transit advertising is particularly effective in targeting mobile consumers such as tourists, who spend more time outdoors than indoors during their stay (Francese, 2003). In particular, the shuttle bus as an emerging form of transit advertising is proliferating, with casino and resort operators actively seeking an avenue to make the most of shuttle buses as means of both transportation and advertisement. This has been shown to be an important attribute of a casino operation especially when public transportation network is weak in tourism cities such as Macau (Wan, 2011). Thus, the majority of gaming and hospitality operators provide free shuttle bus service to its guests on a regular schedule (Loi et al., 2017). While existing research in tourism has provided evidence of the influence of both public (Thompson and Schofield, 2007) and private transportation (Loi et al., 2017) on destination image, satisfaction and revisit intention, its significance as an advertising medium for corporations is largely unknown.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Out-of-home advertising and transit advertising\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Sample and data collection\n4. Results: 4.1 Validity and reliability of the measurement items\n5. Discussion and conclusions: 5.1 Conclusions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of the present study is to examine the effectiveness of tourist shuttle bus advertising for the corporate brand image of gaming and hospitality operators.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Grounded in the theoretical framework of Message Response Involvement (MRI) theory, a multilevel design with hierarchical modeling was adopted to examine the hypothesized paths between consumers' message processing components and corporate brand equity. The moderating effects of shuttle bus design were also investigated. The data were collected via a self-administered questionnaire from 595 tourists visiting Macao.\nFindings: The results indicated that advertising effectiveness (i.e., corporate brand equity) was largely dependent on consumers' motivation and ability to process information. When design was included as a moderator, it enhanced the influence of consumers' motivation to process information on advertising effectiveness.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings highlight the importance of tourist shuttle buses as an advertising platform in the hospitality and gaming industry and depict important aspects of consumers and executional cues that corporations should focus on improving shuttle bus advertising effectiveness.\nOriginality/value: This study examines an underexplored, yet frequently used, advertising channel - the shuttle bus. Specifically, it offers a better understanding of transit advertising effectiveness from the corporate level (design) and individual level (consumers' motivation, ability and opportunity) in the tourism and hospitality industry.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The rationale of part-time farming: empirical evidence from Norway	[ "Social welfare", "Labour", "Agricultural economies" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In his theory of the farm household, Schmitt (1989a, b) suggested that combining on-farm and off-farm jobs is an economically superior income strategy. Since then, others have supported the idea that the decreasing returns from on-farm labor and the constant returns from off-farm labor make part-time farming favorable (Evans and Ilbery, 1993; Shortall, 2002), arguing that pluriactivity would decrease income vulnerability (Ellis, 2000) and provide additional opportunities in rural areas (Kinsella et al., 2000). In fact, part-time farming is still on the rise in many different countries including Japan (Yamashita, 2009), the USA (Mishra and El-Ostra, 2001), and Finland (Vare, 2006).\n2. Theoretical approach: As chosen by Schmitt (1989a, b) for his analysis, the production function of the household is a convenient starting point to analyze the effects of the job choice of a household. Every job a household member pursues requires not only time t (as in Schmitt's model), but also education beforehand to enter the job. This education can be divided in general education G as acquired at school and an education P specific to the chosen profession. The important difference between the inputs time and education is that time is a variable input, whereas the educational variables are fixed inputs and imply sunk costs. To be a qualified farmer in Norway, one needs a two-year education, no matter how much time one later puts into farm work. The difference between the educational variables G and P is that P is specific to the sector j and therefore of little use for all other sectors. Income Y of an individual i in a given sector j is:\n3. Data: The data are taken from several Norwegian data sources including the direct payment database that covers animal numbers and acreage, the agricultural census for 2009 that contains self-reported working hours in agriculture, and tax declaration schemes for 2009 for the adult members of the farm households. The data are linked through an identifier of the farm property and are available for the entire population of active farms, i.e., farms that apply for direct payments.\n4. Method: We applied an ordinary least-squares regression with total farm household income (on-farm and off-farm) as the dependent variable and the share of income from on-farm labor, on-farm labor, and the agricultural income share of total household income among the independent variables. As the first two variables may show a large degree of correlation, they were used in separate equations. Possible non-linear effects were taken into account by testing the significance of quadratic (sq) and cubic (cu) forms of these variables. In addition, several control variables were used. The labor market regions are taken as a proxy to describe peripheral areas in Norway. Spatial interaction between farms is accounted through the inclusion of the number of neighboring farms in a radius of 5 km (n5km). Further factors assumed to influence farm income were the presence of a spouse (spou) and the age of the farmer (age). Regressions were run for 2009 for the entire population, the entire population except 1 percent of farms at the upper end of the distribution, and the entire population except 1 percent of farms at both ends of the distribution. The latter two were included to remove outliers. The sample with outliers removed on both ends proves to be most robust and will be reported subsequently. Standard tests for heteroskedasticity were applied.\n5. Results: The regression with on-farm income share (AgShare) as independent variable yielded significant results (Table II). In particular, the coefficient for the cubic form of AgShare was significant and, hence, included in the analysis (Table III).\n6. Conclusion: It is undisputed and does not only apply to Norway that many small- and medium-sized farms cannot grow because of factor-market imperfections. The fact that the owners of these farms can improve their income situation through an additional off-farm income should not be misunderstood. It does not imply that the division of one's working time between on-farm and off-farm jobs is in any way ideal. The empirical analysis of Norwegian tax-payer data indicated the opposite: sticking fully to an on-farm or an off-farm job leads to a higher household income than combining the two.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Outside farming, pluriactivity is generally considered as undesirable, whereas agricultural economists tend to recommend part-time farming. This contradiction is to be solved. The paper aims to discuss this issue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Linking tax-payer and statistical farm-level data from Norway, the authors tested how profitable part-time farming is for Norwegian farm households.\nFindings: The analysis showed that concentrating on either working on-farm or off-farm generates a higher household income than combining the two.\nPractical implications: Part-time farming may be a lifestyle decision, but apparently is not economically optimal for most farms.\nOriginality/value: The contribution solves an apparent contradiction between the discourses inside and outside agriculture.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Artificial intelligence, news sentiment, and property market liquidity	[ "Artificial intelligence", "Sentiment", "Deep learning", "Commercial real estate", "Market liquidity", "News analytics" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Recent increases in media attention and public enthusiasm about the field of artificial intelligence might lead one to draw the incorrect conclusion that artificial neural networks (ANNs) are a new field of research. In fact, with Rosenblatt (1958) often being considered the inventor of the first \"real\" ANN, the theoretical foundations of deep learning methods are more than half a century old. Due to the vast computational requirements and lack of mathematical algorithms to support the concept, research efforts dried up soon after the initial suggestion of ANN approaches. Werbos' (1974) introduction of the seminal backpropagation algorithm certainly pushed the borders of efficiently training complex models. But only the possibility to accumulate massive amounts of exploitable data through the internet, and an exponential increase in available computational power during the last few decades, facilitated the recent renewal of interest in ANN research and applications.\nLiterature and motivation: The properties of market liquidity for the general stock market have been the subject of extensive empirical research during the last few decades. Chordia et al. (2000) find a market-wide co-movement, Amihud (2002) shows an effect of market liquidity on returns, and Pastor and Stambaugh (2003) as well as Acharya and Pedersen (2005) provide empirical evidence supporting the existence of a systematic liquidity-risk factor. Compared to the effects of market liquidity on returns and asset prices, literature on the effects causing the marked-wide variation in liquidity is limited. Investor sentiment, as one relevant explanatory factor for market liquidity in the general stock market, was empirically analyzed by Liu (2015). However, the first theoretical foundations for the relationship were established by the seminal papers of Kyle (1985) and DeLong et al. (1990), showing a connection between sentiment (i.e. bullishness or bearishness of investors), the resulting proportion of noise trading in the market and market liquidity, through the degree of market makers' price adjustment to order flow. Nevertheless, applying the framework of Kyle (1985) and DeLong et al. (1990) to direct property markets poses some difficulties. No short-sale constraints exist in the models, so that noise traders increase trading both when sentiment is high and low. Additionally, the framework relies on the existence of perfect competition between market making agents, who unconditionally absorb the entire order flow. Both assumptions seem unrealistic in a direct property market setting. Baker and Stein (2004) suggest a model providing a better match for the peculiarities of the direct property market[1]. In their model, sentiment-driven investors underreact to information contained in the order flow. A higher share of such investors consequently results in a reduced price impact of trading. As a consequence of the lower price impact of trades in sentiment-driven market phases, insiders furthermore increase their trading activity and by doing so, boost trading volume in the market. In contrast to Kyle (1985) and DeLong et al. (1990), Baker and Stein's (2004) model predicts higher liquidity only in phases of high sentiment. This one-directional behavior results from the introduction of short-sale constraints and provides a more realistic model setup particularly for a direct property market application. In an extension of their model, the authors additionally incorporate a higher propensity of sentiment-driven investors to churn their positions after receiving private signals, thus further stimulating trading volume in the market. This extension allows for an interesting empirical test of the direct property market. On the one hand, market imperfections are particularly strong in property markets compared to the highly efficient stock market, thus leaving additional space for contrary private signals. On the other hand, the high transaction fees in the property market might stifle this behavior. The answer to the question as to which effect prevails is insofar an empirical one.\nData and methodology: The paper makes use of several data sources. For the ANN training procedure, text data are gathered from the crowd-sourced financial content platform SA. The sentiment measure itself is based on the vast S&P Global Market Intelligence (S&P) news database. In order to construct the liquidity measures required for the regression analyses, both CoStar and RCA data are utilized. Finally, data required for several control variables are obtained from the webpage of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED).\nRegression analysis: Given that this paper seeks to respect the slow nature of processes in the direct property market and, thus, to split up the effect of sentiment on liquidity into its contemporary and lag components, the empirical models require the addition of distributed lag terms. An analysis of the liquidity measures utilized in this paper furthermore reveals a strong negative auto-correlation[13]. For this reason, regression analysis requires the addition of autoregressive terms (i.e. lagged liquidity variables). The use of both distributed lags as well as autoregressive components provides the application of autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) models. By including the dependent variable besides other explanatory variables as regressors, ARDL models allow a simultaneous examination of a potential long- and short-run relationship between market liquidity, sentiment and macroeconomic controls. ARDL models have gained attention particularly through the work of Pesaran and Shin (1998) and Pesaran et al. (2001) on cointegrating relationships. In formal terms, the following equation represents the applied model:(6)\nResults: Ordinary least squares estimation of Equation (6) in first differences leads to the results shown in columns 1 and 2 of Table II. The results in column 1 exhibit an OLS regression using AMI as the dependent variable, column 2 the results for VOL.\nConclusion: This paper introduces a novel approach to the construction of a sentiment index for the US real estate market. The approach is text-based and relies on the application of an ANN for sentiment estimation. Highly sentiment-loaded text documents from the crowd-sourced investment content provider SA serve as a distant supervision labeled data set and are used to train an ANN to discriminate between positive and negative sentiment. The trained network is then employed to predict the polarity of real estate news articles from the broadly used S&P Global Market Intelligence news database for the time period between January 2006 and December 2018. By doing so, and through aggregating monthly polarity scores of the single articles, a monthly real estate sentiment index is designed. In a next step, the ability of the sentiment index to explain changes in liquidity in the direct commercial US real estate market is examined. The slow pace of direct real estate markets, implying long search periods for both sellers and buyers, and complex transaction processes (see e.g. Investment Property Forum, 2004) suggest that an effect of sentiment on liquidity might manifest itself in a lagged fashion. This potential lagged effect is accounted for in the regression models of this paper. Furthermore, an increase in the time series frequency compared to existent studies from quarterly to monthly data enables a more fine-grained analysis of the sentiment-liquidity relationship. The liquidity proxies in this study have been selected in order to capture several dimensions of market liquidity, namely, the depth, resilience and breadth of the market. In this respect, Amihud's (2002) price-impact measure is used as the first proxy to represent market depth and resilience. Transaction volume, as the second proxy, is chosen to represent market breadth. In order to examine the hypothesis of a lagged relationship between sentiment and liquidity empirically, autoregressive distributed lag models are constructed. OLS estimation yields strong evidence supporting an intertemporal relationship between the applied measure of sentiment and the depth and resilience dimensions of liquidity. Regressions show several significant lags for Amihud, which range up to order 8. The intertemporal relationship between sentiment and the breadth dimension of liquidity is somewhat weaker, but with a significant second lag still present.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to use a text-based sentiment indicator to explain variations in direct property market liquidity in the USA.\nDesign/methodology/approach: By means of an artificial neural network, market sentiment is extracted from 66,070 US real estate market news articles from the S&P Global Market Intelligence database. For training of the network, a distant supervision approach utilizing 17,822 labeled investment ideas from the crowd-sourced investment advisory platform Seeking Alpha is applied.\nFindings: According to the results of autoregressive distributed lag models including contemporary and lagged sentiment as independent variables, the derived textual sentiment indicator is not only significantly linked to the depth and resilience dimensions of market liquidity (proxied by Amihud's (2002) price impact measure), but also to the breadth dimension (proxied by transaction volume).\nPractical implications: These results suggest an intertemporal effect of sentiment on liquidity for the direct property market. Market participants should account for this effect in terms of their investment decisions, and also when assessing and pricing liquidity risk.\nOriginality/value: This paper not only extends the literature on text-based sentiment indicators in real estate, but is also the first to apply artificial intelligence for sentiment extraction from news articles in a market liquidity setting.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The impacts of family-work conflict and social comparison standards on Chinese women faculties' career expectation and success, moderating by self-efficacy	[ "Self-efficacy", "Career success", "Career expectation", "Chinese women faculty", "Family-work conflict", "Social comparison standard" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Since the twentieth century, the role of women has changed greatly in China. In recent years, women have increasingly begun to break the glass ceiling and gain entry into the upper levels of organizational hierarchy (Rudman and Phelan, 2008). Moreover, legislative changes prohibiting sex discrimination (e.g. sexual harassment and hostile work environments) have had a disparate impact on female actionability. However, women are still scarce in top leadership positions in many societies, despite substantial gender equity in education and the entrance of an increasing number of women into high prestige professions and managerial jobs long dominated by men (Acker, 2009; O'Neil et al., 2008).\nRelated literature: Family-work conflict\nResearch questions and hypotheses: The following questions guided the study:\nMethod: Data collection and demographic information\nResults: Reliability test\nConclusion and future implications: Initially, this study started by asking what prevented Asian women from developing their careers and hypothesized that there are two aspects: family and social standard, which are usually considered to be the most common hindrances to career advancement for Asian women. Therefore, this study intended to identify the relationships between family-work conflict, social comparison standards, and CEs of female faculty members at major universities in Shandong Province, China and, furthermore, to confirm whether actual CEs could cause them to perceive career success. Lastly, this study also attempted to understand the moderating effect of self-efficacy on the relationships between family-work conflict, social comparison standard, and CEs. There were several interesting findings to discuss.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships among self-efficacy, family-work conflict, social comparison standards, career expectation (CE), and career success through surveying the faculties of two major universities in Shandong Province, China.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected through online survey instruments returned by 147 university women faculties from the two major universities in the region.\nFindings: The results showed that: there was a significantly negative relationship between social comparison standards targeting to men and CE; self-efficacy was both impact statistically on family-work conflict and social comparison standards. This study found that the perceptions of CEs of Chinese women faculties were impacted by social comparison standards that could be directly perceived from men through observing and communicating with them. On the other hand, family-work conflict, which indirectly impacted on their CE, was not statistically significant, even though it significantly bothered them. Moreover, by investing the moderate effect of self-efficacy, it was a very important factor which helped them to develop their CEs.\nOriginality/value: Since the higher self-efficacy group had higher CEs, increasing self-efficacy should be a prerequisite to help them develop their careers. Still, Chinese women faculties of two major universities in Shandong Province had low CE, high family-work conflict, and felt an inequality in career against men.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Sustaining architects' and engineers' motivation in design firms: An investigation of critical success factors	[ "Design", "Motivation (psychology)", "Design management", "Critical success factors" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Project success is dependent on, amongst other factors, the performance of the participants who are entrusted to execute the project. Due to the complexity, dynamism, and uncertainty of the construction industry (Smithers and Walker, 2000), highly motivated individuals are required to deliver high quality projects at lower costs in shorter times. Motivation is the key factor that influences people to work better, resulting in higher productivity and more profit which is the ultimate goal of the industry (Halepota, 2005).The concept of motivation has been defined in different ways over the years. For example, Hellrigel et al. (1995) defined it as the forces acting on or within a person that cause the person to behave in a specific, goal-directed manner. According to Greenberg and Baron (2000), it is the set of processes that arouse, direct and maintain human behaviour towards attaining some goal. Locke and Latham (2004) define it as the internal factors that impel action and external factors that can act as inducements to action. A major notion common to these definitions is that it is fundamentally concerned with goal directed behaviour, which can affect three aspects of human actions that include direction (choice), intensity (effort) and duration (persistence).Over the years, researchers within the business management and psychological field have devoted so much attention into the complex nature of motivation. Its application within the construction industry has also been acknowledged by many construction management researchers, who have predominantly paid attention to construction phase of projects by examining workers and engineers' motivation on construction sites (Maloney and McFillen, 1986; McQuillen, 1986; Olomolaiye and Ogunlana, 1988; Carrier, 1992; Khan, 1993; Smithers and Walker, 2000; Ng et al., 2004; Cox et al., 2006 and Uwakweh, 2006 to mention a few). There has been little attention on design personnel such as architects and design engineers (structural, mechanical and electrical engineers) that produces design of constructed facility. It is for this reason that this study was initiated to addresses this gap in knowledge by identifying success factors influencing architects and engineers' (AE) motivation in design offices. Oyedele and Tham (2007) highlighted that designers such as AE normally serve as the knowledge base from which conceptual ideas about construction projects developed. Motivation is a vital component of individual creative performance (Wong and Pang, 2003), which leads to design innovations in construction projects. Low motivation on the part of AE could affect other project factors such as design documents quality, design time overruns among others, causing significant problems in successive stages of projects.This paper presents a study aimed at investigating critical success factors influencing AE motivation in design firms. The hypothesis of this research is that there are some unique factors which can be use to predict motivational level of AE in design offices. Motivational theories from literatures in organizational behaviour are examined to identify possible attributes that influence motivation, which were put together in a questionnaire survey of AE in Northern Ireland design practices. Using exploratory factor analysis, the underlying dimensions of the attributes' data structure were revealed. These were grouped together and labelled as factors. With the help of a regression analysis, the factors were used to predict the motivational level of AE. The result of this study has the potential of being applied to a range of human resource management issues that include job satisfaction, retention, productivity, performance and creativity in design firms.\n2. Theories of motivation: Owing to the multifaceted nature of motivation and the fact that there is no single answer of what best motivates people at work, there are many competing theories that attempt to explain the nature of motivation. People's behaviour and performance are influenced by many motives as shown by different theories over the years. Collectively, the theories provide a framework which helps to direct attention of how best to motivate people (AE in this case) in their work environments to work willingly and effectively. The theories are grouped into two categories namely: content theories and process theories, which are discussed below.2.1 Content theories\n3. Methodology: The above theories form the basis for the identification of attributes that influences motivation of AE in design firms. These attributes were put together to form a preliminary questionnaire survey, which was used to conduct a pilot study. During the pilot study, the interviewees were asked to comment on the order, complexity, layout and length of the questionnaire and the relevance of the attributes within the context of their design practice. The interviewees included five architects and two structural engineers with an average of seven years experience in design profession, selected from four Northern Ireland design firms. Three of the firms were selected randomly from the Royal Society of Ulster Architects (RSUA) members' directory (RSUA, 2006). The RSUA is the Northern Ireland branch of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). The last firm is a member of the Association of Consulting Engineers (ACE) in Northern Ireland.Based on the comments obtained from the pilot study, modifications were made to the preliminary questionnaire to produce a final questionnaire which consists of 33 motivational attributes as shown in Table I. Each respondent was asked to select a completed design project of their choice within the last two years where they felt they were highly motivated in completing the design. Respondents were asked to rate the influence of the identified attributes on their motivation in completing the design project. This method was considered to yield more accurate results, as opposed to asking respondents to base their answers on all design experience in their entire career. This is because motivation is an unstable phenomenon and organisational changes can cause it to fluctuate enormously (Amabile, 1993). In the questionnaire, the rating of the motivational attributes was done on a five- point Likert scale ranging from 1 to 5, where 1 represents \"strongly disagree\", and 5 represents \"strongly agree\". For those respondents who had no idea about a question, they could select the answer of \"don't know\". Such an answer was treated as a missing value in the analysis. Respondents were also asked to rate their level of overall motivation in completing the design project on a five-point likert scale where 1 represents 'least motivated' and 5 represents \"highly motivated\". The final section of the questionnaire contains a section where respondents were given the option of writing additional comments on any outstanding issues regarding motivation, which had not been brought up in the questionnaire but were of particular relevance to them and their project work. In this way, any unexpected information not sourced by the literature or pilot study could be brought to attention. A copy of the questionnaire can be obtained from the author.After contacting via telephone about 50 design firms, selected randomly from the RSUA members' directory (RSUA, 2006) and the website of ACE, only 27 firms expressed willingness to participate in the study. Of the 27, four firms were discounted due to the one-man nature of the firms. This is because each of these firms involves only one person who is the sole operator of the firm and runs in contrary to the objective of the study, which includes looking at motivation of employee AE in design firms. Three questionnaires were delivered in person to each of the 23 design firms in an attempt to eliminate any biased or inaccurate responses within a particular firm. This makes a total of 69 questionnaires that were sent out for the survey. In all, 51 completed questionnaires were returned after two months, representing an overall response rate of 73.9 per cent. Of the total respondents, 37 were architects while 14 were design engineers (13 structural engineers and 1 mechanical engineer). On average they have nine years experience and have handled more than 15 projects on average within the last five years.\n4. Data analysis and findings: The data analyses include factor analysis and a regression modelling and validation. These are discussed below.4.1 Factor analysis\n5. Conclusion: The willingness to deliver design on time and required quality, the level of effort that are expend in actualising client needs and the commitment in seeking novel ideas and appropriate solutions to design problems among other things, are important issues for a successful management of design practices. To influence designers' behaviour in accomplishing all these actions, owners and managers of design firms must have an understanding of motivation and its influencing factors. Unmotivated employees are likely to expend little effort in their jobs, avoid the workplace as much as possible, exit the organisation if given the opportunity and produce low quality work (Amabile, 1993). On the other hand, employees who feel motivated toward their work are likely to be persistent, creative and productive, turning out high quality work that they willingly undertake.This study has attempted to further our understanding on motivation by investigating critical success factors influencing architects and design engineers' motivation in design firms. After examining motivational theories from literatures in organisational behaviour, thirty-three motivational attributes were identified. A factor analysis was conducted to determine the underlying dimensions of the data structure. Using regression modelling, the extracted factors from the factor analysis were used to produce a prediction model for AE motivational level. The factors include \"favourable project working condition\", \"organisational support\", \"design process efficacy\" and \"effort recognition\". The model was validated with another 14 cases and shows a spearman correlation coefficient of 0.786 at 0.001 significance level between model calculated scores and actual AE motivational level scores. This indicates that the model is robust and the four factors are effective in predicting AE motivational level in design firms. It is acknowledged that motivation is a complex, subjective and unstable phenomenon, and do fluctuate enormously based on organisational changes, however, owners of design firms and their design managers play an important role in establishing these factors that have been revealed to influence motivation. They must learn to understand and deal effectively with AE motivation if they wish to shepherd their organisations to competitive success.The outcome of this study have been limited to what design firms and their managers can do to motivate AE, but little is known about what AE do to motivate themselves at work. Further empirical research is needed to know the impact of AEs' motivation on design creativity, productivity, quality of design and its documents and AE retention. The findings of this research have emanated from Northern Ireland design practices. Its applicability to other UK nations (England, Scotland and Wales) is pertinent, with the aim of ascertaining the universality of the identified factors within UK since all the nations operate under the realm of Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and/or Association of Consulting Engineers (ACE). To achieve the integration of this study, additional factors can be added in a comparative study across different countries. Incorporating different countries would certainly provide valuable information that can improve design profession as a whole.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The overall intent of this research is to identify critical factors influencing architects' and design engineers' (AE) motivational level in design firms.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Motivational theories from the literature on organizational behaviour were examined to identify possible attributes influencing motivation. These attributes were put together in a questionnaire survey of architects and engineers in Northern Ireland design practices. Using factor analysis and regression modelling, four critical factors were identified. The model was validated to determine how well the factors can predict the AE motivational level.\nFindings: - The results show that the four factors are favourable project working condition, organisational support, design process efficacy and effort recognition.\nPractical implications: - Design firms and their managers play an important role in ensuring that their designers are motivated in completing their project.\nOriginality/value: - Owners and managers of design firms can use the identified factors to improve the motivation of their architects and design engineers, thus developing a quality workforce.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
"Opt-out" or pushed out? Factors influencing married women professionals' decision in leaving the workforce	[ "Career development", "Work life balance", "Women professionals", "Career decision", "Kaleidoscope career model", "Opt-out" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The \"opt-out revolution\", a term sensationalised by Lisa Belkin in the year 2003 to describing the alarming talent drain among women professionals who choose not to aspire to a higher position, has been explosive and controversial (Mainiero and Sullivan, 2005). These educated women have decided to put their careers aside to focus on motherhood. Their intelligence and resourcefulness as mothers dropping out from the workforce is a loss to the professional world (Anstead, 2004). It was reported that 37 per cent of highly qualified women in the USA have voluntarily exited the labour force at some point during their careers, a statistic that increases to 43 per cent among women with children (Hewlett, 2008).\nLiterature review: Women and career\nMethodology: Research design\nFindings and discussions: The following findings and relevant discussion are presented to account for the themes addressed. All participants' identifiers have been removed from this paper to ensure confidentiality and anonymity. Participants in the following discussion are referred to as R1 to R10.\nConclusion and implications for human resource development: In summary, this study provides a clear overview in understanding the perception, feelings and challenges faced by married women professionals in Malaysia in terms of their career decision. As a whole, the findings of this study concluded that pushed-out factors are the major drivers in influencing this group of women professionals leaving the workforce. These factors are seen as originated from organisations, and thus, organisations need to be aware and take appropriate action to control the phenomenon. Specific conclusion are as follow:\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the challenges faced by married women professionals in the private sector and the factors affecting their decisions in leaving the workforce.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A qualitative approach was used in this study. Data were obtained using a purposive sampling method in selecting ten married women professionals based on the inclusion criteria for this study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and the whole interview sessions were audio recorded. Thematic analysis using the constant comparative method was used in interpreting the data.\nFindings: The findings of this study revealed that majority of the married women professionals leaving workforce are affected by \"pushed out\" factors such as workplace inflexibility, long working hours, high volume of work than \"opt-out\" factors, which focus on the biological and psychological \"pulls\" that lure women back into their traditional roles of motherhood. Most of the married women professionals interviewed had no intention to return to the workforce and had lost confidence to join back the workforce.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study involved married women professionals in the private sector only. As a qualitative study, it limits to voice and views of these particular subjects only and could not be generalised to other group of women.\nPractical implications: The findings from this study shall enlighten all parties involved such as women professionals, HR managers and private sector organisations in strategies and plan of action towards minimising the talent drain of women professionals.\nOriginality/value: This paper offers new insight into debating the opt-out or pushed out factors influencing married women professionals' decisions in leaving the workforce. It provides voice and views of women professionals who faced a predicament in making a decision about their career development.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Explicating the information vacuum: stages, intensifications, and implications	[ "Crisis", "Silence", "Life cycle", "Information vacuum", "Strategic transparency" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The occurrence of a crisis is a ubiquitous anomaly, whereby the publics' search for more information spurs the media's demand for answers, birthing the information vacuum (IV) (Coombs, 2012). Organizations can either pre-empt the IV by \"stealing the thunder\" (Arpan and Roskos-Ewoldsen, 2005, p. 426) or escalate it by avoiding the media. As the IV is made increasingly public through widespread social media exposure, a deluge of misleading information can be detrimental to the affected organization (Coombs, 2015a; Pang, 2013b). Presently, even though there are studies that have established the IV's presence, nature, effects, and characteristics (for instance, see Pang, 2013b), few have examined the stages of the IV as well as the prevalence, traction, and growth of the social media hype. In this study, both social media and media hypes are examined as factors influencing the IV.\nLiterature review: Clarifying the nature of the IV: strategic crisis management perspective of the IV\nMethod: Limited research on the IV prompted this exploratory study to adopt Wan et al.'s (2015) case study method. In order to encourage greater rigor in the study, the cases were examined using Mann's (2003) cross-sectional method to obtain greater prevalence and identification of associations. According to Mann (2003), cross-sectional studies are used to determine prevalence, which is the number of cases at a given point in time, and is a crucial factor to explore because it vastly affects the possibility of any phenomenon and the \"predictive value of any investigation\" (p. 56). It is used to infer causation, whereby the researcher can determine whether stakeholders were exposed to a certain phenomena or exhibited a particular behavior (Mann, 2003) at different stages of the crises.\nFindings and discussion: RQ1 examined why organizations remained silent in an IV. Both natural and strategic silences were identified from the cases. This study defines silence as a lack of communication from an organization or its failure to provide clear and adequate responses to questions and concerns raised. Natural silence is defined as arising from unfavorable situations, obstacles, and limitations that prevent an organization from swiftly obtaining and disclosing essential information to stakeholders (Penuel et al., 2013). For example, the protracted silence by Fonterra, Maggi, and SGH was due to the complexity of their food and health crises, where contamination and infection were inherently difficult to identify and verify, and required time-consuming laboratory tests to ascertain. Similarly, Sony experienced natural silence due to the intricacy of its network issues as it struggled to understand its digital crisis. Conversely, the investigators and authorities involved in MH370 were limited to providing updates and adjusting information without any definitive answers to questions due to the lack of information. Thus, rather than strategically adopting silence, it appears that organizations were unwittingly \"forced\" into silence.\nConclusion: The analyzed cases demonstrated that an organization's first formal response does not necessarily quell the IV but could exacerbate it instead, allowing its continued existence until official replies satisfy the questions and issues raised. Moreover, in the case of MH370, the IV's prolonged existence was due to the nature of the crisis, which prevented the organization from providing closure. The case studies demonstrated that stakeholders are satisfied when organizations provide swift, adequate, transparent, credible, and consistent responses to their queries. Yet interestingly, cases like Sony, where the identity of the hacker remains unknown, show that depending on the crisis and concerns of the stakeholders, not all questions need to be answered by the organization. Nevertheless, the organization should strive to close the IV completely to avoid its reputation and image from being implicated in future similar crises. Based on the findings, we would like to redefine the IV as \"a period of persisting stakeholder and media dissatisfaction, and knowledge gaps between the onset of questions arising from a crisis and the organization's official satisfactory response to each of those queries. It is manifested as silence types and exacerbated by the organization's ability and willingness to provide timely and necessary information.\"\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Information vacuums (IVs) arise from organizational failure to satisfy the stakeholders' informational demands during crises. The purpose of this paper is to expand Pang's (2013) study of the phenomenon of IV by investigating its nature, stages, intensifying factors and resolution.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Print and social media data of five recent international crises with apparent IVs were analyzed.\nFindings: Poor crisis communications are intensifying factors that induce media hijacks and hypes, distancing, and public confusion. A four-stage model maps the phenomenon into a flow chart describing its development. IV termination begins when organizations either respond with information or provide solutions, results, and/or compensation. Natural and strategic silence were observed and defined.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study lays the foundation for future examination of how media literacy, governments, and culture, both societal and organizational, induce or exacerbate the phenomenon.\nPractical implications: Immediate, adequate, transparent, credible, and consistent crisis responses manage the IV and crisis, diminish the intensification of subsequent crises, and potentially reduce image and reputational damages.\nOriginality/value: The knowledge of the phenomenon is further developed and new theoretical models are conceptualized to provide researchers and practitioners a clearer understanding of how an IV can develop, persist, deepen, and resolve.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Influence of technological innovation capabilities on product competitiveness	[ "Research and development", "Chinese manufacturing", "Product competitiveness", "Structure equation model", "Technological innovation capabilities" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the competitive advantage theory, Porter (1990) presented that only companies with core competence can gain advantage against the world's best competitors in the background of pressure and challenge. In the long run, it is technological innovation capability (TIC) that forms a major source of competitive advantage (Freeman, 1994). Many studies have shown that technological innovation could bring positive impacts, enhancing the competitiveness of firms (Dierickx and Cool, 1989; Guan, 2002). The ability to introduce new products and adopt new processes in shorter lead time has become an imperative competitive tool (Sen and Egelhoff, 2000). The previous studies have verified that some resources in TICs are critical factors to support new product introduction and product competitiveness. For example, R\n2. Theoretical framework: 2.1. Technological innovation capability and evaluation\n3. Research model and hypotheses: Figure 1 illustrates the general framework of research model. Following the approach proposed by Rajagopalan et al. (1993), the analytical framework of our study comprises three aspects: enablers, processes, and outcomes. \"Enablers\" are the factors of TICs foster the competitiveness of product and firm. The \"processes\" dimension refers to how factors of TICs promote the product competitiveness. A product development process includes many phases: concept development, feasibility testing, product design, development process, pilot production, and final production (Takeuchi and Nonaka, 1986). In the product development process, TICs are specialized and segmented: the R\n4. Research method: 4.1. Sample and data collection\n5. Data analysis: 5.1. Data analysis strategy\n6. Discussion: The results imply that NPD performance is an important resource for improving the product competitiveness of Chinese manufacturers. The results also indicate that new product development is mainly determined by firm's strategies capabilities, knowledge resources, fundamental research, application R\n7. Conclusion and limitation: This study applies the SEM method to shed light on how TICs influence the product competitiveness in the background of Chinese manufacturing. From a managerial perspective, this study identifies several TICs factors essential to successful product competitiveness. The results indicate that firm's strategies capabilities, fundamental research, application R\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to shed light on how technological innovation capabilities (TICs) influence the product competitiveness of Chinese manufacturing enterprises and identify the key technological innovation components.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Quantitative research setting was applied in Chinese Yangtze River Delta. Survey was carried out with 166 responses.\nFindings: The study reveals that the firm's strategies capabilities, knowledge resources, fundamental research, application R\nPractical implications: From a practical perspective, the relationships among TICs enablers, processes, and product competitiveness may provide a clue regarding how firms can promote technological innovation to sustain their competitive advantage. Moreover, the key factors of TICs found in the study are useful for policy makers and managers of Chinese firms to make decision.\nOriginality/value: This study is one of the first studies to apply the structure equation model method to measure the relationship between TICs and product competitiveness under the background of Chinese manufacturing. The results provide a new framework on the how technological innovation capability influence product competitiveness of Chinese manufacturing firms. From a managerial perspective, this study identifies several crucial TICs factors to support product competitiveness, and discusses the implications of these factors for developing organizational strategies that encourage technological innovation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Performance appraisal process and organizational citizenship behavior	[ "Performance appraisal", "Organizational citizenship behaviour", "Social exchange", "Impression management", "Employees behaviour" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Performance appraisal (PA) is a set of structured formal interactions between a subordinate and a supervisor, usually in the form of a periodic interview, in which the performance of the subordinate is reviewed and discussed, with an emphasis on identifying weaknesses and strengths as well as opportunities for performance improvement and skill development (Latham and Wexley, 1994). The general focus of performance appraisal research has traditionally been placed on how to better measure job performance, including scale development, appraisal formatting, minimizing rater and test bias, and assessing appraisal's association with job-specific in-role performance (Judge and Ferris, 1993; Wayne and Kacmar, 1991; Wayne and Liden, 1995). More recently, a different perspective has evolved from this measurement-centered approach to one that is more context-centered (Murphy and Cleveland, 1991). From this perspective, performance appraisal is conceptualized as a motivational, communication, and social process, a special form of interaction between the employees and their organizations, with their immediate supervisors as the organization's most direct representatives (Findley et al., 2000; Murphy and Cleveland, 1991). In this light, the context where performance appraisal takes place is associated with employees' perceptions of organizational practices and leaders and is, thus, related to broader employee outcomes such as trust in top management, affective commitment (Folger and Konovsky, 1989; Giles et al., 1997; Norris-Watts and Levy, 2004), and organizational citizenship behavior (Findley et al., 2000; Norris-Watts and Levy, 2004).Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has been recognized as shaping the social and psychological context where core job responsibilities are accomplished and uniquely contributes to overall performance (Conway, 1999); a stream of studies has veered into the exploration of the relationship between performance appraisal context and OCB (Findley et al., 2000; Norris-Watts and Levy, 2004). For example, Findley et al. (2000) found that one facet of performance appraisal context (i.e. PA process - how fair the process of conducting performance appraisal is) explained variances in OCB. Similarly, Norris-Watts and Levy (2004) found that another dimension of performance appraisal process (i.e. feedback) was associated with OCB through affective commitment. However, how performance appraisal context is related to OCB, which mechanisms link performance appraisal context to OCB, and whether the mechanisms stay constant when context varies have not been adequately investigated.To start to address this gap in literature, our study examines how one facet of performance appraisal context (i.e. PA process) is related to OCB. PA process captures a special form of interaction between the employees and their supervisors that constitutes the social context that bears on employee perceptions and motivations. How employees interpret cues in these social exchanges in the appraisal process and translate performance appraisal interactions into OCB may depend on their underlying motives. Existing research on PA process-OCB link invokes an underlying social exchange motive that explains employee engagement in OCB as a reciprocation of employees to their organizations through paths such as affective commitment (Norris-Watts and Levy, 2004). We aim to provide further empirical examination of this line of research, exploring whether this mediating relationship holds constant when context varies. By providing a more fine-grained picture of the intervening mechanism between PA process and OCB, we can potentially deepen our inquiry into the association between PA process and OCB and provide managers a more holistic perspective on the broader ramifications of their performance appraisal practices on employee extra-role performance.\nTheoretical background and hypotheses: Performance appraisal context\nMethod: Sample and data collection\nResults: Descriptive statistics and correlations\nDiscussion: Theoretical contributions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to examine how performance appraisal process is associated with organizational citizenship behavior, under the light of social exchange theory and impression management theory, using affective commitment as a mediator and rating-reward linkage as a moderator.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Using a multi-source sample (n=777), the authors examined the mediating role of affective commitment with structural equation modeling and Sobel tests, and the moderating role of rating-reward linkage with ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models.\nFindings: - The relationship between performance appraisal process and organizational citizenship behavior was partially mediated by affective commitment, and perceived rating-reward linkage strengthened the direct association between appraisal process and organizational citizenship behavior whereas it weakened the relationship between appraisal process and affective commitment.\nOriginality/value: - The study adds to knowledge of how performance appraisal process relates to organizational citizenship behavior - through affective commitment. Further, the moderating role of rating-reward linkage deepens understanding of the underlying motives of organizational citizenship behavior. The findings strengthen the valence of using social exchange theory to explain how performance appraisal process is associated with organizational citizenship behavior and suggest the value of incorporating impression management to supplement social exchange theory.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Towards a typology of managerial barriers to learning	[ "Learning", "Financial services", "Scotland", "Career development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Several authors have explored and categorised the factors that facilitate or impede managers' general learning ability and the effect of the learning climate within the organisation on an individual's development (Temporal and Boydell, 1981; Stuart, 1984; Mumford 1988, Sambrook and Stewart, 2000; Mabey and Thomson, 2000; Thomson et al., 2001). In the main these authors have found that barriers to learning can be segmented into two broad areas: \"intrinsic\" (attributed to the individual's perception, motivation and emotions) and \"extrinsic\" (resulting from the organisation or wider societal factors). However, although several authors have classified certain \"types\" of managers (Miles and Snow, 1978; Cutler, 2000; McDermott, 2001; Scase and Goffee, 1989) according to their styles of leadership, general attitudes, motives or dispositions, there have been few attempts made to categorise managers in terms of their participation in learning and development activities. Indeed, Belling et al. (2004, p. 236) in discussing the important issue of transferring learning for managers back to the workplace, have made the point that: \"Clearly, support cannot be targeted effectively, if it is not known who most needs help, and what that help should be\".\nManagerial barriers to learning: The first significant contribution to investigate barriers to learning for managers was undertaken by Temporal and Boydell (1981, p. 2) when they created an early classification of \"blocks to learning\". This typology emphasised how perceptual (not seeing there is a problem), intellectual (inadequacy of previous learning, poor information retrieval) and environmental issues (a function of the climate prevailing over individual behaviour) could present barriers to learning for managers.Since this early investigation various authors have further developed the area as a field of study. For example, Stewart and Stewart (1981), made the important argument that \"learning is a skill\" that managers have to keep practising daily to be receptive to new ideas and processes. In a similar vein, they discussed the problems of managers being too \"comfortable\" in their positions, which can reduce learning motivation. In their analysis Stewart and Stewart also noted an organisation's climate can negatively influence managerial learning participation, where as a result organisational politics learning activities are often used as rewards, punishments or simply opportunities to keep people busy. Understandably such political behaviour can damage managers' perceptions of the value of learning and development. Finally, Stewart and Stewart stressed that the trainer played a central role in engendering effective learning.Stuart (1984) added an interesting dimension when he noted that potential barriers to learning could be logically differentiated into those of an intrinsic and extrinsic nature. He considered the extrinsic factors in some detail, further dividing them into physical-structural barriers which are present \"... where the learner experiences blocks and barriers to his learning which are rooted in his tasks, the structure within which they are located, and the physical setting in which they are carried out\", and psycho-social constraints which \"... arise from the prevailing climate and relationships of which [the learner] is a part\".Central to Mumford's further work on classifying barriers to learning for managers was that \"emotional/motivational\" blocks were present when de-motivated managers are less willing to take risks in learning activities and that barriers to learning may be present as a result of the manager's previous experiences of learning (what he called \"cognitive blocks\"). In relation to what Stuart (1984) had termed \"extrinsic\" issues, associated with the managers working environment, Mumford (1988) noted three specific inhibitors: Lack of opportunity to learn; physical logistical constraints, and finally the effects of the manager's specific environment.Research in the UK by Sambrook and Stewart (2000) mirrored the work of Stewart and Stewart (1981) in that factors inhibiting learning in organisations, ranging from cultural norms to the influence of trade unions were found to be important in explaining barriers to learning for managers. For example, cultural characteristics included \"turfism\" (where some managers are over-territorial), fear of change, bureaucracy and task orientations, which all served to inhibit learning. Importantly, Sambrook and Stewarts also highlighted the powerful influence, which senior managers and peers have in relation to individuals learning, whose support or otherwise can greatly affect an individual's participation. Indeed this attitudinal factor echoes the early work discussed above in relation to emotional, motivational and perceptual barriers. Sambrook and Stewart (2000, p. 213) also remarked upon the emphasis that participants placed on the very practical issues of lack of time available for learning, due to \"sheer workload\", unwanted responsibility and increased pressure as well as \"insufficient HRD resources\".In the empirical work of Mabey and Thomson (2000) nine key \"factors discouraging management development\" were identified. The most important factors were contextual or extrinsic in nature and, as with the research of Sambrook and Stewart (2000), time pressures and costs associated to management development were viewed as the main inhibitors by the managers in this sample. In related research, Thomson et al. (2001) found other constraints that inhibited individuals' participation in managerial development, especially if they do not see the potential tangible benefits of engaging in learning. In addition company culture and concern for costs and time, as well as quality of provision were also cited as constraints. In conclusion, Thomson et al. (2001) noted that managers are often very instrumentalist in relation to undertaking management development activities, and often are pre-occupied with the \"exchange\" value of qualifications rather than their actual \"use\" to the organisation. Such a finding concurs with work by Fuller (1994) who investigated this issue of instrumentalism in relation to management development activities.Finally, in the most recent study related to managerial barriers and facilitators to learning, Belling et al. (2004) identified amongst a sample of 234 managers, 26 perceived barriers which affected the transfer of learning. For Belling et al. (2004, p. 243) short-term pressures such as reaching financial targets and lack of time for planning learning were identified as being the key factors.\nMethodology and data analysis: In-depth tape recorded interviews, lasting on average one hour, were held with a sample (based on age, gender, grade or hierarchical position, functional area and profession) of 61 mid-career managers (an average of thirteen per case) across five life assurance organisations in Scotland (pseudonyms used: Borders Life (BL); Lothian Life (LL); Highland Life (LL); Grampian Life (GL), and Central Life (CL)). These names have been used to preserve the anonymity of the organisation and interviewee, with interviewee quotes being suffixed by the unique identifying number for each person in each case organisation (for example, CL10 would represent the tenth interview in Central Life). In each of the organisations at least one HR or training and development manager (HR/T&D manager) was also interviewed to acquire factual information on the organisations.After completing the interviews, each account was transcribed verbatim and then coded. The categories used in coding the data emerged from both the relevant literature and preliminary analysis from the early interviews. The structure of the coding schedule meant that the emergent data on participation in learning was logically streamed into two broad themes of \"intrinsic\" and \"extrinsic\" barriers. Essentially this strategy was aligned to the grounded theory approach (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Egan, 2002) where an emphasis is placed on the power of empirical data and hence, some of the categories of barriers to learning uncovered in the literature review were eliminated because they were shown to be less relevant for this sample of mid-career managers. As a result of this early analysis a table was produced to help classify mid career managers in relation to how various barriers to learning affected their propensity to participate (see Tables I and II).These tables introduces the idea of propensity to participate because a theme that repeatedly surfaced during interviews was manager's predisposition to discuss their future likelihood or \"propensity\" to participate in further learning activities. Thus, while many authors have concentrated on primarily listing potential barriers, this classification allows the ranking of individual managers by considering their likelihood to continue developing in view of these intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Ultimately, it was this objective that informed the construction of Tables I and II.Table I shows the first part of the classification which details the four intrinsic \"factors affecting participation\" (perceptual, emotional, motivational and cognitive). In the second part of the grounded classification (Table II), attention turned to identifying what several authors have called \"extrinsic factors\", originating from the managers' external environment, categorised as organisational culture, management development (MD) culture and physical resource factors (e.g. time to participate in or geographical location of activities). Managers were asked to comment more generally on how these factors influenced learning activity.In order to fully understand the position of each of the managers in relation to the four \"intrinsic\" and three \"extrinsic\" factors described above, a scale was devised for categorising managers' responses and positions. Each of the mid-career managers were positioned into one of three intrinsic categories (low, medium or high) in terms of their propensity to participate (PtP) (Table I) and were classified against the extrinsic variables depending on whether they had negative, neutral or positive perspectives (Table II).To allow for comparison between the factors a numerical rating system, gauging the manager's PtP and views on the extrinsic issues, was developed. Each of the three ratings for intrinsic (low, medium and high) or extrinsic (negative, neutral, or positive) were allocated a numerical value: low and negative were rated 1; medium and neutral were rated 2; and high and positive were given a rating of 3. By using this scoring system, the aggregate position of individual managers could be appreciated. In relation to the five intrinsic factors explored, managers could potentially attain a rating of up to 15 if they displayed \"high\" PtP for all the factors, or alternatively as little as five if their comments illustrated \"low\" PtP across the five factors explored. Similarly, in terms of the extrinsic factors, managers who were \"positive\" about the external factors explored could score up to a maximum of nine, whilst those who were most \"negative\" about the organisational culture, MD culture or physical resources factors could receive a low overall score of three.All the managers were plotted on a graph with their aggregate intrinsic and extrinsic ratings mapped along the axes. Several distinct groupings were identified as a result of their positioning on the graph, consisting of those managers who were effectively located closest to the axes. In terms of the rationale for rating the aggregate scores, it was proposed that those with a rating of four or below in terms of their views on extrinsic issues and those with a rating of eight or below for intrinsic variables should be selected for further consideration in this paper. Figure 1 illustrates the positioning of these 22 managers and the clusters into which they were placed for analysis.The remainder of this paper is devoted to discussing in more depth those managers with the lowest aggregate scores across the \"factors affecting participation\" (indicating lowest PtP and most negativity regarding extrinsic factors). The main aim is to facilitate a greater understanding of managers who appeared to be most affected by barriers to learning. Through further in-depth analysis of their interviews it was possible to draw out personal characteristics and experiences common to those who were consistently placed in these \"low\" and \"negative categories\". Ultimately a new typology detailing what kinds of managers are most affected by barriers to learning is proposed.\nFindings and discussion: Group A: managers mostly affected by intrinsic issues\nConclusions: By concentrating solely on those managers most affected by potential barriers to learning and, therefore, least likely to participate in further development, the researcher was able to fully understand some of the psychological and personal characteristics common to certain types of managers. For example, managers were categorised according to their need for guidance, balance, comfort and their levels of cynicism with regards to development activities. Labelling such managers according to their points of view should help line managers and practitioners motivate and develop such managers, and allow them to appreciate that diverse methods are required to deal with a psychologically diverse set of managers.The following diagnostic model (Figure 2) has been proposed in a bid to explain how managers can be developed to meet their full potential, eliminating potential barriers to participation in learning. Thus, managers with both intrinsic and extrinsic barriers will have to move along both the vertical and horizontal axes to reach the target stage of having no obstacles, while those with primarily extrinsic or intrinsic will, figuratively, need to concentrate on eliminating one or other type of barrier to move into the desired top right hand quadrant.In order to address some of these issues, the following initiatives, which have been discussed in some length in the body of this paper, could be considered. For instance, when dealing with individual managers, the line manager operating at the local level will have a major part to play in understanding the diverse factors that affect a manager's motivation to participate in new learning. Meanwhile, the external factors will need to be remedied through wholesale shifts in culture, which ultimately involve senior management leadership. It is proposed that organisations must look at their support and communication systems, ensuring that sufficient guidance and opportunities are available for learners such as those who had worked in the organisation for a long time. In terms of motivation, reward strategies should be unambiguous and fair, enabling managers to fully comprehend the value and reasons for continued development, even at this seemingly late stage in their careers. Practitioners should consider the potential of personalised flexible learning packages designed with the manager's personal circumstances and preferences in mind, thus removing intrinsic barriers at the same time. In general, an organisation-wide strategy for elevating the status of learning should be actioned, ensuring the involvement of top management and their commitment to placing it on the strategic agenda.While specific recommendations on eliminating potential barriers to learning have been discussed at length throughout the body of the paper, it is important to re-iterate the implications for line managers. Leadership is a key issue in terms of maximising people potential and it is felt that organisational leaders need to focus on ensuring their line managers have the necessary motivational skills to ensure everyone undertakes continued professional and personal development for the good of the organisation. Enhanced management and leadership training would help line managers understand and eliminate barriers to learning.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To contribute to the literature on managerial learning and illustrate the most important barriers to participation in learning for mid-career managers. To provide recommendations on how to eliminate such barriers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - From a larger sample of 61 managers, 22 were selected for further in-depth analysis of their interview transcripts, due to the severity of barriers experienced. Using a grounded theory approach, they were categorised according to whether they had intrinsic (perceptual, emotional, motivational, cognitive) or extrinsic (organisational culture, management development culture or physical pressures) barriers to learning.\nFindings: - Three distinct groupings emerged when the managers were plotted on a chart according to the barriers experienced. Solutions were then proposed for eliminating barriers for each group of managers. The most important recommendations were that the support of top management was necessary to encourage continued development and that line managers had a critical role to play in developing tailored development packages.\nResearch limitations/implications: - For future research, it would be useful to test whether or not these findings could be replicated across other sectors and managerial types. It is suggested that widening the sample would also be beneficial to eliminate issues inherent with a small population.\nPractical implications: - Leadership programmes for managers, focussing on understanding motivation at the individual level. In addition, top management should be involved in the evaluation of training and development so that they can lead their managerial teams effectively.\nOriginality/value: - This paper is original in that it focuses on managers with severe barriers to learning and offers practical advice on what organisations should do in relation to these issues.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Assessment of undergraduate students' environmental stewardship reasoning and knowledge	[ "Assessment instrument", "Environmental stewardship", "Learning outcomes", "Knowledge assessment", "Reasoning assessment" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nBackground: Many versions of sustainability are found in the literature and elsewhere (Yanarella et al., 2009), and discussions of the concept of education for sustainable development are prevalent (McKeown and Hopkins, 2003, 2005; Stevenson, 2006). Higher education institutions with commitments to sustainability need to articulate their specific teaching and learning goals and measure performance. In an analysis of learning outcomes for sustainable development in higher education, Svanstrom et al. (2008, p. 340) argue that:\nDesign of the assessment tool: Learning outcome development\nFindings: Reliability was estimated, and comparisons were conducted to gather evidence of validity. Gains in knowledge over time (18 months) were compared, with the assumption that if scores stayed the same over time, then there would be a need to adjust curriculum and/or other learning experiences.\nConclusions: This paper can benefit higher education institutions that are considering designing environmental stewardship assessments to track changes in students' environmental stewardship reasoning and knowledge development over time. The test development process and the test itself may be useful to other institutions that want to measure learning outcomes related to environmental stewardship and sustainability. At JMU and elsewhere, the assessment approach of testing the same cohort over time can assist in focusing resources. The results can be used to strategically address learning in formal education and other activities. For example, future faculty professional development, curricular and co-curricular offerings could be supported based on needs identified from the assessment.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a public university's design and implementation of an assessment approach that measures the change in undergraduate students' environmental stewardship reasoning and knowledge abilities over time.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In support of a university's strategic emphasis on environmental stewardship, members of a university committee developed environmental stewardship learning outcomes for undergraduate students. The learning outcomes were not required in specific academic courses or in general education. Subsequently, volunteers from a variety of roles, in cooperation with committee members, developed a corresponding assessment test that focused on reasoning and knowledge. The instrument was revised between Spring 2011 and Spring 2014, and its validity was evaluated. An exploratory analysis of student learning over time was conducted using 22 items shared by different test forms.\nFindings: A series of implementations and revisions resulted in a 50-question test, the Environmental Stewardship Reasoning and Knowledge Assessment (ESRKA), which showed good reliability (0.83). A comparative analysis provided evidence of the validity of the instrument. Results from a small sample of students showed that second-year students generally performed better on the 22 items than incoming first-year students. Those taking the assessment as second-year students, 18 months after their initial assessment, scored significantly higher on the 22 items by about 10.4 percentage points (0.61 standard deviation units, t68 = 6.23, p < 0.0001).\nResearch limitations/implications: Because of the small sample size and revision of the items, the analysis of student learning is only exploratory.\nOriginality/value: The learning outcomes and validated assessment instrument may be used either in whole or part by other institutions. The approach to measure changes in students' environmental stewardship reasoning and knowledge abilities as cohorts over time could assist universities in tracking environmental stewardship learning and could inform strategic implementation of learning opportunities through the curriculum, as well as through other student learning experiences.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Primary knowledge management practices applied in Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) industries from 2001-2010	[ "BRIC", "Knowledge management", "Knowledge management practices" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The importance of knowledge control in organizations has seen a steady and significant incline in recent years. Acquisition, creation, sharing and retention of knowledge have become synonymous with competitive advantage; therefore, the more a company manages its knowledge, the greater its potential for technological development and innovation. Davenport and Prusak (1998) state that the only sustainable competitive advantages an organization can have are what it knows, how efficiently it applies its knowledge and how quickly and consistently it can acquire and create new knowledge. However, as important as the means and techniques of spreading knowledge, Bhatt (2001) emphasizes the need of integration between the parties, i.e. people, techniques and technology that are able to effectively sustain a competitive knowledge management (KM) environment.\n2. Knowledge management in BRIC industries: With many industries migrating to BRIC countries, especially those headquartered in the northern hemisphere, Western executives' face the imminent approach of globalization as organizational business management adapts to a cultural complexion.\n3. Methodology: Wanting to expose the different KM practices used in BRIC industries through the scientific literature, Gil's (1991) concept was used to categorize this research. This research is classified as qualitative, specifically a documentary search. It has an exploratory approach in regard to its objective and its technical procedure is a survey.\n4. Results and discussion: 4.1 Main KM practices adopted in Brazilian industries\n5. Conclusion: Through the use of scientific literature, this study mapped the main KM practices used by BRIC industries and identified predominant common characteristics in these countries. It was also determined that these practices ensure a competitive advantage, whether in procedural knowledge or cultural production.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to expose the main knowledge management (KM) practices applied in BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) industries using scientific literature published in the Scopus database from 2001 to 2010.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A search was performed in papers selected from the Scopus database, which houses the KM practices of industries in BRIC countries.\nFindings: The results show that Brazil, Russia and India have an easier way of converting tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge compared to China, where informal relationships of trust and friendship play a special role within organizations, as well as where the political structure (communism) is an intervening factor. Brazil, Russia and India practice similar KM mechanisms such as the use of technology, process standardization and electronic data management. They also model the positive experiences of western companies. In China, interpersonal relationships shape the tacit and explicit features of organizations.\nResearch limitations/implications: The methodological filter could potentially limit the volume of responses, as not every case study can demonstrate the usual practices of KM. Empirical studies are able to capture the nuances and even provide a holistic picture of these practices.\nPractical Implications: The results have practical implication, in particular. They are expected to help managers and workers to better comprehend KM practices in BRIC countries or even suggest new KM practices in the business.\nOriginality/value: The main discussion of this paper brings together a large range of KM practices applied in BRIC, addressing similarities and differences between KM deployments.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Bridging didactic, interdisciplinary service learning and practice in health professions education : Students' perspectives	[ "Interdisciplinary education", "Service learning", "Didactic", "Health professions", "Interprofessional education", "Practice education" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Higher education seeks to engage students in learning activities that make them informed citizens while providing skills and competencies in professional practice in a discipline. Traditionally, internships and field work or clinical practice (practice education) have been the mechanism for linking didactic education and practice in professional programs, particularly in the health professions. A major component of education for medical and other healthcare practitioners is in fact the practice-based clinical education (Lekkas et al., 2007; Rounce et al., 2007). Additionally, programmatic accreditation requirements for professional education such as medical laboratory science, nursing, health, social work and other areas of professional studies often stipulate standards and competencies that must be achieved through didactic, clinical or practice experience (AIPHE, 2009; CSWE, 2012; NAACLS, 2012; NLNAC, 2012).\nTheoretical framework: The bodies of knowledge that informed this study relate to theories of apprenticeships, situated learning, cooperative learning and experiential learning, service learning and interdisciplinary or IPE. The combination of practice education with community service stems from apprenticeships, which in fact is \"learning in situ\" also known as situated learning or learning by doing (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Lave and Wegner, 2005). Lave and Wenger transformed the concept of service learning as one that adds a social character to learning through the incorporation of practice in the form of situation learning within the community.\nThe proposed Didactic-Practice-Interdisciplinary Service Learning Model: Figure 1 presents the strategic plan used to develop the senior seminar capstone; it also links the institutional mission and learning outcomes, and with student success at the core, bridges didactic education, service learning and professional practice. Furthermore, the senior seminar capstone course employs an interprofessional and multidisciplinary approach through the integration of didactic and practice in a service learning experience. This Didactic-Practice-Interdisciplinary Service Learning Model (Figure 1) seeks to ensure that students receive a holistic educational foundation that prepares them to be both well educated in terms of being able to critically think, apply what they learn in professional and practical situations, and become civically engaged citizens. Learning goals (outcomes) for the course were grounded in the interdisciplinary approach to education, service learning and healthcare.\nResearch model and hypotheses: Figure 2 shows the research model constructed for this study. The research model stems from the Didactic-Practice-Interdisciplinary Service Learning Model (Figure 1), which determined relevant prerequisites and didactic education that prepares students to think in terms of the realities of and in preparation for practice. To determine the effectiveness of this model in terms of students' perceptions, the constructs utilized in this study were as follows:\nResearch hypotheses: To operationalize the research questions stated above, the following hypotheses were developed specific to this study:\nMethod: An interdisciplinary senior seminar capstone course was constructed with a service learning component that bridged didactic and practice education. It was developed by the faculty from the health profession majors offered at a university as a graduation requirement. The course was offered to a mix of baccalaureate degree students from various disciplines in the health professions: namely, athletic training - exercise science, clinical laboratory science, community health, health sciences, health services administration and nursing. A pre and post survey design was utilized to examine students' perspectives with respect to: the expected learning outcomes relevant to professional benefits of the service learning capstone, the connection and relevance of the interdisciplinary philosophy and prerequisite courses for the senior seminar capstone. The sample consisted of undergraduate students (n=53) who completed the interdisciplinary senior seminar capstone course taught by one faculty member in one of three course sections. Structural equation modeling based on partial least squares (PLS) and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to analyze the significance of constructs. Students' reflections on the integrated interdisciplinary service learning were also collected and summarized.\nResults: Both pre and post survey results show that students agreed (1.67-1.79 in a scale of 1-5) that the interdisciplinary service learning course was beneficial preparing them as a health professional. Students also agreed (1.47-1.57 in a scale of 1-5) that the interdisciplinary project in this course prepared them: to value community service, gain knowledge while providing service, apply knowledge to real life problems, and that they can make a difference through community service and promote equal opportunity for citizens. Students also believed (1.59-1.63 in a scale of 1-5) in the interdisciplinary education philosophy as stated in the course syllabus. Students agreed (1.52-1.56) that the integration of a team project prepared them to resolve healthcare problems in the community using an interdisciplinary team approach. Students perceived the value of the interdisciplinary prerequisites (healthcare in the twenty-first century, research in the health professions, and healthcare management) for this course as they agreed (1.98-2.12 in a scale of 1-5) that these prerequisite courses be required. Table II shows the mean scores.\nDiscussion: The didactic-interdisciplinary service learning practice model allowed students to plan and organize a project they selected, assume the role of a health professional in their discipline, and focus on the interdisciplinary project outcomes using a team approach. Findings indicate that students valued the interdisciplinary project as they perceived the project prepared them to value community service, gain knowledge while providing service, apply knowledge to real life problems, and that they can make a difference through community service and promote equal opportunity for citizens. Students also agreed that the integration of a team project prepared them to resolve healthcare problems in the community using an interdisciplinary team approach. This is an important finding as it removes the ingraining of silos and separation of health professionals in practice by instilling the understanding of roles and trust in the responsibilities of their peers' disciplines. This study agrees with Ateach et al. (2011) as the interdisciplinary education helps students to eliminate professional stereotyping by increasing their understanding of various professional roles and contributions. Furthermore, as emphasized earlier, Olenick et al. (2010) indicated students valued learning about their roles and the roles of students in other majors. They were able to approach a problem from an interdisciplinary perspective which is a more holistic approach than the traditional disciplinary approach in health professions education.\nConclusion: Results of this study indicated that students find the service learning highly beneficial for their chosen career. Survey results show significance of course and team preparation on, perceived professional benefits and a positive community service learning experience. Additionally, students found the interdisciplinary prerequisite courses in healthcare, research methods, management and leadership beneficial for team preparation and practice in healthcare. Pre and post survey results indicate that the student expectations of professional preparation, and community and service benefits were met with the delivery of this integrated model didactic, practice and interdisciplinary service learning course.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present an integrated model of didactic, practice and interdisciplinary service learning in healthcare education, and determine the students' perceptions on the benefits of this integration.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A pre and post survey design was utilized to examine health professions students' perspectives with respect to learning outcomes relevant to professional benefits of a service learning capstone. The surveys consisted of 36 items for measuring the interdisciplinary course characteristics and perceived benefits of the integrated approach. The required interdisciplinary (used interchangeably with interprofessional) course was constructed as an integrated didactic, practice interdisciplinary service learning model. The sample consisted of undergraduate students (n=53) who completed the interdisciplinary senior seminar capstone course taught by one faculty member in one of three course sections. Structural equation modeling based on partial least squares was used to analyze the significance of constructs. Students' reflections on interdisciplinary service learning were also collected and summarized.\nFindings: The study demonstrated the significance of interdisciplinary course and team preparation on perceived professional benefits and positive community service learning experience.\nResearch limitations/implications: Further studies are needed and being pursued to address practitioners' perceptions of interdisciplinary education. To fully complete the assessment of interdisciplinary education, longitudinal studies must be pursued with graduates and their employers. A larger sample size could be used to repeat this study.\nPractical implications: The model employed in this study may be utilized as a component of practice education and clinical practice to address accreditation requirements, quality patient-centred care, and engaging students in valuing interprofessionalism and service.\nOriginality/value: This study presents an integrated model of didactic, practice and interdisciplinary service learning in health professions education, and demonstrates the benefits of the model with health profession students' perceptions of interprofessional education (IPE). This study contributes to professional learning research as the impact of IPE has been questionable due to lack of rigorous evidence.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
It's time to rise to the challenge of an aging workforce: Training can make older workers into valuable and loyal employees	[ "Training", "Employee attitudes", "Older people", "Retirement", "Equal opportunities" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: It is rare for a government initiative to be directly relevant to almost every business in the UK. However, with recent changes to the retirement age and pension pay-outs, businesses need to start thinking about how they will manage an aging workforce.\nFailing a generation: Many businesses have an outdated view of the over-60s workforce, thinking that these employees will be elderly and sick, or take time off to be with their grandchildren. However, a study by do-it-yourself (DIY) chain B&Q - itself famous for employing older people - found that absenteeism was 39 percent lower among its older employees. They do not have young children of their own and are less likely to need to take unplanned leave to look after small children.\nInvesting in older workers: As well as using the older workers to educate those around them, it is also important to develop their skills. The younger generation tends to be much more up-to-date with all things digital. Older workers may need training to stay current in this and other emerging technologies.\nIncorporating an entire business: These are good starting points, but with 92 percent of chief executives admitting that they are not investing in training for their workers over 60, businesses have their work cut out if they want to make sure they are getting the most out of their older employees.\nPersonal-development plans: Managers can also create personal-development plans and build them into appraisal systems; solicit regular performance feedback and offer staff regular secondments to other parts of the business. Providing staff with opportunities to take time out of their regular day-to-day chores to work on more strategic projects can also do much to encourage motivation and productivity.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Observes that companies must adjust to meet the needs of an aging workforce.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Explains why the workforce is getting older, and considers the challenges and benefits that this can bring.\nFindings: Emphasizes the need for training for older workers to keep them up-to-date with changes in the workplace.\nPractical implications: Reports that, treated properly, older workers can be valuable, experienced and loyal members of the workforce.\nOriginality/value: Explores how companies can make the most of older workers, who are bound to make up a greater proportion of the workforce in the future.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
AFFIRM employees to reduce cynicism in the workplace	[ "Cynicism", "Employee well-being", "Affirmation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Cynicism is generally regarded as negative and typically embodies a certain level of distrust toward organizations and leaders (Andersson and Bateman, 1997). Given the potential impact cynicism has on individual performance and the large number of undesirable outcomes that have been linked to cynicism in the literature (e.g. lower commitment and lower job satisfaction), it should come as no surprise that organizations are interested in strategies that can contribute to reduced levels of cynicism in the workplace (Schraeder et al., 2016). It is readily acknowledged that employees are influenced by their experiences in the workplace (Eisenberger et al., 1986). For example, employee perceptions about the level of support received by supervisors has an impact on their levels of cynicism (Cole et al., 2006). Further, the quality of relationships between organizational leaders and employees contribute to a desirable working environment (Fawcett et al., 2004). This article discusses the potential value of affirmation as a method that may help organizational leaders, managers, and supervisors in their quest to reduce levels of cynicism in organizations.\nRecommendations on how to AFFIRM employees: To enhance the usefulness or practical value of the recommendations related to affirmation, we have organized the suggestions using AFFIRM as an acronym:\nConclusion: Cynicism is considered an undesirable attitude in organizations that has a multitude of negative implications. Leaders interested in reducing employee cynicism may benefit from strategies directed at affirming employees. This article provided some pragmatic suggestions for ways that leaders can affirm employees. These suggestions are discussed through the use of the AFFIRM acronym. As such, the suggestions included appreciating and acknowledging employees, focus, feedback, involvement, respect, and maintaining employees. These suggestions were offered with the intent of supplementing other proven strategies to address cynicism in the workplace.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the potential value of affirmation as a way that leaders might be able to reduce employee cynicism in organizations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A brief overview of cynicism and possible value of affirmation as a method to reduce cynicism is followed by suggestions for ways that leaders may be able to reduce cynicism through affirmation. Six strategies for reducing cynicism were summarized. These strategies were organized using AFFIRM as an acrostic.\nFindings: Leaders may be able to reduce employee cynicism through actions intended to affirm employees. Specifically, it is suggested that leaders can affirm employees through acknowledgement and appreciation, feedback, focus, involvement, respect, and maintaining employee well-being.\nOriginality/value: This paper framed the strategies for reducing cynicism using AFFIRM as an acrostic for the six strategies. Organizing the recommended strategies of acknowledgement/appreciation, feedback, focus, involvement, respect, and maintaining employee well-being using this methodology may be a beneficial tool for leaders looking for ways to reduce employee cynicism in organizations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Setting your mind on mentoring: Help on offer to protege school principals	[ "Professional development", "Educational leadership", "Competency assessment", "Adult learning", "Mentoring mindset", "Protégé competencies" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Picture the scene. You are a school principal and new to the job. You have the relevant educational qualifications, confidence in your abilities and intention to do a good job, yet are aware of the daunting task ahead and perhaps even afraid that there may be inadequacies in your preparedness for the difficult road before you.\nNo longer a concept of all-wise sage and passive recipient: However, this vital support strategy offered in the form of professional mentoring by experienced principals, comes with a proviso - the protege principal needs to have a mentoring \"mindset\" to benefit from the advice and assistance being offered. One foundational tenet of mentoring is that it should be viewed as a learning partnership between the mentor and protege. While a mentor brings wisdom and experience from years in the job, newcomers to the profession bring fresh ideas gleaned from experiences as students in a pre-service preparation program and as teacher leaders, as well as expectations that they will learn as they go.\nOpposing notions indicate absence or presence of essential mindset: Does he or she have - or lack - vision in setting goals, prioritizing time, organizing and seeing the big picture? Does the protege demonstrate an ability - or lack of ability - to build relationships, use networks, pick up on social cues, to be an active listener, to keep confidences? Can he or she learn from mistakes and articulate effectively? Do they withhold sharing or are they transparent and forthcoming?\nComment: This review is based on \"The Protege Mentoring Mindset: a framework for consideration\" by Linda J. Searby. The purpose of the research was to define the phenomenon of a \"mentoring mindset\" in new school principals, as described by their mentors, and to identify the characteristics of those who are poised to receive the maximum benefits from a mentoring relationship.\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: It has been claimed that principal leadership accounts for about 20 per cent of the school's impact on student achievement, second only to the impact of teachers. The last decade has brought increased accountability pressures on principals, along with demands to demonstrate instructional leadership that results in continuous improvement in student outcomes. In fact almost all studies about successful school improvement point to the need for strong, academically-focussed principal leadership. New principals, however, are often \"thrown in at the deep end\".\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" } ]
Enrollment of SME managers to growth-oriented training programs	[ "Policy", "Growth", "Learning", "Small- to medium-sized enterprises", "Human capital", "Entrepreneurial education" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Since the turn of the century, entrepreneurship and SME policy programs have increasingly been focussing on growth (Autio et al., 2007; OECD, 2010). While much research has focussed on the effects of such programs, this paper focusses differently, namely on the front-end of the process, i.e. the enrollment of participants. Specifically this paper looks into biases in the selection and self-selection of SME managers to manager training programs, assuming that such biases have implications for program outcomes. Based on arguments of additionality (Auerswald, 2007), a business-oriented training program needs to add economic value, such as improved performance and growth, which would not have been obtained had the program not existed. Such added value is likely to vary significantly from participant to participant depending on a number of personal and firm-specific factors which again makes understanding of selection and self-selection processes crucial.\nTheory: Entrepreneurial learning is predominantly driven by autodidact and experience-based learning (Leitch and Harrison, 2008). Entrepreneurial learning can be understood as a continuous action-reflection-learning process through which entrepreneurs and managers improve their personal competences and the capabilities and performance of their ventures and SMEs (Kolb, 1984; Leonard and Marquardt, 2010). This process is partly individual and partly social as conceptualized by the concepts of cooperative learning and community of practice (Johnson and Johnson, 1994; Wenger, 2010). Through individual and social learning entrepreneurs gradually build competences which may result in growing entrepreneurial self-efficacy and influence motivations and intentions, including the intention to grow the firm (McGhee et al., 2009; Stevenson and Lundstrom, 2007).\nHypotheses: Our data from a Danish SME training program only provide descriptive evidence on selection biases, but for self-selection processes we can test a number of hypotheses using logistic regression on participant group and control group data. As we demonstrate in the next section, the program operator allowed enrollment of a significant group of participants with low-growth intention as well as firms with less than five employees, in spite of program owner selection criteria. This openness made self-selection the dominant factor in the enrollment process which opens for test of self-selection hypotheses.\nMethodology: Through an exemplary case study and the use of control group design, we search for selection and self-selection biases related to enrollment in a growth-oriented training program for SME managers. According to Flyvbjerg an exemplary single case study such as this study can be a scientifically strong methodology (Flyvbjerg, 2006).\nResults: Descriptive statistical results\nDiscussion: The objective of this study is to examine selection and self-selection issues in the recruitment of SME managers to formal growth-oriented training programs. Selection biases occur when program operators recruit participants with other characteristics than those specified for the target group by the program owners. When selection bias occurs, program operators potentially offer a leeway for self-selection biases as managers' interests and motivations come to play a larger role in the enrollment process. This can occur when program operators struggle to get \"enough\" participants on a program. Investigating the GTM program, we found solid indications of both selection and self-selection biases. The fact that a significant proportion of the enrolled managers did not fulfill the targeted criteria of growth intentions and firm size clearly indicates a selection bias. That this is indeed a selection bias becomes quite evident from the observation that 292 interviews from a random sample of 19,333 firms matching the target criteria only identified five firms in the participant group. Therefore a large number of firms exist that fulfill the selection criteria.\nLimitations and future research: Our analysis should be seen as a first attempt to study self-selection and selection processes in growth-oriented training programs for SME managers. Studies of who participates in such training programs and in particular the mechanisms driving their enrollment are rare (Webster et al., 2005a, b; Patton and Marlow, 2002) and tend to focus on the attraction of the program content to the targeted firms and managers (Johnston and Loader, 2003). As illustrated in this study, agency problems may arise as program operators may develop interests in recruiting participants that fall outside the target group specified by program owners - often public authorities. This agency problem and the associated selection bias on behalf of the program operators is an underexplored issue in research on SME training programs. Gaining knowledge of the occurrence of selection bias in the recruitment process is important because it opens up for self-selection biases as those managers who are most comfortable with such programs, have time to participate, have career interests in participating, etc. are given leeway to enroll in the programs despite being outside the original target group. Enrolling participants outside the target group may impede the functioning of the original program design, and potentially thwart the learning and growth potential from the program.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Entrepreneurial learning through formal growth-oriented training programs for SME managers promises to enhance the growth competences and growth intentions of the enrolled managers. The impact of such programs, however, depends on who enrolls since initial competence and growth-intention levels vary significantly. Potential participants may suffer from limited ability to transform new knowledge into practice, absence of growth intention and too high or too low a prior competence level to be able to benefit substantially. Selection and self-selection processes therefore have a bearing on the extent to which such programs result in additionality, i.e. improved growth performance compared to non-intervention. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Selection and self-selection processes are explored through a study of a large-scale training program for growth-oriented managers of small Danish firms. This program has, from 2012 to 2015, trained about 700 SME managers. Data are currently available for 366 of these participants. This evidence is compared with survey results from a randomly selected control group of 292 growth-oriented SME managers in the same firm-size group. The data were analyzed through descriptive statistics and logistic regression analysis.\nFindings: A number of selection and self-selection biases were identified in the analysis. While some of the identified biases did not seem to conflict with the ambitions of this growth program, others potentially have consequences for the additionality of the program.\nOriginality/value: The paper is the first systematic study of the importance of who enrolls in training programs for SME managers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Relationships between brand experiences, personality traits, prestige, relationship quality, and loyalty: An empirical analysis of coffeehouse brands	[ "Brand loyalty", "Brand personality", "Brand experience", "Brand prestige", "Brand relationship quality", "Coffeehouse" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Brand management is a key factor in gaining a competitive advantage over rivals (King, 2010; So and King, 2010; Xu, and Chan, 2010). Brand relationship theory proposes that a brand works as a means of connecting consumers and providers (Chang and Chieng, 2006; Fournier, 1998). Smith and Brynjolfsson (2001) stated that a brand is a crucial factor influencing consumer choice and helps consumers find a given product vendor. Therefore, brands have been emphasized as an important relationship marketing tool for distinguishing a firm from its competitors. In recent years, brand experiences, brand personality traits and brand prestige have been recognized as important factors linking to desirable outcomes in brand relationship management and marketing (Baek et al., 2010; Brakus et al., 2009; Ekinci and Hosany, 2006; Hwang, and Wen, 2009; Lee et al., 2009; Osman et al., 2009; Prentice, 2013; Ramanathan and Ramanathan, 2011).\nLiterature review: Brand experiences\nMethodology: Measures and instrument development\nData analysis and results: The respondent profile\nConclusions and managerial implications: This study presented a structural model and empirically validated the roles of brand experiences and brand personality traits in building brand loyalty through brand prestige and brand relationship quality. The results indicate that brand experiences and brand personality traits had positive effects on brand prestige. First, brand experiences had a positive effect on brand prestige. In marketing, it has been argued that providing sensory, affective, behavioral and intellectual experiences can position a brand luxuriously, thereby enhancing the level of brand prestige (Hwang and Hyun, 2012). Based on this logic, practitioners have developed various tactics including the use of sensory appealing equipment and gadgets, sentimental slogans, active/behavioral mascots and intellectual advertising. The results confirmed this argument by using empirical data from actual coffeehouse patrons. Coffeehouse marketers should develop marketing and/or operational tactics emphasizing patrons' experiential interactions. More specifically, four types of experiential tactics should be considered. For sensory experiences, it is necessary to replace equipment and tools and exterior/interior designs that can appeal to patrons' sensory experiences. In addition, today's customers use coffeehouses as a meeting space and prefer refined and sophisticated meeting rooms. Previous studies have suggested that providing customers with attractive sensory experiences is an important factor in fostering customer satisfaction (Jack Kivela, 1997; Law et al., 2008). That is, better-looking stores attract more customers. When patrons feel such sensory interior/exterior designs at coffeehouses, drink coffee in cups with a sensory design and have meetings in well-decorated meeting rooms, such sensory stimuli help create a high level of brand prestige. Regarding affective experiences, it is necessary to develop sentimental slogans to arouse patrons' affective experiences (e.g. Starbucks: \"It's not just coffee. It's Starbucks\"/\"Your home from home\"; Coffee Beanery: \"Coffee people who care\"; CC's Coffee Houses in Louisiana: \"You love our coffee, we love our guests\"; Camden Coffee House: \"Live life, love coffee\"; Cuppers Coffee House in Prescott, Arizona: \"With enough coffee anything is possible\"). When emotional slogans induce strong feelings and emotions for the coffeehouse brand, such affective stimuli help create a high level of brand prestige. Therefore, coffeehouse brand managers should develop affective brand slogans that appeal to consumers' emotional sense. For behavioral experiences, a coffeehouse brand experience can be built up with customers' actions and interactive exchanges between customers and employees. Brands will be well-experienced when brands suggest actions and when customers are encouraged to be part of brands. Such experiences will help the brand position to become prestigious. The use of action verbs associated with logos, symbols and the brand itself will allow customers to be immersed in the consumption environment. Furthermore, it will help brands to be retrieved when they are aroused by a certain need. Finally, for intellectual experiences, a coffeehouse's creative advertising can surprise patrons and stimulate them to think about the brand. Today, with the increasing number of coffeehouses, heavy competition has prompted managers and marketers to start advertising their products and services in creative ways. For example, by using innovative marketing strategies such as musical numbers and stop-motion animation in their advertising, coffeehouse marketers have tried to attract more modern and youthful customers. In addition, it is believed that providing intellectually stimulating advertising to consumers positively affects their revisit intentions (Olney et al., 1991; Stout and Leckenby, 1986). Further, with the rapid growth of the coffeehouse industry, marketers can develop their own concepts (e.g. classical music, travel, art and movies) for their coffeehouses. For instance, if the concept is mainly about tourism, managers can not only display travel guide books but also use high-quality travel books. This is to stimulate creativity and customers' intellectual growth so that they can feel upgraded by visiting the coffeehouse. In such a case, the coffeehouse's creative strategies are strongly remembered by patrons, which in turn can help increase brand prestige. As a result, when customers consider the coffeehouse brand to engage in much thinking and stimulate curiosity, they are likely to perceive the coffeehouse brand to be prestigious.\nLimitations and future research: As with any study, this study has some limitations. First, the sample was conveniently recruited from a consumer panel of an online marketing research company. Although they were asked if they visited the coffeehouse at least once a week, the results may reflect some selection bias. Using an online research panel allowed the authors to collect data from geographically diversified groups of respondents in various market situations; however, it was not possible to aggregate responses from diverse brands. In fact, more than 75 per cent of the respondents named the same brand that they visited recently. Each brand may have its own distinct characteristics. Therefore, future research should use different data collection methods to collect responses from diverse brands. Second, this study investigated the relationships among brand experiences, brand personality traits, brand relationship quality and brand loyalty in a coffeehouse context. The generalizability of the study findings to other contexts (i.e. external validity) is limited. Future research should consider a wider range of contexts (e.g. hotel brands) for a better grasp of antecedents and consequences of brand prestige. Third, in the coffeehouse industry, there exist a limited number of studies on the related topics. For this reason, this study tried to cover broad concepts/issues in the coffeehouse industry rather than focusing on a specific research issue. Therefore, more efforts should be made to the specific concepts proposed in this research. This way, more specific and practical recommendations could be provided to coffeehouse managers. For example, although Brakus et al. (2009) well-conceptualized and validated the brand experience, some dimensions, particularly the behavioral dimension, could have a significant variance from other service industries. Therefore, further efforts of understanding the dimension, such as using a qualitative query, would present a great discussion on the issues. Fourth, in the USA, consumers tend to seek comfort and community rather than prestige, while in some Asian countries, prestige is more important. Comparing the coffee consumption (e.g. price perception, menu preference, etc.) among different cultures would be meaningful. Fifth, the measurement scales adopted in this study heavily relied on a particular study, rather than integrating multiple studies. For future research, it is necessary to re-evaluate the conceptual model using the scales adapted from multiple studies. Finally, high correlation coefficients between constructs could indicate that some constructs could be similar, and could be treated as one construct, despite the results of the discriminant validity. Thus, it is necessary for future research to re-examine the research model using the combined constructs. The research model examined in this study may serve as a guide for future coffeehouse research.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to investigate the effects of coffeehouse brand experiences and brand personality traits on brand prestige, and the effects of brand prestige on brand relationship quality and loyalty in the coffeehouse industry.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Validated measurements were identified from a literature review. The measurement model and the conceptual model depicting hypothesized relationships were evaluated based on responses from 309 coffeehouse customers using confirmatory factor analysis and a structural equation modeling, accordingly.\nFindings: Brand experiences and brand personality traits had direct effects on brand prestige, which in turn influenced brand relationship quality and attitudinal loyalty. Brand relationship quality directly and indirectly influenced attitudinal and behavioral brand loyalty.\nResearch limitations/implications: The data were collected from coffeehouse customers in the USA; therefore, the results may not be generalizable to other regions or types of service industries. The results have important theoretical and practical implications for gaining a competitive advantage through brand experiences, brand personality traits and prestige.\nPractical implications: To enhance the coffeehouse brand prestige, it is critical to enhance patrons' experiential interactions by using sensory appealing equipment/tools, developing sentimental slogans, active/behavioral mascots and intellectual advertising. Furthermore, it is necessary for it to build and enhance its own brand personality characterized by sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication and ruggedness.\nOriginality/value: This study is the first to empirically test the relationships between brand experiences, brand personality traits and prestige in the coffeehouse industry.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Process quality and collaboration quality on B2B e-commerce	[ "IS success model", "B2B e‐commerce", "E‐commerce quality", "Process quality", "Collaboration quality", "Electronic commerce", "Customer satisfaction" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Corporate web sites allow corporations and customers to interact with each other, influencing customers' satisfaction and perceived quality (Chang and Chen, 2009; Nelson et al., 2005) and maximizing their loyalty (Ribbink et al., 2004). This research focuses on a specific type of online interaction channel, the business-to-business (B2B) web sites, which generate a significant amount of e-business (Albrecht et al., 2005; Baron et al., 2000; Kim et al., 2003; Xu et al., 2002), and therefore a significant source of customer loyalty. Examples of B2B systems are enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems where the firm's employees and its suppliers and business buyers transact and interact online (Baron et al., 2000; Kim et al., 2003; Ruivo et al., 2012; Sternad et al., 2011). This study determines the factors in a B2B system that encourages satisfaction and loyalty from these particular users conducting e-business activities.Information systems (IS) are developed to aid individuals in performing a task (Petter et al., 2008), but its impact is also often influenced by human, organizational, and environmental factors (Urbach et al., 2010; Sternad et al., 2011), making the creation and management of e-commerce systems more complex (Cullen and Taylor, 2009; Urbach et al., 2010). This is because e-commerce connects users from within and outside the organization. Especially, for B2B e-commerce environments, a higher degree of collaboration between different members of the supply chain is necessary (Cullen and Taylor, 2009; Pereira and Soares, 2007). Customers' satisfaction and employees' efficiency could be achieved when the systems deliver as promised and expected (Tai, 2011; Zeithaml et al., 1996), on both the technical and the user-oriented aspects of B2B e-commerce use. This research proposes an investigation to further examine and analyze how such systems help in delivering as promised and expected its services using the IS success model, reinforced by the concepts of process quality and collaboration quality.The main purposes of this study are:* to understand what key IS factors customers perceive as important to B2B web site use that will enable organizations to improve their systems with respect to customer needs and preference; and* to explore the antecedents necessary to use a B2B web site.Exploring these antecedents will help identify key quality IS considerations supporting business activities. This study's main contribution is exploring the effects of adding process and collaboration quality into the existing IS success model, proposing that it will further enhance perceptions on perceived usefulness and satisfaction (Chen et al., 2007; Marley et al., 2004), especially in the context of B2B e-commerce. These specific quality dimensions are argued as the ones actually seen and observed more easily by both users and customers (Field et al., 2004; Marley et al., 2004), especially in a B2B scenario (Johnson and Whang, 2002). Since users transact and collaborate with each other using the B2B system, it is argued that the first three quality dimensions are what the B2B system can offer to the users (DeLone and McLean, 2003, 2004), while the additional two dimensions are dependent on customized user interactions (Urbach et al., 2010), which the company can further exploit aside from the system features to further improve perceptions of usefulness, satisfaction, and loyalty. What is unique about B2B interactions is that it requires active participation of the involved entities in some of its functionalities, like having shared work spaces and information flows (Pereira and Soares, 2007), hereby inducing collaboration efforts which are not usually present in other types of e-commerce activities. Hence, since active participation and collaboration efforts are required, attention to the process of such participation and the amount of collaboration needed to achieve active participation is warranted in this study.This study borrows from marketing, MIS, and operations management literature to argue the importance of process quality and collaboration quality on perceptions of usefulness and satisfaction. Additionally, this study proposes the use of customer loyalty to measure e-commerce success. Similar with process quality and collaboration quality, this focuses on user attitudes and perceptions (Bhattacherjee, 2001; Chang and Chen, 2009; Flavian et al., 2006) rather than on functional benefits to give a clearer picture of overall success. Focus on these functional benefits derived from technical considerations has been a source of confusion and criticism, questioning whether or not this focus alone gives an adequate picture to fully understand IS success (Cullen and Taylor, 2009), especially in the context of e-commerce. We therefore address this issue by incorporating some factors that are beyond these functional and technical considerations.\nTheoretical background and literature review: IS success measurement\nResearch methodology: Sample and data collection\nDiscussions and conclusions: The paths from system quality to usefulness and information quality to user satisfaction were found to be not significant. All the other relationships found in this study pertaining to the IS success model were found to be significant, hereby confirming what past researches (Cao et al., 2005; DeLone and McLean, 2003, 2004; Liu and Arnett, 2000; Rai et al., 2002; Urbach et al., 2010; Wang, 2008) have already discovered and discussed. Additionally, the relationships of usefulness and user satisfaction to customer loyalty were supported. It has been observed that the relationships as posited in the IS success model is not always supported (Petter and McLean, 2009). Furthermore, both process quality and collaboration quality to both usefulness and user satisfaction was found to be significant.Some previous researches have observed differently regarding the effects of system quality on usefulness, arguing that system quality has a more direct effect on specifically system satisfaction (Nelson et al., 2005; Urbach et al., 2010). This posits that satisfaction is an antecedent of usefulness and system quality does not directly affect usefulness. System quality is merely a part of a bigger, more comprehensive dimension called system integration (Saeed and Abdinnour-Helm, 2008). In other words, system quality alone may not be enough to influence perceptions on usefulness. Also, some models posit that information quality influence specifically information satisfaction (Nelson et al., 2005) and usefulness (Rai et al., 2002), instead of user satisfaction as a whole. This research used different considerations to define satisfaction, but focusing on satisfaction based on delivering the expected service (Chang and Chen, 2009; Srinivasan et al., 2002; Zeithaml et al., 1996). These considerations may explain the results found in this study. Practically speaking, customers search through B2B web sites to look for the correct and useful information that will suit their needs and complete their assigned tasks. Thus, the impact on usefulness has been obtained when the right information is provided, implying that information quality focuses more on usefulness rather than user satisfaction. In addition, customers are equally concerned with whether the B2B web site's system functionalities could expedite the whole process. This implies that system quality focuses more on user satisfaction rather than usefulness.The results indicate that service quality is the only quality dimension that significantly influence both usefulness and user satisfaction, highlighting the importance of service quality among other quality dimensions (Cao et al., 2005; Harris and Goode, 2004; Tai, 2011). This implies that the quality of service features seems to be an important, if not the most important, factor for customers' use of B2B web sites.We see here that process quality has a weaker significant influence compared to collaboration quality. Because process quality may be defined in several ways, most notably productivity and/or performance (Davamanirajan et al., 2006), reliability, and efficiency (Hung et al., 2010; Wolfinbarger and Gilly, 2003), there may be some confusion has to how customers actually perceive and understand this dimension (Urbach et al., 2010). And, as initially implied in the earlier results, B2B customers and users may be more interested in the other aspects of quality, especially service quality, and to a lesser degree information and system quality. What is further interesting is collaboration quality, which is shown to have a significant effect. This implies that between discerning between process and collaboration quality, B2B users would be more interested and more discriminating with the latter (Urbach et al., 2010). Practically, B2B systems are established to enable better processes and more efficient collaboration between firms (Baron et al., 2000; Chen et al., 2007; Kim et al., 2003; Xu et al., 2002). In this context, then this implies that indeed, collaboration quality is a very useful and very important predictor of B2B e-commerce success, on top of the web site quality dimensions as posited in the IS success model.Theoretical and practical implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to propose two additions to the existing IS success model to influence usefulness and satisfaction, and ultimately customer loyalty. This study posits that process quality and collaboration quality will significantly influence perceptions on satisfaction, since both considerations are expected to improve interactions between the organization and its customers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The developed research model was tested in the context of B2B e-commerce users, employing structural equation modelling-partial least square to analyze and test the research hypotheses.\nFindings: - Results show that adding process and collaboration quality to the model affects the way system, information, and service quality influences usefulness and satisfaction, suggesting a shift in perspectives and priorities when it comes to B2B e-commerce transactions. Furthermore, results show that process and collaboration quality have significant effects on usefulness and satisfaction, reinforcing the objective of using B2B e-commerce systems across supply chain members.\nPractical implications: - This highlights the importance of improving business processes and enhancing collaboration activities, implying that managers should focus their efforts into enhancing customer service on top of system functionalities and features via B2B to better work with their supply chain partners. However, this study is limited in the context of a Taiwanese supply chain, suggesting that further research consider its applicability in different contexts, culturally and geographically, especially given the fact that B2B e-commerce enables cross-border business operations.\nOriginality/value: - This study also extends the IS success model, especially in the context of B2B e-commerce, by emphasizing behavioural considerations on top of the functional issues present in any information systems.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The impact of (low) trust on knowledge sharing	[ "Tacit knowledge", "Knowledge sharing", "Affect based trust", "Cognition based trust", "Explicit knowledge", "Implicit knowledge" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The assurance that valid information can flow freely between co-workers is critical for a successful operation in an organization. Conversely, lack of trust among co-workers may seriously hamper sharing of important information, potentially damaging the effectiveness of business processes. The relationship between trust and information and knowledge sharing has received much attention amongst scholars. Different authors have strived to empirically validate the effects of trust on knowledge sharing. Some have discovered an empirically validated positive correlation between trust and knowledge sharing (Chang and Chuang, 2011; Chiu et al., 2006; Fathi et al., 2011; Hau et al., 2012; Holste and Fields, 2010; Leyland, 2005; Lin et al., 2009; Sankowska, 2012; Tsai and Ghoshal, 1998; Wickramasinghe and Widyaratne, 2012). Others, such as Chow and Chan (2008) and Li (2005) could not find a significant correlation between trust and knowledge sharing. In some articles, a positive correlation was discovered only for specific types of trust and knowledge, e.g. for affect-based trust (Bakker et al., 2006; Swift and Hwang, 2012; Ko, 2010; Yang and Farn, 2009). Bakker et al. (2006) reported a negative correlation between cognition-based trust and knowledge sharing. Dhanaraj et al. (2004) and Yang and Farn (2009) found a positive correlation between trust with only tacit knowledge. Overall, current research suggests that trust has a significant positive effect on knowledge sharing.\nCurrent literature: Literature on knowledge sharing\nResearch model: It can be concluded from the literature that trust is important for knowledge sharing, but it is not clear, to what degree higher levels of trust can lead to more knowledge sharing. In fact, literature only shows research on situations of high trust. A situation of low trust has never been explicitly taken into account. Hence, in Figure 2, only points on the right side (high trust) are known.\nResearch setup: Measures\nResults: The response rate of the survey was 42 per cent. The 102 respondents have answered the questionnaire completely, which is more than sufficient for a statistical analysis. Table I shows the number of questionnaires sent out and the responses per version.Most of the respondents are males, in the age category 30-49 years with a good representation of the different departments. This is in accordance with the actual distribution of genders and department size. See Tables II-IV with the statistics.As every questionnaire contained two scenarios with the same questions, a data set has been created with 204 unique responses. All questionnaire response was complete, owing to the structure of the digital survey tool, which did not allow for partial answers. The scales were also fixed, so the responses contain no outliers.\nConclusions: This study explored the differences in the level of knowledge sharing between co-workers in high trust versus low trust situations. Two types of knowledge were considered, namely, implicit and explicit, and two type of trust were considered, namely, cognition-based trust and affect-based trust. In line with literature, a high level of trust leads to a high level of knowledge sharing. But this study also showed that a lower level of trust leads to less knowledge sharing. The differences in the level of knowledge sharing are significant for all situations considered. The effect is larger for affect-based trust and implicit knowledge sharing.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to explore the differences in the level of knowledge sharing between co-workers in high versus low trust situations, for cognition-based trust and for affect-based trust as well as implicit and explicit knowledge.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The differences were examined through data provided by 102 professionals working for a financial organization in The Netherlands.\nFindings: The differences in the level of knowledge sharing in high versus low trust situations are significant. The effect is larger for affect-based trust and for implicit knowledge.\nResearch limitations/implications: The survey has been conducted within one organization only.\nPractical implications: Organizations should realize the importance of trust between their co-workers, and in general, there is much to gain by increasing the levels of trust between co-workers, as this will also increase knowledge sharing between co-workers.\nOriginality/value: Previous studies have not examined the situation of low trust and its effect on the level of knowledge sharing within a homogeneous group of co-workers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Reading practices in scholarly work: from articles and books to blogs	[ "User studies", "Information behaviour", "Scholarly reading", "Scholarly communication" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: It can be almost taken for granted that academics - faculty members, graduate students and other researchers and scholars - use scholarly publications to inform their work. However, their work is not monolithic. Scholars need information for a wide variety of purposes, including research, teaching, administration and keeping informed. Furthermore, sources are not the same - articles, books, blogs and reports - and may be used for different purposes. Therefore, scholarship is not homogenous - researchers in different disciplines or with different responsibilities read and use information sources in different ways.\nRelated research: This study builds on a long tradition of scholarly information use research. Donald W. King and, later, Carol Tenopir and Donald W. King, have studied scholarly article reading patterns since the 1970s (e.g. King et al., 1981; Belefant-Miller and King, 2001; Tenopir and King, 2000, 2004; Tenopir, King, Edwards and Wu, 2009; Tenopir et al., 2010, 2015). Many other studies such as Jamali et al. (2005) and Rowlands (2007) have focused on the use of e-journals as well. In Finland, several studies examined how scholars use e-journals in their work (Talja and Maula, 2003; Vakkari and Talja, 2005, 2006; Vakkari, 2006; Talja et al., 2007; Tenopir et al., 2010). This study continues those research traditions and expands it beyond journal articles.\nMethods and data: This study used an online survey distributed from October through mid-December 2016 throughout Finland to collect data on reading characteristics of Finnish scholars. The Finnish National Library's FinELib consortia asked its member libraries to distribute the questionnaire to their respective faculty members, doctoral students and other researchers, although we do not know how many complied with this request. After reviewing the initial responses and comparing with the subject discipline characteristics of our total population (see Table I), we found that respondents from the natural sciences were under-represented. For this reason, we also distributed 1,000 invitations to the survey directly, targeting natural scientists and other under-represented groups. In the end, a total of 528 scholars working in Finnish universities, universities of applied sciences, state research institutes or other research institutes responded to the survey.\nLimitations: This study focuses on scholarly readings and readers from Finland only, a country with a population of 5.5m and one of the highest literacy rates in the world (Alvermann and Harrison, 2017; Miller and McKenna, 2016). The FinELib consortia negotiate e-journal and e-book licenses country-wide, so researchers have easy access to a wide variety of publications. A majority of the scholarly journal publications are in English, although many resources (especially non-journals) are available in Finnish, Swedish and other languages. We believe that results from Finland are generalizable because researchers in Finland read and speak many different languages, publish scholarly works often in international English-language venues and are fully part of the European and international community of scholarship.\nResults: Number of readings\nDiscussion and conclusions: Our study continues the tradition of King and Tenopir studies concentrating on scholars reading and information seeking behavior (e.g. King et al., 1981; Belefant-Miller and King, 2001; Tenopir and King, 2000, 2004; Tenopir, King, Edwards and Wu, 2009; Tenopir et al., 2010, 2015). The majority of our results concerning scholarly article reading are consistent with earlier findings in the USA, the UK, Finland and other countries (Tenopir et al., 2015). This paper offers new knowledge especially on other than journal article readings by giving holistic view of scholars reading practices.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of reading in scholarly work among academics in Finland. This study analyzes readings from a variety of publication types including books, conference proceedings, research reports, magazines, newspapers, blogs, non-fiction and fiction.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An online survey was developed and distributed in Finland in 2016-2017 (n=528). Participants were asked their finding and use of scholarly information resources of all types.\nFindings: Scholars read from a variety of publications. Different types of publications are read and used differently. Reading also varies between disciplines, ranks, work responsibilities and type of research performed.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study was a nationwide study of researchers in Finland; therefore, all findings are within the context of researchers in a single country. All results are self-reported; therefore, the authors assume but cannot be sure that respondents accurately recollect the specifics of their use of scholarly information.\nPractical implications: The results of this study are relevant to publishers, research librarians, editors and others who serve consumers of scholarly information resources, design information products and services for those scholars, and seek to better understand the information needs and use of a variety of types of scholarly publications.\nOriginality/value: This study replicates previous studies in a variety of countries and provides a more up-to-date and single-country contextualized overview of how researchers find and use scholarly information in their work.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Effect of modified Khon dance performance on functional fitness in older Thai persons	[ "Older persons", "Khon exercise", "Functional fitness" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Recently, the number of older population has increased substantially in most countries and regions, and the growth is projected to accelerate in the coming decades[1]. Degeneration in various systems, particularly the musculoskeletal system, typically occurs among older people. Moreover, muscular strength is significantly reduced in older adults, with an incidence of 30-50 percent in those aged 30-80 years. Decreased muscle strength can be attributed to the decrease in muscle mass and the number of muscle fibers. In addition, problems with muscular flexibility and a correspondingly decreased range of motion are also observed[2, 3]. These results affect mobility and balance and are associated with a high risk of falls. Therefore, health promotion among older persons is crucial. Furthermore, reduced cardiovascular system efficiency, as characterized by lower maximal oxygen uptake, which decreases 0.5-1.0 percent per year, affects prolonged and moderate- to high-intensity activities. These deteriorations and reduced physical capacities decrease functional fitness and alter the activities of daily living and quality of life. To perform normal activities of daily living safely and independently, older persons require good functional fitness, including musculoskeletal fitness, cardiorespiratory endurance, balance ability and body composition.\nSubjects and methods: Study design\nResults: The participants' baseline characteristics are presented in Table I. The mean age of participants in the Khon exercise group was 62.36+-2.1 years and that of the control group was 63.27+-2.0 years. No significant differences in baseline physical characteristics, including age, sex, height, weight, balance and mobility score between the Khon exercise and control groups were observed.\nDiscussion: Khon exercise was employed to combine art, culture, and exercise for health promotion among older persons. This mode of exercise improved lower extremity strength and flexibility, aerobic endurance and dynamic balance. These results are essential for performing independent activities of daily living and increasing mobility in older adults. Improvements in strength and flexibility of the lower extremity could be associated with leg muscle contraction due to body weight during exercise. Moreover, previous reports have shown that muscular strength has a significant influence on flexibility[12, 13]. In contrast, no significant change in upper extremity capacity was found as the exercise involves forces that are substantially greater in the lower body than in the upper body. Muscle degeneration occurred more frequently in the lower than in the upper extremity. Hence, increased lower extremity strength is an essential consideration. These results were similar to those of various dance studies and those of studies on other forms of step exercise that focused on leg movements. Granacher et al.[14] and Hackney et al.[15] reported that ballroom dance significantly improves lower extremity strength. Hallage et al.[16] and Teixeira et al.[17], noted that, respectively, step aerobics and square-stepping exercise could improve lower limb capacities.\nConclusion: Khon exercise could result in better functional fitness. It improved lower extremity muscle strength and flexibility, aerobic endurance and balance in older Thai persons. The exercise, which is a form of lifestyle intervention, is enjoyable, involves simple movements, no equipment, and can be performed anywhere. Moreover, the exercise is related to the local art and culture, which in turn may encourage exercise participation. This study demonstrated that exercise, when presented as a form of lifestyle intervention in combination with art and culture, effectively improved functional fitness. Thus, incorporating activities derived from shared cultural practices that require several lower extremity muscles, such as the giant marching and side lunge movements, into a health promotion program for older persons may help improve their well-being.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Aging population is on the rise around the world. Strategies to improve quality of life in this population are being implemented. Exercise is one of those strategies that has been proven to be effective as it produces many health benefits. The purpose of this paper is to determine the effects of Khon exercise on functional fitness in older persons.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In total, 44 older people aged 60-65 years were recruited through a senior club in an urban area. They were divided into two groups: the Khon exercise group (performed exercise for 12 weeks, 60 min/day, 3 times/week) and the control group (engaged in routine physical activity). The Senior Fitness Test, which consisted of chair stand, arm curl, 2-min step, chair sit and reach, back scratch, 8-ft up and go, and body mass index, was performed before and at 12 weeks after the exercise.\nFindings: After 12 weeks of training, significant differences in chair stand, 2-min step, chair sit and reach, and 8-ft up and go tests were noted between the exercise and control groups.\nOriginality/value: These findings showed that Khon exercise has positive effects on lower body strength and flexibility, aerobic endurance and balance. Hence, it is recommended for health promotion among older persons.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Poverty and technical efficiency in presence of heterogeneity in household behaviours: Evidence from Bangladesh	[ "Bangladesh", "Poverty", "Technical efficiency", "Transaction cost", "Market failure", "Household behaviour", "Q12", "Q13", "I32" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Approximately, three-fourth of total population of Bangladesh lives in rural areas (WB, 2013). Rural people are primarily dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods and majority of them are poor (Emran and Shilpi, 2018). It is the largest sector in perspective of employment and local engagement of productive resources (GED, 2005). Hoekman et al. (2001) showed a strong positive correlation between growth of the agricultural sector and income of the rural poor. Specialisation in agricultural production leads to employment generation, economic growth and poverty reduction (Chirwa, 2005). Exogenous improvement of productivity and efficiency in agricultural production raises income level, standard of living and reduce environmental degradation. It accelerates the process of poverty alleviation (Ajibefun, 2000; Ravallion and Datt, 2002). The efficient combination of resources in production process reduces wastage and increases productivity. In turn, it accelerates economic growth. Therefore, efficiency increases the farm output, reduces farms' cost of production and thus, raises farm profit. In consequence, improvement in efficiency reduces poverty (Umeh and Asogwa, 2011; Asogwa et al., 2011).\n2. A brief literature review: Previous studies explored inverse relationships between efficiency and poverty in developing countries (Umeh and Asogwa, 2011; Oladeebo, 2012; Ehinmowo et al., 2016; Fekadu, 2013). Umeh and Asogwa (2011) showed that poverty is alleviated by 6, 3 and 4 per cent resulting from a 1 per cent increase in technical, allocative inefficiency and economic efficiency, respectively. However, Abatania et al. (2012), Al-hassan (2012), Thiam et al. (2001) and Villano and Fleming (2004) revealed that farm households of the poor countries are less technically efficient in utilising productive resources in agriculture sector. Hence, numerous agricultural and development economists attempted to identify sources of technical inefficiencies in developing countries. Personal characteristics of farmers such as age, education and farming experiences influence their level of TE (Wilson et al., 2001; Omonona et al., 2010; Taru et al., 2011; Haider et al., 2011). In addition, community engagement (e.g. engagement to agricultural extension departments, non-government organisations and co-operatives) contribute to improve TE (Omonona et al., 2010; Afrin et al., 2017a; Theriault and Serra, 2014; Chavas et al., 2005). Furthermore, access to financial institutions and different agricultural field schools are the important determinants of TE (Afrin et al., 2017a; Theriault and Serra, 2014; Khai and Yabe, 2011). Household and input market characteristics also affect farmer specific TE (Theriault and Serra, 2014; Hossain et al., 2008; Solis et al., 2009).\n3. Theoretical framework: 3.1 Why do farm households exhibit heterogeneous behaviours?\n4. Estimation strategy: 4.1 Estimating technical efficiency\n5. Data and variables: We conducted a household survey in the south-west region of Bangladesh at end of the Aman season in 2013 using a multi-stage random sampling procedure to collect information. In the first stage, three districts - Khulna, Jessore and Satkhira were purposively chosen. We, then, randomly selected eight upazilas from these three districts. One village was also randomly chosen from each upazila. Randomly selected all eight villages are located in the south-west region of Bangladesh. We surveyed 400 farm households using a systematic random sampling procedure. In total, 50 households were surveyed from each village. Starting from a corner of a village, every n/50th household was interviewed. At the cleaning stage, we found missing values in some variables for 14 households. These missing values were re-coded at mean values of respective variables. The data set contains 70 autarkic, 154 non-wholesaler and 176 wholesaler households. We also collect data on farm and household specific characteristics, factors of production and the market prices of input and output variables.\n6. Result and discussion: 6.1 Technical efficiency\n7. Conclusion: Policy targeting to increase the economic return from the rural poor households' primary production is essential to improve their poverty status. The majority of these households practices rice cultivation as their primary production in the south-western region of Bangladesh. Policy makers advocate emphasising on improving farmer's TE level so that they can attain higher level of production from available productive resources. The study unveils that only the enhancement of TE is not a sufficient condition for improving their poverty status. The empirical results show that TE improves poverty status only for wholesalers while it worsens poverty status for autarkic and non-wholesaling households. Due to simultaneous failure in credit and product market, effort of improving TE by these households worsens the poverty status. Credit market failure compels these households to borrow from local money lenders at costlier terms and conditions to finance the production stage expenditure. Though this effort would help to improve their TE, additional output from such improvement is not cleared by the market due to product market failure. Therefore, repayment of the borrowings reduces their consumption expenditure and thus, it worsens their poverty status.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between poverty and technical efficiency (TE) of paddy farmers in presence of their heterogeneous selling behaviours. This paper explains how such behavioural heterogeneity affects this relationship in south-western Bangladesh.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Translog production frontier model was used to estimate TE since it fitted the data set better. On the other hand, poverty indices were constructed by using P-a method. Then, multinomial logit models examined the existence of heterogeneous selling behaviours. It revealed adequate evidences in favour of behavioural heterogeneity. Finally, the authors employed a series of two stage instrumental variable regression models to relate poverty and TE with and without considering the behavioural heterogeneity.\nFindings: The study finds that around 18, 39 and 44 per cent of households exhibit autarkic, non-wholesaling and wholesaling behaviour, respectively. Market failure due to transaction cost and credit constraints leads to emergence of such heterogeneity. Across these heterogeneous behaviours, impact of improving TE on poverty status significantly differs. Without controlling behavioural heterogeneity, TE significantly improves the poverty status of the rural farm households. However, scenario is changed after controlling this heterogeneity. After behavioural segregations, TE improves poverty status only for wholesalers. In contrary to prior expectation, it worsens the poverty situation for both autarkic and non-wholesaling households. Simultaneous failure in both credit and product market for these households might be the plausible reason behind this heterodox finding. Credit market failure compels these households to borrow from local money lenders with costlier terms. This effort might improve their TE. But, product market failure makes their additional production due to improved TE unsold. Thus, repayment of credit directly reduces their consumption expenditure. Therefore, an effort to improve TE might increase prevalence and depth of poverty when market failure exists. Henceforth, the improvement of TE appears as an effective policy instrument only when households exhibit wholesaling behaviour.\nOriginality/value: The earlier studies show the relationship between TE and poverty status but did not account behavioural heterogeneity. The authors attempt to overcome this shortcoming and show how market failure induced behavioural heterogeneity affects the effectiveness of TE on improving poverty status of farm households.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Illusions of team working in health care	[ "Teams", "Teamwork", "Team effectiveness", "Collaboration", "Team processes", "Patient safety", "Errors", "Team working", "Health care" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nBackground: The imperative for effective intra- and inter-team collaboration has become increasingly prioritised in healthcare policy both nationally (Darzi, 2008) and internationally (Joint Commission, 2009). This is because a large body of research evidence suggests that effective teamwork in healthcare is associated with reduced medical errors (Manser, 2009), increased patient safety (Firth-Cozens, 2001), as well as improved worker outcomes such as reduced stress (Carter and West, 1999), intent to stay at work (Abualrub et al., 2012), and job satisfaction (Buttigieg et al., 2011). Other studies have also found that the quality of teamwork in healthcare is related to patient mortality in hospitals (West et al., 2001), more streamlined and cost-effective patient care (Ross et al., 2000), reduced physician visits and hospitalisation rates (Sommers et al., 2000), lower staff absenteeism and turnover, more effective use of resources and greater patient satisfaction (West et al., 2011).Most healthcare organisations operate in a complex context of conflicting demands and objectives, multi-faceted and often highly challenging daily tasks, a demanding external environment, and a highly diverse body of professional clinical staff (Ramanujam and Rousseau, 2006). Therefore, as patients' progress along the care pathway, the delivery of effective healthcare very much depends on the careful collaboration and interchange of information between various individuals, organisations, occupational groups, multidisciplinary teams, and allied health services. Whatever changes are occurring in healthcare systems both nationally and internationally, it is important to reflect on why effective healthcare teams are so important in health service delivery, and how team processes can be improved to ensure we are delivering high-quality and safe patient care. The fact is that healthcare teams are very often ineffective, with research showing that 70 per cent of medical errors can be attributed to poor teamwork (Studdert et al., 2002). Organisations therefore need advice on how to develop authentic and effective teamwork that facilitates a culture for safety and quality, rather than relying on the dangerous illusion that simply labelling a group of healthcare professionals a \"team\" will produce the coordination, clear role allocation and powerful shared responsibility the notion of \"teamwork\" implies.\nA typology of healthcare teams: Despite the prevalence of healthcare teams, when we look more closely at their nature and characteristics, there are many notable divergences and complexities that should be recognised. A useful typology for describing teams proposed by Hollenbeck et al. (2012) enables teams to be characterised on three underlying dimensions. Firstly, teams differ on skill differentiation. Traditionally, healthcare teams were unidisciplinary (for example, a team of paediatric nurses working on a hospital ward), meaning that team members held very similar functional knowledge and conducted similar clinical tasks. However, healthcare teams are now increasingly interdisciplinary. Interdisciplinary teams comprise members from different functional and clinical backgrounds working towards shared goals in order to fulfil complex and interdependent tasks that require varying degrees of specialist skills and medical knowledge.Secondly, healthcare teams can be distinguished on the dimension of authority differentiation (Hollenbeck et al., 2012), which describes the extent to which all team members are involved in team decision-making processes. Healthcare teams with high levels of authority differentiation have clearly allocated leadership roles, which tend to be occupied by the most senior status member of a team. However, the prevalence of entrenched hierarchies and deep-rooted conflict amongst professionals in healthcare (Leape and Berwick, 2005) means that decision making is often faulty, undermining high-quality and safe care. Unidisciplinary teams on the other hand tend to have lower authority differentiation, given the more equal status held by respective team members.The third teamwork dimension proposed by Hollenbeck et al. (2012) is temporal stability. Whereas some healthcare teams maintain a relatively stable team composition over time (such as a multidisciplinary team members working together over several years), other teams may be formed temporarily to act as a \"one shot\" team (to conduct a highly novel surgical procedure, for example), and therefore team members may never work together again. Teams with higher levels of temporal stability have the opportunity to develop effective team processes, given the familiarity that develops between members of the team.Thus, when researching and managing healthcare teams, it is important to pay attention to the structural dimensions of skill differentiation, autonomy differentiation and temporal stability and how they impact upon team functioning and performance. For example, research with staff nurses in 32 hospitals in England found that teamwork and autonomy were highly related, and that nursing autonomy was associated with increased job satisfaction and more positive perceptions of quality of care (Rafferty et al., 2001). Temporal stability is also crucial for the development of shared mental models and effective interpersonal team processes, which in turn affect care processes (Richardson et al., 2010). Thus, healthcare researchers and practitioners cannot afford to neglect such important structural features of healthcare teams.\nKey debates in teams research: The use of teams to deliver health care has become commonplace in the English National Health Service (NHS), with recent findings from the NHS National Staff Survey suggesting that over 90 per cent of staff report that they work in \"a team\" (Care Quality Commission, 2010). However, this creates challenges for researching real teams, as only around 40 per cent of staff report that their team has clear shared objectives, works closely and interdependently, and reviews its effectiveness on a regular basis - all fundamental features of what defines a team in the first place (see Table I; West et al., 2012). Without these \"real team\" characteristics in place, a team exists in name only. Such pseudo team entities not only deviate from theoretical definitions of real teams in the literature, but can also be associated with potentially detrimental outcomes in practice. Indeed, members of pseudo teams report witnessing higher levels of errors, incidents and near misses, experience more harassment, bullying and abuse from staff and patients, and report lower levels of well-being and higher stress than members of real teams (West et al., 2012). So how can we be clearer about teamwork in healthcare both theoretically and in practice?\nThe science of teams in healthcare: The most widely accepted framework for conceptualising teams is the input-process-output (IPO) model of team effectiveness (Cohen and Bailey, 1997). This framework proposes that team inputs (such as team composition, the team task, resources, and organisational support) have an influence on team outputs (such as error rates, quality of care, patient satisfaction, and team member well-being) via the interactions or team processes that take place between team members. Over the years, a number of both generic and context-specific IPO models of healthcare team effectiveness have been published in the literature (e.g. Lemieux-Charles and McGuire, 2006). Based on our own research, below we outline what we consider are the three most important inputs and processes for predicting performance of healthcare teams (see Figure 1).Inputs\nInterventions to promote teamwork in healthcare: A common method for enhancing the effectiveness of teamwork in healthcare is the provision of team training. Examples include:the \"TeamSTEPPS\" (Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety) program developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) in the USA, which focuses on developing four team competencies, i.e. communication, leadership, mutual support and situation monitoring (Baker et al., 2010);the Aston Team Facilitation Programme (ATFP; Aston Organisation Development, 2003), which is widely used in the NHS; and*the more generic SBAR (situation, background, assessment, recommendation) tool, which can lead to improved team communication and patient safety (Leonard et al., 2004).A specific intervention that has also been linked to improving interdisciplinary teamwork is care pathways. Care pathways are defined as \"a complex intervention for the mutual decision making and organisation of care for a well-defined group of patients during a well-defined period\" (Vanhaecht et al., 2010, p. 118) In a systematic review of 27 studies, Deneckere et al. (2012) concluded that care pathways can promote various facets of team working, including team communication, team relations, inter-professional documentation and staff knowledge. Such high-performance work systems impact organisational performance by strengthening action and interpersonal processes, including coordination and communication (Gittell et al., 2010).\nFuture research agenda: Based on research evidence that highlights the detrimental impact of pseudo team working on outcomes, future research into healthcare teams should first endeavour to better describe team samples according to the fundamental characteristics of real teams (West and Lyubovnikova, 2012). Such characteristics are crucial if health care staff are effectively to combine their diverse professional perspectives, coordinate efforts and share knowledge in order to deliver highly complex clinical tasks; however, they are very often neglected in healthcare teams research to date. Further, given that healthcare delivery is embedded in a complex multi-team system that requires both inter-team and inter-team working (Bleakley, 2013), future research should not only focus on effective collaboration within teams, but also between teams. Healthcare professionals are often members of several teams concurrently, making the concept of multiple team membership (O'Leary et al., 2011) increasingly relevant to future healthcare research.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The ubiquity and value of teams in healthcare are well acknowledged. However, in practice, healthcare teams vary dramatically in their structures and effectiveness in ways that can damage team processes and patient outcomes. The aim of this paper is to highlight these characteristics and to extrapolate several important aspects of teamwork that have a powerful impact on team effectiveness across healthcare contexts.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper draws upon the literature from health services management and organisational behaviour to provide an overview of the current science of healthcare teams.\nFindings: - Underpinned by the input-process-output framework of team effectiveness, team composition, team task, and organisational support are viewed as critical inputs that influence key team processes including team objectives, leadership and reflexivity, which in turn impact staff and patient outcomes. Team training interventions and care pathways can facilitate more effective interdisciplinary teamwork.\nOriginality/value: - The paper argues that the prevalence of the term \"team\" in healthcare makes the synthesis and advancement of the scientific understanding of healthcare teams a challenge. Future research therefore needs to better define the fundamental characteristics of teams in studies in order to ensure that findings based on real teams, rather than pseudo-like groups, are accumulated.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Does teaching ethics do any good?	[ "Undergraduate students", "Scenarios", "Matched pairs", "Teaching business ethics" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The proliferation of business ethics courses assumes that ethics can be taught. A recent symposium at Stanford University's Centre for Ethics in Society asked (Dudani, 2014): \"Can classes in ethics make students more virtuous individuals? Or is that the wrong question to focus on?\" Questions about efficacy of teaching ethics in the curriculum of business schools have also been raised in the business press (\nGender: Gender is used in most empirical studies in this area as a control variable and is one of the most \"tangentially researched\" areas (Loe et al., 2000). However, the findings remain inconclusive. Franke et al.'s (1997) meta analysis of research on gender differences in respect of ethical perceptions in the business arena found that women are more likely than men to perceive business practices as unethical. This meta analysis also revealed that, as suggested by social role theory, gender differences observed in student samples declined with work experience and professional advancement. Wang and Calvano's (2015) surveyed undergraduate business students to examine the interactive effects of business ethics education on the moral judgement of men and women. They found that when students receive no business ethics education, women are more inclined to behave ethically than men. However, for those students who have had business ethics education this is reversed and women are less inclined to behave ethically in a business situation:\nCitizenship: A significant body of research links ethical values and attitudes to business behaviour and identifies differences across national cultures (Cohen et al., 1996; Armstrong, 1996; Loe et al., 2000; Sanyal, 2005; Alas, 2006). Hofstede's (1983) index, the basis for most studies of national culture, maps cultural differences using parameters of power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity and long-term orientation. Hofstede (1983) claims the individualism/collectivism dimension has \"strong moral overtones\" and leads to significant differences in terms of moral judgements. Countries including Australia, which rank highly on individualism, view individualism as a source of national strength. Countries such as China and Malaysia, with high collectivist rankings, on the other hand see individualism as self-centred and undermining of the general good of society. Studies have found a significant positive relationship between Hofstede's dimensions of uncertainty avoidance and individualism/collectivism and perceptions of the importance of ethical problems (Armstrong, 1996; Marta et al., 2003; Beekun et al., 2003; Reidenbach and Robin, 1990). Of particular relevance to this study is Sanyal's (2005) investigation of the relationship between national culture and the tolerance of accepting bribes or facilitation payments. While acknowledging that economic and cultural factors are important in explaining variations in the propensity to accept bribes/facilitation payments, Sanyal found that bribe-taking was more likely to occur in countries with high power distance and high masculinity scores on Hofstede's index. Baughn et al.'s (2010) study supported the connection between high power distance scores and tolerance of bribes. Mazar and Aggarwal's (2011) found that collectivism promotes bribery. Based on this literature, we would expect international students to start with a more relativist stance and shift to a more idealist position, and Australian residents to begin from a more idealist position:\nMethod: Sample and procedure\nResults: The matched-pairs design recorded participants' responses to four case scenarios in the first teaching week and compared each individual's response in the last week of the semester. This enabled analysis of students' starting position and changes in students' responses after a semester subject in business ethics. Our primary interest is on whether ethics education has a positive impact on students' responses to ethical scenarios. A positive impact is interpreted as a change to a more idealist position.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This matched-pairs study of undergraduates at an Australian University investigates whether business ethics education has a positive effect on student ethical behaviour. The paper aims to discuss this issue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study uses a matched-pairs design to look at responses before and after students have taken a semester-long unit in business ethics. The authors used ethical scenarios and analysed both the starting position and changes in responses for the total student group, and by gender and citizenship.\nFindings: The results from this matched-pairs study show ethics education has a limited impact on students' responses to ethical dilemmas.\nPractical implications: Ethics subjects are now ubiquitous in business schools, but it may be time to consider alternatives to the philosophical normative teaching approach.\nOriginality/value: This paper is significant in that it uses 142 matched pairs to look at responses before and after students have taken a semester-long unit in business ethics. This study provides qualified support for the proposition that business ethics education has an impact on students' ethical decision making.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Supply chain collaboration and firm's performance: The critical role of information sharing and trust	[ "Structural equation modelling", "Firm’s performance", "Supply chain management", "Information sharing", "Collaboration enablers" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Over the last decade, there has been growing attention on supply chain collaboration in order to improve the performance of individual companies as well as entire supply chains. A steady stream of reports on information sharing-centred collaboration in supply chains (e.g. Collaborative Planning Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR), Vender Managed Inventory (VMI), Efficient Consumer Response (ECR)) has been reported in the literature (Claassen et al., 2008; Prajogo and Olhager, 2012; Wu et al., 2014; Panahifar, Heavey, Byrne and Fazlollahtabar, 2015). The effects of supply chain collaboration on company performance have also been extensively documented. Supply chain collaboration through information sharing such as adopting CPFR and VMI has provided benefits to trading partners from different aspects such as improvement of forecasting accuracy, enhanced customer service quality and stronger relationship between partners. Sharing information appropriately is not an easy undertaking, so companies aiming at improving their performance using information sharing-centred collaboration face numerous challenges that result in a low implementation rate.\n2. Literature review and hypotheses developments: 2.1 Supply chain collaboration forms\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Structural equation modelling (SEM)\n4. Data analysis and results: 4.1 Measurement model\n5. Discussion: 5.1 Results interpretation\n6. Conclusions: While two factors including information sharing and trust have been addressed as the major aspects of supply chain integration and collaboration but rarely studies have considered simultaneously their interrelationships and impacts on supply chain collaboration using empirical data. Thus, the model developed in this research identifies the most importance characteristics needed for quality information sharing and their interrelationships. There are some important conclusions that can be drawn from this study:\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify and assess the interrelationships between various characteristics of information sharing and trust and their criticality for effective information-centred supply chain collaboration initiatives and, in turn, its criticality to overall firm's performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A survey of 189 executives from different firms was conducted and the resulting data were analysed to investigate how collaboration enablers affect effective collaboration and to determine its impacts on organisational performance. Structural equation modelling through partial least squares is used to study the relationships between four enablers (trust, information readiness, information accuracy and information security), perceived collaboration success, and two outcomes (sales growth and overall operational performance).\nFindings: The empirical results indicate that three collaboration enablers including trust, information readiness and secure sharing of information improve supply chain collaboration. The present study finds that \"secure sharing of information\" was the most important factor in fostering information sharing-centred collaboration. The present study also demonstrates that effective collaboration positively and significantly influences on firm's performance.\nPractical implications: This study provides researchers and practitioners with a more comprehensive understanding about the information sharing-centred collaboration, its enablers and effects on firms' performance in a supply chain context. Future research should focus on developing additional constructs that may capture other drivers of effective collaboration.\nOriginality/value: The present study makes an empirical contribution to the body of knowledge by investigating an integrated framework focussing on the enablers of collaboration through information sharing and its impact on firms' performance.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Promises from SOA: Reengineering a procurement process at Belgacom Mobile - a case study approach	[ "Business process management", "Innovation", "Automation", "Service‐oriented architecture", "IT‐enabled innovation", "Case", "Process redesign", "Belgium" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In order to survive and thrive in a highly competitive business environment, organizations need to be in control of their business processes. Moreover, organizations that find themselves in a sector with galloping technological developments experience the necessity of flexible processes characterized by a high degree of product independence (Becker et al., 2004). Belgacom Mobile, market leader in the Belgian mobile telecommunications market, finds itself in such a position and is continuously pressured by the smaller challengers in the market. Furthermore, the mobile telecommunications sector is known to develop at a rapid pace, driven by technological advances. It is, therefore, crucial for Belgacom Mobile to be capable of managing and optimizing its business processes and on top of that keeping them adaptable to emerging technologies.Business process management (BPM) is indeed an essential capability for many organizations. It provides a horizontal view of an organization's core business processes and the organization's capability of managing, improving and controlling these processes (Davenport, 1993). Zairi (1997) defines BPM as \"a structured approach to analyses and continually improve fundamental activities such as manufacturing, marketing, communications and other major elements of a company's operation.\"Service-oriented architecture (SOA) on the other hand, has emerged as an approach to design and integrate new applications in a process-oriented way. It is said to be a technological solution supporting the same objectives as BPM (Harmon, 2007; Trkman et al., 2011). Nevertheless, many practitioners still doubt the feasibility of SOA and some are not (yet) convinced of the added value created by the combination of BPM and SOA, which appears from ongoing discussions in several leading practitioners' articles and blogs (Silver, 2010). Although SOA has been widely researched from a technical point of view, there is a lack of empirical evidence of business value through SOA implementation (Beimborn et al., 2008). By means of this case study the authors hope to support the application of a combined BPM/SOA approach and contribute to the body of knowledge on the business value of SOA.At Belgacom Mobile, the supply chain manager had since long been looking for an opportunity to reengineer the SIM card purchase order management system (SPOMS). From the start, the idea of a combined BPM and SOA approach existed and eventually gained support from the other internal stakeholders as soon as it became clear that no standard solution was available. The originality of the final project set-up presents this case as the perfect example for showcasing BPM and SOA opportunities. First, relevant concepts of BPM, SOA and process-specific terms are situated. Next, the context, business case and set-up for the project are described. Subsequently, the project's main features and particularities are outlined. To conclude, the results of the Belgacom Mobile project are presented and the learning points and contributions are explained.\nTheoretical background: An architectural approach: promises from SOA\nBPM and SOA at work: SPOMS: For Belgacom Mobile, flexible and efficient core processes are a strategic objective. In order to be effective, a redesign effort should reconsider process activities and resources, and how they are conceived, planned and implemented (Damanpour, 1991). Davenport (1993) categorizes redesign projects as process innovations \"when they produce radically new configurations of assets and activities\". If the innovation effort is characterized by a high degree of IT involvement, it is described as \"IT-enabled innovation\".In the SPOMS case, the need to drastically innovate the process and its underlying IT system was obvious. The burning platform for initiating the project was the imminent risk of a system breakdown, with considerable consequences for the entire ordering process and hence for the overall position of Belgacom Mobile in a highly competitive market with mobile customers. Given the evident need, the project could be approached simultaneously as an opportunity to make the SIM card future-proof, thanks to a flexible and scalable design. Business processes in an environment such as the business environment in which Belgacom Mobile operates, with a multitude of supporting IT systems, are highly interdependent. In such circumstances \"IT alters the ways in which people work and execute business processes, both within the enterprise and with business partners and customers\" (El Sawy and Pavlou, 2008). As far as Belgacom is concerned, IT investments serve three purposes, which indicate the intended benefits accruing from IT: first, IT is an enabler for running the business (enabler); next, IT can help to grow the business (scalability) and lastly, IT has the ability to transform the business (flexibility). The SPOMS case could be regarded as an investment supporting each of these purposes (Table I).The SPOMS project\nAccomplishments: SOA and BPM living up to the promise: The performance of the redesigned and automated process was reviewed in May 2009. Data gathered from January to April 2009 were compared with data collected over the same period in 2008. As the renewed SPOMS went live in October 2008, it was considered that enough time had elapsed to gain experience and further refine the process before starting the comparison. The old and new SPOMS were compared based on the following criteria.Increased SIM card production capacity\nLessons learned: Lesson 1: the product factory\nFuture possibilities: A next step towards a future-proof SIM card procurement process could be to set up a business intelligence system to follow up on the KPIs of the supply chain process. The SPOMS dashboard was designed as an operational day-to-day dashboard for managing daily business operations. A next step that might be worth taking after several months of operational functioning and data gathering is to review the KPIs for operational excellence in a business intelligence cockpit report. The current SPOMS dashboard allows retrieving the necessary data, but a well-structured management report will provide KPI follow-up in a single overview, making it possible to develop an improvement plan for the KPIs, and pinpoint and eliminate recurring errors. Another option is to integrate other similar processes into the same processes/integration tool, thus leveraging further on the supply chain integration solution build.\nConclusion: Over the years, Belgacom Mobile's market position has come under increasing pressure due to fierce competition and changing customer demands. As the Telco sector is highly turbulent and known for its fast technological advances, flexible people and processes are crucial for keeping up with the competition. For marketing purposes it is extremely important to be able to launch SIM card campaigns as quickly as possible. In addition, the risk of process failure may affect Belgacom Mobile's brand image and market position. The SIM card order management process is therefore a core process for Belgacom Mobile and its reliable functioning is therefore an asset to the company as a whole.Verbeeck sums up the achievements of the SPOMS project:We have put a lot of hard work in SPOMS. We have prepared exceptionally well with a very strong team of people combining different backgrounds. The result is a truly versatile and solid new business process supported by tools that enable the front-line staff to provide the efficiency and flexibility our markets require. This business process innovation is actually the result of a combination of end-to-end thinking, team work, results orientation and, last but not least, an architectural approach to support not just sustainability of a technical solution but also design freedom for product managers.This paper contributes to the general understanding of combining an architectural approach with BPM in the frame of improvement projects. Managers gain a deeper insight into how process reengineering can enhance process flexibility and thus create room for product innovation generating benefits that go beyond mere internal efficiency gains. In general, due to the reduced total lead time, Belgacom Mobile can respond more quickly to market demands for promotional actions. This has strengthened the company's competitive position. In terms of project management, the SPOMS project stands out because it was completed on time and on budget, without major scope adjustments. Moreover, project insiders indicated a close collaboration between several business departments and the IT department as a key factor to the project's success. Ultimately, the new SPOMS process promises to deliver not only operational benefits, but also maximum process flexibility for new products to be introduced, which is one of the main drivers in the turbulent telecommunications sector. Furthermore, this case provides evidence of the business value of SOA and BPM investments, which was missing in the literature until now.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to support the application of a combined BPM (business process management)/SOA (service-oriented architecture) approach and contribute to the body of knowledge on the business value of SOA.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This case study highlights the promising results of a process reengineering project at Belgacom Mobile, Belgium's largest mobile telecommunications operator. The reengineering effort centered around a key automation pillar involving in particular the optimization of the SIM card ordering process. SOA principles were applied to ensure both the flexibility of the redesigned process and its capability of dealing with newly emerging SIM card types. This case demonstrates the potential benefits of combining BPM and SOA concepts to establish IT-enabled process innovation.\nFindings: - In terms of performance improvement, the studied project resulted in: increased process flexibility and consistency, considerably shorter lead times, and enhanced process control.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The findings from this case study present useful insights for other companies trying to reap the benefits of combined BPM and SOA. However, the single case study approach presents some limitations to the generalizability of the proposed learning points and concepts. Some case specific features such as the sector or company size might influence the generalizability. Nevertheless, the paper rather intends to trigger conceptual thinking about IT-enabled process innovation and an architectural approach.\nOriginality/value: - The added value of this project, which contributes to the general understanding of SOA potential for BPM, lies in its innovative approach, whereby product and process are separated by means of production process ID creation. The redesign approach thus provides a sustainable answer to the ever shortening life cycle of products and technologies. In particular process practitioners will find value in reading the learning points from this paper.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Constructing a research network: accounting knowledge in production	[ "Research network", "Accounting research", "Knowledge", "Actor‐network theory", "Controversies", "Translation", "Knowledge management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Knowledge establishment and advancement are strongly related to the current state of the research community in which this knowledge will be accommodated, disseminated and transformed (Latour, 1987, 2005, 2006). Correlatively, knowledge in a discipline is assumed to be positioned vis-a-vis the community in which it evolves. Individual pieces of research are inspired by prior works that they seek to enrich, alter, contradict or extend (Callon, 1999; Callon and Law, 1982). Interactions between scholars, journals, methods, theories and facts have established, advanced and expanded knowledge in most social sciences and constructed different research networks (Callon, 2009; Callon and Law, 1982; Latour, 1988, 2004, 2008).Although we know how knowledge has been produced and amended in social sciences and economics, Lukka and Granlund (2002, p. 166) reason that sociology-of-science approaches have \"not been widely applied in accounting research\". To date, this issue has been addressed through a few personal accounts by the most experienced scholars (Laughlin, 2007; Otley, 2003; Scapens, 2006) and papers that theorise the circumstances in which accounting knowledge can evolve (Laughlin, 1995, 2004) or how different schools of thought communicate with one another (Lukka and Granlund, 2002). This paper aims to fill this gap in the understanding of knowledge production by questioning how accounting knowledge is established, advanced and extended within a research network.The question is answered through the example of the body of research on connections between accounting and religion. This area is compact enough for us to be able to do justice to all the research it comprises. We do not claim to study a representative situation, but rather an expressive case[1] (Berry, 2005) by highlighting the main human and nonhuman actors involved in developing matters of concern and controversies. Consistent with this approach, we adopt the perspective of the sociology of scientific knowledge and more particularly Actor-Network Theory (ANT), a school of thought opposing the Mertonian sociology of scientific knowledge. Actor-Network Theory enables us to consider knowledge production, as neither a black box nor a structured institution, but a loose network in which various types of actors (researchers, universities, PhD programmes, journals, etc.) interact with each other in the establishment, advancement and development of knowledge (Latour, 1987). Thence, as Actor-Network Theory suggests, we follow the actors and unveil the constitution and amendment of accounting knowledge, enabling us to tell the story of that research network. We show that accounting knowledge development is the offspring of multiple translation processes originally initiated by any type of scholars. They problematise bases for reflection that are developed further by interested parties who are mobilised and ultimately enrolled in the network (Callon, 1985). These parties may be humans (colleagues and PhD students) or nonhumans (journals).This paper is divided into three sections. Section one positions the argument and sets out to explicate our ANT-based approach as applied to the research network dealing with linkages between accounting and religion. Section two shows how knowledge in this network has been advanced, established and developed since 1984 and draws upon research up to late 2011. Section three discusses the lessons that can be learnt from this story, before presenting our contribution and conclusion.\n1. Paper positioning: This section sets out to position the paper vis-a-vis the accounting literature. First, we discuss the research problem, i.e. our limited knowledge of how accounting knowledge is established, developed and advanced. To address this problem, we then explicate the Actor-Network Theory approach adopted in this paper. Finally, we expose the academic network chosen for this study as well as the methodology employed.1.1 Research problem: the mystery of accounting knowledge development\n2. Accounting and religion as a research network: In order to understand how accounting knowledge is produced, established and advanced within the accounting and religion network, we need to set some boundaries. Considering the editorial remark articulated by McPhail et al. (2005, p. 185) that Laughlin's (1988) paper marks the commencement of the network, we have decided to start the story there.2.1 Religion as the social context in which accounting can operate\n3. Discussion: Lessons as to how accounting knowledge is established, advanced and extended can be drawn from the story of the research network concerning accounting and religion.3.1 Networks, inter-paradigm communication and knowledge production\n4. Conclusion: The problem highlighted by this paper is the lack of understanding of how accounting knowledge is established, advanced and extended in a research network. In publications we have a snapshot view of accounting knowledge produced but ignore how we arrived at it. We know that scholars are expected to contribute to knowledge through publications in peer-reviewed journals. Although we know how a research project is designed and positioned within an academic network, how this network evolves and revolves is a mystery to us. Our study thus contributes to the sociology-of-science type of literature in accounting by following the actors creating and amending knowledge as they extend the boundaries of the network in which their research is disseminated. Given that a network is made up of actors constantly moving, we mobilise Actor-Network Theory to follow them in the ongoing constitution of the network they form to ultimately establish, advance and develop accounting knowledge.This paper contributes to knowledge in three respects. First, while ANT is generally used in accounting literature to address the dissemination of practices, discourses or tools (Alcouffe et al., 2008; Chua, 1995; Jones and Dugdale, 2002), we apply it to an object similar to that developed by its founders, i.e. the establishment, advancement and evolution of knowledge. Second, our research question and ANT-based approach lead us to open the black box that is accounting research. This enables us to show that accounting knowledge is established, advanced and evolves through the ongoing extension of network boundaries. We thereby demonstrate that knowledge advancement, establishment and development are more contingent on the breadth of the research than on paradigms. Epistemological discussions appear as a side-effect of network evolution. It stems from this that the problems and knowledge around which new actors are mobilised and enrolled are cumulative: as the network evolves, matters of interest and concern evolve and add to knowledge. We also show how mediators of knowledge, when they become nonhuman actors, autonomously and actively contribute to advancing, establishing and developing knowledge. Third, this paper contributes to methodological knowledge. Inviting authors' commentary and reflexive accounts on their publications offers us a behind-the-scenes view, thus enabling us to unfold how knowledge is advanced, established and developed within an academic network.Based on these conclusions, we can call for further research in the following three directions. First, a similar study on other networks could be conducted for a more in-depth understanding of the aspects emphasised in this paper. Other networks deserving academic interest include those dealing with the development of RAPM (Reliance on Accounting Performance Measures), ethnicity in cultural studies, gender studies or the practice turn in accounting research. Second, we do not open the black box of PhD supervision and examination. This offers opportunities for further research into the choice of a supervisor and examiners in the establishment, advancement and evolution of accounting knowledge. Third, the potency of the reflexive accounts by Otley, Scapens and Laughlin could influence interdisciplinary accounting journals to publish more personal research journeys. AAAJ as a major actor in the development of accounting thought could publish such personal accounts by experienced researchers and offer a counter-programme to the British Accounting Review, so far the only journal to do so.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the sociology-of-science type of accounting literature, addressing how accounting knowledge is established, advanced and extended.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research question is answered through the example of research into linkages between accounting and religion. Adopting an actor-network theory (ANT) approach, the paper follows the actors involved in the construction of accounting as an academic discipline through the controversies in which they engage to develop knowledge.\nFindings: - The paper reveals that accounting knowledge is established, advanced and developed through the ongoing mobilisation of nonhumans (journals) who can enrol other humans and nonhumans. It shows that knowledge advancement, establishment and development is more contingent on network breadth than on research paradigms, which appear as side-effects of positioning vis-a-vis a community.\nOriginality/value: - The originality of this paper is twofold. First, ANT is applied to accounting knowledge, whereas the accounting literature applies it to the spread of management accounting ideas, methods and practices. Second, an original methodology for data collection is developed by inviting authors from the network to give a reflexive account of their writings at the time they joined the network. Well diffused in sociology and philosophy, such an approach is, albeit, original in accounting research.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Social learning in smallholder agriculture: the struggle against systemic inequalities	[ "Social learning", "Dado", "Debo", "Iddir", "Informal institution", "Systemic inequalities" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Ethiopia operates a large agricultural extension service system (Leta et al., 2017a). However, access to knowledge and expertise within the existing epistemic system[1] is unequally distributed among smallholder farmers. The majority of farmers resort to community-level social learning for the acquisition of knowledge and/or contribution to knowledge production. For these farmers, social learning is a coping mechanism against their \"exclusion\" in knowledge and technology transfer. The Ethiopian agricultural extension service heavily relies on so-called model farmers, often part of the local economic and political elites, who are entrusted with the task of technology demonstration and dissemination. The systemic emphasis on a certain group of farmers may work to the detriment of the rest of the farmers, and is known to be related to the concept of epistemic oppression (Dotson, 2014). According to Dotson (2014), \"epistemic oppression refers to a persistent and unwarranted infringement on the ability to utilize persuasively shared epistemic resources that hinder one's contribution to knowledge production and possession\".\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Social learning: an overview\n3. Concept and hypothesis: In this study, we adopted the concept of \"epistemic oppression\" (Dotson, 2014) to analyze social learning based on our data and practical experience of the Ethiopian agriculture and extension system. Epistemic oppression refers to the \"persistent epistemic exclusion that hinders one's contribution to knowledge production\" (Dotson, 2014). According to Dotson, epistemic forms of oppression are reducible to social and political forms of oppression. This means, persistent epistemic exclusion is the outcome of social and political oppression. Apart from the reducible, she declared the existence of an irreducible forms. In her argument, Dotson remarked, the difficulty of addressing both forms of epistemic oppression. However, the reducible forms can often be addressed by using the epistemic resources within the epistemological system, whereas addressing the irreducible form is difficult due to its epistemological features, and it can only be addressed through recognizing the limits of one's overall frameworks (Dotson, 2014). The reducible epistemic exclusion is pertaining to access inequity in the Ethiopian agricultural extension system that needs the application of alternative learning approach from within the community that counter and reduce its growing effects.\n4. Research methods: The empirical field work for this study was carried out for 12 months in 2015-2016 in the Bako-Tibe district, Oromia Regional State, and in Yem district, Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Regional State (SNNPRS), both in Southwestern Ethiopia (see Figure 1). The study involves purposely selected sites in four lower administrative units (kebeles), two each from Bako-Tibe and Yem districts. A mixed methods approach combining qualitative and quantitative data collection tools was used (Creswell, 2009; Bernard, 2006; Ritchie and Lewis, 2003).\n5. Results and discussion: 5.1 Social learning in smallholder agriculture\n6. Implication for practice: Recognizing the role of informal institutions such as the iddir/abalaga in social learning and broadening their roles and scope of action would increase the ground for steadfast learning. Similarly, aside from the state-driven one-to-five farmer group formation to promote collective action, encouraging self-motivated collective working groups that can nurture active community operations can be envisaged as practical future prospects.\n7. Limitations and recommendations for future research: This study addressed how smallholder farmers in Ethiopia use social, community-level learning to access and share agricultural knowledge, technologies and inputs that they were not be able to access through the extension system. Informal institutions and socio-cultural events play key roles as learning platforms to minimize the prevailing bottlenecks. Aside from iddir that extensively coordinates the role of actors, other social learning methods such as dado selectively involve individuals in the collective labor group. As such choices are based on social networks and trustworthiness, it can foreclose certain groups of people such as the old, weak, disable and inactive persons. Furthermore, a hosting housewife may not be directly involved in activities of collective labor group. Rather, women are expected to cook and cater food and drinks for the participants. In such cases, women are excluded from the social learning opportunity. This study neither disaggregated the investigation of social learning by gender nor involved the excluded groups of people. Therefore, considering these groups would be essential to give a complete picture of social learning in agriculture.\n8. Conclusions: The paper analyzed social learning in smallholder Ethiopian agriculture and showed how farmers acquire agricultural knowledge collectively and informally using Dotson's concept of \"epistemic oppression\". Using this frame for assessing the situation of agricultural extension is the novelty offered by this article as the theory was mainly applied in the feminist epistemological work. Dotson views the concept in two facets: the reducible and irreducible forms of exclusion. The reducible epistemic exclusion admitted as - the result of social and political forms of oppression that is in line with the Ethiopian agricultural extension system. The conceptual argument is related to the disaggregated extension services system that favors some and disfavors the other majority from access, and benefiting from and contributing to the system. Apart from the social and political forms, the Ethiopian extension system mainly entails economic exclusion. In this case, the resource-poor farmer implicitly denied the access right to technology, inputs, as well as knowledge. Apart from the system's bias to the better-off farmers who are often considered as model and conveyor of technology through piloting it, the resource-poor farmers are epistemically oppressed and less motivated to learning via extension. It is also attributed to the lack of associating the extension learning with relevant technologies and inputs to different farmer categories. As a result, the poor consider their participation in extension as an astray. Further, the coupling of extension with non-extension activities discourages farmers' learning from the formal extension system. Therefore, the epistemic oppression framework gave us the insight and ground to analyze access inequity in the Ethiopian agricultural extension system and shed light on hands-on methods to mitigate the prevailing effects using social, community-level learning in smallholder agriculture.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Ethiopia operates a large agricultural extension service system. However, access to extension-related knowledge, technologies and agricultural inputs is unequally distributed among smallholder farmers. Social learning is widely practiced by most farmers to cope with this unequal distribution though its practices have hardly been documented in passing on knowledge of agriculture and rural development or embedding it into the local system of knowledge production, transfer and use. The purpose of this study is, therefore, to identify the different methods of social learning, as well as their contribution to the adoption and diffusion of technologies within Ethiopia's smallholder agricultural setting.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A mixed methods approach was used, comprising farmer and expert interviews, focus group discussions, informal individual discussions and key informant interviews. The data were documented, coded and later analyzed using SPSS and ATLAS.ti.\nFindings: The findings showed that 55 per cent of the farmers in the studied areas fully relied on social, community-level learning to adopt agricultural technologies, while 35 per cent of them relied on social learning only partly. Farmers acquired knowledge through social networks by means of communication, observation, collective labor groups, public meetings, socio-cultural events and group socialization. Informal institutions such as iddir, debo and dado, helped farmers learn, adopt and diffuse technologies.\nOriginality/value: This study used the concept of epistemic oppression by Dotson (2014) as a conceptual framework to examine farmers' access to extension services and to analyze how informal institutions serve as workplace learning for the smallholder farmers. The authors suggest community-level social learning serves as a coping mechanism against the prevailing limitations of the formal extension system, and at the same time, it guards against the deepening of social, political and epistemic inequalities that are inherent to the knowledge system.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Decision quality and satisfaction: the effects of online information sources and self-efficacy	[ "China", "Digital libraries", "Social media", "Decision quality", "Online information sources", "Self-efficacy in acquiring information" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Decision making is a fundamental activity for individuals. Various types of decision making have been extensively investigated in prior studies, such as retail buyer decision making (Kline and Wagner, 1994), choice of travel destinations by older adults (Patterson, 2007), medical decisions by adults (Couper et al., 2010), knowledge management strategic decision making by business managers (Lin, Cole and Dalkir, 2014), and resident decision making upon receiving tornado warnings (Luo et al., 2015). Given that human decision making is often subject to biases (Davern et al., 2008), the influence of information sources on decision making has long been the focus of research (e.g. O'Reilly, 1982; Shaw, 1982; Saunders and Jones, 1990). With the development of information and communication technologies (ICT), digital libraries and social media emerged as two important and distinct online information sources which are increasingly used by individuals studying or teaching at universities. However, the existing literature contains few studies investigating the influence of digital libraries and social media on decision making in the academic context of universities.\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 Information sources and decision making\n3. Research model and hypotheses development: Self-efficacy theory and prior research on the relationship between information sources and decision making provide sound theoretical background to our proposed study. In the modern information society, people are likely to acquire information from various sources, including digital libraries and social media. The information in digital libraries is produced by experts, while the information in social media is produced by a crowd of users. This study integrates self-efficacy with conventional and unconventional information sources, exploring the effect of digital libraries, social media and SEAI on decision quality in study/work. In addition, it explores the moderating effect of SEAI. The research model is presented in Figure 1.\n4. Method and data collection: 4.1 Measures development\n5. Data analysis and results: 5.1 Measurement model validation\n6. Discussion: 6.1 Discussion of findings\n7. Conclusion: The influence of information sources on decision making has long been the focus of prior research. In the modern information society, information overload which has been widely recognized as a problem implies that information sources with the amount of potentially useful information per se do not necessarily guarantee good decision making. This study integrates self-efficacy into the analysis of the relationship between information sources and decision making. The findings indicate that the effect of digital library usage for acquiring information on PDQ is larger than the effect of social media usage for acquiring information on PDQ. SEAI is the key determinant for PDQ. The effect of social media usage for acquiring information on PDQ is positively moderated by SEAI. We believe our study makes theoretical contributions to literature regarding the relationship between information sources and decision making, and its findings have important implications for research and practice alike.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Digital libraries and social media are two sources of online information with different characteristics. The purpose of this paper is to integrate self-efficacy into the analysis of the relationship between information sources and decision making, and to explore the effect of self-efficacy on decision making, as well as the interacting effect of self-efficacy and information sources on decision making.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Survey data were collected and the partial least squares structural equation modeling was employed to verify the research model.\nFindings: The effect of digital library usage for acquiring information on perceived decision quality (PDQ) is larger than that of social media usage for acquiring information on PDQ. Self-efficacy in acquiring information (SEAI) stands out as the key determinant for PDQ. The effect of social media usage for acquiring information on PDQ is positively moderated by SEAI.\nPractical implications: Decision making is a fundamental activity for individuals, but human decision making is often subject to biases. The findings of this study provide useful insights into decision quality improvement, highlighting the importance of SEAI in the face of information overload.\nOriginality/value: This study integrates self-efficacy into the analysis of the relationship between information sources and decision making, presenting a new perspective for decision-making research and practice alike.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Cleaning management of owner-operated real estate	[ "Owner‐managers", "Cleaning", "Costs", "Real estate", "Switzerland" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: According to Avis and Gibson (1995), real estate used in their own operations is the second or third largest cost factor for most companies. Against this background, reduction of this cost factor is a major focus of activities at many corporate real estate management divisions. To date, cleaning expenses for real properties are frequently underestimated in this context, being treated as a secondary cost category.Such an approach is misdirected, however, as has been shown by the most recent Swiss survey (Stoy, 2005) among others. For instance, the survey carried out by Macsporran and Tucker (1996, p. 110) ascertained a cleaning cost share of nearly 20 per cent of the operating costs. Accordingly, cleaning costs are at least on the same order of relevance as the often-discussed cost of energy. Optimising cleaning costs thus represents a relevant challenge for corporate real estate management divisions.As a result of their cost relevance outlined above and the growing cost pressures on CREM divisions, cleaning costs are increasingly becoming a focus of attention in Switzerland. Part of the effort is aimed at identifying cost indicators for guiding the operations of corporate real estate. In part, the effort involves the search for opportunities to impact cleaning costs. Only a more in-depth understanding of both approaches will enable the long-term optimisation of cleaning costs.This study also examines this issue, using Swiss owner-operated office buildings as an example. Against this background, this study provides answers to the following questions, using a primary data set and regression analysis as a basis:RQ1. What are the cleaning cost indicators?RQ2. What are the drivers influencing the cleaning cost indicators?This study thus uses the example of Swiss owner-operated office buildings to provide the basis for defining cleaning cost indicators and for affecting such costs. By doing so, it significantly expands the understanding of this relevant cost category, which has been little analyzed to date.For the purposes of answering the second question, this study relies primarily on studies from the English-speaking region, such as the BMI Building Maintenance Information (2003) which identifies the relevant drivers of cleaning costs, based on a secondary data set, as follows:* size, shape and layout;* intensity of use; and* location.The first section of this paper examines the basis of the data survey (definition of costs and area types) more closely. In addition, the studies outlined above, which provided the - from a theoretical perspective - relevant cost drivers, are once again described in greater detail. The second section presents the survey sample and the results from data analysis and, finally, the paper concludes with a discussion of the insights gained.\nDefinitions and potential cost drivers: Definition of cleaning costs pursuant to DIN 18960\nAnalysis of cost drivers: Data pool of the study\nDiscussion of results: The purpose of this study was to identify both indicators and relevant drivers of cleaning costs. To this end, this study collected data from over 100 owner-operated office buildings within Switzerland and examined this data using regression analysis. As a result, the cleaning costs of the examined properties revealed a median of approximately 41 CHF/m2 usable floor area and year. Furthermore, the minimum and maximum values of 13 CHF/m2 usable floor area and year and 116 CHF/m2 usable floor area and year, respectively, were ascertained, as demonstrated by the considerable distribution of costs.With regard to cost drivers, it was established that both building characteristics (such as the share of facade, circulation and vehicle parking areas in the usable floor area) and usage (such as the share of vacancies and leased space in the usable floor area) determine the costs. However, the decisive drivers are, above all, the management strategies (such as the outsourcing degree of property management) and the owner's main objectives. For the properties surveyed, the outsourcing of cleaning services indicates a negative causal relationship with costs. The cleaning costs are lower for those surveyed properties whose property management has been outsourced.The transferability of the findings is, to some extent, limited on two grounds. On the one hand it is a study that is based exclusively on Swiss properties. To what extent the findings would be applicable to Germany or the UK, for instance, remains an open question. However, since the definitions of costs and space are uniform, at least for the German-speaking countries, and since the findings largely reflect a review of the literature, the relationship between cause and effect can be assumed to be comparable.A second point of criticism with respect to the study is the size and composition of the survey sample, which is based solely on four project partners. The degrees of outsourcing, for example, proved to be specific to the individual project partners; therefore the degrees of outsourcing of the survey sample show little variation. Thus, the relationships identified between degrees of outsourcing and costs could not be confirmed statistically. However, two further results obtained by this study support the relationships as presented. First, the interviews held with the experts confirm the above statements. Second, the frequency distribution identified for cleaning and maintenance costs could not be correlated as strongly to any other driver in the study. Indeed, the cleaning and maintenance costs are correlated most prominently with the degree of outsourcing. Thus, the causal relationships between degrees of outsourcing and costs may be considered to be well-founded hypotheses, which require verification primarily through future analyses.Further studies must address the two points of criticism indicated above by expanding the survey sample both in terms of size and of its regional distribution. The authors further consider it appropriate to expand the content of the study by including, above all, the consequences of the cleaning services. Thus, the question arises, for instance, to what extent cleaning costs are influenced on the one hand by the time at which the services are performed (during office hours or at night) and on the other hand to what extent the workflow for the employees would be restricted by cleaning during office hours. This more extensive view, in particular, would cast a new light on, and help support the comprehensive optimisation of cleaning costs.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The costs of cleaning owner-operated office buildings amount to an approximate 20 per cent share of the operating costs. As a result of their cost relevance and the growing cost pressures on real estate divisions, cleaning costs are increasingly coming under focus. This interest manifests itself in the search for cost indicators and their drivers to be used as a basis for the management of real estate. This paper seeks to address this issue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A study of the specialist literature revealed, from a theoretical perspective, the relevant drivers of cleaning costs. The empirical study is based on cost and property information collected, on a uniform basis, from over 100 owner-operated office buildings in Switzerland, with the analysis of cost drivers being carried out using regression analysis.\nFindings: - The cleaning cost indicators of the examined properties revealed a median of 41 CHF/m2 usable floor area and year. With regard to cost drivers, it was established that both building characteristics and usage determine the costs. However, the decisive drivers are, above all, the management strategies and the owners' main objectives.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The management strategies proved to be specific to the individual project partners. The causal relationships between strategies (e.g. outsourcing strategies) and costs may be considered to be well-substantiated hypotheses, which require verification by means of future analyses.\nOriginality/value: - The study identified both indicators and relevant drivers of cleaning costs. To this end, this study collected data from over 100 owner-operated office buildings within Switzerland and examined these data using regression analysis. As a result, the cleaning costs of the examined properties were ascertained.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A problem-solving approach to value-adding decision making in construction design	[ "Design calculations", "Problem solving", "Structural design", "Construction works", "Value chain" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This paper discusses the development and use of a \"Value Adding Toolbox\" to structure and document value delivery from construction design decisions. The paper reviews established value delivery methods with reference to the project process and design problem solving. Toolbox development is presented with reference to the Austin et al.'s (2001) design chain view of collaborative design in the construction project supply chain. The principles of toolbox function are illustrated and determined to be capable of supporting value delivery by relating design decisions to stakeholder expectations.\nThe need to improve value delivery: Construction clients increasingly demand documented evidence of the steps taken to deliver value. Although their understanding of value varies (see Table I), the more sophisticated views emerging require broad and flexible measures on the part of designers to justify design decisions in terms of value delivery. The industry's current approach (see Kelly and Male, 1993 and McGeorge et al., 2002 for examples) is characterised by value management in the project stages occurring before Final Proposals in the RIBA Plan of Work (Phillips, 2000).Existing practices do not facilitate value delivery when solving technical design problems because they are constrained to briefing and conceptual design. They do not provide designers with means of investigating the relationship between their design decisions made during detailed design stages and the value expectations of project stakeholders. Instead, design is focused on fulfilling technical and performance specifications in these later project stages. This practice assumes that briefing will have adequately captured stakeholders' expectations in these specifications and that these expectations will remain constant throughout the project. However, in their \"briefing as a process\" view, Barrett and Stanley (1999) have challenged this assumption, arguing that value must continue to be considered in all design activity, irrespective of the stage in which it occurs.Although stakeholders remain concerned with the monetary value of the buildings they procure, broader interpretations of the term \"value\" are gaining currency. A key element of these views address value in terms of the affect that a building has on the people influenced by it. UK Government (Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 2000), Professional Bodies (Loe, 2000; Worpole, 2000) and Industry/Government Review Panels (Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, 2003, 2002) are advocating address of the social implications of buildings.Despite its awareness of the need to deliver value in this broad sense, Saxon (2002) notes that \"the [construction] industry knows little of how it adds value to customers or society.\" There is a need, therefore, to understand what is meant by \"value\" within each project and to reflect that insight in design decisions. The objectivist view of value embedded in traditional approaches such as value management must be complemented by a subjectivist view that accommodates the judgement of value that occurs within the relationships between buildings (and their embedded design solutions) and people. Given that the product features that inform these judgements of value are defined by design decisions, it follows that design decision making should be the primary focus of a subjectivist approach. A flexible approach to value delivery stimulated by the emerging \"value agenda\" must be reflected in design method.Austin and Thomson (1999) proposed integral value engineering (IVE) to deliver value from existing, product-focused, methods and from emerging, process-focused, business models. In design, integral value engineering extends:* the duration of value delivery, by linking current value management practice during inception, briefing and conceptual design to the later project stages in which most design decisions are made; and* the source of value delivery, by allowing any design chain member with relevant design expertise to contribute to collaborative design.This paper describes the development of a \"Value Adding Toolbox\" to facilitate and integrate the practice of IVE. The toolbox can be used by designers to relate their design decisions to stakeholder expectations using collaboration where appropriate (Austin and Thomson, 2001). Thus, a subjectivist approach to value delivery that validates design decisions with reference to the people influenced by them can be established as a response to clients' demand for a more sophisticated treatment of value.\nEstablishing a context for value delivery: Business environment\nThe Value Adding Toolbox: Principles\nToolbox application: Deployment\nCase studies: The role of case studies\nLessons learned: Establishing toolbox use in design practice\nConclusions: This paper presented an approach to value delivery that continually relates individual design solutions to project stakeholders. This represents an advance of both method and scope of value delivery in construction projects. In addition to the methods used at the project level, the role of design collaboration within a design chain to encourage and frame that problem solving has also been described. The role of a Value Adding Toolbox as a common device for cross-organisation collaboration has been described, and the potential of the design chain and integral value engineering in facilitating that collaboration has also been outlined.Value management has been observed to be a well-established team-based practice that addresses value in functional terms during project briefing and conceptual design. Integral value engineering complements this existing practice by using resources such as the Value Adding Toolbox introduced by this paper to structure and document individual designers' assessment of stakeholder value throughout project design. Further, by relating design decisions to stakeholders, the use of a Value Adding Toolbox provides a first step toward establishing the subjectivist treatment of value required in response to clients' growing demand and the growing value agenda of the construction industry.Via case study review, toolbox validation exercises have proven the hypothesis that the provision of a Value Adding Toolbox can help designers address stakeholder value. Given these findings, the development of a Value Adding Toolbox is recommended. Ideally, this would occur in a managed design chain (where design collaboration between supply chain members will be more forthcoming than with traditional practice) and in support of the practice of integral value engineering (to extent the scope of project design within which value delivery is explicitly considered).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To illustrate the use of a Value Adding Toolbox by construction industry designers when addressing customer value expectations using problem solving.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Focused literature review establishes the need for construction industry design solutions to deliver customer value and a Value Adding Toolbox is proposed in response. Case studies validate Toolbox use and one illustrative example is provided. Interviews with prospective Toolbox users identify barriers to adoption and inform a recommended approach to organisational adoption.\nFindings: - The Toolbox is found to be effective at helping construction designers to solve technical design problems with regard to customer expectations of value. However, designers are found to be initially reluctant to adopt the new tool. Organisation learning is therefore required to establish the importance of customer value satisfaction as a prerequisite to Toolbox adoption by designers.\nOriginality/value: - This paper provides a useful insight into the practical application of problem-solving tools by construction designers to better understand customer needs.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Creative women in advertising agencies: why so few "babes in boyland"?	[ "Advertising agencies", "Women workers", "Women" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: A decade ago an article titled \"Babes in boyland\" appeared in Creativity and asked, why are there so few women in agency creative departments (Kazenoff and Vagnoni, 1997). Unfortunately, it is still a pertinent question today with at least one startling answer. On October 6, 2005, at a forum of top advertising industry creative talent - all men - celebrated the work of Neil French, the legendary copywriter. When French was asked why there were so few female creative directors, he replied that the work of women in creative departments is \"crap ... and they don't make it to the top because they don't deserve to\" (Sampey and O'Leary, 2005).\nIt's a boys' club, after all: When Diane Rothschild was inducted into the One Club's Creative Hall of Fame, the second woman ever so honored, she said that Neil French's attitude was emblematic of his generation. \"Based on the world according to uninspired, rigid, time-warped and aging advertising men, I should be home right now in a little apron,\" Rothschild is quoted as saying. \"Where I shouldn't be is here being inducted into the Creative Hall of Fame\" (Bosman, 2005, p. 1).Indeed, many creative departments are like male fraternities, housed in agencies that have men's names on the door. Marcia Stone once said Carmichael Lynch in Minneapolis had an old-boys mentality. \"The whole culture was about going to ride Harleys together and go golfing,\" Stone is quoted as saying. \"They'd go to biker bars and go fishing in Canada together. I wasn't invited in that clique. If you're a woman, it's very hard to be accepted\" (Bosman, 2005, p. 1). Others tell the often-repeated observations of the quantity of business that takes place at exclusive all-male settings such as a private golf course. Men in the agency would take clients to play at a prestigious club that wouldn't allow women on the course or at the 19th hole bar.Others fit in by \"being one of the guys,\" such as being a tomboy with a good knowledge of sports or sports columnists so conversations could be filled with references to the topic of the day. Margaret Ellman, now a freelance copywriter in New York, said she made her male colleagues more comfortable by wearing baggy clothes and being funny. \"Being a bit of a 'tomboy' was also an insurance policy against being moved over to women's products, which can happen when a woman comes off as being 'too feminine'\" (Kazenoff and Vagnoni, 1997).Women also tell stories of being excluded from certain accounts. Diane Cook-Tench was once turned down for an art director's position at an agency because they handled masculine accounts. \"I was appalled and relieved at the same time,\" she said adding, \"it seemed ridiculous to me that women couldn't develop a campaign for a chainsaw\" (Kazenoff and Vagnoni, 1997). Janet Kestin, now a co-creative chief at Ogilvy & Mather/Toronto, had a similar experience. \"In my first job, women weren't supposed to work on beer or cars, and weren't allowed to tell if they did. I worked on beer, but I never went to a meeting, never presented my own work. The account director said, 'You can no more understand beer than I can understand tampons'\" (Kestin, 1998). A similar argument is used for minority groups. \"With an implicit assumption that women and members of minority groups are incapable of applying a marketing orientation to these different customers, these advertising people are seen as being only able to prepare advertising for people physically like themselves\" (Rotfeld, 2003, p. 87).Those in the boy's club made assumptions and showed biases when women entered the room. \"It's still a macho world. At meetings, men thought I was in charge of taking notes,\" said Anne de Maupeou, a creative director at a European agency. Judy John related a similar experience. \"When I was younger, no one looked at me. In a male-female partnership, clients only talked to the guy\" (Kestin, 1998).It also seems harder for women to win peer recognition. Many award shows had either all-male juries or one or two token women. It wasn't until 2004 that the chairman of the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival mandated that women should have at least 25 percent of the judging positions, after decades of heavily male or all-male juries (Bosman, 2005). Of course, all-male or heavily male-dominated juries reward appeals, especially humor, created by men to appeal to men. \"The best creative brains in the business are still cranking out provocative, edgy, often sublimely produced TV spots for young adult males\" (Vagnoni, 2005). This, in turn, results in men dominating in creative awards or creative awards annuals (Mallia, 2006).\nWhere have all the girls gone?: Looking at the literature and listening to what other creatives say, the often-repeated comments describe guys wanting to be comfortable with guys (e.g. Bosman, 2005). One explanation for the exclusion of women is homophily in network relationships; that is, people tend to interact with others who are similar on attributes such as sex, race and education (Ibarra, 1992). Put more plainly, men hire people like themselves, namely other men, creating the old boy's network.Sally Hogshead once said that \"creative departments are Darwinian, and men have the strengths that are encouraged and rewarded in the ad business\" (Parpis and Anderson, 2005). Other successful creative women echo that a certain breed of women tends to be successful in the business, and they tend to have what are traditionally male characteristics.French implied the lack of creative women had to do with children when he said women wimp out and \"go suckle something\" (Vonk, 2005). For some women, perhaps, it isn't just a parenting issue. Maybe women don't care about the power that men strive for. \"Advertising is so competitive and so tough,\" said a freelance copywriter, \"maybe women just don't want to put up with the bullshit. Maybe they're more well-balanced. Maybe they're not willing to drop everything to get up there to the power positions\" (Kazenoff and Vagnoni, 1997).French's rationalization for why there are so few women raises another question. After making his \"women aren't committed\" statement, he later said that \"he was merely articulating cold, hard truths: being a creative director is a hell of a job, and anyone interested in looking after a family just can't devote the required time and energy\" (Iezzi, 2005). So does this imply that men have no interest in their families? Marie-Catherine Dupuy, vice-chairman and chief creative officer at TBWA France (and a mother of four) said, \"You always have this stupid question, 'How can you manage private life and business?' Nobody asks this question to men\" (Iezzi, 2005). In fact, it has been reported that only 8 percent of men encounter assumptions about their job commitment because of their gender compared to 30 percent of women (Thomas Yoccato and Yaeger, 2003).But perhaps the biggest issue with the French attitude is its self-fulfilling prophecy. \"If a male creative director is already convinced a woman is extremely limited in her ability and value, what lens is he seeing her work through? Would you expect him to offer the same support and guidance and consideration he gives men? ... Might she respond with less than her best effort when the adored leader expects little of her? Might she want to leave, not to have babies but because the conditions for her to succeed don't exist and the message 'she can't succeed' is too discouraging?\" (Vonk, 2005, p. 19).This is a daunting situation for any young woman in a new creative position, but there is another issue as well. The male-dominated department undoubtedly affects the messages that are created to target women consumers.\n\"Why is advertising that's aimed at women so horrible?\": Jane Talcott, a senior creative director at Young & Rubicam, asked this question for so long that in the late 1990s she helped found The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Awards. Managed by the Advertising Women of New York, these awards are \"to recognize intelligent, respectful, insightful images of women in advertising - and to chastise demeaning, sophomoric, tasteless work\" (Vagnoni, 2005, p. 53).The fact that women make up to 80 percent of household purchase decisions makes the dominance of men in creative departments especially striking. To some, the gender imbalance helps explain why polls and focus groups report some advertising as sexist (Bosman, 2005). Those in the ad business are still pretty clueless about how to talk to women (Vagnoni, 2005).Just as children aren't little adults, you can't appeal to women by starting with the premise that they aren't men. Yet that is often the perspective men have when targeting women. Lorraine Tao of Zig noted, \"For decades, women have been spoken to in the voice of men. Creative departments have always been made up of men, so naturally - through no fault of their own - they tend to create advertising from a distinctly male perspective. This is changing, but they still represent the majority\" (Thomas Yoccato and Yaeger, 2003, p. 193).Giving women more influence within creative departments would enhance the advertising industry on two fronts: better advertising messages (for women and maybe even men) as well as a better work environment. First, potential talent is lost when half the population in the creative pool is overlooked, and better talent is the genesis of better advertising. Second, while the work-life balance is important to women, especially those with children, it is also important for men, though they might be less likely to admit it (e.g. Hall, 2000).Giving women a voice may do something important for every advertising agency - making it more productive, making its advertising more effective and, in the process, making the agency more money. And it could be a win for consumers as well as the advertising industry.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to explore reasons why there are so few women in creative departments of advertising agencies and to discuss what impact that might have on the work environment of those creative departments and advertising messages they create.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Provides a review of published research and plus opinions of professionals who cover the advertising industry or work in agency creative departments. Personal observations from the authors' time working in the advertising industry are also included.\nFindings: - Themes gleaned from the literature look at the gender gap, the creative department of advertising agencies as an \"old-boys network,\" reasons why women leave creative jobs, and why advertising targeting women as consumers is so bad.\nPractical implications: - Women opt out of advertising agencies for any number of reasons - more than just having babies. Keeping women's voices in creative departments would give a better balance to the messages agencies create.\nOriginality/value: - Changing creative departments to be more accommodating and flexible to women's needs might not only make them better for women, but also better for men and for families. In addition, the messages from those creative departments may be more compelling to consumers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Unpaid overtime in the Netherlands: forward- or backward-looking incentives?	[ "Careers", "Employee behaviour", "Motivation (psychology)", "Compensation", "Human resource management", "Hours of work", "Financial benefits" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Two different and partially conflicting approaches to work motivation can be distinguished. The first approach, firmly rooted in neoclassical economics and economic organization theory, presupposes that economic incentives are the best motivators to increase productivity. The underlying argument is that performance-contingent rewards offer the strongest incentives to work hard. The problem that output is not always easy to measure has in recent decades been solved by the development of reward systems which make maximum use of information about performance. In these systems, performance is evaluated over a longer period, usually in comparison to that of other workers. The usual rewards are bonuses and promotions. Since these rewards are delayed and uncertain, we will call these systems of forward-looking incentives, following Bell and Freeman (2001).\nUnpaid overtime: Unpaid overtime is referred to as the unpaid extra-contractual hours performed by the employee. These hours are added to the number of hours per week explicitly stated in the contract. They are referred to as unpaid overtime, since this extra-contractual effort is not remunerated. In the Netherlands, as in other western countries, unpaid overtime is the residual category for extra-contractual work hours that do not fall into any category of paid overtime. When maximum work hours legislation was introduced, it was agreed between trade unions and employers that some categories of workers, mainly blue collar workers, would get paid for overtime hours, if such hours were demanded by their employer. All other workers were not entitled to payments. The implicit agreement was that workers in intrinsically motivating, well-paid jobs should, if necessary, be willing and able to make an extra effort without compensation. Employers were denied the legal and moral right to intervene in this decision. In Dutch literature on unpaid overtime, no indications are found that employers have attempted to intervene in these decisions. This residual category of unpaid overtime has been a marginal phenomenon in the economic literature for a long time. OECD statistics did not record the number of hours, because figures are deemed unreliable. Different surveys do indeed yield different numbers of hours, yet these surveys also show that many workers work unpaid overtime hours.\nThe efficiency of forward-looking incentives systems: Bell and Freeman (2001) have made a strong case for the argument that differences in work hours between the USA and Germany are a response to differences in income inequality. According to their inequality-hours thesis, it is the effectiveness of forward-looking incentives that determines the differences in work hours. These incentives are effective in both countries, but their impact is much greater in the USA, because of the greater wage inequality. Bell and Freeman present the forward-looking incentives system as the most efficient motivation system, and therefore set the USA as an example to Europe.\nBackward-looking incentives: The economic orthodoxy that workers are primarily motivated by forward-looking incentives is often challenged by psychologists, sociologists, and, increasingly, economists (Akerlof, 1982; Frey, 1997; Bewley, 1999; Fehr and Falk, 2002). Motivations other than forward-looking material incentives can also be the main reason for making an extra effort. Such motivations are job satisfaction, pleasure in the work itself, the relationships with co-workers, the relationship with the employer or a relatively good wage rate.\nData and method: In our analyses we use the OSA[2] labour supply data (Fouarge et al., 1999). OSA is a series of panel data sets, based on two-yearly surveys among a representative sample of the Dutch population. Attrition of the panel data are countered by additional sampling. We use data sets from the years 1994, 1996 and 1998. These waves contain all the necessary information. Earlier waves miss the crucial variable that measures current job and thereby job characteristics, whereas newer waves suffer from a decline in quality of the panel. In 2000 the number of missing respondents on the combined questions about job, industry and income had increased too much, and in later waves the attrition rates were too high.\nResults: Table I presents the correlations between unpaid overtime and wages including leads and lags. The table enables us to do a first test of the hypotheses. The forward-looking hypothesis predicts wage growth, that is increasing correlations through time. The backward-looking hypothesis, on the other hand, predicts weakening correlations through time. The table shows that the correlation is approximately 0.30 and there is not a clear trend. The first test is inconclusive.\nDiscussion: In this paper we studied work motivations to explain participation in unpaid overtime. The reason to do so was that the institution of unpaid overtime was created in a context that emphasized backward-looking motivations, such as intrinsic motivation and reciprocity towards the employer. However, according to recent economic analyses, participation in unpaid overtime is motivated by forward-looking incentives of future wage growth. Focusing on the relationship between unpaid overtime, wages and wage growth, we showed that participation in unpaid overtime does not lead to additional wage growth, but, instead, is determined by the wage level that was agreed upon in the past. We therefore conclude that backward-looking incentives determine participation in unpaid overtime.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to test forward-looking incentives against backward-looking incentives.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Wage growth model to estimate forward-looking effects of unpaid overtime and a probit model of participation in unpaid overtime controlling for excessive pay to estimate backward-looking effects. The authors use data form the OSA labour supply panel (years 1994, 1996 and 1998).\nFindings: The importance of backward-looking incentives is demonstrated in an empirical analysis of participation in unpaid overtime. The authors show that employees who have relatively good wages now or who have had relatively good wages in the recent past participate more often in unpaid overtime. The authors also show that participation in unpaid overtime does not lead to extra wage growth.\nResearch limitations/implications: These results imply that involvement in unpaid overtime is to be explained from backward-looking incentives, not from forward-looking incentives. The paper concludes that backward-looking incentives deserve more attention in the economic literature, especially as they are well-accepted as work motivation devices by employees. Limitations are the length of the panel study (four years) and the fact that the data are restricted to one country (the Netherlands).\nSocial implications: Personnel policies should focus more on the intrinsic motivation of personnel rather than on extrinsic motivation.\nOriginality/value: This is the first paper to test both forward- and backward-looking incentives simultaneously.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The role of authenticity in mainstream ethnic restaurants: Evidence from an independent full-service Italian restaurant	[ "Perceived authenticity", "Perceived quality", "Cultural familiarity", "Cultural motivation", "Italian restaurant", "Mainstream ethnic restaurant" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In contemporary society, increasing awareness of cultural diversity has resulted in a growing quest for authenticity in the consumption of products and services (Gilmore and Pine, 2007). Seeking exotic and authentic cultural experiences is one of the primary motivators for customers visiting ethnic restaurants (Liu and Mattila, 2015), and authenticity has been widely acknowledged as a value-added offering of restaurants (Kovacs et al., 2014). Previous empirical studies have supported the positive relationships between ethnic restaurants' authenticity and customer satisfaction (Liu and Jang, 2009a), perceived value (Jang et al., 2012), behavioral intention (Liu and Jang, 2009a) and brand equity (Lu et al., 2015). Consequently, restaurants often use the concept of authenticity as a unique selling point (Lu et al., 2015), and whether the food and dining environment reflect the culture of ethnic origin has become a critical attribute for evaluating ethnic restaurants (Liu and Jang, 2009a).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Authenticity\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Study design\n4. Results: 4.1 Sample profile\n5. Conclusions and implications: 5.1 Conclusions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine the effects of perceived authenticity at an independent, full-service mainstream ethnic restaurant and the moderating effects of diners' cultural familiarity and cultural motivation on the influence of perceived authenticity on perceived value and behavioral intention.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A total of 417 self-administered questionnaires were collected from customers of an independent, full-service Italian restaurant in southeastern USA. The data analysis was performed using structural equation modeling.\nFindings: Restaurant authenticity has a positive influence on perceived value. Respondents who are more familiar with and interested in Italian culture and food tend to attach more value to the restaurant authenticity. Respondents tend to use authenticity to convey quality judgment of the restaurant.\nResearch limitations/implications: First, this study advances previous literature on dining authenticity by incorporating cultural familiarity and cultural motivation. Second, this study extends the theoretical framework of perceived quality of ethnic restaurants by connecting authenticity perceptions and quality assessment.\nPractical implications: Results suggest that the managers at independent, full-service mainstream ethnic restaurants should focus on the restaurants' environment and atmospheric authenticity, especially for customers who possess cultural familiarity and cultural motivation, while also ensuring the quality of food and service.\nOriginality/value: This study makes an initial attempt at studying the role of authenticity in a mainstream ethnic restaurant context and adds to the knowledge of restaurant authenticity from the perspectives of cultural familiarity, cultural motivation and perceived quality.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Ethical reputation and value received: customer perceptions	[ "Ethics", "Customer value", "Satisfaction", "Loyalty" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Global competition and technological developments have dramatically increased product knowledge and available alternatives to customers (Wagner and Hansen, 2004). Armed with information, customers have become more sophisticated and demanding. Customers, as a result, have rising expectations of firms and its products. In this set up, suppliers must provide compelling arguments and offerings to gain market share and retain customer loyalty. One obvious consequence is a greater emphasis on value addition in transactions with customers instead of just product information (Naylor and Frank, 2000). Increased focus on value creation is also driven by shifts in buyers' preferences. For instance, Capon and Senn (2010) report that today's business buyers prefer working with a smaller number of suppliers instead of committing resources to several vendors with unknown or questionable outcomes. Value creation has thus become an important criterion for seller-buyer transactions and for continuing business relations.\nTheory and hypotheses: The customer satisfaction literature uses Oliver's (1980) disconfirmation theory to link satisfaction to differences in expected- and actual product performance. Attitudes formed from initial transactions lead to satisfaction and subsequent repurchase decisions (Oliver, 1980). Attitudinal loyalty is a commitment that fosters purchase intentions and word of mouth promotion about the supplier. This loyalty can be seen as a form of psychological contract in the exchange relationship between the customer and supplier. Repurchase intentions are thus based on the expectation of a reliable supply of value by the supplier. Implicit in this exchange is the understanding that value provided by the supplier exceeds the cost of procuring the supply.Ajzen and Fishbein's (1980) theory of reasoned action posited a causal link between attitude and behavioral intentions. Using Ajzen's (2002) theory of planned behavior, we can infer that attitudes and behavioral intentions are formed, based on the beliefs about the likely consequences or attributes of the behavior. Thus, when a customer develops the belief that his/her action may influence a firm's behavior, the customer is more willing to pursue this particular action. At the same time, when a customer sees that a firm is exhibiting actions that are in accordance with his/her expectations of behavior, positive attitudes towards the firm are developed.Researchers have used institutional theory and stakeholder theory to explain customers' higher acceptance and positive perceptions of ethical firms (Luo and Bhattacharya, 2006). It has been suggested that individuals are not only customers of firms' products but also members of a community, and have a stake in firms' well being. This caring for the company as well as the community makes customers identify themselves with ethically responsible suppliers and their offerings.Value received\nAnalysis: Correlation matrix\nDiscussion of results: Value addition is an important antecedent of customer satisfaction and positive word-of-mouth (Palmatier et al., 2007). Satisfied customers are more likely to be loyal and spread positive word of mouth leading to increased revenue by way of new business as well as from repeat purchases. Research shows that loyal customers are also willing to pay more, which when combined with additional revenues and lower marketing costs can increase the profit by about 90 per cent (Reichheld et al., 1990). If customers stay loyal to suppliers who provide the best value, then firms have to continuously look for ways to enhance the effect of value perceptions in their dealings with customers. This study's results show that suppliers can count on their ethical reputation to be a value booster.Customers are focused on getting the best value for their money and are relentlessly pursued by suppliers with promises of better value. Anderson et al. (2006) state that customers look for all benefits, favorable points of difference, and resonating focus as value propositions when choosing a supplier. The study results provide support for the current trend towards social responsibility and ethical behavior by the firms who hope to use their ethical reputation as a value adder to build and strengthen the emotional bond with customers.Firms' ethical reputation can provide the point of difference and answer the customers' question of why they should pick a particular supplier among the various alternatives of similar or greater value (Anderson et al., 2006). This may explain why the rate of adoption and implementation of codes of ethics is rising (Somers, 2001). Our findings bring support to Pirsch et al.'s (2007) claim that ethical reputation protects the firm from competitors as ethics is considered when customers choose among alternate suppliers.Do customers care about ethics? Can doing good help businesses do better? Results of this study suggest that ethical behavior can help the bottom line by way of repeat purchases. Study findings also counter the perception that ethical and socially responsible behavior are fads and do not contribute to business performance (Doane, 2005). In the current environment of increased sensitivity to ethical reputation is a major advantage (Farah and Newman, 2010). Businesses are realizing that good ethics and social responsibility are good business practices and contribute to profitability and growth.Firms are also paying attention to the \"net generation\" that represents a huge market potential. It is becoming clear that that net generation segment has a greater environmental consciousness, values transparency and considers a firms' ethical image in their decision making for buying products and as well as in choosing an employer. Net generation individuals are known to consider things that contribute to a meaningful job in their selection of profession or firm to work (Scroggins, 2008). In spite of their tendency for self-gratification, they are socially conscious and are less likely to surrender their souls to corporate goals (Boyd, 2010). Society, while recognizing the firms' obligation to create wealth for the stockholders, also considers contribution to the society as part of firms' responsibility.While this study is based on bank employees, the study results have important implications for suppliers of other products and services. Ethical reputation plays an important role in this connected world where internet is fast replacing traditional modes of business exchanges. Web based transactions are fast becoming the norm for most businesses in the USA and in many other countries. Customers use web sites as they provide options for buying products while also giving access to information on products and suppliers. Given numerous alternatives, buyers are likely to be looking for features that distinguish suppliers from one another and firms' ethical reputation can be a major differentiator by way of quality and reliability.\nLimitations and future research: This study has several limitations that future research can address. First, we used responses from customers of national banks. This study could be replicated in other settings such as retail shops, business to business sales as well as with customers who buy products on the web. Second, our findings rely on self-reported data which may be affected by common method bias (Cote and Buckley, 1987). Although we conducted a Harmon's one-factor test and found no evidence that CMB significantly impacted results of our conceptualization, this possibility cannot be ruled-out. Further studies could evaluate the impact of experienced meaningfulness on objective measures of performance and turnover from company records. Third, survey-based research imposes time limitations as customers are unwilling to spend too much time answering questions. Thus the model tested left out other constructs that may mediate or moderate the impact of value on satisfaction with the supplier. Fourth, SEM models can have numerous statistically equivalent models with equal fit using the same constructs (MacCallum and Browne, 1993). Although we used theory and prior research to justify the hypothesized links between constructs, other plausible conceptualizations cannot be ruled out. It should also be noted that since the data comes from a cross sectional design we cannot assure causality. Future research should test models that include other customer factors such as values and beliefs, income levels, and profession. This could also include customer perception of salesperson personality, customer orientation, and service quality.Research also recognizes that managers play a fundamental roll in instilling an ethical climate. For instance, servant leaders who are truly concerned about the wellbeing of others can help create an organizational culture that operates at a high ethical level (Jaramillo et al., 2009). Conversely, managers with dysfunctional leadership styles like the corporate psychopath can compromise organizational ethics since they advance their own aims and objectives by manipulating others and by engaging in unethical actions (Boddy, 2004). Research linking leadership styles with customer value perceptions and loyalty is thus warranted.Finally, study findings rely on customer data from Chile which is known as a collectivistic country that places greater value on aspects like group benefits. It may be worthwhile testing this model in individualistic societies to check whether the value placed on firm's ethical and social responsibilities influence satisfaction to a lesser or greater degree. This is critical because ethical perceptions are associated with individualism/collectivism ratings. For example, Armstrong (1996) reports a positive association between the individualism index and ethical perception ratings. This implies that customers from an individualistic country like the United States are more likely concerned about the occurrence of unethical issues. Cross country validation is also importance since individual priorities about ethics can vary. For instance, Chinese consumers prioritize issues related with product safety and quality while UK and Canadian consumers are mostly concerned about environmental protection (Piercy and Lane, 2009).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This research seeks to explore the role played by ethical reputation in amplifying the positive impact of value received by the customer on satisfaction with the supplier and ultimately loyalty.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Survey responses derived from 299 customers, concerning two large financial institutions within Chile, are used to test relationships among ethical perceptions, customer value, satisfaction, and loyalty. Hypotheses are tested with a structural equation model.\nFindings: - Results show that ethical perceptions about the organization amplify the impact of customer value on customer satisfaction and eventually loyalty.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This study contributes to the existing literature by showing that ethical perceptions from customers can help financial institutions achieve higher levels of satisfaction and loyalty. Study findings rely on customer survey responses collected in one country and one industry. Generalizability of findings is yet to be tested.\nPractical implications: - Ethical reputation helps financial institutions retain their customers.\nOriginality/value: - This is the first study showing that customer perceptions about company ethics amplify the positive impact of customer value on customer satisfaction.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Are US consumers ready to adopt mobile technology for fashion goods? An integrated theoretical approach	[ "Mobile communication systems", "Fashion industry", "Consumer behaviour", "United States of America" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Mobile communications are one-way or interactive between two or more humans, or between a human and one or more inanimate objects (Balasubramanian et al., 2002). Mobile technology maximizes flexible communication without distance and time limits. The number of people who own and use mobile phones on a daily basis keeps increasing (iMedia Connection, 2002). In 2005, there were 180 million mobile-phone subscribers (Thottam, 2005), which was about 60.5 percent of the total US population. Mobile phone users are likely to be techno-savvy with the internet (iMedia Connection, 2002). Younger consumers not only communicate but also make multiple purchases via wireless devices, including ringtones and wallpapers (Buckman, 2007; Thottam, 2005). About three-quarters (76 percent) of teenagers aged between 15 and 19 and 90 percent of phone users in their early 20s regularly send text messages, purchase ring tones, and play games (Thottam, 2005). According to Gartner Research, as reported by Buckman (2007), Americans spent $1.2 billion dollars on ringtones, wallpapers, and other personalized phone services in 2006, and an additional $1.4 billion on mobile games and other entertainment.According to Buckman (2007), global mobile commerce (m-commerce) revenue is expected to increase to $55 billion in 2008 from $26 billion in 2006. Currently, mobile commerce has much potential to grow in the USA in many different industries, including the fashion industry. However, limited research findings for consumer attitudes toward m-commerce and their willingness to adopt m-commerce for fashion goods are available. In addition, current research on the application of mobile technology is limited from both theoretical and empirical perspectives, resulting in a lack of knowledge in developing key marketing strategies to accelerate mobile technology use in retailing in the USA. Previous research in m-commerce focused on identifying systematic benefits (e.g. Frolick and Chen, 2004) and issues (e.g. Barnes, 2002; Dogac and Tumer, 2002) as well as exploring applicable opportunities (e.g. Balasubramanian et al., 2002; Liang and Wei, 2004). Researchers recognized that an investigation into the adoption of m-commerce with a strong theoretical framework is timely.Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the effects of the perceived ease of use, usefulness, enjoyment, and subjective norm regarding mobile phone usage on their attitudes toward mobile communication and mobile commerce, and mobile technology use intention for shopping in the apparel retailing context. The technology acceptance model (Davis et al., 1989) and the theory of reasoned action (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980) were employed as theoretical frameworks to explain and predict current users' attitudes toward and intentions to use mobile technology for fashion goods. Our research findings can aid in building a theoretical ground for developing retail and promotional strategies using mobile technology in fashion.\nTheoretical frameworks and literature review: In order to predict adoption of mobile communication and mobile commerce for the fashion industry, we developed a model encompassing the theory of reasoned action (TRA; Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975) and an extended version of the technology acceptance model (TAM; Davis et al., 1992). In the following section, theoretical background and empirical studies relevant to the adoption of mobile commerce are reviewed.Theory of reasoned action\nMethod: Sample and data collection\nResults: Sample description\nDiscussion and implications: Our findings suggest that the proposed research model was a very useful framework to test the effects of consumers' perceptions and attitudes on their mobile technology use intention for shopping in the fashion retail industry. The results indicated positive and direct relationships among consumers' perceptions of ease of mobile phone use, usefulness of mobile phones, and enjoyment using mobile phones. These findings are consistent to the previous studies (Kwon and Chidambaram, 2000; Nysveen et al., 2005a, b; Pagani, 2004) and suggest the important marketing implications not only for mobile commerce but also for mobile communication in general. Mobile technology is changing more rapidly than ever. To be widely adopted by more general consumers, newly developed mobile phones should be designed to be very easy and intuitive for consumers to use, which can consequently influence their perceptions of usefulness of the phones and enjoyment using the phones. These should be established first and foremost to serve as a stepping stone for the further use of the phones for other purposes, such as mobile commerce.As previous literature (Nysveen et al., 2005a) suggests, when consumers in the present study perceived mobile communication as more useful and enjoyable, they exhibited more positive attitudes toward mobile communication. The findings exhibit that there were positive influences of belief variables (perceived usefulness of mobile phones and perceived enjoyment of using mobile phones) on consumers' attitudes toward the mobile communication and commerce. The findings are consistent with the previous studies (Snowden et al., 2006; Nysveen et al., 2005a). Moreover, in the present study, the perceived enjoyment of using mobile phones had the largest direct impact on the consumers' attitudes toward the mobile commerce. This implies the importance of the hedonic aspects of the mobile communication and its potential influence on the positive evaluation (attitude) of mobile phone usage for the communication.The present study provides evidence for a positive relationship between the attitude toward mobile communication and the attitude toward mobile commerce. This finding extends the empirical findings on the attitude shifts between retail channels (Balabanis and Reynolds, 2001; Bigne et al., 2007; Kim and Park, 2005) to the attitude shifts within the channel. As proposed, the attitudes toward mobile communication were positively transferred to the attitudes toward the mobile commerce, which in turn shaped the positive shopping intentions via mobile technology.This study revealed that subjective norm added an important facet of the college-aged consumer's perception of mobile phone usefulness and enjoyment. When college-aged consumers perceived more social influence (subjective norm) on using cell phones, they considered cell phone more useful and more enjoyable. This finding is parallel to the previous study on the positive influence of subjective norm on perceived usefulness (Venkatesh and Davis, 2000; Lu et al., 2003) and perceived enjoyment (Snowden et al., 2006). Our results also suggest the important role of social influence on the cell phone usage and its positive impact on mobile technology use intention for shopping. This result implies that college-aged consumers' usages of cell phones reflect the importance of social influences on their consumption behavior. This result is consistent with the previous literature asserting the significance of social influence in explaining and predicting behavioral intentions for technology use (Bhattacherjee, 2000; Davis et al., 1989; Nysveen et al., 2005b).The results indicated that consumers' shopping intentions via mobile technology are positively influenced by attitude toward mobile commerce, subjective norm, and perceived enjoyment. As TRA and TAM posit, we found a positive and direct influence of the attitude toward mobile commerce on mobile technology use intention for shopping. Thus, it is important for fashion retailers to build favorable consumer attitudes toward mobile commerce, which furthermore influence their positive mobile commerce behaviors. In addition, retailers may target fashion leaders or early adopters in mobile commerce to promote their new mobile commerce applications. Fashion leaders or early adopters are innovative consumers who try new things early in the fashion cycle (Kaiser, 1997; Rogers, 2003). According to the diffusion of innovation theory (Rogers, 2003), once fashion leaders adopt the mobile commerce application for the fashion products and promotions, they will influence other members of society (e.g. fashion followers) (Rogers, 2003).Owing to the lack of current mobile commerce literature focusing on the fashion industry and the skepticism toward mobile technology use for shopping, this study adds valuable empirical findings to the mobile commerce literature. This paper offers a framework to understand and predict consumer behavior using mobile technology and mobile commerce in the context of shopping for fashion goods. In addition, the present study contributes to academia by applying TAM (Davis et al., 1989) and TRA (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975) to the technologically advanced retailing channel. This study also provides understanding of the consumer's attitude and behavioral intention toward the mobile technology for fashion goods to the apparel industry. The result implies that mobile technology can be a potential venue to market and promote fashion goods to young adult consumers in the retail industry. Future research may explore how consumers perceive fee-based mobile promotional applications. For example, InStyle magazine offers style and trend information to US cellular users for a monthly subscription fee of $3.99 (USCellular.com, 2007). Fashion retailers can develop promotional mobile services (e.g. annual m-coupon services), which can be subscribed to for a monthly fee. Having more specific attitudinal or behavioral intention information on such promotional services may help retailers in implementing their promotional strategies combined with mobile commerce.Our respondents were limited to college students. Lack of randomness in sample selection across the various consumer segments may reduce the external validity of our findings. This demographic group is meaningful to investigate for apparel multi-channel retailers who target younger generations. The technological lifestyle and adoption patterns of younger consumers would be a great resource for retail strategy development. Thus, our results may be more applicable to fashion retailers who target college-aged consumers than other age groups.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of ease of use, usefulness, and enjoyment, and subjective norm regarding the use of mobile phones on US consumers' attitudes toward mobile communication and mobile commerce, and mobile technology use intention for shopping.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This work integrates the technology acceptance model of Davis and Fishbein and Ajzen's theory of reasoned action for its theoretical framework. In total, 341 college students in two large US universities provided usable responses. Structural equation modeling was employed to test the proposed model and research hypotheses.\nFindings: - The results showed that the perceived ease of use, usefulness, and enjoyment, and subjective norm were the significant predictors of attitudes toward mobile communication and mobile commerce as well as mobile technology use intention for shopping. The findings also suggested that attitude toward mobile communication positively influenced attitude toward mobile commerce, which in turn positively influenced mobile technology use for shopping.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The sample of this study is slightly biased by gender and age. However, this demographic segment is meaningful to examine consumer attitudes and mobile technology use intentions for fashion goods due to its extensive usage of mobile services.\nOriginality/value: - This study offers an integrated theoretical framework for future studies investigating consumer behavior in a technologically advanced retail environment.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Clustering consumers' shopping journeys: eye tracking fashion m-retail	[ "Consumer behaviour", "Mobile consumer", "Fashion consumer behaviour", "Consumer segmentation", "Eye tracking", "Shopping journey", "Fashion retailing", "Customer journey" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: With rapid adoption of smartphones, retailers have seen major shifts in consumer shopping behaviour, with more than half of e-commerce sales initiated via smartphones. Fashion is the most popular category bought online in the UK, and online sales of fashion account for 24% of total fashion spend in 2017 (Mintel, 2015). Digital users spend over 61% of shopping time using mobile devices, but only 45% of them are satisfied with retail mobile apps and websites (Euromonitor International, 2016). However, 80% of digital users expect mobile experiences to be \"higher or equal to experience offered on the desktop website\" (IBM, 2015). Retailers experience an increase in mobile traffic, but the conversion rate is still lower than on the desktop (Internet Retailing, 2016c). The majority of mobile consumers are dissatisfied with retail mobile apps and websites, as they encounter various issues when shopping via smartphones. The most affected companies are those operating in digital-only environments, as digital space is the only touch point with their customers.The field of m-retail is attracting interest from researchers, but many use traditional marketing tools and concepts developed from high street retailing. This research study makes use of tools that have only recently become available, together with the willingness to question received wisdom on market segmentation.\n2. Literature review: As m-commerce has been analysed often from a perspective of an extension of e-commerce, mobile consumer segmentation models are adopted from the same source (Zhang et al., 2013). Another possible perspective to research m-commerce is as a unique segment of e-commerce with fundamentally different interaction modalities and features which are not available in the traditional e-commerce environments (Kourouthanassis and Giaglis, 2012; Pantano and Priporas, 2016). This study takes an open stance towards mobile consumer research in order to explore potential m-retail strategies for consumer acquisition and conversion marketing. Retailers are relying on digital analytics data, and adopting existing models and theories is no longer realistic as mobile is changing the ways users behave. Therefore, identifying novel methodologies for analysing mobile consumer behavioural habits on smartphones and predicting future behaviour patterns based on consumer data are required. An overview of previous studies showed that research in the area of mobile marketing has been explored from the perspective of businesses, rather than that of consumers (Buyukozkan, 2009; Davis and Chaudhri, 2012; Huang, 2011, 2012; Pantano, 2016; Scharl et al., 2005).Previous studies have analysed differences in mobile usage (Sinisalo and Karjaluoto, 2009; Zhang and Juhlin, 2016), influences on purchase intention (Bellman et al., 2011; Newman et al., 2018), mobile shopping acceptance (Marriott et al., 2017), major consumers' motivations to use the mobile shopping channel (Grant and O'Donohoe, 2007; Yang and Kim, 2012; Parker and Wang, 2016) and behavioural intentions towards mobile shopping (Gao et al., 2010, 2012; Bellman et al., 2011; Wells et al., 2012; Holmes et al., 2013). Others have analysed m-commerce usage activities in relation to demographics and motivations (Chong, 2013), gender, convenience (Okazaki and Mendez, 2013) and decision-making process (Holmes et al., 2013). In order to maintain consumers' interest, \"retailers, digital marketers and website developers have to understand new consumer types\" (Tupikovskaja-Omovie et al., 2014) and their experiences using mobile devices for fashion shopping (Pantano and Priporas, 2016; Blazquez Cano et al., 2017). 2.1 Customer journey mapping\n3. Methodology: Eye-tracking technology was used in this research to record fashion consumers' behaviour on smartphones while browsing and shopping on fashion retailers' websites. In order to ensure the same conditions for all participants and eliminate any bias during the data collection, all participants of this research study were given the same smartphone, iPhone 8, connected to the same Wi-Fi. This paper analyses consumer behaviour on two fashion retailers' websites on smartphones. A major retailer of fashion leisurewear was involved in the first part of this research, and is anonymised for the analysis. In this paper, this fashion leisurewear company is called the fashion retailer R-A. Its current online business has over 310K unique users per year, and over 52% of them use smartphones to access the website. The second part of this research explores a major high street fashion retailer's website; this retailer is anonymised as fashion retailer R-B.After consultation with the fashion retailers' R-A and R-B customer databases, it was established that the majority of the retailers' customers use iPhones for shopping on their website. Therefore, participants were recruited and selected based on the following criteria: own an iPhone and have experience with shopping on smartphones on the fashion retailer's website. A total of 14 participants successfully completed the study with retailer's R-A website on smartphone, aged 18-34 years old. Half of them identified as females, and 50% as males (Table 1). All of these participants were working adults, and they were given a promotional voucher code for the retailer's website as an incentive to join this study.For the second eye-tracking study with fashion retailer's R-B website, a total of 16 female participants aged 18-34 years old took part in this research. All of these participants were working adults, and none of them were incentivised to join this research.All the participants had prior experience of the retailers' websites accessed, making them regular customers. This allowed to eliminate any bias in comparing and triangulating the findings from both eye-tracking studies with the retailer' R-A and R-B websites. Although the participants of the eye-tracking study with retailer's R-A website were incentivised while those with R-B were not, all these participants were existing customers of the retailer under study and were visiting the website they knew already. These both data sets proved that in either study, the incentive did not influence the shopping experiences of the participants, as both samples exhibited the same level of engagement with the retailer's website in terms of time spent and state of flow.All the participants browsed the same fashion retailer's website using the same smartphone. The participants were provided with a set budget of PS55 (max) and instructed to purchase up to two items from the fashion retailer's website. For the purpose of this research, a natural and an unobtrusive interaction with retailer's website on a smartphone was required. In order to achieve this mobile eye tracking, glasses were employed to record users' interactions with the stimulus (the fashion retailer's mobile website). This allowed the participants to hold the smartphone in the way they were feeling the most comfortable with; also, they were able to sit comfortably in any position and posture they chose. SMI Eye Tracking Gasses 2.0 with smartphone-based recorder by SensoMotoric Instruments were used for this research as this eye-tracking kit is a light-weight spectacle type which does not limit users' freedom. This allowed for the most natural settings for data collection.\n4. Analysis and results: For the purpose of this research, SMI BeGaze 3.7 software was used to extract the data files from the eye-tracking experiments recorded with the mobile eye-tracking glasses. A number of different data files were gathered during eye-tracking experiments for this research; majority of them are video-based data files. The scan path eye-tracking data files were used to develop shopping journeys for each participant. These shopping journeys account for each step in the user's journey and go beyond merely counting clicks (Tupikovskaja-Omovie and Tyler, 2018). These shopping journeys record where the participants were looking at even if they did not click on anything there. Such important elements of the browsing experience as checking customer reviews or suggested products were logged into these shopping journeys, as well as filtering options these users were selecting. All shopping journeys were recorded with users who had prior experience with the retailer's website on their smartphones and were familiar with the features and layout of the website. The same level of prior experience allowed to compare and triangulate the findings from eye-tracking studies with the retailer's R-A and R-B websites, increasing the validity and reliability of the findings. 4.1 Females versus males comparison - digital fashion consumer behaviour\n5. Discussion: Customer segmentation is often based on demographics and reported usage activities. Digital consumer segmentation has been based on Internet usage, perceived risks, website attributes, intent to do online purchase in future, preference for website attributes (Mathew, 2016), recalled reach and frequency of exposure to the touch points (Ieva and Ziliani, 2018) and patterns of medium preference for loyalty programmes accompanied by socio-demographics (Ieva and Ziliani, 2017). Within the mobile consumer group, researchers are looking for new segmentation approaches which would more directly reflect actual customer activities on smartphones. Examples include the purchase rate, lifetime duration, average spending estimated from purchase history data (Morisada et al., 2019) and the perspectives of the usage of the network and the usage of content services (Hamka et al., 2014). Recent study on multichannel retailing identified that consumers exhibit certain homogeneity but also considerable heterogeneity in their customer journeys reconstructed based on participants' described shopping-related goals (Harris et al., 2018). Multichannel fashion retailers have seen shifts in consumer shopping behaviour, and current shoppers are avid mobile users. In all, 77% of fashion consumers use their phones for browsing fashion and 68% use smartphones to buy fashion (Drapers, 2019). When m-retail becomes the dominant platform, segmentation of the consumer base, shopping journeys and customer experience become vital for retailers.The rise of mobile devices brings significant changes into existing customer segments (Herhausen et al., 2019), and this knowledge is critical in developing a successful multichannel customer marketing and management strategy (De Keyser et al., 2015). Furthermore, retailers need to focus on omnichannel marketing to integrate all channels available to create a seamless shopping experience (Tupikovskaja-Omovie et al., 2015) that increases convenience and engagement during the customer journey (Mosquera et al., 2017). Fashion retailers acknowledge that getting the mix right is important for different groups of customers, and focusing on convenience has become a significant priority. Recognising that there are different shopping customer journey types, all of them need an easy path through the website to achieve their shopping goals. Fashion retailers can use the segmentation developed in this research to enhance existing marketing strategy by offering customised shopping experiences on their websites. Different users will make more use of certain features of the website, and redesigning the website accordingly can make those features more accessible to their customers. The use of AI becomes more meaningful, and fashion retailers could link customer journey types with relevant suggestions and customisation to offer users helpful support. Furthermore, retailers knowing what shopping journey type is the most common among their customers can prioritise their marketing strategy accordingly. Online retailers can benefit from applying these shopping journey types to analyse their existing digital analytics database. Fashion retailers might be missing out if they do not respond to shopping journeys of different types because their customers' shopping experiences are adversely affected. The research into mobile consumer segmentation within fashion e-commerce is limited. This paper has proposed an innovative approach to segmenting mobile fashion consumers based on actual digital user behaviour using mobile eye-tracking data.\n6. Conclusions: This research suggests that gender differences may be irrelevant when shopping via mobile devices. Conducting eye-tracking studies with existing retailers' customers allowed to identify major issues of these websites and proposed the best strategy for improvement. This information might be useful when thinking how to improve user experience, gain additional sales, attract new customers and improve shopping experience to keep existing customers.Depending on the individual's goals and decisiveness, mobile consumers display three prominent and distinct types of shopping behaviours, which can be applied in understanding more complex shopping behaviour patterns. These different approaches have implications for mobile app and website design. It would be useful to explore these shopper behaviours on other retailers' mobile websites and to investigate if these proposed types of browsing are constant to the same digital user or adaptable depending on the situation and need.The three shopping journey types identified in this research can be further validated by extending the sample size for analysis. There is a need to verify if these shopping behaviours are applicable equally to females and males. The knowledge developed during this research study can be applied in granulating the retailer's digital customer profiles by merging the data based on personality traits, budget, lifestyle and product preferences with shopping behaviour types and browsing styles. Knowing prominent shopping behaviour types any other complex behaviour patterns can be identified, analysed and characterised. The understanding of mobile consumer types can be applied by fashion retailers in developing AI frameworks, enhancing personalisation and implementing marketing strategy. When guided by this knowledge, the retailers' digital and marketing teams will be able to better target their customers and offer a personalised shopping experience satisfying digital consumer' needs.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Despite the rapid adoption of smartphones among digital fashion consumers, their attitude to retailers' mobile apps and websites is one of increasing dissatisfaction. This suggests that understanding how mobile consumers use smartphones for fashion shopping is important in developing digital shopping platforms that fulfil consumer' expectations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: For this research, mobile eye-tracking technology was employed in order to develop unique shopping journeys for 30 consumers, using fashion retailers' websites on smartphones, documenting their differences and similarities in browsing and purchasing behaviour.\nFindings: Based on scan path visualisations and observed shopping experiences, three prominent mobile shopping journeys and shopper types were identified: \"directed by retailer's website\", \"efficient self-selected journey\" and \"challenging shopper\". These prominent behaviour patterns were used to characterise mixed cluster behaviours; three distinct mixed clusters were identified, namely, \"extended self-selected journey\", \"challenging shoppers directed by retailer's website\" and \"focused challenging shopper\".\nResearch limitations/implications: This research argues that mobile consumers can be segmented based on their activities and behaviours on the mobile website. Knowing the prominent shopping behaviour types any other complex behaviour patterns can be identified, analysed and described.\nPractical implications: The findings of this research can be used in developing personalised shopping experiences on smartphones by feeding these shopper types into retailers' digital marketing strategy and artificial intelligence (AI) systems.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to consumer behaviour literature by proposing a novel mobile consumer segmentation approach based on detailed shopping journey analysis using mobile eye-tracking technology.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The role of knowledge absorptive capacity on the relationship between cognitive social capital and entrepreneurial orientation	[ "Entrepreneurial orientation", "Moderating effect", "Agri-food industry", "Cognitive social capital", "Knowledge absorptive capacity" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In recent decades, studies about entrepreneurship and management have highlighted the relevant role of firms' entrepreneurial orientation (EO) to achieve superior performance. The interest in studying determinants of EO has its origin in the studies of Mintzberg (1973) and Miller (1983). In the past decade, the focus on EO has increased in the literature with the publication of numerous empirical and meta-analysis studies (Rauch et al., 2009), literature reviews (Wales et al., 2013) and special issues (Covin and Lumpkin, 2011). However, there are very few studies that analyse the antecedents of EO, merely studying several direct effects (Sciascia et al., 2006), some specific dimension of EO (Kyrgidou and Spyropoulou, 2013) or individually, the influence of firms' internal and external factors (Rauch et al., 2009). This paper completes the existing literature on EO by analysing the effect, in an individual and in a joint way, of two factors that can determinate EO: cognitive social capital (CSC), oriented to connect a firm with its cognitively close contacts, and knowledge absorptive capacity (ACAP), a dynamic capability linked with the exploration and exploitation of external knowledge. Likewise, the study completes the existing gap in the literature on social capital (Molina-Morales and Martinez-Fernandez, 2009; Aribi and Dupouet, 2015), about the need to study the contingent effect of resources and capabilities on the effect of the cognitive dimension of social capital.\n2. Theory and hypotheses: 2.1 Entrepreneurial orientation\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Sample\n4. Results: 4.1 Evaluation of the measurement model\n5. Discussion and conclusions: With this study, it has been possible to achieve the proposed main aim of the study, which was to provide a deeper understanding of the relationship between CSC and EO, and the critical moderating role of ACAP in this relationship. First, this study proposes the existence of a curvilinear effect (U-shaped) between CSC and EO. These results differ from the positive, negative or, even, inverted U-shaped relationships between other dimensions of social capital - structural and relational - and EO detected in previous studies (Koka and Prescott, 2002; Inkpen and Tsang, 2005; Molina-Morales and Martinez-Fernandez, 2009). The results also contribute to resolving the ambiguity of the direct (Nooteboom et al., 2007) and indirect (Molina-Morales et al., 2014) effects of CSC on EO, taking advantage of the arguments of the Blau (1977) heterogeneity theory. From this perspective, for low levels of CSC with the actors of the network - high heterogeneity, the firm does not identify itself with any internal group in the network, exposing itself to a more diverse knowledge that can encourage an EO. However, the results do not confirm the downward section of the curve, showing the difficulty in acquiring valuable knowledge that drives innovation, risk taking and proactiveness of the firm when firms do not share goals and values with their contacts (Nooteboom et al., 2007). At intermediate levels of CSC, several sub-groups in the network are created with different identities, values and shared goals - average heterogeneity, which causes inter-group conflicts and problems of communication between groups that prevent the transfer of knowledge, limiting innovation, risk taking and proactiveness. Finally, when all the actors of the network share the same goals, culture and values - low heterogeneity - there are no barriers for the development of social relations among members. This climate promotes communication between actors and facilitates the exchange of knowledge to achieve a high EO. These results allow the \"dark side\" of the networks linked to high levels of structural and relational social capital (Molina-Morales and Martinez-Fernandez, 2009), due to network paradoxes (Koka and Prescott, 2002) to be overcome. This paper highlights that, after overcoming the communication problems and conflicts for intermediate levels of CSC, when firms have high shared goals and culture with their contacts, a strong exchange of valuable knowledge among members of the network that allows firms to achieve a high EO occurs.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of cognitive social capital (CSC) on firms' entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and how knowledge absorptive capacity moderates this relationship. The purpose is aimed at completing the gap in the literature regarding determinants of EO linked with knowledge.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The empirical study was carried out on a sample of 292 Spanish firms in the agri-food industry. Partial least squares (SmartPLS software) was used to evaluate the measurement and structural models.\nFindings: CSC has a curvilinear influence (U-shaped) on EO. In addition, this relationship is accentuated with higher knowledge absorptive capacity.\nPractical implications: Managers should promote cognitively close networks and reinforce shared goals and culture with their contacts to maintain a high EO. Furthermore, managers should strengthen their knowledge absorptive capacity to boost innovativeness, risk taking and proactiveness derived from cognitive proximity with their contacts.\nOriginality/value: This study adds value to social capital literature by pointing out a curvilinear relationship (U-shaped) between CSC and EO, in contrast to studies focussed on other dimensions of social capital, which have obtained divergent results. Furthermore, this study reinforces the key contingent role of knowledge absorptive capacity. The study provides a valuable theoretical framework of EO determinants connecting the cognitive perspective of social capital theory with a dynamic capability view.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Envelope within an envelope: an FM approach to adaptive re-use of redundant barns	[ "Architecture", "Conservation", "Buildings", "Italy", "United States of America" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Countries across Europe (particularly in Alpine regions) and states across America are losing one of their long-standing icons - the timber barn. As a result of changing agricultural practices in recent decades, these venerable buildings, which for decades have symbolized the agricultural foundation of nations, are being irretrievably lost from the landscape. Many have fallen into disrepair and others have totally collapsed. Unsympathetic restorations, especially in Europe, have changed the envelope of many barns fundamentally, from a constructive point of view, and this in turn has had an irreparable effect on the landscape.Alternative uses for these barns have stemmed the loss in some cases. For instance the National Trust \"Barn Again\" initiative in the USA (designed to promote conversion of barns to community, storage or industrial uses) has had some modest impact but demands for non-agricultural adaptation of barns nationally have not kept pace with the rate of loss. Research at the University of Trento in respect of Alpine structures has also assisted in reducing losses in the Trentino region of Italy.This paper will outline a research work that is under development which will consider whether the concept of \"envelope within an envelope\" can be introduced in the US state of Michigan and in Trentino in Italy to increase the adaptation of barns to residential use.\nThe problem: The barns of Alpine regions and Michigan (like those in so many other states in the USA) are prey to changing farming practices and the ever expanding \"urban sprawl\". The situation in Michigan, and indeed in the Midwest states in general, is exacerbated by the exceptional size of the barns compared to the smaller structures of Trentino. In addition, because the Michigan/Midwest barns are more recent and are constructed of smaller timbers, they demand almost as much maintenance when redundant and empty as when they are \"working\" and in use.One alternative use that appears not to have gained significant popularity in Michigan is the potential for conversion to living accommodation. Residential use for barn structures is well established in Trentino and in the rest of Europe. It is common in France and extremely popular in Britain. Unfortunately the new use often considerably modifies the exterior of the building, including changing the sizes and locations of openings.Within the Michigan situation it can be argued that there are a number of misconceptions impeding development of a market for the residential use of redundant barns. These include the perceptions that:* conversion is uneconomical because of anticipated high insulation- and energy-related costs;* historic preservation schemes can only produce uncomfortable living quarters at best;* second home or holiday rental accommodation will not be popular in isolated locations which are often at a significant distance from natural attractions, such as lakes or resort areas; and* Michigan barns, in particular, are too large to be converted effectively without large investment.In essence, lack of awareness of the potential of these great barns for living accommodation can be attributed to the failure to examine scientifically the constraints and advantages for residential purposes, and to develop methodologies for adaptation. Given the intrinsic architectural attraction of the typical Michigan barn, there is a compelling need to increase the awareness of Michigan citizens of the potential value of the old barn since, in the absence of such information, the loss of these signature structures from the Michigan rural landscape will continue at accelerated and irreversible rates. This will be to the detriment of citizens and tourists alike.Within the Alpine context, the \"envelope within the envelope\" is seen to facilitate adaptation, which will alleviate the damage currently sustained to elevations and landscape - and this is in addition to the technological advances the concept offers.\nBarn typologies: A range of barn typologies is extant in both Michigan and Trentino. The research activity will be limited to the study of particular designs, but it is anticipated that once concepts are established then these are likely to be applicable to others within the two regions.The choice of barn typologies for the Michigan study would be prototypes 1 and 2 illustrated in the report prepared in 1992 by the University of Michigan (Dandekar, 1992) (Figure 1). Typologies for Trentino barns would be selected from a report prepared in 2002 by the University of Trento (Figure 2).\nTechnical solutions: The new concept of \"envelope within an envelope\" is fundamentally different from that of the traditional conservation/preservation concept of \"structure within a structure\".Structure within a structure\nLighting: Particular attention will be made to the provision of natural lighting. One of the problems of conversions of historic structures is the provision of adequate light for modern residential uses. While the Michigan barn traditionally has the benefit of windows, its Italian counterpart generally does not. (However, Michigan barns are of large dimensions, while the windows are small and were only meant for basic lighting and intermittent use. Domestic needs will be more demanding.)The more innovative possibilities that are envisaged within the \"envelope within an envelope\" concept are the opportunity to review natural lighting systems adopted in modern energy efficient buildings in Europe and recently depicted in part in a New York City manual of design (Brown, 1999). The light shelf is one technique that is expected to be appropriate for penetrating to the inner envelopes (see Figures 6 and 7).\nThe goals of this research: This research has two main goals. The first is related to constructive, technical solutions, and the second is related to the adoption of FM as a medium to present barns as a people-orientated, economical (and therefore people supportive) solution for alternative systems for living.Technical solutions\nConclusion: The innovative concept of \"envelope within an envelope\" synthesizes both traditional and modern approaches to restoration and preservation of a unique component of the architectural/vernacular heritage of Michigan and Trentino. It provides novel opportunities for the effective reuse of these buildings. Within an FM framework it harnesses conventional and innovative techniques developed in the USA and in Europe that will lead towards technically sound solutions that should be perceived to be behaviourally and economically acceptable. These novel approaches can be expected to support the extension of the life of these traditional barn structures through subsequent economic, business-like development solutions. This research project, upon completion, will serve to illustrate appropriate strategies that are technically, economically and behaviourally sound that can be employed to incorporate redundant barns into the housing stock.It is anticipated that it will be possible to demonstrate that residential accommodation can be achieved that meets the statutory requirements of both countries whilst retaining historic character and providing modern convenience and comfort. It is further anticipated that, through Objective 5 (i.e. awareness), a tool will be created that will heighten the understanding of the unique value of this structural form and this in turn, will both assist in modifying public perceptions and lend support to the extension of the life of those important Michigan and Trentino icons - rural barns.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to introduce the innovative concept of \"envelope within an envelope\" as a tool to give redundant timber farm barns (which may be perceived as uneconomic for adaptation) new life for residential purposes. It aims to outline research that is proposed in order to provide guidelines for conservation/preservation professionals, potential user/occupants, investors and developers. It is based upon current problems existing in the Trentino region of Italy and the state of Michigan in the USA.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - After explaining the new concept and its potential for solving current conservation/preservation problems, the paper introduces technical and facilities management (FM) goals for research and development. Within the FM goal a series of objectives are outlined giving a broad methodology to consider user needs, costings, and communication needs for raising awareness.\nFindings: - The concept recognizes traditional conservation/preservation interventions capable of extending the life of a structure while at the same time permitting innovative technology to be introduced to provide modern and sustainable accommodation that will be perceived as economically viable.\nOriginality/value: - The concept of \"envelope within an envelope\" incorporates not only technical elements of conservation/preservation but also behavioural and economic elements arising from the user-orientated emphasis given by the introduction of an FM framework. This improves on the technocratic solutions that are offered by the \"structure within a structure\" concept.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How religiosity influences the consumption of luxury goods: exploration of the moral halo effect	[ "Religion", "Consumer behaviour", "Morality", "Luxury consumption", "Mindsets", "Moral emotions", "Moral vs marketplace mindsets", "Moral licensing" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The concept of luxury, while hard to define, is as old as humanity itself. Recently, scholars have defined luxury items as those providing extra pleasure and flattering all senses at once (Kapferer, 1997). Other attributes of luxury items include higher price premiums, superior quality and/or the ability to confer status and prestige upon their owners (Vigneron and Johnson, 1999, 2004). Scholars such as Jean Castarede and Pascal Morand have documented the evolution of luxury throughout history and across civilizations (Castarede, 2009; Morand, 2012; Tungate, 2009). For example, some scholars have attributed the modern systemization of luxury to King Louis XIV (Tungate, 2009). The opulence of Versailles was so extravagant that even the wealthiest of citizens could not keep up with him. His preferences became fashion trends and \"his passion for luxury ensured that an entire industry grew up to serve him\" (Tungate, 2009). The link between religion and luxury has also been documented as stemming from early religious times when religious places of worship were adorned with the finest materials available, and offerings to one's god(s) were to be of the highest quality as an act of reverence (Morand, 2012; Sekora, 1977). In fact, religious buildings are still filled with opulence today (e.g. the Catholic Vatican, Mormon temples, Hindu temples). What drove religious-based opulence, Max Weber (1958) argued, was the religious work ethic (exemplified in Protestantism in particular) that emphasized the accumulation of wealth, investment and arguably the ability to purchase luxury goods and have a market for such goods.\nMorality and the consumption of luxury goods: Luxury goods, as defined by Wiedmann et al. (2007, p. 2), are those of which \"the simple use of display of a particular branded product brings esteem for the owner.\" In addition, luxury goods fulfill both psychological and utilitarian needs at individual (i.e. materialism) and group (i.e. conspicuousness and prestige value) levels (Wiedmann et al., 2007). The prestige associated with the use of luxury goods may be attributed to the ability of luxury goods to convey exclusivity via higher prices than non-luxury goods, superior quality or performance, a shortage of supply or a combination of all three. For example, designer handbags, such as the Hermes Birkin bag, often require that consumers be placed on lengthy waitlists despite a retail price of over $6,000 (Rose, 2003).\nReligiosity and consumption of luxury products: Over 80 per cent of consumers worldwide adhere to some sort of religious belief (PEW, 2017). Religion serves as one of the most enduring sources of core values for consumers, which influences consumption motives, even at a subconscious level (Mathras et al., 2016; Minton and Kahle, 2014). Additionally, explicit references to materialism and pride-based consumption and status consumption are made in religious scripture (Schmidt et al., 2014), which suggests that a consumer's religious background provides insight into motives for and response to the consumption of luxury products. Specifically, Western religious scripture advocates against materialism and prideful consumption, with pride even being one of Catholicism's seven deadly sins (Schmidt et al., 2014). Similarly, Eastern religious scripture emphasizes detachment from physical possessions as important to reaching the state of enlightenment (Hunt and Penwell, 2008). Thus, the consumption of luxury products should be viewed as a moral issue to religious consumers because of scripture that specifies right and wrong (i.e. moral) behavior related to luxury purchase.\nMoral emotions as a mediator: Haidt (2003, p. 853) describes moral emotions as \"those emotions that are linked to the interests or welfare either of society as a whole or at least of persons other than the judge or agent.\" Moral emotions can reflect positive affect (e.g. awe, gratitude, compassion and love) or negative affect (e.g. guilt, shame, regret, remorse) (Haidt, 2003). As Kroll and Egan (2004) describe, moral emotions help to explain consumers' motivation to act in moral ways (i.e. to perform good behaviors and not bad behaviors). Stated simply, moral emotions are the driving force behind moral behavior.\nMoral vs marketplace mindsets: A moral mindset represents thinking that is right, virtuous and worthy, while a marketplace mindset focuses on economic attainment, a prosperous free-market and commercial advancement. The literature on moral mindsets generally describes such mindsets as thinking or manipulation of thought processes that are good or right at a present moment (Narvaez, 2013). While there is little discussion of a specific \"marketplace mindset,\" we use the term to describe a consumer's thinking (or manipulation of thought processes) that is focused on consumption, economic outcomes and marketplace factors. A marketplace mindset is not necessarily the opposite of a moral mindset (as actions in the marketplace can be moral in nature), but rather the two represent a shift in priorities and focus. There is possible confusion over the terms marketplace vs moral mindset when both can represent a moral (i.e. a perspective on what is right). However, we use the term moral mindset to refer to behavior more associated with virtue and worthiness, which is in contrast to the marketplace mindset that is focused more on economic gain.\nExplanatory mechanism: moral licensing: Interestingly, emphasizing moral goals can actually reduce moral concern by reducing situational ethically-relevant cognitive dissonance (Forster, 2009). This decreased moral concern after exposure to moral goals fits with the literature on compensatory mechanisms and licensing effects where performing a positive behavior can then license consumers to act in a way that is less positive (Jordan et al., 2011; Khan and Dhar, 2006), which can also occur in the context of moral decisions (Monin and Miller, 2001; Sachdeva et al., 2009).\nStudy 1: Mediation through motives and moral emotions: This study identifies the influence of religiosity on the consumption of luxury products (H1), as well as the mediating role of negative moral emotions (H2) in this relationship.\nDiscussion: As expected, negative moral emotions mediate the relationship between religiosity and luxury product evaluations, but positive moral emotions do not, thereby supporting H1 and H2. This was consistent for both dimensions of religiosity (intrinsic and extrinsic). This finding fits with prior literature (Rakrachakarn et al., 2015; Stillman et al., 2012) suggesting that religious consumers feel that they should not overspend or act in prideful ways, which would include purchasing luxury products just for show. As a result, such religious consumers report greater negative moral emotions (remorse, regret, shame and guilt) in thinking about purchasing luxury products.\nGeneral discussion: This research provides a novel perspective on the consumption of luxury products by showing that a consumer's moral vs marketplace mindset is a driving factor in evaluations of luxury products, and consumers' religiosity interacts with how this mindset influences emotions and luxury evaluations. Specifically, through three studies, the four purposes set forth in the introduction are fulfilled. First, the relationship among religiosity and the consumption of luxury products was confirmed to find that consumers high in religiosity had the poorest evaluations of luxury products. This relationship was found regardless of whether religiosity was measured (Studies 1 and 2) or primed (Study 3). Second, mediation through moral emotions revealed that negative (but not positive) moral emotions influenced luxury consumption evaluations (inclusive of perceptions of the consumption of luxury products being a moral issue). This relationship occurred with different measures of emotions (moral emotions and the PANAS scale), further validating these results. Third, the moderating influence of moral/marketplace mindset was explored, to show that, interestingly, moral mindsets produced fewer negative moral emotions and more positive evaluations of luxury products for consumers high in religiosity. Finally, moral licensing was shown to drive these effects such that a moral (marketplace) mindset produced fewer negative moral emotions and more positive evaluations of luxury goods for those high (low) in primed religiosity.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of religion, morality and mindset in influencing perceptions of luxury products.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study uses three experimental studies to investigate this relationship.\nFindings: Study 1 shows that religiosity influences negative moral emotions (but not positive moral emotions), which then negatively influence luxury consumption and morality evaluations. Study 2 replicates the effects of Study 1 and shows that priming a moral (marketplace) mindset decreases negative moral emotions and increases luxury consumption evaluations for highly (less) religious consumers. Study 3 explains the effects found in Studies 1 and 2 as driven by moral licensing, such that priming a moral (marketplace) mindset decreases (increases) the negative moral emotions experienced by those primed (not primed) with religiosity. Study 3 also improves the external validity of findings by including a social media sample of regular luxury purchases. Implications for theory and marketing practice are discussed.\nResearch limitations/implications: The present research is limited by samples conducted in Western culture with a predominantly Western, Christian religious audience. Future research should examine how moral vs marketplace mindsets differentially influence the consumption of luxury products for Eastern religious consumers (e.g. Hindus, Buddhists and Confucianists). Additionally, this research was conducted using Allport and Ross' (1967) religiosity measure. Some could argue that the measure is not the most representative for atheists or agnostics or is outdated, so further research would benefit from replicating and extending the findings in this paper with other, newer religiosity measures better adapted to measure all belief systems.\nPractical implications: Marketers of luxury products should realize the potential of a new target audience - religious consumers. While religiosity is positively correlated with negative moral emotions toward luxury products in Study 1, Studies 2 and 3 reveal that priming a moral mindset can reduce negative affect and increase evaluations of luxury products. Thus, marketers could seek out ways to emphasize morality in messaging. For example, a marketer may incorporate words such as virtues, ethics and/or noble, when describing attributes of their brand in advertising, thereby resulting in a moral licensing effect. Research suggests advertising content has the potential to influence consumers' perceived moral obligation, inclusive of the moral or immoral nature of the consumption of luxury brands.\nOriginality/value: While the link between religion and luxury goods is evident in popular culture, previous research has yet to empirically explore this relationship. This study fills this gap by investigating the role of religiosity on the perceived morality and ultimately the purchase of luxury branded goods.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Prioritizing the solutions of lean implementation in SMEs to overcome its barriers: An integrated fuzzy AHP-TOPSIS approach	[ "Lean production", "TOPSIS", "AHP", "Small- and medium-sized enterprises" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been growing rapidly in regards to their role in the sustenance of most national economies (Achanga et al., 2006). Namely, these companies hold the majority of the industrial and commercial infrastructure in most countries and have long been valued as a key driving force behind the manufacturing industry because of their vital role in the economic growth. Typically, they account for over 90 percent of the business establishments and about half or more of output and export shares (Pingyu and Yu, 2010). In addition, SMEs account for as much as 70 percent of the labor force in many developing countries. For these reasons, many researchers have promoted the idea of applying lean production within SMEs as a backbone of the international economic growth. This is in addition to the fact that SMEs have also felt the pressure exerted by the current rapidly changing market. Therefore, pushing effective implementation of lean production in SMEs is becoming imperative (Pingyu and Yu, 2010).\n2. Literature review: This section presents a review of the literature on lean production in SMEs, critical factors and barriers which lead to the failure of lean implementation in the context of SMEs along with proposed solutions to overcome these barriers. Then, it formulates the research scope for this study.\n3. Research methodology: 3.1 Application of MCDM\n4. Empirical study of prioritization of solutions to overcome lean barriers in SMEs: The aim of this section is to validate the usefulness of the presented fuzzy AHP-TOPSIS approach (Figure 2) in a real context of SMEs and to obtain the viewpoint of small companies and lean experts concerning the identified barriers of lean implementation (Table I) and proposed solutions (Table II).\n5. Discussion on barriers and solutions of lean implementation in SMEs: The proposed fuzzy AHP-TOPSIS methodology provides a comprehensive and systematic way to define priorities among barriers of lean in SMEs alongside solutions to overcome these barriers. As for barriers, the results (Table XII) indicated that SMEs argue that top priorities among the 20 barriers identified are:\n6. Conclusions: Although it is predominant for the last decades, certain barriers have not been awarded sufficient attention and this has resulted in the low numbers of successful implementations in SMEs. Therefore, the central strength of this paper is the identification, the ranking and the prioritization of the most prominent barriers along with the evaluation and prioritization of the most efficient solutions to overcome barriers that lead to the failure of lean implementation in SMEs. All these go to stepwise implementation of these solutions because it is not feasible for SMEs to implement all solutions at the same time due to various constraints, therefore ranking the solutions is essential. The present study is based on an integrated fuzzy AHP-TOPSIS to get weights of barriers and ranks solutions of lean implementation in SMEs. The research revealed that the main barriers that are thwarting lean development and implementation in a context such as that of small organizations are the lack of management involvement and the lack of a suitable methodology of lean implementation. Other factors also appears in the list of top five priorities such as short-term vision, fear and resistance to change and lack of understanding of lean.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The implementation of lean production in small manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) harbors a great deal of barriers on practical, theoretical, financial and organizational sides. In view of this, the purpose of this paper is to explore and prioritize the solutions to overcome these barriers and pitfalls in order to identify a list of the most feasible and efficient solutions on which SMEs must focus to success their lean journey.\nDesign/methodology/approach: First, a review of the published articles along with the interview of some lean experts have allowed to identify 20 barriers grouped into five categories along with 17 solutions proposed to overcome these barriers. Afterwards, an integrated fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process-Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (AHP-TOPSIS) was proposed to evaluate and rank the solutions of lean implementation in SMEs and overcome its barriers. The AHP is used to determine weights of the barriers as criteria, and the fuzzy TOPSIS method is used to determine the final ranking of the solutions of lean adoption in SMEs.\nFindings: The top five barriers of lean implementation in SMEs were found to be: lack of management involvement, lack of adapted methodology of lean implementation, short-term vision, fear and resistance to change and lack of understanding of lean. Moreover, the top five solutions to overcome the barriers of lean adoption in SMEs are as follows: commitment and participation of management, adoption of simple measurement and KPIs, development of organizational learning culture, early deployment of lean culture through training and allocation of sufficient time and resources for change.\nOriginality/value: The findings of this study can provide a basis for researchers and practitioners in order to understand the real reasons of lean failure in SMEs and develop improvement plans to increase its success rate. Moreover, it proposes a more reliable, robust and systematic decision support tool for stepwise implementation of the solutions of lean adoption in SMEs since they lack sufficient resources to address all the solutions simultaneously.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Broadening brand engagement within the service-centric perspective: An intersubjective hermeneutic framework	[ "Practices", "Brand engagement", "Hermeneutic framework", "Intersubjective orientation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: During the last three decades there has been considerable research on branding (Merz et al., 2009). From the firm perspective, branding scholars have largely focussed on brand management issues such as brand image, brand equity and brand identity (e.g. De Chernatony, 1999, 2011; Onyas and Ryan, 2015). This research has been primarily conducted under the dominant logic based on the exchange of goods, resulting in an emphasis on managerial models of branding \"effects\" driven by quantitative analysis (Brodie and de Chernatony, 2009). More recently, a newer stream of research has emerged under the influence of service-dominant logic, \"which views brands in terms of [the] collaborative, value co-creation activities of firms and all of their stakeholders\" (Merz et al., 2009, p. 328). This research stream interrogates issues such as brand value co-creation, brand meaning co-creation, co-creative brand experiences and customer-brand relationships (e.g. Holt, 2002, 2004; Veloutsou and Moutinho, 2009; Clatworthy 2012; Tierney et al., 2016). Within this expanded perspective, \"brands are re-defined as complex multidimensional constructs with varying degrees of meaning, independence, co-creation and scope. Brands are semiotic marketing systems that generate value for direct and indirect participants, society, and the broader environment, through the exchange of co-created meaning\". (Conejo and Wooliscroft, 2015, p. 287). Central to this service-centric perspective is understanding the processes underpinning customers' and other stakeholders' interactions with brands that co-create value-in-use and brand meanings (Bengtsson and Ostberg, 2006; Merz et al. 2009; Schroeder, 2009).\nThe concept of engagement: Research on the concept of customer/consumer engagement has been receiving increasing attention within the service-centric literature (e.g. Bowden, 2009; Brodie et al., 2011; Van Doorn et al., 2010). However, extant research conceptualises engagement from diverse vantage points. For instance, Bowden (2009) defines engagement as a psychological process that models the underlying mechanisms by which customer loyalty forms for new customers as well as the mechanisms by which loyalty may be maintained; while Van Doorn et al. (2010) describe engagement as the customers' behavioural manifestation towards a brand or firm beyond purchase resulting from motivational drivers, such as word-of-mouth activity, recommendations, helping other customers, blogging and writing reviews.\nIntersubjective orientation in service-dominant logic: Increasingly, service-dominant logic researchers (e.g. Edvardsson et al., 2011; Lobler, 2011) have started to shift from a purely phenomenological perspective, as prescribed in service-dominant logic's original foundational premises (Vargo and Lusch, 2004), towards an intersubjective orientation, which has its philosophical roots in social constructionism (Berger and Luckmann, 1967). A social constructionist intersubjective approach is underpinned by a shared epistemology, namely, that all knowledge is communal, contingent upon human practices, locally constructed in and out of interactions between individuals and their world, and developed and transmitted through socially mediated discourse. Within this perspective, the consumers' performances of socially constructed practices are deemed to frame the consumer meaning and sense-making of their situated experiences, which then recursively become integrated in the consumers' stock of social knowledge, thus impacting future consumption experiences (Thompson, 1997). As Barker (2007, p. 338) puts it:Understanding people entails recognizing the ways in which we are both all similar and at the same time different, as we all live in the same cultural world, which enables us to communicate with one another through shared language and taken-for-granted rules; but we experience this differently through the different ways in which we make sense of our experiences and internalize and externalize social messages.\nIntersubjective hermeneutic framework of brand engagement: Across diverse fields of social science, a hermeneutic mode of interpretation underpins research on the narrative structuring and textual analysis of consumption (Heidegger, 1962; Thompson, 1997). Within this theoretical perspective, all human understanding and, therefore, all meaning, is organised and communicated in terms of socially shared narrative structures, such as consumption stories and brand narratives. Moreover, the narrative meanings of particular life events, including brand consumption encounters, are perceived to be contextualised within broader narratives of self-identity which, themselves, are contextualised within even broader narratives of historically established cultural meanings and systems (Thompson, 1997; O'Reilly and Kerrigan, 2013).\nDiscussion: Theoretical implications\nConclusion and future research: Our study provides a novel theoretical foundation for understanding brand engagement in the context of intersubjective orientation of value co-creation, which broadens extant views of how consumers engage with brands. In this endeavour, we discuss the importance of focussing on consumers experiences of brand engagement practices, which embody engagement in the broader context of consumers' social lives. Furthermore, we incorporate the phenomenological nature of brand engagement experiences, and address how these experiences are related to value-in-use and practices. Specifically, within our framework, value-in-use serves as a nexus between idiosyncratic brand experiences and the established socially constructed brand engagement practices which these experiences reflect.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: While extant service-centric research has largely focussed on managerial advantages, few studies have addressed how brand engagement emerges in the broader context of consumer lives. The purpose of this paper is to develop a novel intersubjective hermeneutic framework that bridges the socially constructed as well as the individualised meanings of brand engagement in the context of service research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This conceptual paper adopts a theory-building approach based on recent developments in the service-centric marketing literature.\nFindings: The authors offer a novel theoretical perspective that recognises the intersubjective and phenomenological nature of individual and collective consumer brand experiences, and show how such experiences emerge from socially constructed brand engagement practices using the co-constituting lens of value-in-use.\nResearch limitations/implications: The proposed conceptual framework invites further empirical and contextual investigations of intersubjective brand engagement in both online and offline contexts.\nOriginality/value: The contribution of this framework is twofold. First, the authors draw on the intersubjective orientation and hermeneutic framework to provide conceptual clarity in relation to the nature of brand engagement practices, brand experiences, and value-in-use, and discuss their interrelationships. Second, the authors address the nature of meaning ascribed to engagement beyond customer-firm-brand relationships, and discuss why any given consumer's experience of brand engagement reflects a complex dialectic between socially constructed and individualised brand meanings. In doing so, the integrative framework recognises the interplay between the intersubjective and phenomenological natures of consumer brand experiences, and offers insights as to how these experiences are framed by broader socially constructed engagement practices.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A model of supply chain and supply chain decision-making complexity	[ "Supply chain complexity", "Supply chain decision‐making complexity", "Qualitative study", "Supply chain management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: The key to successful supply chain management is attaining effective integration of the business functions and channel members such that all processes are aligned to achieve the overall system objectives (Sahin and Robinson, 2002, 2005). However, the dynamic, multi-functional, and global nature of supply chains with their multiplicity of firms, processes, and flows yield highly complex, multifaceted, and large-scale systems, which the literature refers to as supply chain complexity (Mentzer et al., 2001; Choi et al., 2001; Choi and Hong, 2002). The degree of complexity is derived from the structural properties of the system as determined by the number and variety of elements defining the supply chain and their interactions (e.g. the number of participants, facilities, products, transportation links, information flows, etc.).Highly complex supply chains, due to the vastness of data, decision variables, intricate interrelationships among variables and system constraints, and performance trade-offs present many challenges for management in arriving at sound business decisions. The managerial effort for effectively planning, implementing, and controlling the supply chain is known as supply chain decision-making complexity. While the two complexity measures are interrelated, it is important to note that supply chain complexity relates to the structural elements defining the supply chain, while supply chain decision-making complexity relates to human cognitive and organizational decision-making processes.Today's supply chain managers find their roles to be evolving into managing more complex supply chains that are defined by rapidly changing, continuously expanding and often uncertain business environments. Given the dynamism and uncertainty of the environment, supply chain professionals take on responsibility for more complicated tasks and face increased challenges in supply chain decision making. Despite the fact that they realize and recognize the negative outcomes of complexity, they often have a difficult time identifying and effectively addressing the real causes of the complexity. Lack of understanding of the complexity drivers, and poorly designed and executed strategies to address complexity in supply chains make supply chain decision-making much more difficult and often lead to undesirable outcomes. One needs to understand the source of complexity (keeping in mind that not all sources of complexity are bad; see Bozarth et al. (2009) and Closs et al. (2008) for more discussion) in order to develop effective strategies to manage it and accomplish corporate goals that are not hindered by undesirable complexity outcomes.While there is an emerging literature on supply chain complexity, it falls short in explaining the relationship between supply chain complexity and supply chain decision making. First, the literature primarily focuses on structural measures of supply chain complexity. However, due to the dynamic and large-scale nature of the supply chain, it is impractical to enumerate all of the possible alternatives, activities, information queues, transactions, linkages, and other factors proposed as drivers of supply chain complexity. Hence, the concept of objectively measuring supply chain complexity, while theoretically appealing, does little to aid management in improving supply chain management processes. Second, the majority of past research, with few exceptions (Perona and Miragliotta, 2004), does not clearly differentiate supply chain complexity and supply chain decision-making complexity. However, the cognitive decision-making literature strongly suggests that they need to be differentiated. Supply chain managers may be able to apply cognitive processes, organizational processes, and/or decision aids that may transform a highly complex supply chain into a manageable decision-making problem. However, it is not clear in the current literature which decision aids or processes, if any, mitigate supply chain complexity. A comprehensive empirical-based model of supply chain complexity and its relationship to supply chain decision making is lacking in the literature. Such a theoretical model that takes an integrated view of supply chain and supply chain decision-making complexity and that is empirically grounded in practice is well justified and required to advance supply chain complexity research in a meaningful direction. Such research, employing field study of actual industry practice would transcend prior efforts, which focus on narrowly defined tasks or anecdotal evidence.This research takes the first steps toward filling this void in the literature. Our specific research questions address what supply chain professionals mean by supply chain complexity, how they define it, what drives complexity, and what the outcomes are. Of particular interest are also strategies that supply chain professionals use to manage supply chain complexity. Towards this end, we propose a supply chain and supply chain decision-making complexity model that is constructed using a grounded theory research methodology based on in-depth interviews with supply chain professionals Theoretical support from the literature in various disciplines is also provided. The research findings provide an understanding of supply chain and supply chain decision-making complexity, complexity drivers, outcomes, and strategies that business professionals apply to moderate the complexity outcomes.The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 provides a review of the relevant literature followed by a discussion of the research methodology in Section 3. Research findings are presented in Section 4. Section 5 presents the conclusions. Finally, Section 6 discusses research limitations and future research directions.\n2 Literature review: This section reviews the multi-disciplinary literature that relates to supply chain and supply chain decision-making complexity.2.1 Supply chain complexity\n3 Research methodology: The research objective is to develop a comprehensive model of supply chain complexity and supply chain decision-making complexity that is grounded in actual business practice. Toward this end, we applied the grounded theory research methodology. This is a rigorous qualitative, theory-building approach that is based on field study of a multifaceted phenomenon or process through a series of structured data collection and analysis steps. It is a discovery-oriented, interpretive method similar to ethnography, which is designed to facilitate theory construction from field data (Flint and Mentzer, 2000).3.1 Sampling\n4 Research findings: This section discusses the major research findings and the resulting complexity model that includes the antecedents, elements, outcomes, and moderators related to supply chain complexity and supply chain decision-making complexity.4.1 Defining supply chain complexity and supply chain decision-making complexity\n5 Conclusions: The past 20 years witnessed a broadening of managerial responsibility from a functional focus in the 1980s to an enterprise focus in the 1990s to a supply chain focus in the 2000s. At the same time, the business environment expanded globally, customers' expectations increased in terms of product variety and service, technological innovations shortened product life cycles, organizational and network structures became more dynamic, and market and logistics uncertainties increased risks. These changes increased the magnitude of problems facing supply chain managers and increased managerial efforts to \"put order to chaos.\" The growing importance of this challenge is articulated by a VP of supply chain operations for a leading multinational company:If you are in supply chain management today, complexity is like a cancer that destroys supply chain efficiency and one that you have to fight (Gilmore, 2008).This research study has several implications for both theory and practice, and provides several future research directions.5.1 Theoretical implications\n6 Research limitations and future research directions: The model presented in this paper is the first attempt to build a comprehensive theory of supply chain and supply chain decision-making complexity. As a result, it provides a platform for additional research.This research was limited primarily to large manufacturing and distribution firms, and two-third party logistics companies that support the operations of these manufacturing firms. While our theoretical sampling approach allows for generalizability in this domain, our findings may not be applicable in all contexts. Therefore, exploring supply chain and supply chain decision-making complexity in various other settings is worthwhile.The next natural phase of this research is empirically testing the proposed model or a subset of its components. Theory testing requires developing measures and scales and testing the model using research methods such as surveys, structural equation modeling, etc. Theory testing research will also identify whether any of the constructs (or the elements of the constructs) are correlated and need to be re-defined. Additionally, it should determine if the constructs that emerged from the interviews are the right ones and whether there are others that did not emerge in the field interviews, should be included.Research could also be directed at specific complexity antecedents, strategic moderators, human cognitive ability moderators, tactical moderators or outcomes. A better understanding of each construct's role and potential for improving supply chain performance is important. For instance, information systems and knowledge management emerged as strategic moderators to supply chain decision making. However, it should be recognized that these are broad, multi-dimensional constructs that need further investigation and were not fully investigated due to the scope of this research study. Similarly, this research identified three human cognitive ability moderators. Yet, there is a substantial literature on human factors that impact decision making that needs to be tapped into. Overall, while this research discovered relationships between various constructs shown in Figure 1, the nature of several of these relationships warrants further exploration. Such focused studies may help gain deeper insights about the phenomenon and develop more specific approaches for managing complexity. It is also important to look at the interaction effects of various antecedents on supply chain complexity and interaction effects of a set of moderators on supply chain decision-making complexity.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The objective of this paper is to develop a comprehensive model of supply chain and supply chain decision-making complexity that provides an understanding of the drivers of supply chain complexity and strategies to manage supply chain and supply chain decision-making complexity and outcomes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Grounded theory methodology is employed to build a theory of supply chain and supply chain decision-making complexity and develop propositions related to antecedents, moderators, and outcomes of supply chain complexity. In addition, extensive literature review and informal interactions with a number of supply chain professionals have been used to validate the theory.\nFindings: - In addition to identifying the antecedents of supply chain complexity, the authors explore strategic, human cognitive ability, and tactical moderators for managing supply chain complexity.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The comprehensive framework presented in the paper builds a theory of supply chain and supply chain decision-making complexity that is grounded in empirical data. The research also incorporates disparate findings, constructs from multi-disciplinary research on supply chain complexity and provides future research directions.\nPractical implications: - The research helps practitioners better understand the sources and outcomes of supply chain complexity and how to manage it. Various strategies to moderate the impact of supply chain complexity are presented.\nOriginality/value: - An integrated, comprehensive theory of supply chain complexity is proposed along with definitions of supply chain complexity and supply chain decision-making complexity. The proposed model is rooted in actual practice and supported by the existing literature.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Views on education for sustainable development (ESD) among lecturers in UK MSc taught courses: Personal, institutional and disciplinary factors	[ "Education for sustainable development", "Qualitative research", "Thematic analysis", "Postgraduate", "UK", "Academic perspective", "Lecturer views", "Qualitative interview" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: MSc in sustainability and development UK: Despite progress toward the third wave of transformative Sustainability 2.0 (Filho and Pace, 2016; Wood et al., 2016), sustainability commitments of universities to education for sustainable development (ESD) remain varied (Green, 2013; Sylvestre et al., 2013a/2013b). New forms of learning are being developed' (Barth and Timm, 2011; Wals, 2014, p. 13) including a wide range of experiential pedgogies (Cotton and Winter, 2010; Sipos et al., 2008). While disciplines have greater challenges to addressing the broad social, economic and environmental questions of ESD than others (Fukukawa et al., 2013; Jansen, 2010), the aspirational goal remains ESD (Lozano et al., 2015; Sylvestre et al., 2013a/2013b) \"not as a specialism within departments of economics or environmental science or sociology or politics, but as a fresh and necessary challenge to the ways that ideas are classified in economics, environmental science, sociology, politics and so on\" (Gough and Scott, 2008, p. 167).\nFaculty views on education for sustainable development: from categories to discourses: Lecturers are recruited into such programs for a range of reasons, bringing experiences, specific research interests and values regarding sustainability and development to teaching. This study identified twenty five prior studies on lecturer views with particular emphasis on those employing qualitative thematic interview. These studies focus on generic or discipline specific cohorts, are often institution specific, and attempt to categorize views although rarely in relation to broader discourses of sustainable development and ESD (Genus, 2014; Raco, 2005; Sylvestre et al., 2013a/2013b). Although this study pays particular attention to the UK context, included are studies from other geographies, and the review addresses these in chronological order.\nMethodology: active interviewing and thematic discourse analysis: This interview study was cross-institutional, focused on an academic cohort working in MSc (or similar) programs. The study used key concepts, e.g. the ladder of sustainable development (Baker, 2013), sensitivity to active interviewing principles to contextualize responses (Gunasekara, 2007; Irvine et al., 2013) and attempted to distinguish views on sustainable development from practices of ESD (Wright and Horst, 2013). Following transcription of interviews, analysis was developed following thematic discourse analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006, p. 81). This is an approach, which combines thematic analysis (Nowell et al., 2017) with focus on discourse, where \"Discourses are conversations or talk with an agenda\" (Singer and Hunter, 1999, p. 66). Tanggaard (2009) suggests that the aim of analysis is to identify discursive repertoires or narratives in speaking within particular social settings and to fuel public dialogue about research themes beyond the specific interview setting. Thus, \"discourse analysis can help analysis move beyond the thematising or coding of responses disconnected from questions of identity and institution\" (Melles, 2011, p. 455); this is a particular focus here.\nFindings: In the following analysis, thematic headings related to explicit interview prompts and ideas and concepts that emerged in the interview as significant are headlined. The summary headings, commentary and examples attempt to reflect albeit with limitations the interconnected nature of nearly a thousand substantive codes (n = 976) identified in the transcripts. Initial substantive codes were assigned to transcript segments, and these were subsequently brought together into interrelated themes with relevant subcategories (Nowell et al., 2017).The analysis highlights connections with previously identified themes and ideas, but the analysis pays attention to the constructed nature of answers, the institutional context and tensions and argues finally for more attention to the discursive nature of views and positions. Given space limitations I only briefly comment on the significance of interaction before moving to specific themes.\nDiscussion: In the previous subsections some of the findings have been discussed in relation to the existing literature. In this section, more general discussion is developed. Despite a small cohort of respondents (n = 21) this thematic discourse study identifies multiple interrelated themes and factors defining academic approaches to sustainable development and ESD. Prior studies of lecturer views identified subgroups with degrees of commitment to anthropocentric and eco-centric ideals and practices, and varied knowledge and commitment. In comparison to prior studies, this study explored a wider range of factors and did not assume that individuals held dichtomous and distinctive views. Nuanced context dependent views within the constraints of organizational expectations and influences were an overwhelming finding.\nConclusion: As Hegarty (2008, p. 687) notes, existing mapping, survey and individual institution studies have paid little attention to academic culture and institutions, arguing that \"in the light of the role of academic identity and its determinant impact on scholarly culture and practice, we might need to consider a different approach?\" Thus, this study finds that in a context of embedding of mainstream sustainable development on university campuses, taught postgraduate programs tend to project a mainstream ESD approach albeit with foregrounding in some programs of its contested nature (Connelly, 2007). This mainstream approach, as alluded to above, is an institutional response to expectations in the higher education institutional environment.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: In the new Sustainability 2.0 era of education for sustainable development (ESD) transforming, curriculum remains a high interest topic, including in the UK. Among influential factors for progress, lecturer views on sustainable development and ESD in curriculum are important. In particular, the relationship between espoused views on sustainability and development and these views institutionalized into the curriculum require further investigation. Existing qualitative interview studies of lecturers identify a range of views about sustainable development and ESD but rarely focus on postgraduate environments nor use thematic discourse analysis.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This active interview study enrolled a cohort of academics (n = 21) teaching into ten postgraduate UK taught masters degrees. Using active interviews and thematic discourse analysis, this study focused lecturer accounts of translating sustainable development into ESD, student attitudes and characteristics and course nature and content in relation to institutional, disciplinary, personal and other drivers and discourses. Thematic discourse analysis and NVivo 12 the study identified themes and discourses arising from the interview accounts.\nFindings: In addition to identifying echoes of previously identified themes, this study focuses on the influence of interviewer-interviewee interaction and the interrelated nature of themes developed from 972 substantive codes. These themes identify the key influences as institutional, personal and disciplinary perspectives, institutional contrasts and tensions; pragmatic and passionate student characteristics; flexible sustainability principles and definitions; and social and personal ethics, ideology and equity, as key factors. Despite varying in length and depth, interviewees all show a deep appreciation for the challenges of defining and teaching sustainable development in complex institutional circumstances.\nPractical implications: Faculty accounts of sustainable development and ESD practice depend on personal ethics and experiences, disciplinary discourses and institutional drivers and arrangements. Rather than focusing on simple categorizations of views in abstract, progress toward transformational ESD should acknowledge the need for dialogue about the importance of a plurality of views and discourses.\nOriginality/value: Thematic discourse analysis of a multi-institutional cohort affords closer analysis of contextual institutional and identity factors influencing approaches to HESD. Academic views cannot be easily subcategorized into broad conservative or radical positions. Final discussion of the relevance of institutional theory to sustainability change is also new.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Collaborative KM for SMEs: a framework evaluation study	[ "Web 2.0", "Information management", "Knowledge transfer", "Knowledge management systems", "Business innovation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Background and approach: Managing knowledge in organisations evolves around the need to increase sales, enhance work practices and decision making, shorten development time, improve customer services, empower employees and innovate. Arguably, implementing knowledge management (KM) initiatives in small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) is particularly crucial, as the single key resource in these organisations is knowledge. DeSouza and Awazu (2006) go so far as to suggest that know-how and knowledge are the most crucial resource to SMEs over any other resources they may have or use.\n2. KM at Mapa: Mapa is an international financial market research consultancy specialising in competitor benchmarking for the online financial services industry. Their services simulate internet users' experiences by completing customer journeys on a comparative basis in the field of online and mobile banking. They advise on best practice and competitive advantage, aiming to improve customer attraction, retention and profitability. Mapa provides research, consultancy and interactive workshops. Their research involves on-going competitor monitoring, scheduled reports and research credits. Their consultancy work provides actionable recommendations in the form of strategic development advice and information necessary for identifying strengths and weaknesses and for creating effective plans for product innovation and market development.\n3. Measuring success: Various methodologies are used for the evaluation of KMS with most companies using benchmarking and scorecards. The diversity of methodologies arises from the multiplicity of KM applications, problem domains and researchers' expertise (Liao, 2003). Traditional methods make use of financial indicators, while current approaches favour social and behavioural science methodologies treating KM evaluation development as a problem-orientated domain (Chen and Chen, 2006).\n4. The proposed framework: Existing KM frameworks can be classified as prescriptive or descriptive, depending on whether they prescribe a KM methodology or describe the nature of KM (Holsappele and Joshi, 1999). While there is neither consensus nor cohesiveness across these frameworks, many focus on the knowledge cycle process and/or KM tasks (Hajiheydari et al., 2012). There is hard evidence suggesting that a linear process is not particularly suitable for the KM process and that feedback loops are appropriate, particularly for learning purposes (Rubenstein-Montano, 2001).\n5. Conclusions and further work: The feedback approach proposed attempts to adopt elements from both the prescriptive and descriptive frameworks, whilst embedding feedback and addressing the fact that KM is an iterative practice. Organisational requirements evolve around the organisation, the skills and abilities of its human capital and the business environment, and demonstrate the value of adding a \"lessons learnt\" strand to the KM activities. This links to KM being a concept that is evolving along with the enabling technologies, as seen in how Web 2.0 applications have refreshed KM activities with their inherent socially based interactions at their core.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Implementing knowledge management (KM) initiatives in small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) is crucial, as knowledge is their single key resource. Despite evidence that it improves performance and competitive advantage, KM practices in SMEs have been problematic due to resource constraints, while existing solutions and practices fail to meet the changing requirements of growing companies. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the evolution of the KM system of an independent SME, whose growth changed their operations' systems and KM requirements. The necessary changes were promptly acknowledged and managed as a priority by revisiting their system and adapting it to their new needs. This KM practice and the consequent feedback loop have been identified as an essential tool for growth and change.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In order to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the key issues involved in KM adoption in SMEs, the paper took an exploratory approach, applying a combination of action research methods with emphasis on participatory observation and process consultation that drew upon interviews, document analysis and observations.\nFindings: The result of the study is a framework evaluation of KM for SMEs which addresses the process of organisational change, ensures the availability of knowledge assets and safeguards the company's key strategic objectives.\nOriginality/value: Previous studies in the area follow a linear process and do not re-visit the existing solution regularly to evaluate, learn and adapt. The proposed framework differs in that it employs a feedback loop and provides the means for analysis to evaluate success and activate the process of learning.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Systematic curriculum integration of sustainable development using life cycle approaches: The case of the Civil Engineering Department at the Universite de Sherbrooke	[ "Life cycle approach", "Sustainable development", "Education", "Civil engineering", "Curriculum integration" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The concept of sustainable development (SD) emerged from the publication, \"Our Common Future\" (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987), and since then, it has become increasingly popular. This is partly explained by the role of education, which can effectively deploy sustainability concepts to students: our young citizens (United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2015). The attainment of SD integration in education requires, among other things, curriculum updating through the introduction of SD concepts within the contents of the courses. An important part of this practice is, when possible, to teach SD in the context of the course and to familiarize students with SD responsibilities, thinking and tools (Abdul-Wahab et al., 2003). Such integration would be useful for the future implementation of sustainability in the everyday work of the students as engineers, for whom requirements are presented by employers as well as the National Qualifications Board (Engineers Canada, 2016).\n2. Methods: This section presents the proposed framework for SD integration in a curriculum. The framework is built on the following five steps:\n3. Proposed framework application: This section presents a case study in which the proposed framework presented in Section 2 is applied to the CE department at the UdeS.\n4. Discussion: Many factors, such as academic barriers and the scope of the project proposed, need to be addressed before hoping to obtain successful integration. The integration of SD contains many challenges that are often identified depending on the size and complexity of the institutions (Chase, 2009), institutional inertia (Jones et al., 2010), communication difficulties (Zilahy and Huisingh, 2009), economic or time constraints, lack of a common understanding of SD and a lack of SD knowledge (Desha et al., 2009) and curriculum assessment (Stough et al., 2017). As far as it concerns the University of Sherbrooke, the strategic plan of 2010 (Universite de Sherbrooke, 2015) mentioned the need for these changes into the programs of the faculties (still mentioned in the revised version of 2015); however, regarding the facts, not much has been done. The introduced teaching activities and modules help in operationalizing from the SD concept state to the implementation state for problem-solving. The curriculum is now in compliance with the new standards set by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) (CEAB, 2016) such as meeting the requirements of Criteria 09[3] \"impact of engineering on society and the environment\". The impact of this intervention on students was assessed through the satisfaction survey, which shows a great interest from the student community regarding the SD concerns in CE (Section 3.5). In addition, from the first cohorts subjected to this intervention, a rise in the number of students taking the optional course GCI 736 LCA and Eco-design proposed in the last sessions of their engineering training has been noticed, which shows a new interest aroused by the intervention. The teaching faculty members have also shown great satisfaction, mentioning that it was a wish they have had for a long time but were prevented from fulfilling it by their lack of SD knowledge. A testament to their satisfaction is that word has gotten around to the engineering faculty, and there has been interest from the directors of other departments such as mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and computer engineering. The commitment of the professors (principal investigators) and the need to comply with the CEAB requirements has led the faculty of engineering to set up those pedagogic innovations. The five-step procedure is also in the process of being applied to each department. First, in the \"knowledge\" module, the students of the mechanical engineering department are being familiarized with the various SD tools, such as the differences in strategies between a conventional design and an eco-design, \"design for disassembly\" or \"design for energy conservation\". In further modules, the SD tools can also be presented with the life cycle tools applied to mechanical engineering field to assess the life cycle cost and social life cycle along with the analysis of environmental impacts. The application in the electrical and computer engineering department might be slightly different, given that the program is problem-based learning, so a course's content is assimilated by the students on their own some interaction afterward with the teaching staff. With regard to short-term action, the same procedure will be applied to each curriculum, and particular attention will be given to the capstone projects as these courses gather the most knowledge from the students' training. With regard to mid-term action, a combined capstone project between departments would be a great opportunity for the students; however, thus far, the specific logistics and proceedings of the curriculums are making the task difficult.\n5. Conclusions: This paper attempts to address the need for a procedure for the consistent and systematic integration of SD in a curriculum. This procedure is caused by the unusual relationship between SD and different curriculums, including CE. The unfamiliarity with teaching SD also necessitates the need for a guided procedure. A procedure using life cycle approaches and tools was developed in five steps:\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a consistent and systematic integration framework of sustainable development (SD) in a civil engineering (CE) curriculum, given the connection between the two. Curriculum integration is a challenging project and requires the development of certain protocols to ensure success.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper thus proposes a framework for the systematic integration of SD through the lenses of life cycle approach and associated tools to attain effective curriculum integration. The proposed framework suggests the following five steps: mapping the curriculum, setting learning targets, developing an action plan for the assessed program, implementing the action plan and assessing the final performance.\nFindings: This framework was applied to the CE curriculum at Sherbrooke University. To assess its success, a student satisfaction survey was conducted, and teachers' feedback was obtained; the results showed 85 per cent positive responses. The authors show how this study allowed the CE curriculum to be properly updated and brought in line with today's engineering profession requirements with regard to SD.\nOriginality/value: The integration focuses on the application of life cycle approaches and tools such as environmental life cycle assessment and life cycle costing on CE content. Additionally, the presented approach can be easily adapted to other engineering curriculums and, to a certain extent, to other non-engineering curriculums.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The influence of organizational culture and HRM on building innovative capability	[ "Organizational culture", "Strategic HRM", "HRM", "HR practices", "Innovative capability", "Innovative culture" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The organizational capability to innovate is largely accepted as a critical competitiveness factor in contemporary organizations (Anderson et al., 2014; Bos-Nehles et al., 2017; Hammond et al., 2011; Laursen and Foss, 2014; Lin and Sanders, 2017; Naranjo-Valencia et al., 2015). For example, Gary Hamel (2012) reinforces the idea using the argument that we owe our existence, prosperity, happiness and future to innovation. Moreover, in the academic and management literature, we can identify the emergence of a large consensus that innovation is a broad subject that encompasses multiple facets, such as product, service, process and organizational innovation - including Human Resource Practices (Birkinshaw et al., 2008; Boon, et al., 2019; Davila et al., 2013; Sanders and Lin, 2016; Veenendaal et al., 2014). Due to its relevance to the sustainable success of any type of organization, the search for an understanding of the factors that can significantly contribute to building innovative organizations occupies a large scope within the strategic management field (Chang et al., 2013; Colakoglu et al., 2019; Laursen and Foss, 2014; Wright and Ulrich, 2017).To advance our knowledge of the mechanisms that foster innovation capability in organizations, the management literature suggests three conceptual directions or foci of analysis. The first area of focus is the concept of innovation as a process that is similar to other management processes that require a specific set of methods, procedures and practices (Davila et al., 2013; Hargrave and Van De Ven, 2006; McLean, 2005). In terms of the latter, Peter Drucker captured the key underlying idea for the management of innovation and stated that \"... the effort to create purposeful, focused change in an enterprise's economic or social potential\" (Drucker 1998, p. 3). This management process has a strategic focus because it aims to ensure that organizations can conceive, adopt or modify existing systems, policies, management practices or procedures to create value (Anderson et al., 2014; Birkinshaw et al., 2008; Damanpour, 1991; De Winne and Sels, 2010; Ravichandran and Bano, 2016) or if we adopt the conceptual model proposed by the resource-based view of firm theory as a way to create something that is of value, rare, difficult to imitate and organization embedded (Barney and Clark, 2007; Colbert, 2004; Wright and Ulrich, 2017). The second is the idea of viewing innovation as a part of a broader organizational system of personal, social, technological and cultural factors that affect organizational creativity and innovation (Amabile et al., 1996; Hammond et al., 2011; Laursen and Foss, 2014). Among this range of factors, organizational culture (OC) has been primarily referred to as key to managing innovation, specifically by creating a common understanding as well as focusing and aligning employees' behaviors toward innovation initiatives (Buschgens et al., 2013; Khazanchi et al., 2007; Seeck and Diehl, 2017). The third, which is especially relevant to the focus of this paper, is the attention that has been given to Human Resource Management (HRM) and more concretely to the role of HR practices (HRP) (Ceylan, 2013; Jiang et al., 2012; Jimenez-Jimenez and Sanz-Valle, 2008; Laursen and Foss, 2014; Shipton et al., 2006). For example, \"HR could indeed play a leading role in facilitating innovative organizations and people.\" (Sparrow et al., 2015: p. 52). The long research history of HRM models has sought a few dominant conceptual options, known as the universalistic, contingency and configurational models and types of HRM fit (alignment), vertical and horizontal (Delery and Dotty, 1996; Guest, 2011; Wright et al., 2018). Another recent debate involves the search to clarify the relative influence of single HR practices by comparison to whole sets of HR practices that are implemented in organizations (Arvanitis et al., 2016; Boxall, 2013; Combs et al., 2006; Singh et al., 2012; Subramony, 2009). Finally, also relevant is the consideration of HRM at the strategic organizational level to analyze its connections with OC (Carroll et al., 2011; Dutch, 2013; Ostroff and Bowen, 2000; Sackmann, 2011; Stone-Romero and Stone, 2008).The aim of this article is to review the extant empirical evidence and theoretical explanation on the role of HR practices and OC on building innovative capability (IC) in organizations. We had four specific research questions in our analysis:Is organizational culture an enabler factor of organizational innovation and if yes what are the most influential characteristics or traits?Do HR practices contribute to promote organizational innovation?What are the synergies between organizational culture and HR practices in relation to organizational innovation? Do HR practices play a mediation role?What types of HR practices - generic or specific - are positively related to organizational innovation?Our study contributes to the current research and academic debate in a few areas. First, we follow previous suggestions to explore in more detail specific HR practices that complement a general or universal set of HR best practices approach to promote the innovation capability of organizations. Second, we opted to study HRP based on their perceived effectiveness instead of only considering their existence and/or degree of usage. Finally, another major contribution stems from our integrated research model, which analyzes the combined influence of OC and HRP - both generic and specific - on building innovative capability. Moreover, the analysis of the potential mediating role of HR practices can be important in the advancement of our knowledge of the mechanisms by which HRM operates in organizational settings.The paper is organized as follows. We begin by presenting an extensive review of the literature related to organizational culture, HR practices and organizational innovation from which emerge our hypotheses and research model. Next, we present and explain the methodology that we used to execute the study. It follows the presentation and interpretation of the study's main results. Finally, the paper ends with a general discussion of theoretical and managerial implications and possible future research directions.\n2. Theoretical background and hypotheses: 2.1 Organizational culture and innovation\n3. Method: 3.1 Sample and data collection\n4. Data analysis: We performed the data analysis based on Structure Equation Model (SEM), and we used the SPSS and AMOS version 22 to conduct the analysis. In addition, and to test a few of our hypotheses, we used traditional regression analysis models. 4.1 Measurement model\n5. Discussion: 5.1 General conclusions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to deepen the extant theoretical and empirical knowledge on the mechanisms by which organizational culture and HR practices interact to promote innovative capability in organizations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data for this study were collected from a sample of 75 companies in two phases. First, the HR managers of those companies responded to a survey that measures organizational culture, HR practices and innovative capability. Second, we obtained additional data from department managers of 36 of those 75 companies. The research model and hypotheses were tested using structured equation modeling (SEM).\nFindings: The results indicate that cultural traits have direct and significant effects on promoting innovative capability and that they have also a strong effect on the effectiveness of implemented HR practices, the latter having a mediation role. The importance of considering both generic and specific (innovation focused) HR practices to obtain a synergistic effect in the promotion of innovation was also demonstrated.\nResearch limitations/implications: The data were collected using a questionnaire at a single point in time, and thus, not allowing cause-effect inferences.\nPractical implications: The results of this study provide evidence for HRM professionals interested in designing a system of HR practices that contributes to enhance organizational innovative capability.\nOriginality/value: This study advances our understanding of the mechanisms through which HR practices have an incremental effect over organizational culture on organizations' innovative capability, specifically offering a list of innovation-targeted practices. Moreover, it suggests that decision-makers will benefit from combining a range of generic and innovation-focused HR practices, which will display greater effect when embedded on highly effective culture contexts.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Norm-based relational behaviours: is there an underlying dimensional structure?	[ "Factor analysis", "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 issue.\nIntroduction: Scholarly relationship marketing literature is fairly heterogeneous. Its alternative research streams (e.g. service relationships, channel relationships or industrial buyer-seller relationships) are rooted in various theories, paradigms, or frameworks, often developed outside the field of marketing, such as agency theory, social exchange theory, game theory, resource dependence theory or transaction cost analysis (Homburg, 1993). The relational exchange school (Macneil, 1978, 1980, 1981) may be less prominent than certain other theoretical foundations of relationship marketing. Yet, it has been drawn upon by an important number of researchers. Particularly, the norm concept that occupies a central role in the relational exchange literature has been identified as being an important antecedent to relationship outcome variables (Ivens and Blois, 2004).According to Halbert (1964), concepts and paradigms serving as theoretical foundations to the social sciences need to meet at least three categories of criteria: syntax criteria (structure and specification), semantics criteria (testability and empirical support), and pragmatics criteria (richness and simplicity). Based on a comprehensive review of the marketing-based relational exchange literature, Ivens and Blois (2004) argue that whereas the norm framework developed in the relational exchange school is strong on semantics and pragmatics criteria it lacks structural clarity and cohesion. They stress the necessity for a clarification of the norm concept's dimensional structure.This paper presents empirical findings and discusses whether they permit resolving the problem raised. It is structured as follows. First, I briefly describe the norm concept as it is seen in the extant relational exchange literature. Next, I present the results of a study conducted among 297 purchasing managers who were asked to evaluate a selected supplier's norm-based relational behaviour. Finally, I discuss whether the analysis conducted contributes to a clearer vision of relational governance norms.\nGovernance norms in relational exchange: The norm concept\nAn empirical test: Summarising the literature review, neither the relational exchange school's theoretical foundations nor extant empirical results allow drawing conclusions about a potential dimensional structure underlying the norm concept. Against this background, an exploratory empirical test might provide first insights. To examine this issue a study was carried out as follows.Different quantitative methods may be applied to dimensional analysis. Given that the vagueness of the literature would make any ex ante formulation of a potential factor structure highly speculative, exploratory factor analysis is most appropriate. As input, the analysis relies upon the norms identified in Figure 1 and Table I. In the field, a survey was conducted on the customer side. Respondents were asked to evaluate the relationality of a selected supplier's norm-based relational behaviours. In this section, I first describe the research design. Subsequently, the available data are being evaluated. Finally, I present the results of the actual factor analysis.Research design\nDiscussion: Interpretation\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of the paper is to analyse what roles different relational norms play in long-term business relationships.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper uses exploratory factor analysis on a data set of n=297 relationships and identifies two norm dimensions: value-creating norms and value-claiming norms.\nFindings: - This paper demonstrates that extant empirical research on relational norms and related behaviours is fragmentary and that there is considerable overlap between certain norms. Hence, the dimensionality of the norm concept remains unclear.\nOriginality/value: - This study contributes to a clearer picture of the norm construct that has been used in a fragmented and selective way in empirical studies in the past.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Understanding the success of private universities: An empirical investigation from graduates' perspective	[ "Perceived value", "Satisfaction", "Private university", "Success model" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Extant literature has seen an increasing body of research on higher education in the last decade. These studies have examined variables that motivate prospective students to enrol in a university. While student enrolment is an important first step towards realizing the success of a university, long-term achievability and its eventual success depend on students' continuance of the enroled programme and possibly in future programmes. The literature argues that higher enrolment may still end up with limited-continued use (Nevill and Rhodes, 2004; Schertzer and Schertzer, 2004), but continued education is a closer measure of success of an academic institution (Wang, 2008). Recent reports find that about 15 per cent commencing bachelor students drop in their first year (Burke, 2016), costing more than $1.4 billion, in Australia itself (Hare, 2010). While many of the factors for students leaving university are related to issues \"beyond universities\", accurate understanding of the students' perception is vital. From universities' perspective, the importance of continued education, vis-a-vis initial enrolment or degree, is evident from the fact that it is much cheaper to retain a student than recruiting a new one. Such issues underscore the importance of studying \"continuance\" as a topic of a university's interest. Hence, understanding \"continuance\" - which is often used as a dummy of \"success\" - in the context of private universities is the goal of this study.\nBackground: A brief to success models\nResearch method: Measures\nData analyses and results: Data analysis technique\nDiscussion and implications: This study promised to identify the factors important for the success of private universities. Empirical data analyses confirm that improving QoL through continued education represent an insightful theoretical lens for investigating success in higher education. To become successful in education business, maintaining both academic quality and service quality are important for a private university because they lead to student satisfaction and the overall PV of education.\nConclusion: This research is a quest to responding the success of higher educational systems in private universities. This study developed and validated a causal model with eight success measures and investigated their interrelationships. This study validated that quality of people's life can be improved through continued use of educational services; intention to continue higher education is dependent on perceived value and student satisfaction - the latter is dependent on \"service facility\" while the former is influenced by \"curriculum quality\", \"teaching competence\", \"service facility\", and \"service delivery\" provided by a private university. This study offers theoretical contributions. First, this is the first reported initiative that developed and validated a success model in higher education combining concepts from information systems and marketing. Prior research on higher education revealed the importance of student satisfaction and service quality dimensions; a complete model integrating these variables in a success model in higher education is innovative. Moreover, the full mediation of \"perceived value\" between \"students' perceived satisfaction\" and \"curriculum quality\", \"teaching competence\", \"service delivery\", is unique in the literature which clarifies the crucial role of \"perceived value\", explaining the success of a private university. As a pragmatic implication, it is important for private universities to conceptualize the values they offer while modelling its \"success\" measures.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: A successful education system is a great asset for any society. However, what factors make an academic institution successful and how these factors interact with each other are not clear in literature. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a model that explains success of private universities which entails clarification on theoretical understanding and explains the relationships among relevant variables.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Variables from information systems success models and marketing theories have been adapted in the context of private universities to theorize a conceptual model. In order to validate the model, this study employed quantitative approach. Survey data, collected from 326 respondents, were analysed using partial least squares algorithm.\nFindings: The results suggest that: \"curriculum quality\", \"teaching competence\", \"service facility\", and \"service delivery\" provided by a private university are positively related to \"perceived value (PV)\", while students' perceived satisfaction (SPS) is dependent on \"service facility\"; PV and SPS drive to students' \"intention for continued education (ICE)\", and ICE eventually improves quality of students' lives. Additionally, PV and SPS are interrelated. The mediating roles of PV and SPS are also identified.\nResearch limitations/implications: Empirical data analyses confirm that improving quality of life through continued education represents an insightful theoretical lens for investigating success in higher education. To become successful in education business, maintaining both academic quality and service quality are important for a private university because they lead to student satisfaction and the overall PV of education.\nOriginality/value: This study is the first initiative that develops and validates a success model of private universities. The findings provide some guidelines for top managers in higher education to maximize their abilities to understand customers' expectations in both strategic and operational settings.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Peer and informal learning among hospital doctors: An ethnographic study focused on routines, practices and relationships	[ "Ethnography", "Informal learning", "Qualitative analysis", "Organisational learning", "Peer to peer learning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The current economic context, characterised by phenomena such as globalisation, competitiveness and the progress of information and communication technologies, suggests that one of the critical elements for the success of any organisation is knowledge and its management (Argyris and Schon, 1996; Davenport and Prusak, 1998). In addition, this could be specifically relevant for hospitals, and their professionals because of the rapidly changing healthcare systems. The healthcare sector is an excellent example of a changing work environment, making it an interesting area for studying professional and workplace learning (Kyndt et al., 2016; Riera, 2013).\nMethodology: The methodological design of the project has been structured around the idea of collecting and analysing accounts of members of an organisation who describe their experience of socialisation and learning within this organisation. The narrative they make of their own learning and institutional learning will be interpreted and, in this process, the value they attribute to non-formal interaction with other people recognised as peers will be identified. Based on a constructivist perspective, the interest is focused on practices as a reflection and reproduction of the values, attitudes and cultural contexts that are built and reconstructed when people (actors) put them into play in their daily routines.\nResults: The analysis of the collected data-observation, informal conversations and transcribed interviews in relation to the specific objectives of the investigation, led to three lines of results as follows:\nConcluding discussion: The objective of this article was to deepen the knowledge of organisational learning, putting it in the context of informal learning and peer learning. The ethnographic case study presented has demonstrated the importance of articulating the three elements in a joint interpretative framework. This research has combined grounded theory and ethnography. Our findings state that the combination can be a powerful research tool that allows participants to be active in research. The combined methodology has been successful because the ethnographic elements allowed the researcher to enter to the doctor's world, whereas the grounded theory elements provided a structural framework, exploration into a new perspective of informal learning and ensure that a valid conclusion was drawn (Bamkin et al., 2016). This approach allowed theoretical concepts to be developed before comparison with extant theories so that the findings were firmly based on the data. A new theoretical model based on three elements (organisational learning, peer-to-peer learning and informal learning) emerged from the methodology.\nMain findings: Based on the dynamic concept of equity that emerges from the results of this study, we could assume not only that informal workplace learning in organisations could be stimulated by fostering specific learning conditions (Kyndt et al., 2016) but also by specific relationships culture based on opportunities for participation. Nevertheless, the results also underline some risks related to fostering informal learning, namely, without opportunities for participation, without support and equal access, the promotion of informal learning can be debatable in terms of democracy. As other authors have already described, and as we pointed at the beginning of this article, these results aid the understanding of inequalities in learning. From this socio-cultural perspective, the results of this study may question some assumptions of the definition of informal learning. Specifically, it questions that informal learning is only dependent on the initiative of the learner and not directed by the organisation (Boekaerts and Minnaert, 1999). This finding is congruent with recent findings in other healthcare organisations and healthcare professionals (Torunn Bjork et al., 2013).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse everyday interactions in a workplace from the point of view of organisational learning, informal learning and peer learning, as well as the possible relationships that can be established between all three.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Insights from nine months of ethnographic study provided an operational definition of equality in an organisation, a better understanding of interactions and informal learning between peers, and about psycho-social determining factors or contexts that favour the exchange of knowledge in an organisation.\nFindings: The findings demonstrate the importance of articulating the three elements (organisational learning, informal learning and peer learning) in a joint interpretative framework. With the results generated, it is proposed to move away from the traditional organisational learning based on knowledge and know-how, to a new perspective focused on sharing and participatory opportunities. In other words, without opportunities to participate, without the support and equal access, the fostering of informal learning can be debatable in terms of democracy.\nOriginality/value: The results bring the authors closer to being able to design workplace learning strategies that carefully includes the value of participation opportunities and the influence of a dynamic concept of equality. The ethnography in a hospital setting has allowed the authors to gain a better understanding of the contribution of informal learning to the organisation. The focus on the social context and the roles of relationships in informal learning offers new insights into a complex phenomenon.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Grocery store image, travel distance, satisfaction and behavioral intentions: Evidence from a Midwest college town	[ "Shopping", "Store ambience", "Customer satisfaction", "Consumer behavior", "United States of America" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Competition in the American retail grocery industry has reached unprecedented levels. In 2007, this $400 billion industry of approximately 40,000 companies operated 70,000 grocery stores (excluding convenience stores) in just the USA. Grocery stores are now often providing a wider array of goods and services such as prescription drugs, dry cleaning, flowers, liquor, and retail banking, as well as postal, catering, and carry out ready-to-eat meals. There are supermarket chains, organic and health food stores, drug stores, dollar/discount stores, super centers, warehouse stores, neighborhood convenience stores, and local co-ops. Traditional supermarkets and small-scale grocers have found greater competition with both value-based retailers such as supercenters and warehouse clubs, and the emergence of new rivals such as drug stores, dollar stores, and independents that heavily focus on ethnic food offerings (Chamil and McTaggart, 2008). In such a competitive and evolving marketplace, understanding customers' perceptions of grocery store image and its relationship to patronage intentions may be crucial to future success.Martineau (1958) first identified store image as an important element in the development of retail personality. Store image is a total impression represented in the memory as a result of perceived attributes associated with the store which are independent and interdependent in the consumer's memory based on both current and previous exposure to stimuli (Hartman and Spiro, 2005). It has been suggested that store image is a predictor of retailer choice (Hildebrandt, 1988; Grewal et al., 1998), and a key antecedent of both customer satisfaction (Bloemer and Ruyter, 1998; Koo, 2003) and patronage intentions (Heijden and Verhagen, 2004; Chang and Tu, 2005).Previous research indicates that the dimensional importance of store image can vary across store type (Hansen and Deutscher, 1977; Hirschman et al., 1978). For example, Amirani and Gates (1993) study three types of retail stores: Nieman-Marcus (a specialty store), Sears (a mass merchandise store), and K-Mart (a discount department store), and they find that the attributes underlying the store image construct differ in level of importance and their contribution to the formation of overall store impressions. Unfortunately, \"few recent studies have attempted to characterize the US grocery market in terms of [...] the reasons for their choice (i.e. store attributes)\" (Carpenter and Moore, 2006, p. 435).In addition to store image, location is a potentially important factor in attracting patrons to a shopping area (Kim and Jin, 2001; Nevin and Houston, 1980). Although consumers generally seek to minimize travel time or distance (Handy, 1992), store image has been shown to lessen potentially negative issues based on travel distance (TD) (Stanley and Sewall, 1976). This research also investigates how the \"distance effect\" (distance from customers' residence to their primary grocery store) influences customers' satisfaction and behavioral intentions (BI) related to grocery shopping.It is worthy to note that though previous research has examined grocery shopping behavior in a typical municipality context (Bawa, 1999; Clarke, 2000), there is a paucity of research related to store image and the sequential influences in the distinctive market of college towns. A college town refers to a society in which one or more than one college/university is located, and the culture it creates exerts a dominant influence over the character of the community (Gumprecht, 2003). Because of the higher education setting, college towns have a distinctive market environment that many retailers find compelling. Compared to their metropolitan counterparts, college towns are characterized with unusually high densities of younger aged citizens, highly educated workforces, comparatively cosmopolitan populations, dominant institutions of higher education and a college-oriented shopping district (Gumprecht, 2003). Specifically, college towns are often youthful places that offer retailers a closed-in market of trendy, early-adopters, who tend to have developed a unique shopping style.Since store attributes and image are, to a certain extent, under the direct control of the store manager (Heijden and Verhagen, 2004), and few studies have focused on empirically verifying the interrelationship among grocery store image, customer satisfaction and BI (Bloemer and Ruyter, 1998), a better understanding of how customers react to grocery store image would be of great value to both retail marketing researchers and to grocery store managers. This study specifically provides an empirical investigation of college town grocery store shopping behavior with a focus on:* exploring key dimensions of store image;* examining the influence of store image on customer satisfaction and customer BI; and* investigating the relationship of TD to customer satisfaction and BI.In the remainder of this paper, we provide a brief literature review and develop the hypotheses. A proposed theoretical model is tested through structural equation modeling. The findings are subsequently discussed, and the paper concludes with study limitations and directions for future research.\nLiterature review: Store image\nMethodology: Survey instrument development\nResults: Respondent characteristics\nDiscussion and implications: The development and maintenance of a favorable store image is critical for retailers to maintain or improve their market positions (Steenkamp and Wedel, 1991). Increased competitive forces within the US retail grocery industry are challenging grocers to evaluate their store image, make necessary changes, and alter marketing strategies to retain current customers and attract new ones. This research provides grocery retailers that operate within a traditional US college town specific knowledge of the store attributes that young consumers consider crucial when they shop for groceries, and empirically analyzes how these attributes influence customer satisfaction and BI. The research findings offer several important insights for grocery store managers.First, operationalizable questions were developed to estimate grocery store image via a series of focus groups, and these question items were subject to EFA. Grocery store image was identified as a second-order construct reflected by the three key components of MEA, SAS, and MGA. The merchandise dimension involves customers' value perceptions in relationship to quality of produce and meat at fair prices, in addition to an extensive selection of products and brands to provide customer choice. Store ambience provides a favorable environment where customers can easily move around the store and conveniently locate the products they need. The in-store service component reflects the importance of friendly and responsive employees. In terms of the MGA dimension, catering to customers' needs and encouraging repeat visits via in-store promotions and advertising that provide pertinent information for the customer is critical.Ideally, improving all three dimensions of grocery store image should be pursued. However, using sequential improvement allows grocers the opportunity to learn from possible mistakes in one critical change before a full-range store image campaign is implemented and allows focus on the most important dimension first. Findings revealed that the SAS dimension (with a standardized factor loading of 0.930) and the MEA dimension (with a standardized factor loading of 0.927) were equally important, and they were slightly more important than the MGA dimension (with a standardized factor loading of 0.837).Although store image is an important driver of BI, its indirect effect through customer satisfaction is substantially greater than its direct effect. This finding was consistent with earlier studies in the context of hypermarkets and department stores (Bloemer and Ruyter, 1998; Chang and Tu, 2005) and highlights the role of satisfaction as a mediator between store image and BI. This relationship is evidenced by the significant relationship between store image and BI through satisfaction as shown in Figure 2.Given that patronage intention is strongly related to the profitability and the long-term growth of a store, it is important for grocers to understand the relevant store image dimensions perceived by their customers that could reinforce positive customer satisfaction assessments. Grocers may consider a systematic assessment program to monitor store image and customer satisfaction over time. Some possible communication tools to exchange assessment results and resolutions with customers might include utilization of the store's web site to conduct survey research or the establishment of a consumer panel to collect longitudinal data.The finding of a positive relationship between TD and customer satisfaction is unexpected. It may reflect the notion that a fixed cost (e.g. distance) may not be more important than other variable costs (e.g. price and selection) in customers' minds. However, this result would be consistent with Simmie and Sutcliffe's (1994) observation that out-of-town developments that benefit consumers in terms of lower prices can overcome TD costs. It is also possible that some customers are multi-purpose shoppers who combine purposes for different product categories so that they are more satisfied with a distant grocery store which is near other types of stores (e.g. a shopping mall).The choice of grocery stores involves a series of trade-offs, and this study sheds light on the importance of store image and the possibility for distant retailers to overcome the distance disadvantage and to compete with local retailers. TD has particular strategic implications for retailers in rural or more isolated areas. Notably, studying grocery shopping habits of residents in rural communities in Scotland, Broadbridge and Calderwood (2002, p. 394) conclude that:[...] while it unlikely that local traders will reverse outshoppers' shopping behaviors, with a re-evaluation of their overall offer, they may be able to establish themselves as a reliable supplementary or secondary choice option, thereby maintaining the local shop as a viable function.Thus, rural or small town retailers should monitor the extent of choice available to their targeted customers within time/distance parameters and try to differentiate their offerings from the competition in ways relevant to the target market.As our study is exploratory in nature, it carries several limitations. Although, we point out some of the distinctive market characteristics of American college towns, this study focuses only on the student body in one Midwest college town. Surveying only college students limits the possibility to generalize the findings to the actual population of grocery store shoppers within the specified geographic constraint of the study. Other target customers such as residential households, faculty and staff, were not examined in this study. Future research should consider utilizing a broader range of potential respondents by surveying these aforementioned segments and compare the assessments of store image components with the findings presented here.Transportation availability is an issue that may need to be further explored in a future study. When investigating residents in a college town, there may be respondents (e.g. senior citizens) who may not have their own transportation. Notably, approximately 90 percent of the respondents in this study did have a vehicle, so the lack of transportation was not a major issue. More broadly, additional investigations should consider whether or not the relationship between TD and customer satisfaction is unique to the sample investigated in this study or indicative of a more pervasive shopping mindset.Another possible extension of this research would be to examine the \"outshopping\" attractiveness dimensions utilized by shoppers when patronizing distant grocery stores or shopping channels (e.g. store-only grocery shoppers, online grocery shoppers and multi-channel shoppers). Further empirical research needs to investigate the store image associated with a variety of grocer types and its relationship with customer satisfaction and BI in different contexts (e.g. e-grocery). Additional investigation of store image could enhance our understanding of customer satisfaction and BI in various retail contexts.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to study the interrelationships among grocery store image, travel distance (TD), customer satisfaction, and behavioral intentions (BI) in a college town setting.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Surveys are given to undergraduate college student grocery shoppers in a Midwest college town. The 400 usable questionnaires are randomly divided into two parts: one subsample was used for exploratory factor analysis while the other (larger) subsample was used for confirmatory factor analysis and subsequently the structural path analysis.\nFindings: - Grocery store image is identified as a second-order construct reflected by the three key components of merchandise attributes (MEA), store ambience and service (SAS), and marketing attractiveness (MGA). Although store image is an important driver of BI, its indirect effect through customer satisfaction is found to be substantially greater than its direct effect on BI. Interestingly, TD is positively related to satisfaction, which highlights the possibility for retailers to overcome the distance disadvantage.\nOriginality/value: - As few studies have attempted to characterize the US grocery market in terms of the reasons for their choice, this exploratory study is unique because it investigates grocery shopping behavior in a traditional American college town. Specifically, the distinctive market factors (e.g. the relative scarcity of grocery retailers, their distance from campus, and the mix of grocer types in or around the Midwest college town) add value and contribute to the retailing literature.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Three-level supply chain coordination of fresh agricultural products in the Internet of Things	[ "Internet of Things", "Revenue-sharing contract", "Fresh agricultural product", "Supply chain coordination" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Nomenclature\n1. Introduction: Fresh agricultural product (FAP) is a special type of perishable product that has a random life cycle and with a demand that is affected by freshness. Approximately 500 million tons of fresh fruits, vegetables, and nuts are produced annually and represent a large, important, and expanding industry. Approximately 25-30 percent of the total production is discarded after harvest because of problems during circulation (Donis-Gonzalez et al., 2014). Approximately 12 million tons of fruits and 13,000 tons of vegetables are wasted in China annually; the postpartum loss rate of fruits and vegetables is as high as 25 percent and the economic loss is over 15.4 billion dollars (Lin and Fan, 2014). The transport of FAPs faces problems, such as large losses, low efficiency, and high cost. These issues have attracted considerable attention from all sectors of society.\n2. Literature review: An increasing number of scholars have focused on the FAP supply chain, supply chain coordination, and supply chain management in IoT.\n3. Model descriptions and introduction of symbols: The three-level FAP supply chain comprises a manufacturer, distributor, and retailer. Figure 1 shows the FAP supply chain model that operates without IoT. The manufacturer is the farmer or agricultural producer cooperatives. The retailer, such as agricultural cooperatives, orders FAP from the distributor, and the distributor orders from the manufacturer based on the retailer's order. Verdouw et al. (2016) described that under decentralized decision making, only the retailer understands the market demand, and the distributor merely obtains information from the retailer. Similarly, the manufacturer can speculate the market demand based on the information from the distributor because the information flow of the supply chain is unidirectional (Yu and Nagurney, 2012). The supply chain information system can achieve supply chain information sharing under a centralized decision making.\n4. Supply chain coordination of FAP in IoT: The introduction of IoT provides technical support for tracking and tracing the path of FAPs in the supply chain, improves supply chain operational efficiencies in the following methods, and reflects the sustainable development of agriculture:\n5. Case analysis: The case mainly aims to prove that the improved revenue-sharing contract can coordinate the three-level FAP supply chain in IoT. Moreover, the effect of the demand price elasticity and transit time on the supply chain profit is analyzed and verified, and the results are discussed. The theoretical results are applied to practical cases, which can solve the actual problem of the FAP supply chain coordination and further improve the interests of enterprises and the quality of life of people.\n6. Conclusions: This study investigated the FAP supply chain in IoT and constructed the freshness function th(t)=1-((t+t0)2/(T2)). Considering the perishable nature of FAP, we developed the market demand function under the influence of freshness and prices based on the survey results. We analyzed the coordination of a FAP supply chain that comprises a manufacturer, distributor, and retailer based on an improved revenue-sharing contract. The accuracy of the model is verified through a case analysis, thereby providing a theoretical guide for the coordination of supply chains. The main results are as follows:\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The Internet of Things (IoT) is used in the fresh agricultural product (FAP) supply chain, which can be coordinated through a revenue-sharing contract. The purpose of this paper is to make the three-level supply chain coordinate in IoT by considering the influence of FAP on market demand and costs of controlling freshness on the road.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A three-level FAP supply chain that comprises a manufacturer, distributor, and retailer in IoT is regarded as the research object. This study improves the revenue-sharing contract, determines the optimal solution when the supply chain achieves maximum profit in three types of decision-making situations, and develops the profit distribution model based on the improved revenue-sharing contract to coordinate the supply chain.\nFindings: The improved revenue-sharing contract can coordinate the FAP supply chain that comprises a manufacturer, distributor, and retailer in IoT, as well as benefit all enterprises in the supply chain.\nPractical implications: Resource utilization rate can be improved after coordinating the entire supply chain. Moreover, loss in the circulation process is reduced, and the circulation efficiency of FAPs is improved because of the application of IoT. The validity of the model is verified through a case analysis.\nOriginality/value: This study is different from other research in terms of the combination of supply chain coordination, FAPs, and radio frequency identification application in IoT.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Orthopaedic procedure coding: Does accuracy matter?	[ "Classification", "National Health Service", "Codes", "Surgery", "Performance related pay", "United Kingdom" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Since 1944 in the UK, statistical classification, known as coding surgical procedures, has been used (Connecting for Health, 2001). It has expanded and been revised over subsequent decades, and today for surgical patients, several codes are generated - procedure codes (OPCS 4.4), and diagnosis codes (ICD 10). These codes enable differentiation between elective and emergency cases, those with and without complications as well as American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) patient grades. Through these codes, clinical activity and productivity can be analysed and traditionally have been used for auditing departmental activity and research.Hospital payments were traditionally locally negotiated using block contracts for projected activity (DoH, 2002). These were subject to local variations and criticised for paying hospitals irrespective of whether planned work was carried out or not. Attempting to make hospital funding more transparent, fair and consistent, a system known as Payment by Results (PbR) was introduced in 2002, designed to pay hospitals a nationally agreed tariff for each piece of work (Finished Consultant Episode or \"spell\"). Amounts of work that use similar resources and therefore cost the same are grouped together as Healthcare Resource Groups (HRGs). In surgery, an HRG is calculated from basic data collected about a patient, which is recorded as a diagnosis code, using ICD-10 and a procedure code OPCS 4.4. This system introduces competition, rewards efficiency and quality as well as encouraging better demand and risk management (DoH, 2004; Audit Commission, 2004). This new process has implications for NHS trusts. Those providing work at a cost below the national tariff will make a surplus, while those who cannot carry out work at the fixed rate risk sizable financial losses (DoH, 2004). It is therefore imperative that the procedure and diagnostic codes accurately record clinical activity to ensure that the NHS trusts are paid correctly for the work that is done.Within the NHS, procedure and diagnostic codes are generated by coding department staff using an operation notes and the patient case notes. The financial department then uses these codes to generate an HRG, which is linked to a tariff. The aim of our study, therefore, was to compare procedure codes allocated by surgeons with those generated by coding department staff and to assess the effect of these on the HRG tariff code and revenue.\nMethods: Ten consultants currently in the Avon Orthopaedic Centre, Bristol, each had ten of their elective operative procedures randomly selected from a single one-month period. The procedure, diagnostic and HRG codes were retrospectively collected for each procedure from the coding and financial departments. Each consultant was blinded from the coding department data and asked to produce his or her own procedure codes for each of their operations using their own operation note. Arguably, the lead operating surgeon is best placed to code an operation he or she performed. This is standard practice in the private sector and all consultants involved regularly code their own operations outside their NHS practice. The ICD-10 diagnostic code given by coding department staff for each patient was not changed as this was taken as being accurate and correct. The financial department then calculated HRG codes for each case using the same ICD-10 diagnostic code and the new OPCS procedure code produced by the surgeon. The HRG codes generated by the coding department staff and the consultants were then compared to assess variations in the potential revenue, taken at a base rate.\nResults: Of 100 procedures, coding department staff assigned one procedure code for each procedure with the exception of four cases that were un-coded, and therefore were discarded. Data obtained from consultants had a single procedure code in 62 cases, two codes in 21 cases and greater than two in 13 cases. Only 34 cases were identical matches, with nine of 34 cases with multiple codes having one of the codes matching, and 53 cases were different. Procedure coding accuracy according to number of codes allocated to each case is outlined in Figure 1.Incorrect single-coded procedures accounted for 28 cases of which only 11 had differing HRG codes, resulting in a difference of PS1,830 when calculated at the basic rate. For cases that consultants assigned two procedure codes (21 cases), five had one code that was the same as the coders and 16 had two different codes. The five cases with one code the same and the other different had no effect on the HRG code. The 16 cases with two differing codes resulted in only eight having a different HRG code resulting in a PS8,392 discrepancy when calculated at the basic rate. A total of 13 cases were assigned greater than two codes by consultants. Ten cases had three codes of which four had one matching code and resulted in only one case having a different HRG code. The other six cases had no matching codes and resulted in four cases having a different HRG code. Only one case had four codes of which there were no matches and resulted in a different HRG code. A total of two cases had five codes of which there were no matches but only resulted in a differing HRG code in one case. When calculated at a basic rate, the differing HRG codes in cases with three or more codes resulted in a PS3,195 difference. An overall breakdown is shown in Figure 2, and an example of a coding discrepancy is shown in Figure 3.Comparing HRG tariff codes with the procedure codes resulted in a difference in only 26 cases. A breakdown is shown in Figure 4.With consultant procedure coding, 14 (54 per cent) cases were more expensive as a result of the change and therefore resulted in a financial gain, while 12 (46 per cent) cases were less expensive - five of these cases had individual differences of almost PS4,000 or more. Overall, this resulted in an income discrepancy of PS3,367 with consultant codes charging more than the coding department when calculated at the basic rate.\nDiscussion: The introduction of PbR has dramatically highlighted the need for precise information, in particular accurate hospital episode statistics on which commissioning and planning depend. Payment using HRGs critically depends on correct patient numbers and correct clinical coding accuracy but well recognized problems exist in NHS trusts (Wyn et al., 2001; Campbell et al., 2001; Ricketts et al., 1993; Dixon, 2004; Ballaro et al., 2000). Wynn et al. (2001) highlights this issue when assessing the accuracy of administrative and trauma registry databases. Over 2,702 patients were found in both databases, however 118 patients with significant trauma were absent and up to 40 per cent of some interventions underreported in the administrative database. A systematic review of discharge coding accuracy by Campbell et al. (2001) also showed a high level of imprecision with a median 91 per cent coding accuracy rate for diagnostic codes and 69.5 per cent for procedures codes in 12 studies across England and Wales.It was therefore not surprising to find a disparity in the procedure codes produced by the consultants and the coding department staff in our study (Figure 1). However, we have also shown the effect that this has on the HRG tariff codes (Figures 2-4). Only 34 cases (35 per cent) had identical procedure codes, resulting in identical HRG tariff codes. Of 62 cases (65 per cent) with procedure coding discrepancies, 28 cases (41 per cent) resulted in different HRG tariff codes. This resulted in a total loss, calculated on a basic rate of PS3,367 if the consultant codes are taken as the most accurate. With an average 100 procedures per week at our orthopaedic tertiary referral centre, it could be inferred that the potential loss of revenue per annum caused by inaccurate coding in this department alone, therefore, exceeds PS175,000.However, reviewing these results overall does not give a true reflection of this study. It is important to look at the procedure codes and how they are converted into HRGs. In our study, coding department staff produced only one procedure code per case while the consultants produced multiple procedure codes in 34 cases (35 per cent). Conversion into an HRG tariff code is achieved by a grouping system, with a procedure hierarchy used to identify the most resource-intensive procedure. So if only one procedure is recorded for a patient then this procedure is used for grouping. If more than one procedure is recorded, all are examined and the procedure with the highest rank is chosen as the dominant grouping procedure (NHS Information Centre, 2007). For example, in the case mentioned in Figure 3, the highest ranked procedure code would be W42.3 (revision of total replacement of knee joint). This, therefore, explains why nine cases that had multiple codes in which there was one match, had identical HRG codes in all but one case. This process prevents the possibility of over coding a procedure.The loss of PS175,000 per annum, we calculated in our study, must be viewed cautiously. First, our study only viewed the effect of accurate procedure coding on the HRG code, which is made from combining procedure code and diagnostic code. In this study, the ICD-10 diagnostic code given by coding department staff for each patient was not changed owing to complexity and unfamiliarity with consultants completing the task. Therefore to get a true reflection, diagnostic coding accuracy must also be audited. Second, the number of cases in our study only represents a relative small amount of the total number done per year in our department. Finally, out of 26 cases with differing HRG codes, 14 resulted in a financial gain and 12 a financial loss, assuming the consultant codes were taken to be correct. These five cases resulted in an individual difference of PS4,000 or greater. All had greater than one procedure code and were generally considered to be more complex procedures, for example:* first stage revision total hip replacement (THR) (five codes - overcharged by PS5,424);* first stage revision THR (four codes - overcharged by PS5844), revision total knee replacement (TKR) with removal spacer, radical joint excision, burring of cement bone interface plus spacer re-implantation and screw (three codes - undercharged by PS4,992); and* second stage revision THR (two codes - undercharged by PS5,190).In our study these four cases almost cancel each other out, but it is easy to see how they could have skewed our results in either direction. It should also be noted that this study was conducted in a solely elective department and procedures done here are generally well prepared and done regularly, therefore, should be familiar which makes coding easier. We expect, therefore, an even greater inaccuracies in trauma cases where there is case diversity resulting in a larger variety of procedures that are less common.As with most NHS trusts, the Avon Orthopaedic Centre has its data coded by coding department staff via an operation note and the patient's case notes. The coders are not specific to departments but generic and therefore must be familiar with both procedure codes (OPCS 4.4) and diagnostic codes (ICD 10) both of which have thousands of codes each. Coders are reliant on the quality of in-patient notes, which can be notoriously bad. Finding correct information can be made difficult owing to doctors' poor hand-writing (Lyons et al., 1998), incomplete operation notes (Matthew et al., 2003), poor filing or lost case notes. In our study, four cases could not be coded by coding department staff owing to lost case notes. Inaccurate coding is not a unique problem to orthopaedics and has been reported in other specialties (Dixon, 2004; Ballaro et al., 2000; Khwaja et al., 2002). Since PbR hospital funding is directly linked to coding, it is vital that codes are completed precisely. Coding practice must change for NHS trusts if the government and ultimately the taxpayer are to benefit from PbR. There are many possible measures that can address this problem such as handing the procedure coding process to the operating surgeon, or having a coder present in the theatre department to code procedures as they are done with the help of the surgeon. Alternatively, a simple measure of dedicated coders to specific specialties as well as good and regular communication with doctors doing the procedures could also improve procedure coding accuracy and in turn the HRG code.\nConclusion and recommendations: Present procedure coding practice is inaccurate and can results in HRG tariff codes that do not accurately represent clinical activity and productivity. Under PbR, this can result in a significant revenue loss and possibly ultimately future referrals. Therefore, coding practice needs to be improved as a matter of urgency. Arguably, this could be achieved by closer communication between coders and clinicians.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Coding clinical work should allow accurate and precise methods of assessing individual or department activity. The NHS financial reforms have increased correct diagnostic coding importance by introducing \"payment by results\" so that funding is directly linked to patient activity. The aim of this study is to assess the accuracy of procedure codes (OPCS 4.4), and its effect on Healthcare Resource Group tariff codes that directly affect revenue.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A total of ten procedures from ten consultants were randomly selected over one month. Each consultant coded his or her own procedures. From these codes, Healthcare Resource Group tariff codes were assigned to each patient. These were compared with procedure and Healthcare Resource Group tariff codes generated by coding department staff.\nFindings: - Of 100 procedures, four were un-coded by coding department staff. There was concordance in 35 per cent of cases. Coders only gave one code for each procedure, whereas 35 per cent of procedures coded by consultants were assigned multiple codes. This resulted in 27 per cent of cases generating a different Healthcare Resource Group tariff code. Of the cases, five resulted in a difference of PS4,000 or more; however, the overall difference was a PS3,367 revenue loss if coder's codes were used.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Study numbers were limited to 100 with five cases showing excessive financial gain or loss significantly influencing the overall result.\nPractical implications: - Present procedure coding practice is inaccurate and results in Healthcare Resource Group tariff codes that do not accurately represent clinical activity and productivity. Under payment by results, this can result in a significant revenue loss and possibly ultimately future referrals. Therefore, coding practice needs to be improved as a matter of urgency. Arguably, this could be achieved by closer communication between coders and clinicians.\nOriginality/value: - The paper identifies a flaw in the way clinical activity and productivity is assessed at present. This is fundamental to the process on which \"payment by results\" is based, and therefore must be addressed if trusts are to be financially successful.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Implementing IT changes: Steamroller or express train?	[ "Change management", "Communication technologies", "Human resource management", "Education and training" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Change is perhaps the only constant in business today. As Professor of Business from the University of Michigan, Dave Ulrich, points out, a firm which has built up its success over 50 years can be wiped out in two. This can happen simply by doing what has always been done, rather than embracing the changes required for creating a competitive edge in today's ever-changing world.\nInformation technology: a focus for change: Nowhere are the necessity for change and the rate of change more apparent than in the introduction of new IT resources. Vowler (2008) puts IT at the heart of change management, noting that managers often underestimate the impact of IT change. Managers, employees and customers are all affected by changes in IT systems. However, the first people affected by the introduction of new IT systems are usually the employees, with the added complication that changes are often imposed on them, rather than requested by them (Ulrich, 2008). A recent multi-center study (Bondarouk and Ruel, 2008) demonstrated some of the key failures in implementation of new IT strategies or products. Employees at a regional hospital, a large insurance company and an academic center were interviewed about their responses to the introduction of new IT packages in the workplace. Understanding why the new IT resource was being implemented was just as important to employees as understanding how to use it. The question \"why\" was rarely addressed, and employees felt that instructions about how to use new systems were sometimes superficial. Training and education were crucial to employees' acceptance of and ability to use new software effectively. Many IT users stressed the point that different employees require different levels of instruction. People who are made to feel foolish when they do not pick up new skills easily, soon give up trying.\nThe role of human resources management: HRM can play an important role in determining whether the introduction and implementation of change succeeds or bombs. Bondarouk and Ruel (2008) suggest that corporate politics has a big impact on how change is managed. This echoes what other writers have noted about the importance of social factors in the implementation of new IT strategies. It is sometimes too easy for IT departments to assume that new software is the answer to a particular problem without considering the necessity of effective HRM strategies. After all, software cannot solve any problems if people do not use it, or fail to exploit its potential to improve on their normal working practices. So what should the role of HRM be? First of all, it is important that IT departments work closely with HRM. In this way barriers to change can be identified and employees can be motivated to embrace change. This motivation may take the form of economic reward, but just helping employees feel excited about the opportunity to learn a new skill, and acknowledging their achievements when they do, may be enough reward. The next step is to ensure that appropriate training is available. In the study by Bondarouk and Ruel (2008), many employees felt that training packages available from software companies were either frustratingly complicated or disappointingly superficial. Training packages that received the highest ratings were actually designed by fellow employees who had become \"expert users\". They seemed more capable of anticipating the type of problems that employees in their own firms might face and also understood the varying levels of skill present in the workforce. Other problems focused around software that was not \"fit for purpose\" and this is an expensive mistake to rectify, with IT managers largely bearing the blame. By liaising with HRM before purchasing new products, IT managers may have a better understanding of their workforces' needs and therefore avoid such costly errors. As Vowler (2008, p.18) observes \"unmanaged change can be disastrous\".\nEvaluating change: Change should not be viewed as a single event but rather as a continuous process. Ulrich (2008) uses the analogy of a diet. When he lost weight, friends asked about his diet, when the real secret (as any failed dieter knows) is a change in lifestyle. This is not a one-time change, but a continuous process of making different life choices that undoubtedly include eating smaller portions of healthier food and leading a more active life. Because of the continuous nature of change, continuing evaluation of the impact of change is also an essential element in good change management. Like the successful dieter who continues to monitor the balance between nutritional needs and expended energy, HRM can ensure a successful change process by continuing to revisit employees' needs and how they measure up to corporate expectations. Vowler (2008) stresses the importance of including the stakeholder in this equation when he identifies three essential components of managing change. These are analysis and understanding, communication and ensuring that stakeholders will accept the outcome of changes made within the company.\nChange as a state of mind: No matter how it is dressed up, many people are wary of change. If we accept that change is not just beneficial, but an absolutely essential facet of success in modern business, healthcare and education, how can HRM help employees to lose their fear of change and instead, engage actively and happily with change? Ulrich (2008) suggests that HR professionals need to encourage leaders to engage in a constant cycle of learning, unlearning and improving. If life-long learning can be made part of the culture, employees should welcome opportunities to update their knowledge while they upgrade their software! Ulrich also stresses the importance of making communication a key element of effective change when he talks about \"making the unspeakable speakable\" (Ulrich, 2008, p. 2 2). He calls the things that people will not talk about \"viruses\" and points out that even though they are not mentioned, these \"viruses\" can have very powerful negative effects on people's ability to manage change efficiently. One of these \"viruses\" is the acceptance of a culture of frantic activity that prohibits the \"thinking time\" so necessary for developing visions of alternative futures. Another virus can be having too many changes all happening at once. This can leave employees feeling overwhelmed and \"burnt out\" but afraid to discuss their problems for fear of being seen as \"poor players\" in the corporate game.\nConclusion: Change is a fact of life and only firms that accept this will succeed in today's very competitive economic environment. If businesses need change to succeed, then they also require a flexible workforce that embraces a culture of life long learning and is ready to try innovative ideas and novel ways of working. IT will continue to be one of the key factors in corporate change because information is knowledge, power and money in our information-hungry society. More effective IT strategies help keep the flow of information moving and the business world trading. However, IT changes require sensitive management and this means that HRM has an important role to play in ensuring that change continues to be a welcome facet of the working environment.\nComment: The review is based on the three articles listed in the reference list. They are all recent (2008) but not recent enough to have factored the current world economic crisis into their discussions. The most academic article is the one by Bondarouk and Ruel which reports on data collected from three case studies. Qualitative analysis was used to explore the way employees coped with change and to determine what support they experienced during periods of change. Ulrich offers some quick sound bites on how to be a good change manager and Vowler focuses primarily on IT change.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.\nFindings: - Change is perhaps the only constant in business today. As Professor of Business from the University of Michigan, Dave Ulrich points out, a firm, which has built up success over 50 years can be wiped out in two. This can happen simply by doing what has always been done, rather than embracing the changes required for creating a competitive edge in today's ever-changing world.\nPractical implications: - Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.\nOriginality/value: - The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Depression and social anxiety in relation to problematic smartphone use: The prominent role of rumination	[ "Social sciences", "Modelling", "Depression", "Psychology", "Mobile communications", "Smartphone use", "Social anxiety", "Internet addiction", "Rumination", "Communication theory", "Problematic technology use", "Smartphone addiction" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In recent years, published studies have examined the construct of problematic smartphone use. Problematic smartphone use is often defined as excessive use of a smartphone, with social or occupational functional impairment, and including dependence and symptoms seen in addictive disorders, such as withdrawal and tolerance (Billieux, Maurage, Lopez-Fernandez, Kuss and Griffiths, 2015). Research has examined relations between psychopathology and problematic smartphone use and/or the continuum of smartphone use frequency. Depression and anxiety severity in particular are well supported in association with problematic smartphone use and smartphone use frequency (reviewed in Elhai, Dvorak, Levine and Hall, 2017). However, little research has explored the role of more contemporary transdiagnostic constructs of psychopathology in studying these relationships.\nTheory: We used theory to conceptualize a model of psychopathology, smartphone use frequency, and increased problematic use. Uses and gratifications theory (UGT) (Blumler and Katz, 1974) explains motivations for the consumption of mass media and technology. When UGT was first developed, it was unique (in contrast to other mass communication theories) in being audience/user-centered, assuming that the user is an active (rather than passive) participant of choosing media to consume. UGT assumes that particular media consumption choices are driven by specific gratifications that the user needs to be met (e.g. socializing, relaxation, etc.) (Blumler and Katz, 1974). Such gratifications in UGT can be driven by individual differences or psychological constructs. UGT has been used to explain the use of particular smartphone features (Grellhesl and Punyanunt-Carter, 2012; Wei and Lu, 2014). UGT has been implemented to explain the use of various types of technology use (Chiang and Hsiao, 2015; Hamari and Sjoblom, 2017; Huang and Hsieh, 2011; Pei-Shan and Hsi-Peng, 2014). UGT has used background characteristics or individual differences to explain increased smartphone use, such as gender, reward seeking, academic performance, behavioral activation, depression, anxiety, and locus of control (Dhir et al., 2015; Elhai, Levine, Dvorak and Hall, 2017; Grellhesl and Punyanunt-Carter, 2012; Park et al., 2013). The notion that rumination in interpersonal relationships can drive excessive reassurance seeking (Billieux, Philippot, Schmid, Maurage, De Mol and Van der Linden, 2015), evidenced by increased smartphone use, is in line with UGT's focus on individual differences causing specific media-based gratifications to be met. While UGT can explain increased smartphone use, it does not necessarily explain why some people would engage in problematic smartphone use.\nResearch model: We first tested a model whereby psychopathology levels were specified to predict the frequency of smartphone use, which, in turn, predicts levels of problematic smartphone use. Similar models have been tested, such as that of Kim, Seo and David (2015) testing depression severity as a correlate of the extent and types of smartphone use, in turn predicting problematic use. van Deursen et al. (2015) tested social stress in association with habitual smartphone use, then predicting increases in problematic smartphone use. And Elhai, Levine, Dvorak and Hall (2017) examined depression and anxiety severity as correlates of types of smartphone use frequency, in turn relating to problematic smartphone use severity. However, these models did not include transdiagnostic constructs that may account for relations between depressive/anxious symptoms and smartphone use (e.g. rumination).\nHypotheses: Based on this backdrop of theory and empirical work, we posed the following hypotheses. Each of these hypotheses represents a portion of Figure 1.\nMethod: Participants and procedure\nResults: We present a correlation matrix of the primary measures, with scale means and standard deviations, and coefficient a's in Table II. Item means and standard deviations are displayed in Table I. The only non-significant relationships were for smartphone use frequency with both depression and social anxiety scores. Depression and social anxiety were significantly associated with rumination. Rumination was statistically associated with both increased smartphone use frequency and problematic use (H1 and H2, respectively).\nDiscussion: In the present paper, we examined the role of rumination in understanding relations between both depression and social anxiety with increased/problematic smartphone use. Several of our hypotheses were supported, demonstrating the impact of rumination in these relationships.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Previous research has found support for depression and anxiety severity in association with both increased and problematic smartphone use. However, little research has explored transdiagnostic psychopathology constructs as mediators that may account for these relationships. The purpose of this paper is to test rumination as a possible transdiagnostic (cross-sectional) mediator in these relationships.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors recruited 296 college students to complete relevant web survey measures, including the patient health questionnaire-9 (for depression severity), social interaction anxiety scale (for social anxiety severity), ruminative thought styles questionnaire, smartphone addiction scale-short version (to measure levels of problematic smartphone use), and a measure of smartphone use frequency.\nFindings: The authors found support for a structural model whereby the severity of depression and social anxiety accounted for variance in rumination, which, in turn, correlated with problematic smartphone use levels. Rumination accounted for relations between both depression and social anxiety severity with levels of problematic use.\nOriginality/value: The authors discuss the role of rumination as a possible mechanism between anxiety- and depression-related psychopathology levels with problematic smartphone use severity. This study is unique in exploring rumination in the context of problematic smartphone use.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Interpersonal trust between marketing and R&D during new product development projects	[ "Trust", "Marketing", "Research and development", "Product development", "Australia" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Since Ruekert and Walker's (1987) landmark study, marketing's cross-functional relationships have become an important focus of academic research. Evidence of this can be seen in the large and growing literature examining marketing relationships, and marketing's integration with other departments (e.g. Dawes and Massey, 2005, 2006; Fisher et al., 1997; Workman et al., 1998). The topic is theoretically and managerially important because increasingly, today's flatter organisations require personnel to secure cooperation from individuals in other departments over whom they have no hierarchical control (Williams, 2001). Similarly, Webster (1997) suggests that an ability to manage cross-functional relationships will be an important skill for marketing managers in the future.Cross-functional relationships are vital during new product development (NPD) because NPD involves converting abstract ideas into tangible products. NPD requires interdependent specialists to provide or exchange resources such as information, expertise, and money (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967; Olson et al., 1995), and cross-functional relationships facilitate these exchanges.The focus of this study is interpersonal trust in cross-functional relationships between marketing and R&D during NPD. We focus on this particular managerial dyad because it is well established that these two managers are among the most important decision makers during NPD projects (e.g. Wind, 1981, 1982). The extent to which these two managers trust each other is important because there is strong evidence that the more effectively marketing and R&D work together during NPD, the greater the likelihood of developing a successful new product (Maltz et al., 2001; Shaw and Shaw, 1998; Souder, 1981, 1988).Improving success rates of NPD projects is important for firms because new products have major strategic implications, e.g. for portfolio management, medium to long-term cash flows, and even the long-term survival of the firm (Cooper, 1996; Crawford and DiBenedetto, 2003). Empirical evidence suggests, however, that marketing/R&D relationships during NPD are often problematic (Shaw and Shaw, 1998). Therefore, improving these relationships is a critical managerial challenge.In this article we focus on the role of interpersonal trust in improving marketing manager/R&D manager relationships during NPD. A key argument we advance here is that the very nature of NPD projects (e.g. group problem-solving under conditions of high uncertainty, non-programmable problems) pose particular coordination challenges. We believe that these difficulties can be mitigated when interpersonal trust exists between NPD team members. We argue this because complex tasks create behavioural interdependence (Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978), and heighten the need for coordinating activities (Jones et al., 1997), and trust is known to act as an informal coordination mechanism (Jones and George, 1998). As Rousseau et al. (1998) note, in increasingly fluid and decentralised work settings such as NPD projects, trust can help workers to self-organise, and lead to trust-related behaviours such as cooperation.Importantly, because of the complexity of NPD projects, the direct effectiveness of formal/bureaucratic means of coordination is likely to be low. In arguing this we do not suggest that formal mechanisms will be ineffective during NPD; rather, they have a specific, but indirect role to play in fostering effective relationships.Our paper is structured as follows. First we outline the theoretical foundations of this research. We then present our conceptual framework, define the key constructs, and justify their inclusion in our model. Next we present our structural model and develop our hypotheses. We then describe our research methods, and report the results of our empirical tests. We conclude by discussing the implications of our research, its limitations, and possible topics for future research.\nTheoretical foundations: We draw on two theoretical foundations to develop our model. The first is Weber's (1924) theory of bureaucracy, from which we draw our two structural variables - formalisation and centralisation. We include these because both the management and marketing literature identify them as important aspects of internal coordination (e.g. Ayers et al., 1997; Rajagopalan et al., 1993), and they are therefore both likely to influence coordination and effectiveness in marketing/R&D relationships.We also draw on the interaction approach, which is used in many important studies of marketing's relationships (e.g. Moenaert et al., 1994; Ruekert and Walker, 1987). The interaction approach focuses on how factors such as communication and trust predict satisfaction, performance, and relationship continuity in various contexts, forexample buyer-seller and channel relationships (see Anderson and Narus, 1990; Morgan and Hunt, 1994), and cross-functional relationships (e.g. Ruekert and Walker, 1987).Our choice of these theoretical frameworks allows us to examine various dimensions of marketing/R&D relationships (e.g. interpersonal trust; communication behaviours), and levels of analysis (e.g. structural versus individual-level). Our use of Weber (1924) allows us to investigate how formalisation and centralisation affect marketing/R&D relationships. However because these structural/bureaucratic variables lack action-level analysis, i.e. at the level of the human actors (Pennings, 1992), we also examine a number of communication variables drawn from the interaction approach. These include communication frequency, bi-directionality, and quality, and we include these because the current state of any relationship is the result of an ongoing series of interactions (e.g. Young and Wilkinson, 1997).Importantly, we examine two dimensions of interpersonal trust - cognition-based trust and affect-based trust - because of the salience of trust in working relationships (e.g. Williams, 2001), and because of an emerging consensus that interpersonal trust consists of two underlying dimensions, one cognitive and the other affective (e.g. McAllister, 1995).In this research we make five contributions. First, while earlier studies examine trust as an outcome of interdepartmental interactions (e.g. Jassawalla and Sashittal, 1998), interpersonal trust has not previously been used as the focal explanatory variable in marketing/R&D relationships. Second, ours is the first study to examine two forms of trust in NPD projects, and demonstrate their importance. Third, we reveal the differential effects of three communication dimensions - communication frequency, bi-directionality, and quality - in building interpersonal trust and promoting effective relationships during NPD projects. Fourth, we believe our model and findings are generalisable to other marketing relationships, and other situations in which there is cross-functional group decision-making (e.g. in organisational buying centres). Last, by integrating two separate but complementary theories, Weber's (1924) theory of bureaucracy, and the interaction approach, we demonstrate the strong links between these two theoretical frameworks.\nConceptual framework: Our hypothesised model includes three sets of variables - structural, interaction, and trust - plus our outcome variable - perceived relationship effectiveness. Weber's (1924) bureaucratic dimensions are relevant because this theory suggests that different work situations require different combinations of these variables. Routine tasks such as normal production runs, for example, require only \"mechanistic\" structures, i.e. high formalisation and centralisation. In contrast, in situations of high task uncertainty, or where creativity and innovation are required (e.g. NPD projects), more \"organic\", less formalised and centralised structures are appropriate (Burns and Stalker, 1961; Olson et al., 1995). Excessive bureaucracy during NPD may be dysfunctional, because the resulting ossification of behaviour can lead to the rejection of innovative ideas (Mintzberg, 1979). However, it is worth noting that some structure is likely to be necessary during NPD to help coordinate activities and information flows. Our model therefore specifies formalisation and centralisation to influence cross-functional communication during NPD.Further, both theory and empirical evidence suggest that communication within relationships influences trust development (see McAllister, 1995). We therefore link communication to trust in our model. Similarly, communication is believed to directly influence relationship effectiveness (e.g. Ruekert and Walker, 1987), and we therefore link communication directly to our dependent variable, perceived relationship effectiveness. Last, given the importance of trust to the effectiveness of working relationships, we also link our two trust dimensions to our dependent variable. Our hypothesised model is presented in Figure 1.\nDependent variable: perceived relationship effectiveness: Our dependent variable perceived relationship effectiveness is drawn from Van de Ven (1976), and relates to whether the R&D manager perceives their relationship with the marketing manager to be worthwhile, equitable, productive and satisfying. Consistent with Ruekert and Walker (1987), we operationalise this construct at the interpersonal rather than the interdepartmental level. We feel justified using a subjective outcome measure because other studies have done so (e.g. Anderson and Narus, 1990; Smith and Barclay, 1997), and because there is good evidence that the effectiveness of cross-functional relationships is strongly associated with successful NPD outcomes (e.g. Souder, 1981, 1988).\nExplanatory variables: Structural/bureaucratic dimensions\nHypotheses development: Effects of interpersonal trust\nMethod: Data collection\nResults: Descriptive results\nDiscussion: Theoretical implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The primary objective of this research is to test a model examining interpersonal trust between marketing managers and R&D managers during new product development projects.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In this study interpersonal trust as a bi-dimensional construct with cognitive and affective components is conceptualised. The authors' integrative structural model specifies Weber's structural/bureaucratic dimensions - formalisation and centralisation to predict three communication dimensions, communication frequency, quality, and bi-directionality. In turn these communication dimensions are used to predict cognition-based trust, and affect-based trust. In addition, the paper models the direct effects of the three communication dimensions on a dependent variable - perceived relationship effectiveness. The hypothesised model consists of 16 hypotheses, seven of which relate to the two focal interpersonal trust constructs. The measures were tested and a structural model estimated by using PLS. Data were provided by 184 R&D managers in Australia, reporting on their working relationship with a counterpart marketing manager during a recent product development project.\nFindings: - The hypothesized model has high explanatory power and it was found that both trust dimensions strongly influenced the effectiveness of marketing/R&D relationships during new product development, with cognition-based trust having the strongest impact. The results also reveal which forms of communication help to build interpersonal trust. The most powerful effect was from communication quality to cognition-based trust. The next strongest effects were from bi-directional communication, which was a strong predictor of affect-based trust, and a somewhat weaker predictor of cognition-based trust. Interestingly, the direct effects of our three communication behaviours on relationship effectiveness were modest, suggesting that their relationship building effects are largely indirect. Last, it is revealed that bureaucratic means of control on product development projects have mixed effects. As expected, centralisation reduces cross-functional communication. In contrast, formalisation has a positive effect during product development, as it stimulates both the frequency and bi-directionality of communication between marketing managers and R&D managers on these projects.\nOriginality/value: - This is the first study to treat interpersonal trust as the focal construct in marketing/R&D relationships during new product development. Moreover, it is the only study of marketing/R&D relationships to conceptualise, measure, and model two underlying dimensions of interpersonal trust (cognition-based trust, and affect-based trust). Our study also integrates aspects of Weber's theory of bureaucracy, with interaction theory, and demonstrates the strong links between these theoretical frameworks.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A comparative study on urban and rural households preferences of fresh mutton meat consumption (a case study in eastern region of Turkey-Heckman Model)	[ "Turkey", "Consumption structures", "Heckman method", "Mutton meat" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: There exist distinct differences in preference of meat types among the various regions of Turkey stemming mainly from taste, cultural structure and health concerns.\n2. Material and methods: The research was conducted in the Center town of Hakkari Province (a mountainous city in South-Eastern part of Turkey with 272.165 population bordered by Iran and Iraq). The population of Center town of Hakkari is 82.423, of which 73.94 percent consisted of urban population (TSI, 2010). In total, 95 rural and 95 urban households was taken as sample size taking into account 95 percent confidence interval and 10 percent acceptable error for limited population (Miran, 2003). The acceptable error of 10 percent was accepted to represent the population taking into consideration the time and financial restrains to interview more consumers. The data were collected randomly from nine districts in urban and nine villages in rural areas from November 2007 until May 2008 intermittently. Out of all households (190 households) 19 households (10 percent) do not consume mutton meat.\n3. Research results and discussion: 3.1 General information on households\nConclusions: Price elasticity of mutton meat demand (-0.242) revealed that the mutton meat was a compulsory good for households in Hakkari region due mainly taste and habit. Income elasticity of mutton meat (0.39) showed that relatively satisfactory amount of mutton meat is already consumed. Kruskall-Wallis Test showed that there existed great differences of mutton meat consumption among the income groups. So, we suggest producers and marketers follow different price and promotion strategies in the region taking into consideration specially the income level of households.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to perform a comparative assessment of the urban and rural households' preferences of fresh mutton meat consumption in Hakkari, Turkey.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The sample size consisted of 95 rural and 95 urban households. The data were collected from November 2007 until May 2008 intermittently. Probity and Heckman Models were used in the study.\nFindings: Price elasticity of mutton meat demand was calculated as -0.242, which reveals the mutton meat is a compulsory good in the research area. Income elasticity of mutton meat was found as 0.39, which shows relatively satisfactory amount of mutton meat is consumed. However, there existed great differences in terms of mutton meat consumption per capita among the income groups.\nOriginality/value: The findings in the study may contribute to the mutton meat producers and marketers in the region when planning their production and marketing strategies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Boundaryless career and adaptive HR practices in Japan's hotel industry	[ "Japan", "Hotel and catering industry", "Job mobility", "Career development" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nBackground: It is Japanese style management that basically maintained the competitive power of Japanese companies for a global market from the 1970s to the 1980s. It was composed mainly of lifetime employment, which enclosed employees. However, once the recession came in the 1990s, Japanese companies began to abandon lifetime employment in order to cut cost. Now, the relationship between an organization and an individual in Japan is changing dramatically. For example, Japanese young people do not try to go on working for a single company but rather tend to change their jobs. If this trend continues to increase, then Japanese companies will have to change their human resource management as might naturally be expected. Given these circumstances, this article gives attention to the concept of \"boundaryless career\", and explains what influence the concept has on a strategy of human resource (HR) by analyzing data from our collected fieldwork1.Boundaryless career is a concept that was first proposed by Arthur and Rousseau (1996). Until then, we generally had the train of thought that an individual career was developed and advanced within a single company as mentioned by Schein (1971). This type of career development has three patterns, a change between different departments, a promotion to an upper position, and a shift to the center of an informal community within the same organization. Unfortunately, this old framework of thinking cannot explain the recent conditions in which individuals try to develop their own career by themselves across the normal boundaries of an organization. Arthur and Rousseau (1996) have defined such a new view of career development as the concept of a \"boundaryless career\"These new types of career movements cannot be ignored by companies. The appearance of boundary less career means a strong change in labor market. Therefore, companies have to construct new ways to manage HR, which correspond to these new environmental changes. Speaking strictly from the point of view of strategy construction, there are two strategies to acquire human resources. One is the \"building strategy\" to recruit new graduates and bring them up; another is the \"buying strategy\" to recruit skillful staff that has already been trained in other organizations (Miles and Snow, 1984). We think that the new tendency towards more \"boundaryless careers\" allows companies to shift their employment strategy to more \"buying\" rather than a \"building\" strategy.It seems that the concept of a boundary less career agrees more with the \"buying\" strategy in HR, but we have to consider the side effects that such a strategy has on companies. DeFillippi and Arthur (1998) pointed out that many field staff who film movies select boundary less career paths without belonging to any specific organization, and further investigated how collective knowledge was accumulated at a film site. It is typically the organizational mechanism that accumulates existing knowledge and creates new knowledge within a company as Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) mentioned. They tacitly have a presupposition that individuals who go on with their career within the same company collaborate over a long period of time. So the stronger the tendency for boundary less careers is, the less knowledge companies are able to accumulate. And it is the fact that the closure of human resources has constructed company specific knowledge, and then the company specific knowledge has worked as a competitive advantage. If the tendency towards boundary less careers is stronger, many companies run the risk of losing their specific knowledge and their competitive advantage because employees are undoubtedly the carriers of important knowledge. This paper discusses what problems can happen from a company-side point of view, and how companies can guard their knowledge while boundary less career shifts and buying strategies in HR continue to increase.\nMethod: As mentioned above, the insufficiency of empirical descriptive studies examining the advanced career and HR practices' frameworks makes clear the necessity of our exploratory research in Japan. We set the subject of the research as the career and HR practices in Japan's hotel industry, which has an especially high rate of human resources' mobility. The data used in this study were collected through intensive interviews conducted at some intervals between August of 2001 and March of 2003. We did the research in the semi-structured style, relying on the interview guidelines that had been mailed to interviewees beforehand. Interviews were conducted with 18 managers and staff members in eight hotels, for one-to-two hours each. The interviewees' affiliations and job positions are shown in Table I.All the interviews were recorded, and then transcribed into text data. The total transcript on the whole of the research amounts to about 350,000 Japanese characters. We analyzed the collected data based on Glaser and Strauss (1967) grounded theory approach. Our analyzing process conceptually consists of three stages. In the first stage, which is generally called the open coding stage, we labeled the segments of data (e.g. a series of activities or incidents) that had been narrated by the interviewees. In the second stage, known as the axial coding by the constant comparative method, the labeled data was categorized according to their reciprocal logical relevance. Finally, in the last stage, we engaged in selective coding to identify mutual relationships among the different categories, until we thought their theoretical saturation had occurred. However, in the actual analyzing process, we did the three sorts of coding concurrently.\nQualitative data analysis: Managers and staff members in the hotel industry move horizontally between companies more often than average workers do in Japan. According to the Japan Institute of Labor (JIL) research conducted in 1994, 50-80 percent of fulltime positions in city hotels are occupied by workers with less than five years experience in the company they currently work for. And Japan Institute of Labor (1994) research also shows that the 60-80 percent of the sampled hotel companies maintain their recruitment policy as \"only/mainly year-round hiring.\" These results imply that career development and HR practices in the hotel industry seem far removed from the Japanese traditional way (e.g. lifetime commitment to a single company, or systematic recruiting of graduates straight from school). They are much closer to \"boundaryless career\" paths and the \"buying strategy\" of HR management.In this section of the paper, we develop an analysis focusing on both the sides of individual careers and organizational HR practices. Figure 1 shows the whole image of our analysis. First, we examine how and why hotel managers and staff members develop their \"boundaryless careers\" which are still fairly rare in Japan. Second, we explore how companies redevelop their HR practices in order to adapt themselves to the problem of higher mobility in the work force.\nHotel managers and staff members' careers: Reality shock brought by ambivalent occupational culture\nAdaptive HR practices in Japan's hotel industry: Effects of mobilization on the hotel companies' HR policies and organizations\nDiscussion and conclusion: Two divide mechanisms about career and HR\nBoundarylessness between organizations reinforces boundaries within an organization: We have pointed out the strong tendency of hotel worker's crossing across the boundaries between different organizations. There is no doubt that such workers make boundaryless career progress. However, we have also shown that such a boundaryless career in Japan's hotel industry reduces workers' opportunities for their moving within an organization. Since there are few HR practices of job rotation in hotels, workers improve their career without leaving the division where they were placed first after entering the company. That is, they hardly move across the functional boundaries of the \"career corn\" (Schein, 1971). Furthermore, such workers do not acquire a broader view throughout the organization, which is important to becoming managers. They devote themselves to building their own specific but portable skills. As the career's divide shows, because of the polarization between managers and workers (typically open-ya), workers will not and are unable to be promoted to become managers, but also move toward the middle of the functional circle. It will be hard for these workers to cross the hierarchical and inclusional boundaries of their employer organizations.Thus, we can find a paradoxical situation: the more boundarylessly human resources move across organizations, the harder their boundary-crossings within an organization become. This may be regarded as the reinforcement or even the re-definition of the boundaries by the permanent (not temporal) organizations to cope with workers' high mobility.\nProblems and future directions of Japan's hotel organizations: Recent research Japan Institute of Labor (1994) shows that the most serious problems of Japan's city hotels' HRM are the lack of ability of managers and the shortage of managerial candidates. This situation, is considered to be caused by introducing adaptive HR practices. Domestic hotels, like general Japanese companies, have adapted the systematic recruiting of graduates straight from school and collective programs for training and career management of workers. They have the purpose of training and selecting general managers through long-term career progress, as well as boosting the competition among whole workers by offering opportunities to win a promotion. It is needless to say that such a building strategy of HR has been based on lifetime employment and commitment. However, because of introducing adaptive HR practices, there occurs a striking unbalance in the internal fit of HR practices (Miles and Snow, 1984). Introduced practices seem to bring hotels short-term effectiveness, but then they will be worried about how to train or select general managers.Adaptive HR practice has another problem from the knowledge-based view of the organization (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). Organizational knowledge, especially tacit information, is difficult for others to imitate, and therefore is a source of the differential advantages of the company. To store and utilize tacit knowledge in an organization, HR redundancy to some extent is indispensable. However, reinforced boundaries and dry human relationships within the organization will make it harder to convey tacit knowledge among hotel workers. In the long-term view, they may lose their competitive advantages.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims at analyzing the underlying factors that encourage an increasing number of Japanese workers to move across the corporate boundaries in the course of career development, and then understanding the nature and the consequences of the corporate human resource practices in response to it.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The authors chose the Japanese hotel industry as the research object, since it is perceived as one of the industries in which the boundaryless career-seeking behavior is more remarkable than others. A total of 18 hotel employees, including hotel managers, were approached as the samples of in-depth interviews.\nFindings: - A grounded theory-based analysis of the data collected has led to a causal relation map, which describes the relationship between their orientation in career development and the corporate human resource practices in response to it. The adaptive human resource practices had an influence on the behaviors of workers and furthermore made the mobility in workforce higher. In such circumstances, companies need to clarify the boundary between the core and the periphery within an organization for the purpose of protecting organizational knowledge, while the usual corporate boundary fades out.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This paper researched Japan's hotel industry by in-depth interviews and led to several findings. Future study should include more industries as a research site and quantitative analysis to generalize the findings.\nOriginality/value: - Past research in the business organization studies indicates that organizational knowledge is one of the salient factors that encompass a firm's competitive advantage, and its accumulation is created by the human resources in a given organization. If this holds true, the increasing fluidity of workers beyond the organizational boundaries might well affect a firm's generation and retention of its organizational knowledge. This paper describes the prospects and a way out of this phenomenon.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Global world: a problem of governance	[ "Globalization", "Governance", "Regulation", "State", "Law", "Global governance", "Global world", "Holism", "World community", "Morality" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The problem of global governance for the world community as a single unit appears to be more and more acute and topical. The author argues it may soon become one of the central themes for contemporary global studies. From the position of a holistic vision of the world, the following paper distinguishes between notions such as \"regulation\" and \"governance,\" analyzes both theoretical issues of socio-natural dynamics conditioned by multi-aspect globalization and various factors, conditions and principal possibilities of resolving the problem in question.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to include the following items: to show the absolute necessity of managing the international community, to explore the fundamental possibility of managing the global world, to prove or disprove such a possibility, to determine the real background of global governance in modern conditions and to show the methods of transition toward global governance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The main methodological principles used in writing the paper are: the principle of the integrity of the world; the understanding of globalization as an objective historical process; the principle of historical sequence of the considered event; the principle of priority of the general over the particular, as well as of the global over the regional and the local.\nFindings: As a result of the proposed research, it is shown that the global world needs to be managed. Prerequisites for the management of the global world are identified, among which the most important are morality and rights. It is shown that for management of the global world there should not only be global government, but also other branches of government, such as a World Parliament and a judicial system based on global law.\nResearch limitations/implications: A clear distinction between the management and regulation of social relations is made. The need to further explore the concepts of international law and global right is stated.\nPractical implications: National sovereignty increasingly must give place to global governance structures.\nSocial implications: The need to build a global civil society is evident.\nOriginality/value: The absolute necessity and possibility of regulating the world community are shown. New approaches to solving this problem are proposed. They are based on existing assumptions in the field of executive and legislative power and also involve the creation of new structures, primarily in the area of the judiciary.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Exploring inside the box: a cross-cultural examination of stimuli affecting fast food addiction	[ "Brand name", "Social influence" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Nowadays, people find it more convenient to consume ready-to-eat meals, offered by fast food chain runners, to cherish their daily consumption needs (Nondzor and Tawiah, 2015). In 1951, Merriam Webster was the one who first introduced the name \"fast food\" in lexicon (Srivastava, 2015). Fast food is interpreted as an eatery which provides ease, comfort, quick service, quality food and social pleasure to consumers (Aloia et al., 2013). Fast food chains that were first introduced in the region of Southern California greatly changed the eating habits of Americans and several other countries. Fast food consumption is rapidly increasing in many developing countries like Pakistan and a big chunk of the market share has allocated to fast food (Cimadon et al., 2010). In psychology, there are several theories developed to understand consumer buying and consumption behavior. Current study explores two theories to understand the consumption behavior of fast food in Pakistan and America. Sheth et al. (1991) proposed the theory of consumption values which explore various perceived values that affect consumption behavior. Cognitive affective behavior explains decision-making process in three steps: first it begins with cognition, move toward affect and ends with behavior (Holbrook, 1986).\nLiterature review: Emotional values and consumption\nResearch methodology: Study 1: cross-sectional survey of the USA and Pakistan\nEmpirical results: Measurement model\nFramework: Indirect effects\nDiscussion: The current study highlights different factors that play a key role in the consumption of fast food in Pakistan and the USA, exploring the possible reasons behind the decreasing trend of fast food consumption in Pakistan. Previous researchers have identified consumer attitude toward fast food (Ghoochani et al., 2018), impact of demographical factors on consumers loyalty toward local and global fast food chains (Srivastava, 2015), and effect of demographic and psychographics determinants on consumer fast food choice (Anand, 2011). The main objective of this study was to measure the consumption behavior of fast food in Pakistan and America, we conclude that there is a significant relation between craving and addiction and this relation is accepted in both countries. However, addiction is used as a mediating variable and is rejected in both countries. We conclude that craving, impulsivity, social influence, brand name and servicescape have a relation with the consumption of fast food and this relation is accepted in the USA but rejected in Pakistan. The second main objective of this study was to explore the reason of fast food anti-consumption in Pakistan. Lee et al. (2009) widely explained anti-consumption, brand dislike and brand avoidance as factors for anti-consumption (Sandikci and Ekici, 2009). Brand avoidance is a well-studied area of research with regard to anti-consumption, i.e., experiential avoidance (Lee et al., 2009). However, the present study confirmed the effect of three major streams on the anti-consumption of fast food in Pakistan. These include brand dislike in terms of losing trust values in fast food brands and low quality standards of local fast food chains, brand avoidance in terms experimental avoidance where consumers avoided a brand following a bad experience influenced by the claims of PFA (i.e. government) and risk aversion in terms of health consciousness, risk of obesity and unhygienic food intake. Moreover, the current study also identified age, income, mood and culture as major factors for the anti-consumption of fast food in Pakistan.\nFuture direction and limitations: The current study has many limitations. First, data were collected from students and from different fast food outlets. In the second phase of the study, qualitative data were not gathered from the USA. Second, this study was constructed on the basis of an explanatory sequential research design, i.e., survey research design with the 300 as the sample size. Third, demographic factors (education, region, occupation, etc.) were not measured in this study. Based on the above-mentioned limitation, some recommendations for future researchers are given below. First, future researchers should completely focus on the fast food chain and conduct a field experiment to observe consumer's fast food consumption behavior and fast food addicts more in-depth. A researcher could conduct field survey on few fast food outlets (like KFC, McDonald's, Burger King, etc.) and compare results of different fast food outlets. Second, the future researcher can apply exploratory sequential or triangulation technique and compare consumption behavior of different countries and factors affecting the consumption of fast food in different countries. Third, future researchers can only focus on one factor to measure fast food consumption at one time by adding different other constructs like education, gender, snob appeal, satisfaction, and advertisement.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper, a cross-cultural study, is twofold: first, to identify personal, social, demographical and marketing facets that imply fast food addiction in Pakistan and America, and second to explore the reasons of reduction in fast food consumption in Pakistan.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The present study followed an explanatory sequential mixed-methods research design. Both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods were used to obtain supportive results of fast food consumption with the help of defining logical relations between independent and dependent variables. Partial least square based structural equation modeling technique was used to analyze quantitative data. For qualitative data, NVivo 11 was used to explore themes.\nFindings: Quantitative findings of Pakistani setting suggested that craving and impulsiveness have a significant relation with addiction and have no mediation effect in both the countries. However, these results contradict with US study. Qualitative findings explored many personal, social, marketing and health factors that have affected fast food market of Pakistan which include low income, price-sensitive market, low quality, poor services, PFA, word of mouth, mood, obesity, environment and cultural influence on the consumption behavior of Pakistani consumers.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study is restricted to the consumption behavior of fast food only in two countries the USA and Pakistan. Hence, the results of this study cannot be generalized to other countries' cultural and traditional values. In addition, this study only focuses on personal, social and marketing factors that implicate fast food addiction.\nOriginality/value: The consumption of fast food was the focus of analysis. Therefore, research adds value to service industry and helps in developing growth and marketing strategies for the fast food industry.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Influence or imitate? A survey of recent writing on management in China	[ "Learning", "Career development", "Skills shortages", "China", "Hong Kong", "United Kingdom" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Over the past year business literature in the UK and the US has shown a marked interest in Chinese management. This may seem a surprising trend - China is not renowned in the West as a source of either interest or threat when it comes to business leadership. But according to academics, journalists and consultants, Chinese management is on the ascendancy and is something we must take seriously. So what is it exactly that these writers are asking us to consider?\nResponse to the boundaryless career: According to Mary Pang, Bee-Leng Chua and Chris W.L. Chu - three academics from Hong Kong and the UK - the increased interest in training and education in China is a result of career instability. They describe the typical career of a Chinese worker today as boundaryless, meaning that workers anticipate increased job mobility and career moves that go sideways as well as up. Employees expect that the more knowledge they have the more employable they will be, and indeed there is data to show that highly educated workers tend not to have to move around as much to stay employed. Workers recognize that the responsibility to stay ahead when it comes to training has shifted from the employee to the employee, and as a result there is much evidence of self-motivation when in comes to business education in China.This of course stems from a change in the economy. Since the 1980s China and Hong Kong have been de-industrializing. The technological advancements of the past decade have provided a major catalyst in the shift to a knowledge-based economy, and the typical career framework has changed significantly as a result of this. Industry-specific skills are no longer what guarantees long-term employability. Instead, employers are looking for advanced degrees, excellent IT skills and linguistic knowledge.China has been behind the West in having the education resources to prepare business leaders and multi-taskers, but the Chinese now know this. Data collected from interviews with workers showed that they are fully aware of the skills expected of them in a changed business climate, and that they are taking every step to meet these demands. A culture of self-motivation, opportunism and a huge number of training programs in the workplace mean that workers in Hong Kong and China are preparing to compete in a global business environment.\nLocal leaders and the West's obligation: Corroborating this claim, consultants at McKinsey & Company have said that \"given the global aspirations of many Chinese companies, over the next 10-15 years they will need 75,000 leaders who can work effectively in global environments; today they have only 3,000-5,000.\" But Brenda Wilson points out that it will take time and resources to train these leaders, and in the meantime the companies still need running. Thus, China is caught in what she calls the \"build versus buy\" question. Do companies focus on training home grown talent to take the top jobs or do they simply buy in leadership from the West and then concentrate on external strategy? It is proving a difficult predicament to manage.In many cases it has seemed easier to bring in talent from the Asia-Pacific region, and mangers from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia are filling leadership jobs in mainland China. Similarly foreign-born Chinese people, who are often bilingual, well-educated and versed in Western business style, are being poached to work back in China. Wilson points to three problems with this. First, the costs of an expatriate compared to a local resident are huge. The total package value for an executive or function head is around PS54,700 if a local fills the position, and PS182,200 if the job goes to an expat from a Western country. Second, expatriates tend not to fill these positions for very long before moving on and while they are there they claim not to have time to groom a successor. Third, there is an emerging glass ceiling for local leaders. None of this makes much business sense.There are a few companies, such as Estee Lauder China, who have identified future leaders as central in the strategy for success in the local market. These firms are investing seriously in training local talent, following the belief that a long-term interest in China must come with the willingness to develop their people and transfer knowledge. Wilson commends this intervention in management education from the West, and refers to it as a \"ready now, ready soon, ready later\" approach to leadership resources that fulfils both business and moral obligations.\nLearning from China: Far from seeing it simply as our duty to train the Chinese, Matt Adcock argues that instead we really should be learning from them. The global balance of economic power is shifting China's way, he says, and this would not have started to happen unless there was some very good management in place. The country has shot up 20 places to number 34 in the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report 2007-2008, and while the global growth rate is 1.8 percent this year, China's is 10 percent. It is unclear whether expat managers have been closely involved in this or whether China can claim this success for itself, but Adcock is surely right in his claim that UK managers must at least prepare themselves to cooperate and compete with their Chinese counterparts.The first change that needs to happen is that the image of Chinese management that still holds in the West needs to change. The typical Chinese manager today is customer-focused, honest, ethical, and has strong personal values and a keen interest in workplace safety. He or she is also likely to be much more prepared to undergo further training and education than their Western counterpart.There is a remarkable complacency when it comes to management in the UK and US and what comes with it is an unwillingness to make improvements. The cultural differences of China - the belief in extensive and ongoing training across a broad skill set as well as willingness of managers to take blame - are what may now become its competitive edge. Data shows that Chinese managers are now more confident than Western ones in their knowledge.Whether the job of UK and US managers is to influence or imitate Chinese management, what can't be denied is that the increasing role China now plays in the global economy means that the country's culture and management should be higher on the Western radar. Success on both sides on the world will rely on shared learning, cooperation and communication, and no doubt influence in both directions.\nComment: This is a review of \"A Chinese puzzle\" by Matt Adcock, \"Learning to stay ahead in an uncertain environment\" by May Pang, Bee-Leng Chua and Chris W.L. Chu, and \"Hidden dragons\" by Brenda Wilson.\"A Chinese puzzle\" describes the main features of Chinese management styles and the attitudes of Chinese managers to training. It draws on recent research by the Institute of Leadership an Management (UK) to discuss the perceptions the US, UK and French managers have of Chinese managers and assesses if these perceptions are correct. The author identifies several misconceptions, and argues that Western managers have undervalued their Chinese counterparts. He stresses that UK managers must learn to understand Chinese styles of management and find ways of working alongside and competing with them.\"Learning to stay ahead in an uncertain environment\" explores the attitude of Chinese workers towards learning. It explains that the global marketplace has challenged works to take responsibility for developing and maintaining their own skills, and examines the endeavours of a cross-section of Chinese workers as they seek to remain employable. The article discusses the role of learning in this changed career path, arguing that increased education results in having to change a job less often. It outlines the environmental conditions in Hong Kong and puts forward results from a collection of interview data from Chinese respondents who had ten or more years work experience.\"Hidden dragons\" reviews the extent of the leadership skills shortage in China, and discusses how this is being addressed. It outlines why the desired set of skills has not been developed in China, and explains that many companies are using expatriates to bridge skills gaps. The author criticizes this strategy, arguing that companies must pour resources into systematic leadership development programmes, so that Chinese employees will eventually fill more managerial roles. The article also offers recent research to reverse the common stereotype of Chinese skills and attitudes.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Reviews three recent articles on Chinese management, comparing their messages.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments.\nFindings: - Over the past year business literature in the UK and the US has shown a marked interest in Chinese management. This may seem a surprising trend - China is not renowned in the West as a source of either interest or threat when it comes to business leadership. But according to academics, journalists and consultants, Chinese management is on the ascendancy and is something we must take seriously. So what is it exactly that these writers are asking us to consider?\nPractical implications: - Provides an overview of what is currently being written about management in China, and calls for more research.\nOriginality/value: - Gives insight into the relationships between Western and Chinese management practice today.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Exploring the UK high street retail experience: is the service encounter still valued?	[ "Qualitative", "Service quality", "Value", "Retail", "Service encounters" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: As differentiation through goods becomes increasingly difficult to achieve (Reinartz and Ulaga, 2008) interaction between retail staff and customers becomes increasingly important (Gremler and Gwinner, 2008), as this represents the primary means by which retailers establish relationships with customers (Bolton et al., 2007; Jayawardhena and Farrell, 2011). Retail organisations, more than most, are able to distinguish their service offering through customer facing staff, and the human element in retail settings is arguably the most important (Fowler et al., 2007) - primarily because, in their search for information, customers draw upon such encounters to help constitute their buying decisions (Naylor and Frank, 2000). It could be further argued that service staff play an important role in influencing customers' evaluation of service quality (Gupta and Zeithaml, 2006), and that the level of service offered combined with other factors such as physical facilities, merchandise, post-transaction satisfaction and store atmosphere - collectively create what has now come to be known as the \"retail experience\" (e.g. Frow and Payne, 2007; Grewal et al., 2009; Verhoef et al., 2009).\nLiterature review: Retail service quality\nResearch strategy: The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature and importance of personal service encounters, utilising a high-street retailer whose value proposition has been characterised by a focus on the relationship between employees and customers, and to assesses how this currently contributes to our understanding of consumers' perspectives on the quality of retail service specifically, and on the retail experience generally. The study adopts an exploratory approach with a view to both exploring and generating theory, in an environment that has received limited recent theoretical evaluation to date. A single-case research strategy has been used, allowing the authors to explore contemporary retail phenomena in a real-life context (Yin, 1994; Nati and Ojasaklo, 2008). Via the use of naturalistic enquiry (recommended by Tynan and McKechnie, 2009, for the evaluation of experiential consumption activity) the researchers have been able to explore respondent attitudes in a relatively unconstrained manner, and to study how both employees and customers understand the connected notions of service quality, service encounter, and service experience in an organisation that is especially relevant to the aims of the study (Barbour, 2008).\nResearch findings: The findings, further below, demonstrate the iterative nature of our research. We focus first on results obtained via the service quality/encounters template (Tables I and II) - considering both expectations and perceptions, and relating to both customers and staff - and, subsequently, we show the outcomes of further analysis designed to interrogate \"surplus\" data (emerging from customer interviews only) via a second, value-related, template (Table III).\nDiscussion: The retailer chosen for this study has been an established fixture in the UK for many generations. That it has been judged a \"quality\", rather than a commodity, shopping destination for many years goes a long way towards explaining its enduring appeal. Staff clearly pride themselves on providing high-quality customer service and perceive this to be a key reason for customers to shop in the store. Our findings suggest, though, that customers shopped here not because the store had a good range of quality products and helpful, knowledgeable staff, but because their offering incorporated attractive promotions, a generous loyalty scheme and a level of convenience and efficiency. The exceptional service encounter, which the store staff perceived to be a key component of competitive advantage was no longer considered by respondents to be a \"customer experience requirement\" (Teixeira et al., 2012), or pre-requisite for using the store.\nConclusions and future research: Our study provides a snapshot of a retail environment in flux. It contributes to current understandings of an evolving high street by both capturing the dilemmas faced by retail organisations in periods of rapid economic and social change, and also challenges the conventional wisdom regarding the universal potency of the \"extraordinary\" retail experience. We also demonstrate the further efficacy of using the \"value\" construct as a means of evaluating core aspects of consumer behaviour and use this also to categorise the nature of value propositions in bricks and mortar service environments. Methodologically, we show how the use of an emergent research design can provide a means of responding, in an agile fashion, to unforeseen findings.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between service quality, the service encounter and the retail experience within a changing UK retail environment.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were gathered from 40 customers and 20 staff of an established UK health and beauty retailer with a long-standing reputation for personal customer service. A qualitative analysis was applied using both a service quality and a customer value template.\nFindings: Customers focused more on the utilitarian features of the service experience and less on \"extraordinary\" aspects, but service staff still perceived that the customer encounter remained a key requisite for successful service delivery.\nResearch limitations/implications: Recent environmental developments - involving customers, markets and retail platform structure - are challenging traditional service expectations.\nPractical implications: Retailers may need to reassess the role of the service encounter as part of their on-going value proposition.\nOriginality/value: Limited research to date on the perception of shoppers to the service encounter in a changing retail environment and to the evolving notions of effort and convenience.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Pride and professionals: retaining talent in emerging economies	[ "Retention", "Employees turnover", "Performance management", "Professional development", "Manager support", "Social responsibility" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Talent management - the ability to attract, bring on board, manage, develop, and redeploy or counsel out employees while optimizing their use - is a sine qua non for achieving competitive success. The costs associated with losing key employees, or retaining less productive ones in depressed economic conditions, has long been recognized by organizational leaders. Undesired turnover and underproductive employees have a negative impact on firm profitability. While talent management is critical to business survival, specific actions that help to retain more effective professionals and managers do not always accomplish the desired result. This challenge is particularly acute in dynamic emerging markets such as India. As Indian-based companies grow and Western companies continue to enter, expand, and hire professionals, capitalizing on outsourcing opportunities, lower labor costs, and relatively high skill levels, talent gaps constrain opportunities for growth and success.\nFactors affecting turnover of professionals: There are many factors can that contribute to professional/managerial turnover, including:* a growing economy and low unemployment rates, thereby increasing the demand for talent;* an inadequate supply of professional labor;* a low organizational growth rate, restricting opportunities within the firm;* a worsening reputation or decline in socially responsible behaviors of the organization, undermining individuals' pride in their place of work;* organizational practices found wanting (e.g., performance management, professional development, quality supervision);* a decline in satisfaction with the organization; and* characteristics of the employee (e.g., length of service, age, gender, education).Many of these factors are beyond the control of the organization (e.g., state of the economy, labor market conditions, demographic trends) and others are likely to change slowly (e.g., organizational performance and growth). The findings relating retention to these uncontrollable factors are well established in the labor economics literature: organizations experience higher turnover rates in fast-growing economies, in tight labor markets, when demographic factors restrict the flow of talent, and when they have weak organizational performance or slow growth.This article explores how specific organizational HR practices affect new professionals' pride in the organization and satisfaction with it, and subsequently their propensity to leave. The organizational practices derived from the literature and supported by discussions with company executives consist of the organization's performance management practices, professional-development practices, relationships between managers and employees, and the organization's socially responsible behaviors (see Box 3).\nOrganizational practices, affective responses, and retention: Each organizational practice area - performance management, professional development, manager support, and socially responsible actions - has a positive relationship with pride in and satisfaction with the organization:* of the new professionals who strongly agreed with the quality of performance management practices, 43 percent expressed strong pride in the organization, 48 percent expressed satisfaction, 22 percent felt they would leave within two years, and 11 percent ultimately left within one year; and* of those new professionals who did not agree or only slightly agreed with the effectiveness of the organization's performance-management practices, only 11 percent felt strong pride in the organization, seven percent felt strong satisfaction with the organization, 43 percent expressed a strong intention to leave within two years, and 32 percent actually left within a year.In India, a 25 percent difference in attrition rate translates into a million-dollar organizational expense to replace these professionals for every 50 positions in the firm. A similar pattern exists with respect to professional development practices, manager support, and social responsibility.New professionals' lack of pride in and satisfaction with the organization have a strong relationship with their intention to leave and subsequent turnover in the organization. Of those expressing strong pride in the organization, 20 percent still expressed a strong intention to leave; only 10 percent left a year later. Of those expressing strong satisfaction with the organization, 14 percent expressed a strong intention to leave; only seven percent left a year later. Professionals expressing satisfaction with and pride in the organization are the least likely to leave, resulting in some of the lowest attrition rates reported in developing countries. It is the perceived effectiveness of the firm's organizational practices that led to such satisfaction and pride.High levels of professional-development practices and manager support yielded the lowest turnover (5-10 percent), with high levels of performance management practices and social responsibility yielding the next lowest levels of turnover (9-15 percent). Other reasons for such low turnover included high levels of pride in and satisfaction with the organization. The incremental benefit to a firm perceived to do all four practices \"exceptionally\" well by its new professionals was modest compared to firms doing at least two of them well.The results support the idea that the influence of social responsibility is through its positive affect on new professionals' pride in and satisfaction with the organization. In emerging markets, with India as an example, many employees have experienced poverty first hand. The social responsibility of their employer matters greatly to these professionals. In addition, social responsibility and managerial support appear to work together in improving retention in Indian firms. Consider, for example, Tata Steel, a global firm that is part of the Tata Group. Tata Steel created a leadership competency framework to help identify high-potential managers. Knowing the importance employees place on the organization's commitment to social responsibility, Tata included such competencies as \"shows sensitivity and genuine concern for the eco system\". It assessed the potential of managers around these dimensions to be groomed for more responsible assignments. One outcome is that Tata ranked highest among companies considered to have a larger purpose.Employees' pride in the organization is highly correlated with their satisfaction with it. Elements of pride include being proud of the work you do and of the organization's reputation, being willing to speak highly of the organization's products and services, and being confident in this organization's ability to \"do the right thing\".Organizations that do not have strong performance management practices or strong professional development practices can still affect their employees' pride, satisfaction, intentions to leave, and retention through the support their managers provide to the employees and the social responsibility their organization exhibits. Socially responsible actions, in particular, are associated with a strong sense of pride in the organization and satisfaction with the organization.\nImplications for strategy and leadership: Organizations that provide more meaningful and responsive approaches to developing and managing talent will be in a stronger position to retain their professionals. Best practices include a coordinated and focused performance management system that produces information on whom to retain, develop, promote, redeploy, and move out of the organization in a manner consistent with the business imperatives the organization is addressing.So what should an organization do? This will depend, in part, on the employee value proposition (EVP) offered to its professionals. An EVP is a set of organizational practices that a company considers better than those of its competition in the market for new professionals. As shown in Table I, we found that EVPs involving any two of the above four talent management areas, or any one area if professionals also feel pride in and satisfaction with the organization, can be successful in attracting and retaining professional talent. Determining the EVP offered to professionals is a strategic choice that needs to leverage the organization's strengths and be distinct from the EVPs of key competitors in the labor market. With the organization's business strategy in mind, managers need to determine which of the following actions will support it, then implement and communicate them flawlessly:\nPerformance management actions: * Identifying the risks at the individual and trend levels early through regular organizational assessments and performance management.* Offering explicit and shorter-term commitments to new professionals by assessing newcomer intentions of leaving in a couple of years anyway and building this into the talent management process. These firms then managed the amount invested in new professionals consistent with the agreement.* Reducing upfront investments by accelerating the time it takes for new professionals to be contributors based upon the performance management process.* Ensuring that the standards used are fair and clearly understood, the evaluation done in a transparent and objective manner, and feedback given in a way that helps new professionals to grow and be inspired to give their best.\nProfessional development actions: * Segmenting the professional workforce into various groups so that each can benefit from a different talent management program (e.g., offering more seasoned professionals a different type of program than a new professional).* Using current retention levels as baseline metrics to be used to measure the effectiveness of professional development programs and program changes.* Focusing on key learning objectives that provide payback to the organization and individual.* Sharing development costs with new professionals using such practices as training wages, tuition assistance plans and professional development on weekends that can both reduce investments and increase retention.\nManager support actions: * Connecting jobs to individuals by letting them influence their role and responsibilities, using a goal setting process to bring out the best in people.* Improving talent management during the \"return on investment\" period by training managers to use the performance management practices to retain top talent.* Training managers to target the best for the accelerated development and advancement through performance management, creating a formal \"high potential\" program, and being sure people know what they need to do to get into it and how to advance in it.* Increasing the value of new professionals through work-based experiences by training new managers to develop their people, how to lead by example, and providing their direct reports with the support they need to do their job well.\nSocial responsibility actions: * Charging the board and senior management with overseeing the organization's social responsibility initiatives.* Publicizing the organization's social responsibility initiatives both internally and externally.* Providing opportunities for employees to participate in initiatives and support special interest groups.* Creating forums on company web-sites for employees to share information and encourage one another.* Promoting social responsibility sensitivity and action as leadership competencies.\nEffect on financial performance: The organizational actions that stimulate employee engagement and retention also support the firm's financial performance. In a study of 50 multinational companies, Towers Perrin - ISR documented the impact of employee engagement on financial performance (Towers Perrin, 2008). Senior management's ability to demonstrate genuine interest in employees was the top engagement driver globally. Among the youngest employees (18-24), the ability of the organization to develop leaders at all levels was the top engagement driver while the availability of excellent career advancement opportunities was the top driver among those 24-34. Over 12 months, companies with higher levels of engagement outperformed those with less engaged employees in three key financial measures: operating income, net income growth, and earnings per share. These companies also experienced higher levels of retention. These findings provide added support to the relationship among employer practices, employee engagement, and retention.\nSome current practices: Some companies are investing in these actions, often integrating several of the levers we have discussed into a broader performance-management initiative. For example, the Ingersoll Rand Engineering Center worked with technical employees in the early stages of their career to identify individuals with the potential to become business and technical leaders. As part of the process, the company worked with an HR consulting firm to create a 360deg online tool, manage the assessment and feedback process, and provide consultative advice on mentoring and coaching. They were thus able to find the best candidates early to jumpstart the development process. In addition, employees were assigned mentors drawn from the ranks of global leadership to provide support in implementing individual development plans. This combination of leadership assessment and mentoring was recognized as one of the top five global best practices by the company, according to the firm.Infosys Technologies Limited developed a \"Performance Engagement Skills\" coaching program for 108 selected leaders from across the Infosys Development Centres. The 12 workshops included role-playing exercises, a development matrix based on the Infosys competency model, and an interactive electronic refresher course with key concepts for use after the program was over. These 108 managers were tasked with cascading the skills to over 1,000 managers throughout the organization for integration into their respective Development Centres. As Nandita Gurjar, Group HR Head for Infosys, explained, \"'Performance coaching is a key capability required in our senior managers to strengthen the high performance work ethic.' Tools such as 'appreciative inquiry' and 'coaching' help sustain employee engagement throughout the year rather than a one-time intervention. This helps us to focus more on the 'how' of getting results rather than just the results themselves.\"Although it is too early to tell how well these actions are paying off, our study suggests that investments such as these can help to create an environment characterized by managerial support, employee development and reduce the incidents of unplanned turnover. More broadly, our study of new professionals in India supports the contributions of performance management practices, professional development, manager support, and/or having a strong reputation as a socially responsible employer to successful talent management in India. These traditionally Western talent management approaches are working in a non-Western culture. Our findings suggest that organizations in India can be successful by building a distinctive talent management profile closely aligned to the organization's business strategy.At the same time, the most successful companies in India implement talent management practices with the cultural context in mind. For example, managerial support can involve what has been described as a nurturing task leadership style (Sparrow and Budhwar, 1997). The strong element of nurturing is consistent with a culture high in \"power distance,\" with Indians more comfortable with, and accepting of, power differences within a hierarchy than in the West. Likewise, a company's visible commitment to social responsibility in the local community in which new professionals work can be particularly salient. These professionals are reminded on a daily basis of the reality of economic inequality. For them, the pride that results (or does not result) from the social responsibility of their firms is rarely far from their minds.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The effectiveness of HR programs developed to curb turnover of new professionals has rarely been subject to rigorous examination as to their success and applicability across cultures. To address this issue, we undertook a study in India to examine professional perceptions of the effectiveness of their organization's talent-management efforts.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A random sample of 9,301 individuals (4,811 responded) from 28 companies involving 32 operating entities in India voluntarily participated in this study. Of the respondents 2,723 were new professionals. Actual turnover data for the participants was obtained a year after the initial survey.\nFindings: - Performance management, professional development, manager support, and socially responsible actions had a positive relationship with pride in and satisfaction with the organization. A lack of pride in and a lack of satisfaction with the organization have a strong relationship with new professionals' intention to leave and subsequent turnover.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Organizations can increase the retention of professional talent through their HR practices and actions which increase the individual's pride in and satisfaction with the organization. Although several steps were taken to achieve a high response rate, and tests on the results provided evidence against a response bias, caution is required. Because this research was conducted exclusively in India we suggest additional research be done in other country settings.\nPractical implications: - The paper discusses performance-management, professional development, manager support, and social responsibility actions companies can take to increase retention of professional talent.\nOriginality/value: - This paper discusses a large sample research study in India on four key organizational practices affecting retention of professional talent. The scope of the research using a large sample in India provides unique value on this topic.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A conceptual framework of generative customization as an approach to product innovation and fulfillment	[ "Generative customization, Generative design", "Product design", "Innovation", "Genetic algorithms" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Despite the use of formal structured product development processes in firms today, such as the StageGateTM Approach, the failure rate of new product development (NPD) in many industries is as high as 90 percent (Friar and Balachandra, 1997; Customer Service Manufacturing Group, 2004), causing firms to become reluctant in these initiatives. The mass production of standard products has remained prominent largely due to its ability to reduce and eliminate all sources of change that engender additional costs (Duguay et al., 1997). It has become, in effect, an effort to innovate through standardization. However, over the last two to three decades, a shift has occurred requiring companies to evolve from a strategy of \"economies of scale\" targeted at homogenous markets, to offering high quality, innovative consumer products to increasingly fragmented markets within their existing design and fulfillment systems. As a result, the use of conventional innovation strategies in product design and supply chain fulfillment has become a major problem for firms facing this business environment.Research in the field of innovation has taken various approaches in addressing this problem such as using the consumer as a co-designer (e.g. Yoon and Simonson, 2008; Zipkin, 2001), and a collaborative new product development (NPD) process between research and development (R&D), marketing and supply chain (e.g. Kotler, 2003; Veryzer, 2005) but few studies have clarified methodological distinctions between an incremental and discontinuous innovation. In contrast to a reductionist problem-solving approach that decomposes an NPD process into a few sub-elements, as is often the case in this research, we argue for the benefit of an \"innovation continuum\" that factors all elements of incremental and discontinuous product design and supply chain fulfillment as a holistic system of development.To develop the propositions of this study, we used seven databases of EBSCO (three search engines), ERIC, PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar to research elements of a product design and fulfillment lifecycle process. From these searches, we reviewed articles that presented relevant information to the topic of discontinuous innovation in product design and supply chain systems, and followed other paths of research based upon references from articles, and other searches. Finally, once we accumulated the data from these reviews, we went through a synergizing process to formulate the propositions, and from the propositions, we developed the concept of generative customization.The purpose of this paper is to understand the trade-offs required in a product design and supply chain fulfillment process in order to develop an \"innovation continuum\". In the next section, we develop a critical review of the literature related to innovation, product design, and the factors of complex adaptive systems (CAS), generativity, and the stakeholders in a supply chain system. From this review, we determine four propositions related to incremental and discontinuous innovation in order to develop an \"innovation continuum\". From these four propositions, we conclude the paper with future opportunities of research.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Product design and innovation\n3. Propositions from this study: From the literature review, we have established the following propositions to address our research problem:P1. An \"innovation continuum\" from incremental to discontinuous innovation can be housed as a complete holistic system through the use of a CAS methodology.As is noted by Chiva et al. (2010), complexity thinking and complex adaptive systems (CAS) fall within an umbrella of research, and we believe that it is an extensive framework that can support an \"innovation continuum\" of incremental and discontinuous innovation. Market environments are dynamic and unstable, requiring product designs to be composed from fuzzy processes as well as patterned sequences of adaptation, including an incomplete state of design (Garud et al., 2008), enabling both an expert and participatory approach. For a product design system to be able to support this degree of divergence and convergence, processes cannot only be a linear and static based system of product design and fulfillment, and must be able to support both incremental and discontinuous innovation through adaptivity and generativity.A product design and supply chain system modeled after a CAS, as noted by various researchers (Pathak et al., 2007; Kicinger et al., 2005; Buffington, 2010b) is capable of supporting both incremental and discontinuous innovation, supporting both adaptation and creativity through different tools of evolutionary algorithms and generative design, given its ability to support innovation through self-organization and emergence to differing degrees.The second proposition is as follows:P2. An incremental innovation product design process follows an evolutionary pattern of adaptation, therefore, can be best enhanced by an evolutionary adaptive process.From the literature review, incremental innovation was found to optimally occur as a function of a collaborative process of the OEM and its suppliers in its existing environment (existing consumers and market), as validated by various researchers as a migration to a conventional customer-centric approach to design and fulfillment. Despite the promises, a wide body of evidence suggesting that this right hand (Sanders, 2008) participatory approach has yet to be proven as successful in consumer mass markets (Bardakci and Whitelock, 2004; Kumar et al., 2007; Bharadwaj et al., 2009; Dellaert and Stremersch, 2005; Franke and Steger, 2010; Buffington, 2010a), leading to less than successful endeavors by firms in incremental innovation strategies. To mitigate these limitations, we believe that Sanders's (2008) right hand participatory environment must be supplemented with an adaptive approach, which we will define as an adaptive, collaborative process between consumers, suppliers, and an OEM through an evolutionary NPD process, and the potential to use evolutionary algorithms to enable incremental innovation.Along with the active involvement of co-creators, we believe that a supplemental virtual representation of the market environment (to include consumers and suppliers via evolutionary algorithms) offers many advantages in a design and fulfillment process for incremental innovation. As is shown in Figure 3, an existing market environment is greater than a \"local optimum\" that often defines this relationship with existing consumers and suppliers to include other actors, who if included, may offer innovation possibilities previously undetected. This leads to a \"global optimum\" of the existing environment, a collaborative, participatory process within the existing environment that leads to successful innovation opportunities. We believe that this potentially could be the best of both worlds: an inclusion of existing consumer and suppliers (from the product market who may not be existing consumers and suppliers) in the process to achieve personalized and collaborative innovation, using the power of a computer-aided evolutionary algorithm process.Further, as is discussed in Section 2.3, we are skeptical, in many consumer markets, of the potential for the consumer and suppliers to become involved as active co-creators, given extant research, and the use of an adaptive approach using a virtual representation may offer greater accuracy of defining the market environment than active involvement itself. With an adaptive learning environment leading to the refinement and improvement of existing competencies (Chiva et al., 2010), we believe its methods are the appropriate technique for use in incremental innovation.The third proposition addresses the development of a generative customization process and tools for discontinuous innovation, as follows:P3. A discontinuous innovation product design approach follows a process of \"on the edge of chaos\" best represented by generativity, therefore, can be best served by a generative customization process.The use of generativity (Weick, 2007) enables process-focused and experiential feedback that translates seamlessly into a dynamic and incomplete approach to design and fulfillment. In comparison, conventional approaches to creative design are more form (rather than function or process) focused, and experiences are less represented when final form (Oxman, 2006), which leads to static and linear designs. Two, generative design techniques are able to generate more design possibilities than a conventional approach (Stocking, 2009; Kicinger et al., 2005), increasing the possibility of a discontinuity in design. Finally, for discontinuous innovation, neither existing consumers and suppliers (or their virtual representation) can be utilized since this innovation leads to the creation of new consumers and new markets in the process.Therefore, P3 assumes a design/expert, upper left hand approach to product design, given Sanders's (2008) matrix. Instead of assuming that the creativity of discontinuity can be achieved through a participatory approach, or be solely limited to a human auteur design, a generative design approach seeks to define discontinuous innovation through a few boundary spanners and the use of computers to achieve designs on the edge of chaos.The fourth proposition is as follows:P4. A supply chain system (represented by both its consumers and suppliers) for incremental innovation must possess self-organizing and emergent properties, enabled by evolutionary patterns, but this is not yet proven for a discontinuous innovation supply chain system.The concept of a complex adaptive supply network, or CASN (Pathak et al., 2007), is not new in extant research; however, its application in practice has yet to challenge the conventional static and linear model. For a product design and supply chain fulfillment model, the establishment of a CASN offers great possibilities in contrast to the static supply chain system. Dynamic, self-organizing and emergent relationships and interfaces between consumers, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and their suppliers appear to elicit greater success in the achievement of incremental innovation. Through the linkages of a supply chain system with design and the consideration of this system as complex (deTreville, 2009), an adaptive supply chain system will enable emergent product designs for incremental innovations. However, for incremental innovations, there is not sufficient research that defines a collaborative supply chain design to include self-organizing, self-maintaining and self-repairing (McCormack et al., 2004), instead, most remain as static and linear, which impacts innovation.With respect to the strategy of discontinuous innovation, we have not found sufficient empirical or conceptual evidence to justify the use of a CASN within a creative/expert design process. Given that a discontinuous innovation requires a break, or discontinuity from a consumer and market's existing environment, it cannot be assumed that an adapted existing environment will lead to radical innovation, or the edge of chaos, as we have defined to occur in a generative process. Very broadly, as illustrated in Figure 4, we have defined a generative customization process (between product design and supply chain fulfillment) to be within its own complex adaptive system, but not necessarily defined by principles of adaptation. Further research needs to be conducted in order to determine how an upper left hand (design/expert mindset) approach to product development can be fulfilled from a supply chain system.\n4. Conclusions: From our literature review of innovation (incremental and discontinuous) and adaptive and generative systems, we developed four propositions to establish the definition of an \"innovation continuum\", which we believe is lacking in extant research. Our review of the research problem (to establish one innovation model for both incremental and discontinuous innovation) was founded upon an understanding of the trade-offs between expertise (closed innovation) and collaboration (open innovation), and design (creativity) and research (empirical) involvement, as illustrated in Sanders's (2008) matrix from Figure 1.The research problem articulated that the use of classical techniques of product development (Stage GateTM), creative design (human auteur of a local optimum), active involvement of the consumer (personalization and mass customization) and linear, static supply chain systems has led to minimal changes, leading Pine (1993) to note almost 20 years ago stating that the conventional system of design and fulfillment is outmoded. Therefore, we commenced our propositions with a definition of a CAS system as capable of enabling an \"innovation continuum\" for both incremental and discontinuous innovation within one system framework. While we believe that it is possible to manage both an adaptive/incremental and generative/discontinuous process for product design, we did not find such a continuum possible within the supply chain fulfillment element of the problem, given the need to discontinue from existing consumers and suppliers in the latter.We believe that the dichotomous use of adaptive/incremental and generative/discontinuous processes for product design within a CAS framework will offer great opportunities to solve the problems associated with innovation, as noted in this paper, with future studies seeking to establish a similar system for the supply chain fulfillment system as well.\n5. Future research: We believe that the four propositions of this study offer strong future research opportunities in the study of incremental and discontinuous innovation. One, empirical studies should be conducted to measure the viability of a adaptive/incremental and generative/discontinuous innovation dichotomy, and whether the use of these discrete processes and tools are able to be established within one unified CAS system, as has been proposed in P1.From a supply chain standpoint, further research must be established on the use of a CAS supply chain system for incremental innovation. While various researchers have studied the use of complex adaptive systems in supply chain, we do not believe that these studies have differentiated between incremental and discontinuous innovation strategies, and we believe that doing so will enable a stronger correlation between this system and success in incremental product design and fulfillment strategies.Finally, the greatest limitation of this study was an inability to develop a supply chain system (consumers to suppliers) to enable discontinuous innovation, as was developed in the specific product design system (referenced in P3). We believe its future study will be a significant focus area for the development of an \"innovation continuum\", as well as a start to finish product design to fulfillment system for discontinuous innovation.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to address the problem in research of a lack of a holistic conceptual framework related to incremental and discontinuous innovation. Too often, the term \"innovation\" is used without an understanding of how it can be applied in a product design and supply chain fulfillment system. In this study, the goal is to develop a holistic \"innovation continuum\" to treat innovation as a complex adaptive system (CAS).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A comprehensive literature review was conducted, and from it, four propositions and a conceptual framework were developed.\nFindings: - The authors determined that an \"innovation continuum\" can be established through the use of a complex adaptive system. Two, incremental innovation is determined to possess adaptive qualities, and can be enhanced through the use of collaboration and evolutionary algorithms. Three, discontinuous innovation is established as a creative process enabled through expert designers, and improved through the use of generative design. Next, a supply chain system for incremental innovation can be assisted by the use of adaptive systems, but it is not proven that a generative customization system (for discontinuous innovation) can be improved through the use of a CAS.\nOriginality/value: - The paper has established an \"innovation continuum\" linking incremental and discontinuous innovation within one holistic system. It establishes the use of evolutionary algorithms to improve the viability of incremental innovation, and generative design for discontinuous innovation. Finally, the concept of generative customization as an end to end product design and supply chain fulfillment solution for discontinuous innovation is established.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]

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