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Chinese children's perceptions of advertising and brands: an urban rural comparison	[ "China", "Consumers", "Socialization", "Brand equity", "Television commercials", "Developmental psychology" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this article.\nIntroduction: China, the country with the largest population of children in the world, adopted a Single-Child Policy in 1979 and it is the current rule in urban China (Zhang and Yang, 1992). These only children have a substantial amount of their own money to spend and exert a great influence on their household spending (McNeal and Yeh, 1997). In the year 2006, there were 262 million children under age 15 in China with approximately 40 percent urban, 60 percent rural (Population Reference Bureau, 2007). Urban population increased from 31 percent of the total in 1995 to 41 percent in 2005 (United Nations, 2005), reflecting a rapid rate of urbanization. Nearly all consumer studies regarding youth have been conducted among China's urban population ignoring the rural areas. The study presented here remedies this omission by reporting a study of children's attitudes and perceptions in both urban as well as rural China. Specifically, this paper focuses on urban and rural children's perceptions of television advertising and brands with or without advertising support.Besides the fact that 60 percent of China's youth are rural, there are other important reasons to study this group. First, social and economic reforms are leading to a rapid increase in household incomes and demand for products and services (Batra, 1997). China's enormous population and growth in consumer demand are resulting in several new market segments with distinctive profiles including its children (Schmitt, 1999). The children have enormous market potential, since they have their own money to spend. They also determine perhaps 67 percent of their parents' spending, and they have all of their purchases ahead of them (McNeal and Yeh, 1997). Also, it is important to know children's perceptions of advertising and brands as attitudes toward brands and purchase intentions are positively correlated (Chan, 1996). Chan and McNeal (2007) studied the new product information sources utilized by Chinese children and found that urban children perceived commercial sources more useful and credible than rural children. Rural children perceived personal sources more useful and credible than urban children. Chan and McNeal (2006a) studied media ownership and usage among Chinese children and found that urban children enjoyed higher media ownership, exposure and usage than rural children. Rural children paid more attention to television advertising than urban children while urban children paid more attention to other forms of advertising than rural children. The current study is a continued effort to investigate the roles of commercial communications among urban and rural children in China.\nLiterature review: Rural development and consumption patterns\nHypotheses: Previous research indicates that urban children found commercial sources more useful and credible than rural children in obtaining information about new products and services (Chan and McNeal, 2007). Based on Schramm's (1977) theory, we hypothesize that rural children and urban children have different perceptions about television advertising. Specifically, we offer the following two hypotheses:H1. Urban children are more likely to perceive television commercials truthful than rural children.Studies on adults have shown that responses to advertising are more positive in countries with newer advertising industries (Zhao and Shen, 1995). This indicates a novelty effect, suggesting that consumers are not overwhelmed with commercial messages. As urban children often are exposed to television commercials, they will be harder to please. We therefore hypothesize that:H2. Urban children dislike television commercials more than rural children.According to Rogers' (1960) model, families and senior persons are more important among rural populations that in urban populations and rural families retain more family functions than urban families. As a result, we hypothesize that:H3. Rural children rely more on personal sources to make judgments about the truthfulness of television commercials than urban children.A previous study of adult rural consumers in China found that they were less brand-conscious (Sun and Wu, 2004). Tom Doctoroff, an advertising practitioner in China, commented that consumers in rural China had little experience with brand consumption and had difficulty understanding the concept of brands (Chan, 2006). We therefore hypothesize that:H4. Urban children are more likely than rural children to put more trust in advertised brands.While there may be differences in perceived truthfulness and liking among urban and rural children, John's (1999) model of consumer socialization predicts similarities of urban and rural samples that consumers' cognition and attitudes toward advertising will depend on age. We therefore hypothesize that:H5. Older children are less likely to perceive television commercials truthful than younger children.H6. Younger children like television commercials more than older children.\nMethodology: Survey procedures\nFindings: Perceived truthfulness of television commercials\nDiscussion and conclusion: The study reported here represents a first attempt at ascertaining a comparison of perceptions of advertising and brands among a sample of 3,239 urban and rural children in China. Generally speaking, rural children were likely to perceive television advertising truthful than urban respondents. This may be because urban and rural children are exposed to different television channels and programs. The regional television channels in rural provinces carried less children's television programs than the national television channels (Chan and McNeal, 2004a). It is therefore expected that rural children consume more national television channels than urban children. The well-established image of CCTV may lend its credibility to the television advertising that it carries. Because of the strict censorship process, CCTV was also less likely to broadcast deceptive advertising (Chan and McNeal, 2004b). As a result, rural children are more likely to perceive television advertising truthful than urban children. This result seems to be contradicting to Chan and McNeal's (2004a, b) finding that children residing in a city with high advertising development (i.e. Beijing) were more likely to perceive television advertising truthful than children residing in cities with medium to low advertising development (i.e. Nanjing and Chengdu). The authors attributed the observation to the conditions that children in second-tier cities failed to locate the advertised products, the prevalence of counterfeit products in second-tier cities and the novelty of advertising in second-tier cities. However, the current study found that a lower proportion of rural respondents reported that they checked the products at the stores to form a basis for judging the truthfulness of advertising. Therefore the absence of advertised products in the rural markets is a less important factor in triggering the deception of advertising among rural respondents. Although counterfeit products are prevalent in the rural areas, children may not even know that they are counterfeit products as they have vague ideas about brands. Previous studies indicated that brand awareness were low among rural consumers (Sun and Wu, 2004).Our result may not be contradictory to Chan and McNeal's (2007) finding that urban children found television more credible than rural children in obtaining information about new products and services. In Chan and McNeal's (2007) study, the focus is on the credibility of television as a source of information about new products. In the current study, the focus is on the perceived truthfulness of television advertising. The two variables measured are not the same. The results may suggest that children have different perception of truthfulness of television as an information source and perception of truthfulness of television advertising. Further study is needed to find out the possible discrepancy.The findings support the hypothesis that urban children dislike television advertising more than rural children. The result echoed that responses to advertising were more positive in countries with newer advertising industries (Zhao and Shen, 1995). It suggests that children in rural China are not overwhelmed with advertising messages and they are still easy to please.Urban and rural children differed in their basis for judging truthfulness of television commercials. Rural children were less likely to use brand equity as a basis of making the judgment than urban children. This can be attributed to their lower awareness of brands, perhaps because of limited exposure to brands. This is consistent with Doctoroff's comment that rural consumers have a lower understanding of brands because brand is an abstract concept (Chan, 2006). Rural children were more likely to use personal experience in judging the truthfulness of television commercial. It suggests that rural children are pragmatic.In the current study, urban children disliked television commercials more than rural children. In a previous study of children in Hong Kong, liking of television commercials had positive correlation with perceived truthfulness and attention to television advertising (Chan, 2001). Since rural children were more likely to find television commercial truthful, we expect, as it was found in this study, rural children liked television commercials more than urban children. The finding was consistent with a previous study that rural children reported a higher attention to television commercials than urban children (Chan and McNeal, 2006a, b). This is probably because other forms of advertising were not prevalent in rural China. The current study suggests that television advertising is particularly influential in the life of rural Chinese children.The hypothesis that rural children rely more on personal sources to make judgments about truthfulness of television commercials than urban children was partially supported. The dependence on parents and teachers on deciding whether a commercial was true did not differ among urban and rural children. However, rural children relied more on the credibility of product endorsers in deciding whether television commercials were true. This suggests that parents and teachers carry equal weight in consumer socialization regarding the offer of advice about truthfulness of television advertising among rural and urban children. Product endorsers on television commercials play a more important role among rural children than that of its urban counterpart. It echoed a previous finding that rural children were more likely to perceive personal source useful and credible when compared with urban children (Chan and McNeal, 2007).Urban children relied more on brand equity to decide whether a television commercial is truthful than rural children. This suggests that urban children have a more sophisticated understanding of brands than rural children. Brand equity is an unfamiliar concept among both urban and rural children. This can be seen from the large number of respondents reporting \"don't know\" when they are asked about the quality of a product with advertising and a product without advertising. Contrary to what was hypothesized, rural children were more likely to perceive that an advertised brand is superior to a non-advertised brand than urban children. The result suggests that brand awareness and trust in brand are two different concepts. It is expected that rural children, similar to rural adults, are less brand-conscious. It is speculated that rural children put more trust in brand than urban children for two reasons. First, rural children were more likely to perceive television advertising truthful than urban children. Since advertising is about brands, the credibility of television advertising may rub off to the advertised brands. Second, a previous study found that rural children less often visited shops and made purchases than urban children (Chan and McNeal, 2006a). It is expected that rural children have less consumption and brand experience than urban children. As a result, they may have a rosy picture about the quality of advertised as well as non-advertised brands. This can be seen from the low percent of respondents reporting that both advertised and non-advertised brands are equally bad.The findings partially support John's (1999) model of consumer socialization. Younger children were more likely to hold extreme perceptions of television commercials than older children. Younger children perceived television commercials either truthful or untruthful. Younger children either liked or disliked television commercials very much. Older children perceived that half of television commercials were truthful while half of them were untruthful. Older children showed neutral or indifferent feelings of television commercials. These developmental changes in perceptions of television commercials were similar for the urban and the rural samples.To conclude, perceptions of television advertising showed similarities as well as differences among the urban and the rural samples. The similarities lie in the developmental changes in attitudes towards television commercials. The urban-rural difference in consumer perceptions of advertising and brands indicates that children's development in consumer socialization depends on the environment. Urban children were more skeptical towards advertising than rural children. They disliked advertising more and they were less likely to perceive advertising truthful. They also put less trust in advertised brands. Rural children, on the other hand, were less skeptical than urban children. They enjoyed advertising more and were more likely to perceive them as truthful. Rural children relied more on credibility of product endorsers to determine whether commercial are truthful.\nManagerial implications: The current study has provided insights for marketers and advertisers to employ the right advertising message strategies to disseminate market information or social services marketing information to reach urban as well as rural Chinese children. According to the current study, rural children are more likely to perceive television advertising truthful than urban children. Rural children like television advertising more than urban children. The rural children market can therefore provide marketers with an opportunity to try out new products, new packaging, or new advertising strategies. If the new marketing element does not work for the rural children's market, it probably will not work for the urban children's market. Testing new advertising or marketing communication components in the rural setting also has the advantage of a smaller budget, owning to the more affordable advertising media costs. Health and social service marketers should definitely consider using television advertising to provide prompt information about health and social development issues to rural children in China.Rural children depend on the credibility of product endorsers to make judgments about truthfulness of television commercials. Markets should therefore identify and employ national heroes and famous persons in designing testimonial types of advertising messages that target rural children. The celebrities should be pilot-tested on perceived credibility and liking among the target audience. As rural children are more likely to use personal experience to decide whether a television commercial is truthful, advertisers and marketers should encourage rural children to locate the product in the nearby retail facilities or try out the product. Marketers can consider employing special point-of-purchase design to encourage package recognition. These point-of-purchase materials should be incorporated in a prominent position in the television commercials. Marketers should also consider the packaging of the products to encourage trial. For example, many renowned brands of shampoos were sold in small individual packets in rural China. This packaging should be used as an appeal in the television commercials for brand recognition.The current study provides further evidence that understanding of brands is weak among rural children consumers. A managerial implication is that brand/image advertising will work better among urban children than among rural children. Marketers targeting at rural children should employ direct sales appeal rather than lifestyles or image appeals.As rural children put more trust in brands than urban children, marketers should consider exploring the under-developed rural children's market. It is not known if trust in brands is positively related with brand loyalty for rural Chinese children. If further study provides evidence for a positive link between trust in brands and brand loyalty, the rural children's market is promising not only for its size, but also for its stability and long-term business returns.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine how perceptions of truthfulness of television advertising and perceptions of brands vary among urban and rural children in Mainland China and also to collect information about the basis of judgment children used to determine whether commercials are true.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Descriptive statistics were compiled to give the perceptions of television advertising and brands of the overall sample, as well as the urban and rural sub-samples. Chi-square tests and independent sample t-tests were conducted to examine the urban-rural difference in perceptions of television advertising and brands. The sample was divided into two groups that were of similar size (age six to nine and age ten-15). Chi-square tests were conducted to examine the age difference in advertising perceptions.\nFindings: - The urban-rural difference in consumer perceptions of advertising and brands indicates that children's development in consumer socialization depends on the environment. Urban respondents were more skeptical towards advertising than rural children. Urban and rural children shared two similarities: older children were less likely to perceive television commercials truthful than younger children. Younger children liked television commercials more than older children.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The three surveyed urban cities were highly advanced in terms of their economies and advertising development compared with all other Chinese cities. The seven surveyed rural counties cannot be generalized to the very poor rural provinces in China.\nPractical implications: - The study should serve as an advertising guideline for marketers and advertisers that target urban and rural children in China.\nOriginality/value: - This paper offers insights for employing different advertising message strategies to disseminate market information to urban as well as rural children in China.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Uncovering the relationships between aspirations and luxury brand preference	[ "Brands", "Marketing strategy", "Premium products" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this article.\n1. Introduction: Everyone is considered to have aspirations, long-term goals that one expects to accomplish over a lifetime (Kasser and Ryan, 1993). Whether people strive for money, popularity or for more internally oriented rewards such as self-satisfaction, humans relentlessly and naturally pursue personal growth by satisfying their psychological needs over and above physiological needs (Maslow, 1954). In social psychology, these psychological needs are called aspirations or life goals (Kasser and Ryan, 1993, 1996).Since aspirations are related to fundamental psychological needs acting as motives for action, they have direct effects on an individual's behavior which over time tends to be consistent with the goals that s/he pursues (Sheldon et al., 2004; Pyszczynski et al., 2004; Sheldon, 2004; Kasser and Ryan, 1993, 1996; Kim et al., 2003). Although previous research has highlighted the important effects of aspirations on human behavior, there is a paucity of research in marketing concerning the effects of aspirations on consumer behavior (Solomon and Englis, 2004).Aspirations are particularly relevant to luxury consumption, hence its selection as the industry focus for this study. The role of aspirations in driving consumer behavior may well be substantial given that consumers tend to purchase luxury goods for their symbolic content such as status and prestige rather than functionality (Amaldoss and Jain, 2005). The public display of luxury brands is not a new phenomenon. As cited by Koehn (2001, p. 33) - as early as 1767, the English political economist Nathaniel Foster noted: \"The perpetual restless ambition in each of the inferior ranks to raise themselves to the level of those immediately above them,\" causing fashionable luxury to spread \"like contagion.\"The 2008 luxury market report from the Luxury Institute estimated that the global market for luxury products has grown at a compounded two-digit rate for the last decade. This growth could be attributed to three possible causes.1. The wealthy are purchasing more luxuries.2. There are greater numbers of wealthy people.3. That middle and lower classes are purchasing luxury brands.There may be more people aspiring to own luxuries than people who have the economic means to be able to regularly do so (Koehn, 2001).One important motivation for the consumption of luxury brands lies in the status and aspirational values they provide consumers, whatever their economic situation (Vickers and Renand, 2003). Research attention has to date been directed more towards related topics such as self-concept theory (SCT) and conspicuous consumption theory (CCT). SCT studies the congruency between consumers' self-concepts (how one perceives him/herself) and product preference and choice (Helgeson and Supphellen, 2004). CCT investigates consumers' conspicuous behavior towards luxury goods and brands.Researchers in this area address the ways in which consumers use luxuries to signal their status and wealth, but rarely included aspirations, and more specifically the intrinsic ones, in their antecedents. Given the importance accorded to the role of aspirations in social psychology, a strong case can be made for their inclusion in luxury consumption research. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to assess empirically the two types of aspirations - intrinsic and extrinsic - on consumer preference for luxury brands. Brand preference was selected over brand choice because it includes actual as well as potential luxury brand consumers thereby limiting the potentially moderating affect of purchasing power.As noted by previous researchers (Shapiro and Spence, 2002; Yang et al., 2002), one effective method in order to investigate the effects of antecedents on consumer behavior is through multiple regression analysis using structural equation modeling. This approach has been adopted for this paper. In the proposed model of the relationship between aspirations and brand preference, the antecedents (i.e. independent variables) are represented by seven aspirations and luxury brand preference as the dependent variable. The hypothesized relationships between the variables within the model derive from the theoretical framework located in the next section of this paper. This will be followed by an outline of the empirical research studies, the findings and a discussion of these results within the context of previous research. The final section concludes by outlining some limitations and suggestions for further research directions.\n2. Theoretical framework: 2.1. Aspirations\n3. Research methodology: This study adopted a survey approach in testing the hypotheses contained in the proposed model depicted in Figure 1. The items used to measure aspirations and brand preference were adapted from the extant literature. The extrinsic and intrinsic aspirations constructs were identified and adapted from the Aspirations Index of Kasser and Ryan (1993, 1996), the only previous scale measuring aspirations. The descriptions of the aspirations items are shown in Table I. Luxury brand preference was measured using the Luxury Brand Index (LBI) scale previously developed by Truong et al. (2008). This particular scale for luxury brand preference was adopted because its authors claimed it to be more parsimonious and able to produce a better fit than previous instruments used by (Vigneron and Johnson, 1999, 2004; O'Cass and Frost, 2004). Respondents were asked to choose their favorite brand in three product categories. The LBI would then provide a score for the chosen brand to indicate the level of perceived prestige and therefore the brand preference of the respondent.The questionnaire was developed in two stages. During the first stage, the questionnaire was worded in English and later translated into French by two bilingual professors of language. The translated version was then submitted for a back-translation to a researcher of the French medical research institute INSERM in order to ensure the reliability of the questionnaire. The second stage concerned pre-testing the questionnaire, first with a sample of 75 respondents, then after modifications, with an additional sample of 20 respondents. The two pre-tests were deemed necessary as suggested by Malhotra (2004) in order to eliminate any ambiguities.3.1. Data collection\n4. Results: 4.1. Fit tests\n5. Discussion: Previous studies involving CCT have found that consumers purchase luxury goods in order to signal their wealth and status (Hong and Zinkhan, 1995; Bagwell and Bernheim, 1996; Mason, 1998, 2001; O'Cass and Frost, 2004). However, that desire to signal wealth and status pre-supposes that there is some wealth and some status to be signaled. Veblen's fundamental theory primarily concerned members of the wealthiest class who desired to differentiate themselves from others by acquiring, displaying and consuming conspicuous goods (Bagwell and Bernheim, 1996). Veblen's approach - which has been widely adopted in subsequent studies - neglects individuals who desire luxury brands but lack the adequate financial resources. To overcome this omission, this study has taken a different approach by investigating people's desire to achieve wealth and status. With the global growth in disposable and discretionary incomes, middle and lower-class consumers aspiring to the lifestyle of the wealthy have become valuable target segments for luxury goods firms many of which have extended their product range to appeal to broader socio-economic segments.As shown by the findings, the relationship between extrinsic aspirations and luxury brand preference is very strong. People who grant importance to extrinsic aspirations tend to prefer luxury brands. The status and conspicuous power associated with luxury brands allows certain consumers to signal to others a level of wealth and status, which assists them in satisfying their pursuit of extrinsic-oriented aspirations. Among the contributing factors for extrinsic aspirations, image was the most important (coefficient of 0.96), more so than wealth (coefficient of 0.66). In our study consumers granted more importance to how others perceived them than how much wealth they actually had. Since extrinsic aspirations are related to status, this reinforces the view that status may be more a matter of perceptions than one's actual financial position.In terms of their relative impact, the findings show that intrinsic aspirations have a negative effect on brand preference for luxury goods. That is, people who grant importance to personal growth and internal values have a tendency to avoid choosing luxury brands because the status and conspicuousness linked to these brands do not act as a motivator to purchase. More precisely, although the symbolic content of luxury brands can help extrinsically oriented individuals in their goal pursuits, such content is likely to have minimal impact on intrinsically driven people. In some circumstances they may even avoid purchasing luxuries even if they have the economic means. The scores for the construct personal growth, which is one of the highest contributors to intrinsic aspirations (coefficient of 0.78), confirms the view that intrinsically oriented consumers are motivated by reasons that are personal and internal. It follows therefore that intrinsically oriented consumers may be interested in luxury brands but for reasons that are not conspicuous in nature. This conclusion challenges the widespread industry practice of typically promoting luxury brands which appeal to conspicuous consumers.Findings in relation to H2 and H3 show that extrinsic aspirations have positive effects on luxury brand preference whereas intrinsic aspirations have negative effects. The results for H4 demonstrated that extrinsic aspirations have a stronger effect on luxury brand preference than intrinsic aspirations. Several reasons may explain the difference in strength between the two effects. Since extrinsic aspirations are pursued for controlled reasons, that is, reasons concerning the perceptions of others (Kasser and Ryan, 1993, 1996), extrinsically oriented people tend to have a systematic preference for brands that convey external values because of the high congruency between those brand values and their extrinsic aspirations. Intrinsic aspirations are pursued for autonomous reasons, that is, reasons that are personal and independent of others (Kasser and Ryan, 1993, 1996). The systematic preference for luxury brands by extrinsically oriented people may be a result of the historical dominance of conspicuous marketing strategies used by luxury firms, which at the same time may have created avoidance behavior among intrinsically oriented people.\n6. Limitations and future research: The first limitation concerns our sample of 21 to 40 year olds. The findings are primarily applicable to consumers within this age range but we recognize that many luxury consumers are over the age of 40 years where higher disposable income makes luxuries more affordable. However, many recent luxury brand extensions target this younger range.The second limitation relates to the choice of sampling in one country, namely France. Although global brands tend to have a similar image (Chu and Keh, 2006), the relative importance of the seven aspirations may vary from country to country. However, the researchers would expect that aspirations might vary slightly across western countries because members share many common cultural values, norms and customs (Hofstede, 2001). Western countries tend to be rather individualistic whereas Asian countries for example, tend to be more collective (Hofstede, 2001). Therefore, although the findings from this research may be generalized cautiously beyond France to other Western countries, it may be inappropriate to apply them to consumers with very different cultural values. Further research concerning the impact of cultural differences on aspirations would be a worthwhile extension to more fully understand the nature of consumer aspirations.\n7. Conclusion: The relationship between the important area of aspirations and luxury brand preference has been explored in this paper. It is one of the first studies to include internal motives and self-esteem in a predictive model for luxury brand preference. There seems little doubt of the need for subsequent research in terms of aspirations which has been neglected to date. Noted differentiation between extrinsic and intrinsic aspirations has been confirmed and expanded in the luxury brand context. Managerially, the focus of attention in luxury goods marketing has to be inexorably focused on extrinsic aspirations. Nonetheless, such focus is always dependent on understanding the dynamics of the served market, hence the need to evaluate aspirational constructs more fully. Further, future research could use the structural model developed here and apply it to other stages in the consumer decision-making process such as purchase intent, actual purchase, and brand choice. The new tests would not only improve the current model but also widen its predictive power to other stages of the decision-making process in consumer behavior.\n8. Managerial implications: The findings of this study suggest that intrinsic aspirations can be serious inhibitors to consumer preference for luxury brands. Consumers who are intrinsically oriented tend to avoid luxury brands. Given that most advertising campaigns promote luxury brands based on purely extrinsic values, luxury marketers may be neglecting consumers who are primarily driven by intrinsic values. Some intrinsically oriented consumers can still appreciate luxury brands but do not identify themselves with the extrinsic values promoted in the advertisements. Luxury firms should find ways to reach this intrinsically oriented audience while keeping their current relationships with those who engage in conspicuous behavior. One can imagine an advertising campaign that promotes both types of values in different advertisements. For example, a luxury firm may advertise different facets of its brand such as quality, hedonism, exclusivity and prestige. Although quality and hedonism are normally associated with intrinsic values whereas exclusivity and prestige are rather identified with extrinsic values, they are not contradictory or incompatible (Vigneron and Johnson, 2004). As a consequence, combining these values in advertising campaigns would help luxury firms reconcile the two audiences, and increase both market shares and the overall market size for luxury goods.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper seeks to test the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic aspirations on luxury brand preference. The objective is to help luxury marketers better understand and anticipate the psychological needs of their customers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Based on a thorough review of the literature, a series of hypotheses are derived and tested using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The final sample consists of a total of 615 participants.\nFindings: - The main findings show that aspirations can affect luxury brand preference depending on the type of aspirations: positive for extrinsic aspirations and negative for intrinsic ones. The findings also suggest that intrinsic aspirations play a more substantial role in luxury consumer behavior than had been previously thought.\nPractical implications: - The findings suggest that luxury marketers should take into consideration the duality of intrinsic and extrinsic aspirations when designing marketing campaigns. Particularly, focusing advertising campaigns on extrinsic values seems restrictive and discards consumers who are intrinsically motivated.\nOriginality/value: - Aspirations are important in social psychology research because they have a strong influence on individuals' behavior. However, little research has been done in marketing to assess the potential effects of aspirations on consumer behavior, especially within the context of luxury goods.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Understanding community citizenship behavior in social networking sites: An extension of the social identification theory	[ "Social identity theory", "Brand fan page", "Brand passion", "Community citizenship behaviour", "Perceived community-brand similarity" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Contemporary marketing literature focussed on social media platforms, which used to maintain the relationships between consumers and brands (Kim and Ko, 2012; Laroche et al., 2012; Schau et al., 2009). Among 1.5 billion social media users, 55 percent of those who follow brands through brand fan pages (Inside Consulting, 2012) to establish relationships between themselves and the brands (Belleghem et al., 2011). This trend shows that social media substantially influences consumer decision-making processes. Therefore, numerous enterprises have managed consumer relationships by using brand fan pages (Laroche et al., 2013). Recent studies of consumer identification, which have become the core theory for understanding the management of customer relationship. The mainstream of the literature can be divided into two parts, including interpretative/sociological approaches and psychological approaches. Though sociology explained the structural development of the identification process, psychology focussed on the exploration of appropriate procedure on personal level (Hsu, 2012; Ravasi and van Rekom, 2003).\n2. Literature review and hypotheses development: This research based on the SIT to extend the PCBS beyond the external view, to further explore the community members' BI and CI affect the subsequent variables, BP and CCB. Figure 1 demonstrates the proposed model.\n3. Methodology: 3.1. Sample and data collection\n4. Data analysis and results: The proposed model was confirmed using structural equation modeling. This study employed the two-stage approach by Anderson and Gerbing (1988) to test convergent validity and discriminant validity of the measurement model. Then, this study verified the strength and direction of the proposed relationships among research constructs by structural model. In the mediation test section, using Sobel test and bootstrapping method to test the mediating effect of dual-identification and BP.\n5. Discussion: 5.1. Research and managerial implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Social media platforms established social relationship between the consumer and the brand community. The purpose of this paper is to propose a model to understand how dual-identification impact on the community citizenship behavior (CCB). Specifically, the authors propose perceived community-brand similarity (PCBS) influence CCB via dual-identification and brand passion (BP).\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research sample consists of 323 members who have used Apple product and used Apple fan page for more than one year, and structural equation modeling was used to test the research hypotheses.\nFindings: The results indicated that PCBS directly influenced brand identification (BI) and community identification (CI), respectively. BI directly influenced CI. CI directly influenced BP, but BI not directly influenced BP. In the mediation effects, both the dual-identification factors and BP play important mediating roles.\nPractical implications: From a managerial standpoint, this research provides implications for social network sites management.\nOriginality/value: This research fills a void in the BI and CI are coexisting but distinct aspects of virtual communities. In addition, the mediating role of dual-identification factors and BP in the online community consumer-brand relationship has not been fully investigated.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Consumer perceptions and intentions toward smoking cessation tools	[ "Brand personality", "Cessation tools", "Electronic cigarettes", "Smoking cessation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Husten (2007), writing about young adult smokers, stressed the importance of promoting effective cessation tools. Understanding how smokers perceive these will help in developing messages to steer smokers towards the most appropriate cessation tools.\nUnderstanding consumer perceptions of smoking cessation aids: Brand personality can provide a perspective for understanding the perception of different smoking cessation aids. Brand personality simplifies beliefs about brands and employs anthropomorphism as an antecedent of people's attachment to non-human objects (Freling and Forbes, 2005). It is easier to have a relationship (Fournier, 1998) with something that has a personality.\nStudy 1: Method\nStudy 2: Method\nGeneral discussion: This paper demonstrates that brand personality can illuminate consumer perceptions of different cessation tools even though these are different products rather than different brands of the same product. The results were consistent with earlier research on pharmaceutical remedies (Leonard and Katsanis, 2013).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to examine preferences for different smoking cessation tools, investigates smokers' perceptions of these tools by examining their brand personalities and determines whether these perceptions predict intentions to use particular cessation tools.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Two surveys of smokers evaluated cessation tools from electronic cigarettes to hypnosis.\nFindings: Smokers showed a strong preference for electronic cigarettes over other cessation tools. Different aspects of brand personality predicted intention to use different cessation tools.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research used online surveys rather than real purchasing behavior. The results indicate that advertisements emphasizing the personality attributes of different cessation tools could be effective in encouraging the use of appropriate cessation tools.\nSocial implications: If research validates e-cigarettes as a valuable cigarette smoking cessation tool, then public service advertisements encouraging their use should emphasize their sincerity and excitement. If e-cigarettes have a net negative effect on public health, public service advertising should stress that the marketing of e-cigarettes is not sincere.\nOriginality/value: This research extends the idea of brand personality, showing how it can encourage behavior that promotes public health goals.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Ward housekeepers in mental health environments	[ "Resource management", "Hospital management", "Mental health services" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The Facilities Management Graduate Centre (FMGC) at Sheffield Hallam University has been investigating the nature and success of hospitals who have implemented a multi-skilled or generic worker since the mid 1990s (Akhlaghi and Mahony, 1997; Mahony et al., 1997). The concept of the multi-skilled worker was introduced by a handful of pioneering NHS Trusts who realised the value of having a cleaner or domestic perform basic household maintenance duties such as changing light bulbs on the ward.In 2000, the UK Government promoted the concept that hospital services be shaped around the needs of the patient to make their stay in hospital as comfortable as possible (Department of Health, 2000). The ward environment and services to patients are prime influences on the quality of their stay and in recognition of this, the Government advocated the introduction of ward housekeepers in at least 50 per cent of hospitals by 2004. This is a ward-based non-clinical role centred on cleaning, food service and maintenance to ensure that the basics of the care environment are right for the patient.In 2001, NHS Estates introduced guidance on developing and implementing the ward housekeeper role for NHS Trusts to use locally. The guidance outlined the fundamental principles of the ward housekeeping service as being:* Ward sisters will manage the ward environment, supported by the ward housekeeper.* Ward housekeepers must be ward based, and must be seen as part of the ward sister's/charge nurse's team.* Ward housekeeping teams must be multi-skilled and flexible in their work practices.* Patients must be involved in setting up and evaluating the service.* There must be commitment from Trust management.* A system of continuous quality improvement must be in place (NHS Estates, 2001).Within the guidance the possible relationships between the facilities manager, ward sister and ward housekeeper are also suggested. These relationships are illustrated in Figure 1.At the end of September 2003, 53 per cent (NHS Estates, n.d.) of large hospitals in the UK had introduced a ward housekeeping service, and over 5100 housekeepers were already in place.Although the principles of the role were suggested nationally, the approach, funding and process of implementation were the devolved responsibility of local NHS Trusts.Much of the national guidance for the ward housekeeper role focussed on its development and implementation in an acute hospital setting. In 2002, the 55 NHS Trusts that form the NHS Facilities Management (FM) Research Forum commissioned FMGC to undertake an evaluation of the various approaches that had been adopted in developing and implementing the ward housekeeper role in mental health environments. They were particularly interested in learning about the role's development, implementation and how it needs to be adapted for mental health services[1].Four case studies were undertaken in a variety of mental health settings ranging from acute, long-stay wards in hospitals to community extended care units. Table I summarises the type of Trust (or organisation) and the type of unit/ward where the housekeeper was based.\nMethodology: From preliminary investigations it was anticipated that there would only be a handful of Trusts who had implemented the housekeeping model into mental health units/environments. The key selection criterion for identifying case studies was that the Trust had used the guidance model as suggested by NHS Estates. This model recommends that the ward housekeeper is managed on a day-to-day basis by the ward manager (or equivalent ward based supervisor) and responsible for cleaning, catering and basic maintenance duties. Therefore a purposeful sampling technique was employed, and the Trusts selected as case studies were not representative of the wider NHS ward housekeeping models. Instead, they were chosen to provide illustrative examples of the limited amount of work to date surrounding housekeepers in mental health environments.During the case studies the principle method of data collection was semi-structured interviewing. Where possible, interviews were conducted with the:* Director of Facilities (or equivalent representative from the facilities department);* members of the nursing team (or ward manager); and* housekeeper (or a number of housekeepers from different wards).In order to make comparisons with previous housekeeper research in Acute Trusts (May and Smith, 2003), the themes for discussion during the interviews were based on the themes that emerged during the previous study. These were designed to explore the ward housekeeper core role/duties, management of the role (operationally and strategically), recruitment and selection, pay and conditions, funding of the role, training, team integration, problem areas, suggested improvements, evaluation of the role and the value of the role.Interview questions were also added to reflect the different needs for mental health patients. These additional questions explored specific mental health requirements such as the level of patient interaction and helping to \"stimulate senses\". The interviews were designed to probe for further information and provide an in-depth, rich picture of the housekeeping services. Consequently, the account and narrative presented in the case studies reflect the perceptions from the respondents, and are therefore inherently subjective.A total of 17 interviews were conducted across the four NHS Trusts. The interviews usually lasted approximately 45 minutes to one hour. The interviews were tape-recorded and usually took place in a private meeting room at the hospital/unit.In order to enrich the case study information and provide a fuller picture of the housekeeper role some documentary evidence and financial data was also requested. This included job descriptions, training programmes and pay rates. Two of the housekeepers provided a \"day in the life\"; these were descriptive narratives sharing their work experience and helped to enhance the case study data.The interview tapes were transcribed verbatim. All references to the Trust and the names of those participating were removed to allow anonymity. The transcribed data was analysed using thematic content analysis. The analytical framework allowed the data to be broken down into units of meaning (codes), which were then categorised and ordered under emerging themes. Using this type of approach to analyse qualitative data there is bias which cannot be assumed to be value or opinion free. This subjectivity is on three levels. First, that of the person or respondent during the interviews describing their \"true\" account of the situation. Second, that of the person interpreting the account and representing it in the written form of a report. Third, the reader interpreting the written report and meanings presented.\nFindings: Case study one\nConclusions: Research conducted which evaluated the role of the ward housekeeper in acute hospitals (May and Smith, 2003), led to the identification of six common themes (role, recruitment, induction, training, integration and management). These themes outlined best practice that contributes to the successful implementation of the ward housekeeping role. The findings from the housekeepers in mental health environments research supports these themes.However, while the four case studies investigated for the research supported the themes, there are a number of variations identified in the role for mental health services. These primarily related to the patients' needs and their environment and are summarised below.Perception of the environment\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - In the year 2000, the UK Government promoted the concept that hospital services be shaped around the needs of the patient to make their stay in hospital as comfortable as possible. In recognition of this, the Government advocated the introduction of a Ward Housekeeper role in at least 50 per cent of hospitals by 2004. This is a ward-based non-clinical role centred on cleaning, food service and maintenance to ensure that the basics of care are right for the patient. Much of the guidance for the ward housekeeper role has focussed on its development and implementation in an acute hospital setting. The aim of this research is to illustrate how the role has been adopted and implemented successfully in mental health environments and the subsequent impact for patient services.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Four case studies were undertaken in a variety of mental health settings, the principle method of data collection was qualitative semi-structured interviews.\nFindings: - Common themes were identified from the case studies relating to experiences of developing and implementing the ward housekeeper role. This paper suggests models of best practice which relate to six main areas of: role, recruitment, induction, training, integration and management. It also demonstrates that the role has been successful and is highly valued by nursing staff.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The study was largely qualitative based and therefore the results do not lend themselves to be generalisable across the NHS.\nOriginality/value: - The paper suggests how the ward housekeeper role should be adapted for mental health settings.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Teachers' intergenerational advice and information seeking: content matters!	[ "Intergenerational learning", "Social network analysis", "Teacher development", "P2 modelling", "Teacher knowledge" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Currently, the educational workforce is characterized by generational diversity in terms of chronological age (Edge, 2014; Edge et al., 2016). There is increasing interest in understanding generational differences as an important step toward the development of a strong and sustainable professional teacher community (e.g. Stone-Johnson, 2011, 2017).\n2. Framing the research: conceptual and empirical anchors: 2.1 Generational diversity among teachers\n3. Methodology: Within this study, a social network perspective offers a valuable lens to investigate the association between teacher knowledge, advice and information interactions and generations of teachers (e.g. Baker-Doyle and Yoon, 2011; Daly, 2010; de Lima, 2007; Moolenaar, 2010; Penuel et al., 2009).\n4. Findings: 4.1 Uniqueness of content-related advice and information networks (H1)\n5. Conclusions and discussion: In this study we have investigated teachers' information and advice-seeking interactions in Flemish secondary education teacher teams and approached it from an intergenerational perspective.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of generation in teachers' advice and information-seeking interactions in Flemish secondary school teams, and moreover how the content of advice shapes these interactions. Four content-related advice and information-seeking networks are investigated in this study: subject-matter knowledge, classroom management, innovative teaching methods and ICT.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected from 660 teachers in ten secondary education schools in Flanders (Belgium) by using an online socio-metric survey. Social network analysis was conducted, more specifically quadratic assignment procedure and multilevel P2 modeling.\nFindings: The findings underline the importance of investigating content-related advice networks. Generation affects the formation of interactions. First, the results revealed that older teachers are less likely to ask advice on subject-matter knowledge, classroom management and innovative teaching methods. Second, the data showed that older teachers are more likely to be asked for advice on subject-matter knowledge. Third, young teachers are more likely to be asked for advice on innovative teaching methods and ICT. Fourth, homophily effects occurred for the youngest teachers when advice is about subject-matter knowledge, and for the oldest teachers for advice about classroom management.\nOriginality/value: This study is innovative due to its application of social network analysis to investigate intergenerational knowledge flows, and due to its clear focus on content-related advice-seeking interactions that go beyond the approach of general advice and information-seeking interactions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Worse-off than others? Abusive supervision's effects in teams	[ "Structural equation modelling", "Leader–member exchange" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Abusive supervision, defined as \"subordinates' perceptions of the extent to which their supervisors engage in the sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviors, excluding physical contact\" (Tepper, 2000, p. 178), has been shown to relate to a wide range of negative consequences in organizational settings. Exposure to abusive supervision can lower individual and team morale, undermine well-being, reduce affective commitment and promote counterproductive work behavior (Tepper et al., 2017). In explaining why subordinates respond to abusive supervision with negative job attitudes and unfavorable returns, a social exchange perspective predicts that subordinates do so because they feel that they are exploited by their supervisors and are not obligated to reciprocate (Aryee et al., 2007). Thus, leader-member exchange (LMX), a key construct capturing the social exchange between leaders and subordinates characterized by mutual trust, respect and obligations (Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995), has been proposed as a mediator in explaining abusive supervision's consequences (Xu et al., 2012; Peng et al., 2014; Decoster et al., 2014).\nHypotheses development: LMX theory\nMethod: Sample and procedures\nResults: Confirmatory factor analyses\nDiscussion: Despite considerable research progress toward understanding the consequences of abusive supervision (Tepper et al., 2017), it remains unknown how abusive supervision operates at the within-group level, and how team-level abusive supervision influences this process. In this research, we return to the roots of LMX theory, which proposes differentiated relationships as a core concept, and integrate it with a relative deprivation perspective to develop a cross-level moderated mediation model of relative abusive supervision's effects in teams. By partitioning abusive supervision and LMX's raw score into a within- and a between-group component, our results provide three main findings. First, we found that at the individual-within-group level, team member's relative abusive supervision is negatively related to RLMX, which in turn influences team member's job satisfaction and team affective commitment. Second, in support of a \"frog-pond effect,\" team-level abusive supervision buffered the negative effect of relative abusive supervision on RLMX such that relative abusive supervision was more detrimental when team-level abusive supervision was low. However, this \"frog-pond effect\" was not supported in the second stage of our proposed mediation model. Specifically, team-level LMX did not moderate the relationship between RLMX and job satisfaction or team affective commitment. Third, the negative indirect effects of relative abusive supervision on job satisfaction and team affective commitment via RLMX were more pronounced in teams where the average abusive supervision was low, whereas team-level LMX did not change the magnitude of these conditional indirect effects further.\nConclusion: Despite being a low base-rate phenomenon, abusive supervision, especially relative abusive supervision in teams, is detrimental to a number of work outcomes. In this research, we uncover how and when relative abusive supervision impacts team member's affective attitudinal responses through the lens of LMX theory and a relative deprivation perspective. Our results suggest that relative abusive supervision exerts a negative impact on employee job attitudes by means of a relationship differentiation process, and this negative impact is more pronounced when the overall team-level abusive supervision is low. While our findings warrant further validation, our research holds promise for providing a nuanced understanding of abusive supervision's effects in work teams.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how relative abusive supervision (i.e. team member's perceived abusive supervision as compared with the team mean) influences team member's job attitudes through the mediating role of relative leader-member exchange. This study also explores the cross-level moderating roles of team-level abusive supervision and team-level leader-member exchange (LMX) in the process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study used two-wave data from 1,479 employees in 145 work teams, and tested a cross-level moderated mediation model using multilevel structural equation modeling.\nFindings: Results demonstrate that the negative indirect effects of relative abusive supervision on job satisfaction and team affective commitment through relative LMX are stronger when team-level abusive supervision is low rather than high.\nOriginality/value: Integrating LMX theory with a relative deprivation perspective, this study conceptualizes and operationalizes relative abusive supervision, develops an individual-within-group model of abusive supervision's consequences in teams and demonstrates a cross-level moderating effect of team-level abusive supervision in buffering relative abusive supervision's negative consequences.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The Nordic experience revisited: labour market booms and slumps since the 1990s in Finland and Sweden	[ "Unemployment", "Labour market", "Capital", "Finland", "Sweden" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: This paper analyses the unemployment trajectory in two Nordic countries, Finland and Sweden, since the 1990s. The analysis of the labour market of these countries is tempting, since both countries came out of the oil crises of the 1970s little affected, while the 1990s crisis hit them extremely severely. Unemployment in Finland rose from 3 to 18 per cent over the period 1991-1994, while that in Sweden rose from 2 to 9 per cent over the same period. The unemployment trajectories of these countries are of a special appeal because their timing was similar in the rise of unemployment from the trough in 1990 to the peak in 1994, but they differed in the size of the rise in unemployment and its evolution after the peak. In particular, Finnish unemployment steadily decreased after the peak in 1994, while Swedish unemployment remained constant at around 8 per cent between 1994 and 1997.The purpose of this study is straightforward: to provide an account of the driving forces shaping unemployment in Finland and Sweden over the last 15 years. We use the empirical models of Karanassou et al. (2008) to conduct simulation exercises and to explore further the determinants of unemployment. The analysis differs from theirs in two respects. First, we examine the unemployment effects of the whole set of exogenous variables, not only of changes in capital stock, on the Finnish and Swedish unemployment trajectories. Second, we evaluate the impact of these exogenous variables in three different periods since 1990, instead of just focusing on the episodes of high unemployment.On the basis of the observation that the unemployment rate is trendless, the influential NAIRU literature asserts that capital stock has no long-run effect on the unemployment rate. However, as Karanassou and Snower (2004) argued, there is no reason to believe that the labour market alone is responsible for ensuring that the unemployment rate is trendless in the long-run. In general, equilibrating mechanisms in the labour market and other markets are jointly responsible for this phenomenon and it is in this context that we consider the role of capital stock. Capital stock is thus considered as exogenous in the context of our labour market models, and we leave for future research the analysis of the determinants of investment and capital accumulation that is beyond the scope of this paper.The rest of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 presents the basic empirical labour market models for Finland and Sweden, and explains how the simulation exercise is performed. Section 3 provides the simulation results for the unemployment performance. The analysis suggests that capital stock had an important role in the unemployment trajectory of both countries, especially during the Finnish unemployment upturn in the 1990s. Fiscal policy also played an important role in Finland during the first part of the 1990s, but its role was modest in the second part of this decade, as well as throughout the 1990s in Sweden. The foreign sector significantly influenced the Finnish unemployment trajectory. Finally, variations in participation rates had an impact on Finnish and Swedish labour markets during the 1990s. Section 4 concludes.\n2. Analytical framework: The unemployment experience of the Nordic countries has recently been investigated by Karanassou et al. (2008), who measured the extent to which capital stock has shaped the unemployment movements in Denmark, Finland and Sweden in periods of high unemployment. By using kernel density analysis of the capital stock growth rate, the authors identify the temporary and permanent downturns in capital accumulation and show that the investment downturns drive the intensity and length of the unemployment upturns.This study utilises the labour market models estimated in Karanassou et al. (2008, pp. 989-91) to extend their analysis and address the two objectives of this paper. Although departing from a common pool of variables, the final set of exogenous variables is different and reflects the variety of determinants affecting the endogenous variables across countries (see Karanassou et al., 2008). The list below presents the definition of the variables:n Employment (log).l Labour supply (log).w Real compensation per employee (log).u Unemployment rate (l-n).k Real capital stock (log).kn Capital stock per employee (k-n).z Participation rate (labour \\;force/working-age\\; population).r Real long-term interest rate.fd Exports-imports (percentage of GDP).td Direct tax rates (percentage of GDP).ti Indirect tax rates (percentage of GDP).tw Fiscal wedge.o Real oil prices (log).Tables I and II reproduce, for Finland and Sweden respectively, the estimated results for the labour demand, wage, and labour supply regressions. Before we turn to our dynamic simulation exercise, we outline the main features of the estimated labour market equations. The fiscal wedge is the sum of direct, indirect and payroll taxes as a ratio of the total compensation of the employee.2.1 The Finnish and Swedish labour market models\n3. The Nordic experience revisited: 3.1 The early nineties slump, 1989/1990-1993/1994\n4. Conclusions: In this paper we conducted dynamic simulations to provide an account of the labour market performance of two Nordic countries since the 1990s. In particular, we examined how much of the Finish and Swedish unemployment variation was attributable to different exogenous variables in three periods of interest. Our results illustrate the importance of non-standard labour market variables in examining unemployment trajectories. According to our simulation results, capital stock was the most important determinant of the unemployment trajectory. In the early 1990s, it contributed significantly to the 15 and 7.1 percentage points increase in Finnish and Swedish unemployment rates, respectively. It avoided a rise in unemployment in Finland and Sweden of 6.8 and 9.4 percentage points, respectively, in the late 1990s. Conversely, in the early 2000s, it impeded a 5.4 and 2.9 percentage points fall in the Finnish and Swedish unemployment rates, respectively. The other main determinant of Finland's unemployment was the foreign sector, its quantitative impact varying from one-third to a half of that of capital stock, depending on the period analysed. Fiscal policy and participation rates also had a significant role, particularly in Finland. Their impact was strongest in the early 1990s, and reached approximately 20 per cent of that for the capital stock.These results add to recent empirical evidence on the crucial role exerted by capital stock on the labour market performance in EMU countries (Arestis et al., 2007), the Nordic economies including Denmark (Karanassou et al., 2008), and Spain (Raurich et al., 2009; Karanassou and Sala, 2009a). This supports Stockhammer's (2004) claim that the NAIRU model, and therefore the wage-push factors, provide only a partial explanation of the unemployment problem[4], and that capital accumulation is a crucial driving force both in European countries and the US.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to provide an account of the unemployment performance of two Nordic countries during their recent labour market booms and slumps.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Based on the empirical models of Karanassou et al., we conduct dynamic simulation exercises and explore the determinants of unemployment.\nFindings: - The analysis yields two main findings. First, the capital stock was the most important determinant of the unemployment trajectory in both countries. This result appears in all periods considered: in the slump of the early 1990s and the boom of the late 1990s, as well as in the stabilisation period of the early 2000s. Second, the role of the foreign sector on the unemployment trajectory was significant in Finland, its quantitative impact being one-third of the effect for the capital stock in the first and third periods, and half of the latter in the second period.\nOriginality/value: - The results illustrate the importance of non-standard labour market variables in examining unemployment trajectories. The findings call for a wider than usual perspective in trying to solve the unemployment problem.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Sex and relationships education in schools: the views and experiences of young people	[ "Adolescents", "Sex education", "Sexual health", "Schools", "Teachers" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Whilst the sexual behaviour of young people has long been cause for concern (Pilcher, 2005), the past 20 years have seen increased attention from the public health and political communities, due to rising levels of reported sexually transmitted infections, the earlier onset of puberty and continuing high levels of teenage pregnancies (Health Protection Agency, 2005; United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), 2001; Trust for the Study of Adolescence (TSA), 2006). In the UK, young people's sexual health was formally recognised as an area of concern within the Conservative government's 1990 \"Health of the Nation\" initiative and the subsequent setting of targets for the reduction of levels of under-16 conceptions. These moves were augmented by the Social Exclusion Unit (1999) report on teenage pregnancy, which prefaced a host of policy initiatives under the New Labour government such as the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy. As such, providing children and young people with access to services and education about sexual health is now considered to be a pressing public health priority (House of Commons, 2003; Department of Health, 2004; Lester and Allan, 2006).Although some youth sexual health services are delivered in community settings, health professionals have long considered schools to be a main site for the provision of sex and relationships education (SRE) for young people (Kirby, 1992; BMRB, 2003). Via dedicated school lessons alongside individualised support from teachers and school nurses, schools are seen as providing an ideal arena for addressing the \"widespread knowledge gaps\" between different groups of young people (Campbell, 2006). In 2002 SRE was formally included within the framework for Personal, Social (and Health) Education (PSE/PSHE) guiding all schools in England and Wales to cover the physical, moral and emotional aspects of sex, sexuality and sexual health in their teaching. According to the government, this should ensure that all young people should be provided with opportunities to:(learn) about physical, moral and emotional development. It is about the understanding of the importance of marriage for family life, stable and loving relationships, respect, love and care. It is also about the teaching of sex, sexuality, and sexual health (DfEE, 2000, p. 5).Although these moves have been widely welcomed in principle, the nature and quality of schools' actual provision of sex and relationships education remains the subject of some criticism from health professionals and other commentators - not least that it varies in quality and quantity between schools, tends towards the didactic delivery of biologically-focused information, is often taught by non-specialist staff who are often unconfident with the subject matter and is especially un-engaging for male students (Scott and Thomson, 1992; Byers et al., 2003; Lester and Allan, 2006). Thus, as Adler concludes, there is growing concern within the medical and public health professions that schools-based \"sex and relationships education is patchy, too little, too late and too biological. All of this gives us a pressure-cooker situation\" (Adler, 2003, p. 62). Within the context of these concerns and the recent policy efforts to address them as well as the prevailing policy emphasis on consulting and involving young people in the services which impact upon them, the present paper seeks to examine the views of young people themselves on the sex and relationships education they receive through schools. In particular it addresses the following research questions:1. How are young people using school-based sources of sex and relationships education to obtain information and advice? How does this fit in with their use of other sources of information and advice relating to sex and relationships (both formal and informal)?2. How are young people's uses of sex and relationships information sources in schools patterned according to demographic characteristics such as gender, age, ethnic group and educational aspirations?3. What suggestions do young people have for the future provision of school-based sources of sex and relationships education?\nMethods: These questions are addressed through analysis of data collected from young people from the city of Cardiff in the UK. Research activities took place in three school settings (tutor groups and PSE lessons) and six out-of-school settings (i.e. via youth offending teams, detached youth workers, youth clubs and city-centre youth events). All three schools included in the study were actively implementing the Wales Assembly Government guidelines on Sex and Relationships Education, which form part of the PSE curriculum. Two schools were also part of the Welsh Network of Healthy Schools Scheme where additional support is given to deliver quality SRE. All three schools had active school nurse services in situ.Data collection took two forms. First, anonymous self-completion questionnaires were administered to young people who were invited to complete the questionnaires on a voluntary basis, with an overall refusal rate of just over 10 percent. The questionnaire was four pages long and consisted of items covering demographic details relating to the young person, information of their sexual health attitudes and behaviours, details of their sex and relationships information and advice seeking. Completed questionnaires were received from 401 young people aged between 12 and 19 years (mean age 13.9 years, SD=1.2). Within this sample, 46 percent were male and 54 percent female, 88 percent were classified as \"white British\" and 12 percent classified as \"non-white British\". In terms of place of residence 76 percent of respondents were classified as residing in the relatively deprived \"southern arc\" areas of the city (see Table I).To complement these questionnaire data, follow-up focus-group interviews were conducted with twelve groups of young people from the school and out-of-school settings. The total number of young people participating in the focus groups was 57, with interviewees aged between 13 and 18 years (mean age 14.3 years, SD=1.5). Within the focus groups there were 37 males and 20 females, 38 young people were interviewed in school-settings and 19 in out-of-school settings, 37 were from a \"white-British\" background and 18 from a none \"white British\" background. Although limited in anonymity, the focus group method has been argued to provide valuable insights into adolescents' views on sexual health, which survey research alone, cannot provide (Hyde et al., 2005). Young people were interviewed in same-sex groups of three to eight at a time, in friendship groups to ensure that they felt comfortable to talk amongst each other. The decision to use same-sex groups followed Vaughn et al. (1996) recommendation, seeking to decrease any discomfort, distraction or influence caused by the involvement of peers of the opposite sex. Interviews were moderated by one of three researchers (one male and two females - depending on the sex of the group), lasted between 30 to 40 minutes and were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim.Given the scope of the research questions we posed at the beginning of the research project it was decided that adopting such a mixed-methods approach to our data collection would allow the findings from one method to feed directly into the design of the subsequent methods. Mixed methods research has been identified by a number of authorities as a key element in the improvement of education research, perhaps because research claims have greater impact when based on a variety of methods (National Research Council, 2002). The problems for qualitative work conducted in isolation include those of generalisation and warrant. In this way, our use of questionnaires and focus groups was an attempt to avoid what Brown (1992) calls the \"Bartlett\" effect of producing plausible but false results when basing an analysis solely on qualitative data, and they also avoid the simplistic answers often gained from numeric analysis alone. Thus the decision was taken to first employ simple quantitative work via the questionnaire data to supply the \"what\" and the \"how many\", and then conduct basic qualitative work via the focus groups to illustrate the \"how\" and \"why\". The aim was to conduct what is termed \"explanatory\" two-phase research (Cresswell, 1994). In Moran-Ellis et al. (2006), integration of the data primarily took place at the point of theorizing and reaching conclusions.With regard to the analysis of data, it was our contention that the survey data were best analysed in a relatively straightforward manner. Thus, our quantitative analysis of the survey data is described in terms of frequencies and cross-tabulations. When appropriate, chi-squared and significance tests have been employed to ascertain the strength of association between different variables. In terms of the qualitative data generated from the open-ended questionnaire item and group interviews the constant comparison technique was used as the means of analysis (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). This initially involved reading all the responses to gain an overall sense of the data. All the data were then read again and \"open-coded\" to produce an initial code list until, in the opinion of the researcher, analysis had reached theoretical saturation. Although some in vivo codes were adapted (i.e. directly using the language of the respondents) the majority were researcher-led and analytic (Strauss, 1987). From this basis the data were then selectively coded in terms of categories identified with the initial code list directly related to the aims of the study.\nResults: The role of school in young people's acquisition of information and advice relating to sex and relationships\nDiscussion: Within the limitations of our study we have been able to highlight a number of salient issues with regard to young people and school-based sex and relationships education. First and foremost, our data highlight the continuing importance of the school as a site of sexual health promotion work or sex and relationships education. Although friends, family and television were found to be prevalent and often valued sources of information and support, we found that school lessons remain the most frequent source of information - especially for younger and/or male respondents. Our interview data also highlighted the importance of school-based sex education for young people where family and community sources of information are deemed to be culturally inappropriate. Yet despite being a frequent source of sexual health and relationships information for young people, our interview data also shows that school lessons were often felt to be often uninformative and unimaginative in their content and delivery. Our data also highlighted a perceived diminishing provision of school-based SRE as young people got older - compounded by a diminishing interest on the part of the young people themselves. Finally, our survey data also showed that beyond their involvement in the delivery of lessons, teachers and school nurses were felt by the young people to be not providing the \"sensitive support\" felt to lie at the heart of effective sex and relationships education (NCB, 2005, p. 2). Indeed, it was notable from the focus group data that the majority of the young people's descriptions of sex and relationships education were lacking an advisory or supportive element from their time in school.In many instances, the findings within this paper mirror those from previous studies in the UK (e.g. Measor, 2004; Strange et al., 2006). As such, this lack of disjuncture from earlier studies may be seen as cause for concern. The fact that data collected in 2006, from young people attending schools which were actively implementing SRE guidelines and ostensibly committed to youth sexual health continues to report an overall picture of disaffection on the part of young people and sporadic (and sometimes poor) provision on the part of the school, suggests that less change is occurring \"on the ground\" than may have been expected. That said, our data do highlight some evidence of change - both for better and for worse. For instance, there were less gender differences in both behaviour and attitude than evident in previous research. Indeed, the general consensus amongst female and male students in our study may suggest that concerns over the disengagement of boys from school and school lessons many be less of an issue for non-academic areas of schooling such as SRE. Also of note from our data was student concern over schools' diminishing commitment to SRE with later year groups - pointing to the possible \"squeezing-out\" of SRE and other non-examination subjects in schools as students approach their all-important GCSE examinations. Finally, our data were notable in highlighting the relative lack of importance of the internet and other ICT-based sources - especially in the light of the increased provision of online sources by central and local government, health agencies and other organisations as well as the increasing emphasis on internet use in schools. Where the young people were seeking information and advice, it was on a very traditional, offline basis. As such, much of our data present a picture of little change in young people's behaviours - in spite of developments in provision, practice and technology.\nConclusion and implications for practice: These findings can lead us to make a number of recommendations for future practice. First, we would conclude that there is clear scope for the improvement of school lessons - not least, by ensuring that, the delivery of sex and relationship information, is being taken seriously by teachers and school management teams, with an emphasis on fostering mature discussion in an atmosphere of confidentiality and respect. Efforts can also be made to vary the content of lessons away from paper/book, or even video-based to being more practical, participatory and interactive in nature.Our data also highlights the need for sustained efforts to be made to maintain young people's interest in increasing their knowledge and understanding about sex and relationships throughout their adolescence and into adulthood. Avoiding the perception amongst older young people that they \"know it all\" and instead encouraging them to be continuous learners would seem to be crucial. Maintaining a more mature/adult discussion about sex and relationships throughout later school and college years may be one way of prolonging young people's engagement with sexual health information and advice. Returning to Adler (2003) original critique of school-based sex education in the UK, our data suggests that a primary criticism of current provision may be less a case of \"too little, too late\" and more a case of \"too little, for not long enough\". Thus, as we saw from our data, schools and teachers must also be encouraged to maintain a focus and commitment to SRE throughout all stages of schooling, in spite of the many mounting external pressures on time and resources as students progress through school - not least examination and other external assessment.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of the paper is to investigate how young people are using school-based sources of sex and relationships education (SRE) to obtain information and advice.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper shows how anonymous self-completion questionnaires were administered to young people aged between 12 and 19 years in three secondary school and six out-of-school youth settings (n=401). Follow-up focus group interviews were conducted with 12 groups of young people from the school and out-of-school settings (n=57).\nFindings: - The paper finds that school lessons were the most frequent source of sex and relationships information for many young people. Lessons were reported to be most useful for students who were male, younger and more educationally engaged. School lessons were widely criticised by young people as predominantly focusing on biological aspects of sex and relationships and lacking a discursive or participatory element. Young people perceived a diminishing commitment to SRE by teachers as they progressed into later years.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The paper examines a predominantly working-class sample of young people from one urban area of South Wales.\nPractical implications/implications: - On the basis of the data analysis in this paper a number of suggestions are made regarding the nature of future school provision of SRE.\nOriginality/value: - This paper raises awareness and highlights issues surrounding the role of schools, teachers and school nurses in sex and relationships education.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The relationship between governance and NPD performance and the mediating role of tie strength	[ "Trust", "Control", "Tie strength", "New product development", "Research and development", "Performance", "Governance", "Strategic alliances", "Information networks", "Iran" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Despite the frequent reporting of performance outcomes of alliances in extant literature, some empirical studies suggest that most of these arrangements are relatively short-lived, with many failing to achieve their formal objectives of R&D innovation, organizational learning, or market penetration (Todeva and Knoke, 2005). Thorelli (1986) argued that key ingredients for success in interfirm relationships include strength of ties between members and the governing mechanism that is used to manage the network. Current research examines how these two issues influence performance.Extant research suggests that governance mechanism is critical due to its influence on performance (e.g. Cannon et al., 2000; Lusch and Brown, 1996). Transaction cost economics (TCE) has been widely used in explaining interfirm governance. According to TCE (Williamson, 1985), control mechanisms like vertical control and monitoring are common forms of governance mechanism. Scholars have frequently cited TCE since it has not paid enough attention to the social contexts, so it does not adequately consider the complexity of interfirm relationships. In fact, exchange partners, as social entities, are likely to develop social relationships based on relational factors such as trust and commitment (Ring and Van de Ven, 1994). To study the governance of interfirm relations we need a broader concept than the concept of control traditionally used in the literature (Van der Meer-Kooistra and Scapens, 2008. Nooteboom (2002, p. 103) argues that he takes the term \"Governance\" from transaction cost economics, but he extends it quite considerably to include issues of trust as well as transaction costs. This is in agreement with previous research in which scholars argue that besides control, interfirm trust is a second source of confidence in partner cooperation (Das and Teng, 1993; Nooteboom, 1996; Ring and Van de Ven, 1994).On the other hand, in recent years the issue of tie formation has attracted considerable attention in various disciplines such as strategy management (e.g. Tiwana, 2008), operations management (e.g. Oke et al., 2010), and marketing (e.g. Stanko et al., 2007). Citing TCE in which ties are arm's length or transactional, recent literature has emphasized the importance of embedded ties (Uzzi, 1997), collaborative ties (e.g. Bunduchi, 2008), or cooperative ties (Tomlinson, 2010).Governance is a topic of substantial importance in innovation contexts. Dyer and Singh (1998) point out that governance \"plays a key role\" in the creation of inter-organizational innovations \"because it influences transaction costs, as well as the willingness of alliance partners to engage in value-creation initiatives\". The level of ties between members is also critical to the success of a relationship (Gassenheimer et al., 1998). Researchers accept that intensive social interactions facilitate the process of knowledge creation and innovation (e.g. Tsai, 2001). Due to the importance of governance and tie strength in innovation, we focus on the innovation context to investigate how these two issues affect performance.Recent literature has widely addressed the importance of collaborative new product development (NPD) and extensive efforts have been devoted to study the management of collaborations in NPDs (e.g. Daugherty et al., 2006; Petersen et al., 2005; Stanko et al., 2007; Tomlinson, 2010; Wognum et al., 2002). The existing literature nevertheless still has gaps with respect to our research interests. Our review of the extant literature on networks and strategic alliances reveals that little is known about the NPD network governance mechanism and its impact upon outcomes such as social ties between members and successful NPD project outcomes. These are very important issues and yet they have been largely neglected in previous research.The purpose of the present study is therefore to bridge the gaps identified above. Specifically, we aim to extend research by investigating how modes of governance influence the strength of ties between network members and how the tie strength relates to performance as well as mediates the influence of governance mechanism on performance in NPD relationships.We attempt to achieve this objective in two main ways. First, we derive a theoretical model explaining the relationships among governance modes, tie strength, and NPD performance. Second, we test this theoretical model using survey data of 112 firms engaged in NPD projects.We believe that current study could make important contributions to both theory and practice. First, examining trust as a key possible governance mechanism may be a supplement to traditional TCE in which control mechanisms are introduced as the mechanism of managing uncertainties. Second, we aim to add to the literature by examining the impact of tie strength on NPD project outcomes. Third, we examine the key mechanisms through which governance mechanism relates to NPD project outcomes by focusing on tie strength as a potential mediator. A fourth contribution relates to the context in which the study is carried out- an innovation inter-organizational context as opposed to the much researched buyer-supplier network or supply chain context.\n2. Theoretical framework: 2.1 Governance mechanism\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Sampling and data collection\n4. Results: Table II presents means, standard deviations, and zero-order correlations among the studied variables. Zero-order correlations provide an initial examination of the hypotheses linking unilateral control, trust, tie strength, and design performance. Results indicate that there are significant positive relationships between trust, tie strength, and design performance in pairs, and between these variables and unilateral control negatively.Figure 1 displays the causal model when all of the predicted paths are included, again using the same indicators used in the measurement model above. The fit indexes of this structural model showed a good fit to the data (kh2=156.31; DF=131; IFI=0.97; TLI=0.97; CFI=0.97, RMSEA=0.04).We discuss below each prediction in more detail. Where relevant we also explore alternative models. For the sake of simplicity, we first present the direct effects predictions presented in H1-H3, and then turn our attention to the tests for mediation predictions suggested in H4 and H5.H1 predicted that trust would be positively related to tie strength. As shown in Figure 1, results of the structural equation modeling, reveals positive links from trust to tie strength (b=0.54, p < 0.01), providing support for H1. H2 predicted that unilateral control would be negatively related to tie strength. Results of the structural equation modeling shown in Figure 1, reveals a negative link from unilateral control to tie strength (b=-0.35, p < 0.01). Finally, H3 predicted that tie strength would be positively related to design performance. Results revealed a positive link from tie strength to design performance (b=0.57, p < 0.01), providing support for H3.H4 and H5 predicted that tie strength would mediate the effects of trust on design performance (H4) and the effects of unilateral control on design performance (H5). These hypotheses were tested through a series of nested model comparisons. Table III shows the results.Model 1 represents a fully mediated model. We specified paths from trust and unilateral control to tie strength and from tie strength to design performance. This model does not have direct paths from trust and unilateral control to design performance. Table III (Model 1) shows that the fit indexes showed a good fit to the data (kh2=156.31; DF =131; IFI=0.97; TLI=0.97; CFI=0.97; RMSEA =0.04).Against this fully mediated model (Model 1), we tested four nested models. In Model 2, we added a direct link from trust to design performance. In Model 3, we added a direct link from unilateral control to design performance. Model 4, is a fully saturated model in that we added two direct paths from both trust and unilateral control to design performance. Our mediation hypotheses would be supported if the fit of Model 1 (fully mediated Model 1) would not be improved by the addition of direct paths from trust or unilateral control (or both) to design performance.As shown in Table III, the differences between Chi-squares were not significant for Model 1 compared with Models 2, 3, or 4.Under the rules of model parsimony, these results suggested that the fully mediated model, Model 1, best fitted the data. Hence, we concluded that tie strength mediated the effect that trust or unilateral control have with design performance. Furthermore, none of the direct added paths was significant. Path coefficients from trust to design performance (Model 2), unilateral control to design performance (Model 3), and fully saturated model with two direct paths (Model 4), were respectively equal to -0.13(t=-0.45), 0.24(t=1.01), and -0.52 (t=-0.40)/0.24(t=0.99). H4-H5 are therefore supported by our data.Model 5 is an alternative model that is not nested within Models 1, 2, 3, or 4, but is used to provide comparative support for our hypothesized model, the fully mediated model (Model 1). We specified that the influence of tie strength on design performance be through trust or unilateral control. The fit model of this model, Model 5 (kh2=160.53; DF=131; IFI =0.97; TLI=0.96; CFI=0.97; RMSEA=0.04) showed no improvement in fitting the data compared to the fully mediated model (Model 1), and even poorer in TLI.\n5. Discussion and conclusion: 5.1 Theoretical contributions\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of governance modes (trust and unilateral control) on new product development (NPD) performance and the mediating role of tie strength.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Survey research was conducted to collect data from 112 NPD relationships and structural equation modeling was conducted to test the hypotheses.\nFindings: - The results suggest that the trust and tie strength are positively related, while unilateral control and tie strength are negatively related. On the other hand, tie strength is positively related to NPD performance. Results also show that the impact of trust and unilateral control on NPD performance are mediated by the tie strength.\nOriginality/value: - This study enhances the understanding of NPD relationships by examining the key modes of governance through which tie strength and NPD performance are influenced.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The use of performance measurement information in the work of middle managers	[ "Performance management", "Strategy implementation", "Management control", "Decision making", "Interview study", "Measurement information" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Performance measurement is often promoted as a facilitator of strategy implementation, budget monitoring, reporting, decision making, and information provision in general (Amaratunga and Baldry, 2002; Bititci et al., 2011; Merchant and Van der Stede, 2012). However, the potential of performance measurement is still rarely materialized in practice (Bititci et al., 2011). It has been observed that problems often occur in the utilization of performance measurement information (Nudurupati et al., 2011) and are not necessarily caused by the validity of measures in itself. This study highlights the less studied perspective of middle managers (or operational managers) using measurement systems (Grafton et al., 2010; Wouters, 2009) and affected by different management controls (Henri, 2012; Libby and Lindsay, 2010).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Processes for implementing strategy and making decisions\n3. Interview study: 3.1 Research methods and empirical data\n4. Conclusions: This study contributes by highlighting the usage of measurement information and the managerial practices of middle managers. Overall, the results indicate that measurement information has, as such, a relatively minor role in middle management. However, the results unveiled that measurement information clearly affects strategy implementation process. While intuition and experiential factors demonstrably have a role in strategy implementation, their role is especially high in decision making.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how middle managers utilize performance measurement information in their work. More specifically, the study gives understanding on the impact of performance measurement, policies and procedures (formal controls), and individual intuition and experiential knowledge (informal controls) on strategy implementation and decision making. The study also identifies hindrances to the use of measurement information.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study is carried out as a semi-structured interview study in Finnish companies representing five industries and 29 interviewees. Empirical data were analyzed deductively according to the research framework combining informal and formal management controls with two managerial processes.\nFindings: The work of middle managers is clearly affected by informal controls. Much of the managerial work relies on individual intuition and judgment based on experience instead of performance information or formal instructions. The study also unveiled that top management sees the status of utilizing performance measurement information in a more positive light than do middle managers. This is the case especially in strategy implementation. Deficiency of measurement information was found to be a key factor hindering the use of measurement information but improper analysis of results is also a challenge.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study examined the work of middle managers widely in different positions and industries which means that the findings are rather explorative. Simplification was required in order to operationalize the complex tasks of strategy implementation and decision making. Further, more contextually focused research is required in order to understand better the contextual causes of the findings and to provide more understanding on the appropriate ways of improving the utilization of performance measurement information.\nPractical implications: The practical contribution of this study lies in the detailed description of strategy implementation and decision-making processes based on observations in several large companies representing different industries. The study also suggests areas to which development efforts should be concentrated on in order to improve the use of performance information among middle managers.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to the earlier literature by highlighting the usage of performance measurement information as opposed to developing new measures. In addition, the novelty value of the paper relates to the focus in the work of middle managers which has gained less attention in the previous research.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Infinite-mean losses: insurance's "dread disease"	[ "Insurance", "Loss" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: In a previous editorial (Powers, 2009), I considered the possible origins of heavy-tailed [1] asset-return distributions from a theoretical perspective. As is clear from the popularity of Taleb's (2007) recent book, The Black Swan this topic is of great interest in the world of financial markets, where discussions of infinite variances - and perhaps even undefined means - are commonplace and sometimes even entertaining. Interestingly, a parallel issue of the insurance world - heavy-tailed, and especially infinite-mean, insurance losses - elicits far less attention and enthusiasm; and, one senses, actually seems to be avoided as might be talk of a \"dread disease.\"\nGenesis of heavy-tailed losses: In Powers (2009), I argued that heavy-tailed asset returns could be derived from ratios of reasonably simple random variables. However, ratios do not play an obvious role in the generation of insurance losses. Most commonly, loss processes are modeled as either sums of random components or as \"waiting\" or \"first-passage\" times to a certain sum in a sequence of random components.In particular, one can consider two basic models of accidental damage involving an abstract \"box\" containing a vulnerable \"cargo item\" and a large number of homogeneous \"protective components\" that are challenged sequentially by the force of the accident. In the first case, the accident lasts a fixed amount of real time, and a constant amount of damage is done to the cargo item for each protective component that is overcome (randomly) in sequence during that time period. If the components fail as i.i.d. Bernoulli random variables, each with small failure probability p, then this model generates an approximately Poisson random variable, and is appropriate for loss frequencies (i.e. numbers of individual losses). In the second case, the accident lasts until a fixed number of the protective components are overcome (randomly), and a constant amount of damage is done to the cargo item for each unit of real time that passes before this event. If the components again fail as i.i.d. Bernoulli random variables with small p, then this model generates an approximately gamma random variable, and is appropriate for loss severities (i.e. sizes of individual losses).It is the latter type of model - for loss severities - that creates the potential for heavy tails. Although gamma random variables are clearly not heavy-tailed, they can easily become heavy-tailed through simple transformations, as shown in the following two examples:1. Let a loss amount, L, have a conditional Exponential(l) distribution (i.e. a Gamma(r, l) distribution with r=1), where the parameter l is itself random with an Exponential(b) distribution. Then the unconditional loss distribution is given by: Equation 1 for which VarL[L] (as well as EL[L]) is infinite.2. Let a loss amount, L, arise from the waiting time before the first event in a Poisson process with parameter l(t). If l(t)=l, then the loss distribution is given by L~Exponential(l) (i.e. a Gamma(r, l) distribution with r=1); however, if l(t)=l/(t+b), then the loss distribution is given by: Equation 2 for which VarL[L] is infinite if l<=2 (and EL[L] is infinite if l<=1).\nOvercoming policy limits (caps): Given the ease with which infinite-mean losses can be generated from basic gamma (exponential) models, it is not surprising that insurance companies have developed a rather peremptory technique for handling them - namely, the policy limit (cap), which cuts off the insurer's responsibility for a loss' tail. Under a conventional policy limit, the raw loss amount, L, is capped at a fixed dollar amount, C, and the policyholder retains responsibility for that portion of the loss exceeding C. Naturally, such truncated losses have \"infinitely light\" tails (at least asymptotically), and so all issues of infinite means and variances should, in principle, go away.Unfortunately, there is one rather unsettling problem with the policy limit: like any contract provision, it is subject to litigation, and so can be overturned by the whim of a civil court. Rather remarkably, this possibility, regardless of how slight, completely vitiates the policy limit as a protection against heavy tails.Suppose, for example, that a raw loss amount is given by L~Pareto-Lomax(a=1,b) (i.e. FL(l)=1-(b/(l+b)), l>0, so that EL[L]=[?]), but that the amount an insurance company must pay under its contract is L* = Min{L,C} (so that EL[L*]=b[ln(C+b)-ln(b)]<[?]). Now suppose further that a civil court will overturn the policy limit with some small probability e>0, in which case the insurer must pay the raw loss amount L. Under these conditions, the insurance company's actual mean loss amount is given by: Equation 3 In other words, no matter how small the probability e, the insurer's actual expected loss is truly infinite in a world with both infinite-mean raw losses and active civil courts.\nInfinite-mean losses in polite (i.e. political) society: Considering how readily insurance policy limits can be overcome in an increasingly litigious world, it is rather strange that infinite-mean losses are not more frequently discussed. Although the subject is occasionally broached by academic researchers (Neslehova et al., 2006; Powers, 2010), it is rarely identified as a significant solvency issue by insurance practitioners and regulators. Part of the reason for this omission is, of course, that the concept of an infinite mean is rather unusual (one might even say \"pathological\") in a world so devoted to the central limit theorem and Gaussian-based statistics. However, I would argue that the principal explanation for the reluctance to discuss infinite-mean losses is something far more prosaic, as suggested by certain historical events.Notably, at the nadir of the asbestos/pollution-liability \"crisis\" in the mid- to late-1990s [2], it was not uncommon for insurance actuaries and executives to speak of \"inestimable\" incurred losses, characterized by infinite means. At the time, the concern was that such losses, upon entering the books of any member of an insurance group, could spread throughout the entire group and beyond - to reinsurers, guaranty funds, unpaid policyholders, etc. (This is because any share of an infinite-mean liability, no matter how small, is yet another infinite-mean liability.) To defend against this statistical contagion, Lloyd's of London formed the legally separate Equitas companies in 1996 to isolate its accrued asbestos/pollution liabilities, and thereby protect the solvency of Lloyd's as a whole. In the same year, Pennsylvania's CIGNA Corporation worked out a similar scheme with state regulators to cast off its asbestos/pollution liabilities via the legally separate Brandywine Holdings - a controversial move that received final court approval only in 1999.To my mind, it is simply a political fear of confronting the most pernicious aspect of infinite-mean losses - that is, their potential to spread like a \"dread disease\" from one corporate entity to another - that best explains their absence from discourse among practitioners and regulators. For if infinite-mean losses are observed and identified, and cannot be effectively quarantined or amputated, then their ultimate financial course will be fatal. And in such circumstances, some patients simply prefer not to be diagnosed.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to consider the existence and significance of heavy-tailed - and in particular, infinite-mean - insurance losses.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Three specific questions are addressed in turn. First, how do infinite-mean insurance losses arise in the real world? Second, can infinite-mean losses exist even in the presence of insurance policy limits (caps)? Third, why are infinite-mean losses so infrequently discussed by practitioners and regulators?\nFindings: - The paper first shows that heavy-tailed - and in particular, infinite-mean - insurance losses can be generated by simple modifications of gamma (exponential) random variables. It then finds that the property of infinite means cannot be prevented by the imposition of policy limits (caps). Finally, the paper argues that the statistical contagion and financial intractability of infinite-mean losses generate a political fear among practitioners and regulators analogous to that associated with a \"dread disease.\"\nOriginality/value: - The paper explores an important insurance phenomenon - heavy-tailed/infinite-mean losses - that is insufficiently discussed.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Impacts of innovation type SME's R&D capability on patent and new product development	[ "New product development", "Technology innovation", "Innovation-type SMEs", "Patent performance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: As a form of innovation with science and technology as a driving force, technology innovation is an innovative activity that creates new values through creative combination of production resources, such as process, market, resources and organization (Schumpeter, 1934). Technology innovation causes business fluctuations by giving economy a jolt by means of developing new markets, changing the manner of commodity supply and generating dynamic gains as well as advancement of technology. Moreover, technology innovation occurs irregularly depending on the age concerned, and, once in place, it forms a cluster, thus playing the leading role in economic development (Schumpeter, 1934).\n2. Theoretical background and literature review: 2.1 Technology innovation\n3. Research question and model: In this study, research model and research questions were set up as the following to analyze the effect of the capability of R&D on the result of new products based on preceding studies on technical innovativeness, factor and result.\n4. Methodology: 4.1 Data\n5. Results: 5.1 Characteristics of the sample\n6. Conclusion: This study was conducted to analyze the relation of effect that the capability of innovation-type SMEs has on patentability and development of new products. To attain the object of such study, study model and research questions were constituted with consideration of local and foreign study literatures, and empirical analysis was conducted using data from survey on technical innovation of 2010 done by STEPI to verify this.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to verify the effectiveness and efficiency of corporate technology innovation activities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study empirically analyzes the effects of research and development (R&D) capability on patent and new product development achievements on innovation-type small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by using the \"Report on Korean Innovation Survey 2010: Manufacturing Sector\" data released by the Science and Technology Policy Institute.\nFindings: The results of the study indicate that staffing of the concentration of R&D human resource team and efforts toward open innovation are essential factors for the creation of corporate performance.The number of persons of the concentration R&D team in particular makes up essential resources for patent acquisition and new product development. In addition, in case of an SME's with relatively poor resources, it is necessary to acquire resources, both material and immaterial, learn from the external R&D activities and internalize those into key corporate capabilities rather than step up the R&D activities on their own.\nOriginality/value: The results of this study indicate that innovative small enterprises need to secure the number of R&D human resource members for maintaining sustainable competitiveness and securing market share. Therefore, a strategy is needed that would enable employing and raising excellent human resource in the quantitative and qualitative aspects. However, in the circumstances that small enterprises suffer difficulty in securing professional human resource for R&D compared to large enterprises, as there is a limitation for securing human resource for R&D from only the dimension of enterprises, governmental and political support is thought to be necessary for securing good-quality human resource for R&D. Accordingly, the results of this study provide many implications for the necessity of detailed methodology on how to expand professional human resource for R&D among supporting policies for technical innovative enterprises and to establish innovative strategies of enterprises.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Designing school contexts for success: paternalism or libertarianism?	[ "Thinking", "Bounded free choice", "Choice architecture", "Deciding", "Judgement", "Rationality" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The purpose of this analysis is to demonstrate the utility of social science research and theory in solving the problems of school practice. Two relatively recent volumes are particularly useful in this regard: Thaler and Sunstein's (2009) intriguing inquiry on choice architecture, Nudge, and Kahneman's brilliant analysis of thinking, Thinking, Fast and Slow\nChoice architecture: Imagine that you are responsible for your school's cafeteria. Parents are complaining about the junk food their children eat. The first thing you do is observe as students go through the cafeteria line and select their food each day for a week. Even after such a brief set of observations, it is clear to you that many students do not make nutritious decisions: in fact, they are likely to choose tasty cakes over sliced apples or yogurt. What can you do? Consider the following options:\nConcurrent thinking: F. Scott Fitzgerald (1945) once observed that the test of a first-rate intellect is the ability to hold two opposing ideas simultaneously and still function; in fact, even when things seem hopeless, a first-rate mind retains the ability to see hopeful outcomes.\nLibertarian paternalism: bounded free choice: Libertarian paternalism as elaborated by Thaler and Sunstein (2009) is a fascinating and creative combination of two opposing and contradictory perspectives. The libertarian element of the strategy rests on the belief that individuals should be free to choose, that is, opt out of undesirable arrangements when they wish to do so. Thus, a major objective of this approach is to facilitate actions and design policies that either maintain or increase freedom of choice. Libertarian simply means preserving liberty.\nTwo systems, two characters: To comprehend choice architecture more completely, a theoretical perspective is useful. We begin with the systems of the mind that enable us to think and reason and then examine contrasting assumptions of individual rationality.\nConceptual underpinnings and examples of choice architecture: We turn to some important concepts of choice architecture that guide attempts to design contexts to nudge individuals to make good choices.\nPrinciples of choice architecture: We conclude this treatise by summarizing a set of major principles and guidelines for choice architecture drawn primarily from the work of Thaler and Sunstein (2009). These propositions are neither solutions nor specific prescriptions. Rather, to paraphrase William James (1899), these are generalizations that guide the mind in creating and making novel applications; science never generates applications directly out of itself - an inventive mind is essential. Thus, wed the principles of choice architecture to a resourceful mind for creative solutions.\nSummary: We have developed a mental toolbox of concepts from the social sciences to help school leaders design contexts that benefit teachers and students. Choice architecture is the process of designing these contexts by nudging individuals to make decisions in their own best interests. We started with an example of how educators might display food choices in the student cafeteria to encourage healthy diets by placing junk food out of sight (e.g. at very high or very low levels) and replacing it with healthier, attractive alternatives at eye level. The underlying theory of choice architecture unites two opposing philosophies, libertarianism, and paternalism, which are blended by taking the best from each and avoiding the pitfalls of both. We advocate giving students and teachers the right to choose while simultaneously nudging them to make good choices, a process we call bounded or guided free choice rather than libertarian paternalism, as it is often called in the literature. Both concepts refer to the same process, but the latter brings too much negative conceptual baggage.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop, illustrate, and apply the concept of choice architecture to schools.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The analysis is a synthesis of concepts from the social science research that nudge people toward positive actions.\nFindings: A dozen concepts are identified, defined, and illustrated as a set of principles and guidelines that are elaborated to guide school leaders in the science and art of choice architecture.\nPractical implications: The principles of choice architecture are demonstrated to be of practical utility for school leaders in designing educational contexts for school achievement.\nOriginality/value: A mental toolbox of concepts and principles that are highlighted for use by school leaders to benefit students and teachers.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Do market size and financial development indicators affect human capital of select south Asian economies?	[ "Financial development", "Human capital", "Panel co-integration", "Market size", "O15", "C33", "J24" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: With the emergence of growth theories, since the early 1900s, there has been an extensive research on the theoretical and empirical significance of finance in relation to economic growth and development. Started by Schumpeter (1911), the relationship between financial development and economic growth has been extensively explored. Researchers like McKinnon (1973) and Shaw (1973) have also explored their relationship in-depth. It has been well recognized that financial development is a crucial factor contributing to economic growth. Furthermore, there has been growing interest in human capital to explain the growth potential of the countries. The importance of education as a major component of human capital on economic growth has been established and emphasized by economists since 1950, with the emergence of endogenous growth theories. One of the basic elements of endogenous growth is educated labor supply. According to studies, economic growth is affected through different channels by education, such as the ability of individuals to do standard tasks and to learn new tasks as well as the ability to comprehend or to evaluate changing situations and to adapt to them (Yardimcioglu et al., 2014). Thereafter, several researchers have investigated impact of human capital and economic growth on financial development and market size (Asghar et al., 2012; Barro, 2001; Bassanini and Scarpetta, 2002).\n2. Literature review: There is a large body of literature, which has revealed that one of the most important factors of economic growth is human capital (Lucas, 1988; Mankiw et al., 1992) with regard to both the level effect by its decisive influence on production through labor productivity (Romer, 1990; Mankiw et al., 1992) and the rate effect by contributing to increased competitive advantage through innovation and diffusion technology (Pistorius, 2004; Siggel, 2001).\n3. Trend analysis: some stylized facts: 3.1 Human capital\n4. Data source, variables and methodology: The present study uses annual time series data over the period 1984-2015 for selected South Asian economies such as Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.\n5. Empirical results and discussion: 5.1 Descriptive statistics\n6. Conclusion and policy implications: The main objective of the study is to empirically examine whether the size of the market and its growth rate, along with financial development indicators affect human capital in selected south Asian economies such as Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka by using annual time series data over the period 1984-2015. The study also tries to find out the direction of causal relationship among the same variables. To achieve both these objectives, we have employed panel unit-root test, panel co-integration, panel granger causality, FMOLS and PDOLS model. From the empirical results, we can conclude that both the market size and financial development play an important role in the development of human capital in the selected south Asian economies. It is evident that a large market size and faster degree of financial development in the sample countries result in better human capital formation.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate whether market size and its growth rate, along with financial development indicators, affect human capital in selected south Asian economies over the time period from 1984 to 2015.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The stationarity of the variables are checked by LLC, IPS, ADF and Phillips-Perron panel unit-root tests. Pedroni's and Kao's panel co-integration approaches are employed to examine the long-run relationship among the variables. To estimate the coefficients of co-integrating vectors, both PDOLS and FMOLS techniques are used. The short-term and long-run causalities are examined by panel granger causality.\nFindings: From the empirical results, the authors found that both the market size and financial development play an important role in the development of human capital in the selected south Asian economies. It is evident that a large market size and faster degree of financial development in the selected countries result in better human capital formation.\nOriginality/value: There are a number of studies on the impact of financial development indicators on human capital and economic growth, but there is hardly any study that considers market size and its growth rate along with financial development indicators with human capital in the context of south Asian economies. The study fills this research gap.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Accountants' proactivity in intra-organisational networks: a strong structuration perspective	[ "Networks", "Accountants", "Communication", "Strong structuration" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: One of the most consistent findings in the social science literature is that whom you know often has a great deal to do with what you come to know(Cross et al., 2003, p. 8, emphasis added).During a wider study of how accountants in not-for-profit (NFP) organisations use and disseminate accounting information, the amount of time and effort expended by chief financial officers (CFOs) and other senior accountants in establishing intra-organisational networks and in fostering relationships with co-workers was beyond expectation. It is clear from the literature and from the authors' experience that establishing and sustaining relationships takes considerable effort (Jones, 1999). Studies of the roles of CFOs highlight the importance of accountants' intra-organisational networks. Developing effective alliances with other members of the leadership team is fundamental to carrying out the CFO's role effectively (IFA, 2013). Furthermore, the quality of inter-departmental relations is seen as being one of the greatest barriers to CFO effectiveness (Ernst & Young, 2013a). Relationships are deemed important for accountants in varied organisational positions. For instance, management accountants require well-developed interpersonal skills as they \"interact and build trustworthy relationships with colleagues across different business areas and different levels of seniority\" (Burns and Baldvinsdottir, 2007, p. 127).\n2. Prior literature: accountants' networks and organisational networks: 2.1 Accountants' networks\n3. Strong structuration theory: Giddens' (1984) structuration theory addresses the cyclical relationship between human action and social structure. Structures are created and reproduced through group members' everyday interactions (Papa et al., 2008). As the routines of how people act and interact become institutionalised over time, they lead to an organisation's structural properties (Orlikowski, 1992). Agents are empowered by structures, while their behaviour either reaffirms or alters those structures. Giddens uses the term duality of structure to explain that structure is both the medium and the outcome of social interactions. Participation in social relationships results in the continual production and reproduction of a social system by its members (Giddens, 1982).\n4. Research approach: In total, 30 accountants, from three Australian states, were purposefully identified and selected to ensure that they had the relevant experience so that their reflections could provide evidence about the above research objectives. All interviewees had been with their organisations more than 18 months and most held senior positions[1]. The individual accountants were viewed as being the agents-in-focus as outlined in strong structuration theory (Stones, 2005). Ethics approval for the project was obtained from the University of South Australia and all participants signed a written consent to be interviewed and to have their interviews recorded. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken owing to their flexibility, as they enable interviewers to have a \"depth of exploration\". They also maximise \"the potential for interactive opportunities between the researcher and respondents\" (Fielden and Hunt, 2011, p. 349).\n5. Findings: The findings are presented to address each of the four research objectives in turn. Additionally, the findings also show how position-practices were consolidated and the knowledge that the accountants drew on in their conduct and context analyses. Illustrative quotations were attributed to the accountants by way of pseudonyms. A numbering system of A1-A30 was used to distinguish the quotations attributable to the different interviewees. For quotations that were possibly sensitive or for short general phrases, pseudonyms were not used.\n6. Discussion: 6.1 Importance of networks\n7. Conclusion: This study has added to the sparse knowledge of accountants and their networks. The study has confirmed that the interviewed accountants from the NFP organisations not only placed importance on relationships within their organisations but they also actively pursued such relationships. Furthermore, the primary constituents of the accountants' networks have been identified. The CFOs communicated with a larger number of employee groups than the FCs. As the CFOs belonged to the executive group, they communicated with the board and the executives. In all of the interviewees' organisations, the CFOs and FCs were in regular communication. Both the CFOs and FCs communicated with their managers. In the smaller organisations, the FC generally had greater contact with the CEO. By contrast, the FCs in the larger organisations had less interaction with their CEOs. The accountants' networks offered them opportunities to exercise authority as they influenced other staff members, provided meaning and impacted on organisational norms. The NFP environment provided an interesting setting to study accountants and their networks. Frontline professionals within NFP organisations have been shown to have lower levels of interest in accounting matters and to be resistant to initiatives to increase their financial understanding (Chenhall et al., 2010; Lightbody, 2003). Additionally, accounting has been found to play an important legitimising role in NFPs (Irvine, 2005).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the importance of accountants' networks inside organisations, the parties who comprise those networks and how accountants go about building and maintaining their networks. It also illustrates the use of strong structuration theory, which specifically considers the networks that surround agents. The theoretical discussion highlights the significance of communication as agency in the context of accounting practice through a strong structuration perspective.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A qualitative approach to the inquiry was adopted. Interviews were conducted with 30 Australian accountants from 22 not-for-profit organisations. A thematic approach was used to analyse the transcripts. Structuration theory, supplemented by strong structuration, informed the study.\nFindings: The interviewees attested to the importance of communication and developing networks within their organisations. They actively sought to expand and enhance their networks. The accountants played a pivotal role in networks and they pursued both horizontal and vertical relations. The accountants' knowledge of organisational positions and perceptions of their own roles were used strategically in attempts to alter the internal structures of networked others.\nResearch limitations/implications: The interviewed accountants worked in not-for-profit organisations and this may influence the findings. Future research might consider accountants working in for-profit organisations. The study provides insights into strategies to develop intra-organisational networks.\nOriginality/value: The study contributes to the meagre literature regarding accountants' networks within organisations. It provides insights that may assist accountants in enhancing their own networks. Although structuration theory is well-established in accounting research, the enrichments offered by strong structuration are illustrated in this study.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Students' perceptions of librarians as teachers of information literacy at a large African university	[ "Academic libraries", "Assessment", "Information literacy", "Undergraduate students", "Postgraduate students", "Library instruction", "Librarians as teachers" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The demands of the Fourth Industrial Revolution require information literate individuals (Juskuv and Keating, 2019). The Fourth Industrial Revolution is characterised by information overload, big data, artificial intelligence and technological advancement and discoveries that were never seen before (Xu et al., 2018). In this period, higher education is shaped by new modes of curriculum, and teaching is shaped from a teacher-centred curriculum to a learning-based one (Xu et al., 2018). It is precisely this information explosion and overload and technological advancements accompanied by changes in higher education modes of teaching and learning that necessitate information literate individuals (Nilsen, 2012). Information literacy (IL) is often defined as skills and abilities used to discover, access, interpret, analyse, manage, create, communicate, store and share information in an ethical manner (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, 2018). It involves the ability to find, retrieve, analyse and use information (Association of College and Research Libraries, 2019). Once acquired, IL skills are not only useful for the academic lives of the students but also used in their professional and personal lives to assist them to make informed choices. IL skills are not transferred by a process of osmosis. They require a deliberate effort of teaching and learning. IL requires effective teachers who are able to transfer their knowledge to different user groups (Lockhart, 2016). Librarians play a critical role in the provision of IL at many universities in South Africa (Mugwisi, 2015; Moyo and Mavodza, 2016; Davids and Omar, 2018; Noll and Brown, 2018) and other countries (Chang and Wu, 2012; Kanguha, 2016). As such, librarians are involved in all aspects of IL including curriculum design, liaison with academic departments, preparation for classes, classroom management and the teaching of IL content to the students (Chang and Wu, 2012; Mugwisi, 2015). Despite the expectation for librarians to teach IL, there is scant literature on the quality of teaching delivered by the librarians and the assessment mechanisms used to provide feedback on students' learning of IL (Noll, 2017). Most studies choose to focus on the assessment of students' IL skills before and after IL training. Most of these studies ignore the quality of teaching that took place during the IL classes. This is surprising as effective teaching skills are critical for the success of IL training (Selematsela and Du Toit, 2007). One of the measures used to assess the quality of teaching is students' evaluation of teachers (SET). SET relies on students' perceptions of the quality of teaching, abilities and competency of their teachers (Hajdin and Pazur, 2012). Students' feedback can be an effective way to gauge the quality and effectiveness of teaching and learning that took place in classes (Hajdin and Pazur, 2012). Students' evaluation can help institutions to measure whether librarians are being effective in teaching students. Further, SET can provide librarians with valuable information on areas they need to adjust or improve in their lessons to better serve the students (Hajdin and Pazur, 2012). That way, students' evaluation can benefit the students and librarians alike. Students' evaluation is not a tool to punish teachers (librarians) but a tool to assist them to better their performance.\n2. Context of the study: The NWU was founded in 2004 after a government-imposed merger of the then University of North West and the Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education together with the Sebokeng Campus of the then Vista University (NWU [North-West University], 2019). The university has three campuses, namely, Mafikeng, Potchefstroom and Vaal Triangle (NWU [North-West University], 2019). NWU seeks \"to be an internationally recognised university in Africa, distinguished for engaged scholarship, social responsiveness and an ethic of care\". According to its own audited figures, the university had more than 72,000 students in 2017 of which more than 16,000 of those were postgraduates. Like all universities in South Africa, this university fulfils four primary functions, namely, teaching, learning, research and community engagement. The university has three campus libraries and four branch libraries situated in the Potchefstroom Campus. Collectively, these campus and branch libraries are called NWU Library and Information Service (NWU LIS). NWU LIS' main task is to support the mission of the university. It seeks \"to be distinguished as a leading university library in Africa and beyond, known for commitment to partnership in student success, esteemed scholarship and research\" (NWU LIS [North-West University Library and Information Service], 2018). Among NWU LIS' strategies is the strategy to support teaching, learning and researching through provision of information and digital literacy to library users (NWU LIS, 2018). Similar to the majority of universities in South Africa, most of the IL training offered at NWU is ad hoc, \"once-off\" and at the mercy of academics (Moyo and Mavodza, 2016; Noll and Brown, 2018). However, some faculties such as law are prepared to offer the library at least three contact sessions with their students including library orientation, although this has not been officially agreed upon. In South Africa, IL is recognised by quality assurance and control bodies such as the South African Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC) and the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) as critical for the support of teaching and learning (SAQA, 2000; HEQC, 2004). In particular, SAQA identified the ability to collect, analyse, organise and critically evaluate information as one of the critical cross-field outcomes, while Criterion 7 of the HEQC identifies library training as one of the requirements for programme accreditations (SAQA, 2000; HEQC, 2004). The LISs Charter of South Africa maintains that the country relies on librarians to provide IL for its citizens to participate fully in the knowledge society and the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Nkondo et al., 2014).\n3. Literature review: The literature review of this study is divided into two subsections, namely, librarians as teachers and their evaluation as teachers of IL.\n4. Findings and discussions: The findings of this study are aligned to the objectives stated in the introduction.\n5. Conclusion: The importance of the study lies in the fact that IL skills once acquired enable students to be effective and independent users of information to succeed in academia and to make good decisions in life. On the whole, the students, both at the UG and PG levels of study, found librarians to be effective teachers of IL, and they found the subject to be very useful. However, some of the surveyed students felt that a lot of the subject was presented in a short period, which could easily result in exhaustion and information overload. The use of local or vernacular languages was also indicated as an area requiring the librarian's attention for the teacher to be more effective. Based on the study's findings, it can be concluded that the IL provided at the NWU was effective. It can also be concluded that there is room for improvement in terms of time allocated for teaching and the use of the university's official languages for students' instruction, among other identified weaknesses.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine the students' perceptions of librarians as teachers of information literacy at the North-West University in South Africa.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study used a survey research method in which online questionnaires were used to gather data from students who would have attended information literacy classes.\nFindings: Students found librarians to be effective teachers of information literacy, and they found the subject to be very useful. However, some of the surveyed students felt that a lot of the subject was presented in a short period, which could easily result in exhaustion and information overload. The use of local or vernacular languages was also indicated as an area requiring the librarians' attention for the teachers to be more effective.\nPractical implications: The results of this study support the assessment of librarians as teachers by students to assist them (librarians) to refine their teaching methods and to make the conduct of information literacy worthwhile for the students.\nSocial implications: The outcomes of this study may be used to advocate for more information literacy (IL) contact time with the students by librarians when negotiating with faculty. Further, these results may be used to showcase the value placed by students to IL.\nOriginality/value: This study is a welcome addition to the scant literature on the quality of teaching delivered by the librarians and the assessment mechanisms used to provide feedback on students' learning of IL. This study is a first of its kind comparing the perceptions of librarians' teaching abilities by postgraduate and undergraduate students.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Generation Y's positive and negative eWOM: use of social media and mobile technology	[ "Service recovery", "Generation Y", "EWOM", "Social media", "Service failure", "Mobile technology" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: With the emergence of social media and mobile technology, customers have begun to share their thoughts about, and assessments of, satisfactory and unsatisfactory service experiences without temporal or spatial constraints (Al-Jabri and Sohail, 2012; Wilcox and Stephen, 2013). Research has demonstrated that social media and mobile technology have become crucial channels of information exchange prior to purchases (Lee et al., 2013; Kwon et al., 2011), and online interactions are a key aspect of the modern customer experience (Nusair et al., 2013). Consumer-generated content is communicated via increasingly popular social networking websites (SNSs), such as TripAdvisor and Facebook (Berezina et al., 2015). This particular communication channel has transformed the way in which customers evaluate information absorbed from consumer-centric communities by allowing them to share their experiences, therefore enhancing online interpersonal influences and eWOM (Chu and Kim, 2011; Zhang et al., 2015). A majority of technology experts and stakeholders believe that Generation Y will lead society into a new world of personal information sharing and disclosure using social media and mobile technology (Apresley, 2010; Bilgihan et al., 2013). The communication patterns Generation Y members have embraced already through their use of social networking technology and mobile apps and devices will continue, as they move up the economic ladder, such that, even as they mature, have families and assume increasingly significant responsibilities, their enthusiasm for widespread information sharing, including eWOM, is predicted to continue.\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 Electronic word-of-mouth\n3. Methods: 3.1 Data collection\n4. Results: 4.1 Sample demographic information\n5. Discussion and conclusions: Generation Y is recognized unanimously as one that plays a growing role in the global economy. With a population of nearly 2 billion, this generation is a force with which to be reckoned, but how brands engage them are still being explored. To reach this particular group of consumers, companies must understand how they communicate and absorb information through advanced technology, such as SNSs and mobile technology. Generation Y develops its own ecosystems by constant collaboration and sharing information rather than owning. The cohort's unique characteristics have led companies to revisit their internal and external strategies to enhance their sustainability and success in the present ever-changing marketplace.\n6. Limitations and future research: This study is one of the first attempts to investigate Generation Y's eWOM behaviors through social media and mobile technology, and it contributes to a greater appreciation of the importance of studying the behavior of this consumer cohort. Apart from its many contributions, this study has some limitations that can be addressed in future work. Because the sample was limited to the USA, one of the most advanced countries in the world, the respondents in this study had a relatively high level of education, which may affect their acceptance of technology. Future research should sample more diverse populations, including those in developing countries. Second, gender differences are a popular topic in consumer behavior. Thus, future research should examine the potential role of gender in eWOM behaviors. Third, due to the complexity of consumer behavior, models that encompass more explanatory variables should be tested. Future work should examine external variables, such as facilitating conditions, and internal variables, including personal interests, to develop a more thorough model of consumers' eWOM. Fourth, given the ongoing advancement of technology in the present market, companies offer various types of social media and mobile technologies, such as online brand communities (e.g. MyStarbucksIdea, IdeaStorm), third party SNSs (e.g. Facebook, Twitter) and many others, whereas mobile technologies include apps, laptops and tablets. The model in this study may not be adequate to examine each type of social media and mobile technology with respect to its specific role in influencing Generation Y's eWOM behaviors. Thus, future studies need to define the types of social media and mobile devices more elaborately to enhance our understanding. Fifth, this study focused on Generation Y's eWOM behaviors and confirmed the importance of social media marketing and mobile technology development. Additional studies should examine social media and mobile technology from a corporate perspective. For example, they might consider the return on investments in the development of social media and technology. Finally, this study adopted a scenario-based methodology rather than field observation. Responses after reading a scenario are not identical to reactions to an actual service experience. Therefore, future research should use a field study to observe the actual behaviors of participants who have positive, negative or service recovery experiences.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to explore the factors that influence Generation Y's positive or negative electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) behavior via social media and mobile technology in the foodservice sector. Three types of dining experiences were examined: positive and negative customer experiences and negative customer service followed by a satisfactory recovery package.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A survey was adopted to test the factors posited to influence Generation Y consumers in these service contexts. Participants were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk , and multi-group structural equation modeling was performed to analyze the data.\nFindings: Active use of social media and peer influence had a sweeping influence on Generation Y's intentions to engage in eWOM about their service experiences. Technological sophistication with mobile technology influenced Generation Y to spread positive or negative service experiences, rather than satisfactory recovery experiences. Family influence had a mixed influence on Generation Y subgroups (21-24 years old vs 25-35 years old) to engage in eWOM about their satisfactory or poor service experiences. In satisfactory recovery experiences, family influence showed no significant influence on Generation Y's eWOM behaviors.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study enriches online reviews and eWOM marketing theories, adds to service failure and recovery literature and enhances understanding of consumer behavior expressed by Generation Y through the empirical investigation of Generation Y consumers' behavioral motivations to engage in eWOM through social media and mobile technology.\nPractical implications: Engaging Generation Y consumers with social media campaigns and mobile technology development is not merely sufficient in eWOM marketing strategies. Instead, it is essential to create integrative peer communities to motivate Generation Y consumers to engage in eWOM marketing. Marketers need to pay attention to the mixed effects of family influences on the eWOM behaviors of subgroups of Generation Y in positive or negative service experiences.\nOriginality/value: Given the scarcity of consumer behavior research into Generation Y as an emerging market segment, this paper makes an incremental contribution by developing and validating a model of factors that influence Generation Y consumers' eWOM intentions through social networking and mobile technologies in three major service contexts: positive, negative and recovery following a service failure.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A novel model to implement ERP based on dynamic capabilities: A case study of an IC design company	[ "Dynamic capabilities", "Enterprise resource planning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Enterprise resource planning (ERP) can be used to share accurate information, improve the efficiency of internal operations, provide better quality of service for customers and suppliers, and enhance the competitiveness of enterprises, enabling them respond quickly to the rapidly changing business market. Although many research issues related to ERP have been discussed in the literature, such as business-process re-engineering (Davenport, 1998; Millet, 2013), senior managers' support (Kale et al., 2010; Boonstra, 2013), and key success factors (Motwani et al., 2005; Chou and Chang, 2008; Li, 2011), many implementations of ERP projects still fail. Thus, it is important to develop better implementation models for ERP, as these can provide important guidelines for organizations seeking to adopt such projects.\n2. Dynamic capabilities theory: The dynamic capabilities theory originated from the concept of RBV (Teece et al., 1997; Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000). Barney (1991) defined RBV as representative of the valuable resources of an enterprise that cannot be imitated, and that can be used to create profits and to initiate competitive advantage. Since different firms have different resources, their competitive advantage also differs. However, in the current, highly globalized market, business environments change very rapidly, and RBV alone cannot explain why enterprises with similar resources do not necessarily achieve the same operational performance. One reason for this is that their resources are not always effectively integrated and allocated (Teece et al., 1997). Therefore, in order to obtain and maintain a sustainable competitive advantage, an enterprise should strive to use its available resources in ways that are best suited to its current environment.\n3. The proposed model: Our model proposes five stages based on previous literatures, as shown in Figure 1.\n4. Validation of the model: 4.1. Procedure\n5. Critical issues of an ERP implementation: After the implementation of ERP, the performance of the company improved significantly. Some insights from the in-depth interviews with staff are presented, as follows.\n6. Conclusions, limitations, and future work: This study developed an implementation model for ERP based on dynamic capabilities theory. Of the five stages in this model, Stage 3, which describes the capabilities of coordination, integration, and organizational learning are the most critical during an implementation of ERP. This model can serve as a guideline for enterprises interested in implementing ERP. The academic contributions of this work are summarized as follows. First, this study is based on dynamic capabilities theory, and therefore, expands the breadth of the research of IS implementations. Second, we have illustrated that when integrating and allocating resources, the perspective of dynamic capabilities should be expanded to consider the characteristic of reliability, instead of focusing only on the firm's capabilities and functions. The findings of this work offer a new direction for future studies that aim to develop dynamic capabilities theory.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose an implementation model for enterprise resource planning (ERP) based on resource-based view, and using the dynamic capability theory as its theoretical foundation. This model includes: the establishment of the objectives of the implementation, an assessment of the available resources and the scope of the implementation, the redesign/integration and organizational learning during the process, the implementation of the system, and the measurement and evaluation of its performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An integrated circuits design company in Taiwan was used in a case study to examine the validity of the proposed model.\nFindings: When the proposed ERP implementation model was applied in this study, the results show that organizational coordination, system-process redesign and integration, and organizational learning are the critical strategies for enterprises, in order to reduce the risks during the implementation of ERP projects.\nPractical implications: This model can help enterprises recognize the resources needed when implementing an ERP. In addition, they need to consider the reliability of these resources, as this will increase the efficiency of the implementation, and thus the probability of success.\nOriginality/value: Studies of past models in the implementation of ERP have been conducted in various industries. There is a need for further studies that evaluate the different concepts in terms of the effectiveness of specific methods, in order to enhance the probability of successfully implementing a dynamic system. This paper is one of the first to explain how an enterprise can implement an ERP that is based on the theory of dynamic capabilities. The case study illustrates the important, critical success factors.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Clarifying the impact of product scarcity and perceived uniqueness in buyers' purchase behavior of games of limited-amount version	[ "Consumer behavior", "PLS", "Behavioral psychology", "Consumption values" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Motivation: Electric games are now a big market. According to VGChartz, the world sales of game software have reached 1.88 million a week (VGChartz, 2013), and the world sales of game software have also amounted to 100 million (VGChartz, 2013). However, with the big market in electric games, international competition grows, too. Consequently, to understand consumers' purchase behavior of games is of critical importance.\n2 Literature background: 2.1 Electric games\n3 Research method: To make empirical verification of buyers' purchase behavior of games of limited-amount version, this study adopted the survey method. And to gather data, this study focused on buyers who recently purchased games of limited-amount version. The measure of buyers' perception was adopted.\n4 Data collection: Lots of game players played games on computing devices, such as PCs or tablet PCs, and thus a formal questionnaire was built online and planned to be responded by those who recently purchased games of limited-amount version. However, to assess enough buyers who had bought games of limited-amount version was still practically difficult. Hence, this study turned to Fancy Frontier Festival and Taiwan Taipei Touhou Event that were held for fans of comics or animation. A number of game players attended such activities because many games were developed based on popular comics or animations, and some comics or animations were also developed based on popular games. Finally, after the deduction of respondents who had not bought games of limited-amount version or the questionnaires of missing values, a total of two hundred and four questionnaires were valid.\n5 Data analysis: A total of 204 respondents were valid. Given the limited sample size, partial least square (PLS) was adopted for data analysis to verify hypotheses. PLS is a more and more commonly used data analysis method (Beatson et al., 2008; Berger, 1993; Drengner et al., 2008; Hsieh et al., 2008). It adopts the technique of bootstrapping for re-sampling and PLS method for coefficient estimation. It demonstrates accepted robustness, and the estimates are better, compared to maximum likelihood (ML) method (Henseler et al., 2009). It is also less demanding on sample size (Chin, 1998; Gefen et al., 2000; Ringle et al., 2005), and thus was used in this study.\n6 Discussion, and limitation and suggestions: 6.1 Discussion\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Different from general goods, games are intangible. Games of limited-amount version are much more expensive. However, the value of games cannot be actually validated, while buyers purchase the intangible goods. This study, therefore, aims to empirically clarify the impact of product scarcity and uniqueness in buyers' purchase of games of limited-amount version.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on literature review, the survey method was conducted. Data of 204 respondents who recently bought games of limited-amount version were gathered and analyzed with partial least square.\nFindings: The results showed that perceived quality and perceived uniqueness, significantly increased by product scarcity, was shown of significant positive impact on perceived value which significantly enhanced purchase intention.\nResearch limitations/implications: The results indicated the importance of high quality and the reflection of uniqueness in buyers' purchase of games of limited-amount version. The results also validated the effect of scarcity on intangible goods. Practically, the results facilitated strategic operation and marketing of game producers and suppliers in designing and marketing game software. The results also facilitated further theoretical development of goods scarcity.\nOriginality/value: Nowadays, product scarcity has been an important operation and marketing strategy to enterprises. Games are an industry of growing importance. However, the impact of scarcity in buyers' purchase of games of limited-amount version was still limited. The results validated the importance of scarcity and perceived uniqueness in intangible game goods purchase behavior. The validation of this study can provide references for strategic operation and marketing of the game industry.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Between structuration and translation: an approach of ICT appropriation	[ "Communication technologies", "Management technique", "Organizational change" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Failures of information communication technology (ICT) implementations in firms (Taylor et al., 2001) and constant evolution of technologies lead actors and organizations to reconsider management methods based on key success factors and get back to approaches that follow the interplay between actors and technologies. This interplay view affords a rich approach for understanding appropriation dynamics. At present, two major schools of thought are pursuing the study of information technology and appropriation. The first theory, largely associated with theory of structuration proposed by Giddens (1984), explains organizational appropriation of information technology across the dynamics of structuration (Barley, 1986; Orlikowski, 1992, 2000; DeSanctis and Poole, 1994). The second theory, of French origins, mobilizes the Actor Network Theory across the dynamics of translation (Callon, 1986; Akrich et al., 2002a, b; Latour, 1988, 2005; Letiche and Hagemeijer, 2004).Also, this paper focuses on the appropriation dynamics of information technologies from an empirical case involving 45 teachers in a school during the first year of use. After monitoring the structuration dynamics and the translation dynamics, I propose combining them as a tool for studying the complexity of appropriation. Thus, this approach is proposed to understand ICT appropriation.The first part introduces the theoretical bases. Combining the structurational model of technologies (Orlikowski, 1992, 2000) and Actor-Network Theory (Callon, 1986; Akrich et al., 2002a, b; Latour, 1988, 2005), I built a set of keys to identify the appropriation paths:* the structuration dynamic, which describes the interaction between the structure and actions;* the translation dynamic, which describes the interaction between users and ICT; and* appropriation paths which are the combination of both: the structuration dynamic and the translation dynamic.The second part is my study case: NotePlus. I describe both the context and the methodology. For one year, this program has focused on the emergence of appropriation of pedagogical software for teachers. From the information gathered, we can understand how the sociotechnical process enables the ICT to be appropriated. The third part presents and discusses the results. I describe the actors' evolutions during the case. This way, I observe the relation between information technology and work practices through the main elements of the structuration and the translation dynamics. Last, I identify the main appropriation paths.\n2 Theoretical bases to combine structuration and translation dynamics: 2.1 Structuration dynamic\n3 An empirical reading of appropriation dynamics: the Noteplus case: In this second part, I outline the study case. From NotePlus case, I would like to demonstrate how the structuration and translation dynamics explain the relations between ICT, actors, and organizations. Next, I describe the three iterative loops of appropriation of NotePlus.For a few years, French National Education has been developing a policy of computerization in schools to improve information flow and knowledge. After large investment in the IT infrastructure, the leaders hoped to introduce many new practices in teachers' work. For 2004, the aim was to implement an ICT for better student evaluation and follow up. This knowledge-base concerning students would offer the teachers a tool of analysis and decision. This ICT, which I call NotePlus, appears as a platform integrating a database server, client applications, and a web server in the last version. It was a major organizational innovation for the school, intended to promote many changes in teachers' practices.3.1 Materials and method\n4 Results and discussion: NotePlus appropriation paths: To shed light on appropriation paths, I describe the evolution of the enactment by the 45 teachers and the main elements of the translation dynamic during three iterative loops. Marked differences in technical knowledge led actors to adopt many ICT enacted forms during this first period (January-April 2004). Some teachers mastered NotePlus; others did not know this ICT at all. Each new iterative loop is an occasion for the actors to adopt an enactment form, renewed through the dynamic of controversies and compromises between the uses and enacted technology. Based on the initial enactment forms of each teacher, we will follow the evolution of the actors and define the principal paths of appropriation by teachers.4.1 Structuration dynamic: a typology of enactment forms\n5 Conclusion: The conceptualization of appropriation paths, as presented here, is anchored on a theoretical and methodological articulation. The coupling of the theory of structuration with the Actor Network Theory makes it possible to capture in time and space the process of appropriation. This analysis, through these grids of reading, revealed the sociotechnical complexity induced by the implementation of an ICT. Also, this complex phenomenon was simplified by the definition of enactment forms of the actors: \"essential,\" \"educated,\" \"assiduous,\" and \"indifferent.\" This categorization of the users, a result of the observations and the discussions with the teachers, represents a framework to identify the different actors' actions and representations. The appropriation dynamics can be identified through the collective processes of appropriation and the highlighting of the structuration and translation character of the phenomena of appropriation. To summarize, to understand the appropriation paths, I propose an approach articulated around three axes:1. building the typology of enactment forms;2. identifying the main components of the translation dynamic; and3. determining the evolution of the enactment forms by the actors through the translation dynamic: the appropriation paths.From these first results, I think that this methodology can be rebuilt, contextualized, and used in other precise settings.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Appropriation of information communication technology (ICT) drags tools and actors into a sociotechnical process. ICT, practices, and organizations are strongly modified. Only an interplay approach can reveal the complexity of relations between technology and work practices. The paper aims to focus on this.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - From the structurational model of technologies and Actor Network Theory, the author's approach of ICT appropriation in organizations is based on structuration and translation dynamics.\nFindings: - Combining these two dynamics, the paper sheds light on the appropriation paths. Through an implementation of management tool in the teaching world for one year, it focuses on the emergence of appropriation dynamics of pedagogic software by the teachers. This approach shows that actors and ICT changed around compromises in the network.\nOriginality/value: - The contribution of this paper is in the coupling of the structuration and translation dynamics of appropriation to identify the appropriation paths.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The V-model of service quality: an African case study	[ "Service management", "Personal construct theory", "Service quality", "Repertory grid", "V-Model of service quality" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Opportunities in Africa\nLiterature review: SERVQUAL blazes a trail: the emergence of service quality management\nV-model of service quality: a new model for service quality management: The VMSQ has been developed to separate out and deal with the three levels of concern:\nTesting the V-model of service quality in a multi-sector survey in Namibia: Namibia is a country in southwest Africa bordering South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Angola. It has a sparse population of about 2,212,000, spread over 824,292 sq km - about the same size as France and Germany combined, or about half the size of Alaska (Central Intelligence Agency, 2015). Namibia has a long history of colonisation and conflict, which ended in 1990 when the country gained independence from apartheid South Africa. One of the legacies of the apartheid era is a heavily polarised dual economy. Twenty-five years after independence, the bulk of the country's wealth is still concentrated in the hands of the white minority, with more than 60 per cent of the black majority living near or below the poverty line.\nDiscussion and conclusions: In this paper, we have discussed in some detail the application of the VMSQ as an approach which borrows precepts from PCT and the RepGrid, and extends them beyond the confines of data elicitation and construct building - typically seen as the principal purpose of RepGrid - to the operationalisation of those constructs in active service quality measurement.\nFinal word: This paper set out to present a new model for operationalising service quality measurement that is based on psychological theory, has methodological symmetry and reflects the inherent complexity of service quality management concepts. The VMSQ addresses all of these requirements and addresses many of the criticisms levelled at SERVQUAL and other service quality measurement methods. The illustrative survey of service quality in Namibia shows how detailed insight into service quality management can be gained at different levels, with symmetry, guided by the fundamental features of the VMSQ.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to introduce and demonstrate a new model for service quality that separates out the measurement of service quality in ways grounded in psychological theory and methodological symmetry.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A review of experience in service quality management suggests that new approaches are needed. By seeking a way of managing service at different levels, with symmetry between data collection and data analysis, a model is presented that has more potential applicability and flexibility than is found in traditional models.\nFindings: A national study in Namibia, Africa provided data that successfully demonstrate the method of working and illustrate the contextual, analytical and data management issues and the reporting potential out of complex service management data.\nResearch limitations/implications: This new approach to the design of service quality measurement and assessment extends the capability that is generally found in other existing approaches. It provides a new foundation for further research into complex patterns of service success and that will establish more clearly the inter-dependencies between service encounters, service attributes and service measures at the survey item level.\nPractical implications: Studies of multiple service sectors and multiple service recipient groups can now gather and manage large complex data sets and analyse and report that data in ways appropriate to the needs of different stakeholders.\nSocial implications: In any context where service quality is a socio-economic or development issue, it is now possible to take a more careful and nuanced approach to the collection and aggregation of data, which will inform policy makers and other stakeholder groups at the national or regional level.\nOriginality/value: This new model addresses a range of problems that have been reported with historical approaches such as SERVQUAL and related methods of working. It also provides foundations for new designs for large-scale service management data collection, organisation and analysis.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Market segmentation in the cell phone market among adolescents and young adults	[ "Mobile communication", "High school students", "Undergraduate students", "Cell phone features", "Market segmentation", "Cluster analysis", "Finland", "United Arab Emirates", "Canada", "China", "New Zealand" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Cell phones as ubiquitous communication devices: The cell phone has become one of the most ubiquitous communication devices particularly among younger audiences (Oksman, 2006) so that their value as status symbols is starting to diminish (Geser, 2004). Recent statistics by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU, 2011) indicate that there were almost 6 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide in 2011 with a global penetration of 87 percent in the developed and 79 percent in the developing world. Most of this growth has been driven by the increased penetration in the so-called BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) (Cellular News, 2010). The countries under investigation in this study have varying degrees of cell phone penetrations with Finland leading the pack with 156.4 per 100 inhabitants. This is followed by 145.5 in United Arab Emirates, 114.9 in New Zealand, 70.7 in Canada, and 64.4 in China.\n2 Theoretical background: 2.1 Age and the use of cell phone\n3 Methodology: 3.1 Sample and respondent characteristics\n4 Data analysis and discussion: 4.1 Cluster analysis results\n5 Interpretation of the cluster analysis results: As indicated earlier background questions were asked from the respondents for profiling purposes. These background questions included gender, country of residence and the frequency of usage of the following cell phone functions: SMS, phone, games, camera+video, music, e-mail, internet, calendar and calculator.\n6 Discussion and implications: The purpose of this study was to investigate whether inter-market segments exist in the multi-country setting consisting of Finland, United Arab Emirates, China, Canada, and New Zealand in the adolescents and young adults cell phone product-market. The statistical approach used a two-step cluster analysis as recommended in the literature (Hair et al., 2006; Wong et al., 2010).\n7 Limitations of the study and future research: The validity of the results of this study in other settings and contexts can be questioned. First of all the country settings for this study were Finland, United Arab Emirates, China, Canada and New Zealand. While the number of countries present was significantly larger and more versatile in terms of geographical scope than in any other previous study, it would be important to validate the results of the study in a even wider geographical scope.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the existence of inter-market market segments in the adolescents' and young adults' cell phone product-market in Finland, United Arab Emirates, Canada, China, and New Zealand. Drawing upon cell phone feature preferences criteria cited by Isiklar and Buyukozkan, the existence of inter-market market segments using these feature preferences as the cluster variate was examined.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using a survey questionnaire, data was gathered from 403 high school and 892 undergraduate students in Finland, UAE, China, Canada and New Zealand.\nFindings: The results of the study suggest the inter-market market segments do exist in the countries of this study, but their existence varies to some degree by country.\nOriginality/value: An important implication of the research is the existence of the five inter-market segments among the adolescents and young adults in the five countries was established. Consequently, the inter-market segments extend over the borders. The five inter-market segments exist in all country markets except in New Zealand, which included only four segments. These five segments also appear to be unique and large enough in size, which are the key requirements in terms of successful segmentation, and thus warrant the development of unique products, services and marketing programs for the segments.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Drivers of green supply chain initiatives and performance: Evidence from the electrical and electronics industries in Taiwan	[ "Taiwan", "Institutional theory", "Bootstrapping procedures", "Drivers of GSC initiatives", "Electrical and electronics industries", "Green supply chain initiatives", "Stewardship theory" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Environmental sustainability drives enterprises not only to develop green and sustainable innovations (Huang and Yang, 2014; Wu et al., 2014; Lo and Shiah, 2016) but also to move toward green supply chains (GSCs) and sustainable supply chain initiatives (Wu et al., 2012; Govindan et al., 2016; Lo and Shiah, 2016). GSC initiatives have created a valuable philosophy that helps companies and their partners achieve their corporate profit and market share targets by reducing their environmental risk and influence while improving their ecological efficiency (Zhu et al., 2008; Azevedo et al., 2011). Many GSC studies have identified the internal and external drivers of GSC initiatives (Zhu et al., 2005, 2013; Zhu and Sarkis, 2006; Dai et al., 2014; Lo and Shiah, 2016), however, the effects of internal and external pressure/drivers on GSC initiatives have rarely been investigated simultaneously. To fill this gap, this study integrates institutional theory and stewardship theory to explore how internal and external pressures or drivers motivate enterprises to implement GSC initiatives.\nLiterature review: GSC initiatives\nHypotheses development: Research model\nMethods: Construct measures\nResults: Data validity\nDiscussion: Direct effects\nConclusions: This study integrates the four research streams of institutional theory, stewardship theory, GSC initiatives, and view of performance to create a comprehensive research model about the drivers of GSC initiatives and performance. These relationships are tested using a sample of electrical and electronics manufacturers in Taiwan. The external drivers are examined at the field level using institutional theory, while the internal drivers are studied at the organization level using stewardship theory.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how internal and external factors simultaneously drive firms to adopt green supply chain (GSC) initiatives and to construct a comprehensive research model by drawing upon institutional theory, stewardship theory, and view of performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data collected from 380 manufacturers in the electrical and electronics industries in Taiwan were analyzed via structural equation modeling and bootstrapping.\nFindings: First, institutional pressures affect the GSC initiatives of firms. Second, institutional pressures influence the environmental stewardship behaviors (ESBs) of managers. Third, the ESBs of managers affect the GSC initiatives of firms. Fourth, the GSC initiatives of firms influence their environmental performance, economic performance, and competitiveness. Fifth, the bootstrapping results reveal that institutional pressures indirectly affect the GSC initiatives of firms through the ESBs of managers.\nResearch limitations/implications: Environmental sustainability has intensified the need for firms to develop a corporate culture. Future research can investigate the relationship among the institutional pressures, greening corporate culture, and GSC initiatives of firms.\nPractical implications: Those managers facing institutional pressures must continually focus on the effects of external factors on the GSC initiatives of their firms. They must also increase their commitment and support to such initiatives to attain favorable levels of environmental performance, economic performance, and competitiveness.\nOriginality/value: This study integrates four streams of literature on institutional theory, stewardship theory, GSC initiatives, and view of performance. Apart from analyzing field- and organization-level data simultaneously, this paper is also the first to demonstrate the relationships among institutional pressures, ESBs of managers, GSC initiatives, and firm performance.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
When performance improvement coaching for your salesperson goes badly: a conceptual approach to dealing with negative reactions	[ "Skills", "Development", "Coaching", "Salesperson", "Performance improvement", "Sales performance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Feedback is a gift! When the gift giver is your sales manager, salespeople stand to benefit from a solution-oriented approach to performance-improvement coaching. Within the sales organization, this form of coaching is a sequence of conversations and activities geared specifically toward providing ongoing feedback and encouragement toward improving salesperson performance (Dahling et al., 2016). A study by the HR Chally Group (2007) found that salespeople who received at least half a day per week of one-on-one coaching with their managers were twice as productive as other salespeople and outperformed them by more than 17 per cent of quota on average. But not all coaching and professional development interactions are alike. Argyris and Schon (1974) describe the most productive professional development and learning interactions as cooperative and problem-solving in nature. This early view reinforces the notion that the most effective coaching goes beyond merely directing salespeople how to improve.\nNegative reactions as manifestations of a basic issue: Miller and Heiman (2005) describe a customer objection as a manifestation of a basic issue. Simply stated, when customer raise objections, they are verbalizing the hidden cause of their reluctance. This notion may be applied to coaching salespeople. Although a manager may have the best intentions to positively impact salesperson performance, a salesperson may not view it this way. As a result, performance-improvement feedback coaching may be met with resistance and negative reaction. Examples might include:\nTheoretical underpinnings: To begin to deal with a salesperson's negative reaction to coaching, it is important to first better understand the basis for these impulses. Argyris and Schon (1974) describe such reactions as \"action strategies\" designed to protect one's sense of self-worth, competence, or pride. In their integrative review of professional sales coaching, Badrinarayanan et al. (2015) suggest that approaches to coaching salespeople for improved performance may be rooted in psychological theory.\nA conceptual approach: Given that negative reactions to sales manager performance-improvement coaching are manifestations of basic psychological issues, we can begin to apply some tactical examples of sales coaching conversations. Dealing with a salesperson's negative reaction should be treated like the process of handling any sales objection, issue, or concern. First, recognizing or clarifying the negative reaction to reveal the basic issue may be accomplished by asking questions (\"help me to understand your concern with me traveling with you\"), reflecting (\"so, you feel there are no areas which you can improve upon your questioning techniques\"), or merely showing empathy for the concern (\"I understand that it may be difficult to try something new\"). Next, responding to the negative reaction serves to clarify or explain the purpose. Reminding salespeople that your focus is on helping them develop and refine their skills so they can achieve personal objectives should be the key message here.\nDiscussion: The nature of human behavior when given feedback is to protect against psychological harm (e.g. appearing incompetent). Thus, it is not surprising that performance-improvement coaching may be met with less than enthusiastic responses. The research and review of Argyris (1991) describes a \"double loop learning\" model for managers to approach performance-improvement feedback coaching (Figure 1). Here, learning occurs when the subject is able to question or offer counter viewpoints that may lead to better problem-solving. Through their negative reactions, salespeople are basically questioning the underlying motive or rationale for the feedback. This \"double loop\" learning or feedback mechanism provides an opportunity for sales managers to provide a shift in understanding in the mind of the salesperson. Thus, what may seem as \"pushback\" may in essence provide an opportunity for both to engage in meaningful problem-solving discussions.\nImplications for researchers and practitioners: Coaching salespeople to improve their performance is as much an art as it is a science. These discussions are important, as they serve to provide actionable strategies to help salespeople move toward peak performance. However, equally important is the emotional commitment on the part of the salesperson to be coached. The conceptual research presented in this paper provides scholars the underlying psychological basis and theory to better understand various negative reactions to performance-improvement coaching from salespeople. For practicing sales managers, this could help shape the most constructive approaches to deal with salesperson negative responses. By incorporating the strategies discussed here, sales managers can put themselves in the best position for their coaching efforts to be received more favorably by salespeople and for their feedback to indeed be viewed as a gift.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework and conceptualization of approaches to salespersons' negative reactions to performance-improvement coaching. This is done by first depicting \"negative reaction to coaching\" (such as defensiveness, reluctance, fear, confusion, or apathy) as the manifestation of an underlying psychological \"basic issue\" held by the salesperson. Next, from the sales coaching and psychology literature, the theoretical underpinnings of the following coaching approaches are introduced: humanistic, behavioral, cognitive, and psychodynamic. Finally, applications of coaching conversations are presented for each \"basic issue\" and \"coaching approach\" pairing.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study is conceptual and is depicted using a framework illustration (table) of how each negative reaction to coaching (i.e. basic issue) maps to a theoretical approach rooted in the psychology and coaching literature.\nFindings: Dealing with a rep's negative reaction to performance-improvement coaching should be treated like the process of handling any sales objection, issue, or concern. This process consists of, first, recognizing, clarifying, or attempting to better understand the rep's negative reaction; and second, responding to the negative reaction using the appropriate psychology-rooted coaching approach to clarify or explain the purpose or rationale for coaching. Examples and sample coaching conversations are presented for each negative reaction-coaching approach pairing.\nResearch limitations/implications: The conceptual research presented in this paper provides scholars one way to view and understand such negative reactions to performance-improvement coaching from salespeople, as it maps to the underlying psychological basic issues (behind negative reactions) and theoretical basis (to coaching approaches). Using the framework of Argyris and Schon, this paper conceptualizes these negative reactions to coaching as \"action strategies\" as a rep's means to protect him/herself psychologically.\nPractical implications: For practicing sales managers (coaches), a better understanding of negative reactions to performance-improvement coaching and underlying theoretical approaches to responding to them could better help shape the most constructive coaching conversations with reps. These conversations should follow the same format as responding to a customer objection (e.g. better understand the reaction and then respond to it).\nOriginality/value: This conceptual paper blends the theory and practice of sales coaching by providing a framework to aid sales managers in overcoming and minimizing the obstacles posed by salespeople when they are not open to coaching conversations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
An analysis of product-place co-branding: the case of Ceylon Tea	[ "Place branding", "Ceylon Tea", "Product-place co-branding", "Strategic place brand-management model" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: With globalization, place branding emerged as a powerful instrument and it is increasingly popular among both commentators and practitioners alike. As per Skinner (2008), the declining trend of traditional businesses, the growing importance of the service industry to economies and the key role played by the tourism industry in many countries have led to the wide use of place branding in practice, as well as its study in literature. Maheshwari et al. (2014) studied the interrelationships between various stakeholder groups in developing place branding and proposed a relationship framework for place branding as a platform for business development. The effectiveness of both physical place brand communication and word-of-mouth place brand communication is observed by Braun et al. (2014). The application of brand theory to the marketing of places has been discussed by academics and practitioners (Balakrishnan, 2008; Bennett and Savani, 2003; Florek, 2005; Hankinson, 2001; Hanna and Rowley, 2008; Moilanen and Rainisto, 2009; Morgan et al., 2003; Rios et al., 2014; Zhang and Merunka, 2015). The use of branding principles, especially key elements such as authenticity, essence, equity, ownership, governance and communication are found to be of particular importance for towns, cities, regions and countries (Aitken and Campelo, 2011; Basfirinci, 2013; Katsumata and Song, 2016). Therefore, the influence of local culture and community identity are of fundamental importance when attempting to define, represent and understand the managerial aspects of a place brand (Aitken and Campelo, 2011; Deb and Sinha, 2016).\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Development of the research question\n3. Methodology: The research employs an exploratory case study method to explore the research question as it allows the researcher to investigate a phenomenon in depth and in its real-life (Yin, 2009). This is appropriate for the current study as product-place co-branding can be unique to countries and brands. A similar approach has been followed in previous research studies in the area of place branding (Balakrishnan, 2008; Bennett and Savani, 2003; Florek, 2005; Hankinson, 2001; Hanna and Rowley, 2008; Moilanen and Rainisto, 2009; Morgan et al., 2003).\n4. Findings of the study: In this section, data gathered on the development and use of Ceylon Tea product-place co-brand is evaluated with respect to the place branding concepts in SPBM (Hanna and Rowley, 2011). First, it is important to note that the components in SPBM are highly interrelated and tightly knitted (Hanna and Rowley, 2011). Therefore, some evidence can be related to more than one component. However, certain evidences are more salient for specific components, and are presented in the following analysis. Although studying the interrelationships between these components is another interesting stage, the current study does not address this.\n5. Discussion and implications: The study explored the applicability of components of SPBM (Hanna and Rowley, 2011) in the process of developing a successful product-place co-brand by focussing on the case of Sri Lanka's tea industry. The evidence and analysis suggest that all the components of the SPBM have been actively utilized and are continuously used in the successful management of the Ceylon Tea brand.\n6. Conclusion and limitations: This study evaluates the applicability of the SPBM for a product-place co-branding context, focussing on Sri Lanka's tea industry. The analysis indicates that SPBM is applicable to the Ceylon Tea case, although certain aspects, such as brand evaluation and brand infrastructure development, appear to be reactive than proactive in nature. In light of the budding interest in product-place co-branding, the paper offers significant insights into the use of SPBM to examine, implement and manage product-place co-branding.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the applicability of the strategic place brand-management model (SPBM) for a product-place co-branding context, focussing on Sri Lanka's tea industry.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Conducted as an exploratory case study, pattern matching and explanation building methods are employed to analyse data from secondary sources such as archival data and documentation.\nFindings: Strategic components of place branding in SPBM are applicable for product-place co-branding, as evidenced in Sri Lanka's tea industry, although key strategies appear to be reactive rather than proactive in this context.\nPractical implications: The findings provide reassuring guidance to practitioners on applying strategic place branding models in product-place co-branding settings, given the unique risks associated with product-place co-branding.\nOriginality/value: Given the novelty of and the need to advance knowledge on product-place co-branding as a component of place branding, this study extends extant literature on the use of SPBM in a successful product-place co-branding setting. Additionally, it extends the value of place branding concepts for industries other than popularly studied tourism.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Preferential treatment in the service encounter	[ "Satisfaction", "Customer satisfaction", "Trust", "Perceived justice", "Service encounters", "Preferential treatment" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Some service-marketing scholars and numerous practitioners believe that it is beneficial for service firms to provide customers with preferential treatment. Such preferential treatment may include offering a customer a better price, placing a customer higher on a priority list if there is a queue, and giving a customer more attention or faster service than other customers. Preferential treatment implies that the customer is receiving something \"extra\" that other customers do not receive at all or do not receive to the same extent (Jiang et al., 2013). Some scholars identify a positive association between receiving preferential treatment and certain variables, such as customer satisfaction, customer commitment, purchase behavior, positive word-of-mouth, and customer share (Gwinner et al., 1998; Lacey, 2007). This suggests that preferential treatment produces benefits for the customer who receives the treatment and for the firm providing it.\nTheoretical framework and hypotheses: In the sections below, we develop arguments and hypotheses regarding the consequences for the service customer of receiving or not receiving preferential treatment in the presence of other customers. Based on equity theory, we distinguish among four main types of rewards for a focal customer and their implications for two outcome variables: perceived justice and customer satisfaction.\nResearch method: Overview\nAnalysis and results: Manipulation check\nDiscussion: Summary of main findings\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine reactions when customers in service encounters receive preferential treatment (i.e. something extra in relation to other customers). The examination is conducted in a social context that allows the customer to compare what he or she receives with what other customers receive. The main effect variables are perceived justice and customer satisfaction.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An experimental method is employed to examine the effects of providing customers with preferential treatment. The study involves four treatment groups with various combinations of receiving or not receiving preferential treatment.\nFindings: Customers perceived preferential treatment as relatively unjust. This was true for customers who received the preferential treatment and for those who did not. However, customer satisfaction among those receiving preferential treatment was enhanced, thus signaling that preferential treatment affects perceived justice and satisfaction differently. In addition, different contexts for receiving preferential treatment (i.e. receiving it alone or sharing it with another customer) produced different levels of customer satisfaction.\nOriginality/value: The extant research on preferential treatment has failed to acknowledge that this treatment often occurs in the presence of several customers, which is likely to evoke perceptions of justice. At the same time, extant research on perceived justice in service situations has mainly focussed on service failures as antecedents of justice perceptions. This study attempts to extend theory on both preferential treatment and perceived justice in service-encounter settings.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Strategy-driven B2B promotions	[ "Motivation (psychology)", "Advertising", "Business‐to‐business marketing", "Market research methods" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this article.\nWho is the true decision-maker?: Knowing exactly who to motivate can be tricky. Even for a single product in a single target segment, there can be several answers.UPS's Next Day Air(r) delivery service, for example, must appeal to a wide range of different types of decision-makers in different corporations. In large companies, the people most likely to choose the overnight delivery service are often the administrative assistants. However, in some companies, the whole corporation has a contract with UPS or FedEx. There, decisions are made by purchasing agents who enter into annual contracts with a single supplier. In other companies, everything gets sent to the mail room, where staff chooses which service to call. And in small businesses, the decision-maker could be either the administrative assistant, the owner or perhaps even the owner's spouse, son or daughter who helps out in the office.To simply say that the target is \"large corporations\" or \"small or home offices\" is not, therefore, adequate. This is an especially important consideration in planning strategy-driven promotions, because each of the possible decision-makers may be motivated by different things.How can marketers find out who they should be motivating within each target segment? For products or services that require face-to-face interaction, such as big-ticket items or contracts, the sales force has probably invested time and effort in learning how decisions are made and who is involved and can, therefore, provide valuable information. The only caveat is that sometimes salespeople, especially those with less experience, misidentify key players and thus overestimate the decision-making power of the people they know. As a senior executive at ADP observed, \"Our new salespeople often 'sell low and service low' and can miss an entire level in the payroll outsourcing decision-making process\"[1]. When there is less sales force interaction or when many small decisions get made daily (as in the UPS Next Day Air(r) delivery situation), market research is the only practical way to determine who is making the buying decision. A mail, telephone or online survey of purchasing departments at companies with more than 1,000 employees could ask, \"Who makes the decisions in your company regarding overnight shipping of small packages?\" and \"Are decisions left to individuals or made on a corporate level?\"Compiling results on an aggregate basis would yield information such as, \"Most companies in the aerospace industry use contracts,\" or \"Most advertising agencies leave overnight shipping decisions to the administrative staff.\" This information is helpful in designing mass-marketing campaigns or in directing salespeople to companies with centralized decision-making. The findings could also be used as part of a database on individual companies. Decision-makers could be motivated using, for example, personalized direct mail or e-mail.\nWhat excites the decision-maker?: The two factors to consider in determining how to appeal to each type of decision-maker are first, what does the decision-maker care about, and second, how important is the product or service in the decision-maker's world?Intrinsic motivators versus extrinsic motivators\nWhat is holding the buyer back?: B2B companies can usually produce plausible ideas for what is preventing customers from buying their product: price, service mistakes, billing glitches, etc. As valuable as this approach is, it can oversimplify, overlook and even misread real demotivators. By focusing attention on the prospects themselves, some companies have uncovered the following barriers to purchase:The buyer is suffering from sheer inertia. There is no compelling reason to make a decision, so it is easier not to make any commitment.The buyer is too busy with other issues to think about the product or service.The product or service does not offer enough value for the money. The benefits are nice, but when the budget must be cut, this expenditure goes.The features do not match up with what the buyer is looking for.The buyer anticipates product/service improvements or price reductions, so decides to postpone the purchase.The buyer wants more information before making a decision.The buyer doubts his or her company's capability to use the product to achieve the desired benefits.The funds are not currently available to make the purchase.The task of the strategic marketer is to spearhead customized solutions to these demotivation problems, but only after making sure the real problems have been identified.\nEvaluating the effectiveness of promotions: Promotions must pay. Frank Grillo, a top marketing executive, requires that his product managers make the following calculation on every marketing program:Number of incremental units generated by the programTimes revenue per unitMinus incremental cost per unitMinus cost of the programEquals return on the marketing program.To determine the number of incremental units sold, the marketer needs a reliable projection of business-as-usual volume that accounts for seasonal variations, geography and econometric factors. Alternatively, the marketer can carve out a control group - a market that does not receive the promotion, is exactly like the group that does, and experiences the same advertising and competitive activity. The list below provides more details on testing promotion and motivation programs:1. Use multiple tests for different motivation programs; testing more than one program together can be confusing.2. Test to isolate the effects of the different pieces of a multifaceted program. For example, if you have a program that uses incentives to the sales force plus advertising to customers, you could set up different tests:advertising only;sales promotion only;advertising plus sales promotion;no program (control group);Keep as much constant as possible;keep test areas \"clean\";conduct no ad hoc turf promotions during test;keep timing constant to minimize seasonal effect;use similar geography with representative demographics, psychographics, firmographics;keep executional details the same (same ads, same timing, same values, etc.); andkeep control area \"business as usual.\"1. Consider variables that can affect results:spending levels;execution of different components;details of promotions - timing, incentive plans, value of offer;segmentation and customer details; andgrowth rates in target population.1. Before the test:choose isolatable and representative test areas;understand product history in test and control areas; aandisolate causal events by comparing with history in test and control areas.1. During/after the test:isolate the timing correctly - don't count a mid-month start as a whole month, for example; and*follow the test area for a few months after the test to see if the incentive \"stuck\" or if it cannibalized future sales.The following are useful questions to ask in determining the costs and benefits of a promotion:1. Did the promotion cannibalize other offerings?2. Did the competitors' response affect the results? Can the competitors afford to continue their response, or will a second implementation of the program do better?3. Did the promotion create customer expectations that will be hard to meet later? (Price promotion is the classic case in point, but even sampling or piggybacking can create expensive expectations.)4. Did the promotion enhance the image of the product or service rather than cheapening or diluting it? Did the tone of the promotion fit with the overall message about the offering?5. Were there hidden costs, e.g. enhancing a Web site, developing print materials or unmeasured postage costs for direct mail?6. Was there enough time to make this promotion work effectively and to evaluate the results? Not only do most promotions take considerable time to implement, but the effects may not be immediately apparent.Finally, motivational programs can be expensive, and their results can be hard to pin down. Historical data can serve as a good starting point, but if the company is running a major advertising campaign or increasing sales force activity concurrently with the promotion, these might account for gains that would otherwise be credited to the promotion. Every promotion should be evaluated against a baseline - what would have happened to the business without the program - to determine its value and true cost.Strategy-driven promotions that truly motivate potential customers can be considered a cornerstone of the customer learning curve, because they move prospects from the most basic requirements of purchase (need, awareness, access) to the payoffs (purchase, learning how to use, experiencing value, and developing loyalty).\nManagerial implications: To motivate customers to buy, business-to-business companies need to clearly define their target markets, their compelling points-of-difference, and the proofs that make their claims credible. Their promotional strategies must pinpoint why potential customers aren't buying their products, then develop specific programs to overcome these barriers. Any successful strategy must help the customer down \"the customer learning curve\" - the mental process from having a need, but perhaps not even knowing it - all the way through to being a loyal, repeat customer.Some key questions must be answered:1. Who is the true decision-maker at my target company? Each of several possible decision-makers may be motivated by different things. Market research may be required to determine who is making the buying decision.2. What excites the decision-maker? The motivator may be intrinsic - when a product or service is either captivating or critical to a prospect's business. Or the motivator may be extrinsic and require promotions that borrow self-interest to be successful. Great motivation programs pinpoint the reason that knowledgeable prospects are not buying, then define the exact behavior that will overcome this inertia.3. What is holding the buyer back? Companies must focus attention on the prospects themselves to uncover the barriers to purchase. After the demotivators have been identified, companies must develop customized solutions to these problems.Finally, any promotion and motivation program must be evaluated against a baseline to determine its value and true cost.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Typically, business-to-business (B2B) promotions are price cuts that drain profits and erode brand equity for the sake of short-term volume gains. This paper shows how to elevate B2B promotions to a central place in implementing strategy - creating extra value for customers, building brand equity, improving profits, and permanently increasing sales.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The article examines nine successful non-price promotions and shows the patterns and principles that made them work.\nFindings: - The article posits a new conceptual model that organizes the findings from the nine cases: \"the customer learning curve.\" Strategy-driven promotions move customers down this mental process from having a need - but perhaps not even knowing it - all the way through to being advocates for the firm and its products.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The model provides a framework for analyzing existing, and designing future, decision-oriented market research.\nPractical implications: - Strategy-driven promotions focus on overcoming barriers to purchase. The best are specific (don't ask the promotion to do the whole job); creative (go beyond the conventional, \"drop the price\" thinking); customer-centered (borrow interest from something the customer really cares about); measurable (if you can't measure it, you can't learn from it); and brand enhancing (don't fall into the trap of eroding brand equity).)\nOriginality/value: - The customer learning curve is an original conceptual model and practical problem-solving tool. The nine cases provide original examples.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Network uniformity and risk of reclassification of the franchise contract	[ "Contract", "Franchise", "Litigation", "Employee", "Contract reclassification", "Uniformity" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: According to experts in franchising, \"[m]aintaining a consistent brand image can help build business in any industry, but for franchises consistency is imperative for success and survival\" (Flosdorf, 2002). In the same vein, \"[b]rand identity, or image, is one of the most prized assets of successful franchise organizations. Yet, while most franchisors today build excellent brand recognition through national advertising and marketing programs, many fail to extend brand identity to every marketing piece used by their franchisees\" (Oseland, 1995). This question of network consistency or network uniformity has also been explored in the academic literature on franchising, in the case of physical stores (Cox and Mason, 2007; Kaufmann and Eroglu, 1998) and, very recently, in the case of franchisees' web sites (Perrigot et al., 2013a, b.\nLiterature review: This literature review aims to link network uniformity requirements and franchise contract reclassification.\nResearch methodology: Multiple cases approach\nFindings: In this section, we illustrate the two types of reclassification of franchise contracts using four French cases, firstly as a branch manager contract and secondly as an employment contract.\nDiscussion: In this section, contributions to research and managerial and legal implications are discussed before dealing with limitations and research perspectives.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Network uniformity is crucial in franchising, but an excessive number of imposed constraints to maintain this uniformity jeopardizes a franchisee's independence and too much independence given to franchisees jeopardizes franchise network uniformity. So, how to find an equilibrium and avoid the reclassification of a franchise contract as a branch manager contract or as an employment contract with all its related consequences? The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research is based on a multiple cases approach. The four complementary cases deal with Yves Rocher (cosmetics and body/face care), Bata (shoes), Fiventis (real estate, life insurance and tax-sheltered savings products), and France Acheminement (express transportation), all analyzed in the French context.\nFindings: A franchise contract can be reclassified as a branch manager contract if there is economic dependence or as an employment contract if there is a legal subordination relationship. These reclassifications have not only financial consequences, but also an impact in terms of image.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research is based on secondary data. Collecting data along with interviews of franchisors and franchisees would be beneficial.\nPractical implications: The research is of specific interest to franchisors, franchise experts and lawyers in terms of minimizing the possible risks of facing such types of reclassification of franchise contracts. It can also inform franchisees who may be running their businesses under such conditions.\nOriginality/value: This paper uses a business and law approach in order to analyze the paradox of network uniformity and franchisee autonomy and raises the question of \"how to find equilibrium?\"\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A question of false self-esteem: Organization-based self-esteem and narcissism in organizational contexts	[ "Organization‐based self‐esteem", "Narcissism", "Employee attitudes and behaviors", "Negative feedback", "Hostility", "Self esteem", "Motivation (psychology)", "Employees" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Professionals working in many sectors of society (e.g. education, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, prisoner reform, human resource management and organizational psychology) have expressed great interest in self-esteem. This interest has focused on the origins of self-esteem, as well as its individual, interpersonal, community and organizational effects. A pre-requisite to a scientifically-based understanding of self-esteem and its consequences is a repertoire of unbiased measures of self-esteem. Contamination of measures of self-esteem would complicate attempts to assess levels of self-esteem, rendering questionable the validity of any cause and effect observations. This in turn would frustrate attempts to track changes in self-esteem, as well as impede efforts to manage and/or effect healthy changes in this self-conceptualization. This study explores one major potential contaminant of self-esteem measures, narcissism, and one specific type of self-esteem, organization-based self-esteem. We accomplish this by developing and testing nomological networks that describe each of the constructs, which includes the organizational and management correlates of each.\nOrganization-based self-esteem: Building upon the notion that self-esteem is a multifaceted and hierarchical phenomenon (e.g. Horberg and Chen, 2010; Korman, 1970), and a general belief (see Coopersmith, 1967; Kirkpatrick et al., 2002) that self-esteem may develop around any number of self-related domains (e.g. social-, physical- and spiritual-self), Pierce et al. (1989, (p. 625) introduced a construct they termed organization-based self-esteem (OBSE). They defined OBSE as \"the degree to which an individual believes him/herself to be capable, significant, and worthy as an organizational member\". Employees with high levels of OBSE have come to a deep-seated (absolute, unquestioning) belief that \"I count around here\", and \"I am an important part of this place\" (items from the OBSE scale; Pierce et al., 1989), reflecting a self-judgment of one's organizational worthiness (Coopersmith, 1967).Early in one's organizational tenure, such as when an individual first joins an organization, OBSE is an outer-level conceptualization of the self. As such it is malleable in nature - an unstable and shifting sense of self - and somewhat state-like. Over time and with the accumulation of organizational experiences this view of the self transitions to an inner-level conceptualization (see Campbell, 1990). It becomes more-and-more trait-like such that it eventually becomes a relatively stable belief about one's worthiness within his or her work and organizational roles. Only a sustained, different set of organizational experiences would be expected to change the level of an employee's OBSE.Theoretical antecedents of OBSE\nNarcissism: Conceptually, narcissism has been defined as \"grandiosity with preoccupation over one's status compared to, and in the eyes of, others\" (Barry et al., 2007, p. 934). Gregg and Sedikides (2010, p. 142) describe the narcissist as a person who is characteristically \"egocentric, prone to illusions of superiority and specialness, and liable to be interpersonally abrasive or aggressive\". Other characterizations of the narcissistic personality include a sense of entitlement, lack of empathy, an excessive need for admiration, and arrogant (haughty) attitudes and behaviors (American Psychiatric Association, 1980; Ouimet, 2010).We note here that in this study we examine narcissism from a social-personality perspective, that is, a trait that is normally distributed in the population and for which there is no definitive \"cutoff\" for designating some people as being narcissists. This is in contrast to psychiatric-clinical approaches that focus on Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), a relatively rare psychopathology that causes substantial distress and impairment in the victim's life (Campbell et al., in press). Here we focus on the \"more common occurrences of narcissism\" within the normal population rather than the rare and qualitatively different NPD, the former of which is the type of narcissism that most organizations are likely to encounter (Campbell et al., in press).Theoretical antecedents of narcissism\nNarcissism and organization-based self-esteem: The narcissism - OBSE relationship\nMethod: Study design\nResults: Table I includes the descriptive statistics for all of the study variables, their coefficient alphas (on the diagonal), and their inter-correlations. The coefficient alphas for this sample were acceptable for all of the measures (>0.70 with the exception of intrinsic motivation at 0.63). The correlations between measures allow for an initial examination of support for the study hypotheses. In support of H1, there was a statistically significant correlation between narcissism and OBSE (r=0.23, p < 0.01). H2a and H2b received support as OBSE correlated with job satisfaction (r=0.48, p < 0.01) and job involvement (r=0.35, p < 0.01). H2c, H2d, and H2e received support as OBSE correlated with intrinsic motivation (r=0.43, p < 0.01), in-role performance (r=0.17; p < 0.01), and helping behaviors (r=0.20, p < 0.01) and voice behaviors (r=0.20, p < 0.01) in the expected direction.Contrary to H3a, H3b and H3c there were statistically significant positive correlations between narcissism and job satisfaction (r=0.28, p < 0.01), job involvement (r=0.18, p < 0.01), and intrinsic motivation (r=0.14, p < 0.05). H3d and H3e received no support, as narcissism failed to correlate significantly with in-role performance or extra-role behaviors (helping or voice).H4 received mixed support. There was no statistically significant relationship between narcissism and effort after negative feedback (H4a). H4b was supported as there was a positive correlation with hostility towards negative feedback sources (r=0.18, p < 0.01). H5 also received mixed support. In support of H5a OBSE correlated positively with effort (r=0.28, p < 0.01), but H5b was not supported, as OBSE did not correlate significantly with hostility (r=-0.06). Altogether, these observations suggest support for hypothesized relationships involving OBSE, and very little for the hypotheses involving narcissism.To provide a more precise examination of the degree to which OBSE relationships might be biased by its association with narcissism (\"false self-esteem\"), the product moment OBSE correlations in Table I were calculated again after controlling for variance associated with narcissism (partial correlations). These correlations appear above the diagonal in Table I. Of particular interest are the correlations between OBSE and the dependent variables, before and after controlling for narcissism (which appear in italics in Table I). The changes in the magnitudes of the correlations after controlling for narcissism were negligible (<0.04 which appeared between the correlation between OBSE and hostility). This provides continued support for H2a-H2e (involving OBSE, and job satisfaction, job involvement, intrinsic motivation, and in-role, helping, and voice performance), as well as H5a (involving OBSE and effort after the receipt of negative feedback). These observations also provide support for the construct validity of the OBSE measure, as it appears to be unbiased by narcissism.\nDiscussion: Three major observations emerge from the current study. First, we found that narcissism and OBSE correlate positively, but that the magnitude of the correlation is quite small. In addition, results from the partial correlation analyses demonstrate that relationships between OBSE and the studies' other variables are not affected by variance associated with narcissism. Overall there is considerable evidence that our measures of narcissism (the NPI) and OBSE are mostly independent of one another. Thus, from a measurement perspective, it appears that the OBSE measure is not biased by narcissism.Second, despite the characterization of narcissists as being abrasive and difficult to satisfy, this did not seem to be the case. Narcissism correlated positively with job satisfaction, job involvement, and intrinsic motivation. Narcissists do not seem to be overly critical of their organizations, or their roles within them. It is feasible that narcissists are effective at finding organizations and roles that enable them to satisfy their self-aggrandizing needs. On the other hand, it may be that these positive relationships with narcissism are spurious, and are actually reflecting relationships with global self-esteem (Sedikides et al., 2004). Future research should examine these same relationships after controlling for global self-esteem.Narcissists were neither better nor worse job performers than non-narcissists, when rated by co-workers. These ratings included measures of both extra-role (voice, helping) and in-role behaviors. This is an especially interesting finding given that narcissists are more likely to belittle and manipulate fellow workers than their supervisors, who have legitimate power over them. It may be that narcissists are sufficiently skilled at impression management that their co-workers do not know that they are being manipulated (or derogated). The relationships between narcissism and various dimensions of performance are complex, and may require examination of theoretically-related moderators (e.g. task difficulty; Campbell et al., in press)The single result with narcissism that might be considered dysfunctional was its positive correlation with hostility towards and disbelief in negative feedback. This would have ramifications for anyone (supervisors, co-workers, customers) who is required to give critical feedback to narcissists. For those people, special attention should be devoted to describing unacceptable work behaviors, or adherence to standards (Ouimet, 2010), and not the implications for the narcissists' self-beliefs (about abilities, skills, etc.). This recommendation is true for most recipients of negative feedback, but in the narcissists' case it might prevent hostility and disbelief, and the long term effects that such hostility might produce.Third, our work replicates results found in previous OBSE research. This was accomplished as OBSE correlated, sometimes substantially, with satisfaction, intrinsic motivation, voice and helping behaviors, in-role performance, and effort expended after receiving negative feedback. Organizations can expect employees high in OBSE unlikely to respond with hostility to negative performance feedback, unlike high narcissistic employees.Limitations\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper seeks to explore the relationships between organization-based self-esteem and narcissism, and their correlates. It aims to distinguish the two constructs, as well as to examine the degree to which organization-based self-esteem is contaminated by \"false self-esteem\" (namely, narcissism).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Participants completed questionnaires containing measures of organization-based self-esteem, narcissism, and a variety of motivational, attitudinal, and behavioral consequences. Co-workers rated the participants' extra-role and in-role performance behaviors.\nFindings: - Organization-based self-esteem and narcissism appear to be quite distinct constructs. The organization-based self-esteem scale is unbiased by variance associated with narcissism. Organization-based self-esteem is associated with a variety of positive outcomes. In particular, organization-based self-esteem correlates negatively with hostility, while narcissism correlates positively with hostility.\nPractical implications: - The hypothesized negative attitudes and behaviors of narcissists were not found. However, organizations need to be cautious when delivering negative feedback to employees high in narcissism. Supervisors need to provide concrete evidence about deficiencies in narcissists' performance when providing feedback.\nOriginality/value: - This is the first study to examine the relationships between organization-based self-esteem and narcissism in an organizational context.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
GAFA speaks: metaphors in the promotion of cloud technology	[ "Audiovisual media", "Cloud providers", "Cloud technology", "Conceptual metaphor theory", "GAFA", "Marketing rhetoric" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In the last decade digital technologies have expanded to encompass cloud technology, i.e. remote archiving and processing. This new technology is not yet domesticated or commonly taken for granted, nor has it been fully accepted or exploited to its full potential. Although a successive implementation of cloud technology is occurring, both in the public sector and the private sphere, cloud providers are pushing continually for extension of both pace and scope. Arguably, the broad ranging revelations by Edward Snowden in 2013 served as a major setback for the cloud industry. Awareness and suspicion relating to the privacy and security of remote storing and processing heightened and was hotly debated on a global scale. It is therefore of great concern to learn more about how cloud technology is promulgated. The aim of this paper is to critically scrutinize metaphorical devices utilized by leaders of the cloud industry as they argue for the extension of the pace and scope of cloud technology implementation.\n2. Cloud computing as an evolving technology: Barnatt (2010) identified cloud computing's four key features as task-centric, dynamically scalable, device-independent and with no fixed price. Furthermore, cloud computing is characterized by internet-based delivery of software, platform and infrastructure services.\n3. Metaphors and IT: Lakoff and Johnson (2003) argue that metaphors are intrinsic - we live by them. Therefore, metaphors can be seen as essential in understanding the world, \"that we understand one concept in terms of another\" (p. 113). Human experiences are usually so rich that we struggle to make sense of them on their own terms. We must make reference to other kinds of entities and experiences in order to explain them.\n4. GAFA cloud metaphors: The empirical material consists of 13 video clips available on YouTube, containing presentations and talks at events, delivered by leaders of Google (G), Apple (Ap), Facebook (F) and Amazon (AM). The search terms were \"Google\"/\"Apple\"/\"Facebook\"/\"Amazon\", \"2015\", \"summit\" and \"event\". Furthermore, \"snowballing\" was used in the searches by looking at other clips suggested. The video clips were limited to presentations from 2015 in order to collect as recent material as possible. The video clips (Table I) were analyzed during the period December 2015-March 2016.\n5. Structural metaphors: Structural metaphors are used to emphasize computers or computer systems' mode of operation - like clockwork or a computer system as a community - or the process of building computer systems - like programming (Dahlbom and Janlert, 1988). The metaphors answer the question: how are computers or computer systems constructed and how do they operate? In the rhetoric of GAFA, five structural metaphors were used extensively. Cloud technologies as:\n6. Functional metaphors - powerful tools: Functional metaphors refer to design, behaviour or management of the computer/computer system. Some examples serve as description: \"computer as tool\", \"as automat\", \"as oracle\", \"as bureaucrat\", \"as person\", \"as game\", \"as medium\", \"as means of communications\", \"as expert\", etc. (Dahlbom and Janlert, 1988). The metaphor answers the question: what can computers or computer systems do, or be? The following functional metaphors were used extensively. Cloud technologies as:\n7. System metaphors: The system metaphor depicts the computer and computer's role as the connection between people and computers. Examples of this role are the computer as resource, as producers, as deliberator or component in an automatic system, also, computer use as craft or game (Dahlbom and Janlert, 1988). Once it is established that the technology can be seen as a powerful (easy, fast, scalable and stable) tool, the next question concerns what can be done with such a resource. System metaphors show the purpose of the computer and answer the question: what can one do with computers or computer systems? The following system metaphors were identified. Cloud technologies as:\n8. Discussion: We have discussed an abundance of metaphors used to promote cloud technology. These can be seen as being put to work in the stitching together of simplified accounts that make certain aspects visible, while hiding others. The overarching aim of GAFA seems to be disconnected from business models and instead concerned with the improvement of people's lives, \"making the world a better place\". However, this is, of course, a strategic choice of narrative as the material consists of spokespeople from powerful multinational corporations and not representatives of public service institutions. With some exceptions, metaphor use is surprisingly similar, even though the rhetoric can have slightly different focus or emphasis, i.e. Facebook claims a \"people-first\"-approach, while Amazon, instead, promotes \"cloud-first\".\n9. Conclusion: Building on 13 presentations held by top representatives of the corporate leaders of GAFA, numerous metaphors were utilized in order to describe and promote future practices relating to cloud technology. Utilizing the conceptual metaphor theory by Lakoff and Johnson (2003), together with the employment of a typology developed by Dahlbom and Janlert (1988), various persuasive devices were identified and categorized according to structural, functional or system metaphors. The main thrust of the material was to communicate a utopian image of revolutionizing technology with purely positive dimensions. In some sense, this result is not surprising, given the investigational scope of gathering various forms of promotional material. Nonetheless, it is important to scrutinize these metaphors, as they are likely to be frequently used within a multitude of organizations in order to create legitimacy for this technology.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore persuasive rhetoric by critically scrutinizing metaphorical devices utilized by leaders of the cloud industry. This paper introduces a critical approach to the promotion of cloud technology.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In total, 13 video clips from YouTube were analyzed, containing presentations and talks delivered by leaders of Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon - four of the most influential companies within the information technology industry, sometimes referred to as GAFA. With the help of conceptual metaphor theory, often-repeated metaphors for cloud technologies reveal what properties were promoted and hidden.\nFindings: GAFA mainly used the same persuasive metaphors to promote cloud computing's positive aspects. Potentially negative or complex issues were mostly avoided. Cloud technology was uniformly described in metaphors of control, empowerment, transformation and automation. Implicitly, GAFA exerts power through the extensive dissemination of their metaphors and these are used in order to negotiate and overcome doubts about cloud computing and related technologies.\nOriginality/value: This is the first study aimed at understanding the persuasive rhetoric of GAFA, seen as a uniform object of study.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Compensatory word of mouth as symbolic self-completion: When talking about a brand can restore consumers' self-perceptions after self-threat	[ "Word of mouth", "Cognitive dissonance", "Self-concept", "Compensatory consumer behavior", "Self-threat", "Symbolic self-completion" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Compensatory consumer behavior research establishes that consumers can purchase, use and consume products and brands as a way to cope with self-discrepancies (Mandel et al., 2017), but can spreading word of mouth (WOM) serve the same purpose? Self-threat is a self-discrepancy that occurs when a person receives information that calls into question the positivity with which he or she holds a given self-view (Gao et al., 2009). For example, a student who identifies as ethical but is questioned by a professor regarding the integrity of his/her work may experience a self-threat. The student, motivated to resolve this self-threat (Dunning, 2007), may do so by conspicuously consuming a brand that possesses ethical symbolic associations, such as TOMS, which donates a pair of shoes to someone in need for every pair purchased. But, would the ethical self-threat be resolved if instead the student just spread WOM about TOMS?\nCompensatory consumption and symbolic self-completion: Symbolic self-completion is one coping strategy consumers use to overcome self-threats (Mandel et al., 2017; Wicklund and Gollwitzer, 1981). Symbolic self-completion theory proposes that people's self-definitions can be completed by using indicators that symbolize attainment in the self-concept domain (Wicklund and Gollwitzer, 1981). For example, title, earning promotions or achieving certifications are indicators a person may use to confirm career success. When people lack adequate indicators in a given self-concept domain, the self-definition is incomplete, and they pursue alternate symbols of the self-definition (Wicklund and Gollwitzer, 1981). A consumer with an incomplete self-definition regarding career success may purchase a luxury automobile; in this case, the luxury automobile serves as a symbol of career success that is an alternate to the more direct, aforementioned indicators.\nWOM and symbolic self-completion: WOM facilitates impression management, enabling consumers to self-enhance and signal identity (Berger, 2014). Consumers spread WOM to foster positive impressions, including conveying social status (Lovett et al., 2013), as well as to signal more specific identity-related aspects of their self-concepts (Berger, 2014; Lovett et al., 2013). Accordingly, people spread more WOM about symbolic products (Chung and Darke, 2006) that convey who they are (Saenger et al., 2013) and who they want to be (Berger, 2014).\nStudy 1: Study 1 examines how, following self-threat, the ability of WOM to restore a consumer's self-perceptions on the threatened attribute depends on the brand's symbolic congruence (H1). Additionally, Study 1 tests the necessity of WOM about, as opposed to mere exposure to, a symbolically congruent brand in restoring a consumer's self-perceptions on the threatened attribute (H2).\nStudy 2: As self-threat is theorized to generate psychological discomfort that a person is motivated to resolve to restore the self-concept (Dunning, 2007; Mandel et al., 2017), psychological discomfort is examined as a mediating process in Study 2, testing H3a and H3b.\nStudy 3: Study 3 examines self-esteem as an individual difference that moderates the interactive effect of brand and WOM on self-perceptions through the underlying psychological discomfort mechanism supported in Study 2 (H4).\nTheoretical contributions: To date, research has not investigated whether spreading WOM restores consumers' perceptions of a threatened identity-related self-view, nor has it explored the role of brand symbolism in compensatory WOM. Toward filling this gap, the present research conceptualizes symbolic self-completion as a compensatory WOM strategy. Thus, this work contributes to the literature by:\nManagerial implications: Meaningful implications stem from showing that WOM helps improve consumers' self-views. Brands that make consumers feel good reap significant benefits. When consumers use a brand to express identity, they form a self-brand connection (Escalas and Bettman, 2003). Positioning brands to meet consumers' psychological needs encourages the development of consumer-brand attachments (Keller, 2009) like self-brand connections. Thus, the present research implies a new way consumers can form self-brand connections - by spreading WOM about brands to resolve self-threat. Identifying new ways for marketers to foster self-brand connections is important because brands that resonate with consumers enjoy stronger brand equity (Keller, 2009).\nLimitations and future research: Although the insights provided are novel, limitations exist that yield interesting directions for future research. Participants in the focal conditions were required to spread WOM, which may not be an organic response for all consumers (Han et al., 2015). Although the present studies show that not spreading WOM is not effective, other compensatory consumer behavior options exist that may be more organic depending on the person, threat and context. Future research might examine how self-esteem influences consumers' choice to directly resolve self-threat versus engage in symbolic self-completion via WOM (Kim and Gal, 2014). Future research could also examine if differences exist in the restoration of consumers' threatened self-views after compensatory consumption versus compensatory WOM, as well as the durability of such restorative effects.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: When consumers experience a self-threat that calls their self-concept into question, the ensuing psychological discomfort motivates them to restore their self-perceptions on the threatened attribute. Although consumers can restore a threatened self-perception by consuming products and brands that possess the desired symbolic associations, this study aims to propose that word of mouth can serve to resolve self-threat and restore a threatened self-perception when the brand at the center of a word-of-mouth communication is symbolically congruent with the domain of the threat.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Experimental online survey research was conducted, inducing self-threat, manipulating brand and word-of-mouth conditions and measuring self-perceptions. Data for three studies were analyzed using SPSS and Hayes' (2013) PROCESS macro.\nFindings: Three studies show that spreading word of mouth can restore consumers' threatened self-perceptions when the brand is symbolically congruent with the threat domain. Word of mouth about a symbolically congruent brand alleviates psychological discomfort, resulting in higher self-perceptions on the threatened attribute. The restorative effect is amplified for lower self-esteem consumers.\nResearch limitations/implications: Participants in the focal conditions were required to spread word of mouth, which may not be an organic response for all consumers; although not spreading word of mouth is ineffective, other compensatory consumer behavior options exist. The brand option was provided to participants, which allowed for control but may have reduced some of the realism.\nPractical implications: Positioning brands to meet consumers' psychological needs encourages the development of consumer-brand attachments. Brands that resonate with consumers reap the benefits of consumers' active loyalty behaviors and enjoy stronger brand equity. The present research implies a new way consumers can form brand attachments: by spreading word of mouth to resolve self-threat. As many consumers post detailed, personal information online, this research suggests firms can align their brand messages with relevant identity-related discrepancies.\nOriginality/value: This research extends the symbolic self-completion compensatory consumption strategy to the word-of-mouth context, showing that consumers can achieve the same restorative effect as consumption by spreading word of mouth. This research also contributes to compensatory word-of-mouth literature by establishing the role of brand meaning.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Detecting potential weaknesses in business processes: An exploration of semantic pattern matching in process models	[ "Business process improvement", "Banks", "Process analysis", "Pattern matching", "Process weaknesses", "Semantic process modelling" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: 1.1. Problem identification\n2. Research methodology: As we combine, apply and evaluate IT artifacts in this paper, we follow the design science paradigm (Hevner et al., 2004) and apply the design science research process as proposed by Peffers et al. (2007). Figure 1 contains a description of this process and the research method we employed to complete each phase. The methods comprise a subset of all research methods relevant for the domain of information systems research as proposed by vom Brocke et al. (2011) as well as Wilde and Hess (2007).\n3. Related work: In this section we will elaborate on concepts from literature, which we aim reusing and combining in this paper as well as those that are related to our work. First, we review existing work on process weaknesses. Second, we argue why it is reasonable to use a semantic process modeling language in order to find weaknesses in process models, and we justify our choice. Third, in order to find weaknesses in semantic business process models, we review the literature on process model querying, and we select a query language appropriate for our purposes.\n4. Weakness patterns in SBPML: 4.1. Basics of SBPML\n5. Formalizing patterns with the GMQL: 5.1. Basics of GMQL\n6. Case study: To demonstrate the applicability of GQML combined with SBPML to identify weaknesses in business processes, we conducted a case study based on process models of a bank. For this case study, we chose a bank operating the most frequently studied banking business process: the credit process. This process is likely similar in and, thus, relevant to a multitude of financial institutions. Our partner for the demonstration case was a bank operating only a single product: consumer credits. The bank provides credits for over 900 banks in Germany and Austria, while at the same time also operating over 60 subsidiary shops in different cities. It employs more than 1,000 people, who together serve 443,000 customers, totaling a credit volume of 4.9 billion Euros.\n7. Conclusion: In this paper, we suggested an automated approach for the identification of potential weaknesses in business process models using the semantic modeling language SBPML and the pattern matching approach GMQL. We demonstrated the usefulness of our approach with a case study. In this case, a number of typical weaknesses from literature could be formalized as patterns and were found in an exemplary process model. A substantial amount of these weakness candidates was confirmed by a domain expert from a bank. This approach presents a substantial step toward automation of process analysis. Promising candidates for possible weaknesses can be detected automatically, with human interaction only necessary to confirm those weaknesses. Hence, the approach offers the potential to reduce the effort of BPI tasks as the manual weakness search process can be omitted. It is especially useful in situations where a large number of process models or large process models have to be analyzed and a completely manual analysis would hardly be possible.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Automating the task of identifying process weaknesses using process models is promising, as many organizations have to manage a large amount of process models. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a pattern-based approach for automatically detecting potential process weaknesses in semantic process models, thus supporting the task of business process improvement.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on design research, combined with a case study, the authors explore the design, application and evaluation of a pattern-based process weakness detection approach within the setting of a real-life case study in a German bank.\nFindings: Business process weakness detection can be automated to a remarkable extent using pattern matching and a semantic business process modeling language. A case study provided evidence that such an approach highly supports business process analysts.\nResearch limitations/implications: The presented approach is limited by the fact that not every potential process weakness detected by pattern matching is really a weakness but just gives the impression to be one. Hence, after detecting a weakness, analysts still have to decide on its authenticity.\nPractical implications: Applying weakness patterns to semantic process models via pattern matching allows organizations to automatically and efficiently identify process improvement potentials. Hence, this research helps to avoid time- and resource-consuming manual analysis of process model landscapes.\nOriginality/value: The approach is not restricted to a single modeling language. Furthermore, by applying the pattern matching approach to a semantic modeling language, the authors avoid ambiguous search results. A case study proves the usefulness of the approach.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Stakeholders, reward expectations and firms' use of the ISO14001 management standard	[ "Sustainability", "Stakeholders", "Environmental management", "Stakeholder theory", "ISO14001", "Sustainable operations", "Institutional pressure" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: An ongoing challenge for managers is to define and benefit from their firm's environmental management practices. Although firms have expanded such practices in new and innovative ways, much of it remains intangible to stakeholders. Firms that seek stakeholder recognition of their practices, or face stakeholder pressure for evidence of improvement, increasingly use management standards such as ISO14001 (Melnyk et al., 2003; Terlaak, 2007). Recent studies, however, highlight problems with ISO14001 and similar standards in that they are useful benchmarking tools but can also limit innovation (Chatterji and Toffel, 2010; Curkovic and Sroufe, 2011) or fail to improve firms' practices over time (King et al., 2005; Ziegler and Nogareda, 2009). While such standards were designed to guide internal improvement by firms, they have also provided valuable external benefits such as signaling (Sroufe, 2003; Terlaak, 2007). Stakeholders in return have increased their emphasis on standards to benchmark the practices of firms with which they share financial or social interests (Terlaak, 2007; Delmas and Montiel, 2009). As we describe, this creates a sort of \"paradox of promotion,\" that helps to explain recently described failures of standards to improve firms' environmental management practices (e.g. King et al., 2005; Darnall et al., 2009; Chatterji and Toffel, 2010). We propose that firms valuing the extrinsic rewards of ISO14001 certification more than the potential for intrinsic benefit will have less innovative environmental management practices.\n2. Background: A question for many firms in recent years has been whether to develop their environmental management practices for external validation or internal operational benefit. Pressure to meet increased stakeholder expectations in particular has caused some firms to favor reportability over practice effectiveness (Chatterji and Toffel, 2010; Simpson et al., 2012). A firm's stakeholders remain an important influence in the decision surrounding when and to what extent a firm should improve its environmental management practices (Sharma and Henriques, 2005). Only a handful of studies, however, have sought to \"unpack\" the role of different stakeholders in the choice between basic and more comprehensive environmental management practices (Cespedes et al., 2003; King et al., 2005; Murillo-Luna et al., 2008). To clarify this pressure-response relationship, we look to the interaction between stakeholders and institutional influence and its effect on firms' environmental management practice choices.\n3. Data and method: To test our hypotheses, a survey methodology was determined to best fit the needs of the study. For generalizable results, a purposeful sample of US manufacturers already familiar with ISO standards and innovative environmental management practices was chosen to test our hypotheses.\n4. Results: Our intention was to compare stakeholder focus and environmental management practices between ISO14001 certified firms and non-certified firms. Based on a review of the literature and resulting conceptual model, we expected to identify significant differences in stakeholder focus and environmental management practices between groups of firms within our sample. We proposed that certified firms would focus more on the information provided by their regulative stakeholders when planning their environmental management practices. We also proposed that certified firms would favor more reportable practices in order to maximize their extrinsic rewards. We further proposed that non-certified would conversely identify more with their normative stakeholders when planning their environmental management practices and favor embedded practices so as to maximize intrinsic rewards. Our primary purpose was to identify behavior that demonstrates that firms will selectively respond to stakeholders' requirements in ways that maximize their expectations of rewards. The results of our analyses are provided in Table IV.\n5. Discussion, conclusions and further research: Our analysis indicated significant differences between the stakeholder focus and environmental management practice choices of ISO14001 certified and non-certified firms. We identified relationships between firms with a greater regulative stakeholder focus and greater use of reportable practices (pollution control). Reportable practices are predominantly found in ISO14001 certified firms. Alternatively, firms with a greater normative stakeholder focus were linked to greater use of embedded practices (policies and pollution prevention). Embedded practices are predominantly found in non-certified firms.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: An ongoing challenge for managers is to define and benefit from their firm's environmental management practices. Firms that seek stakeholder recognition of their practices, or face stakeholder pressure for evidence of improvement, increasingly use management standards such as ISO14001. Such standards, however, may encourage firms to use more reportable rather than embedded environmental management practices. Why some firms use environmental management standards to improve practices relative to firms that use them to deflect attention, is an important research question. As paper proposes, stakeholder pressure on firms for improved practices can interact with firms' expectations of related rewards to influence environmental management outcomes. The paper aims to discuss these issues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The intention was to identify significant differences in stakeholder focus and each firm's environmental management practices, between ISO14001 certified and non-certified firms. The paper explored the propositions with a sample of US manufacturers. The paper used a PLS modeling approach.\nFindings: The paper identified links between firms with a greater regulative stakeholder focus, to greater use of reportable practices (pollution reduction). Firms with a greater normative stakeholder focus were linked to greater use of embedded practices (policies and pollution prevention).\nOriginality/value: This study is one of the first to assess differences that distinguish between both stakeholder type and choice of environmental management practices. Further, the paper grouped firms' practices according to their emphasis on either rewards of stakeholder recognition or internal operational benefit. As other studies have identified, firms do not necessarily adopt environmental management standards for their goals of practice improvement. The study contributes to use of stakeholder theories to understand firm level adoption of and benefit from environmental management practices.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Understanding the purchase intention towards remanufactured product in closed-loop supply chains: An empirical study in China	[ "Closed-loop supply chain", "Perceived benefits", "Product knowledge", "Purchase intention", "Remanufacturing", "Theory of perceived risk", "Theory of planned behavior" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Measures to extend product life cycles are attracting increasing attention in both theory and practice. One such measure is remanufacturing, which involves the following key processes carried out by closed-loop supply chains (CLSCs): product acquisition, reverse logistics, inspection and possible product disposition, remanufacturing the product to the original specifications and remarketing (Blackburn et al., 2004). There is a substantial body of literature that studies operational issues and product acquisition pertinent to CLSCs, while considering consumer behavior as given (Hazen et al., 2012a). However, consumer behavior regarding remanufacturing products is identified as important since the profitability of the whole CLSC is only possible with sufficient consumer acceptance of remanufactured goods (Guide and Wassenhove, 2009).\n2 Conceptual background and hypotheses development: 2.1 Theory of planned behavior\n3 Research methodology: 3.1 The conceptual model\n4 Results: In this section, structural equation modeling is used to analyze the collected data. In order to examine the measurement model, the two-step approach advocated by Anderson and Gerbing (1988) is followed, first conducting confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to measure the convergent and discriminant validity. Then the structural model is examined to investigate the model fit and test the hypotheses. Both the measurement model and the structural model are assessed by maximum likelihood parameter estimator Amos 5.0.\n5 Discussion of the results and implications: 5.1 Discussion of the results\n6 Conclusions and future research: As a key industry in China's circular economy, remanufacturing is suffering from the low purchase intention of consumers. This paper aims to develop a comprehensive theoretical model to explain the underlying reasons. A survey of potential consumers of automobile spare parts was conducted in Beijing to validate the research model empirically and test the hypotheses. The results show that the proposed model has relatively good explanatory power. We conclude that purchase intention is directly influenced by purchase attitude followed by perceived behavioral control and indirectly influenced by PR, perceived benefit and product knowledge via attitude. Therefore, effective measures to promote consumers' purchase intention rely on coordinated policies built on multiple pillars instead of single factors.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The paper aims to explore the reasons underlying the key assumption in the closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) literature that consumers' purchase intention is lower for remanufactured products than for new products. It aims to complement the predominantly operation-focused CLSC research by examining consumers' perception of and behavior relating to remanufactured products.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A theoretical model is developed by integrating the concepts of perceived benefits and product knowledge with the theory of planned behavior and the theory of perceived risk. Then the model is examined through an empirical study in the Chinese automobile spare parts industry involving 288 respondents and using structural equation modeling.\nFindings: The results indicate that purchase intention is directly influenced by purchase attitude followed by perceived behavioral control and indirectly influenced by perceived risk, perceived benefit and product knowledge via attitude. Therefore, effective measures to promote consumers' purchase intention rely on coordinated policies built on multiple pillars instead of single factors.\nOriginality/value: This is one of the first empirical studies to explore the factors that underpin consumers' purchase intention regarding remanufactured products. The results can be used to validate the key assumptions in operational models and foster new research in the context of CLSCs.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The effects of team reflexivity and innovativeness on new product development performance	[ "Project management", "Skills", "Team working", "Product management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Research background: New product success has been an important issue in new product development (NPD) research. A recent study conducted by Ozer and Chen (2006) found that, the success rate of NPD in Hong Kong is very low, with 100 ideas only lead to 2.15 successful new products. In order to enhance the success rate, most of companies heavily rely on cross-functional NPD teams which consisting of members from R&D, marketing, manufacturing, and sales. Cross-functional new product teams are assumed to facilitate the collaboration of product development and marketing process by solving an information-processing problem (Lovelace et al., 2001). However, team functional diversity does not always have positive effects on performance (Simons et al., 1999). Dougherty and Hardy (1996) argued that diversified background of NPD team members resulted broader perspectives on important product attributes as well as strategies to generate innovative products. When teams were unable to reconcile their different perspectives, the NPD teams as well as the products itself would be unsuccessful. Additionally, the higher rate of failure in NPD remains high if the company fail to learn from their past successes and mistakes (Sarin and McDermott, 2003). According to Lovelace et al. (2001), the degree of unsuccessful team tends to be high when there are not task agreements on team outcomes; and it depends on the liberty of each member to express the doubts of related task and how collaboratively these doubts were expressed.Some scholars proposed that knowledge integration under uncertainty condition is the key success of NPD (Danneels, 2002). Through effective integration of technological and marketing knowledge, the probability of new products to be success tends to be high (Clark and Fujimoto, 1991). Each team member should employ information exchange as their reflection, by giving more attention, awareness, monitoring, and evaluation the new product which developed. Hoegl and Parboteeah (2006) further proposed that project management skills are some of the determinants of team reflexivity. Project management skills are necessary fro flexible planning and ongoing controlling of the task process, which is of particular important in the case of innovative projects, given their high degree of task-related uncertainty and complexity. Existing knowledge will be the second determinants of team reflexivity, which is similar to organizational memory proposed by Moorman and Miner (1997). The ability of team members to be reflexive will depend on the knowledge that each member has. Moreover, in the adaptation dimensions of reflexivity, entrepreneurial proclivity will play the main role by engaging the team to be risk-taking and more proactive in order to meet customers' needs as well as creating competitive advantage (Griffith et al., 2006).Another pivotal role of the success of new product development is product innovativeness. It refers to product advantage which customer-perceived superiority as to quality, benefit, and functionality and product uniqueness/superiority (Montoya-Weiss and Calantone, 1994). The innovativeness of the product also can lead to the formation of new business unit(s), the extension of other product lines or the introduction of improvements into other product lines. This study adopted that, the degree of product innovativeness will be influenced by entrepreneurial proclivity of the NPD team. The project management skills and existing knowledge also become the determinants of innovativeness when the planning and controlling skills necessary during the development of new product (Brockman and Morgan, 2006; Jordan and Segelod, 2006).Most of studies which emphasized the role of NPD team focused on the cross-functional NPD teams which behave as community. The community-behave team categorized by Lindkvist (2005) as knowledge community which practicing their knowledge as a \"tightly knit\" \"affect-laden\" social structure amounting to \"dense\" relationships of mutuality. Typically these kinds of groups consist of diversely skilled individuals, who have to solve a problem or carry out a pre-specified task within tightly set limits as to time and costs. As a result they tend to become less well-developed groups, operating on a minimal basis of shared knowledge and understandings, and Lindkvist (2005) categorized as \"knowledge collectivity.\" This study asserts that, the way of knowledge to be practice in the team, whether collectivity or community (Lindkvist, 2005), will moderate the influence of project management skills, existing knowledge as well as entrepreneurial proclivity on team reflexivity and product innovativeness.Furthermore, previous studies indicated that the level of collaboration related with cohesiveness level of team itself. According to Mudrack (1989), the cohesiveness often is accompanied by feelings of solidarity, harmony, and commitment in its members. It can be lubricant \"that minimizes the friction due to the human\" grit in the system (Mullen and Copper, 1994), and thereby facilitate the pursuit of collective goals (Adler and Kwon, 2002; Hoegl and Parboteeah, 2006).The primary aim of the current study is to advance West (2000, 2002) and Hoegl and Parboteeah (2006) theoretical discussion of team reflexivity and extend research on three antecedents, project management skills, existing knowledge and entrepreneurial proclivity. Moreover, this study emphasizes the extent of team members collectively reflect on and adapt their team's objectives, strategies, and processes on the product innovativeness as well as new product performance. Furthermore, the moderating role of team cohesiveness and knowledge practice and team cohesiveness are also explored in this study.Since previous studies do not integrate the above constructs into a more comprehensive framework, this study tries fill this research gap and develop some a research model for further empirical validation. Specifically, the purposes of this study are as follows:* To evaluate the influences of project management skills, existing knowledge and entrepreneurial proclivity of NPD team members on team reflexivity and product innovativeness.* To evaluate the influence of team reflexivity on product innovativeness and new product performance.* To evaluate the influence of product innovativeness on new product performance.* To evaluate the moderating effects of team cohesiveness and knowledge practice on the influence of project management skills, existing knowledge and entrepreneurial proclivity of NPD team members on team reflexivity and product innovativeness.\n2 Literature review and hypotheses development: 2.1 Definition of research constructs\n3 Research design and methodology: 3.1 Research model\n4 Research analysis and results: 4.1 The antecedents and consequences of NPD team reflexivity and product innovativeness\n5 Conclusion and suggestion: The primary aim of the current study is to emphasize the success of new product development on the NPD team level, by determining the effects of team's existing knowledge and project management skills as well as entrepreneurial proclivity on team reflexivity, product innovativeness and NPD performance. Moreover, the moderating effects of team cohesiveness and knowledge practice for the influences of the above three antecedents on team reflexivity and product innovativeness are also evaluated. Although plenty of previous studies have emphasized the influential factors for NPD performance, rare studies focus on the antecedents and consequences of NPD team reflexivity. Through a comprehensive literature review on NPD team reflexivity and performance, this study develops a comprehensive research model that encompassed the antecedents and consequences of team reflexivity on NPD teams. The three antecedents are project management skills, entrepreneurial proclivity and existing knowledge; while the two consequential variables are product innovativeness and NPD performance. Project management skills and existing knowledge which reflects on tacit knowledge of teams; whereas entrepreneurial proclivity represents the eagerness of NPD team members to acquire and disperse their tacit knowledge to other team members. These three antecedents are served as critical factors to enhance the level of team reflexivity. The research further proposed that, the cohesiveness level of NPD team and the way knowledge practice (either as community or collectivity) moderate the influence of three antecedents on team reflexivity and product innovativeness level.Several conclusions could be drawn for the results of this study. First, project management skills, entrepreneurial proclivity and existing knowledge have significant impact on NPD team reflexivity. Therefore, it is important to build up project management skills among team members. These project management skills can be created through intensive training, social interaction among NPD members and professional development activities. The above conclusion is in line with previous studies. Hoegl and Parboteeah (2006) argue that while team reflexivity is positively related to team effectiveness and efficiency, social skills and project management skills are important determinants of team reflexivity. Project management skills are necessary for flexible planning and ongoing controlling of the task process, which is of particular importance in the case of innovative projects, given their high degree of task-related uncertainty and complexity. When teams were unable to recognize and reconcile their different perspectives, they were unable to be successful. Additionally, failure rate in new product development remains high because organizations fail to learn from their past successes and mistakes. NPD teams that have the skills to properly structure and control their task processes will likely demonstrate higher levels of team reflexivity, scanning internal and external environments for feedback based on proper information regarding current task status, routinely re-evaluate chosen task strategies and are prepared to alter them if the situation calls for such action.An entrepreneurial proclivity promotes initiative as what Birkinshaw (1997) called \"dispersed entrepreneurship,\" which is the involvement of multiple management levels in the formulation and implementation of entrepreneurial strategies. Entrepreneurial proclivity is not created or imposed by the top management, but reflects the strategic posture as exhibited by multiple layers of management (Stevenson and Jarillo, 1990). When the organization has higher entrepreneurial proclivity, the members and managers as well as owners has willingness to be more proactive to adapt to the dynamic change of the external environment. Existing knowledge has been recognized as an essential component of organizational learning; the depth and breadth of an existing knowledge base determines how easily new information is incorporated. Thus, existing knowledge influences the extents to which new knowledge is created, and the new knowledge that is formed is converted to existing knowledge in the form of new products and services (Smith et al., 2005).Second, project management skills, entrepreneurial proclivity and existing knowledge have significant impact on product innovativeness. Therefore, in order to organize NPD teams to work simultaneously without gaps and overlaps, project management skills are necessary to implement an innovative NPD project. In addition, entrepreneurial proclivity is also required because an innovative NPD project require team members to engage in propensity to act proactively and to take a great deal of risk when confront with market opportunities (Sethi et al., 2001). Furthermore, the application of existing knowledge which holds by NPD team members are also important for product innovativeness, because the behavioral routines will direct NPD teams to be more innovative and effective. Third, NPD team reflexivity has positive influences on product innovativeness and NPD performance. Product innovativeness also has positive influences or NPD performance. As suggested by West (2002) and Tjosvold et al. (2004), reflex teams are more likely to make better use of expertise and skills of team members, which will eventually achieve better NPD project success. In addition, team reflexivity is very helpful as the innovative NPD teams normally are facing very high tension of unpredictability. The team reflexivity can foster the ongoing collection and sharing of information which is very critical to the success of NPD (Sicotte and Langley, 2000).Finally, both NPD team cohesiveness and knowledge practice play a critical moderating role for the influences of project management skills, entrepreneurial proclivity and existing knowledge on team reflexivity and product innovativeness.Based on Wang et al. (2006), team cohesiveness is built partly through the willingness of members to participate and commitment to learn the new style. Group cohesiveness is proved to be positively related to meet management goals. Thus, resource within an organization should support the climate of the building of team cohesiveness. In addition, Lindkvist (2005) suggests that, the practices of community knowledge can create a \"tightly-knit\" relationship with a cohesive mutual and share understandings. Such mortality and unstinting can significantly impact on team reflexivity, product innovativeness and PND performance.Several suggestions could be made for academic and business practitioners. First, how to create NPD team reflexivity is the key issue for product innovativeness and NPD performance. Second, to promote team reflexivity in the dynamic NPD process, recruiting qualified NPD team members with good skills in project management and entrepreneurial proclivity that can apply their existing knowledge in the NPD process is extremely essential. Third, the cohesiveness and knowledge practices of NPD teams play a key role that can moderate the influences of project management skills, entrepreneurial proclivity and existing knowledge on product innovativeness and NPD performance. R&D managers should be aware of their situation and manipulate such an organizational climate for NPD.Although these research results are compelling, several limitations exist in this study. These limitations suggest areas and directions for further research. The cross-sectional research design, the composition of the sample, and the response rates all serve to temper the results of this study. First, as this study adopts the cross-sectional research design which examines executive's opinions at one point in time, the directional relationships as shown in the study results should be inferred with high caution. Future longitudinal research is suggested to confirm the results of the cross-sectional research.Second, as the respondents of this study only consist of NPD team members of the Science Park in Taiwan, the generalizability of the study results should be limited to these groups of population. Future studies could use the same questionnaire or the questionnaire in an abbreviated form to conduct surveys for other enterprise in different part of the world to confirm the validity and generalizbility of these findings. Finally, through it is not unusual for similar surveys to have a response rate lower than 25 percent, the response rate for this study should be considered as relatively low. Thus, the issues of non-response bias needs to be further evaluated.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To determine the effects of project management skills, entrepreneurial proclivity, and existing knowledge on team reflexivity and performance of cross-functional new product development (NPD) team. The moderating roles of team cohesiveness and knowledge practice are also explored.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This study used online questionnaire surveys by inviting 500 R&D team members of NPD from three Science Parks in Taiwan. The survey questionnaires were sent to the representative of R&D team members.\nFindings: - The results indicate that members' project management skills, entrepreneurial proclivity, and existing knowledge have significant impact on team reflexivity and product innovativeness of the NPD project, which then influence NPD performance. Furthermore, NPD team exercising higher levels of team cohesiveness and higher knowledge practice tend to moderate the influence of team reflexivity and product innovativeness on NPD performance.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The use of longitudinal research is suggested to confirm the results of this study. Moreover, other research settings, either different industry or other countries, could increase the generalizability of the findings.\nPractical implications: - The study has high implications for managers of NPD to recruit qualified team members who have adequate knowledge and strong entrepreneurial proclivity. Moreover, managers should be aware of the moderating role of team cohesiveness and knowledge practices.\nOriginality/value: - The paper determines the antecedents and consequences of team reflexivity and innovativeness among NPD team members. The moderating role of team cohesiveness and knowledge practices are discussed.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The influence of partnering and procurement on subcontractor involvement and innovation	[ "Subcontracting", "Partnership", "Innovation", "Procurement", "Construction operations", "Sweden" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: One prominent characteristic of the construction industry is the practice of subcontracting portions of a project to specialist subcontractors by main contractors (Eccles, 1981). As much as 75-80 per cent of the gross work done in the construction industry involves the buying-in of material and subcontracting services, when only considering new construction of large and complex facilities (Dubois and Gadde, 2000; Miller et al., 2002). However, in spite of subcontractors large share of work main contractors remain relatively unsophisticated in their approach to them (Briscoe et al., 2001). Traditionally, these relationships are mostly of transactional nature, strained by conflict and mistrust, enabling the main contractor to effectively apportion risk to the subcontractor (Miller et al., 2002). In fact, many main contractors exploit subcontractors mainly to shift liability risks, resulting in a reliance on complete contracts rather than cooperative relationships (Pietroforte, 1997). The poor relationships between these actors are also derived from traditional competitive tendering based on price (Miller et al., 2002), resulting in adversarial attitudes (Hinze and Tracey, 1994; Latham, 1994; Dainty et al., 2001).Furthermore, subcontractors are often divorced from the main contractor's decision-making processes (Miller et al., 2002; Packham et al., 2003). Since main contractors mostly seek cost reductions rather than expertise and mutual cooperation, subcontractors are frequently not integrated in the design and planning of the work that they are responsible for executing (Miller et al., 2002). Innovation is then hampered since in situations of conflict and mistrust, subcontractors are more likely to stick to what they know, rather than to risk trying something new (Miller et al., 2002). Egan (1998) suggests that too much talent is therefore wasted through the failure to recognise the significant contributions that suppliers and subcontractors can make to innovation. Through an integrated supply chain the skills of these actors can be assessed and utilised to facilitate incremental improvements and innovation (Egan, 1998), securing project success and customer satisfaction through mutual cooperation and harmonisation (Miller et al., 2002).In recent years partnering arrangements have become popular in both construction (Bresnen and Marshall, 2000b; Ng et al., 2002; Chan et al., 2003) and facilities management (Jones, 1995; Okoroh et al., 2001; Roberts, 2001), in order to transform the adversarial relationships into cooperative ones. However, partnering and its incentive schemes are most often focused solely on relationships between client and main contractor, and only sometimes also with consultants, and very rarely with suppliers and subcontractors (Bresnen and Marshall, 2000a; Saad et al., 2002). In cases where subcontractors are not involved in the partnering team the increased cooperation between client and main contractor seldom spreads to subcontractor level (Bresnen and Marshall, 2000b; Packham et al., 2003). Thus it is argued that all key actors on whose activities overall project performance ultimately depends should be included in the partnering team and the incentive schemes (Ng et al., 2002; Chan et al., 2003; Packham et al., 2003).A change towards increased integration between different tiers of contractors should be driven by clients for two reasons: first, clients often seem more enthusiastic than main contractors about retaining subcontractors' experience (Briscoe et al., 2004). This is because clients can appreciate value creation more than main contractors, to whom profitability is more directly affected by low costs. Second, the relationship between different contractors is affected by the relationship between client and main contractor (Pietroforte, 1997; Saad et al., 2002). Clients' procurement procedures, including client recommendation and nomination of subcontractors to main contractors, thus heavily affect subcontractor integration (Dainty et al., 2001; Briscoe et al., 2004; Khalfan and McDermott, 2006). To achieve a change towards more collaborative relationships between these actors the clients' procurement behaviour is therefore critical (Pietroforte, 1997). However, due to the large differences between them, integration and harmonisation cannot be construed as being easy and automatic (Miller et al., 2002). Hence, it seems pertinent to increase the understanding about how to integrate subcontractors to enhance value creation and innovation. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how clients' cooperative procurement procedures affect subcontractor involvement, value creation and innovation in the construction of complex facilities.\nInnovation in construction: In the innovation literature, the importance and influence of interactions and feedback mechanisms for innovation has shifted the focus from internal structures and routines to external linkages and processes (Saad et al., 2002). Thus, one of the key notions within this literature is that successful innovation often requires effective cooperation, coordination and working relationships between the different parties in specific projects (Gann and Salter, 2000; Ling, 2003). This is because interdependency between components and subsystems in the built environment demands knowledge sharing and interaction between different specialists and disciplines, contractors and subcontractors (Gann and Salter, 2000). Despite innovation requiring good cooperation and working relationships, most traditional procurement routes have worked against this. Aspects of traditional procurement that can hinder the ability of subcontractors to innovate and contribute to innovation include the division of work, contract conditions and allocation of risk.Obstacles to innovation\nCase study: The case study concerns the client AstraZeneca's (AZ) procurement and subsequent construction of plant facilities for manufacturing of pharmaceutical products in Sweden. This was a large construction project, with a value of more than EUR15 million, and according to the participants, very complex. Following the argument made by Eccles (1981) that subcontracting practices increase with project size and complexity, this case qualifies as an interesting example to investigate from a subcontractor perspective. The project was governed by a collaborative approach, which is often referred to as partnering.The case study data were collected through: three interviews with the client's project manager, each lasting approximately one hour; a series of three subsequent surveys to all participants in the partnering team (approximately 25-30 people for each survey); document analysis; and arguably most valuably observation and participation in a significant number of meetings and workshops. The data collected also concerned other aspects of partnering implementation that are beyond the scope of this paper. The case study followed an action research approach in which the first author was deeply involved, serving as an advisor/facilitator to the partnering team. The action researcher was responsible for the design and management of the surveys and the subsequent workshops. At the end of the project the third survey was sent out in order to compare several aspects of the collaborative approach with traditionally procured projects. The 29 respondents (all white-collar staff in the partnering team) were asked to give their opinion of several aspects of the project climate. They were also asked to assess the importance (in general terms) and the function (in this particular project) of different techniques used in the project to create the collaborative climate. A seven-point Likert scale (1= do not agree, or not important, 7= fully agree, or very important) was used.Case study: techniques to establish subcontractor involvement\nAnalysis: In spite of their importance, the development of subcontractors receives little interest (Miller et al., 2002). In fact, both clients and particularly main contractors seem unaware that subcontractors can bring added value to the construction process (Dainty et al., 2001) if they are integrated in important decision-making processes.Analysis: techniques to establish subcontractor involvement\nConclusions: This case study investigated how the client's procurement procedures affect subcontractor involvement and if and how such involvement affects value creation and innovation in a construction project regarding complex facilities. The empirical results show that subcontractor involvement and integration is facilitated by:* early procurement of subcontractors;* subcontractor selection not based solely on lowest price;* compensation including joint profit sharing;* suitable risk allocation;* use of collaborative tools; and* broad collaborative approach.In the case project the client increased subcontractor involvement and integration by performing the abovementioned purposeful procurement and project management procedures. These procedures are often important parts of partnering processes but they often concern only client and main contractor. In the case project, however, these processes also included important consultants and subcontractors through the client's broad collaborative approach.However, the experiences from the case study also show that there is not an isolated direct link between increased involvement/integration and innovation/value creation. Integration and involvement can be beneficial in many ways but it does not necessarily result in increased innovation and value creation, which depend on many other factors. The empirical results suggest that subcontractor contributions to innovation and value creation are facilitated by:* subcontractor involvement and integration;* suitable climate for innovation and continuous improvements;* close relationships between consultants and subcontractors; and* long-term relationships between the participating actors.In the case project the actors failed to create a climate that encouraged innovation and continuous improvements. Furthermore, relationships between design consultants and subcontractors need to be strengthened in order to increase subcontractor impact on design related innovations. By adopting a long-term perspective the client can learn from these shortcomings and improve these aspects in future projects. It should also be beneficial to let project participants work together over a series of projects in order to reap the benefits of closer relationships, increased knowledge sharing and continuous learning. In this way increased innovation and value creation can then be obtained through a long-term perspective of involvement and integration of subcontractors.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The aim of this paper is to investigate how a client's cooperative procurement procedures influence subcontractor involvement, value creation, and innovation in the construction of complex facilities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Empirical data were collected through interviews, surveys and participation in workshops during a longitudinal action research case study. The case project was located in Sweden and concerned the construction of plant facilities for manufacturing of pharmaceutical products.\nFindings: - The case study findings reveal that the client's procurement procedures affect the level of subcontractor involvement and integration, but that this does not necessarily result in increased subcontractor value creation and innovation in the construction process.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Since the empirical results are based on data collected from only one case project, the possibilities for generalisations are limited.\nPractical implications: - Clients' procurement procedures heavily affect subcontractor involvement, but in order to increase subcontractor contributions to innovation and value creation the actors should adopt a long-term perspective and actively work to establish an innovation-friendly climate.\nOriginality/value: - This paper focuses on the often-neglected importance of subcontractors and their contributions to innovation and value creation.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Does implementation of a JIT-with-customers strategy change an organization's structure?	[ "Just in time", "Organizational structures", "Structural analysis", "Modelling" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Manufacturers now seek to \"gain competitive advantage through co-ordination and synchronization of actions\" with other supply chain members (Chandra and Kumar, 2000, p. 100). While managing at the supply chain level is conceptually appealing, it is strategically difficult to successfully accomplish (Lummus and Vokurka, 1999). The just-in-time (JIT) philosophy and associated strategies offer tested methods that support supply chain management efforts, when the strategies are extended outside the organization (Vokurka and Lummus, 2000; Claycomb et al., 1999b).There is some concern within the academic community that the JIT philosophy may have outlived its usefulness. Recent discussions with manufacturing practitioners, however, have reinforced our contention that the JIT philosophy has evolved to support current efforts to manage at the supply chain level. As recently published works by Green and Inman (2005) and Kros et al. (2006) illustrate, the JIT philosophy and associated practices are alive and well within the manufacturing sector.JIT-manufacturing and JIT-purchasing strategies have a long history of successful implementation by managers within the manufacturing sector. Green and Inman (2005), Hsu and Chen (2005), Hsu (2005), and Germain et al. (1994) argue that success now depends upon the ability of manufacturing managers to integrate the manufacturing and marketing functions. Our study focuses on a JIT-related strategy, JIT-with-customers (Claycomb et al., 1999a), that is specifically designed to integrate and coordinate the activities of the manufacturing and marketing functions, thereby strengthening the overall supply chain.Management at the supply chain level requires external-oriented thinking with a focus on creating value based upon changing customer demands. Yang et al. (2006) argue that resulting changes in strategy may lead to changes in the organization's structure. Germain et al. (1994) proposed that the adoption of a JIT-selling strategy would impact the levels of integration, performance control, specialization and decentralization within an organization. In a complementary follow-up study, Claycomb et al. (1999a) assessed the impact of a similar JIT-with-customers strategy. Both studies utilized data from logistics managers who primarily represented large manufacturing firms. Germain et al. (1994) analyzed the data using a structural equation modeling methodology. Generally, the results of the studies indicate that manufacturers adopting JIT-selling and JIT-with-customers strategies should expect resulting structural changes in their organizations.The purpose of this study is to assess the proposition specified by Claycomb et al. (1999a) related to the impact of a JIT-with-customers strategy on organizational structure through a structural equation modeling rather than multiple regression approach and using a somewhat different sample frame for data collection purposes. Claycomb et al. (1999a) focused their data collection efforts on manufacturing executives with logistics-related responsibilities. In an effort to supplement their work, the data collection focus for this study was shifted to manufacturing executives with marketing and sales-related responsibilities. From a manager's perspective, this study was designed to specifically identify the type of organizational structure in terms of integration, specialization, decentralization, and formalizations necessary to support efforts to strengthen manufacturer/customer relationships.\nLiterature review: Germain et al. (1994) collected data from a sample of 183 manufacturing members of the Council of Logistics Management to investigate the relationship between JIT-selling and organizational structure constructs. Their organizational structure constructs included integration, performance control, specialization, and decentralization. Specifically, they proposed that, as JIT-selling increased, integration, performance control, specialization and scheduling decentralization (SCD) would also increase. They also hypothesized that JIT-selling would have no effect on operations decentralization. As hypothesized, they found that JIT-selling positively affected performance control, specialization and SCD and that JIT-selling had no effect on operations decentralization. Their results did not support the hypothesized relationship between JIT-selling and integration. Although Germain et al. (1994) provide a general discussion of JIT as a strategic marketing initiative, they do not specifically define JIT-selling. Further, they describe their use of a single, open-ended \"percentage of sales made on a JIT basis\" question to measure JIT-selling as relatively crude (Germain et al., 1994, p. 480) and as a shortcoming of their study.Claycomb et al. (1999b) collected data from 200 logistics managers to assess the effects of total-system-JIT on inventory, organization and financial outcomes. They described total-system-JIT as being comprised of three dimensions: JIT-purchasing, JIT-production and JIT-sales. As expected, they found that total-system-JIT is inversely related to inventory levels, inversely related to the number of hierarchical layers in the organization, and positively related to financial results. They did not find total-system-JIT to be related to executive spans of control, however. A review of the correlation matrix provided by Claycomb et al. (1999b) indicates similar results when JIT-selling is considered separately. While Claycomb et al. (1999b) do not provide a specific definition of JIT-selling, they operationalized it, as did Germain et al. (1994), with a single, open-ended \"percentage of sales made on a JIT basis\" question. Claycomb et al. (1999b) similarly identified this single item measurement as a limitation of their study and specifically call for future research to develop valid, reliable measurement scales.Green and Inman (2005) more fully developed the JIT-selling construct by describing and measuring a two-stage JIT-selling strategy. They surveyed 175 manufacturers and found that the two-stage strategy strengthened supply chain relationships between manufacturers and customers resulting in improved financial and marketing performance for the manufacturers.Claycomb et al. (1999a) collected data from a sample of 200 manufacturing members of the Council of Logistics Management to investigate the relationship between JIT-with-customers and organizational structure and performance outcomes. They found that JIT-with-customers was associated with decentralization, formalization and integration and better overall performance in terms of inventory levels and financial performance.JIT-with-customers defined\nMethodology: A random sample of 4,250 manufacturers was generated and data relating to the JIT-with-customers and organizational structure constructs were collected using a multi-mode survey methodology described and tested by Schaefer and Dillman (1998). A distribution list of the e-mail addresses was developed, and a survey questionnaire was constructed and located on an internet web site. The potential respondents were sent an e-mail message describing the study, promising anonymity and asking for participation. The e-mail message contained a direct link to the survey web site. A follow-up e-mail message with similar content was sent two weeks later. Initial and follow-up mail-outs were sent to firms for which the initial e-mailings were determined undeliverable.Descriptive statistics and a correlation matrix were generated for all data set variables. The data set was divided into two subsets based on time of response, and ANOVA was used to assess for non-response bias. Each of the measurement scales was assessed for unidimensionality, reliability and validity. The stated hypotheses were assessed using structural equation modeling techniques.\nResults: The sample\nManagerial implications: Green and Inman (2005) and Claycomb et al. (1999a, b) assert that JIT is ideally suited for implementation within a supply chain context. As Claycomb et al. (1999a, p. 38) argue, to fully capture the benefits of JIT, it should be implemented \"at all stages of the distribution channel.\" The JIT-with-customers strategy is specifically designed to strengthen the manufacturing and marketing interface (Claycomb et al., 1999a). Implementation of the strategy will result in an organizational structure that is relatively more integrated and specialized and incorporates a higher degree of performance control. Managers striving to strengthen relationships with customers through JIT-with-customers will find it necessary to locate near customers, to delivery orders on a daily basis, to fully integrate customer representatives within design and manufacturing processes, to encourage customers to share production plans, and to encourage customers to visit manufacturing facilities and to certify product quality. Manufacturers and customers will necessarily become partners focused on improving performance at the supply chain level as well as at the local level. Such integration and coordination requires a new way of working with customers. An arms-length approach will no longer suffice.\nDiscussion: Claycomb et al. (1999a) hypothesized that a JIT-with-customers approach would result in structural changes within the adopting organization. Specifically, they hypothesized that a JIT-with-customers strategy would result in higher levels of integration, performance control, specialization and decentralization and found support for all but the specialization hypothesis.Claycomb et al. (1999a) surveyed logistics managers using a newly developed JITWC and established structure measures. This study generally replicates the Claycomb et al. (1999a) study. Two important differences should, however, be noted:1. manufacturers with overall responsibilities for the marketing and sales functions within their organizations were surveyed as opposed to logistics managers; and2. a structural equation methodology, rather than a regression approach, was utilized.The general proposition that JIT-with-customers impacts organizational structure is supported. Specifically, the results of this study indicate that JIT-with-customers lead to increased integration, performance control, and specialization. The hypothesized relationship between JIT-with-customers with decentralization was not supported by study results.The finding that JIT-with-customers did not impact decentralization is troublesome. Claycomb et al. (1999a) proposed that JIT-with-customers would impact decentralization and incorporated measures related to SCD, STD and MD. They were, however, uncertain as to the type of impact that JIT-with-customers would have on the decentralization measures. For purposes of this study, operations decentralization was replaced with STD and MD because they more closely represent decisions related to the marketing function.To a certain degree, the lack of support for the decentralization hypothesis may relate to the quality of the decentralization scales. The SCD scale contained only two items, which did not allow for a complete assessment of reliability and validity. Further, it was necessary to remove half of the items from the original STD scale (STDEC) to achieve unidimensionality. While the MD scale (MDEC) was assessed as unidimensional, reliable and valid, the items in the scale represented marketing rather than customer relationship decisions.While the objectives of the study were successfully accomplished, limitations of the study should be noted. First, the results of this study may not be generalized outside the manufacturing sample frame. Results from two distinct manufacturing based groups, logistics managers and marketing managers, support generalization within the manufacturing sector, however. Second, the Claycomb et al. (1999a) study controlled for production technology and executive tenure in addition to size. For purposes of parsimony, the technology and tenure variables were omitted, since they had little or no impact on the structure variables in the Claycomb et al. (1999a) study.\nConclusions: Claycomb et al. (1999a) proposed that the adoption of a JIT-with-customers strategy would necessitate a change in the organizational structure supporting the strategy. They found that structure is likely to become more decentralized, integrated, and formalized. Their measures of formalization related to internal and BPCs. Using a somewhat different sample, we also found support for their general proposition. We found that adoption of a JIT-with-customers strategy leads to a more integrated and specialized organization that utilizes relatively high levels of formal internal and external performance controls. Based upon the results from this study and the study by Claycomb et al. (1999a), we conclude that strategic efforts on the part of manufacturers to strengthen relationships with customers will require a more integrated, specialized, and decentralized organization with formalized internal and external performance controls. The overriding purpose of strengthening relationships with customers is to more effectively respond to changes in customer demand. Such customer focus requires integration, specialization, decentralization, and formalization.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Manufacturers have begun to develop and implement strategies that focus on strengthening the operations/marketing interface with customers. Claycomb et al. originally identified and described one such strategy, just-in-time (JIT)-with-customers, and assessed its impact on organizational structure. Generally, this study seeks to replicate their original work with two primary differences: marketing, rather than logistics executives, are surveyed and structural equation modeling, rather than regression analysis, is used to analyze the data.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data collected from 180 marketing executives are analyzed using a structural equation modeling approach to assess the impact of JIT-with-customers on the organizational structure dimensions of integration, performance control, specialization and decentralization.\nFindings: - Results of this study indicate that JIT-with-customers impacts integration, performance control and specialization but is not related to decentralization.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The findings generally support the proposition that adoption of a JIT-with-customers strategy will result in changes in organizational structure.\nPractical implications: - Manufacturing managers working to strengthen relationships with customers through a JIT-with-customers approach should prepare for organizational change in terms of increased integration, performance control, and specialization.\nOriginality/value: - JIT strategies focusing on the operations/marketing interface are being implemented within the manufacturing sector. This study assesses the impact of one such strategy, JIT-with-customers, for only the second time. The results verify the earlier work of Claycomb et al. and expand the operations/marketing interface literature.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Trust, pride and friendship make for good employers: Qualities should be highlighted in focus on great places to work	[ "Employee attitudes", "Tobin’s q", "Good employers", "Great places to work" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nBad bosses, good bosses: It would be unfair to make the sweeping statement that there are more bad employers than good employees.\nSustained competitive advantage: There has been rather less focus on such equally important issues as level of trust between management and employees. Very few pieces of research have suggested that the Greats-performance relationship can be best explained by an employer's trustworthiness, and employee pride and camaraderie do not seem to have been examined at all. Yet, these genuine sources of sustained competitive advantage are what Greats investigations were originally intended to measure. The focus here, then, is on going back to those three characteristics, the ones that the scales should really be measuring.\nThree hypotheses: It was therefore proposed that Greats have greater productivity than their industry rivals, taking operating profit as a percentage of sales. Second, they also have superior operating profit as a percentage of sales than do their industry rivals.\nLinks are clear: All three hypotheses were supported with findings indicating the need for firms to invest resources in employer trustworthiness, employee pride, and camaraderie. Organizational investments that stimulate trust, commitment, passion and community are indeed associated with greater productivity, higher operating profits as a percentage of sales, and better Tobin's q.\nComment: This review is based on \"Employer trustworthiness, worker pride, and camaraderie as a source of competitive advantage: evidence from great places to work\" by Butler et al. (2016). There are no exceptional insights here on the qualities that make for a great firm to work with. On the other hand, the article might contribute to the debate by establishing that some surveys fail to take a broad enough sweep in their examination of what separates the good employers from the mediocre or poor set-ups.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The aim of this paper is to examine characteristics of good employers that have often had inadequate emphasis in previous research.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper investigates three different ranking schemes, Fortune's 100 Best Employers, Glassdoor.com's Employees' Choice Awards, and Careerbliss.com's 50 Happiest Companies in America, to test several hypotheses.\nFindings: Significant hallmarks of great places to work are an employer's trustworthiness, employee pride and the camaraderie that should exist among workers.\nOriginality/value: While there are no insights or findings that will surprise readers, it widens the debate on factors that make for good employers as well as concluding with ideas for further research.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Integrating resilience engineering and UAS technology into construction safety planning and control	[ "Framework", "Construction", "Unmanned aerial systems", "Resilience engineering", "Safety planning and control" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Construction projects can easily be characterized as complex systems (CS), due to the high degree of fragmentation and variability. A CS can be recognized by the high degree of interconnectivity and interdependence between components whose interactions are not always visible and easy to see (Perrow, 1984; Saurin, 2017).\n2. Background: 2.1 Safety planning and control process in construction\n3. Research method: The case study research strategy was adopted in this study to investigate contemporary procedures and processes related to the understanding of the potential of UAS technology in anticipating risks and monitoring the critical processes in the real-life context of a construction site, as well as aiding in the development of a conceptual framework explaining how the RE and the UASs can contribute to the SPC.\n4. Results: This section presents the results obtained from the case study.\n5. Conceptual framework for integrating SPC, RE and UAS technology into construction: The concepts and practical experiences discussed in this paper were essential for the proposal of the conceptual framework presented in Figure 6. This framework aimed to identify the contribution of RE concepts and UAS technology to improve the SPC process.\n6. Conclusions: The aim of this study was to understand how the RE and the UASs can contribute to the SPC process, based on the literature review and a case study on a construction project. Additionally, this study aims to identify the factors that could have influence on the resilience or brittleness of SPC.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present an exploratory study in order to understand the contributions of the resilience engineering (RE) concept and the use of unmanned aerial systems (UASs) technology to support the safety planning and control (SPC) process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A case study on a construction project was conducted and involved the following steps: diagnosis of the SPC process; development of a safety monitoring protocol using UASs; and field tests to monitor safety performance using UASs and data analysis.\nFindings: In terms of its theoretical contribution, this work presents a conceptual framework explaining how the RE and the UASs can contribute to the SPC process. Also, this paper provides, as a practical contribution, a protocol for safety monitoring with UASs integrated into the safety routine, highlighting the tasks that can be checked and unsafe conditions and safety/production conflicts identified through monitoring.\nPractical implications: This study can be used to support and stimulate the construction managers who wish to adopt the RE concepts and UAS technology to improve safety management.\nSocial implications: An efficient SPC process can improve the work conditions at construction sites, contributing with the reduction of accidents rates.\nOriginality/value: The paper highlights the need to adopt new approaches, as RE concepts and UAS technology to support the SPC process, in order to improve safety conditions at construction sites.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
An exploratory study of student engagement at transnational education initiatives: Proactive or apathetic?	[ "Student engagement", "Quality assurance", "Apathy", "Transnational education" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Student engagement (SE) has essentially become a buzzword across the higher education sector, with researchers, policy makers, institutions and students often using this term to help enhance the overall student experience. Researchers analyse this concept in a variety of ways, with some considering the factors for engagement such as student motivation and effort (Schuetz, 2008; Zepke et al., 2010). Others analyse the roles of institutional structures and cultures, and their impact on SE (Porter, 2006; van der Velden, 2012). Moreover, a number of researchers have analysed the benefits of SE, such as Ramsden (2003) who declares that its benefits include enhancing student learning, retention and achievement.\nLiterature review: Trowler (2010) argues that the concept of SE is multi-faceted. While in the USA, SE predominantly considers the aspects of student participation in learning and teaching, in the UK, the concept is more focussed on student involvement in governance and quality processes through roles as student representatives in courses, and officers within student unions. Trowler (2010, p. 3) proposes a fairly broad definition of SE, it is: \"[...] concerned with the interaction between the time, effort and other relevant resources invested by both students and their institutions intended to optimise the student experience and enhance the learning outcomes and development of students and the performance, and reputation of the institution\". SE is considered as multi-layered and encompassing different levels within the university. Healey et al. (2010, p. 22) proposed a framework to highlight the different levels of SE, namely, micro-, meso- and macro-SE. It is argued that within these levels there will be a different type of SE depending on the involvement of key players and the facilitation mechanisms established. At micro-level, SE will, e.g., be focussed on students co-creating the curriculum (Bovill and Bulley, 2011). The meso-level concentrates on student involvement in quality processes, such as student representatives (Kandiko and Mawer, 2013). Macro-level SE pertains to strategy development at national levels.\nConceptual framework: The literature shows that SE in higher education is multi-faceted. Key dimensions that appear in the literature pertain to the activities students could/should be engaged in, (relatedly) the levels of the organisation at which the students can contribute and the roles that students play. Almost all models revolve around the notions of levels of participation and roles (or identities, profiles, etc.) of students. Also, much of the literature accepts that roles are somewhat fluid and contextual. Having considered models of student participation (see Bovill and Bulley, 2011; Healey et al., 2014; Rudd et al., 2006) a framework has been created to highlight the various levels of SE using the dimensions of university participation level and student participation level. The conceptual framework identifies four student profiles that are most prevalent in the SE literature: consumers, citizens, co-creators and partners. Not only does the framework consider the different levels and student identities, it also highlights that SE practices can overlap and thus are multi-faceted (Healey et al., 2014; Trowler, 2010). Moreover, this conceptual framework is not exhaustive to the various forms of SE, but rather provides a useful diagram for the key themes highlighted in the literature review (Figure 1).\nMethodology and data collection: Using a phenomenological approach (Denzin, 1994; Bryman, 2012), the strategy for this research was to understand the experiences and perceptions of transnational students. As explained earlier, there is not much research on SE in a TNE context, hence an explorative approach.\nFindings: The findings are laid out in a series of categories that were discovered during the analysis through coding. In line with Braun and Clarke's (2006) method of thematic analysis, Table II indicates the thematic \"map\" that was developed through analysis. This approach was preferred to dividing the findings into the selected four student identities within the conceptual framework, as this could signal that the identities are separate and mutually exclusive. As mentioned previously, it is rather the opposite as these identities are deeply interrelated. It is also relevant to emphasise that this is not a comparative study among the participant institutions.\nThe apathy cycle: As shown in the findings, a recurring theme throughout the analysis of the interviews was apathy. There was student apathy, as they \"did not care\" about getting involved. However, there was also implied apathy from staff and the university, as perceived by the students. This raises the question of how these apathies interact and possibly reinforce each other.\nConclusions: In conclusion, this research has set out to explore SE at three Scottish HEIs TNE initiatives. Rather than being a comparative study of the differences and similarities at the three diverse TNE providers, this study has shown that there are commonalities amongst students' perspectives that study a TNE programme from a Scottish HEI. The empirical findings show that the strongest identities that students associate with are either those of partner or customer, with the other two identities being underrepresented. The identities found strongly correlate with the type of behaviour of these students. If SE is passive, then students will consider themselves as customers (Naidoo and Jamieson, 2007) and if it is active through both student and staff involvement, then students are more likely to consider themselves as partners. The findings provide evidence that transnational SE mostly occurs at course level, and that the majority of the respondents define SE as staff led, as opposed to student led. The idea that SE should be staff led correlates with the literature that in order for there to be effective SE which is beneficial to both students and staff, there is a requirement for institutions to facilitate and provide support for students to engage (Dunne and Owen, 2013; Healey et al., 2014; van der Velden, 2012). Furthermore, it also signifies that transnational students play a passive role in their learning as they depend on the faculty to lead the way (Cheng, 2011).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Although there is increasing insight in student engagement (SE) in higher education, there is limited insight in how students experience SE in a transnational setting. The purpose of this paper is to explore SE perceptions and transnational experiences. A model, derived from the literature, representing four student identities (consumer, partner, co-creator and citizen) guides the empirical analysis.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using a phenomenological approach, 18 in-depth interviews were carried out with students (business and management) enroled in transnational education initiatives of three Scottish universities in India, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.\nFindings: Students primarily identify the partner and consumer model. Significant levels of apathy were found, not only at the level of the students, but also the staff and the university.\nResearch limitations/implications: Although the study was based on a relatively small sample, it does highlight the impact of the context (external commitments part-time students, \"fly in\" staff from home campus) on levels of SE.\nPractical implications: Stressing again that the study was explorative, the key practical message is that ultimately meaningful dialogue on SE between all stakeholders - inside and outside - needs to take place to forestall a vicious circle of apathy that would be detrimental for quality (assurance).\nOriginality/value: This is one of the first papers on SE in a transnational context and offers a solid point of departure for follow-up research.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Knowledge network creation methodology selection in project-based organizations: An empirical framework	[ "Decision making", "Knowledge sharing", "Macro techniques", "Organizational knowledge network formation", "Pharmaceutical R&D organizations", "Project-based businesses" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In today's information-based, knowledge-driven, and service-intensive economy, knowledge has become the source of products, services and business models that provide a basis for the competitive advantage of organizations (Argote and Ingram, 2000; Kearns and Lederer, 2003; Harris et al., 2013). Recently, a large number of firms have become concerned about a shift from mass production to a more innovative, information-technology oriented, and mostly undiscovered production paradigm in which they must consistently provide and support creative and competitive products, services, and business models in order to continually stream new value to the customers (Story et al., 2015). Consequently, the knowledge that provides valuable capital dispersed from inside and outside the organization becomes increasingly important. Accordingly, it is not surprising that strategic knowledge management (KM) initiatives and systems have been utilized in organizations for integrating, growing, and reconciling this competitive knowledge (Lopez-Nicolas and Merono-Cerdan, 2011).\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1. PBO\n3. KN creation methodologies: There are different methodologies regarding the creation of KN. Each of these methodologies has a specific set of tools, approaches, objectives, and characteristics. In this section, these methodologies are described in two categories of quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Qualitative methodologies have a more managerial approach to the creation of a KN and mainly utilize conceptual frameworks to depict different aspect of the methodology. Qualitative methodologies normally consist of guidelines for leaders, managers, and practitioners. On the other hand, quantitative methodologies have a more mathematical approach to the KN creation problem and encompass related mathematical modeling and notations.\n4. A framework for KN creation methodologies: Based on presented KN creation methodologies, each methodology has its own characteristics. Although they have a lot of similarities, there exists differences among them that are critical in the selection process for each organization. Therefore a PBO should select a methodology to create its KN in the manner the methodology supports its expectations and adapts with the organization's characteristics.\n5. Empirical evaluation: In order to illustrate the applicability and usefulness of the proposed framework, the developed framework was verified and validated using data from a pharmaceutical research and development (R&D) organization. The incentive behind selecting a pharmaceutical R&D organization as the case study is that these organizations use the most highly developed project management models and have the highest level of project management maturity (Cooke-Davies and Arzymanow, 2003). These type of companies are also typically known for their project-based form (Taylor and Levitt, 2004). Moreover, knowledge-based innovation is a vital aspect of competitiveness in this kind of organization (Munos and Chin, 2011). The PBO used for the case study is among the three largest pharmaceutical R&D organizations in the country, and in recent years it has been planning to create KN as one of its KM initiatives. This (anonymized) PBO agreed to use the proposed framework to choose the most appropriate KN creation methodology after its KM initiative implementation in 2013. Thus, a group of three experts--consisting of a chief knowledge officer (CKO) and two professional project managers who were highly educated and experienced in the PBO - was formed to select the KN creation methodology. In the first introductory meeting, all members of the group confirmed that the project-based form is adopted in the organization and there are intra- and inter-organizational active projects in the organization. On the other hand, the CKO clarified that KN creation had been part of the KM plan of organization for about one year and as the first step, they could not find a systematic solution to their selection problem. The group aimed to use the proposed framework and choose their appropriate KN creating methodology systematically. It was determined that all members would have complete information about the details of KM plan, current active projects, and project-based form of the PBO. Consequently, different aspects of KM strategy, the PBO's cultural environment, related organizational policies, initiated KM tools and systems, management support, current project configurations, and project-based structure of the organization were discussed thoroughly with no conflicts.\n6. Discussion and conclusions: A structured framework to select the most appropriate KN creation methodology has been proposed in this paper. This framework encourages the adoption of these methodologies if they have a strong positive relationship with organizational objectives and have no major adverse effects. The framework identifies the key methodologies which improves the KN creation process. This is based on experts' research that determined the most suitable features for comparison framework. Thus, the proposed framework indicates which KN creation methodology will have the greatest effect on the desired KN which is pointed out in KM initiatives.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: In today's knowledge-based economy, knowledge networks (KN) increasingly are becoming vital channels for pursuing strategic objectives in project-based organizations (PBO), in which the project is the basic organizational element in its operation. KN initiatives often are started with the selection of a creation methodology, which involves complex decisions for successful implementation. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to address this critical selection of methodology and proposes a holistic framework for selecting an appropriate methodology in this kind of flatter, speedier, and more flexible organizational form.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In the first step, the study established a theoretical background addressing the problem of KN creation in PBO. The second step defined selection criteria based on extensive literature review. In the third step, a holistic framework was constructed based on different characteristics of existing methodologies categorized according to the selected criteria. Finally, the suggested framework was empirically tested in a project-based firm and the case study and the results are discussed.\nFindings: A holistic framework was determined by including different aspects of a KN such as network perspectives, tools and techniques, objectives, characteristics, capabilities, and approaches. The proposed framework consisted of ten existing KN methodologies that consider qualitative and quantitative dimensions with micro and macro approaches.\nOriginality/value: The development of the theory of KN creation methodology is the main contribution of this research. The selection framework, which was theoretically and empirically grounded, has attempted to offer a more rational and less ambiguous solution to the KN methodology selection problem in PBO forms.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Loss of brick-and-mortar schooling: how elementary educators respond	[ "Educational technology", "Elementary school", "Pandemic", "COVID-19", "Compassionate teachers", "Hands-on learning", "Social distance learning" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Natural disasters, such as hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes, as well as human-made crises such as war, often lead to a suspension of schooling. Response plans usually focus on aiding students' return to their brick-and-mortar classrooms by providing counseling and support to ease students' transition back into schooling (Knox and Roberts, 2005; Lazarus et al., 2002). However, the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) world pandemic is different, in that brick-and-mortar schools are closed, but classrooms remain open through what we refer to here as social distance learning. The loss of physical school facilities has been met with practices including a wide range of technology to mediate learning, for example, video conferencing, home learning packets, text messaging, phone calls and other means of communication.\nBackground: learning during a global pandemic: Social distance learning during COVID-19 varies across the USA for a myriad of reasons. The expectations of students and teachers not only differ from state to state (Reich et al., 2020) but what learning teachers can provide depends on the technology available at home for students and teachers (Warschauer, 2004). This adds another dimension to the parent-teacher relationship, which is often cited as vital to helping students succeed in school (Desforges and Abouchaar, 2003; Lee and Bowen, 2006). This relationship may be even more critical for social distance learning, as teachers, particularly in elementary school, are relying on parents to help aid both learning and provide support for technology integration, which we know in school-based teaching is already a complex and situated form of knowledge for teachers (Mishra and Koehler, 2006). In these times, parents' ability to help facilitate learning depends on many factors, such as if they are essential workers, how overwhelmed they are (Harris, 2020), and if they are dealing with grief, health concerns, or other extenuating circumstances. There is little doubt that schooling during a pandemic is profoundly challenging for students, parents and educators alike.\nMethods: For this paper, we interviewed six veteran elementary school teachers from five different schools across two states. We define a veteran as having over five years of teaching experience. Table 1 provides information on their respective teaching backgrounds.\nFindings: Rising to the challenge of social distance learning\nDiscussion: In the above findings, we see examples of how teachers are rising to the challenge of losing brick-and-mortar schools, the supports needed for social distance teaching and learning, along with how their roles as educators and learning goals for students have changed. We discuss some pertinent themes from the findings with practical and social implications below.\nLimitations: We find it is essential to acknowledge the limitations of our study's research design. With a limited number of participants and a single interview with each of them, we have been able only to capture a cross-section of their experiences with social distance teaching at one moment in time. Though the participants teach at a range of economically and racially diverse schools, they do not represent the makeup of their respective states. Also, our focus in this study has been to understand the participating teachers' experiences. So, we were unable to capture the challenges faced by other entities such as school district administrators, parents and students.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to understand how elementary school educators who teach subjects that traditionally require hands-on work in schools are rising to the challenge of losing brick-and-mortar facilities in the wake of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors interviewed six elementary school educators and developed iterative grounded codes from the interviews to understand how the teachers are rising to the challenge of teaching online, what supports they need, and how they are viewing their roles and student learning in the present landscape.\nFindings: In response to losing brick-and-mortar schools, teachers are rising to the challenge by creating creative assignments and communicating with students and parents via multiple platforms. They are learning to use technology to create meaningful, socially distant learning experiences and, in the process, blurring their own boundaries between work and life. They exercise compassion for their students while providing the best education they can in these circumstances.\nPractical implications: This work provides administrators, educators, policymakers and technology developers insight into the challenges teachers are facing.\nOriginality/value: In addition to the timeliness of this study in light of the COVID 19 crisis, the focus on elementary school students, who often need support from parents or guardians to use Web technologies, and subjects traditionally requiring face-to-face interactions and hands-on work contribute to the originality of the study.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Innovation in the internet age	[ "Internet", "Innovation", "Integration", "Business development", "Market share", "Change management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nSummary: Few can argue with the idea that innovation is a fundamental requirement for building a sustainable organization. Think of the dominant brands today, and those that jump to mind are frequently those with a strong reputation for innovation. Brands like Apple, IBM, Google, and 3M are leaders in innovation (FastCompany, 2010), not just for new products and services but also for renewing business processes and building new markets to meet customer need.But innovating is not an easy task, and few organizations have built an innovation framework that fosters measured and economically sound innovation. As the internet and subsequent globalization increase the volume and accessibility of new ideas, it has become even more important for companies to innovate intelligently, consistently, and quickly. The internet is now at an age where its disruptive capability has reached critical mass, and it will only further amplify challenges for organizations not steadily engaged in innovation.By leveraging internet offerings, both as a vehicle for mass communication and a distributed application, companies can integrate the internet as a means for innovation. But this transition can be a difficult one, especially for large organizations, and this article will discuss methods to deal with the challenges of disruptive change. Regardless of the complexity involved, Internet Integration has become critical to innovation and growth, and those that are unable to integrate will suffer quickly and dramatically.\nInternet integration: Ten years ago, the internet was leaving its initial chapter of development and was on the cusp of change and innovation itself. There were technology limitations and user adoption was low (Internet World Stats, 2009). The internet was disconnected from daily life, from a consumer and a business standpoint. A quick review of business magazines in 2000 reveals much less discussion of the internet than today, and a scan of advertisements does not show many references to websites. The web was simply not considered as a fundamental part of the customer journey.Today, we know that a customer will often perform internet research before purchasing products either online or in stores (Sehgal, 2010). While ecommerce lags, the internet is still an important part of the overall retail economy, as a source of information and a vehicle for communication. With over 2.6 billion search queries per day in Google alone (comScore, 2010), billions of emails sent (Radicati Group, 2009)), and the astronomical rise in popularity of social networks like Facebook (Facebook, n.d.), it is clear that the internet can offer more to businesses beyond ecommerce.We will soon be in an age where \"internet integrated\" organizations create massive upheaval for markets like never before. They will rapidly change consumer opinions, steal market share from their competitors, and grow exponentially, leaving stagnant organizations with less of everything. By performing internet integration, an organization can position itself to innovate and build a sustainable future.At the most basic level, internet integration requires an acceptance of change. This may seem simplistic, but building a culture of change means being comfortable with alterations in resources, roles, technology, and processes. This can mean a fundamental shift in company values and culture.There are examples of companies beginning to adopt this attitude. For example, when Volkswagen allowed the consumer's voice to guide design for their new car in their \"App my Ride\" campaign, that was open innovation through internet integration (Volkswagen, n.d.). By tracking and measuring feedback, the company can gauge the success of their efforts from the early influence stages of customer engagement to the later-stage loyalty phases. They can monitor brand value and product perception, which can help them innovate in the future. This changes how the organization creates, builds, markets, evaluates, and refines its products. If we assume the organization has a defined process for refining automobile design based on past sales, this new method of directly involving the customer gives the company an improved, more dynamic, real-time knowledge of demand.By putting more choices in the hands of the consumer, brands can positively impact sales, but they must first install the underlying process to filter and execute consumer request, so that it works within their organizations economic framework.\nChallenges of disruptive change: Along with the acceptance of change, internet integration also requires a process to manage change. Ten years ago, Clayton Christensen and Michael Overdorf wrote a paper entitled \"Meeting the challenges of disruptive change\", which was published in Harvard Business Review (Christensen and Overdorf, 2000). That paper still has significant value today, but needs to be updated to explain how the internet has changed, and how it changes organizations.The article examined the hardship that managers of established businesses have in innovating, bringing about change, or as a reaction to changes in the marketplace. The problem, the authors propose, is not the managers or resources themselves, who are often the best-of-the-best, but rather the process and values in place at the organization. These processes and values that allow the business to perform normal operations and even sustain innovation are the very factors that prevent the company from initiating or dealing with disruptive innovation. While their article is more about managing changes to the execution and production of products and services, the internet has become an intrinsic part of the entire company, from resource and budget allocation, to workflow and distribution process and, as discussed before, the very values of the organization.The article brings to light that the values inherent in large companies especially, and those grown entirely through acquisition in particular, are preventing them from adapting and creating change. These values are the standards that enable employees to determine action items and set priorities; they reflect a cost structure and/or business model. In established organizations, acceptable gross margins and the minimum threshold size of business opportunities differ greatly from that of a start-up. This is why larger, more established organizations are less likely to be true innovators - their values simply do not allow it.When a massive company attempts change to accommodate fluctuations brought on by the internet without a proper structure in place to support it, problems can arise. With internet communication in particular, special teams are often designated within an existing department to manage the medium. More often than not, these teams fail to make real headway and to truly utilize the Internet to its full potential. This is due to several factors: processes and values. To put a fine point on it, the failure to adapt and thrive is not due to the resources, but rather the application of existing processes and values to the disruptive innovation. With disruptive innovations, expectations must be scaled to accommodate differences that may include longer gestation and lower initial profitability and sales volume. The same applies to internet marketing: the budgets, sales volumes and overall direct-tracked profitability will not follow traditional marketing.The solution to this can be to create new organizational structures within corporate boundaries, create independent organizations, or acquire another organization that possesses the capabilities to handle the type of innovation being pursued. Christensen and Overdorf's (2000) article suggests that managers need to approach innovation by first assessing whether their organization possesses the right resources, processes and values to innovate. Then they must determine the level of fit between the type of innovation necessary and the existing capabilities, in order to decide on the type of structure required to innovate.Christensen and Overdorf (2000) correctly asserted that the best methods for change in 2000 were lightweight or heavyweight teams to change within the organization. Today, this option is less effective. The entire organization, the spin-off or the acquisition, must all undergo internet integration to succeed.In the past, a successful means to achieve innovation was via teams. Christensen and Overdorf (2000) described \"heavyweight\" teams within the organization when there is a good fit within the organization's values but a poor fit within the organization's process. For situations where the team has a poor fit with process and values, Christensen and Overdorf (2000) recommend a heavyweight team in a separate spin-out organization. Likewise, lightweight teams are suggested when the team has a good fit with the organization's process and values. Lastly, the suggestion is to develop a possible in-house heavyweight team with commercialization as a spin-out if there is a good process fit but poor value fit.In terms of the internet, teams built internally often fail, as they are forced to compete with resources for projects within the mainstream of the company; in addition, the existing values prevent any real engagement in the online channel because the benefit is seen as too small. But if these teams can be held to new processes and values, then they can thrive, provided of course that these new processes and values are successful.An organization can navigate the difficulties and leverage the innovation potential of the internet, but the solution is not a modular product. Change must occur from within, as internet integration affects every aspect of an organization. For organizations that have treated the internet as merely an additive sales source and ignored its real value as a distributed application, changing resources, process and values will be a real challenge.Still, for now, businesses can absorb these changes more slowly and gradually, but very soon, those that have not integrated fully will see their market share decline and their sales decrease. Gone are the days where innovation is gained through mergers and acquisitions. Organizations that understand \"internet integration\" will grasp how the internet can foster an innovative environment. They will better adapt to external changes and have processes in place to continually refine and improve. By doing so, they will innovate constantly.\nThe internet integrated innovative company: Today, businesses move much faster and have access to more raw data and information than ever before. To borrow and adapt some terms from Peter F Drucker, in the age of internet integration, an organization must possess the ability to transform data into knowledge, and knowledge into decision, creating the evolution of the \"knowledge worker\", into what the current author calls the \"decision worker\" (Drucker, 1957). This means that the correct resources are empowered with the appropriate information for innovation.The internet integrated organization will possess resources that are much more adaptable. The value system by which the organization functions, defined as \"the standards by which employees set priorities\" (Christensen and Overdorf, 2000) will be more fluid, as employees conduct more independent decision making to meet strategic directions and outcomes.The organization will adjust more easily to global fluctuations in capability and capacity. Thus, acceptable gross margins will adjust to follow sustainable profit volume goals. For example, when Digital Equipment Corporation did not pursue the PC market, or when Kodak failed to innovate in the digital realm, these were failures to predict, innovate, and most importantly balance short-term profit goals with long-term growth objectives. While their margins may have been temporarily smaller, the long-term benefits could have been lucrative. Today, we see Verizon making attempts to transition from a voice-driven offering to data. Management teams are encouraging the use of Skype to communicate, indicating an understanding of the future. Only time will tell if others, such as Vodafone, O2, and Sprint can make this transition.An internet integrated organization has a much better understanding of its customer base, realizing that their customer moves between traditional and online platforms to consume media and interact with a brand. They therefore have a clearer understanding of the true value and cost of their marketing efforts, as they do not isolate their media and brand endeavors into siloed data buckets. Instead, they can glean which media drive sales, and discern the appropriate attribution of cost to allow for proper optimization of value. In doing so, the organization can better develop new products and services.An internet optimized company has maximized profit volume by utilizing the internet as a distributed application and a global medium. By doing so, it has more resources available to it to further change and expand.Most of all, an internet integrated organization has a process and value system in place and the framework to change the very organization itself. An example of a successful innovation framework approach, through internet integration, is Google. While their traditional media model has some current limits in terms of growth, they realize the future of the organization involves a user's proximity to the technology. Google understands that people will not be connected to an immobile device for much longer, so they cannot rely on use of search through desktops. To adapt the Google revenue model, they realize they must follow the customer into the non-wired world, through the mobile market (Google, n.d.). By entering into the mobile operating system business, Google has a chance to survive and thrive. Google is currently absorbing change because the company has an innovation framework to self-audit and redefine itself. This culture originates with the leadership, and trickles all the way through its decentralized structure, to inspire innovation throughout the company. (If we adhere to the definition and benefits of a decentralized business model as described by Peter F. Drucker, 1946.)But innovation is not just developing marginally better products and services. The organizational structure must also absorb change. Developing another iPod or iPad is not the future of Apple. If Apple wants to remain viable, it must innovate far beyond their current position as a product and software company.Managers and owners who think they are in good shape today need to challenge themselves with the core questions regarding change management, as defined by Christensen and Overdorf (2000), adjusted to consider the role of the internet:Does the organization have the resources in place to develop internet integration?Does the organization have process in place that prevents or accepts the Internet into all parts of the organization and allow modification of process over time?Can the organization's values change over time as it learns what the customer wants and can it design products and services that the customer can't even imagine today?Will the organization's culture support change that is healthy and self sustaining, allowing the organization to thrive long after we have all moved on?Only a few will challenge themselves to these questions, but those that do will change the world for the rest.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to illuminate the need for business to integrate the internet as a means for creating frameworks for sustainable innovation and growth.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Drawing from accepted methods for establishing business innovation, the author updates these traditional models for the internet age.\nFindings: - The internet can enable business innovation more quickly, and on a larger scale than ever before, but managers must first challenge themselves to achieve internet integration.\nPractical implications: - Business must integrate the internet now, in order to avoid loss of market share; those that have an internet-enabled framework for innovation installed will see their business grow sustainably.\nOriginality/value: - Managers will gain unique insight into how the internet can provide an innovation framework, by acting as a distributed application and a global medium.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Productivity of product design and engineering processes: Unexplored territory for production management techniques?	[ "New product development", "Productivity", "New product design" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nQuestioning the productivity of product design and engineering processes: The ability to be productive and innovative at the same time is challenging for many companies; in that respect, the pressure to develop products both effectively and efficiently has been called the \"productivity dilemma\" (Adler et al., 2009, p. 101). This dilemma appears especially in so-called design-driven companies. According to Kotler and Rath (1984, p. 17), a company is called design-driven, when the achievement of customer satisfaction and company profitability is based significantly on the process to align the major technical product design characteristics (such as product performance, quality, durability, appearance and costs) to requirements of the customer; examples are firms like Gorenje or Indesit (Prasnikar et al., 2008, p. 536). The productivity of these design-driven companies is often low in comparison to other producing companies and the productivity dilemma is also known as the productivity-flexibility trade-off (Rudberg and Wikner, 2004, p. 446). Their output in terms of units is low, because they often customise and produce technical products as one-of-its-kind solutions or in small batches in order to meet individual customer requirements (Wright, 1997, p. 37). This focus on satisfying specific customer needs leads to frequent changes in the design of technical products and processes, which creates additional engineering effort (Jarratt et al., 2011, p. 110). These engineering changes require more time and resources and therefore increase lead-time (Ong, 1997, p. 251) and costs (Chang et al., 2011, p. 275) of customised products. This implies that it is particularly difficult for design-driven companies to be productive, while at the same time maintaining a high level of innovativeness and customisation.\nDefining productivity for product design and engineering processes: Since the study focuses on the productivity of product design and engineering processes, the question arises what the concept covers. Different definitions associated with the term productivity have not gone unnoticed (e.g. Tangen, 2005). For example, Oechsner et al. (2002, p. 335) define productivity by four measures for overall equipment efficiency. The interpretation of the work of Huang et al. (2003, p. 516) implies that they are viewing productivity from the actual generated output; what they call overall throughput effectiveness. However, they do not fully define productivity but just propose an alternative by considering also the degree of resource utilisation in performance measurement. Equivalent to its use in manufacturing, the productivity of product design and engineering processes is most commonly denoted as the ratio of \"produced process output per consumed resource input\" (Gunasekaran et al., 1994, p. 170; Lee et al., 2011, p. 81; Kao et al., 1995, p. 197; Sakamoto, 2010, p. 50; Stewart and Calloway, 1982, p. 109; Verona, 1999, p. 135). Consequently, productivity of product design and engineering can also be broken down into the two constitutional components: effectiveness and efficiency (Kao et al., 1995, p. 198). Effectiveness accounts for output of product design and engineering processes, in particular in terms of quality and lead-time, while efficiency focuses on consumption of engineering resources, using Tangen's generic approach (Tangen, 2005, p. 41). In doing so, effectiveness as the focus of new product development is related to a higher degree of novelty, while efficiency is particularly important for engineering changes (Benner and Tushman, 2003, p. 251; Naveh, 2005, p. 2803), implying a lower degree of novelty. Putting it further, Coates et al. (2004, p. 434) associate effectiveness with \"strategic\" decision making for new product development, while efficiency might be dominated by \"operational\" methods to change and improve existing products and processes (Naveh, 2005, p. 2803). Hence, the applicability of management methods to improve productivity within the different stages of product design and engineering processes might be determined by the objective to improve effectiveness, efficiency or both (see Figure 1 for the presentation of the theoretical framework).\nInitial literature review: This raises the question whether existing studies provide overviews, or alternatively guidance, on methods for improving productivity of product design and engineering processes, as defined in Section 2. However, this quest does not consider the use of order entry points and modular design that indirectly address productivity (Dekkers, 2006; Wikner and Rudberg, 2005; Jacobs et al., 2007); it can be assumed that firms facing competitive pressures on product flexibility, lead-time and cost will have implemented these concepts already. Neither does our study address the advantages of managing the interface between manufacturing and product design and engineering (Adler, 1995; Dekkers et al., 2013) and Concurrent Engineering (Gerwin et al., 2012; Handfield, 1994), while noting that both concepts affect total performance of new product development, including manufacturing. It should also be noted that articles about new product development (e.g. Krishnan and Loch, 2005) do not deal with productivity of product design and engineering processes directly. Rather, the onus of the current study is solely on productivity improvement of product design and engineering processes within a given setting for product configuration and approaches to new product development. For this reason the next subsections focus on existing reviews for methods to improve productivity of product design and engineering processes by taking the theoretical framework from Section 2 (Figure 1) as starting point and resulting gaps and research questions.\nRationale for and design of research methodology: With the distinction and relationship between performance, productivity, effectiveness and efficiency established, the theoretical knowledge base for managing the processes of product design and engineering enters new ground with the attempt to search systematically methods for productivity improvement. To that purpose, an appropriate research methodology is needed. This corresponds with the notion that many proposed methods are conceptual or anecdotal, see Section 3. The quest to construct an overview based on appropriateness calls for a research approach that is capable of amalgamating both conceptual approaches and solutions derived from practice. Therefore, an unconventional research methodology is chosen, using data from two different sources, akin to a concurrent mixed method approach (Campbell and Fiske, 1959; Creswell, 2009, p. 14). The research methodology within the complete context of this paper is shown in Figure 2. The rationale for such an unusual research methodology is the scattered availability of existing literature in a large variety of academic outlets and the lack of empirical evidence. The first step is retrieving and appraising theoretical approaches through a systematic literature review based on Tranfield et al. (2003). The second step of the research will add qualitative data from a Delphi study. This study was conducted with a purposefully selected panel of experts with both theoretical expertise and practical experience, following guidelines from Hasson et al. (2000, p. 1010). Hence, the systematic literature review and the Delphi study generate a systematic overview from existing research results and expert opinions. The intent of using these two distinct research methods is to achieve more coherence in findings and a more complete overview. The combination of these two research methods seems to be unconventional, but is deemed appropriate here, because there is a lack of appropriate literature.\nResults of the systematic literature review and the Delphi study: As indicated in Section 4, the results from both steps of the research methodology are presented separately in the next two subsections. These results are amalgamated in Section 6 to develop the systematic overview of methods for productivity improvement of product design and engineering processes.\nIntegration and discussion of findings: Now the findings from the systematic literature review and the Delphi study are combined to reflect on the three research questions. This amalgamation is presented in Table V, which displays all proposed methods and their impact on productivity, effectiveness and efficiency of product design and engineering processes. Methods found in literature are marked with \"L\" and methods from the Delphi study with a \"D\". Table V provides the first unique overview of applicable methods for improving the productivity of product design and engineering processes.\nConclusion: During the initial literature review it became clear that available literature on productivity improvement methods is mostly conceptual, scattered and based on single cases or methods. In writings it also remains often unclear which parameter of productivity is intended to be improved: effectiveness, efficiency or productivity? Moreover, most publications assume a relationship between a proposed method and productivity without measuring the impact empirically. This finding concurs with former research that appropriate definitions of productivity of engineering are lacking (O'Donnell and Duffy, 2002, p. 1200) and empirical research lacking as the previous section shows. Hence, a systematic overview was needed, which displays methods according to their impact on productivity, effectiveness and efficiency.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Maintaining and improving productivity of product design and engineering processes has been a paramount challenge for design-driven companies, which are characterised a high degree of development of products and processes in order to meet particular customer requirements. Literature on this issue is fragmented and dispersed and a concise and systematic overview is lacking. Hence, it remains unclear, which methods are applicable for design-driven companies to improve the productivity of limitedly available engineering resources (a challenge companies and nations face currently). The purpose of this paper is to develop such a systematic overview.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An unusual approach was utilised by combining the outcomes from a systematic literature review and the results of a Delphi study. From both research approaches complementary and overlapping methods for improving the productivity of product design and engineering processes could be drawn.\nFindings: The unique systematic overview presents 27 methods to increase the productivity, effectiveness and efficiency of product design and engineering processes of design-driven companies. Moreover, the study finds that methods for improving effectiveness are preferred over methods for improving efficiency and that limitations with regard to the availability of resources are often not considered.\nResearch limitations/implications: During the development of the systematic overview, a lack of empirical evidence to assess the actual impact of productivity improvement methods was discovered. This shortcoming demonstrates the need for more conceptual and empirical work in this domain. More studies are needed to test and confirm the usefulness of the proposed methods.\nPractical implications: Nevertheless, design-driven companies, which struggle to increase the productivity of their product design and engineering processes, can systematically select improvement methods from the overview according to their impact on productivity, effectiveness and efficiency. However, companies should keep in mind, whether effectiveness of product design and engineering can really be increased without considering limitations in engineering resources.\nOriginality/value: Therefore, the systematic overview provides a valuable map of the unexplored territory of productivity improvement methods for product design and engineering for both practitioners and researchers. For the latter ones, it creates directions for empirical investigations in order to explore and to compare methods for the improvement of productivity of product design and engineering processes.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Can informal corporate governance mechanisms mitigate diversification discount? Evidence from Malaysia	[ "Diversification", "Political connection", "Ownership concentration", "Business group", "Firm value", "Informal corporate governance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The vital roles played by corporate governance in the nexus of corporate diversification and firm performance have been well documented (Ushijima, 2015). The predominant view is that diversified firms are prone to higher agency problems associated with the problems of overinvestment (Berger and Ofek, 1995) and inefficient resource allocation (Jensen, 1986; Lang and Stulz, 1994), and this in turn reduces the diversified firm value (also known as \"diversification discount\"). Majority of these studies documented were analyzed based on a unitary perspective within the agency theoretical framework where the formal and standardized corporate governance attributes are utilized. However, this current research framework is inadequate for investigation in the emerging markets where the alternative informally formed corporate governance mechanisms are so widespread among the emerging-country firms.\n2. The informal corporate governance dimensions: hypothesis development: 2.1 Political connection\n3. Data and methods: Our sample is derived from the entire population of firms listed on the Malaysian stock exchange (Main Board of Bursa Malaysia) excluding finance sector firms across the years from 2001 to 2012. The finance sector is excluded in this study because of the different set of rules and regulations used to govern this sector that making them incomparable to other sectors. Finance firms are usually governed under a different regulatory framework from non-finance firms, in which financial institutions are specially regulated by certain requirements, guidelines and restrictions that are not necessarily applied for non-finance firms. In Malaysia, all finance firms are directly monitored and supervised under the direct purview of Central Bank of Malaysia (known as Bank Negara Malaysia), subject to legislations such as Central Bank of Malaysia Act 2009 and Financial Service Act 2013. In the legislations, one specific rule concerning the data collection in our study is that finance firms can only engage primarily in financial-related businesses (unless otherwise obtained special approval from Bank Negara Malaysia). This indicates that all finance firms are focused (non-diversified) firms by law amid the rules have prevented them from diversifying into other business segments. This also suggests that finance firms are subject to a higher level of industry regulations and capitalization as compared to non-finance firms, and thus they would possibly become \"outliers\" in our data sample if they are being included. Furthermore, any firm that has missing data and cannot be traced in any way throughout the 12-year period considered in this study (2001-2012) is removed from the initial sample. Our study uses Datastream database to collect firms' financial data for calculating firm value measure and also the values of the control variables. We also manually extract other firms' related data from the firms' annual reports.\n4. Analysis and discussion of findings: 4.1 Summary of descriptive statistics\n5. Conclusion: Overall, this study has established the influential roles of informal corporate governance mechanisms on the diversification and firm value relationship based on a country-centric institutional setting. Our study shows that among the prevalent informal corporate governance mechanisms used by Malaysian public-listed firms, only business group affiliation particularly the larger groups are able to mitigate the discounted value of diversification. The findings imply that (larger) business groups in Malaysia are able to effectively serve as an important corporate governance mechanism informally for diversified firms in supplementing for the governance deficiency. A more in-depth understanding of why different impacts exists among the informally formed corporate governance mechanisms and why Malaysian diversified firms are still widely practising political connection and high concentrated ownership remains as an interesting topic to be further explored.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine whether any specific informal corporate governance mechanisms under consideration in this study, namely, political connection, business group affiliation and ownership concentration, are able to mitigate the diversification discount for emerging-market diversified firms using Malaysia as an examination lab.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study uses a sample data of the entire non-financial public-listed firms in Malaysia over a 12-year period from 2001 to 2012. The generalized method of moments estimators are employed to account for the endogeneity of both corporate governance and diversification.\nFindings: This study finds that business group affiliation particularly with large size can help to mitigate the diversification discount whereby political connection and ownership concentration magnify the discount. The finding is robust to alternative diversification measurements, to alternative methods and to endogeneity bias.\nResearch limitations/implications: This result implies that diversified firms with affiliation to large business groups are able to reduce the magnitude of the discounted value of diversification.\nPractical implications: This study helps managers, shareholders and investors to evaluate their current/future investments related to firms with diversified business segments. This study also provides implications for policymakers and regulatory bodies to assess the adequacy and competency of the current corporate governance frameworks in place.\nOriginality/value: This study incorporates the country-specific institutional dimension in designing a research framework that is more relevant in examining the influential effect of governance-related characteristics on the diversification-firm value relationship in an emerging market.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Understanding consumer intention with respect to purchase and use of pirated software	[ "Consumer intentions", "Purchase", "Usage", "Pirated software", "Piracy", "Fairness", "Consumer behaviour", "Malaysia" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Software piracy is the unauthorized copying or distribution of copyrighted software. This can be done by copying, downloading, sharing, selling, or installing multiple copies onto personal or work computers. Software piracy puts a strain on technology companies' ability to invest in new jobs and new technologies; harms local resellers and services firms; lowers government tax revenues; and increases the risk of cyber crime and security problems. Of the 108 countries included in the report, the use of pirated software dropped in 67, and rose in only eight. However, because the worldwide PC market grew fastest in high-piracy countries, the worldwide PC software piracy rate increased by three percentage points to 38 percent in 2007 (Business Software Alliance, 2008).The 2009 BSA/IDC Global PC Software Piracy Study states that the global piracy rate increased from 41 to 43 percent, largely the result of fast growing, higher piracy markets such as China, India, and Brazil increasing their share of the overall software market (Business Software Alliance, 2009). Additional findings include:* PC software piracy dropped in 54 of the 111 countries studied; however, the worldwide piracy rate rose from 41 percent in 2008 to 43 percent in 2009, due to exponential growth in PC software deployments in emerging economies.* The commercial value of pirated software in 2009 was $51.4 billion.* The USA, Japan, and Luxembourg continue to hold the lowest piracy rates of countries surveyed (20, 21, and 21 percent, respectively).* Countries with the highest piracy rates include China, Georgia, Zimbabwe, and Moldova (all higher than 90 percent).* Forces driving piracy down included vendor legalization programs, government, and industry education campaigns, enforcement actions, and technology shifts, such as the increased deployment of digital rights management and greater use of software asset management.* Factors driving piracy rates up included rapid growth of the consumer PC market, and greater activity in the installed base of older computers where unlicensed software is more prevalent, and the increasing sophistication of software pirates and cyber criminals.Personal computers (PCs) and laptop industry is growing exponentially in Malaysia. The after effects that come together with such positive growth are the software piracy rates, which are getting difficult to control. According to the Fourth Annual Business Software Alliance and International Data Corporation Global Software Piracy Study, losses caused by software piracy in Malaysia for the year 2007 increased almost 100 percent compared to 2006, reaching USD 289 million, approximately RM 1 billion (Business Software Alliance, 2007). The perceived value of pirated software is deemed to be high as pirated software users are able to obtain a computer program similar in product attributes to the authentic one, but at an extremely low-cost (Phau and Ng, 2010). Legal punishment might deter one's intended use of pirated software, but does not influence his or her attitude toward the behavior (Liao et al., 2010).Tan (2002) found that consumers' moral intensity, perceived risks, and moral judgment influenced the intention of buying pirated software. Other studies, however, show that software piracy is significantly correlated to gross national Product per capita, income inequity, and to Hofstede's cultural dimension of individualism (Husted, 2000). There are many factors, which contribute to the behavior of involving in software piracy that includes the use, copy, and distribution of unauthorized software. This research focuses on the equity factor, one of the reasons that might have caused many to opt for software piracy, in particular to answer whether procedural fairness, reciprocal fairness, distributive fairness, subjective norm, and attitude significantly influence consumers' intention to purchase and use of pirated software. As software piracy is becoming a worldwide problem, the research would be able to further understanding about the reasons that contribute to software piracy.\nLiterature review: Software piracy has brought increasingly massive losses in the industry globally, and has aroused questions on such behavior and related ethical issues. Previous studies attempted to find out factors and determinants of software piracy behavior. External factors were examined and results showed factors such as per capita income, cultural, and institutional factors as determinants of software piracy rates (Burke, 1996; Gopal and Sanders, 1997; Husted, 2000; Marron and Steel, 2000). Demographics also play certain roles in affecting the software piracy behavior. In earlier studies, Peace (1997) and Gopal and Sanders (1997) found out that age and gender influence software piracy behavior. Younger users seem to be more acceptable towards the use of unauthorized software and committed more in software piracy. This seems to be true as students are found to be much more involved in software copying. A research done on undergraduates showed that 71 percent of the students believed that copying software was socially and ethically acceptable (Solomon and O'Brien, 1990).Cost of the original software was also extremely important in software piracy. Many music CD buyers deny that they are doing anything wrong and blame the music industry for charging high prices (Kwong et al., 2003). There were results revealing that the excessive price of original software was the key factor to software piracy (Eric, 2007). The cost factor leads to pricing, another salient situational factor that leads to the considerations of value and fairness. Furthermore, Givon et al. (1995) suggested that the external influences such as promotions by the mass media of pirated software, and influence by word-of-mouth interactions among users affect decisions to use pirated software.Conceptual model and hypotheses\nMethodology: Field survey was used where questionnaires were distributed to 300 Universiti Sains Malaysia students in lecture halls and at the foyer personally and 60 via email. However, only 259 students returned the completed questionnaire personally and 30 students replied through email. All independent variables were operationalized using multiple items on a seven-point Likert scale that ranged from 1=\"strongly disagree\" to 7=\"strongly agree\" (see Appendix 1 for details).\nResults: Table I presents descriptive statistics for respondents' gender, age, race, university program, stream of study, status of candidacy, place of living, years of computer experience, and number of software copied recently. From a total of 289 completed questionnaires received, the dominance of women respondents is clearly visible and most were between the ages of 18-25, Chinese, studying in arts streams, and undertaking undergraduate university programs. Almost 40 percent of the respondents achieved a cumulative grade point average level between 3.01 and 3.33. In terms of years of computer experience, students with more than 10 years of experience achieved the highest percentage, 33 percent. At least three types of software have been copied recently by 67 percent respondents. Only 3 percent copied between seven and nine softwares.We used the partial least squares and structural equation modeling (SEM) tool (Smart-PLS 2.0 M3) for our analysis. SEM permits a simultaneous assessment of the structural component (path model) and measurement component (factor model) in the one model. Similar to LISREL and associated structural equation approaches, partial least squares presents the benefit of permitting the complete research model to be tested just once (Halawi and McCarthy, 2008).Measurement model\nDiscussion and implications: The first hypothesis (H1) posits that procedural fairness significantly influences consumers' intention to purchase and use of pirated software. Results infer that this hypothesis has a b-values of 0.155 (p<0.05). Thus, H1, it is accepted and it shows that there is significant relationship between procedural fairness with consumers' intention to purchase and use pirated software. This supports the results of Douglas et al. (2007), where procedural fairness is one of the significant predictors of software piracy behavior. The failure of some national authorities to develop robust procedures and protection for copyright and intellectual property has caused an alarming demand for software piracy by consumer. In other words, there is involvement and interaction of the software producers and the consumer who positively accepted the purchases and uses of pirated software. They consider this action is morally acceptable, as price has been well regarded as an important determinant in their decision making for buying and using pirated software. Adding to this, lack of readily available software also seems to be a reason for resorting to pirated software by the consumers. Specialized instruction concerning copying popular software is freely available to be viewed electronically. For example, users' enjoys the fairness and the transparency of the processes by which decisions are made when searches for software directory for freeware and shareware and later can download it at no cost at brothersoft.com.H2 conjectures that reciprocal fairness significantly influences consumers' intention to purchase and use pirated software. Results in Table III reveal that the Beta has a value of 0.148. H2 is supported as its p-value<0.05. There is relationship between reciprocal fairness and consumer intention of committing software piracy. This finding is consistent with those reported by Douglas et al. (2007) that reciprocal fairness is one of the significant effects on software piracy behavior. This suggests that consumer's intention to purchase and use pirated software is influenced by the reciprocal factor. They will use illegal software when it is useful for completing their assigned tasks. Copying software saves consumers' money, time, and makes it faster to complete their work. For example, users will use pirated statistical software to analyze data due to there is no cost involve in downloading the software as the price of original software is expensive.H3 proposed that there is a relationship between distributive fairness and consumers' intention to purchase and use pirated software. However, distributive fairness (H3: b=0.106, p>0.05) has a non-significant effect on intention to purchase and use pirated software. Therefore, H3 is not supported by the data. Consistent results also exist in the study by Douglas et al. (2007). It was found that distributive fairness was not significant in affecting software piracy behavior. For example, pirated software users did not find that when using a software product, they become frustrated by the strategies companies used to prevent piracy and noticed that pirated software products are not more valuable to them although cheaper than the original or licensed software.H4 proposed that there is a relationship between subjective norm and consumers' intention to purchase and use pirated software. The b-values of subjective norm is 0.234 (p<0.05). Hence, the hypothesis is accepted. Results show that there is significant relationship between subjective norm and consumers' intention to purchase and use of pirated software. This is also consistent with the previous studies by Shim and Taylor (1993) and Solomon and O'Brien (1990) who found that more than 70 percent of their samples perceived that permitted someone else to make copies of protected software as a socially and ethically acceptable normal practice. Limayem et al. (2004) also found social factors as a strong predictor in their student sample and this is also supported by the research by Chen et al. (2009) on the internet surfer's sample. As a consequence, the greater the perception that using pirated software is acceptable, the more likely it is that pirated software will be adopted by consumers' in Malaysia. They have the tendency to make illegal copies of copyrighted software or to share registration codes of computer shareware. One will be influenced to commit software piracy if the environment perceives it to be fine and reasonable to do so. For example, in this study, the student noted that there is a sizeable portion of their friends who uses copied software. Further their seniors in the campus also support copying of software in the university.H5 is also supported (H5: b=0.301, p<0.05). Result presented in Table IV confirmed that attitude is a significant predictor of consumers' intention to purchase and use of pirated software. The significance of these variables supports the assertion of the linkage between consumers' attitude and intention to purchase and use of pirated software. It upholds the assertion (Liao et al., 2010; Logsdon et al., 1994; Shim and Taylor, 1993; Eining and Christensen, 1991) that consumer ethical attitude is a key factor influencing software piracy. This significant relationship might be due to the perception of students themselves have the intention of committing software piracy. For example, if they have beliefs that downloaded pirated statistical software is ethical then they are more likely to be involved in software piracy. Their decision to purchase pirated software presents some stimuli that occur to invoke in certain ethical dilemmas, which affect their ethical decision process. It also demonstrates that consumers' level of moral reasoning affects their perception as to why certain action are perceived as morally just or preferred. Chen et al. (2009) also found the same results based on an internet surfer's sample.This research brings implications to consumers, because it allows consumers to understand the reasons and perceptions of software piracy. Many users actually have less knowledge or do not find copying software an illegal or unethical issue. This research helps consumers to know that copying software is actually illegal. Besides, understanding the factors that affect software piracy can aid researchers in thinking of solutions to reduce such problems. For businesses, this research can help them better improve the ways to reduce software piracy rates. They get to understand more about the exact problem and cause behind software piracy and can target better strategies to curb this problem.\nConclusion and recommendation: Software piracy is still a problem and software developers are still being robbed by people copying their products. This research aims to understand factors that influence consumers' intention to purchase and use of pirated software. Results confirmed that reciprocal fairness, procedural fairness, subjective norm, and attitude significantly consumers' intention to purchase and use of pirated software. On the basis of these findings, several suggestions are offered to curb software piracy among students. Formulation of seminar or workshops to explain the rationale for not using pirated software should be arranged by the authorities of educational institutions in collaboration with major software vendors. Different lines of argument about the drawbacks of software piracy should be seriously addressed.Next, a code of ethics should be developed and should be widely circulated among students. Each student should be asked to read, understand and sign such a code of ethics. Appropriate actions should be taken against them who would violate such a code of ethics depending on the frequency of violation made such as a verbal warning or financial punishments could be issued. Such actions are likely to have a discouraging effect on students' desire to use pirated software on campus and later could change their attitude towards software piracy. If the atmosphere of rejecting using pirated software can be created in a society, people are likely to form more unfavorable attitudes toward using pirated software.This study was restricted to consumers within one country (Malaysia). Past empirical studies on software piracy were primarily undertaken in the western world. It remains unclear whether the factors responsible for software piracy generalize across different geographical settings. Additional studies across other countries are encouraged. Amount of respondents should be widen and increased in future research. This is because in reality, computer users consist of people from a wide range of demographics. If every different group of people can be reached then the respondents would be able to reflect reality in a better way.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to study factors that influence consumers' intention to purchase and use of pirated software.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This study tests the impact of five factors (procedural fairness, reciprocal fairness, distributive fairness, subjective norm, and attitude) on intention towards software piracy by 289 consumers' in Malaysia. Survey questions from prior studies were adopted and customized, and the model was analyzed using partial least squares and structural equation modeling tool (Smart-PLS 2.0 M3).\nFindings: - The results indicated that a significant and positive relationship exists between reciprocal fairness, procedural fairness, subjective norm, attitude, and consumers' intention towards software piracy.\nResearch limitations/implications: - This study was restricted to consumers within one country (Malaysia). Additional studies across other countries are encouraged. This research can help businesses better improve the ways to reduce software piracy rates. They get to understand more about the exact problem and cause behind software piracy and can target better strategies to curb this problem.\nPractical implications: - This study is useful for researchers, managers, and software vendors willing to highlight the factors that contribute to software piracy.\nOriginality/value: - The study highlights factors that influence consumers' intention towards software piracy, which has not been widely studied especially in Malaysia.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Exploring the everyday life information needs and the socio-cultural adaptation barriers of Syrian refugees in Scotland	[ "Community", "Refugees", "Citizenship", "Everyday life", "Social integration", "Health literacy", "Integration", "Adaptation", "Barriers", "Syrian" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Since the outbreak of the civil war in Syria in March 2011, it has been estimated that 11 million Syrians have migrated to other countries. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR, 2017), there are more than five million Syrians registered by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon, Turkey and North Africa. In Europe in the first quarter of 2016 only (January to March), there were over one hundred thousand new Syrian asylum seeker applications (Eurostat, 2016).\n2. Research background and questions: Both the public debate presented by mainstream media and prior related research have highlighted the confusion related to the differences between refugees, asylum seekers and the broader category of migrants (which may also include economic migrants) as these terms are often used interchangeably. These differences between economic and other types of migrants (e.g. political migrants) as well as refugees and asylum seekers are not insignificant; they determine the experiences with which migrants arrive to the host country and the level of support that may be provided, such as different rights and entitlements for permanent residency. Therefore, for the purposes of this research which focusses on refugees specifically, the term \"refugee\" is defined as a person who \"owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country\" (UNHCR, 2010). Conversely, an asylum seeker is someone who has applied for asylum and is waiting for a decision as to whether or not they may be considered as a refugee. Thus, the status of a refugee is formally recognised only after having been given a formal refugee status by the government.\n3. Literature review and theoretical direction: As noted above, research in the area of information landscapes and the information environments experienced by refugees is embryonic. Quirke (2011) suggests that although \"refugees' experiences of trauma and forced migration make their information and settlement needs even more crucial than those of immigrants, research on the information practices of refugees is extremely rare\" (p. 347). The informational challenges experienced by displaced populations during and following processes of resettlement have been acknowledged in other related contexts, for example Afghan youths in Canada (Quirke, 2011) and migrants in New York (Lingel, 2011). However, prior work in this field does not place emphasis on refugees' \"ways of knowing\".\n4. Conceptual framework: This study is viewed holistically through a supporting theoretical lens in which IL is an on-going lifelong learning experience of knowledge construction, deconstruction and extension on both an individual and community level, throughout a person's life and across contexts and time (Martzoukou and Sayyad Abdi, 2017). It places emphasis on the convergent nature of the knowledge and experiences of refugees created via different contexts, both present and past, stable and temporal (e.g. refugees' experiences in their home country within peace and within war, their migrating experiences and living within different camps in host countries) as on-going transformative knowledge processes, which involve knowledge construction, knowledge deconstruction and knowledge extension. In this way, information literacy, and thus \"ways of knowing\" are perceived not only as skills around information restricted to one normative context at a given time, but may be seen as a set of interconnected transforming experiences within converging contexts that are influential upon each other. Perceived in this way, IL is not conceptualised as a state that can be accomplished after socio-cultural practices are understood and communication barriers (such as literacy or language) are broken down. The implication of this approach is that it focuses on attention not only to enabling emersion through a process of adaptation but also to the positive \"disruption\" and \"extension\" of individual and collective information landscapes which reside within both the hosting and the recipient context, reshaping \"normative\" information experiences and practices on both sides.\n5. Methodology: This study was exploratory, following a qualitative methodological approach. Primary data were gathered via face-to-face interviews with three Local Authority Leads for Syrian Resettlement and via a series of focus groups with Syrian New Scots in three community centres situated within different geographical locations (urban/rural) in the Northeast of Scotland, where support and services were provided to Syrian refugee families who had recently arrived in the country. A number of challenges and barriers were initially encountered with sampling and recruitment of focus group participants due to the vulnerable and sensitive nature of the respondents. They had been selected on the basis of the UK Government's Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme and they had only recently arrived in Scotland. However, for some of the respondents it was not the first time their views and experiences had been sought, and in some cases misrepresented via stories of refugees circulated online and via the mainstream media. A combination of these issues necessitated following a convenience, purposive sampling approach, which involved \"information rich cases for an in-depth study\", which are \"those from which one can learn a great deal about issues of central importance to the purpose of the research\" (Patton, 1990, p. 169). Typically, groups of Syrian refugees are difficult to access, which necessitated starting with the local authority of proximity to the researchers and following a snowball approach where the initial study informant (Local Authority Lead) helped in the process of refugee family recruitment. Sulaiman-Hill1 and Thompson (2011) discuss different approaches to participant selection and strategies for sampling in refugees' studies. Limitations and lack of clarity with the sampling frame are acknowledged as a recurrent problem in previous refugee research. According to Faugier and Sargeant (1997), one of the problems for ensuring an accurate sampling frame is that adequate lists of study populations of this nature are not readily available and therefore a snowball sampling methodology may be presented as the only available feasible method. However, these sampling challenges were not a fundamental concern within this exploratory study which had a qualitative focus, and aimed to provide an in-depth contextual understanding of the individual experiences of participants rather than attempt to obtain statistically generalisable data or a comparative representation of the population data. Therefore, the study data are not generalisable to all different geographical areas in Scotland nor it they represent views and opinions which could be necessarily similar to other Syrian refugee study populations. With only three replications (three local communities), it is also not possible to claim some level of \"saturation\" of the opinions of the population under study as the result of this research.\n6. Discussion of findings: 6.1 Demographic characteristics\n7. Discussion and conclusion: At the time of the focus group interviews, the general integration plans and the welcome information packs were undergoing evaluation. The Scottish Government was seeking to introduce a national welcome pack to ensure consistency across local authorities. However, as this study has demonstrated, facilitating written material, on its own, is insufficient to address the refugees' information needs effectively. Information provision to the Syrian families required a step-by-step process that acknowledges the particular circumstances and needs of the families at different points, starting with a basic initial introduction to their new country, to offering more specific and detailed information when basic information needs (such as finance, housing and health) had been addressed. One of the challenges noted by one of the local authority leads was that, at the beginning of the resettlement process, most of the services and information had to be highly tailored to individual circumstances. This was due to the refugees' previous experiences from the resettlement camps from which they had arrived, their levels of literacy and health problems and these factors were naturally not the same for everyone. There were different targets for each family's integration plan depending on their individual everyday life needs which were determined on the basis of their existing health conditions, their progress with learning English and how quickly each family member was becoming culturally and socially orientated. This meant that the information and support needs of the families had to be reviewed at regular intervals, and that the ways in which the Council Local Leads addressed this had to vary from one family to the other. In addition, needs, priorities and resources were set differently depending on local variables (e.g. different needs in rural and urban settings). This individual needs-based rather than a universal approach created many difficulties.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper presents the research findings of the \"Syrian New Scots' Information Literacy Way-finding practices\" research project, funded by the Information Literacy Group of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals. The purpose of this paper is to explore the information needs of \"Syrian New Scots\" (the preferred name for refugees in Scotland), their habitual and adaptive information literacy practices and the barriers and enablers they encounter within their new socio-cultural setting via their interactions with people, tools and processes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Primary data were collected via interviews with three Local Authority Leads for Syrian Resettlement and focus groups with Syrian New Scots in three geographical locations in Scotland: two rural areas and one urban. Syrian research subjects were also involved in a drawing exercise that helped to contextualise the findings.\nFindings: The main information needs expressed by participants revolved around the learning of English language which was linked to addressing health-related information needs, well-being and community engagement. All participants also highlighted the issue of socio-cultural differences in fulfilling everyday life information needs (such as health and housing). Information provision to Syrian New Scots requires a more structured process that acknowledges personalised information needs and it is tailored to the different stages of the adaptation process. The findings suggest that the \"ways of knowing\" that Syrian refugees bring with them are converging information experiences of past and new knowledge structures gained via different socio-cultural and migration experiences.\nOriginality/value: The research findings of this project will be of interest to local and regional support organisations and community volunteer groups who contribute to the social well-being and social integration of Syrian refugees. In addition, they may be of interest to public libraries due to their role as centres for educational and cultural orientation sessions, and as places of support for newly settled Syrian refugees and the communities that embrace them.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Exploring school principals' personal identities in Cyprus from a values perspective	[ "Authentic leadership", "Leadership styles", "School principals", "Personal identities", "Values systems" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Current research in educational leadership provides ample evidence that school principals have a significant impact in ensuring the improvement of students' academic performance levels (e.g. Gurr, 2015; Pashiardis, 2014; Hoy, 2012). Hence, currently, educational policy makers and school principals' preparation centers have shifted attention on school principals (Pashiardis and Johansson, 2016). However, researchers (e.g. Crow and Moller, 2017; Moller et al., 2014; Crow and Scribner, 2014; Lumby and English, 2009; Day and Leithwood, 2007) argue that educational policy and preparation centers have mainly focused on school principals' technocratic skills and competencies. Thus, limited focus has been given to the importance on school principals' personal perspective, which includes a values system (Crow and Moller, 2017; Lumby and English, 2009; Day and Leithwood, 2007). In other words, the educational leadership field mostly neglects to acknowledge the personal perspective of the individual behind the school leadership position and to what extent this could influence the school organization in general.\nLiterature review: The concept of \"identity\" is at the center of several philosophical debates with regards to its interpretation (Burke and Stets, 2009; Crow and Moller, 2017), whilst it could be interpreted through various scientific fields, such as that of anthropology and sociology (Lumby and English, 2009). Crow and Moller (2017) recently argued that identities are connected to practice. In other words, they have supported that identities are not only what people say about themselves, but how they practice during their daily activities. Also, Moller et al. (2014) argued that in the school leadership field, it is of high importance to consider how school principals' identities incorporate school principals' experiences during their leadership practice. That said, identity has to do with an individual's construction of the self (Lumby and English, 2009). This construction of the self, the construction of identity, is based on an individual's life world, such as the family and educational background, religion, society, cultural and working environment, as well as the values that influence a person's life - in other words, an individual's larger life world (Lumby and English, 2009). That said, Crow et al. (2016) specifically mentioned that \"identity is the way we make sense of ourselves to ourselves and the image of ourselves that we present to others\" (p. 4). Also, researchers, such as Whiteman, Scribner and Crow (2014) supported that identities are not a label placed on people. On the contrary, they have argued that identity \"shapes and molds our practices\" (p. 579). Therefore, in the case of school leadership, the notion of identities connects school principals to their group (Lumby and English, 2009) and at the same time, these identities shape and mold their leadership practice (Whiteman, Scribner and Crow, 2014).\nMethodology: The framing on school principals' identities research lacks a consistent theoretical and coherent analytical framework (Crow et al., 2016). However, qualitative research methods are considered appropriate. Heck and Hallinger (1999) argued that qualitative research methods identify how school principals shape themselves and their personality - areas that are more difficult to identify through quantitative research methods. Through qualitative research, we provided an in-depth description of school principals' personal identities and, at the same time, an in-depth presentation of their value systems during their leadership practice. A multicase study approach was followed, based on five leadership styles. The preference of qualitative methods and, particularly, the case study research methodology is observed in various recent studies on school principals' identity (e.g. Scribner and Crow, 2012; Notman, 2017; Robertson, 2017; Cho and Jimerson, 2017; Edge et al., 2017; Murakami and Tornsen, 2017).\nResults: RQ1. The most important personal values of school principals' personal identity in each leadership style (each case study).\nDiscussion: The findings revealed that school principals' personal identities, as they were formulated through the course of their lives, included values connected with their understanding and the enhancement of the welfare of the people with whom they were in frequent personal contact (Benevolence and Universalism). Certainly, during our field study, this kind of values seemed to influence school principals' leadership practice. As a matter of fact, we could argue that, based on this study's results, school principals' personal identities seemed to influence, to some extent, their leadership practice. This study's findings are connected with similar studies, such as the study of Branson et al. (2015) who explored school principals' personal values in Pakistan as they were manifested toward student behavior. Based on their results, there is the consistency of alignment between school principals' personal values and their behavior for the establishment of a specific environment that enhances students' academic learning.\nConclusions: In general, through this study, we provided data about the role and influence of Cypriot school principals' personal identities, through the values system perspective, during the leadership practice. As suggested by the results of the study, school principals' personal identities in Cyprus seemed to influence, to some extent, their leadership practice. However, particular factors associated with the context in which they live (social identity) and work (professional identity), seemed to be affecting the personal values embedded in their personal identities. That said, it is important to take into consideration the personal perspective of the individual behind the professional role, especially in schools. A school principal's identity and personality are held together by their values and their beliefs. Therefore, by promoting an authentic personal identity, a school principal could provide clearer decisions and create a supportive environment for all school stakeholders.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore a broader understanding of the role of Cypriot school principals' personal identities, through a values system perspective, when exercising their leadership.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A multicase study methodology was followed with five school principals, representing five different leadership styles. In each case, an in-depth investigation of the school principal's personal identity was undertaken. School principals' personal values were explored during interviews, staff meetings and daily activities observations, as well as through the use of the think-aloud protocol method. This study utilized the Schwartz Theory of Basic Human Values, as well as the Pashiardis-Brauckmann Holistic Leadership Framework, as the guiding theoretical framework.\nFindings: School principals' personal identities in Cyprus seem to influence, to some extent, their daily leadership practice. However, particular factors associated with the context in which they live (social identity) and work (professional identity), seemed to be affecting the personal values embedded throughout their personal identities.\nResearch limitations/implications: Five school principals are not enough to make generalizations on the relationships between leadership styles and values. However, through this paper, the authors sought to provide examples on how school principals' personal identities influence their leadership practice.\nPractical implications: The findings highlight the important role and attention to school principals' personal identities, beyond the core management and leadership courses. The findings also shed light on the importance of looking more closely at contextual elements \"outside\" and \"inside\" the school and to what extent these could influence school principals' personal identities.\nOriginality/value: This paper offers insights into school principals' personal identities, through a values system perspective, and how these personal identities influence their leadership practice.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A diachronic analysis of HRM transfer: Taiwanese multinationals in the UK	[ "Human resource management", "Multinational companies", "Taiwan", "United Kingdom", "HRM transfer", "Cross‐cultural management", "Diachronic perspective", "Taiwanese multinationals" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This paper addresses two key questions. First, how does the country of origin effect influence the transfer of a multinational corporation's (MNC) parent HRM practices to its foreign subsidiaries over time? Second, how does the country of management effect interact with the country of origin effect during the transfer process? The study draws on in-depth case studies of four British subsidiaries of four Taiwanese MNCs over a five-year period. The data comes from a number of sources: expatriates, local managers and employees and MNC parent representatives. As well as shedding light on the convergence-divergence debate, the study contributes to our understanding of some of the dynamics involved in transfer processes from MNCs based in emerging economies to subsidiaries located in developed economies.Studies on the country of origin effect and transfer of HRM practices within MNCs rarely examine changes over time in the transfer process. As Goodman et al. (2001) state, time is vital in organisational life but there is a lack of research exploring the effect of time in the MNC context. Furthermore, Rosenzweig and Nohria (1994, p. 243) suggest that local embeddedness would increase as overseas subsidiaries age and that \"the effect of imprinting, even if it is initially strong, may be expected to diminish over time, as affiliates increasingly come to resemble the local environment\". Prior studies on the transfer of HRM practices indicate that UK MNCs transfer many of their parent practices, and local employees view significant variations in their approach to HRM compared to local firms (Gamble, 2003, 2006). However, the findings do not explain why the UK MNCs' approach should have changed over time and how. It is important that this gap is addressed since the literature on the convergence-divergence of HRM practices (Warner, 2003; Rowley et al., 2004) mainly draws on meta-analyses rather than examining the transfer process from a diachronic perspective. In other words, much less research has been conducted on changes in the country of origin effect over time in the HRM transfer process within MNCs from a diachronic viewpoint.This study addresses two main gaps in the literature on the HRM practice transfer process within MNCs. First, research on HRM transfer within MNCs has applied a static \"snapshot\" perspective by focusing on the impact of such things as the country of origin effect (Ferner et al., 2004), institutional factors (Farndale and Paauwe, 2007), organisational structures and mechanisms (Roth and O'Donnell, 1996), and the relationship between the MNC parent and foreign subsidiaries (Almond et al., 2005; Ferner et al., 2004). Although this design offers valuable insights, it does not allow for the direct examination of how country of origin effects influence the HRM transfer process over time. Second, existing literature on the country of origin effect on HRM transfer fails to account for country of management effects in the transfer process. The associated models are thus insufficient in explaining the complex realities of HRM practice transfers that characterise the transfer process.The intention in this study is not to explain the final outcome of HRM transfers, but rather to explore how multiple actors (e.g. subsidiary representatives) (Rupidara and McGraw, 2011) use their power resources or social relationships to influence the transfer of HRM.\nAnalytical framework: Country of origin effect and the transfer of HRM practices\nMethod: Previous research on the country of origin effect and transfer of HRM practices in MNCs is predominantly based on cross-sectional surveys and qualitative case studies involving interviews with a small number of managers (Ferner et al., 2001). Extant survey findings on the country of origin effect and HRM transfer also fail to shed light on the underlying processes behind these effects (Ferner, 1997; Rosenzweig and Nohria, 1994). Furthermore, few attempts seek to elucidate the perspectives of non-managerial staff (Clark et al., 1999).In this study, a multiple case study method was used to collect data over five years through the use of in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Case study methods are useful in exploring complex chains of causality such as the ways in which MNC HQ seek to influence subsidiary behaviours, and how actors at the subsidiary level modify practices (Tempel et al., 2006). Case studies allow \"the researchers to go deeper in complex matters, which are not wholly understood\" (Stewart et al., 1994, p. 13). Collings et al. (2008) also state that the nature of change in specific critical elements of business systems, such as HRM, have received comparatively little attention and empirically are largely under-represented. Finally, most studies on the transfer of HRM practices in MNCs have been largely limited to subsidiary-level activities. This supposes that firms are likely to comply with the explicit national patterns of HRM practices to manage foreign subsidiaries and neglect the barriers or challenges involved during the transfer process over time.This study aims to address these methodological limitations in two main ways. First, the data were collected both within the MNC parent and foreign subsidiary. This balanced design helps tap into the impact and processes behind the country of origin effect and country of management effect over time. Second, this study included the perspectives of both managers and employees from different levels of the case study firms.The research context\nFindings: In investigating the impact of country of origin and country of management effects on the transfer of HRM practices over time across the case firms, the study identified three overarching patterns. First, informants were acutely aware of the impact of the country of origin effect on the transfer of HRM practices and this was felt to be particularly influential at the early transfer stage. This was apparent in their descriptions of the adoption of some HRM practices transferred from the MNC parent. However, the impact of the country of origin effect in the subsequent phase was seen to be weakened. At this stage - characterised by stronger dual pressures for the adoption of HQ HRM practices and for local responsiveness - hybrid HRM practices emerged. This hybrid combination of country of origin and country of management effects was not such much a trade-off, but a dialectical synthesis of two different types of approaches. The emergent need to balance MNC-wide consistency and local adaptation was described as critical in the management of this combination. Although informants across all four cases repeatedly described the pressures that existed from the home country and host country which influenced the transfer of HRM practices, there was some variation between the two industry sectors (technology and service).Stage 1: dominant country of origin effect: a forward diffusion of parent HRM practices\nDiscussion and conclusion: This study aimed to explore:* How does the country of origin effect influence the transfer of an MNC's parent HRM practices to its foreign subsidiaries over time?* How does the country of management effect interact with the country of origin effect during the transfer process?The results of the study support the view that the institutional (e.g. Kostova and Roth, 2002) and cultural approaches (e.g. Hofstede, 1984) to HRM practice transfers are inadequate in explaining precisely how transfers are affected by competing pressures and the potentially important influential role that key actors in both MNC HQ and foreign subsidiaries can play throughout the transfer process. Based on the case studies investigated here, the transfer process can be said to be characterised by a myriad of strategic, tactical, and relational elements (Rupidara and McGraw, 2011; Paauwe, 2004), with evidence of both country of origin and country of management effects interacting in various ways throughout transfer process. This complex process arising from interactions between country of origin and country of management effects underscores the necessity of analysing the roles of multiple actors (Edwards et al., 2007) and the need to acknowledge that, because if this, the HRM practices being transferred will continue to change and evolve (Gamble and Huang, 2010).It is not always easy to assess the extent to which imported MNC parent practices resemble or differ from home-country recipes (Taylor, 2001). It could also be argued that subsidiary employees' apparent acceptance of imported HRM practices due to the strong power position held HQ in the early stages was simply a case of \"ceremonial adoption\" (Kostova and Roth, 2002), i.e. formal adoption but a low level of internalisation and a lack of belief in its real value for the UK organisation. Nevertheless, in this study three overarching patterns emerged (Table IV).MNCs will rarely fully transfer or implement overseas the HRM procedures or ideas it has formulated in the home country. We have shown that the implementation of MNC parent HRM recipes faces resistance in various forms from local managers and employees. This was because the HQ and expatriates were unaware of potential difficulties such as a mismatch with local norms at the early stages. This resulted in strong HQ pressure and control over the transfer process. This was evident in the high presence of expatriates in key managerial/technical positions and persistence in attempts to transfer standardised HRM practices including performance appraisal criteria, on-the-job training, and seniority-based promotion.In subsequent stages, although HQ and expatriates still insisted on the diffusion of MNC parent HRM recipes abroad, they introduced supporting activities from corporate HR which served to provide more compelling explanations for the adoption of the HRM practices. This was seen as a necessary measure in response to local managers using their power and relational resources to manipulate the relationship between expatriates and local employees during the transfer process. This incrementally impeded the smooth transfer of MNC parent HRM practices as time went on. At this stage, the transfer process could certainly be viewed as a dynamic interplay of country of origin and country of management effects, orchestrated by powerful key actors on both sides. This confirms the view that the transfer of HRM practices is not just a one-off trade-off between two competing alternatives, but rather a complex interplay of country of origin and country of management effects being played out amongst key actors who activate their different power resources in response to manoeuvres from the other party. At the latter stage, in our case studies, the dedication of additional power and relational resources from corporate HR ensured that country of origin effects prevailed, which was further supported by higher levels of satisfaction and lower levels of suspicion from local managers and employees.This study has demonstrated that distinguishing between the global integration and local adaptation of HRM practices in MNCs is problematic and potentially misleading due considerable fluctuations in the transfer process. The interactions between country of origin and country of management effects on the HRM practice transfer process underpin the necessity to take account of the agency of key actors. The subsidiaries were able to resist the full transfer of parent HRM by manoeuvring their power resources and social relationships among local managers and employees. This demonstrates that a diachronic perspective is a meaningful way to explore the \"competing and problematic nature of influence of unequal power relations in the operations of MNC subsidiaries\" (Elger and Smith, 2006). It also suggests a potentially influential role for subsidiary actors engaged in the transfer process and how such individuals can contribute to the unfolding of country of origin and country of management effects.Implications for research and practice\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to use a diachronic analysis to explore the influence of country of origin effect and country of management effect on the adoption of human resource management (HRM) practices at different stages.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The methodology starts with an intensive literature review to establish an analytical framework by bringing country of origin and country of management effects on the HRM transfers. By using a longitudinal qualitative research design, a total of 164 interviews from four British subsidiaries of four Taiwanese multinationals were conducted to explore the change over time during the HRM transfer processes over a five-year period.\nFindings: - The results provide evidence of the paradox as a result of country of origin effect and country of management effect on the adoption of HRM practices over time.\nResearch limitations/implications: - It is problematic to conclude absolutely regarding the convergence or divergence of HRM practices. This is due to HRM practices being in a constant state of flux between global integration and local adaptation during the transfer process.\nOriginality/value: - This is the first empirical study to examine the impacts of country of origin effect and country of management effect on the HRM transfers from emerging multinationals in the advanced economy from a diachronic perspective.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The business-to-business relationship: examining Sri Lankan telecommunication operators and vendors	[ "Business-to-business", "B2B", "Telecommunication", "Operator", "Vendor", "Sri Lanka" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Determining the factors that influence the success of business-to-business (B2B) relationships helps management to strategize operational improvements. Studies have been performed in multiple industries including insurance (Crosby et al., 1990), automotive (Kumar et al., 1995b), retail sales (Hennig-Thurau, 2000; Low and Li, 2019), industrial after sales services (Barry and Terry, 2008), financial services (Chenet et al., 2010), electronic media (Barac et al., 2017), banking (Karjaluoto et al., 2015), e-services (Matos and Krielow, 2018), advertising (Chumpitaz and Paparoidamis, 2004; Venetis and Ghauri, 2004), food and beverage (Rudawska, 2019) and manufacturing (Gil-Saura et al., 2009). Literature exists that examines important aspects of B2B relationships. Firms' B2B relationships benefit from strong long-term relationships (Hutt and Speh, 2004). Establishing long-term relationships creates a higher value for the supplier and creates advantages to the buyer, i.e. mutually beneficial (Leonidou, 2004). Gummesson (2002) explains that buyers increase their benefits from B2B relationships by managing a portfolio of suppliers. Conversely, suppliers face a growing trend of commoditization of products (Rangan and Bowman, 1992), and need to focus on creating value in B2B relationships beyond selling products (Ulaga and Eggert, 2006a). Many factors drive the need for suppliers and buyers in industrial markets to have stronger relationships, i.e. demand for lower prices, increased profits, shorter product cycles and increased global competition (Holmlund and Kock, 1995). The strength of customer and buyer bonds impacts the success of the relationship. Wendelin (2011) identifies aspects of the business relationship: time, knowledge, economic, legal, social, geographical, cultural, ideological, psychological and strategic. A strong association between companies can lead to a longer relationship with improved competitive and financial strength (Storbacka et al., 1994).\n2. Literature review: To analyze B2B relationships, both relationship marketing and transaction cost theory concepts are used (Mysen et al., 2011). Relationship marketing theory stresses the need to develop long-term relationships (Lui et al., 2009). Crosby et al. (1990) stress the importance of relationship marketing for services that are complex, customized, delivered over a continuous stream of transactions and involve many relatively unsophisticated buyers. They further suggest that the quality of the relationship determines the probability of continued exchange. Ulaga and Eggert (2006a) find that a buyer's cognitive assessment of value precedes effective attachments. Fundamental principles for relationship marketing are: mutual value creation, trust and commitment. Greater levels of customer satisfaction result in greater likelihood of a continued relationship. The objective of relationship marketing is to achieve high levels of customer satisfaction through collaboration of the parties.\n3. Methodology and conceptual framework of the study: Mysen et al. (2011) explain that both relationship marketing and transaction cost theories are applicable to B2B relationships. Much of the literature analyzing B2B relationships focus on relationship marketing, and this study follows suit. Previous literature identifies factors affecting the B2B relationships that are common to both suppliers and customers. We develop two conceptual models to analyze both the supplier and customer perspectives. Our models draw from four previously established models:\n4. Data analysis and discussion: Using SPSSTM, data were analyzed separately for the operator and vendor results. A demographic and background statistical analysis was performed to identify suitability of the sample. Validity and reliability checks were performed to ensure that the variables and constructs are suitable for further analysis. Hypotheses are tested using linear correlation and models are examined with multiple regression analysis.\n5. Findings and conclusions: 5.1 Findings\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to identify and analyze factors affecting the business-to-business (B2B) relationship between Sri Lankan telecommunication operators and vendors. The authors conduct a survey and develop models to explain relationship strength and satisfaction. The authors find that telecommunication operators and vendors value trust, commitment, adaptation and communication. Operator satisfaction varies by perception of product quality, service support, delivery performance, supplier know-how and value for money. The vendor's relationship strength is impacted by trust and commitment; vendor satisfaction is affected by economic factors and referencing. The authors suggest formulating management strategies using these results to strengthen business relationships.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors develop two conceptual models to analyze the supplier and customer perspectives. This study's drafted models were drawn from established models and were presented to experts in the industry, both telecommunication operators and vendors. Models were modified based on experts' feedback, and hypotheses were developed from the conceptual models, developed separately for the two perspectives. Data collection was done via questionnaires; 150 questionnaires were sent via email to identified telecommunication operators and 100 questionnaires were sent via email to identified telecommunication vendors, with follow-up emails and telephone calls to improve response rates.\nFindings: This study's findings show that employees in the telecommunication industry recognize the importance of B2B relationships. Employees of both telecommunication operators and vendors agree that stronger relationships are advantageous. The correlation and regression analysis results identify factors that affect the B2B relationship. The following factors impact the strength of B2B relationships irrespective of view point: trust, commitment and satisfaction. The following factors were found to significantly affect the strength of B2B relationships between telecommunication operators and vendors from the operator perspective: adaptation and communication.\nPractical implications: To enhance relationship strength, the management of operator organizations should take action to improve trust, commitment and satisfaction. Demonstrating honesty and integrity when dealing with vendors and exhibiting concern for the other party's interests can help establish trust or enhance trust in existing relationships. Displaying commitment toward the vendor will also facilitate stronger relationships. Reasonable profits for both parties and sizeable business volume will also help satisfy vendors, increasing relationship strength. Positive referencing of the vendor in industrial and public forums will improve vendor satisfaction, enhancing relationship strength. Reputational capital can be built and maintained for both operators and vendors by keeping promises and defending the other party to outsiders. For managers of telecommunications operators and vendors in other emerging markets, this study's results are important and can inform internal business practices to support trust, commitment and satisfaction.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to the existing literature in two ways, a focus on the telecommunication industry and a previously unexplored emerging market, Sri Lanka. In addition, this study includes an analysis of the relationship from both the operator and vendor perspectives.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
An EFQM excellence model for integrated healthcare governance	[ "Governance", "European Foundation for Quality Management", "Management", "Self-assessment", "National Health Service", "Quality frameworks" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Healthcare staff are often asked to garner stakeholder expectations (e.g. customer, personnel, government, partner and society) and improve accountability. The challenge is to use the most appropriate governance and assurance tools to ensure that quality, performance, governance and risk management are aligned, coherent and intertwined in an integrated approach (Favaretti et al., 2005a). Integrated governance is defined as systems, processes and behaviors by which trust staff lead, direct and control their functions to achieve organizational objectives, safety and quality services, which they relate to patients and carers, the wider community and partner organizations (Deighan et al., 2004; Bullivant and Deighan, 2006). Integrated governance is a way to run healthcare organizations, linking governance domains (clinical, financial, information, etc.) and ensuring accountability (Bullivant and Deighan, 2006; Smyth, 2009). The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) team developed a governance tool called the EFQM Excellence Model (Jackson, 1999; Naylor, 1999; Holland and Fennell, 2000). Staff at Trento Healthcare Trust (Trust for short) have used the EFQM Excellence Model since 2000 to develop a governance system (Favaretti and De Pieri, 2002). Other healthcare organizations in Italy, have used the model (Vernero et al., 2004b, 2007), but they did not last long enough to support a corporate-wide quality system. Consequently, we review EFQM Excellence Model implementation through the past ten years, the broadest and the only long lasting experience of its kind to have been carried out in Italy to date.\nMethods: EFQM excellence model\nResults: Assessment scores\nDiscussion: We describe how the EFQM Excellence Model has been applied as an integrated governance tool in Trento for a decade. The literature presents the model as a framework to deliver governance within the United Kingdom National Health Service (NHS) (Jackson, 1999, 2000; Holland and Fennell, 2000). However, little was written on how it can be applied for governance purposes in other countries, especially in the Italian NHS, which is modeled on the UK NHS and has undergone comparable reforms and innovation (Donatini et al., 2009; Squires, 2010). Italy scores well on overall international healthcare comparisons (Nolte and McKee, 2008); however, healthcare satisfaction levels were reported to be below the European average and some results have raised concerns (Donatini et al., 2009; Health Consumer Powerhouse, 2012). Health policies have not sufficiently stressed simultaneously pursuing quality management and financial performance (Macinati, 2008). Despite reforms that introduced managerial approaches and techniques into the Italian NHS, organizations lacked emphasis on implementing governance and actionable ideas to manage a change process (Lega, 2008).\nConclusions: Coping with stakeholder expectations and linking managerial and clinical processes is crucial to meet accountability issues and quality standards in healthcare. We developed a comprehensive governance approach for managing a large healthcare system in Trento. The model offered a framework for combining several quality control and assurance systems linked to corporate management. As an improvement tool, it can connect and align healthcare governance and organizational structures and processes. We advise applying the EFQM Excellence Model to healthcare staff willing to promote sustainable management. Mature and long lasting experiences using the EFQM Model for governance in Italy or other countries must be welcome.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to account for a ten-year experience with the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model implemented in the Trento Healthcare Trust.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Since 2000, the EFQM Excellence Model provided an overarching framework to streamline business process governance, to support and improve its enablers and results. From 2000 to 2009, staff performed four internal (self) and four external EFQM-based assessments that provided guidance for an integrated management system. Over the years, key controls and assurances improved service quality through business planning, learning and practice cycles.\nFindings: Rising assessment ratings and improving results characterized the journey. The average self-assessment score (on a 1,000 points scale) was 290 in 2001, which increased to 610 in 2008. Since 2006, the Trust has been Recognized for Excellence (four stars). The organization improved significantly on customer satisfaction, people results and key service delivery and outcomes.\nPractical implications: The EFQM Model can act as an effective tool to meet governance demands and promote system-level results. The approach to integrated governance discussed here may support similar change processes in comparable organizations.\nOriginality/value: The paper describes a unique experience when implementing EFQM within a large Italian healthcare system, which had a broader reach and lasted longer than any experience in Italian healthcare.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Consumer co-creation and the impact on intermediaries	[ "Intermediaries", "Channel relationships", "S-D logic", "Consumer contributions" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Every year consumers generate more than 500 billion online impressions for each other concerning products and services (Bernoff and Schadler, 2010). Moreover, these online consumer reviews have become a key source of information for other consumers who are trying to determine which products to purchase (Zhu and Zhang, 2010). So not surprisingly, organizations have responded by trying to harness the positive energy of consumer contributions to the firm. Reebok, Adidas, and Ralph Lauren, among others, provide consumers the platform to design merchandise for themselves and others (Nuttavuthisit, 2010). Toyota and Dell use the internet to encourage consumers to share ideas. Starbucks provides a separate web site for involving consumers interested in facilitating the value creation process (www.MyStarbucksIdea). Indeed, Crawford et al. (2007) reported that high performing consumer goods companies were more likely than their lower performing counterparts to gather consumer insights through methods such as social networking web sites and online forums, among others.\nTheoretical foundation: A new paradigm in marketing called service-dominant (S-D) logic has emerged which directly addresses the role consumers, as well as intermediaries, play in the value co-creation process throughout the channel (Vargo and Lusch, 2004). The service-dominant logic is based on the concept that circumstances can be improved for all involved parties when organizations use their own resources and the resources of others (including consumers) to improve the overall experience (Vargo et al., 2008). This transition from an economic exchange to a service provision involves a shift in the value-creating relationship. Service in the S-D context is defined by Vargo and Lusch (2004, p. 2) as the \"application of specialized competencies (operant resources - knowledge and skills) through deeds, processes and performance\". Competencies are not limited to selling organizations, but rather all entities involved in the marketing exchange relationship. The participants (or actors) in the marketing channel are no longer the target of value, but co-producers of service offerings and co-creators of value (Lusch, 2011). For example, consumers often use the internet to contribute knowledge, skills, and ideas that ultimately co-creates and defines value for manufacturers (Lusch et al., 2007) and provides manufacturers with a source of competitive advantage (Vargo and Lusch, 2004). In turn, consumers benefit by receiving better service from the manufacturers, as well as overall enriched experiences when consumer information and the value created filters into the channel environment (Grawe et al., 2009).\nConceptual model: In this section, we use S-D logic to underpin propositions related to the indirect impact of consumer contributions on intermediaries\nConcluding remarks: Managerial and theoretical implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: While prior studies have examined how loyal customers create value for preferred manufacturers, this study aims to focus on the supply chain and captures the indirect economic and relational benefits and costs of customer value creation on channel intermediaries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Service-dominant logic is used to explain the rationale behind consumer contributions and supply chain connectedness in an interactive online world. Drawing from the relevant literature, a conceptual model supported by propositions is presented.\nFindings: As manufacturers utilize consumer contributions, affiliated intermediaries will report having less informational power, providing less value to the channel, greater benefit-based and cost-based dependence, heightened efforts to create channel value, an enhanced reputation and greater sales, and greater collaboration with customers.\nResearch limitations/implications: This conceptual paper is the beginning of an investigation into the pragmatic function of a service-dominant view as it pertains to a marketing channel. As this avenue for research is further developed, it is important that the propositions included in this study first be examined.\nPractical implications: Awareness of the underlying logic and the resulting impacts should aid channel intermediaries in realizing their own contributions throughout the manufacturer\nOriginality/value: This work is the first study to examine potential impacts on the intermediary operating in a channel in which the manufacturer is significantly influenced by consumer contributions.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Using knowledge management to leverage training and development initiatives	[ "Knowledge management", "Globalization", "Cross cultural studies", "Intellectual capital", "Intelligence" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Corporations, especially large global corporations, are needlessly spending money on training and development to \"gain\" knowledge that they already have. The larger the company, the more information they don't know they have.\nThe cost of not investing in knowledge management: Multinational companies invest up to $US2m (EUR1,372,355) per expatriate and lose up to 40 percent of their expatriates after just two years of their return from their assignment. Additionally, the collective amnesia of the remaining expats result in a loss of at least 50 percent of the information they accumulated during their assignments. Had the expatriates' knowledge been captured via a knowledge management process, this would results in savings of millions of dollars of intellectual capital (Lomax, 2001).This loss is just the tip of the iceberg for companies not adequately utilizing knowledge management processes. The costs of not having a knowledge management system also results in the following consequences:* sub-par performance, aborted assignments and low retention;* process redundancy;* marketing mistakes and inconsistencies;* loss of market share; and* customer defections.\nThe challenges of implementing a knowledge management system: When companies understand the need for, and are ready to make a commitment to creating, a knowledge management system, they should be prepared to face the following challenges:* Data inaccuracy - It's not uncommon that the existing electronic data is not entirely accurate or complete. Companies are advised to not only adopt new data collection and maintenance standards but also cleanse the existing databases.* Internal company organizational structure - In large corporations, individual divisions and departments typically maintain redundant versions of the same data, while that data is categorized in different ways. Company-wide data storage protocols will be necessary.* Bias for action - Common impediments to knowledge management (in some cultures, such as the USA) include a bias for action that prevents learning and the bureaucracy of different constituencies and functional areas.\nThe success gained by knowledge management: Elements of an effective knowledge management system include the ability to capture, integrate, store, and provide easy access to all information formats, including data, voice, image, and full-motion video.Case study\nA successful cross-cultural knowledge management model: Effective knowledge management systems are essential components for establishing global cross-cultural competence. They provide the ability to codify knowledge and personal experience, making it available to the entire organization.The following model, developed by Global Dynamics, Inc., demonstrates how a knowledge management system establishes cross-cultural competence within a global organization.This knowledge management model demonstrates a systematic approach to capturing and retaining, in a central database, all of the global information obtained through every training program that has a global and cross-cultural component. The system enables deployment of this information across all groups within the corporation, crossing silos and functional areas through the database and internal social networking.For example, all information about a specific country, including all the people working with or in that country, is in that database. Because there may be more than one group working in a particular country, personnel are encouraged to use the database to identify those individuals and connect through appropriate groups in internal socially networks. Through these groups, they can discuss their experiences, challenges, successes and tap into (and add to) the company's collective intelligence about the particular country:* Deliver a core cross-cultural competency course for all employees which captures and categorizes each participant's global challenges, issues, personal goals, case studies, \"lessons learned\" and e-mail addresses to form an electronic community.* Establish curriculum \"paths\" based on building specific core competencies. For example, creation of a path focused on building cross-cultural teaming excellence while other paths could be focused on developing future global leaders, negotiators and project managers.* Provide for the ability for each associate to create their electronic, competency roadmap and skills component. Systematically track individual progress toward competency goals.* Establish an international assignment \"series of interventions\" in support of expatriates and repatriates.* Record \"lessons learned\" throughout each international assignment.* Capture international issues and trigger personal coaching based on individual circumstances.* Analyze the information to identify, interpret trends, and identify process improvement opportunities.* Establish a cross-cultural library of blended learning courseware consisting of in-house developed programs and available through third-party partnerships that support the roadmap concept.* \"Query\" the collective knowledge derived from the case studies, \"lessons learned\" and personal/business experiences maintained in the database.This model, which has been deployed at leading global corporations, has resulted in substantial savings and in improved efficiency and coordination of global initiatives.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to educate professionals on the importance of knowledge management and the ways to best leverage their existing knowledge, including finding ways to create, identify, capture and distribute organizational knowledge to those in the organization who need it.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The paper outlines the need for a knowledge management process, then explains the challenges involved with establishing such a system. It demonstrates examples of tangible benefits that can be gained from a knowledge management system, and shows a model of a current and successful cross-cultural knowledge management system.\nFindings: - Through work in the field, Global Dynamics has found that corporations, especially large global corporations, are needlessly spending money on training and development to \"gain\" knowledge that they already have. Key statistics cited here are that employees spend 7 to 20 percent of their time on the job replicating existing solutions for others (according to Delphi Group) and believe that 44 percent of employees are poor or very poor at transferring knowledge (according to Ernst & Young).\nPractical implications: - Knowledge management systems, as described here, can, and should, be implemented in all large organizations in order to maximize existing knowledge. For multinational organizations, a knowledge management system is even more significant and should be leveraged with corporate globalization efforts.\nOriginality/value: - The paper provides a detailed description of a successful existing cross-cultural management model.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Peculiarity of the bit rot and link rot phenomena	[ "Data decay", "Digital bump", "Digital ecosystem", "Digital tsunami", "Link rot", "Software rot" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: We are living in the era of lost data referred to as the \"digital dark age\". These terms are associated with a phenomenon that can be described as \"escaping\" or \"disappearing\" (\"decay\") of formats (files) or the \"erasure of files\". They refer to the inability to archive all data, which have never so far been becoming obsolete so rapidly; data, which are easily generated in vast volumes these days and, even more easily, deleted. These terms reflect the concern about the inability to restore files deleted on a mass-scale, data lost because of equipment failures, terminated domains and shut down servers. The \"information black hole\" is enlarging before the eyes of digital device users.\nThe peculiarity of the bit rot phenomenon: The information (data) currently generated in the digital form may not be read by devices and software in the future. All these data, our century's digital history, are endangered, as there is no physical documentation for most digital materials (for a vast volume of materials, their digital copies or analogue equivalents are missing). It is feared that selected contents (a certain part of the digital output) will be impossible to recover. This process is in progress. Data stored in an electronic form \"decay\". Many floppy disks from the early digital era are no longer readable. On the other hand, for fully operational floppy disks, problems with their readout arise because of the lack of equipment capable of reading them (software and workstations). With a bit of luck, copies of various materials will be accessible in public libraries. However, CDs will not last for more than a few decades. This worries archivists and data archaeologists, and is a technological challenge (Wernick, 2018).\nThe peculiarity of the link rot phenomenon: Two decades after the link rot phenomenon was diagnosed, non-functional links continue to plague the internet, and increasingly so. As early as 20 years ago J. Nielsen (1998) pointed out that it was advisable to regularly run a link validator on every website. As regards small websites, a programmed verification of the \"health of links\", performed by applications, which can test the website on a monthly basis and generate a list of dead links, may be sufficient. For larger websites, it is more cost-effective to install validation software on the server itself (Nielsen, 1998).\nDigital dark ages: The term \"digital dark ages\" is most often mentioned in the context of digital resource preservation (archiving), even though the term has also been used in the context of cyber security. The \"digital dark ages\" refer to a system where health care, financial - any industry connected to the internet and using data - are always in peril and never fully safe to use (Heikkila, 2018).\nLink rot and bit rot - the common element: Even though the terms bit rot and link rot concern different phenomena, they have one most important feature in common. In both cases, the problem is the inability to access specific contents or the inability to use specific digital resources. The differences that should primarily be indicated include the reasons for non-availability of particular contents or for the inability to use particular resources (Table III). In fact, when it comes to bit rot, it is not possible to read or edit a file content, mostly because of a damage to the file itself (at the software level) or a physical damage to the data carrier. Moreover, the inability to read or edit a file content may be because of the lack of software that might have been replaced by new one, or to the lack of hardware with such software installed. As regards link rot, the situation is slightly different. The unavailability of particular data or the inability to use particular resources is most frequently because of the actual absence of either a file or a content (an empty document or a document whose content has been altered). Moreover, problems may arise with the data server, which can prevent (sometimes temporarily) the access to particular resources. What is important, it is more likely that data lost because of bit rot are lost irretrievably. A physical damage to a data carrier is usually irreversible, while data recovery is not always possible and can be costly. In such a case, the lack of a backup copy may result in an irretrievable loss of data. What is more, it will be increasingly difficult to recreate older file formats, operating systems or other software because of the \"breaking\" of obsolete computer hardware. Original hardware, spare parts or software will be more and more difficult to find. Meanwhile, internet resources that are no longer available at a particular location have most likely been archived in digital archives, or are located at a different location of the Web. There is always a chance of finding them in the immeasurable resources of the internet.\nDiscussion and practical implications: There is a closed catalogue of the main causes of the decay of links (Lawrence, 2001; Rumsey, 2002; Spinellis, 2003; Sellitto, 2005) and the accompanying technical messages (Koehler, 2004). The main ways of counteracting the link rot (Leighton, 2015) and bit rot phenomena (Deljanin, 2012; Tidelift, 2018) have been developed as well. At this point, it is worth noting that the link rot and bit rot phenomena are actually related to the broadly understood resource management. The link rot phenomenon is, in a way, a consequence of poor management of (Web) resources and (hyper)links between them. The bit rot phenomenon, on the other way, can be prevented through following good practices, back-up copies and organisational procedures. This is a broad issue, which still remains to be addressed by researchers.\nSummary: The bit rot phenomenon appears to be natural and is, in a way, a consequence of progress. This progress, however, should rather proceed in an evolutionary, instead a revolutionary, fashion, which would allow hardware and data to be preserved (data transfer, processing, conversion). In the future, however, it may appear to be necessary to maintain the entire infrastructure (both hardware and software) required to read a particular file format.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Almost two decades after diagnosing the link rot phenomenon, and in spite of the universal character of the bit rot phenomenon, the need for reminding about these is still valid. This is because it appears that digital device users have become accustomed to them. The bit rot and link rot phenomena describe the inability to access specific contents or the inability to use specific digital resources. This paper aims to answer the question as to whether it is possible to eliminate the link rot and bit rot phenomena from the internet space.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The link rot and bit rot phenomena were characterised based on a review of various source materials, including the academic literature and internet materials.\nFindings: The phenomena known as bit rot and link rot have already been well researched and described. Research has revealed the reasons for their occurrence, and also offered recommendations on how to minimise their occurrence. In the current digital ecosystem, however, it is not possible to completely eliminate the link rot and bit rot phenomena.\nResearch limitations/implications: One can forecast that the link rot phenomenon will intensify and the internet resources will be even more unstable, because more and more new, highest-level domains which are purchased are emerging.\nOriginality/value: The study compares the phenomena of bit rot and link rot, even though they are usually considered separately. Moreover, it presents the terms of \"digital bumps\", which cause \"digital tsunami\".\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Theorising strategic investment decision-making using strong structuration theory	[ "Structuration theory", "Strategic decision making", "Agents", "Field work", "Investment appraisal", "Managerial judgement" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: An organisation's strategy both shapes and is shaped by its investments in capital assets. Hence, strategic investment decision making (SIDM) - defined as decision making about \"substantial investments that involve high levels of risk, produce hard-to-quantify (or intangible) outcomes, and have a significant long-term impact on corporate performance\" (Alkaraan and Northcott, 2006, p. 150) - is an important part of management accounting research.\n2. SST and management accounting research: Structuration theory (ST) perspectives are not new to qualitative accounting studies, with a substantial body of research having already drawn on Giddens' ST (see Englund and Gerdin, 2014 for a review). Giddens (1979) aimed to build a social theory of organisations that viewed interactions between individual \"agents\" and group \"structures\" as the essence of a social system that evolved as individuals adopted and developed a common set of rules and norms, mediated by their relative power positions. Giddens set out three types of structure: signification (communication, which may be informed by organisational artefacts such as mission statements or strategic plans), domination (the exercise of power via interactions between individuals and their relative social positions), and legitimation (shared norms and associated sanctions, which may be reflected in organisational policies such as budget authorisations).\n3. Methodology: In applying SST to the reanalysis of published SIDM field studies, attention had to be given to two issues: how to select the studies for reanalysis; and how to apply elements of the quadripartite framework and the concepts of actor's knowledge, relations and dynamic processes to our reanalysis of each study.\n4. Analysis: The analysis of four papers presented here demonstrates how SST may offer insights when theorising from SIDM case studies. Of course, SST was not used as a theoretical lens in the original studies, so our task was to re-interpret the findings post hoc in order to assess whether SST offers a practicable and useful lens for analysing SIDM case studies.\n5. Reflections on adopting SST for SIDM case studies: From our analysis, we have illustrated the potential for theorising SIDM studies through the lens of SST. However, our theorising has not been without issues. We reflect on some of these issues here in order to share the benefit of our travails with other researchers, so they may embark on fresh studies knowing some of the potential pitfalls we encountered.\n6. Conclusions: Our paper responds to the call for researchers to draw on Stones' (2005) SST to inform studies of management and accounting (Coad and Herbert, 2009; Jack and Kholeif, 2007, 2008; Coad et al., 2015). Our key contribution is to propose a new way of theorising SIDM research based on applying concepts from SST to the SIDM process. We argue that by applying Stones' concepts of the knowledgeability of agents and the power asymmetries and forms of resistance in position-practice relations to future case studies we can enrich our understanding of SIDM. And, given the turbulent and dynamic nature of the contemporary global business environment, these dynamic processes are likely to become increasingly important in understanding and theorising SIDM by incorporating more of a sense of the web of position-practice relations (Stones, 2005, p. 128). The use of SST also highlights the need to reflect on the interactions between the elements of agency and structure within SIDM, rather than seeing them as separable categories.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: In the field of strategic investment decision making (SIDM) a body of research has grown up via international case studies and organisation-based fieldwork. However, there has been little systematic theorisation around SIDM processes and practices. The purpose of this paper is to show how strong structuration theory (SST) can be employed to guide how future SIDM studies are conducted and theorised.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors draw upon the concepts from SST to reanalyse prior empirically based work. The authors apply SST-informed analysis to four SIDM case studies selected from the total of 18 published over the period 1970-2016 to explore the utility of SST compared with other approaches.\nFindings: The analysis highlights the role of agents' knowledgeability and position-practice relations in SIDM, which has largely been neglected by prior studies. The authors demonstrate the potential of SST to inform meso-level theorising by applying it to four published case studies. Whilst the authors argue for the adoption of SST, the authors also identify key methodological and conceptual issues in using SST in SIDM research.\nResearch limitations/implications: The examples and recommendations could assist management accounting researchers, particularly those engaged in case studies and organisational fieldwork, to build knowledge via the improved comparison, integration and theorisation of cases undertaken by different researchers in different contexts.\nOriginality/value: The authors offer a bridge between SST concepts and case study evidence for theorising, carrying out and analysing case study and field research on SIDM.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Integrating production and engineering perspectives on the customer order decoupling point	[ "Integrated manufacturing systems", "Production planning and control", "Order processing", "Customer requirements" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Understanding customer requirements and their implications for manufacturing enterprises has for a long time been an important issue in formulating an operations strategy. When the customers value low cost products, the strategy should recognize this and the objective should be to obtain cost efficient production. During the 1970s and the 1980s different initiatives introduced quality as an important differentiator which had an important impact on how customers valued the products and consequently removed cost as the key differentiator. As producers have learned to manage the quality aspects its role as a differentiator has diminished and emphasis is now more and more shifting to competition in terms of time and customisation. Competing on time (Stalk, 1988) requires a careful design of enterprise operations and puts strain on operations management. Emphasizing that time should not be wasted requires focus on the product flow and positioning and minimisation of buffers. Simultaneously introducing customisation implies the management of two counteracting forces: time-based competition is supported by fewer and faster activities being performed as the customer waits and customisation is about performing some activities according to the unique requirements of an individual customer. Creating unique products is only possible if the customer can influence the properties of the product, meaning that the product to some extent is engineered to order or, in case the design permits, is configured to order. Consequently, to customize products, some production-related activities are influenced by customer requirements, whereas others are not.A compromise between these two forces is the mass customisation movement investigating a route to both short lead-times and providing customer value in terms of unique products. In this context it is obvious that some parts of the logistics activities are performed as the customer is waiting but also that some preceding activities may have to be performed on speculation due to the fact that the production lead-time is longer than the required delivery lead-time (Rudberg and Wikner, 2004). A concept frequently used to capture this aspect of an operations strategy is the customer order decoupling point (CODP) that decouples operations in two parts (Hoekstra and Romme, 1992). Upstream of the CODP the activities are performed to forecast (on speculation) and downstream they are performed to customer order.The CODP can be used as a business level concept with strategic, tactical as well as operational implications in the sense that the positioning of the CODP impacts many aspects of a company (Wemmerlov, 1984; Mason-Jones and Towill, 1999; Van Donk, 2001). For example, if there is a mismatch between the assumed positioning of the CODP and operation of the manufacturing planning and control system, or between the design and operation of the production process, it could be very difficult to secure efficient operations. There are many examples of difficulties facing companies changing from, for instance, a make to stock approach to customer order driven manufacturing. This transition requires not only an updated approach to planning and control, as lead-times become a key issue but also the introduction of tools such as capable to promise (CTP) to secure reliable delivery lead-times for promising activities.A number of techniques have been developed for analysing changes in manufacturing related variables (Berry and Hill, 1992; Bhattacharya and Coleman, 1994; Hill, 2000). These techniques typically focus on the match between production and marketing from a process choice perspective. In other words, choosing a manufacturing process so that it matches the market requirements and the manufacturing task (Hill, 2000). It has been argued that the choice of manufacturing process is intimately related to the positioning of the CODP (Berry and Hill, 1992; Olhager et al., 2001; Olhager, 2003), wherefore these techniques also can be considered for CODP-based analysis. However, concerning the issue of how to supply customers with products, most of these techniques focus on production alone. The increasing pressure on lead-times and customisation highlights the need for some engineering activities to be carried out in combination with production activities. Hence, in some cases these two functions tend to overlap. Nevertheless, the engineering function has not had much impact on the definition of the CODP, which traditionally has been a production-oriented concept. The involvement of functions other than logistics related functions, e.g. production, has not been covered in the literature on CODP. Therefore, we here aim to redefine and extend the applicability of the CODP to include engineering-related activities on an integrative basis, and not just production (below we use the term production as a general concept potentially involving also other logistics related activities).The CODP is mainly a tool used for the analysis of activities associated with production and related material flows, whereas engineering is treated as something simply occurring before any production activities take place. The purpose of this paper is to establish a more holistic perspective of the CODP to explicitly account for both a production and an engineering dimension of more independent characters making it more suitable in an environment of time-based competition and mass customisation. Integrating production and engineering perspectives of the CODP provides an operational framework of higher applicability in terms of different operations strategies. It also offers an important extension to increase the scope and understanding of an integrated production and engineering analysis based on the CODP. The main objective is therefore to develop a conceptual framework for CODP explicitly recognizing the interaction between engineering and production.This paper is outlined as follows. A short recapitulation of the traditional CODP typology is provided in Section 2. Then in Section 3 we introduce the production and engineering perspectives on the CODP, respectively. Both perspectives, but especially the engineering perspective, offer new insights concerning the CODP. Section 4 presents how these two perspectives can be integrated and the results that follow from such an integration. In Section 5, some issues concerning the practical use of the theory developed here are outlined.\n2 The customer order decoupling point: 2.1 Traditional typology\n3 The two-dimensional CODP: Approaching the CODP as a two-dimensional concept reveals some properties of the relation between the two dimensions. Throughout the discussion we will use a simple example to illustrate the properties. First, we cover the production dimension and thereafter extend the discussion to cover also engineering aspects.3.1 Positioning of production-related CODPs\n4 Integrating production and engineering: Two important perspectives of the CODP have been identified from the discussion above; engineering (developing products) and production (producing products). Production and engineering has traditionally been considered as linear in the sense that engineering is performed before the production takes place. Yet, these two dimensions were separated in Figures 6 and 7. Taking this approach one step further, the two dimensions can be illustrated as orthogonal axes spanning a plane as in Figure 9. The horizontal dimension represents production, whereas the vertical dimension represents engineering. The origin of coordinates is positioned at the lower right-hand corner, with the axes representing the time for delivery to the customer. Each axis is therefore measured in time units in relation to the delivery date 0D. The size of the plane in each dimension represents the product lead-time, which is a combination of engineering and production lead-times. Based on these definitions, five basic CODP tuples can be positioned on the plane.The CODP tuple [ETSED, MTSPD] is an extreme point where no atomic transformations are performed to order. At the other extreme is the [ETOED, MTOPD] where all atomic transformations of engineering and production are performed to customer order. The third corner related to a known CODP tuple is the [ETSED, MTOPD] configuration. This case is somewhat more intricate and is therefore further discussed in Section 4.2. Figure 9 also represents the two tuples where either some of the production activities are performed to order (i.e. [ETSED, ATOPD]), or all production and some engineering activities are performed to order (i.e. [ATOED, MTOPD]). The CODP space of Figure 9 constitutes an upper bound for the set of CODPs and it is possible to identify subsets of feasible and infeasible CODPs. Below the CODP will be referred to as a tuple.4.1 Infeasible configurations\n5 Managerial implications - CODP as a tool for analysing operations: Enterprise integration emphasizes functional integration moving the focus to the business processes that take responsibility for delivering value to the customers. Traditionally the integration of engineering and production has focused on product development and the process of industrializing the product and making it ready for production. In this case, the problem is mainly one of involving resources from production in the product development process. The approach presented in this paper is, however, quite different since the focus is on integrating the engineering resources in the delivery (production) process. The basic CODP typology focuses on the production dimension and does not explicitly support the scenario presented here. But, as shown, introducing a two-dimensional CODP explicitly acknowledges the presence of engineering related adaptation activities based on an available design. This new approach makes the CODP a suitable tool for not only analysing production, but also classifying companies performing engineering adaptations.The inspiration to extend the conventional CODP typology to capture engineering activities according to the CODP space came from a number of projects involving the establishment of planning and control structures of discrete manufacturing companies. In these cases, the CODP was an important concept in analysing the companies' manufacturing environment. Companies producing standard products manufactured to stock, or to order, mapped well onto the traditional typology of MTS, MTO or different levels of ATO. But, companies performing some kind of customer order driven engineering adaptations did not fit well into the conventional framework. They could not be classified as ETO companies since most of the products were produced to forecast and not as ATO since engineering activities were involved. Consider for example the case where one of the companies manufactures cabinets for power supplies. Each cabinet is a standard product produced to forecast. But, based on the customer specifications some electrical engineering must be performed and, according to the design, a number of holes must be drilled to fit the electrical equipment, which then is mounted. This is not a typical ATO or ETO setting but some kind of combination. However, using the framework of the CODP space made the classification and analysis more straightforward and easier to communicate. The enterprise was classified as a [ATOED, ATOPD] company with approximately CODPPD=20 per cent and CODPED=8 per cent (the percentages represents the fraction of the lead-time being customer order driven). This result was of course of no great surprise per se but using this definition of the CODP increased acceptance for further discussion concerning how to approach the operations environment in terms of which strategy to use upstream and downstream from the CODP, respectively. The new framework highlighted such issues as how to design the order promising process involving the use of CTP-functionality not only for production but also involving engineering activities using this approach.Another important aspect was that the conceptual discussion during the projects became much easier to carry out since the companies now fitted well into the new \"standard\" framework and were not perceived as exceptions not covered by the theory. This is also important from a theory acceptance perspective. If the theory is considered too rough-cut, it in many ways also invalidates other theoretical concepts in the eyes of some practitioners. Introducing a CODP involving other functions than production also offers the opportunity to use insights from manufacturing strategy theory in terms of applying different approaches in terms of, for example, planning and control depending on if activities before or after the CODP are involved. For example, from a manufacturing strategy perspective a \"leagile\" (Naylor et al., 1999) strategy may be deployed focusing on lean principles before the CODP and agile principles after. A similar approach may be appropriate to develop also from an engineering perspective depending on the CODPED position resulting in a lean approach to engineering activities before the CODP and a more flexible agile approach to engineering activities after the CODP.\n6 Concluding remarks: The CODP has turned out to be an important concept as the customer focus increases at the same time as competition puts pressure on competitive priorities. The CODP emphasizes that transformations performed by a company are either performed to customer orders or on speculation. This concept has mainly focused on production, whereas engineering activities in theory have been treated as something simply occurring before any production takes place. This is, however, not an adequate approach when engineering adaptations are being performed to customer orders and therefore the traditional typology is not applicable for these cases. By the introduction of a new two-dimensional approach, a more comprehensive CODP typology was defined. We have also provided a classification of customer order influence on a combined engineering and production perspective where the efficient CODPs constitute a set providing the highest level of customer value in terms of engineering adaptations. By using this new two-dimensional approach a relevant CODP analysis can be performed also for enterprises performing engineering adaptations to customer orders. Hence, the two-dimensional CODP is an important extension to make the theory better reflect reality and hence increase the scope and acceptance of the concept CODP per se and the analysis based on the CODP.The new typology presented in this paper offers the possibilities of developing a more general approach that separates activities (in general) performed to customer order, from those performed on speculation. This would extend the CODP to be a general process management concept of relevance not only to production and engineering activities but to any kind of activities that can be classified in relation to a CODP as either being upstream (on speculation) or downstream (on commitment). This would be a challenge to support systems (such as ERP-systems), e.g. order promising, and planning and control since not only production resources would be involved which is the most common scenario today. These issues are, however, areas for further research.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Traditionally the customer order decoupling point (CODP) has focused mainly on the separation of production performed on speculation from commitment to customer orders. Engineering has, with few exceptions in this context, simply been viewed as occurring before production activities in a sequential manner. As competition increases, customer requirements for short lead-times in combination with customisations requires further integration of processes involving both engineering and production activities making the traditional view of the CODP insufficient in these cases. The purpose of this paper is thus to provide a more general approach to enterprise integration of cross-functional processes in order to extend the applicability of the CODP as a logistics oriented concept.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - We use evolutionary approach to define the CODP as a two-dimensional concept based on the integration of engineering and production.\nFindings: - The extended CODP captures the complexity in terms of possible configurations, but also provides a framework for the issues that must be handled when positioning the CODP in terms of both engineering and production simultaneously.\nPractical implications: - The two-dimensional CODP is an important extension to make the theory better reflect reality and hence increase the scope and acceptance of both the concept CODP per se, and the analysis based on the CODP.\nOriginality/value: - By the introduction of a new two-dimensional approach, a more comprehensive CODP typology is defined. We also provide a classification of customer order influence based on a combined engineering and production perspective where the efficient CODPs constitute a set providing the highest level of customer value in terms of engineering adaptations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A content analysis of literature regarding knowledge management opportunities for librarians	[ "Knowledge management", "Librarians" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Many organisations today acknowledge the role of knowledge as a key source for competitive advantage. In order to gain this advantage, it is important that knowledge and the sharing thereof be managed effectively in organisations.Generally, knowledge management is about creating, capturing, organising, retrieving, disseminating, sharing/transferring and re-using knowledge for the benefit of organisations. The definition of Davenport et al. 1998 (cited by Rowley, 1999, p. 418) entails all the above-mentioned processes: \"Knowledge management is concerned with the exploitation and development of the knowledge assets of an organisation with a view of furthering the organisation's objectives\". Knowledge assets include employees' expertise and experience, which need to be captured; information services and sources; and information technology facilities that an organisation owns or requires to achieve its goals. Knowledge management therefore has become important in organisations as it leads to improvement in the use of information and knowledge and contributes to organisational success, creativity, speed of decision-making, and quality of services.\"Knowledge management is perceived to offer a significant enhancement in the role of the librarian\" (Southon and Todd, 2001, p. 259). Knowledge management therefore is regarded as:* a means of moving beyond the traditional roles of the librarian, thus improving their image and enhancing their role;* an opportunity to rejuvenate the profession; and* a key strategic organisational process (Todd and Southon, 2001, p. 314).A body of literature has emerged that explicitly addresses the opportunities for librarians within the context of knowledge management. Based on the above discussion the following questions arise:1. Which opportunities exist for librarians within the context of knowledge management?2. Who identified these opportunities? Practitioners (librarians) or researchers?3. How is information gathered regarding the opportunities?4. How theoretically grounded are the results?5. Where is this information communicated - in scholarly or professional journals?6. In which format is this information presented - research studies, commentaries on the opportunities that exist, or based on own experience in report of services?This article intends to answer the above questions.Responding to these questions is valued given that it shows the progress of research regarding the opportunities for librarians in knowledge management to researchers and practitioners interested in this field. Results of the study may well assist in the improvement of teaching and research in library and information science. Additionally, librarians may become aware of the opportunities and acquire guidelines on how to attain the necessary requirements towards enhancing their role and ultimately boosting their image.\nResearch methodology: The method utilised to conduct this study was content analysis, which is defined by Powell (1997, p. 50) as \"a systematic analysis of the occurrence of words, phrases, concepts etc. in books, films, and other kinds of materials.\" For example, content analysis has been used in this study to determine how frequently certain phrases appear in journal articles. This method \"assigns documents...to classes or categories to quantify one or more of their characteristics\" (Allen and Reser, 1990, cited by Julien, 1996, p. 55).Categories were assigned according to the aim of the research and included:* opportunities for librarians;* author type of first author (e.g., researcher/practitioner);* data collection methods;* theoretical grounding in the identification of the opportunities;* journal type (e.g., professional/scholarly); and* article type (e.g., research study/commentary/report of service).Unit of analyses were journal articles indexed by Library Literature under the descriptors \"knowledge management\" and \"librarian\" and \"opportunit\" or \"challenge*\", and published in the past ten years. Twenty-eight full-length journal articles written in English only, in addition to those which were 70-80 per cent relevant (as indicated by the database), were selected. Book reviews, editorials, letters to the editor, personal and conference news, and advertisements were excluded.Definitions applied to guide this study are those identified by Julien (1996, pp. 54-6), and include the following:1. Commentaries: \"articles which offered opinion or argued an issue without reporting research results specifically gathered for publication\".2. Practitioners: \"librarians or information service workers or managers, either currently employed or retired\".3. Professional journals: \"journals intended primarily for practitioners and concerned with practical issues\".4. Researchers: \"faculty members in schools or departments of LIS or other disciplines\".5. Scholarly journals: \"journals that primarily publish articles addressing theoretical issues and reports on research investigations\".6. Theoretical grounding: \"articles based on a coherent and explicit framework of assumptions, definitions, and propositions that, taken together, have some explanatory power\".\nResults: Opportunities for librarians\nConclusion: Both practitioners and researchers identified opportunities for librarians. However, researchers are pro rata more aware of these opportunities. This can be based on the fact that they mostly utilised literature reviews and publish theoretically grounded articles. This is how they obtain a broader perspective of the opportunities that exist compared to practitioners who are trapped in their work situation and, as a result, based findings on their own or what they experience in the work environment.Both author types regarded the Transfer of information management and related skills to a new context linked to business processes and core operations as an important opportunity. This is an indication that everybody is aware of the value of knowledge as an asset to provide a competitive advantage to the organisation.It was expected that researchers would prefer publishing findings in scholarly journals and research reports, but results confirm the opposite. A possibility could be that researchers would like to publish findings in the type of journals and format of articles that practitioners prefer to use. However, it is important for practitioners to consider the findings of researchers to alert them about opportunities they are unaware of.The Development of corporate information literacy is also of equal importance to both author types. However, the rating of this opportunity by both groups of authors is very low, which is disappointing since information literacy is regarded as one of the most basic and traditional principles of library and information science.Practitioners regarded the Management of information in a digital/electronic environment more important than researchers. This demonstrates librarians' potential to be important contributors to knowledge management activities. However, they should not only focus on what is known to them. They should obtain a broader perspective of the knowledge management opportunities and how they can contribute in order to get noticed and recognised in organisations.Knowledge management is about the basic processes of the traditional role of librarianship, which gives them a valuable and autonomous role to become key players in knowledge management activities in the organisation. However, enhancing the role and employers expectations of the profession depends on the efforts of individual librarians.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to report on the progress of research regarding the opportunities for librarians within the context of knowledge management.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A content analysis of 28 full-length journal articles indexed by Library Literature in the past ten years was conducted.\nFindings: - Findings indicate that more researchers than practitioners are aware of knowledge management opportunities, utilised more literature reviews and based their findings on theory. In addition, an unexpected finding was that the majority of researchers communicated their findings in professional rather than scholarly journals. Practitioners should therefore give attention to studies conducted by researchers to become aware of opportunities they could not identify themselves.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Only full-length journal articles indexed by Library Literature were included. Thus the findings may have limitations in their generalisability.\nPractical implications: - Results of the study may assist in the improvement of teaching and research in library and information science. Additionally, librarians may become aware of the opportunities and acquire guidelines on how to attain the necessary requirements towards enhancing their role and ultimately boosting their image.\nOriginality/value: - The study shows the progress of research regarding the knowledge management opportunities for librarians to researchers and practitioners interested in this field.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Accounting curriculum and market needs	[ "Business demands", "Curriculum", "Educational background", "Accounting education" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Education has a positive impact on the overall growth of an economy over time, given that an economy depends on the productivity of its elements. This growth in productivity, to a large extent, depends on well-trained human capital (Palazo and Tobar, 2004). It is argued that workforce quality is of central importance to economic success (Crouch et al., 1999) and that creating quality products and services requires a well-trained and skilled workforce (Lloyd, 2005).\nLiterature review: Entrepreneurship education is essential not only to shape the mindsets of young people but also to provide the skills and knowledge that are central to develop an entrepreneurial culture. Education promotes enterprise culture and develops a tendency for entrepreneurship (House of Lords, 2003). In addition, it has been shown that high educational attainment in general related with successful entrepreneurs (O'Connor, 2013; Minniti et al., 2006).\nResearch methodology: A structured questionnaire was constructed and used as the survey instrument. First of all, extensive pre-testing took place in an attempt to improve the format of the questions. The questionnaire was delivered to the research subjects, to allow the researcher to discuss with the participants the main aims of the research and provide them with all the necessary explanations in order to eliminate possible mistakes in the understanding and completion of the questionnaires. The pilot study included 27 employers, students, and lecturers/professors who carefully read the questionnaires. The pilot was designed to ensure face and content validity of the instrument and to determine whether the questions, as they were worded, could achieve the desired results; the questions were placed in the best possible order; the questions were understood by all groups of respondents; additional or more specific questions were required, or some questions should be eliminated; and finally, the instructions to interviewers were adequate and the time it took to complete each questionnaire was reasonable. To increase the response rate, mainly structured closed questions were used. A preliminary notification (to explain the scope of the survey) was given to the subjects of the survey. According to Cooper and Schindler (1998) this process is useful and increases the response rate of the questionnaires.\nDiscussion and results: It is widely acknowledged that entrepreneurship education can be beneficial at both the individual and organizational level (Henry and Treanor, 2010; Bosma and Levie, 2010). To cope with a changing world, entrepreneurs and the individuals who work in them need to have entrepreneurial skills and abilities (Henry and Treanor, 2010). The current education system in many countries is more focused on theoretical aspects rather than on helping individuals acquire entrepreneurial skills needed for new venture creation and business management. Many national education systems are in a process of reform in order to adapt economic and social changes. The integration of entrepreneurship education is among the objectives of many of these curricular reforms (Eurydice, 2012). However, the link between education, training, intent and actual career choice to start up a business is a complex process and remains under-investigated (Nabi and Holden, 2008).\nConclusions: Research has been conducted concerning the Accounting and Finance curriculum of the TEI of Kavala in Greece, the skills required by accountants and the demands of accounting companies. The direct comparison between the perceptions of these groups enhances our knowledge of the appreciation of the courses. In line with previous major studies (such as Marzo-Navarro et al., 2009; Bahadur, 2012), the findings reveal differences between groups' perceptions.\nLimitations: One major limitation of this study is that it has been based only on the academic staff of the TEI Kavala, Greece as well as the graduates of the Accounting and Finance Department of this Institute. It is important that future research be directed towards collecting data from more academic institutions as well as from more companies. Greece was chosen not only because of the ease of data availability but because the higher education systems and accounting education in this country present some similarities to those that exist across Europe.\nFurther research: Further study will confirm if indeed the development of those skills improve graduates' job performance. Further research could expand the scope of this research by conducting this survey in more educational institutes (Higher Education) and other countries to compare and to verify, these results.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the accounting curriculum fits business demand. More specifically, it determines competencies that Greek companies demand from higher education[1] graduates and addresses any mismatches between the market's needs and the academic accounting/business curriculum through a survey in Greece.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using a survey to reveal their perceptions' differences, the sample included 166 students, 25 lecturers/professors from a department of Accounting and Finance (Higher Education) and 155 companies.\nFindings: The results provide evidence that all these groups have different perceptions of the curriculum.\nPractical implications: The study suggests ways to improve the academic accounting curriculum.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the authors knowledge, there is not any previous study that examines these parameters in Greece.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Digital amnesia and the future tourist	[ "Tourism", "Trends", "Consumer behaviour", "Futures", "Digital" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nSignal of change: Within the modern age, it is with some understatement to say that the internet has generated a paradigm shift in society. Looking exclusively at tourism, the advent of the digital economy has, \"according to the WTO, [the internet] revolutionised the distribution of tourism information and sales\" (Hojeghan and Esfangareh, 2011). Looking at the penetration of internet use globally in June 2016, around half the world's population were internet users, representing a growth in usage from 2000 to 2016 of 918.3 per cent (Internetworldstats.com, 2016). The distribution of internet usage varies by world region, however, as Table I illustrates all world regions show at least 50 per cent penetration rate of internet users by regional population.\nTrend indicator: The specific phenomena which will be presented in this paper relates to the implication to tourism of the observed rise and impact of digital amnesia. Digital Amnesia is defined as:The experience of forgetting information that you trust to a digital device to store and remember for you(Kaspersky Labs and Opinion Matters, 2015).\nImplications and disruptors: According to research by the University of Western Ontario, the average human attention span has fallen from 12 to 8 seconds since 2000, or around the time in the growth of mobile communications technology. Separate research by Microsoft found that the ability of humans to multitask has however improved (Watson, 2015).\nConclusion: The implications of Digital Amnesia could be a valued opportunity to engage the disengaged. With consumers becoming ever more dependent on technology, tourism businesses may become increasingly technically savvy to gain consumer attention. Which poses the question, why do you need grey matter when you have 4G or cloud storage?\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the phenomenon of digital amnesia and its influence on the future tourist.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A trend paper based on environmental scanning and speculative future analysis.\nFindings: The phenomena of digital amnesia are established. The growth of digital platforms and the consumer's reliance is exponential. The implications for the future tourist in terms of decision making, the influence of marketing messaging and potentially the recall and reimagining of authentic experience will be significant in the future.\nPractical implications: Subject to the signals of change, should consumer's reliance on digital platforms for the storing of information and memories continue to grow this has implications on how tourism businesses engage with their customers, influence and inform their marketing and how destinations would be reimagined based on the recall of their visitors.\nOriginality/value: The trend of digital amnesia is an established and well-documented phenomenon. The development of the trend to consider the implications for the future tourism industry based a growing dependence on digital platforms is the focus of this paper.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Approaches to university public engagement in the online environment: Insights from Anglo-Saxon higher education	[ "Higher education", "Website", "Public engagement", "Digital marketing communication" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: University public engagement, or the modalities that universities use to share their university activities with a wide public, is a subject that has recently come under discussion in the academic ambit (Davies, 2013; Watermeyer, 2016) and not only, in particular since the universities have received strong and precise recognition for their key role in the development and growth of the territory and society. So, alongside the traditional core activities of the university research and teaching - the so called \"Third Mission\" has recently been added, conferring the university with an active role in involving all the stakeholders (internal and external) and putting teaching and research in connection with the community in the aim of achieving objectives of development and social wellbeing (Maurrasse, 2001, p. 22). The universities, therefore, can demonstrate their sense of responsibility and readiness to tackle real needs and social problems. An orientation to public engagement influences the image and choices made by prospective students and parents, as stated by some contributions on the subject that deal with public engagement in terms of university social responsibility (USR) (Nejati et al., 2011; Plungpongpan et al., 2016). In this sense, transmitting public engagement online today becomes a strategic move for communicating university commitment in this direction. It is in fact because of how important websites have become to parents, prospective students and businesses, etc. for researching information on universities that recent studies have demonstrated that the information system which universities use online influences the future choices of the principle stakeholders (Ivy, 2008; Moogan, 2011). In particular, the Anglo-Saxon universities are working toward online visibility for public engagement with activities that are very often publicized on internet. Knowing how public engagement is transmitted via digital communication becomes indispensable for understanding which aspects the universities could valorize in order to improve their positioning. Even though this subject is under consideration by university management, the contribution of public engagement in the digital context has not yet been investigated. This research identifies the main approaches to online public engagement and offers interesting ideas for evaluating the kind of approach that could be adopted in line with the required positioning and defined by the governing bodies of the university institutions. This work investigates American and English universities because of their consolidated experience and evaluates which factors, in the online environment, are most representative of the cultural approach to public engagement.\nMethodology: Public engagement is a strategic approach that is strongly interiorized, above all in the managerial choices of the Anglo-Saxon universities. As already said, both in the UK and in the USA, we can find a large number of experiences that testify to the growing attention and very concrete actions in this sense. For this reason, in order to give more meaning to the research results and to be able to evaluate the potential of the phenomenon in countries that have not yet developed any awareness on this subject, we have extracted a systematic sample of 36 websites from English universities and 50 websites from American universities from the online edition of \"Top universities 2014-2015\" edited by Thompson Reuters (the sample represents 50 percent of the universities present in each index). The sample under consideration is therefore a total of 86 websites.\nResults of the analysis: The results of the explorative factorial analysis generated three factors with an eigenvalue greater than 1. Table I shows the factorial model and the loading (loadings under \|0.35\| are not shown).\nDiscussion: The results given so far show that the American and English universities have an interest in public engagement to which they dedicate ample space in their official websites. In particular, the construct of public engagement on the web seems to the declined in three principal dimensions: the first connected to the social sphere, the second connected to the so called transfer of scientific knowledge and the third connected to accessibility of the university structures to a wider public. These results, though only preliminary, certainly demonstrate that the universities under investigation have understood the importance of giving visibility to public engagement through their websites. In particular, the university shows, and communicates, that it no longer lives and works in isolation but actively participates in the social, economic and cultural development of the community, becoming an important axis, a helix, of social development. The results suggest some differences in the approaches to public engagement on the web except in the case when the university institutions communicate initiatives or promote services offered to favor access to their structures or to encourage the participation of disabled students.\nConclusions: This work analyses the different approaches to public engagement that universities can follow, thanks to appropriate strategies of online communication. Using a sample of 86 websites belonging to American and English universities and on the basis of an analysis of their contents carried out with the literature on the subject taken as a starting point, we proposed an explorative factorial analysis and a t-test with the objective of reconstructing the dimensions of public engagement in the digital context and to verify if, in the same, there existed different cultural orientations between American and English universities. Finally, the results achieved allowed us to identify some initial suggestions for possible marketing and communication actions that universities could adopt in view of a strategic orientation toward public engagement.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the construct of online public engagement by identifying the modalities universities use to give visibility to their approach on institutional websites.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An exploratory factor analysis outlined the principle dimensions that explain online public engagement starting from the analysis of a sample of American and English universities. To finish, a t-test shows the differences in the approaches to online public engagement in the sample universities.\nFindings: The results of this analysis show that the construct of public engagement used for online communication has been investigated through three dimensions and that the American and English universities have different approaches in its declination.\nResearch limitations/implications: The analysis was conducted on a sample of American and English universities; however the study underlines the fact that the traditional approaches to public engagement can assume different connotations for online communication.\nPractical implications: Coherent organization of the online communication of public engagement activities can reinforce the perception of the university in the eyes of both internal and external stakeholders. For this reason, research offers interesting input for evaluating which kind of strategy should be adopted for online public engagement in line with the desired positioning and as defined by the governing bodies of the university institutions. However, the universities still need to institutionalize public engagement.\nOriginality/value: This work constitutes the first attempt to investigate public engagement in the university context through the web, using quantitative methodologies in order to highlight the different strategic orientations and operative declinations.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Assessing sustainable consumption practices on cruise ships	[ "Sustainable consumption", "Fuzzy set theory", "Cruise ship industry", "Decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL)", "Sustainable consumption practices" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: During the past decades, sustainable consumption (SC) has arisen as a key aspect of sustainable development (Fischer et al., 2017). It is not only involved in sustainable product consumption but also in numerous actions undertaken by different processes, from the primary manufacturing procedures to the final consumption (Liu et al., 2016). Changes in consumption, especially the desire for sustainable consumer products and services, have influenced environmental improvements through the demand for cleaner and more efficient production processes. However, SC still faces challenges (Luthra et al., 2016). There is an urgent need to emphasize the necessity for more intelligent consumption as an essential requirement for environmental sustainability (Kilbourne and Mittelstaedt, 2012). Additionally, an embedded challenge is the need to understand the role of environmental concerns (Leary et al., 2014). The cruise industry is no exception in that it also shares its own challenges in this context. As the cruise industry runs global operations, it is clear that measures are needed to ensure sustainable operation abroad (Veronneau et al., 2015). However, the prevailing focus in the operative literature is on visible consumption, with few references to environmental stewardship. There is an urgent need to investigate SC to encourage positive environmental changes for sustainable development.\n2. Literature review: This section discusses the theoretical background of prior SC studies, SC practices in the cruise industry and the proposed method and measures.\n3. Methods: 3.1 The Delphi method\n4. Results: This section presents the data analysis procedure and empirical results. The experts' evaluations for the interrelationships between aspects were obtained using a linguistic scale (Table II). The evaluations were interpreted into TFNs, as shown by one specific example in Table III.\n5. Implications: 5.1 Theoretical implications\n6. Conclusions: Over the past decades, SC has emerged as a key priority area in research and policy-making related to sustainable development. While the SC business trends may prove to be a powerful measure, they are challenging as well. The overriding emphasis within the main operators' literature addresses conspicuous consumption, with little or no mention of environmental stewardship. It is urgent to pursue SC as an agent for positive environmental change for sustainable development. Previous frameworks for SC may not be suitable to the cruiseship industry. As there was no literature specifically targeting the cruise industry, this study was conducted to explore a framework and identify attributes that influence cruiseship SC for enhancing the sustainable performance of cruise lines. A multi-criteria decision-making method based on collecting expert opinions and related literature resources is proposed. A hybrid method of the Delphi method and fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) was used in the present study to seek a valid and reliable hierarchical framework for analyzing the cruise ships SC, understanding the causal effects of the attributes, as well as evaluating the attributes that drive improvements in cruise ship performance.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to examine a hierarchical framework for sustainable consumption (SC) for cruise ships and identify the causal relationships and decisive attributes of cruise ship operation practices that allow cruise organizations to achieve a higher level of sustainable performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study applies a hybrid of the Delphi method and a fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL). DEMATEL methodology helps to construct complex causal relations through digraphs, which depict interrelationships among attributes. The fuzzy set theory assesses experts' perceptions of attributes given in linguistic preferences. The Delphi method has been previously used to validate attributes and determine the validity and reliability of the construct from qualitative information.\nFindings: A set of three aspects containing 21 criteria were defined based on previous literature and expert consultations. The analysis results show that waste minimization and recycling and recovery are causal aspects that influence efficient resource use. Emission controls on ships, cruise ship alternative energy sources, ballast water treatment systems, water purification systems and nanofiltration systems are also prominent criteria for the improvement of SC during cruise ship operation.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to the literature by offering a hierarchical framework for SC literature and confirming the role of this issue in improving the cruise industry sustainability. In practice, as such results provide key attributes for successful performance, the implications are offered for companies developing new activities, either in ensuring compliance with business goals or in decreasing the environmental impact.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Segmentally aware: know when to merge and when to purge	[ "Mergers and acquisitions", "Post-merger integration", "Operating segment", "Post-merger performance", "Segment performance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction and theoretical background: Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) change the market position, innovation capabilities, as well as the financial performance of the combined company, and also have a strong effect on management and employees internally (Graebner et al., 2017). A common goal of M&A is to create a sum greater than its parts through synergies between the acquirer and the target. Operating synergies can be realized with cost savings through economies of scale and scope, innovations and access to new markets. Financial synergies include potential tax savings and lower cost of capital (Bower, 2001; Graebner et al., 2017).\nData and methodology: Sample selection\nResults: Segment performance\nDiscussion: Post M&A, we observe a significant performance improvement in unintegrated acquirer segments, an improvement to a lesser extent in integrated segments, but a performance decline in unintegrated target segments. There are several ways to interpret these outcomes (Figure 7).\nConclusion: This paper investigates the association between integration form and both segment- and corporate-level post-merger performance. Based on the sample of large M&A transactions in the pharmaceutical and chemical industry, our segment-level analysis shows that the post-merger performance of integrated segments and unintegrated acquirer segments improves, while unintegrated target segments perform worse after acquisition. Regarding the company-level analysis, we find companies with a higher integration level perform better, and that the segments within experience improvement. We suggest acquirers consider integrability when making M&A decisions. Upon M&A, acquirers would benefit from integrating all target segments instead of letting them operate separately.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to hone in on the degree of segment-level integration relative to corporate post-merger performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The sample consists of 89 segments in 29 combined companies resulting from large mergers and acquisitions (M&A) transactions between 2001 and 2014 in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries worldwide. The authors track the change through M&A in performance of segments with different integration forms as well as performance of entire companies with different integration levels.\nFindings: The authors find that integrating the segments from the target significantly improves the acquirer's overall performance, as well as the concerned segments' performance, following an M&A transaction. Whereas the segments from the target company, when left unintegrated, not only exhibit subpar performance among all the segments, but also appear responsible for the worsening corporate performance. Various possible reasons for this contrast are discussed.\nOriginality/value: This paper raises awareness of the significance of segment-level analyses, and contributes to the post-merger integration (PMI) research by examining the influence of structural integration on operating segments. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to investigate integration forms and the post-merger financial performance of various segments within companies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Public sector motivational practices and their effect on job satisfaction: country differences	[ "Public sector", "Job satisfaction", "Multi-group analysis", "Cross-country research", "Public service provision" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: To meet the demands of today's society, the strategic goals of public sector organisations (PSOs) have progressed from merely looking for efficient and effective service provision to truly providing public service, based on the theoretical framework of public service dominant logic theory (PSDL) (Osborne, 2010; Osborne et al., 2012). Among the innovations developed by PSDL, one is the acknowledgement of the role of public employees as internal customers (Azedo and Alves, 2013; Hiedemann et al., 2016).\nMethod: Administration personnel from two universities, one in Poland and one in Spain, answered a standardized quantitative survey (translated from English to the respective languages) about job satisfaction, perceived justice, perceived support and preferred rewards. The control variables were age, gender, and studies. This research was performed in two similarly sized public institutions (in number of students and personnel), with bureaucratic structures.\nResults and discussion: In the end, the model resulted in five working constructs: job satisfaction, perceived justice, perceived support (encompassing POS and PSS), intrinsic rewards, and extrinsic rewards. According to Coomber and Barriball (2007), job satisfaction can be studied as a whole concept (global approach) or focussing on specific areas (facet approach). This study uses the global approach and a multi-item construct (Saks, 2006) because of the many positions under analysis.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of job satisfaction practices for public sector employees through a cross-national approach.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A multi-group analysis was carried out using SmartPLS3 among non-teaching employees of public universities in Poland and Spain.\nFindings: The results show a positive relationship between motivational factors and job satisfaction; however, there is no evidence that the variable \"country\" introduced significant differences.\nOriginality/value: The research findings contribute to a better understanding of job satisfaction for public employees and provide empirical evidence on the relationship between job satisfaction and public culture.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Critical observations on the statistical process control implementation in the UK food industry: A survey	[ "Critical success factors", "Continuous improvement", "Food industry", "Statistical process control", "Quality control" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The rapid improvement in high-quality products has brought about a high degree of market pressure worldwide. To increase process efficiency, many companies have been forced to change their quality practices and to develop better ways to ensure that customers are satisfied not only with the products, but also with the processes. For the similar purpose, W.E. Deming popularised a statistical-based quality control (QC) technique, which was developed further by Walter Shewhart, known as \"statistical process control\" (SPC) - a powerful collection of problem-solving tools useful in achieving process stability and improving capability through the reduction of process variability (Montgomery, 2012).\n2. Literature review: The literature depicts the applicability and advantages of applying SPC in the food manufacturing industry, not only in processing but also in packaging. Grigg (1999) discussed about a food company that had established an SPC system based on weight and measurement controls in fish product manufacturing. In this case, the lower control limit avoided under-filling and the upper control limit prevents over-fills. By using a histogram and an\n3. Methodology: The principal aim of this study is to critically explore the expansion of SPC application in the UK food manufacturing industry and to test assumptions gathered from the SPC implementation literature. Common approaches to carry out empirical research on operation management include surveys, case studies, action research, ethnography, and grounded theory. Based on the literature, a survey is determined to be the most appropriate method to achieve the aim of this study.\n4. Key findings of the survey: The survey response rate was 15 per cent, representing 59 food manufacturing companies, 52.54 per cent of which were local firms, 40.68 per cent joint ventures, and 6.78 per cent subsidiaries of multinational companies. Such sample size is considered acceptable based on previous surveys published in quality management field, including 9.3 per cent response rate (Anderson and Sohal, 1999), 16.5 per cent response rate (Antony et al., 2005), 12.5 per cent response rate (Antony et al., 2007), 12.8 per cent response rate (Kumar et al., 2008), 11 per cent response rate (Scott et al., 2009), and 15.2 per cent response rate (Dora et al., 2014).\n5. Discussion on the findings: The objective of this study was to explore SPC's application in the UK food industry and identify the issues relevant to its implementation, such as CSFs, the SPC leader, applied basic and advanced quality tools, various types of SPC charts, challenges, reasons for not adopting SPC, and the impact of SPC on process performance measurement.\n6. Conclusion: This feasible study provided a detail picture of the current status of SPC implementation in the food industry through the distribution of an online survey to FMCs, which pointed that 45 per cent had adopted SPC. Compared to the past three decades, during which time SPC has been introduced to the manufacturing sectors, its implementation in the food industry is considered slow and still in its infancy stage. The lack of awareness of SPC, lack of training related to quality improvement and shortage of statistical knowledge and skills has acted as the constraints to the SPC implementation in this sector. The adoption of SPC was highly influenced by the size of the company, where large companies have more ability to invest in training and educating their employees to use SPC, compared to the smaller companies.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Statistical process control (SPC) is widely applied for control and improve processes in manufacturing, but very few studies have reported on the successful application of SPC in the food industry, in particular. The purpose of this paper is to critically assess the status of SPC in the UK food manufacturing industry and to suggest future research avenues.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A research project was carried out in the UK food manufacturing sector through questionnaires. The results of the study were analysed using descriptive statistics and statistical tests to be applied in the hypothesis testing.\nFindings: Findings revealed that 45 per cent of the respondents are SPC users and\nResearch limitations/implications: The study considered only the food manufacturing companies. Future research could be addressed toward the food service and food supply chain.\nPractical implications: The paper provides information to food companies in the UK on most common practiced and important quality tools, SPC charts and critical success factors in the food industry. Moreover, the most challenging factors of SPC implementation in the food industry are presented.\nOriginality/value: This study depicted the current state of SPC practices in the food industry and the process performance in SPC and non-SPC companies is compared.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Outcomes of customer verbal aggression among hotel employees	[ "Consumer behaviour", "Complaints", "Employees", "Hotels", "Customer satisfaction", "Northern Cyprus" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: There are high expectations on frontline employees to deliver service quality, resolve customers' complaints effectively, and accomplish customer satisfaction. Frontline employees, however, are confronted with customer verbal aggression, which refers to customers' verbal communications of anger that violate employees' social norms (see Grandey et al., 2004) such as swearing, yelling, threats, condescending remarks, and sarcasm (Boyd, 2002; Grandey et al., 2007; Harris and Reynolds, 2003). A review of the relevant literature reveals that customer verbal aggression is prevalent in various service settings. For example, it was observed that 74 percent of the flight attendants and railway employees experienced verbal abuse (e.g. sarcasm, condescending remarks, and swearing) from passengers at least once a month (Boyd, 2002). According to another study, it was found that the majority of the call center employees had calls from verbally aggressive customers daily (Grandey et al., 2004). In addition, while they were describing their incidences/complaints, 70 percent of interviewed hospitality customers reported that they themselves had intentionally and openly verbally abused frontline employees for financial gain (Harris and Reynolds, 2004).As cogently discussed in a very recent review of research on customer aggression (Yagil, 2008), \"the customer is always right\" philosophy results in unequal power between frontline employees and customers, requires employees to serve customers in a friendly and polite manner even in the event of customer verbal aggression and harassment, and encourages \"pleasing the customer\" at any cost. Under these circumstances, customer verbal aggression leads to emotional dissonance (Dormann and Zapf, 2004), which refers to the incongruence between felt and expressed emotions (Heuven and Bakker, 2003). Customer verbal aggression gives rise to emotional exhaustion (Ben-Zur and Yagil, 2005; Grandey et al., 2004; Winstanley and Whittington, 2002), which is the core dimension of burnout and refers to the lack of energy and depletion of emotional resources due to excessive psychological demands (Boles et al., 2000). In addition, customer verbal aggression undermines job performance (cf. Celik et al., 2007), erodes job satisfaction (Boyd, 2002), and heightens turnover intentions (Yagil, 2008).The central purpose of our study, therefore, is to develop and test a model that investigates the consequences of customer verbal aggression using data gathered from frontline employees in Northern Cyprus hotels. Specifically, emotional dissonance and emotional exhaustion are among the consequences examined in this study. The performance and affective outcomes investigated in our study are service recovery performance, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions. Service recovery performance is conceptualized as \"frontline service employees' perceptions of their own abilities and actions to resolve a service failure to the satisfaction of the customer\" (Babakus et al., 2003, p. 274). Job satisfaction is defined as \"the pleasurable emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one's job as achieving or facilitating the achievement of one's job values\" (Locke, 1969, p. 316), and turnover intentions refer to employees' \"willingness to leave an organization\" (Thoresen et al., 2003, p. 918). The model also examines the impact of emotional dissonance on exhaustion and the relationships of emotional dissonance and exhaustion with the aforesaid performance and affective outcomes.Our study makes several contributions to the hospitality management and marketing literatures. First, most of the extant research has focused on the aggressive behaviors of supervisors or coworkers in the workplace (Ben-Zur and Yagil, 2005; Grandey et al., 2004). However, frontline employees have frequent face-to-face or voice-to-voice interaction with customers and spend more time with customers in order to deal with a number of requests and complaints than their supervisors. In addition, their intense interaction with customers results in verbal aggression that is positively associated with emotional dissonance and emotional exhaustion (Dormann and Zapf, 2004; Reynolds and Harris, 2006) and produces negative job outcomes (Yagil, 2008). Despite this recognition, empirical evidence on customer verbal aggression in the hospitality management and marketing literatures is not abundant. Accordingly, our study tests the effects of customer verbal aggression on emotional dissonance, emotional exhaustion, and job outcomes such as service recovery performance, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions.Second, it has been observed that there is little empirical research concerning emotional labor in the hospitality management and marketing literatures (Chu and Murrmann, 2006; Kim, 2008). Emotional dissonance is the main component of emotional labor regarding its effects on burnout/emotional exhaustion and negative health and job outcomes (Dormann and Zapf, 2004; Zapf, 2002). Therefore, our study also investigates the relationships of emotional dissonance with emotional exhaustion and the aforementioned job outcomes. Finally, the findings of our study may carry important implications for business practice in the hotel industry.The next section of our article consists of the theoretical background and hypotheses where the conceptual model is shown. Then, we present discussion of the method and findings of our empirical study. We conclude the study with a discussion of and the implications of the empirical findings.\nTheoretical background and hypotheses: Jobs in the hospitality industry are high-stress vocations (Stamper and Van Dyne, 2003) and produce burnout (Karatepe and Uludag, 2007; Vallen, 1993). Specifically, Godbey (1993) argues that the availability of behaviors associated with feelings of being rushed may amplify hospitality employees' job stress. Hutchinson et al. (1997) also discuss that the availability of job insecurity may heighten hospitality managers' and employees' job stress. In a study conducted with hotel employees in Canada, role ambiguity has been found to be the major stressor, followed by low decision-latitude and workload (Zohar, 1994). Law et al. (1995) report that management and management behavior has been perceived as the main source of stress among frontline employees in the Australian tourism attractions. In another study, it has been shown that variables such as too much work, misuse of time by other people, being undervalued, inadequate feedback, and lack of consultation intensify both front office and housekeeping employees' job stress (Faulkner and Patiar, 1997).It has been observed in a past study that conflicts inherent in food service managers' role increase burnout (Krone et al., 1989). The results of another study have illustrated that the relative frequency of serving demanding guests increases emotional exhaustion among frontline hotel employees in New Zealand (Ledgerwood et al., 1998). In a study conducted with kitchen chefs, it has been reported that occupational stress factors such as poor communication, threats of violence at work, bullying at work, repetitive work, boring work, poor fixtures and fitting, workload, and being short-staffed have significant positive associations with psychological strain (Murray-Gibbons and Gibbons, 2007). According to the findings of another study, job stress aggravates frontline employees' burnout in both restaurant and hotel/motel settings (Gill et al., 2006). Karatepe and Uludag (2007) have found that frontline hotel employees in Northern Cyprus experience emotional exhaustion due to a number of difficulties between work and family roles.An observation that can be made using the aforementioned studies is that empirical evidence, which pertains to customer verbal aggression and its relationships with emotional dissonance, emotional exhaustion, and job outcomes, still remains scanty. The conceptual model in Figure 1, which addresses such a gap, is presented below.Our model contends that frontline employees who are confronted with customer verbal aggression experience emotional dissonance and are emotionally exhausted. In addition, such employees display negative outcomes such as poor service recovery performance, job dissatisfaction, and turnover intentions. According to the model, emotional dissonance exacerbates emotional exhaustion, undermines service recovery performance, erodes job satisfaction, and escalates turnover intentions. Similarly, our model posits that emotional exhaustion results in the abovementioned negative performance and affective outcomes. Consistent with the other empirical studies in the extant literature (e.g. Brotheridge and Lee, 2002; Grandey and Cropanzano, 1999; Karatepe et al., 2008; Yavas et al., 2008), the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory provides useful guidelines to develop the aforesaid relationships.As demonstrated in Figure 1, our study controls for demographic variables such as age, gender, education, organizational tenure, and marital status. This approach is congruent with the other empirical studies in the extant literature, because such control variables may significantly affect the study constructs and confound the hypothesized relationships (e.g. Babakus et al., 2003; Karatepe and Uludag, 2007; Liang and Hsieh, 2008; Yavas et al., 2008). Consequently, examining them as control variables provides us with a rigorous test of the hypothesized linkages.Customer verbal aggression, emotional dissonance, and emotional exhaustion\nMethod: Sample and procedure\nResults: Measurement results\nDiscussion: Based on data collected from frontline hotel employees in a developing small island destination, Northern Cyprus, the present empirical investigation extends our understanding pertaining to the consequences of customer verbal aggression. Specifically, we developed and tested a model that investigated the effects of customer verbal aggression on emotional dissonance, emotional exhaustion, and three job outcomes, which consisted of service recovery performance, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions. Consequently, several useful findings are of note.In general, the results are encouraging and demonstrate that the COR theory provides useful guidelines for studying the relationships depicted in the conceptual model. When the consequences of customer verbal aggression are assessed, various results come out. Specifically, the result that emotional dissonance is among the viable consequences of customer verbal aggression is in line with the COR theory (Grandey and Cropanzano, 1999; Hobfoll, 2001) and the other empirical research (e.g. Harris and Reynolds, 2003). That is, employees spend their limited resources for managing verbally aggressive customers in the service encounter. However, they have fewer resources left for handling emotional dissonance. Under these circumstances, such employees are supposed to express unfelt emotions in the service encounter due to customer verbal aggression and cannot manage problems associated with emotional dissonance.As predicted by the COR theory (Hobfoll, 2001) and consonant with recent empirical studies (Ben-Zur and Yagil, 2005; Grandey et al., 2007), customer verbal aggression should lead to emotional exhaustion. This is supported by our findings. It also has been demonstrated in our study that employees experience emotional exhaustion due to the incongruence between their felt and displayed emotions in the service encounter. Such a finding is in accordance with the COR theory (Hobfoll, 2001; Lee and Ashforth, 1996) and corroborates that of Heuven and Bakker (2003). When frontline employees do not receive the anticipated returns as a result of investment of their scarce resources in the management of customer verbal aggression and emotional dissonance, they lose such resources and are faced with emotional exhaustion.According to the COR theory, excessive job demands within a particular role lead to negative attitudinal outcomes (Shaffer et al., 2001). Consistent with this theoretical framework and the other studies (Rupp et al., 2007; Yagil, 2008), both customer verbal aggression and emotional dissonance give rise to turnover intentions. That is, frontline employees who cannot cope with verbally aggressive customers and emotional dissonance in the workplace try to preserve their limited resources by displaying turnover intentions. Such findings are important, since turnover intentions result in turnover, which is a prevalent hassle in the hotel industry. On the other hand, the results concerning the effects of customer verbal aggression and emotional dissonance on service recovery performance and job satisfaction are not significant. These results are not in line with the COR theory (Shaffer et al., 2001; Yavas et al., 2008) and the other studies (Celik et al., 2007; Rupp et al., 2007; Yagil, 2008). As discussed before, customer verbal aggression and emotional dissonance seem to be among the unavoidable aspects of frontline service jobs. Accordingly, such findings might be attributed to the fact that frontline employees are expected to serve customers in a friendly and polite manner even in the event of customer verbal aggression and display unfelt emotions to be consistent with organizational desired emotions. Thus, being confronted with customer verbal aggression and emotional dissonance does not necessarily impact frontline employees' service recovery efforts and their satisfaction with the job. However, failure to demonstrate significant negative effects of customer verbal aggression and emotional dissonance on service recovery performance and job satisfaction should not be considered definitive. Using multiple sources of assessment regarding frontline employees' service recovery performance and job satisfaction might have produced supporting results for the COR theory.When the effects of emotional exhaustion on job outcomes are evaluated, a number of useful findings emerge from our empirical investigation. Concordant with the COR theory (Lee and Ashforth, 1996; Yavas et al., 2008) and the other studies (Cropanzano et al., 2003; Karatepe and Uludag, 2007), emotional exhaustion exerts detrimental effects on service recovery performance, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions. As the COR theory contends, employees display negative performance and affective consequences as a result of resource loss and emotional exhaustion. This is not surprising, since emotionally exhausted employees are devoid of the necessary additional resources to demonstrate positive attitudinal and behavioral outcomes.Management implications\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The central purpose of this study is to develop and test a model which examines the effects of customer verbal aggression on emotional dissonance, emotional exhaustion, and job outcomes such as service recovery performance, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions. The model also investigates the impact of emotional dissonance on emotional exhaustion and the effects of emotional dissonance and exhaustion on the above-mentioned job outcomes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were gathered from a sample of frontline hotel employees in Northern Cyprus via self-administered questionnaires. A total number of 204 questionnaires were obtained.\nFindings: - As hypothesized, emotional dissonance and emotional exhaustion were found to be significant outcomes of customer verbal aggression. The results demonstrated that emotional dissonance amplified exhaustion. The results further revealed that customer verbal aggression and emotional dissonance intensified turnover intentions. As expected, emotional exhaustion reduced service recovery performance and job satisfaction and aggravated turnover intentions.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The cross-sectional design of the study constrains the ability to make causal inferences. Therefore, future studies using longitudinal designs would be beneficial in establishing causal relationships. Although the paper controlled for common method bias via Harman's single-factor test, future studies using multiple sources for data collection would minimize such a problem.\nPractical implications: - Hotel managers need to arrange training programmes to enable their employees to cope with the actions of boisterous and boorish customers. Having empowerment in the workplace seems to be an important weapon in managing such customers. In addition, managers should recruit and select the most suitable individuals for frontline service positions so that such employees can cope with difficulties associated with customer verbal aggression, emotional dissonance, and emotional exhaustion.\nOriginality/value: - Empirical evidence pertaining to the consequences of customer verbal aggression in the hospitality management and marketing literatures is meagre. Thus the study partially fills this gap in the research stream of customer verbal aggression.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Workplace relationship cohesion: an internal customers' perspective	[ "Social exchange", "Internal customers", "Relationship cohesion theory", "Workplace relationship quality" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The seminal work of Vargo and Lusch (2004) established a paradigm shift in marketing thought toward a focus on resource integration (i.e. operand and operant) and value co-creation. Underpinning this concept is the notion that organizational advancement requires the application of internal knowledge, skills and abilities (i.e. operant resources) and collaborative processes with customers, partners and employees (i.e. operand resources) (Lusch et al., 2007; Lusch and Vargo, 2014), thus, emphasizing the important role of internal customers in organizational success. However, as clearly pointed out by Edvardsson et al. (2011), service exchanges and subsequent value co-creation are embedded in social systems. Therefore, to further understand marketing exchanges it must be through a social-dominant lens. As such, Edvardsson et al. (2011, p. 337) suggest that the social roles and exchanges of the various human actors (i.e. internal and external stakeholders), within the social structure of the firm, define service provision.\nTheoretical framework: Grounded within social exchange theory, RCT (Lawler and Yoon, 1993, 1996, 1998) provides an appropriate framework to understand the dynamics of the firm's internal social environment. According to RCT, \"emotion is a proximal mechanism in the exchange process, mediating the affects of structural arrangements on behavioral outcomes\" (Cook and Rice, 2003, p. 62). More specifically, they propose a causal chain whereby structural power affects the frequency and consistency of emotion (through the exchange process), determining relationship cohesion, which, in turn, affects the individual's commitment to the relationship. Moreover, they argue that relationship cohesion fully mediates the relationship between aroused emotion (i.e. satisfaction, liking, etc.) associated with socio-structural exchange mechanisms (e.g. power structure, organizational climate, etc.) and social bonding (i.e. behavioral and affective commitment).\nHypotheses: In line with RCT, the introduction and positioning of organizational relationship quality in the conceptual model, implies mediation. Based on the contention of King et al. (2013) that organizationally based relational considerations are the key to determining the strength and valence of the association between organizationally generated antecedents and employee centered outcome variables, the mediation hypothesis is supported. We argue that the organization's support mechanisms (i.e. seeking employee feedback, establishing job diversity, support for employee abilities, etc.) do not induce optimal employee performance alone. The organization's support structure must be communicated through positive social exchanges (Chou and Lopez-Rodriguez, 2013), underpinned by sincerity and equity, in order for relational benefits such as trust, satisfaction and confidence to be realized by employees - in essence, ensuring workplace humanism (Berman et al., 2002). In other words, it is the organization's perceived support and responsiveness to the needs and wants of internal customers that is important. In being supportive, regardless of what form that may take, employees are more likely to position the organization as an integral and positive part of their lives. On this basis, we hypothesize that:\nResearch design: An on-line survey was used in order to gather data to address the hypotheses of this study. The survey development and data collection method is described below, along with a description of the resulting sample.\nAnalyses and results: Data analysis followed a two-phase process, i.e. preliminary analyses and hypotheses testing. The purpose of the preliminary analysis phase was to establish the integrity of the data via normality testing, correlation analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and reliability analysis. In addition, this phase included checks for construct, convergent and discriminant validity and testing for common-method bias. The final analysis phase involved hypotheses testing via SEM using AMOS 18.0. The results of these analyses are further discussed.\nDiscussion: The findings of this study clearly explicate the role of internal relationship cohesion in supporting internal support and socialization initiatives. We took the view that positive individual and organization outcomes lie, not merely with the organization's ability to satisfy internal customers, but with the workplace establishing itself as a personally relevant and important component of individuals' lives, such that it promotes a strong psychological connection between internal customers and their organizations. In taking a relational, rather than a task-related or transactional approach to understanding internal customer \"buy-in,\" this study provides significant evidence of the pivotal role of social/relational exchanges (i.e. \"workplace humanism\" Berman et al., 2002, p. 227), in enhancing individual and organizational outcomes.\nTheoretical implications and future research: The empirical testing of the conceptual model supports the growing focus on social theories (e.g. Wang, 2014), as appropriate frameworks upon which to understand contemporary service marketing challenges. Clearly the findings demonstrate that organizations must not only take a relational, rather than transactional, approach to their internal market, they should also foster internal relationships from which the employees derive significant social fulfilment. It is surprising that the social aspects of organizational life have received little research attention given the centrality of the employing organization in the lives of their internal customers. This is significant, given that internal customers are contractually and temporally bound to one organization (i.e. their employer). As such, they are subsequently dependent on that organization to provide purpose, fulfilment, autonomy, satisfaction, close working relationships, learning (Berg et al., 2013; Chalofsky, 2003; Kohli et al., 1998), and \"add something to their lives\" (Bibby, 2001). It is argued here that further examination of internal firm relationships affords greater insight into realizing a productive and engaged internal market.\nPractical implications: The findings of this study prompt a mindset shift in relation to internal support and socialization. The findings clearly evidence the salience of workplace relationships (with the organization and with co-workers) supporting the efficacy of organizational initiatives in developing strong connections between internal customers and their organizations. As previously discussed, the mere existence of support/socialization initiatives only goes part way to producing optimal outcomes (i.e. an engaged internal market) if they do not result in internal relationship cohesion. The socialization and support practices of the organization, must be underpinned by sincerity, consistency and, above all, reflect organizational reality if positive internal relationships are to result. On this basis, rather than measuring the effectiveness of such practices in terms of task-related behaviors/activities, they should also be measured in terms of their ability to foster quality relationships. How the organization performs in facilitating these relationships will reflect the efficacy of their internal marketing practices and inform the development and implementation of these strategic efforts. If the measurement of the quality of internal relationships produces poor results, then organizations should re-think the development and execution of their internal practices.\nLimitations: First, the use of survey measures come with some limitations. However, we believe the problems associated with capturing data, that accurately represents respondents' attitudes, feelings and behaviors, were minimized through the use of multiple-item measures, largely drawn from pre-existing validated scales. Furthermore, stringent reliability and validity checks (reported herein) substantiate the integrity of the data upon which the research conclusions were made. Second, the advantages of conducting quantitative research involving large sample sizes, reside within the generalizability of the results across geographic and/or contextual boundaries. From a geographic perspective, it is expected that generalization beyond Australia (i.e. data source) could be attempted, with some degree of confidence, to countries with similar economic, social and cultural structures, i.e. USA, the UK and other Western cultures within the EU. From a contextual perspective, the findings are particularly relevant to physical service and retail settings given the proximity of the service actors (i.e. managers, employees and customers) and the, subsequent, opportunity for social interaction and observation. Generalization of the findings to other organizational environments (e.g. online environments) should be attempted with caution.\nConclusion: This study is one of the first to examine the interplay between organizational-oriented internal practices and internal market-perceived relationship cohesion within the firm's internal social environment. The findings demonstrate the central role that relationship cohesion (organizational and interpersonal) plays in internal customers' feelings of connectedness with the organization. Such connections are believed to be a necessary requirement to enhance organizational performance, particularly within the service sector. Extrapolation of the findings, in the broader services context, has resulted in the proposal of a prescriptive approach (refer Figure 3) to further understand the findings beyond the internal environment to the service exchange environment (i.e. internal/external customer interface). As a result, the study has clear theoretical and practical implications and provides a solid foundation for future research in this important area.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the differential effect of reciprocal and negotiated social exchanges in establishing workplace relationship cohesion, providing a mediating influence between social constructed initiatives (i.e. internal socialization and support) and internal customers' psychological connectedness.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were gathered via a national online survey of service employees in Australia, representing a diverse range of service industries (e.g. retail (food/non-food), health, financial, administrative support, real estate, household, insurance, education and training, etc.).\nFindings: Reciprocal-exchange relationship quality fully mediates the relationship between internal socialization and psychological connectedness; and negotiated-exchange relationship quality partially mediates the relationship between internal support and psychological connectedness of internal customers.\nResearch limitations/implications: While the findings reported herein support the salience of interpersonal relationship quality enhancing the internal performance of the organization, it is essential to consider how the findings link to externally perceived performance (i.e. from the customer's perspective). Future research is guided by a framework that the authors propose as a result of the study's findings to facilitate research in this under-researched area.\nPractical implications: The development of sound socially relevant internal marketing strategies is vital to the long-term health and prosperity of the firm and its internal counterparts necessitating a move beyond transactional internal marketing, reflecting \"pay for service\" organizational thinking.\nOriginality/value: The examination of internal relationship cohesion and how this effects internal customers' allegiance to their organizations addresses an important research gap and, thus, provides a significant contribution to both theory and practice.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Analysing mobile advergaming effectiveness: the role of flow, game repetition and brand familiarity	[ "Purchase intention", "Flow", "Brand attitude", "Advergames" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The use of advergames, electronic games created with the specific purpose of promoting a brand or a product (Winkler and Buckner, 2006), has received increased attention in the literature because of their persuasive power (Roettl et al., 2016). In recent years, an increasing effort has been made to understand the determinants of advergaming effectiveness. Previous research has analysed different aspects that could affect the success of this tool, including both factors related to the advergame, such as game-brand and game-product congruity (Gross, 2010; Hernandez et al., 2004; Lee et al., 2017; Marti-Parreno et al., 2013; Okazaki and Yague, 2012; Ping et al., 2010; Sreejesh et al., 2018; Wise et al., 2008), prominence of the brand placement (Cauberghe and De Pelsmacker, 2010; Van Reijmersdal et al., 2010; Vashisht and Royne, 2016; Winkler and Buckner, 2006) and interactivity (Gurau, 2008; Ping et al., 2010; Sreejesh and Anusree, 2017; Sukoco and Wu, 2011); as well as individual factors of players, such as persuasion knowledge (Ham et al., 2016; Van Reijmersdal et al., 2010; Vanwesenbeeck et al., 2016, 2017; Vashisht and Royne, 2016) and involvement (Bellman et al., 2014; Cauberghe and De Pelsmacker, 2010; Van Reijmersdal et al., 2010; Vanwesenbeeck et al., 2017). However, still more effort is needed to achieve a better knowledge about which variables related to the advergame and the player can influence brand-related outcomes.\n2. Theoretical framework and hypotheses formulation: 2.1 Advergames\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Stimuli\n4. Analysis and results: The research model was tested using structural equation modelling (SEM), using the partial least squares (PLS) technique with the software Smart PLS 3.0 (Ringle et al., 2015). This methodology involves non-parametric procedures and therefore has less restrictive assumptions about the distribution of data. In addition, it is particularly suitable when the sample size is lower than 250 and the focus of the study, as in our case, in on prediction and on theory development rather than on strong theory confirmation (Reinartz et al., 2009).\n5. Discussion: Due to the increasing popularity of mobile devices and the development of gaming apps, any time of day and any location can provide a gaming context (Wei and Lu, 2014). Advertisers are trying to benefit from this opportunity, creating mobile advergames through which to engage consumers with the advertising content. As the use of advergames has been related to potential benefits for marketing (Lee and Cho, 2017), understanding which variables affect mobile advergaming effectiveness has become a priority among advertisers and advergame developers. This study has empirically investigated the effects of game repetition, flow and brand familiarity on players' brand attitude and purchase intention using a mobile advergame from a real brand.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to explain the effect of flow, game repetition and brand familiarity on players' brand attitude and purchase intention in the context of mobile advergaming.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data from 227 participants who played a mobile advergame were analysed. Structural equation modelling with partial least squares was used to test the research model.\nFindings: The results reveal that the independent variables (i.e. game repetition and brand familiarity) significantly influence the dependent variables explored in this study (i.e. brand attitude and purchase intentions of players). Results also show that brand familiarity influences players' flow experience, which in turn significantly affects players' purchase intentions.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings of this study are important for advertising practitioners and advergames' developers as understanding the determinants of mobile advergaming effectiveness is crucial for designing successful advergames that persuade players the most.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to the literature in two ways. First, it provides new insights into the effectiveness of mobile advergames, which is an under-researched area. Second, it offers empirical evidence of the effects of game repetition, flow and brand familiarity on mobile advergaming effectiveness.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The tradeoff between fit perceptions across recruitment stages by new job seekers	[ "Recruitment", "Person-job fit", "Person-organization fit", "Job choice" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The concept of fit provides a theoretical groundwork for understanding individuals' assessment of their work environment (person-environment fit; PE fit) in a broader context (Hoffman and Woehr, 2006; Kristof-Brown et al., 2005). Specifically, studies have shown that perceived fit matters for an individual's attitude and behavior in different aspects of the work environment, such as organization (person-organization fit; PO fit) and job (person-job fit; PJ fit). When individuals perceive themselves as fitting the work environment, they tend to have more positive behaviors that are desired by the company (e.g. higher organizational commitment and job satisfaction, better job performance and interpersonal compatibility between individuals and workgroups and lower turnover intentions; Cable and DeRue, 2002; Carless, 2005; Iplik et al., 2011; Jung et al., 2010; Kristof-Brown et al., 2002; McCulloch and Turban, 2007; Resick et al., 2007; Song and Chon, 2012; Teng, 2008).\nLiterature review: Conceptual foundation of person-environment fit theories\nMethodology: Participants and data collection\nResults: Sample profile\nDiscussion: The main purpose of this study was to explore the tradeoff between PJ fit and PO fit by job seekers across different recruitment stages and the influence on their job choice decisions. On the basis of previous studies (Chapman et al., 2005; Uggerslev et al., 2012), it was expected that PJ fit would have a stronger influence on job applicants' decision in the recruitment process. The findings from this study supported the notion that PJ fit had a stronger influence when job seekers made the decision about submitting an application, maintaining applicant status and accepting a job offer.\nConclusion: Due to concerns about the significant cost associated with the high turnover rate in the hospitality industry, it is critical to acquire the right employees who fit the job and the organization to deliver good-quality service, which enables hospitality companies to meet customer demands and create competitive advantages in the market. Thus, it is important to understand job seekers' perception of fit with the job and the organization across different recruitment stages. This study found that PJ fit has a stronger influence on job choice decisions than PO fit overall, whether PJ fit and PO fit were considered individually or collectively. However, this difference was not significant when job seekers consider both fit perceptions individually to decide whether to maintain their applicant status after a major recruitment event. This reflects that job choice decisions are complex when additional information is exchanged between job seekers and recruiters. Once fit perceptions are fully developed, however, job seekers tend not to change their ideas in later recruitment stages.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the tradeoff between person-job (PJ) fit and person-organization (PO) fit by new job seekers across different recruitment stages and the influence on their job choice decisions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A time-lapse research design was adopted with data from a survey over a two-year period of college students majoring in hospitality and tourism management at different recruitment stages (i.e. generating applications, maintaining applicant status and making a job choice).\nFindings: The results suggest that PJ fit has a stronger influence on job choice decisions than PO fit, and both fit perceptions are consistent across recruitment stages. However, the difference between the two fit perceptions may be affected by direct interactions with recruiters at career fairs and interviews.\nPractical implications: When recruiters start interacting with job seekers during the initial stage of the recruitment process, the recruiters are more likely to receive a favorable job choice decision from these potential applicants. Additionally, recruiters should create a positive perception of hiring companies and jobs through career fairs or other face-to-face communications to keep job seekers interested and maintain their applicant status throughout the recruitment stages.\nOriginality/value: This paper explores important factors that influence job seekers' job choice decisions throughout the recruitment process with three main stages, which provides a more holistic overview of the transition of job seekers' fit perceptions of the job and the organization. It also provides empirical support for current understanding of recruitment issues in the hospitality industry.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Knowledge from customer, for customer or about customer: which triggers innovation capability the most?	[ "Customer knowledge management", "Innovation capabilities", "Knowledge about customer", "Knowledge for customer", "Knowledge from customer", "New service market performance" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The competitive landscape of the world of business is evolving dramatically. Therefore, using external sources such as customer knowledge in a business process has become an important concern in today's dynamic environment. In such an environment, customers play an innovative and active role by communicating with each other as well as with the firms anywhere around the globe (Taherparvar et al., 2014). Nowadays, customers are not only restricted to purchasing and using products and services, but they are also actively involved in value co-creation with firms (Cui and Wu, 2016). Hence, more and more companies are looking for a way to involve customers in firms' innovation activities, either co-developing products with customers or allowing customers to innovate on their own (Hoyer et al., 2010; Taghizadeh et al., 2016).\n2. Literature review and concept development: 2.1 Customer knowledge management\n3. Hypothesis and research model: In the extant literature, it has been well endorsed that knowledge is the driver and source for innovation and performance (Leonard-Barton, 1995). According to scholars, gathering, managing and sharing customer knowledge can be an advantageous competitive tool to come up with innovation and market performance. Customer knowledge has been progressively recognized by researchers as a key strategic resource for any company's success. Specifically, previous studies have asserted that understanding customer preferences through collecting data and information from customers is a prerequisite for new product success (Joshi and Sharma, 2004). Firms can identify the distinctive features of market segments and frame correct strategies for these segments by gaining knowledge from customer, which would lead to better performance in the market (Lee et al., 2011). In fact, data, information and ideas acquired from customers are likely to be more realistic (Taherparvar et al., 2014). For instance, LEGO has created an online community platform to get feedback, suggestions, and votes from customers. The firm extracts all these data and information as knowledge and tries to fine-tune their product features. This initiative of gathering knowledge from customer has enabled the customer to have their expectations fulfilled.\n4. Research methodology: The research was conducted in Bangladesh and data were collected from Bangladeshi banks to understand the state of CKM, innovation capability and new service market performance. Purposive sampling (judgement sampling) is used for data collection. In this sampling method, a specific type of people provide the desired information - either they are the only ones who have the information or they conform to some criteria set by the researchers (Sekaran and Bougie, 2010). Thus, the respondents were managers of marketing, business development, research and innovation, information technology, new service development and CKM departments based on their relationships with customers, knowledge about banking practices and familiarity with CKM and the external environment. A total of 253 bank managers from 26 banks out of 52 banks operating in Bangladesh participated in the study with a response rate of 48.56 per cent. The participating banks are Sonali Bank Ltd, Janata Bank Ltd, Agrani Bank Ltd, Rupali Bank Ltd, Bangladesh Krishi Bank, BASIC Bank Ltd, Rajshahi Krishi Unnayan Bank, Eastern Bank Ltd, IFIC Bank, Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd, AB Bank Ltd, National Bank Ltd, NCC Bank Ltd, EXIM Bank Ltd, BRAC Bank Ltd, Bank Asia Ltd, Mutual Trust Bank Ltd, ONE Bank Ltd, Prime Bank, Pubali Bank Ltd, Southeast Bank, The City Bank Ltd, Social Islami Bank Ltd, Trust Bank Ltd, Uttara Bank Ltd and Commercial Bank of Ceylon PLC. The demographic profile indicates that 41.5 per cent of the respondents are between 30 and 35 years old, followed by 44.3 per cent of respondents between 36 and 40 years, around 11.1 per cent of respondents between 41 and 45 years and 3.2 per cent of respondents above the age of 46 years. About 83.4 per cent of respondents are male and 16.6 per cent are female. About 8.7 per cent of respondents hold a bachelor's degree, 90.5 per cent hold a postgraduate degree and 0.8 per cent have other professional degree along with a postgraduate degree. With respect to the respondents' work experience in the banking sector, about 59.7 per cent of them have 1-5 years' experience, 9.9 per cent have 6-8 years' experience, 9.5 have 9-11 years' experience, and 20.6 per cent has more than 12 years of work experience. In terms of their work experience in the current branch, about 64 per cent have been working for 1-5 years, 7.9 per cent have been working for 6-8 years, 9.1 per cent have been working for 9-11 years, and 19 per cent have been working for 12+ years.\n5. Data analysis: As data were collected from a single source, it is important to check the common method variance (Podsakoff et al., 2003). To this end, Harman's single factor test was conducted by entering all the principal constructs into a principal component factor analysis (Podsakoff and Organ, 1986).\n6. Discussion: This research has examined the direct influence of three dimensions of CKM (namely knowledge from customer, knowledge for customer and knowledge about customer) on new service market performance, as well as the indirect effect of innovation capabilities in terms of speed and quality. Customer knowledge is a valuable resource for the banking industry, and can be used to facilitate innovation capabilities, enhance new service market performance, facilitate the identification of emerging market opportunities and improve customer value co-creation. This is because three types of CKM (knowledge from customer, knowledge for customer and knowledge about customer) have been considered for the management and exploitation of customer-related knowledge (Jiebing et al., 2013). Through the acquisition, sharing, transfer and utilization of information and knowledge, CKM enables managing knowledge from customer and offers new products/services or new solutions for the customer's needs (Garcia-Murillo and Annabi, 2002; Chua and Banerjee, 2013).\n7. Implication: 7.1 Theoretical\n8. Limitations and future research: While the research design was tailored to address the research objectives and focused on the critical elements, there are still some limitations of this study that present opportunities for future research. The research is limited in terms of the industries selected and the geographical scope. The sample is restricted to companies from the banking industry in Bangladesh. The results may be different in other industries. It may be customized for different applications in terms of the service sectors (such as hospitality, financial institutions, aviation, shipping, telecommunications, educational and health), place of study (Asia versus non-Asia) and for diverse cultural setups with varying working conditions. Moreover, the study is not a longitudinal approach and like any other cross-sectional study, it can only provide a static perspective on fit, which is why a longitudinal approach would have placed the researcher in a better position to draw causal conclusions. Future researchers may combine the primary and secondary data from the banking and/or other sectors to get a holistic picture of the respective industry. Finally, this study was limited to only quantitative research. Future researchers can carry out a qualitative or mixed-method analysis comprising interviews with the managers to get a clearer picture of service innovation management practices. The findings generated from the interviews might compliment the findings of the empirical study.\n9. Conclusion: This study found the direct influence of three dimensions of CKM (knowledge from customer, knowledge for customer and knowledge about customer) on new service market performance as well as the indirect effect of innovation capabilities in terms of speed and quality. Our findings reveal that knowledge about customer is not as good a predictor of new service market performance as knowledge from and for customers. These three dimensions of CKM practices have significant relationships with innovation speed and innovation quality. Innovation quality has been found to be a good predictor in this study, and innovation speed and innovation quality can play mediating roles in the relationship between CKM and new service market performance.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper examines the influence of three dimensions of customer knowledge management - knowledge from customer, knowledge for customer and knowledge about customer - on innovation capabilities (speed and quality) and new service market performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The model links three dimensions of customer knowledge management to two dimensions of innovation capabilities. Further, the model links two dimensions of innovation capabilities to new service market performance. Analysis was conducted through structural equation modelling using SmartPLS software, using data from 253 managers representing 26 banks in Bangladesh.\nFindings: The findings of this study show that knowledge from customer and knowledge for customer are the most influential predictors of new service market performance. Of the three dimensions of customer knowledge management, knowledge from customer turns out to be the strongest predictor of innovation quality and speed. Innovation quality has a greater impact on new service market performance than innovation speed. Innovation capability (quality and speed) plays a mediating role in this study.\nPractical implications: Managing knowledge from, for and about customer should be systematically considered as a synergy approach to firms' processes and activities to co-create value with customers. In particular, managers should put more emphasis on knowledge from and for customer to enhance innovation capacity and achieve success in the development of a new service.\nOriginality/value: This paper empirically supports the significant influence of knowledge from, for and about customer on innovation capabilities (quality and speed) and new service market performance. While the results provide guidance for researchers and practitioners, it also adds value to innovation-related research.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The role of customers and vendors in modern construction equipment technology diffusion	[ "Innovation", "Diffusion", "Technology", "Construction", "Customers", "Construction equipment" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Technology in construction generally embraces systems, tools and equipment and any combination of resources used in the process of construction from design to demolition (Tatum, 1988; Ofori, 1994). Recent technological advances are resulting in the introduction of many \"modern equipment technologies\" into the construction sector. Unlike traditional technologies used in construction, which tend to be mechanical in nature, modern technologies integrate mechanisation with digitisation resulting in hybrid systems which combine the best of both worlds, reducing reliance on scarce, costly and unreliable labour while at the same time producing significant improvements in productivity, sustainability and safety (Skibniewski and Zavadskas, 2013; Skibniewski, 2015). A good example of this modern technology is the new Autonomous Haulage System (AHS) developed by Komatsu Ltd, one of the world's largest construction equipment manufacturers. AHS uses a high precision GPS navigation system, milliwave radar and optic-fibre gyro technology to control the exact position of the unmanned trucks and control them on predetermined courses, extending operating times, reducing manpower costs and minimising equipment wear and tear, fuel consumption and emissions. The system also eliminates human driving errors and, given the large number of accidents caused by this on site, also contributes to significant safety improvements on site.\nTheorising modern equipment diffusion in construction: Diffusion is the process by which an innovation's acceptance spreads through a social system bringing about a change in its structure and functioning for the benefits of its stakeholders. Rogers' (1995) formative theories show that this process consists of five main stages: knowledge stage (occurs when an individual is exposed to an innovation's existence and gains some understanding of how it works); persuasion stage (occurs when an individual forms a favourable or unfavourable perception or attitude towards the innovation); decision-making stage (when they decide to adopt or reject the innovation); implementation stage (when an individual puts the innovation into use); and confirmation stage (when an individual seeks reinforcement of the decision to adopt and continues with or rejects or reverses that decision). A number of researchers have explored the factors that determine the speed of technological innovation diffusion in the construction sector. For example, Gambatese and Hallowell (2011) found that technological innovations diffused more readily when the amount of training required to understand them and the perceived risk of failure was low. Other studies outside construction have found the timing of the innovation to be important to effective diffusion as well as other factors such as the existence of supporting innovations, the complexity of the innovation, the trialability of the innovation and the amount of supervision and coordination needed to support it (Baumol, 2010).\nMethod: To address the need to consider both vendors and customers in the innovation diffusion process and the need for in-depth cross-sectional studies, semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 85 vendors and 62 customers of modern construction technologies at company, project and operational levels from customer and vendor organisations in Australia and North America (Table I). The participants were purposefully sampled from across the construction industry supply chain based on the criteria that they had been involved in the modern equipment diffusion process in the previous three years. The experienced participants were invited to participate in interviews during their attendance at large technology exhibitions in Australia and USA. These forums gave the opportunity to identify and randomly recruit experienced technology customers and vendors recently involved in the modern equipment diffusion process. This sampling strategy produced a large sample of 147 respondents from many different organisational backgrounds as vendors and customers involved with a wide range of modern equipment technologies.\nResults: Over-arching theme 1: large corporations vs SMEs\nDiscussion: Table VII synthesises our results across the three over-arching themes into a new conceptual framework of four types of company against the leader/follower and corporation/SME axes. These new classifications are: visionaries (group I); innovators (group II); pragmatists (group III); and conservatives (group IV).\nConclusion: The aim of this paper was to explore the role of customers and vendors in the equipment technology diffusion process. The major contribution of this study is that it analyses the role of both vendors and customers in the equipment technology diffusion process at three different levels (strategic, project and operational) in large corporations and SMEs. In contrast, the current literature focuses on IT diffusion at a singular level of analysis (the customer). Through interviews with 147 managers from Australia and North America, the research has presented a new conceptual model which classifies customer/vendor relationships into four categories: visionaries (group I); innovators (group II); pragmatists (group III); and conservatives (group IV). This model is not only valuable in advancing our theoretical understanding of innovation diffusion in the construction industry and in providing a classification framework for more nuanced future research, but is also potentially valuable at a practical level in informing more effective customer/vendor relationships. The results also reveal that there is a significant emotional/affective aspect of innovation diffusion decisions which has not been recognised in previous research. This finding provides a potentially interesting new avenue for future innovation research in the construction sector which could complement previous research which has tended to see it as a systematic and largely cognitive process. Finally, this research has highlighted to potential value of systems theory as a conceptual basis for future innovation diffusion research in construction. The value of systems theory is in further conceptualising how the matrix of relationships at a strategic, project and operational level interact internally and externally with vendors in diffusing an innovation. The main value of systems theory in moving diffusion research forward would in challenging conventional models of innovation which have centred on individuals, structures, departments and units as separate entities. Instead, systems theory would allow future researchers to recognise the interdependence between groups of individuals, structures and processes that enable the innovation diffusion process to happen.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to address the gap in knowledge by exploring the role of customers and vendors in diffusion of modern equipment technologies into the construction industry.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To address the need to consider both vendors and customers in the innovation diffusion process and the need for in-depth cross-sectional studies, semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 147 participants including 85 vendors and 62 customers of modern construction technologies at company, project and operational levels in Australia and North America. Thematic analysis and an analytic hierarchy process illustrate the critical role of both customers and vendors in the diffusion process of modern equipment technologies.\nFindings: A new conceptual model is presented which classifies modern equipment technology customers into four categories: visionaries (group I); innovators (group II); pragmatists (group III); and conservatives (group IV) based on the way in which they interact with vendors in the innovation diffusion process. The results also reveal that there is a significant emotional/affective aspect of innovation diffusion decisions which has not been recognised in previous research.\nOriginality/value: The major contribution of this study is that it analyses the role of both vendors and customers in the equipment technology diffusion process at three different levels (strategic, project and operational) in large corporations and small-to-medium-sized businesses. The findings not only advance construction innovation research beyond traditional linear models of innovation, but also provide new knowledge which enable customers and vendors to interact more effectively in the diffusion of new construction equipment technologies.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Integer-valued GARCH processes for Apple technology analysis	[ "Patent analysis", "Apple keywords", "Integer-values time series model", "Poisson and negative binomial distributions" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Many case studies on Apple's technological innovation have been fulfilled in many academic and industrial fields (Funk, 2011; Arruda-Filho et al., 2010; Arruda-Filho and Lennon, 2011; West and Mace, 2010; Halal, 2013). The research studies focused on Apple's technological evolution. Apple is one of the global innovative companies leading the smartphone market (Nam et al., 2015; Hung et al., 2013; Wonglimpiyarat, 2005). A number of business schools have studied on the technological development and innovation of Apple for other companies' technological innovations. Many companies have pursuit the technological innovative strategies of Apple. To know the technological innovation of Apple, we have to analyze Apple's technologies. Apple's patents contain more information of developed technologies of Apple than other resources such as papers or articles because the patent system protects the exclusive right of researched and developed technologies for the inventors (Hunt et al., 2007). In this paper, we use entire patents applied by Apple for Apple's technology analysis. Jun and Park (2013) analyzed Apple's patents using statistical methods and the social network analysis for examining Apple's technological innovation (Jun and Park, 2013). In addition, Kim and Jun (2015) proposed graphical causal inference and the copula regression model for the keyword analysis of Apple's patents (Kim and Jun, 2015). They used advanced statistical inference and visualization to construct Apple's technology map. In this paper, we use technological keywords of patent data. The keywords from Apple's patent documents also contain diverse and complete information of Apple's technology. In addition, if we analyze the time series data of the keywords, we will be able to understand even more about the technological evolution of Apple. Guidolin and Guseo (2014) performed the seasonality modeling for Apple's innovative diffusion (Guidolin and Guseo, 2014).\n2. Keyword extraction form Apple's patent documents: In this paper, we use technological keywords from retrieved Apple's patent documents. First of all, we retrieve entire patents applied by Apple in the world. We use the patent databases of WIPS Corporation and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (WIPSON, 2014; USPTO, 2015). Figure 1 shows the keyword extraction, structured data matrix, and integer-valued time series modeling.\n3. Count time series models for Apple keywords: Engle (1982) and Bollerslev (1986) proposed the autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARCH) and the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) models to explain conditionally heteroscedastic models (Engle, 1982; Bollerslev, 1986). There is a long list of variations of the GARCH models that also consider the asymmetricity. For more details about the asymmetric GARCH models, refer Engle and Ng (1993). The Generalized ARCH (GARCH) (p, q) model of Bollerslev (1986) is expressed as:\n4. Illustrated examples with Apple's keywords by text mining: Based on the result of Kim and Jun (2015), we have chosen four possible pairs of target variable (Y) and covariate (X) as shown in Table I.\n5. Forecast accuracy measures for Apple's keywords: In this section, we want to find the pairs which have high correlation with each other. Using these pairs with significantly high correlation, we can forecast the trends of the target keywords representing Apple's technologies. Table VI shows the residuals of INARCH(1)-NB model with single covariate over year and evaluation results by mean absolute error (MAE) and root mean squared error (RMSE).\n6. Conclusions: We proposed integer-valued GARCH processes for Apple's technology analysis based on time series keyword data from retrieved patent documents. Most previous researches for time series patent data used continuous time series models. But the technological keyword data from patent documents are not continuous, they are count data. So we used count time series models such as integer-values time series models such as GARCH and ARCH based on Poisson and negative binomial distribution. Also we considered two correlated keywords at the same time instead of one single keyword, so we constructed the time series models with covariates. From this study, we found that how much the target response keyword could be predicted by the predictor keyword by count time series modeling. That is, technologies of predictor keywords could affect the technological developments of target response keywords. In this research, we found the best time series model for predicting trends of Apple's technological keywords is IN-ARCH(1). Our selected model contributes to Apple's domain experts for planning Apple's R&D strategy. In this paper, we considered the technologies related to \"user,\" \"memory,\" and \"system\" for target variables, and the technologies of \"interface,\" \"data,\" \"information,\" and \"present\" were used for covariate variables with target variables. From the results of our experiments, we found the technological trends of Apple's technologies by the count time series models. The GARCH models with covariates are superior to the models without covariates. This means that the various technologies of Apple have been developed by influencing each other. In real R&D planning of Apple, the time series modeling of a technology should be constructed by considering other technologies (keywords). Furthermore, we recommend IN-ARCH(1) for the forecasting model of Apple technology. The proposed methodology could be applied to diverse technology companies such as Samsung, Google, etc. for understanding their technological trends between technological keywords. In this paper, we applied the methodology to only one company, but our approach is expected more performance to analyze the technological trends between the competitors which are Apple and Samsung. In our future study, we will compare the technological trends of many competitive companies for more advanced integer-valued time series models.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The keywords from patent documents contain a lot of information of technology. If we analyze the time series of keywords, we will be able to understand even more about technological evolution. The previous researches of time series processes in patent analysis were based on time series regression or the Box-Jenkins methodology. The methods dealt with continuous time series data. But the keyword time series data in patent analysis are not continuous, they are frequency integer values. So we need a new methodology for integer-valued time series model. The purpose of this paper is to propose modeling of integer-valued time series for patent analysis.\nDesign/methodology/approach: For modeling frequency data of keywords, the authors used integer-valued generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity model with Poisson and negative binomial distributions. Using the proposed models, the authors forecast the future trends of target keywords of Apple in order to know the future technology of Apple.\nFindings: The authors carry out a case study to illustrate how the methodology can be applied to real problem. In this paper, the authors collect the patent documents issued by Apple, and analyze them to find the technological trend of Apple company. From the results of Apple case study, the authors can find which technological keywords are more important or critical in the entire structure of Apple's technologies.\nPractical implications: This paper contributes to the research and development planning for producing new products. The authors can develop and launch the innovative products to improve the technological competition of a company through complete understanding of the technological keyword trends.\nOriginality/value: The retrieved patent documents from the patent databases are not suitable for statistical analysis. So, the authors have to transform the documents into structured data suitable for statistics. In general, the structured data are a matrix consisting of patent (row) and keyword (column), and its element is an occurred frequency of a keyword in each patent. The data type is not continuous but discrete. However, in most researches, they were analyzed by statistical methods for continuous data. In this paper, the authors build a statistical model based on discrete data.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Sport fan maximizing: following the best team or being the best fan?	[ "Sport marketing", "Customer relationship marketing", "Fan identification", "Maximizing", "Sport psychology", "Team identification" ]	[ { "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: Sport fans spend billions of dollars per year on tickets, memorabilia and game viewing. Highly identified fans, or those that have a strong psychological connection to a team (Wann and Branscombe, 1993), in particular, invest significant time, energy and financial resources into consumer decisions that involve their favorite sport teams. Considering that professional sports in the USA alone was estimated to be an industry worth US$44 to US$73 billion in 2005 (Humphreys and Ruseski, 2008), understanding the factors that influence team identification is of some importance to marketers. Yet, team identification may not be easily captured by traditional decision models. For one, it is difficult to operationalize the utility of sports consumption decisions. Consider the Chicago Cubs baseball team. Despite a long history of disappointing seasons, they have one of the most dedicated fan bases of any professional sports team (e.g. Bristow and Sebastian, 2001). It would not be effective to try to predict the time and resource investment of Cubs fans from the team's typical win-loss record as a proxy for utility.\nStudy 1: Method\nResults: Descriptive statistics are presented in Table I. Correlations of maximizing tendency with the number of teams followed, general level of fandom (n = 155), college basketball team identification (n = 155) and favorite NFL team identification (n = 107) are presented in Table II. Maximizing tendency correlated significantly with general levels of sport fandom, r = 0.22, p\nDiscussion: Maximizers were more likely to be sport fans in general, and were also more likely to be highly identified fans. This was true for identification with their college basketball team and for which all participants reported as well for NFL fans' self-selected favorite team. Maximizers did not \"maximize\" by simply following more sports teams, however. This indicates that in the sport domain, at least, maximizers do not actively seek to keep as many options open as possible to maximize their chances of obtaining the best outcome. Indeed, maximizers did not necessarily maximize outcomes in terms of team identification either. There was no evidence that maximizers were more likely to highly identify with successful NFL teams. On the other hand, when fans identified with unsuccessful teams, they identified more strongly if they were maximizers. This was true, regardless of whether unsuccessful teams were defined by their number of winning seasons over the previous ten years or their total number of wins over the previous five seasons. Maximizers may seek optimal outcomes; however, they do not always end up with them (Iyengar et al., 2006).\nStudy 2: Participants\nResults: We first examined whether maximizing tendency was related to the number of teams or players participants followed in any individual professional or collegiate sport. None of these correlations were significant, all p's\nGeneral discussion: Across two studies and multiple sports, maximizers were found to identify more strongly with unsuccessful teams. In Study 1, maximizers who followed historically unsuccessful football teams reported higher levels of identification. In Study 2, maximizers who read a pessimistic preview of the upcoming college basketball season similarly reported higher levels of identification. Below, we summarize the key findings of the paper, and then discuss the major theoretical contributions of the findings as well as the limitations. We end with a discussion of the practical implications of the findings and how they may be utilized by sport marketing managers.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of these studies is to determine how maximizing sport fans seek optimal outcomes through team identification. Maximizers seek optimal outcomes but do not always obtain them. This may be particularly true of sport fans, who often identify with teams for reasons that run deeper than team success. Maximizing fans may be more concerned with being the best fans than following the best teams.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In Study 1, the authors measured maximizing tendency and identification with participants' favorite National Football League (NFL) teams. The authors then used moderated regression to predict identification levels from the interaction of maximizing and the historical win-loss records of these teams. In Study 2, the authors manipulated team success by providing participants either an optimistic or pessimistic preview of their college basketball team's upcoming season. The authors measured maximizing tendency as a moderator of this relationship and identification with the college basketball team as the dependent variable.\nFindings: In Study 1, maximizers identified more strongly with their favorite NFL team when their favorite team was a historically unsuccessful team. In Study 2, maximizers identified more strongly with their college basketball team after reading a pessimistic preview of the team's upcoming season than after reading an optimistic preview of that season.\nResearch limitations/implications: Study 1 required participants to self-report their favorite NFL teams, so the results were only correlational. However, the authors were able to address this limitation with an experimental Study 2.\nPractical implications: There are a number of potential implications for sport marketing strategy. For one, sport marketers may want to appeal to fans' desire to be the best by supporting their teams when they need it most, particularly for teams that are not performing well.\nOriginality/value: This is the first examination of team or fan identification in the context of maximizing tendency.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
How entrepreneurship, culture and universities influence the geographical distribution of UK talent and city growth	[ "Universities", "Economic growth", "Talent", "Knowledge creation", "Quality of life" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Cities' roles as centres of knowledge flows and creativity are the key determinants of their competitiveness(Tsang, 2005, p. 1331).\n1. Introduction: The creation and distribution of human capital, often termed talent, has been recognised in economic geography as an important factor in the locational decisions of firms (Florida, 2002), and particularly in the context of innovation emanating from universities (Sternberg, 2014; Audretsch and Caiazza, 2016; Caiazza, 2016). At a more general level, talented workers and entrepreneurs are seen as a key driver of economic growth (Romer, 1990). An interesting debate has also been considering the question of what spatial level we should consider when examining these theories of talent distribution, knowledge industries, and economic growth. The early work of Jacobs (1961) argued that cities play an important role in attracting and integrating talented people, whilst Ullman (1958) considered similar issues in the context of regional economic development, and Lucas (1988) makes a broader argument that clustering of talented people drives productivity growth which in turn raises incomes at the city and regional level. Berry and Glaeser (2005) contend that it is entrepreneurs choosing knowledge intensive modes of business that drive clustering of skilled people in cities, whilst Faggian and McCann (2006), and Florida (1999) argue that universities act as a conduit to bring talent into cities. Interestingly, Greene et al. (2007) argue that the shift in focus away from cities (to city regions and regions) in the UK as the analytical point of focus has been largely driven by political expediency rather than theoretical or empirical considerations. It is certainly true, however, that much of the early US contribution to this empirical literature focuses on regions and regional economic systems (Glaeser, 2000; Simon, 1998), although more generalisable findings are that human capital is fundamental to economic growth (Lange and Topel, 2004) and that growth and innovation are highly correlated with openness and creativity. These findings led Thurik et al. (2013) to argue that dynamic entrepreneurial capitalism needed a more pervasive and wider focused policy approach from governments than simply promoting entrepreneurship per se, and that policy should be supportive of creating an entrepreneurial economy in which culture, talent, and knowledge are allowed to flourish (Markuerkiaga et al., 2016).\n2. Literature review: Over the last few decades, the socio-economic experiences of cities and regions have varied substantially. Whilst some of this dispersion can be explained by purely geographic factors, the really interesting questions relate to economic growth and quality of life and how these impact on peoples' locational decisions. Yet these questions have not been fully answered, despite a widening body of research of mainly US origin[1].\n3. Data and methods: The core variables for analysis can be classified into eight categories, namely, diversity, technology and innovation, talent, entrepreneurship, housing, culture, population, and value add. Table I describes the measures adopted in relation to each of the eight categories. In the following we set out a theoretical justification for each of these categories. The data refer to the 100 largest cities, by population, in the UK excluding the capital city London. London is excluded as it is 50 times larger than the average UK city and is a truly international city.\n4. Findings: Here the basic data for key variables is described prior to an examination of key relationships by multivariate analysis. This is intended to provide an overview of the economic geography of talent, prior to the multivariate analysis.\n5. Multivariate findings: Multivariate analysis was used to explore these issues in more detail in an attempt to isolate more robust relationships between talent and its economic geography. As there are three core dependent variables of interest, namely; talent, technology and income, two of which are expressed as percentages, and bounded between 0 and 1, the most appropriate modelling strategies differ. In the case of talent and technology, both of which are bounded, the most suitable method is the fractional logit. Given the bounded nature of the two dependent variables of interest, the share of the population with a graduate degree, and the share of the business stock accounted for by knowledge-based industry, the most appropriate form of estimation model is a fractional logit. The modelling of these sorts of allocation to various categories have generally taken the form of structural equations models, doubly censored tobit models, or more simplistic regression-based models. However, there are limitations associated with these approaches. While the structural equations and regression approaches cannot guarantee allocation predictions that are plausible and sum to the total available, the doubly censored tobit models are computationally more burdensome when attempting to model skills allocation among competing activity categories (here degree-level talent and other educational qualifications).\n6. Conclusions: This paper set out to consider the economic geography of talent in the 100 largest cities in the UK in an attempt to understand more about what shapes and drives this spread of talent and the economic consequences of having more (or less) talent. Drawing on a framework adopted by Florida (2002) for 50 MSA areas in the USA, the a priori predictions were that talent is attracted by culture, diversity, and a new measure, the presence of an entrepreneurial culture as well as other more conventional factors such as the presence of technology and knowledge-based industry. This paper, further adds to our understanding of the economic geography of talent by incorporating four new measures which relate to new university graduates. But important, we then augment this analysis by considering what effects on cities economies talent has in shaping the presence of knowledge-based industries, and on city-level productivity.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The creation and distribution of human capital, often termed talent, has been recognised in economic geography as an important factor in the locational decisions of firms (Florida, 2002), and at a more general level as a key driver of economic growth (Romer, 1990). The purpose of this paper is to consider how talent is created and distributed across the cities of the UK and the key factors which are driving this spatial distribution. They also consider what the economic outcomes of these disparities are for cities.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The multivariate models can estimate the dynamic inter-relationships between human capital (talent), innovative capacity, and economic value added. These can be estimated, using talent as an example, in the form: human capital measurei =a0i+a1i innovative capacity +a2i quality of life + a3i labour market indicators + a4i economic indicators + a5i HEI indicators + b6i population demographics + b7i population + ui.\nFindings: The first finding is that talent is unequally distributed across cities, with some having three times more highly educated workers than others. Talent concentration at the city level is associated with entrepreneurial activity, culture, the presence of a university, and to a lesser degree the housing market. This feeds into more knowledge-based industry, which is associated with higher gross value added.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research is limited in a practical sense by the fact that UK data at this level have only become available quite recently. Thus, it is only possible to capture talent flows and city growth in a relatively small window. But the prospects going forward will allow more detailed analysis at the city level of the relationship between talent flows and local economic growth. And additional insights could be considered relating to the on-going changes in the UK university system.\nPractical implications: The question of whether universities are simply producers of talent or play a much broader and deeper role in the socio-economic landscape and outcomes of cities is an open one. This research has identified what the key drivers of city level economic growth and knowledge creation are, and sought to explain why some cities are capable of attracting and harnessing three times more talent than other cities. This has significant implications for the future development of UK cities and for those seeking to address these imbalances.\nSocial implications: Universities are a major economic agent in their own right, but they are increasingly being asked to play a wider role in local economic development. The authors' evidence suggests that universities do play a wider role in the growth and development of cities, but that there are large discrepancies in the subsequent spatial distribution of the talent they create. And this has significant implications for those seeking to address these imbalances and promote a broader and less unequal economic landscape.\nOriginality/value: The authors explore how cities create economic value via a process whereby talent is attracted and then this stimulates knowledge-based industry activity. The originality relates to several key aspects of the work. First, the authors look at the stock of talent, and then the authors explore how \"new\" talent from universities is attracted by looking at graduate flows around the cities of the UK, differentiating between top-level graduates and less talented graduates. The authors then allow a wide variety of economic, cultural, and population factors to influence the locational decision of talented people. The results highlight the complexity of this decision.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Customer pre-adoption choice behavior for M-PESA mobile financial services: Extending the theory of consumption values	[ "Customer perceived value", "Customer pre-adoption choice behaviour", "M-PESA", "Mobile financial services" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Financial services offered by mobile telecommunication companies allow customers to make mobile financial transactions like fund transfers as well as payments for goods and services. Kenya is a unique case of widespread mobile financial services diffusion. The majority of the Kenyan adult population and a quarter of the Kenyan economy is conducted using M-PESA (\"M\" is for mobile, \"PESA\" is Swahili for money), first launched in 2007 (Hruby and Cohen, 2016; Twomey, 2013). Previous research has examined the factors leading to the successful adoption of M-PESA (Mas and Morawczynski, 2009; Ngugi et al., 2010; Lerner, 2013), but not the motivations of customers to adopt mobile financial services.\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 Customer perceived value\n3. Research model and hypotheses: Figure 3 depicts the conceptual research model based on the theoretical framework of perceived value. The model presents a multiple-value construct that extends the theory of consumption values to the mobile financial service context. The model examines the direct determinants of customer pre-adoption choice behavior within the context of mobile financial services (Sheth et al., 1991). The model consists of seven independent value constructs (i.e. aesthetic value, conditional value, convenience value, monetary value, epistemic value, self-gratification value, and social value) and one dependent construct, customer pre-adoption choice behavior to use M-PESA mobile financial services.\n4. Research method: 4.1 Data\n5. Results: 5.1 Measurement model\n6. Discussion: 6.1 Key findings\n7. Conclusion: Customer pre-adoption choice behavior to use M-PESA mobile financial services is the outcome of a customer's evaluation of the value proposition and performance of the service. Evaluating both the benefits and costs of using mobile financial services is difficult and is an effort future research should continue to address. The perception of value is measured in relative terms by comparing the perceptions of benefits to the cost of using the service (Chahal and Kumari, 2012). The study findings apply directly to an online sampling of Kenyan customers, which limits the study's external validity (Yu et al., 2015), but presents an opportunity for future research to validate the research model in different contexts. Future research could also consider the effect of perceived social and physical risk on social value as well as examine the negative influence of social value on customer choice value. Future work should extend the research model by incorporating the outcomes of perceived value, which might include factors like trust, positive word-of-mouth, a willingness to pay more, and repurchase intentions.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to extend the theory of consumption values by investigating the influence of aesthetic, conditional, convenience, monetary, epistemic, self-gratification, and social value on customer pre-adoption choice behavior to use mobile financial services.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected using an online survey questionnaire resulting in 524 total responses from registered users of M-PESA mobile financial services in Kenya, ultimately resulting in a usable sample of 384 responses. Partial least squares was used to evaluate the research model and associated hypotheses.\nFindings: Aesthetic, conditional, convenience, monetary, epistemic, and self-gratification value are positive determinants of customer pre-adoption choice behavior to use M-PESA mobile financial services, but not social value.\nResearch limitations/implications: Survey participants were limited to customers of M-PESA mobile financial services in Kenya. The study findings present important implications for managers and academic researchers in the mobile financial services market.\nOriginality/value: This is one of the first empirical studies to investigate customer pre-adoption choice behavior to use M-PESA mobile financial services from the perspective of customer perceived value.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Interactive brand experience pathways to customer-brand engagement and value co-creation	[ "Interactivity", "Brand experience", "Interactive experiences", "Pathways to engagement" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Customer-brand engagement and customer value co-creation are two growth areas of academic marketing research in the past decade. Customer value co-creation is particularly dominant (Payne et al., 2008, 2009; Hoyer et al., 2010; France et al., 2015; Ranjan and Read, 2016). However, brand engagement research is growing rapidly as well (Brodie et al., 2011; Hollebeek et al., 2014; De Vries and Carlson, 2014; Dwivedi, 2015; Dessart et al., 2015; France et al., 2016). Both streams of research are associated with a fundamental paradigm shift in marketing, from customer-centric marketing (where customer needs strongly influence marketing) to customers-driving marketing (where customers have taken over the steering wheel of marketing). User-generated content typifies the newly emerging paradigm, but there are many facets including a strong customer voice in customer social media revolts and more active participation in new product development.\nThe literature: Five literatures are utilized: broad-based experiences; narrow-based experiences; brand experience; interactivity; and engagement platforms.\nEngagement platforms: The current emerging literature on customer co-creation and the increasing centrality of the consumer in driving value makes sense but clearly has the potential to go to an extreme. Without an initial brand offering in the first place, there is no scope for a dominant consumer role. Branding will always require the collaborative efforts of both the firm and the consumer. Thus, although research explaining and understanding consumer interaction with the brand and C2C interaction is vital, the nature of the firm's brand management system needs to be factored in. One way of doing this is the notion of engagement platforms.\nA conceptual framework integrating interactivity and brand experience with engagement and co-creation outcomes: The interactive experience pathways are likely to differ between functional brand and hedonic brands. From consumer-behaviour research findings, functional brands are likely to be simpler, information-dominant, less experiential activities. In building the new schema, we argue that two of the Brakus et al. (2009) experiential dimensions - cognition and action - are likely to be most important for functional brands, whereas the other two experiential dimensions - sensory and emotion - are more important for hedonic brands.\nIllustrating the new conceptual schema: Starting with hedonic brands, consider the cases of Patagonia clothing and Sephora cosmetics. Both companies build a powerful sensory and emotional experience setting for their customers. Both use customer support and multi-media interactivity. Customer support in these cases is not the old-fashioned post-purchase process of dealing with product failures. Rather customer support is part of the ongoing experience with the brand, with various types of enhancements by the firm. For example, both firms include product reviews as part of the interactive experience. Thus, potential consumers can draw upon product reviews to get other ideas and opinions about what to do, all of this during the experiential process. Apart from product reviews, users can watch videos (multi-media interaction) to assist their choices. Some of the videos border on entertainment. For example, Sephora includes videos on makeup lessons and advice, whereas Patagonia has videos supporting environmental alliances.\nConclusion: In conclusion, the conceptual schema presented here enables an initial contrast between hedonic and functional brands in terms of combining a different pattern of brand experience and interactivity, leading to different patterns of engagement and co-creation. Predictably, the resulting interactive experience for functional brands is fairly subdued compared to a more emotional and sensory experience for hedonic brands. Examples in the airlines and pizza industries and the fashion clothing and cosmetic industries confirm this contrasting pattern of interactive experiences. Other companies might take the schema as a baseline benchmark to evaluate their own interactive brand experience situation.\nPostscript: adding omni-channel as a third dimension: The two dimensions of brand experience and interactivity by their nature capture the essence of an interactive experience. Notwithstanding, the conceptual schema of Figures 1 and 2 could be extended by adding a third dimension, omni-channel. That is, the nature, tone and pulse of an interactive experience could be further enhanced by the option of multiple channels, for example, access options of offline, online or mobile. Omni-channel would apply when the access points are relatively seamless from a customer experience perspective (Cook, 2014).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The paper aims to address a question posed by Ruth Bolton (2011):\"What kinds of interactive experiences lead to favourable customer engagement rates\"?\nDesign/methodology/approach: Building on the literature, the paper develops different interactive experience pathways for both functional and hedonic brands.\nFindings: The different pathways are developed formally for both brand types. Different facets of brand experience and different facets of interactivity are entailed for each brand type. The models are illustrated with actual brands.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study is primarily conceptual and requires empirical testing. The purpose of the paper is to motivate academics to explore the nature of interactive experiences in whatever way they choose.\nPractical implications: The different interactive experience pathways between functional and hedonic brands imply different engagement and co-creation strategies by firms. Generally, a richer set of engagement options are relevant to the hedonic brand. However, using the Domino's Pizza example, the paper suggests that functional brands can extend their repertoire of engagement tools by borrowing inspiration from the hedonic brands.\nSocial implications: There is a major social or community aspect to interactive experiences. Moreover, some of the brands used as examples in the paper, such as Patagonia, have major social or environmental impacts.\nOriginality/value: This original research pioneers the discovery and coding of the nature of interactive brand experiences. Hitherto, the domain can be construed as the idiomatic, \"elephant in the room\", an important topic but not discussed. The conversation has now begun.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Why do you feel stressed in a "smile factory"? Hospitality job characteristics influence work-family conflict and job stress	[ "Work–family conflict", "Hospitality job characteristics", "Job stress" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The pineapple represents warmth and friendship; because of this, it has become the symbol of the hospitality industry, where happy employees embrace customers with openness, good will and a smile (Barrows et al., 2011; Walker, 2012). Unfortunately, employees are not always happy and, sometimes, do not stay long in the \"smile factory\" (Dawson et al., 2011). In September 2014, 584,000 individuals quit the leisure and hospitality industry, and the turnover rate (4.0 per cent) was the highest among all industry sectors in the USA (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014). In part, this can be attributed to the stressful work environment (Lawson et al., 2013). To address this issue, job design and redesign as intrinsically motivational sources have been suggested in efforts to reduce job stress (Wong and Lin, 2007).\nTheoretical framework: The role of job characteristics\nMethods: Participants and procedure\nResults: In total, 346 employees at five full-service hotels in China completed the survey. The response rate was 69.2 per cent (346/500). Missing values appeared randomly in the item responses as shown in Little's MCAR test results (gender: F\nDiscussion: The present study attempts to identify important HJCs and examine their impact on employees' WFC and job stress. The results extend previous theories and studies in the following three ways. First, the current study identified HJCs from previous research. Because of the way they were selected the six HJCs may fit better in the hospitality context than would the generic JCT model. Further, the study examined how the HJCs influenced WFC and job stress. The roles of the HJCs were categorized into four types:\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to theoretically construct the role of hospitality job characteristics (HJCs), conceptually identify specific HJCs and empirically examine the relationships of these to work-family conflict and job stress. Hospitality employees work in a \"smile factory\" - often under stress.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected from 346 hotel employees in China and analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) and a series of hierarchical regression analyses (HRA).\nFindings: The SEM results confirmed the general role of HJCs as a job stressor, and the HRA findings differentiated the specific impacts of the characteristics on work-family conflict and job stress.\nResearch limitations/implications: The survey was cross-sectional and correlational in nature. Furthermore, the results were also from selected hotels, and the respondents do not fully represent all hotel employees. Finally, the measures of hospitality job uniqueness were employees' subjective agreement on the given statements.\nPractical implications: The study offers a systematic framework of specific job characteristics in the hospitality context for the reconciliation of previously inconsistent research findings. The findings may also be useful to hospitality managers as they attempt to analyze and understand the specific job characteristics that are the most salient reasons for withdrawal attitudes and behaviors.\nOriginality/value: The present study identified the list of HJCs by summarizing previous studies and examining the roles of HJCs in work attitudes among hospitality employees. These efforts could be helpful both for scholars by constructing a consistent base for future research and for managers by precisely analyzing the specific job attributes.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Whatever happened to the psychology of human-computer interaction? A biography of the life of a psychological framework within a HCI journal	[ "Psychology", "Computer theory", "Psychological research", "Research work" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Whether we are trying to expand the theoretical perspectives in a research field or develop a particular approach in the field, we need to know how the original approaches have influenced key parts of the available literature to understand what has been in focus and what has been left out. For several decades, the field of human-computer interaction (HCI) has been studied, and students, researchers and practitioners are becoming more and more interested in the results. HCI is the fastest-growing and most visible part of computer science (Carroll, 2003), it is becoming increasingly important to mainstream software engineering (Gulliksen et al., 2003; John et al., 2003) and the private and public sectors are steadily becoming more committed to usability engineering (Schneiderman and Plaisant, 2004). However, the increased use of HCI results happens at a time when we do not really know how HCI professionals conceptualize the field (Clemmensen, 2004; Meister, 2004) or apply the existing usability techniques (Hertzum and Jacobsen, 2001). In addition, the general theoretical foundation of HCI is weak, does not exist (Dix et al., 2004, p. 5) or is under change (Nielsen et al., 2003). There is a rush of different theories and frameworks into HCI, which are potentially beneficial and set the agenda of a field in motion. However, the downside includes difficulties with assimilating a variety of methodologies, theoretical approaches and driving issues (Carroll, 1997) in addition to an increasing lack of direction, structure and purpose (Rogers, 2004). HCI lacks the wealth of journal and conference status assessment studies found in more mature fields of information technology research, which in some cases even allows meta-analyses of ranking studies, see for example Nord and Nord (1995). Therefore, it is important to begin questioning the kind of HCI approaches, research strategies, scientific ideals, disciplinary goals, etc. that we promote in HCI research outlets such as key journals.At the beginning of the twenty-first century, we are more than ever in need of a HCI psychology to inform us about the human aspect in human-computer interaction (Nielsen et al., 2004). However, the request for a HCI psychology will result in different and sometimes personal answers, depending on who you ask and the context of your question. In this paper, I will outline how psychology as one of the original approaches to HCI has formed a key part of the HCI literature. Secondly, I will use the biography of the framework to discuss the need for psychological approaches and psychological knowledge within HCI and system development.\n2 Background: 2.1 The early psychological tradition\n3 Methodology: These research questions pertain to the fate of the PHCI framework, and to answer them I have studied the scientific literature in the HCI field. This makes the methodology in this paper differ from other studies of HCI psychology, including observational and interview studies of how the HCI theory is used in practice (Barnard et al., 1992; Chavalier and Ivory, 2003; Clemmensen, 2004), theoretical analyses of central psychological concepts related to HCI such as affordance (Norman, 1999) or of the discourse within the HCI discipline (Cooper and Bowers, 1995), social constructivist analyses of how theory is produced in HCI-labs (Suchman, 1990; Woolgar, 1991) or survey studies of HCI professionals' attitudes and conceptual structures (Clemmensen, 2003; Meister, 2004). However, by choosing the scientific literature of HCI as a study object, it is important to pay attention to the different methods available for studying scientific literature.Papers published in scholarly journals are traditionally the study object of library and information science studies devoted to quantitative, bibliographic text analysis methods (McCain, 1990). In the following, I will present these methods, including the co-citation analysis by cluster analysis and by multidimensional scaling, and explain how the methods can be used to identify citation patterns in large bodies of literature. In addition, I will describe how I employ some of the methods in the present context of HCI literature and how I evaluate the methods. Then, I will discuss the inadequacies of the quantitative approaches to text analysis of scientific papers and suggest supplementing the approaches with a cultural biography of ideas. It is necessary to apply both quantitative and qualitative bibliographic analyses to understand how psychology has formed a key part of the literature in the development of the HCI field.3.1 Mapping a field: the bibliometric approach to topic patterns in literature\n4 A biography of the PHCI framework: This study will analyze the papers published in a single journal from the start of the journal and up through the 1980s and 1990s - the \"golden age\" of HCI (Carroll, 2003) - to assess the fate of the PHCI framework in studies within the period in question.4.1 The choice of database: the HCI journal\n5 Results: The number and type of papers in the Human-Computer Interaction journal included in the dataset are listed in Table II. The table shows that during 1987 and 1988 only one volume was published covering both years, and in 2001 there was an unusually large number of publications in volume 16 due to a special issue 2-4 on \"context-aware computing\" featuring 18 papers. In the previous years, between 10 and 14 papers had been published per volume.5.1 Authorship of the papers\n6 Discussion: The title of this paper posed a question, \"Whatever happened to the psychology of human-computer interaction?\" In this section, I will consider whether the orientation of HCI as a science has undergone a radical change during the 17 years, a change from hard science to soft science. Then, I will discuss the results of the study in relation to the nature of a HCI psychology, the PHCI's promise to present a \"user psychology\" and the relation to the HCI theory. I will also discuss potential successors to the super classic PHCI book. Finally, the results of the biography of the PHCI indicate that apart from the individual-oriented, cognitive psychology of PHCI and its successors, other kinds of psychology disciplines are also relevant to HCI.6.1 Research methodology in HCI - hard or soft HCI?\n7 Conclusion: This study has been trying to outline the fate of the PHCI framework. It does not constitute a critique of the original hard science approach associated with the PHCI framework, although the results show that the use of laboratory experiments within HCI research declined during the 1990s. However, the results of the study may be used to criticize the narrow ways in which the PHCI has been used as an analytic framework by HCI researchers from the very beginning. Compared to the suggestions in the original PHCI framework, the PHCI variables have been studied by subsequent researchers in a very limited way focusing on a small range of tasks and with too little attention to the diversity of users. The potential variety of studies that might be made within the framework has not been unfolded and awaits a reformulation of the theory - a \"PHCI revisited\". However, within the general framework of a multidisciplinary HCI science, the PHCI continues to be an important cumulative factor.The PHCI book is a central document of historical importance tying together many HCI researchers and a range of HCI studies. Among its potential successors as HCI's \"super classic\" study, the multi-authored and multidisciplinary work edited by Carroll (2003) stands out. However, this work subsumes psychology into a multidisciplinary framework. Among the pure psychological approaches to HCI, the social psychological approach (Kraut, 2003; Olson and Olson, 2003) is a well-known alternative to the PHCI approach.7.1 Limitations of the study\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - To outline how psychology as one of the original approaches to human-computer interaction (HCI) has formed a key part of the HCI literature, and to discuss the need for psychological approaches to HCI and system development.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The contributions to the journal Human-Computer Interaction is examined from the journal's start in 1985 up to the millennium. The analysis focuses the three main elements, task, user and computer, in the classic study \"Psychology of human-computer interaction\" from 1983.\nFindings: - Provides information about authorship, and form and focus of research published. The paper concludes that already from the beginning, HCI researchers too narrowly used Card et al.'s analytical framework. Today it has developed into a sub-theory within a multidisciplinary HCI science and in this role it continues to be an important cumulative factor in HCI.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The main conclusion about the role of psychology in HCI only applies to the mainly US authors who published in the journal investigated in the given period. European research focusing on information technology and people may differ in important ways.\nPractical implications: - A much needed discussion of a central document of historical importance tying together many HCI researchers and a range of HCI studies.\nOriginality/value: - This paper fulfils partly the need for meta-analyses of the psychological approach to HCI.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Supporting the information journey of students with disabilities through accessible learning materials	[ "Assistive technology", "Disability", "Accessibility", "WCAG", "Information journey", "Portable document format" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In this information age, users are struggling to keep up to date with information overload as information is constantly being pushed to their devices such as mobile phones, watches, tablets and game consoles. The necessity of accessing this information without barriers is increasingly important with the increasing number of people with impairments. Given that anyone could produce and push information to devices in this age of digital social connectivity, it is very likely that some of the information will not be accessible.\nResearch on information journey: In its world report on disability, the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that about 15 per cent of the world's population lives with disability (WHO, 2011). The WHO also notes a lower rate of participation in education when compared to children without disabilities and thus recommends inclusive education to assist children in learning and thus help them achieve their potential.\nMaterials and methods: This section presents the criteria used for selecting and assessing the PDF articles and tools used in evaluating the documents.\nResults and discussion: The results of the assessment presented in this section can give educational institutions and journal publishers more insight into producing accessible learning materials in the PDF format to meet the needs of all students, including those with disabilities.\nConclusions: Very little is known about the information journey of students, particularly those with disabilities. To bridge this gap, this study focused on contributing to facilitating information retrieval for students with disabilities when considering the information journey model. The information retrieval phase is the main pain point for students with disabilities, especially when the interface through which the information can be retrieved is not usable and accessible. To show how inaccessible PDFs are, this article analysed 400 articles produced by four publishers over a period of 10 years. By considering the PDF techniques for WCAG 2.0, practical ways of improving on the accessibility based on a select number of criteria were proposed.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This paper aims to suggest how the information journey of students with disabilities could be facilitated, by first revealing the existence of inaccessible formats such as Portable Document Format (PDF) and then suggesting the inclusion of alternative formats of accessible learning materials, thus improving retrieval.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A sample of 400 articles published over 10 years (2009-2018) from four journals are selected and analysed for accessibility against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines WCAG 2.0 by using automated accessibility checkers, a screen reader and manual human expertise. The results are presented and recommendations made on improving accessibility.\nFindings: The findings suggest that the PDF versions of the selected journal articles are not accessible for screen reader users but could be improved by adopting accessible and inclusive practices. Including alternative formats of the learning materials could help support the student information journey.\nResearch limitations/implications: The results of the study might not be very representative of all the articles in the journals given the small sample size. Additionally, the criteria used in the study do not consider all existing disabilities. Thus, although the PDFs may be inaccessible for some people with disabilities, they may be accessible to others.\nPractical implications: Given that PDFs seem to be the preferred format of journal articles online, there is potential for a difficult information journey for some students due to the limitations posed by inaccessibility of the PDFs. Thus, it is recommended to include alternative formats which could be more accessible, giving the student the choice of accessing the learning materials in their preferred format.\nSocial implications: If students are unable to access the learning materials that are required for their course, this could lead to poor grade, which might negatively affect the students' morale. In some cases, some students might drop out.\nOriginality/value: This study analyses the accessibility of learning materials provided by a third party (journal publishers) and how they affect the student, something that is not usually given much importance when research in accessibility is carried out.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Logistics-driven packaging innovation: a case study at IKEA	[ "Packaging", "Logistics", "Distribution management", "Supply chain management", "Innovation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Standardised unit load carriers, such as EUR pallets, are fundamental components in packaging and logistics systems. Standardised unit load carriers have indisputably played a central role in shaping logistics systems and have provided firms with handling and transport efficiency. A study undertaken by ECR Europe (1997) claimed that a more efficient size and shape standardisation of pallets for fast-moving consumer goods in European grocery supply chains could cut logistics costs by the equivalent of 1.2 per cent of sales revenue. These savings would accrue from improved utilisation of vehicle cube, better space utilisation and more efficient handling of materials in warehouses and stores, and reduction in the use of packaging material. The strength of standardised packaging is that it makes it easier to develop efficient logistics systems because it places similar demands on transport and material-handling equipment (Sonneveld, 2000; Starkey, 1994; Stock and Lambert, 2001; Torstensson, 1999). However, standardisation may also lead to less adaptability with regard to change (Jahre and Hatteland, 2004). Thus, when setting standard specifications for packaging, it is important to anticipate future changes of the packaging context as well as the permanence of these specifications (Koehorst et al., 1999).In an ever-changing marketplace, new emphasis and requirements are placed on packaging and logistics systems, so that the effectiveness of using standardised unit load carriers is questioned. Globalisation is an unmistakable paradigm shift which has increased supply chain distances, since raw material supplies, material conversion, assembly and end-consumers can all be located in different parts of the world (Dicken, 2004; Schary and Skjoett-Larsen, 2001). Owing to this shift, some unit load carrier functions have become increasingly important to logistics systems, namely: enabling efficient transport, ensuring product quality by protecting goods under global transport conditions, and product security (Forcinio, 2005; Sonneveld, 2000; Starkey, 1994; Torstensson, 1999). Differences in infrastructure, logistical structures, transport and material-handling equipment between markets place additional emphasis and requirements on unit load carriers and logistics systems. For example, in industrialised countries, the majority of the material flow is based on different standardised unit load carriers. However, in recently industrialised countries, such as those in East and Southeast Asia, and Latin America, unit load carrier standards are rare. International regulations also place additional emphasis and requirements on unit load carriers. One example of a regulatory requirement is compliance with the International Standard for Phytosanitary Measures (2002) in order to reduce the risk of introducing and/or spreading quarantine pests associated with wood packaging material. Consequently, with globalised sourcing and distribution, companies are confronted with different unit load standards around the world. Therefore, to meet both new and traditional unit load carrier requirements, packaging and logistics managers need to re evaluate their unit load carrier options and make required trade-offs in optimising their operations both globally and regionally. What unit load carrier innovations would enable firms to stay ahead of competition? Should standardised or differentiated unit load carriers be used? Should reusable or recyclable unit load carriers be used? These are only a few of the unit load carrier options managers are presented with.The purpose of this paper is to identify and describe the strategic potential of logistics-driven packaging innovation in retail supply chains. The purpose is fulfilled by the exploration of the logistics, market, packaging and environmental impacts an innovative unit load carrier has on a retail supply chain. The findings are presented as propositions for further research and development, based on a thorough discussion, with the aim of providing practitioners with a better basis on which to make strategic decisions relating to logistics and to packaging innovation.As indicated in the objectives, the context of this research is a retail supply chain and the specific case company is the global retail company IKEA. The retail industry is probably the largest packaging material consumer in the world, where enormous amounts of packages are procured and handled throughout retail supply chains. The impact of packaging-related decisions can be extremely important in the retail supply chain where the value of goods can be quite low, goods are handled by many parties, there are many products and many levels of packaging, and efficient utilisation of warehouse, transport and shelf space is vital. Furthermore, Reynolds et al. (2007) state that innovation in retailing is vastly under-researched especially from a service perspective. Consequently, there are strong reasons for investigating the strategic potential of packaging innovation in retail supply chains.In the following section, a literature review on packaging and packaging innovation in the logistics context is presented. This is followed by the research method, and thereafter the case study, with a description of an innovative unit load carrier and the impact of introducing this innovative unit load carrier across retail supply chain echelons. A discussion of packaging innovation from a systems perspective, involving an analysis of the logistics, market, packaging and environmental consequences of the case study, is then provided together with research propositions. Finally, conclusions are drawn and suggested areas of further research are presented.\n2 Literature review: 2.1 Packaging\n3 Research method: The case study research method was chosen in this inductive research, not only due to the novelty of using a innovative unit load carrier, but also to obtain insight into why an innovative unit load carrier is introduced in a supply chain and how it impacts on different echelons across supply chains (Eisenhardt, 1989; Ellram, 1996; Strauss and Corbin, 1998; Whetten and Cameron, 1998; Yin, 2009). According to Merriam (1994) and Stake (2000), the main reason for conducting case study research is to gain a deep understanding of phenomena by providing a rich description based on a holistic view. In this research, the case study provided the opportunity to generate deep insight into the phenomena, producing rich explanations, illustrative examples and propositions for further research and development.3.1 Case selection\n4 Case study description and findings: The case study offered significant insights into the supply chain impacts of introducing the innovative unit load carrier. In this section, the innovative unit load carrier is described and its implementation, then follow the findings of its impact on different echelons across the supply chain.4.1 The innovative unit load carrier\n5 Discussion and suggested propositions: Owing to the diversity of aspects which need to be considered in packaging, trade-offs among the different areas of interest are unavoidable (Bowersox and Closs, 1996; Jahre and Hatteland, 2004; Johnsson, 1998; Livingstone and Sparks, 1994; Prendergast and Pitt, 1996; Robertson, 1990). This has made many researchers call for a systems perspective to packaging, e.g. Prendergast and Pitt (1996), Saghir and Jonson (2001) Wills (1975). According to Lambert et al. (1998), packaging decisions require the use of a systems perspective in order for the \"total cost\" picture to be understood. However, few firms manage their packaging through a systems perspective (Bowersox and Closs, 1996). Coles and Beharrell (1990) state that the problem of meeting the demand for packaging innovation and marrying that with a systems perspective to combining distribution requirements with product requirements needs to be solved.A systems perspective on logistics-driven packaging innovation emphasises the need to consider the interactions between packaging and logistics systems along the supply chain. Understanding these interactions facilitates decisions such as changing packaging system or logistics system, or both, to increase supply chain performance. However, decisions concerning logistics-driven innovations are often made in relation to the existing logistics system. Coles and Beharrell (1990) state \"With high distribution costs, increased profitability from product and packaging innovation can be wiped out immediately if new packaging units do not fit in easily with existing distribution systems\". Furthermore, since logistics systems are often based on handling standardised unit load carriers, and altering this implies many other changes, packaging innovations which question standardised unit load carriers are often considered unfeasible:P1. Firms which put efforts into investigating packaging innovation from a supply chain perspective can realise as yet unexplored potential for competitive advantage and customer satisfaction, especially if this takes the whole packaging system (primary, secondary and tertiary) into consideration.5.1 Consequences on interacting sub-systems\n6 Concluding remarks: New demands, due to changes in consumption and distribution trends, require innovative packaging solutions in retail supply chains. This paper makes a modest, but important, contribution to the understanding of the potential of logistics-driven packaging innovation in retail supply chains. The case study findings provide insights into the multiple logistics, market, packaging and environmental consequences of introducing an innovative unit load carrier. Furthermore, it demonstrates the potential of logistics-driven packaging innovation in a situation of an existing logistics system and a standardised packaging system which required changes in both systems. It was thanks to these changes, i.e. in both the logistics system and the packaging system, that the loading ledge improved IKEA's supply chain performance. These insights will hopefully trigger new ideas and concepts among managers, promoting packaging and logistics innovation processes in retail supply chains.This paper also contributes to the understanding of potential trade-offs between standardised and differentiated packaging solutions, providing practitioners with a better basis for making decisions on packaging design and development. The case study findings indicate that from a logistics perspective, the decision to provide a standardised or differentiated packaging solution is a tough compromise between facilitating an integrated or a flexible system, and improving compatibility or performance of the packaging system. Hence, packaging decision makers need an approach which carefully considers the total impact and trade-offs of packaging along supply chains in order to avoid sub-optimisations. The findings also indicate that in order to improve supply chain performance it is not strictly a question of using a standardised or differentiated packaging system, but the combination of both that enables greatest potential for improved supply chain performance. However, in order to provide greater understanding of the packaging trade-offs between standardisation and differentiation, more in-depth studies on standardisation and differentiation of packaging solutions are called for.This paper indicates that packaging should not be considered a sub-system of logistics or marketing, but a strategically important area which contributes to overall supply chain performance. Even though the multiple consequences of introducing the innovative unit load carrier illustrate the need to consider packaging as a strategic supply chain component, further research into the strategic impact of packaging on supply chains is needed. A suggestion for further research is to identify and outline different packaging strategies in order to increase the understanding of the strategic impacts of packaging.A limitation of this paper stems from the empirical context where IKEA has control over the supply chain; from the supplier to the customer. For example, IKEA does most of the product development and packaging design in house but does not generally have its own manufacturing facilities. This enabled IKEA to identify the opportunity to change its packaging and logistics systems to accommodate and introduce the innovative unit load carrier. For many firms, packaging development is being made by a packaging supplier. In further research, organisational borders in retail supply chains need to be considered, particularly incentive alignments of packaging innovations, e.g. risks and gains, among retail supply chain organisations need to be further explored.Since packaging decisions such as introducing an innovative unit load carrier can impact on several supply chain echelons and several functions within those echelons, it is necessary to use a supply chain approach as well as a cross-functional one to make strategic packaging decisions. To support packaging decision making, this paper put forward research propositions packaging innovations in retail supply chains, taking into account the impact across supply chain echelons, organisational borders and the logistics, marketing, packaging and environmental consequences.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to identify and describe the strategic potential of logistics-driven packaging innovation in retail supply chains, and suggest propositions for further research and development, providing practitioners with a better basis on which to make strategic packaging and logistics decisions.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - An in-depth case study was conducted at a large global retailer which had implemented an innovative unit load carrier. The case study highlights a previously inaccessible phenomenon, as this type of unit load carrier has only been implemented on a large-scale in the studied retailer's supply chain. In order to explore the impact of the innovative unit load carrier, the case study draws on a longitudinal research approach.\nFindings: - The case study demonstrates the potential of logistics-driven packaging innovation in retail supply chains. It provides detailed insights into the impact of an innovative unit load carrier on different supply chain echelons. These insights emphasise the need for a systems perspective in order to understand the total impact of packaging innovations on supply chains.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The case study focuses on the impact of a particular innovation on a particular supply chain. Even though the consequences in other supply chains may be different, this study provides detailed explanations and illustrative examples which generate insights relevant to other firms and supply chains.\nPractical implications: - This paper provides an understanding of potential trade-offs between standardised and differentiated packaging, providing practitioners with a better basis for making decisions on packaging design and development.\nOriginality/value: - The paper illustrates the need to consider packaging as a strategic component which contributes to overall supply chain performance. To support strategic packaging decision-making propositions for packaging innovation in retail supply chains are provided.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Implementation of a considerative checklist to improve productivity and team working on medical ward rounds	[ "Medical care", "Team working", "Patients", "National Health Service" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Medical ward rounds are very complex clinical activities. A ward round is a series of meetings between a team of highly trained health care professionals and individuals with illnesses - patients. Together the team and those individuals make important decisions that will affect the patient's current and future health and may affect all of the patient's remaining life.Health care professionals reach a diagnosis or define clinical problems as carefully as possible and decisions are made about investigations and treatments. Decisions are made on the basis of the clinical information about the patient, including history, examination, and clinical progress over time, response to treatments and results of investigations. The health care professionals utilise the general evidence about appropriate treatments available including Evidence Based Medicine, Clinical Guidelines and the team's own clinical expertise. The team negotiates the particular treatment for the individual patient taking into account the patient's clinical context and the patient's opinions and beliefs, desires and priorities. This requires a high level of thinking, judgement of risk and careful decision making. These decisions are also made in the context of that society's local and national health economy, ethics and law.To add to the complexity, medical ward rounds are attended by an ever changing team of heath care professionals. This is primarily because of the reduction in junior doctors' working hours, the introduction of acute medical wards and speciality wards and the rise in speciality nurses and supporting professionals.Clinical experience and clinical audit have raised a number of concerning issues around the ward round process.* Clinical information was hard to find because notes were not being filed properly in the hospital notes.* Chest x-rays, electrocardiograms and blood tests were not consistently being reviewed.* Fluid balance charts, glucose chart, weight chart and drug charts were infrequently reviewed and often poorly completed.* Intravenous access was often not removed when no longer needed, with the associated risk of cannulae site infection.* Deep vein thrombosis prophylaxis treatment was not being prescribed or reviewed on a systemic basis.* There was a number of inappropriate cardiac arrest calls in patients who should have been receiving end of life care.* Discharge planning was often unclear and weekend plans were not written.* Poor communication with nurses about diagnosis, management and discharge planning.The Department of Health has stipulated in its Standards for Better Health that we should ensure health care provided is both safe and of acceptable quality and that there should be a framework for continuous improvement (Department of Health, 2006). In the changing environment of the NHS medical ward rounds have become increasingly complex and the current ward round process may not aspire to these standards. With complexity comes the inevitable risk that things will go wrong. Serious failures in care can have important consequences for individual patients, their families, cause distress to the committed health care staff and undermine public confidence in the services the NHS provides (Department of Health, 2000).In complex activities outside and within medical practice checklists can be helpful in reducing errors (Gawande, 2009). The aviation industry successfully uses checklists for its complex tasks. Tests pilots make their lists simple, and short enough to fit on an index card, with step-by step checks for takeoff, flight, landing, and taxiing (Degani and Weiner, 1993). Within the NHS checklists can also serve as important tools for decreasing medical error and improve overall standards of patient care. Implementation of the World Health Organisation Surgical Safety checklist has been shown to reduce surgical mortality and morbidity (Haynes et al., 2009). The use of the ventilator acquired pneumonia care bundles in the intensive care setting (Evans, 2005) and surviving sepsis bundles have been invaluable (Dellinger et al., 2004). We introduce the use of a medical ward round considerative checklist. We have developed the term \"considerative checklist\" as it not simply checking if an essential component has been done but rather that it has been considered, discussed, action identified and communicated effectively.\nDesign: The considerative checklist was developed by collectively identifying essential components for medical ward rounds. These included aspects of ward round preparation, the consultation, progress assessment, discharge planning and handover. It was expected that if we worked as a team we could ensure all essential components of the checklist would be addressed. The Caldwell Considerative Checklist Process (CCCP) is shown in Figure 1.The checklist consists of 32 items, 20 which are essential components for consideration during a ward round. The essential components of the checklist are shaded or yellow. The remaining components are white, in that they may need to be considered. When identifying essential components clinical thinking was consistently highlighted as being of considerable importance. It is therefore the top domain. Clinical thinking includes revisiting the diagnosis. Is the diagnosis correct? Could it be anything else? Is the patient making the expected progress?It is a considerative checklist, therefore the outcome for each component is that it has been considered, discussed, action identified and communicated effectively. For example, the outcome of deep vein thrombosis prophylaxis may be that it is not suitable, contraindicated, a reduced heparin dose recommended in view of renal failure, ordinary medical dose prescribed, TED stockings only or that heparin should be discontinued.It has been developed for use on \"post take\" and routine ward rounds in an ordinary district general hospital but could be customised to any specific situation. Its simplicity lies in the fact that it is only one A4 side and can be easily undertaken during the ward round. The process involves appointing a checklist coordinator at the beginning of the ward round; this can be a doctor, medical student or senior nursing staff. The coordinator observes closely and notes any important aspects not considered in the patient review. At the end of the consultation the consultant or team leader turns to the coordinator and asks if all aspects have been covered. The checklist coordinator must be able to report any omissions and they must be addressed before moving to the next patient. It is important to respect the checklist coordinator and not alienate them or become irritated by their report, especially when time constraints exist.The health care team should be encouraged to complete investigation requests, specialty referrals and discharge summaries during the patient review. This expedites patient discharge, improves clinical information provided on request forms, prevents delay in requests and eliminates the need for a post ward round job handover.\nEncouraging physicians to use the checklist: Incorporating a checklist into the routine practice is not always a smooth process. Implementation can initially lengthen the duration of a medical ward round and physicians have their own style and may initially be resistant to a new ward round structure. However, the checklist components do not need to be followed in their entirety. We would encourage medical teams to practise using the checklist and adapt in accordance to their personal practice and speciality needs. Care of the elderly physicians may wish greater emphasis on patient rehabilitation whereas a cardiologist may wish to include inspection of the coronary angiogram site.The checklist is easy to follow and requires little preparatory education. To drive and maintain the initiatives it is important to develop a team approach. The commitment and support from the medical consultant, ward sister sends a valuable message to other healthcare professionals.\nLimitations to evaluation: The surgical speciality lends itself to standard measures of quality of care such as length of stay, morbidity and mortality outcomes. The diversity of general medicine makes such outcomes hard to measure. There are too many confounding variables leading to debate about cause and effect.What we can deduce is that the introduction of the checklist has provided:* A systemic approach to medical ward rounds.* Reassurance that quality care is given.* Aided active participation from all health care professionals and reignited team work.* Streamlined handover.* Improved patient and professional communication.* Improved medical documentation.* Provided an audit tool for ongoing improvement.The checklist allows teams to follow a high quality process; good outcomes rarely come from poor quality process. Research has shown that 70 per cent of adverse incidents are preventable. However, although errors can be minimised they will never be completely eliminated (Department of Health, 2000). Measures therefore need to be in place to minimise events. A systems approach is required to tolerate the inevitable human errors and contain their damaging consequences. The considerative checklist systemic approach encourages teamwork limiting individual human error, it provides an audit trail as errors frequently repeat themselves and provides a process to correct problems at the point of care. We can use the reduction in adverse events as a measure of success for the considerative checklist process but it may be difficult to identify specific factors that can be targeted to improve patient care.\nStrengthen the considerative checklist evaluation: We can strengthen evaluation by mapping the checklist to General Medical Council - Duties of a Doctor (General Medical Council, 2008), National Patient Safety Agency (National Patient Safety Agency, 2007, 2009), and National Institute of Clinical Excellence(National Institute for Health and Clinical Guidance, 2010). This is demonstrated in Figure 2.Peer opinions are also extremely valuable for evaluation. Semi structured interviews with doctors, nurses and students who have worked with us have provided some qualitative data.Comments provided by two of our junior doctors:I found that the checklist really helped me highlight areas that I should be paying more attention to on the ward round (Dr C, Core Medical Trainee).The main lesson I learnt is how easy it is to leave important things undone without a systematic approach to the rounds (Dr U, Locum Core Medical Trainee).Part of the problem in evaluating the checklist lies in the lack of clear guidelines on how to conduct a medical ward round. Historically, doctors have learnt ward round conduct from clinical experience. Our Trust is also using the checklist for apprenticeship learning. The ward round checklist can act as a self-feedback, teaching tool for undergraduates and postgraduates. It helps identify individual omissions and provides a resource to learn and improve. Overseas doctors have found the checklist useful, since they may initially have problems adjusting to new medical and cultural systems. As a team we can recount the changes in our own professional behaviour.We believe we have developed a systemic ward round approach which ensures attention to quality and safety at the point of care, encourages team working and improvements can be documented.We encourage colleagues to use and adapt the checklist to their speciality and personal requirements and would very much appreciate any comments, criticisms and feedback from their experience.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - In the changing environment of the National Health Service (NHS) medical ward rounds have become increasingly complex. With complexity comes the inevitable risk that things will go wrong. Serious failures in care can have important consequences for individual patients, their families, cause distress to health care staff and undermine public confidence in the NHS. The paper's aim is to introduce the concept of a medical ward round considerative checklist to improve ward round processes, effectiveness, reliability and efficiency, aid team working and foster better communication.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The checklist includes aspects of ward round preparation, the consultation, progress assessment, discharge planning and handover. It is a \"considerative checklist\" as it not simply checking if an essential component has been done but rather that it has been considered, discussed, action identified and communicated effectively and involves an \"at the point of care check and correct\" process.\nFindings: - The introduction of the checklist has provided a systemic approach to medical ward rounds, provided reassurance that quality care is given, aided active participation from all health care professionals and reignited team work. It has streamlined handover, improved patient and professional communication, improved medical documentation and provided an audit tool for ongoing improvement.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The diversity of general medicine makes standard measures of quality of care such as length of stay, morbidity and mortality outcomes hard to measure; however, qualitative data can be obtained.\nOriginality/value: - The authors have developed a systemic ward round approach which ensures attention to quality and safety at the point of care, encourages team working and improvements can be documented.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Organising methods and member recruitment in Irish trade unions	[ "Union recruitment", "Organising methods", "Private sector", "Trade unions", "Ireland" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Union recruitment and organising has been high on trade union agendas across developed countries as unions seek to reverse the decline in unionisation. Like trade unions in Britain, Australia and the USA, Irish unions have been forced to examine their operations and future in the context of declining union density. Between 1980 and 2007, union density in the Irish labour force dropped from approximately 61-31 percent (Gunnigle et al., 2002; CSO, 2008). While unionisation has remained generally stable and high in the public sector, it has dropped significantly in the private sector. Private-sector unionisation is estimated to have fallen to as low as 20 percent (Sheehan, 2008). This significant decline in unionisation has occurred despite a benign political context compared to that in Britain, Australia and the USA. Irish trade unions influenced economic and social policy decision making through a series of centralised agreements with employers and government between 1987 and 2008. It has been suggested that the centralisation of bargaining neutralises employer opposition and has a positive impact on union density and growth (Visser, 2002; Corneo, 1995). However, these outcomes have not been evident in the Irish case (D'Art and Turner, 2005). For Irish trade unions the outcomes traditionally associated with strong corporatist regimes such as increased union availability and improved workplace access, have not materialized (D'Art and Turner, 2005, 2011). Despite two decades of social partnership the unions failed to gain any improvement in the legal environment for union recognition in the face of increasing opposition from employers.The steep decline in private-sector unionisation levels has prompted many trade unions to focus on intensive recruitment campaigns targeted at certain groups (Snape, 1994). For example, SIPTU, the largest Irish union, has attempted to recruit from specific groups such as young people, women, atypical workers, workers in multinationals, migrant workers and industries which are considered \"ripe\" for union drives (Dobbins, 2003, 2004; Higgins, 1999). To date there has been little systematic study of either the recruitment methods used by Irish trade unions or the relative success of different approaches. Based on a survey of Irish full-time union officials and the methods used to recruit new members this paper attempts to address this lacuna.\nUnion recruitment and organising: Union recruitment activity has been identified as a key factor in the rise and fall of union membership and density (Heery et al., 2000a, p. 38; Metcalf, 1991; Kelly, 1998). Union decline has prompted a shift in the views of unions on issues of recruitment. Beaumont and Harris (1990) note that unions traditionally believed that union membership growth and decline was dependant on economic and political factors (Undy et al., 1981). This view was reflected in the work of union officials. Research indicated that most of union officials' time was taken up with negotiation, administration and servicing of members rather than recruitment (Clegg et al., 1961; Beaumont and Harris, 1990; Brown and Lawson, 1973; Robertson and Sams, 1976). More recently, explanations that focus on the inadequacies of union recruitment policies have been advanced to account for the decline in union membership such as limited investment in organizing (Voos, 1984), an unwillingness to attempt organising beyond traditional groups of workers (Beaumont and Harris, 1990; McLoughlin and Gourlay, 1994, p. 41) and the use of ineffective or poorly developed union recruitment techniques (Kelly and Heery, 1989; Bronfenbrenner, 1997; Bronfenbrenner and Juravich, 1998; Waddington and Kerr, 2009; Waddington and Whitston, 1997). The renewed emphasis on union renewal through recruitment is generally focused on attempts to make it more strategic and high profile rather than non-specialist, reactive, decentralised and low profile (Beaumont and Harris, 1990). The emergence of an increasingly strategic approach to the recruitment of new members has been subsumed into a more encompassing generic organising model of union recruitment that seeks to increase membership through workplace activism.The organising model: theory and practice\nMethodology: These criticisms aside there is some limited evidence that the organising model enhances the recruitment of new union members (Badigannavar and Kelly, 2005; Erickson et al., 2002). This paper explores the recruiting and organising methods used by full-time union officials in the private sector. A postal survey of officials was carried out in eight Irish trade unions. The unions were selected on the basis that their membership was either wholly or partly drawn from the private sector. Upon request from the authors, all of the unions selected granted full access for the study. According to the information supplied by these unions, approximately 226,362 of their members are employed in the private sector. This represents up to 90 percent of private-sector union members. Consequently, the officials surveyed can be taken as broadly representing private-sector union members. A total of 195 union officials were surveyed and 82 completed questionnaires returned. This represents a response rate of 42 percent. Based on the literature and studies of the organising model we suggest a basic model (Figure 1) in which outcomes such as increased recruitment (Dundon et al., 1999; Oxenbridge, 1997a) are a function of different organising methods and techniques (Heery et al., 2000b; Carter and Cooper, 2002; Oxenbridge, 1997b) that are in turn influenced by a number of factors such as necessary resources (Bronfenbrenner and Hickey, 2004; Heery et al., 2003a), support of union leaders (Kelly, 1998; Fiorito, 2004) and union officer commitment (Colling, 2006; Heery, 2006).Based on this survey we first test whether the greater use of organising methods is associated with organising and recruitment success (Figure 1). Second, we test the various factors that influence union officers' choice of recruitment methods. As noted above union officers with a heavy workload and scarce resources are less likely to favour the organising model. A central influence on the choice of tactics will be the extent to which their union is committed to recruiting and organising new members. It is also likely that a union officer's personal commitment to recruiting will affect the choice of organising methods. Other factors in the Irish context influencing organising are likely to be the difficulties of union recognition and employer opposition. During the 1990s there was a sharp rise in the number of union recognition recommendations from the Labour Court and the number and intensity of strikes related to union recognition. In those cases where the Labour Court recommended recognition of the trade union, few of the companies involved acted on the recommendations (Gunnigle et al., 2002). Employer opposition to trade unions also appears to have increased during the period of social partnership with union officials reporting an increase in the use of coercive tactics by employers (McMahon, 2001; D'Art and Turner, 2005, 2006). Employer opposition raises the costs and difficulties of recruiting new members. Unless adequate resources are provided, union officers may prefer to avoid involvement with recalcitrant employers. Similarly union officers are more likely to favour recruiting in traditionally unionised sectors such as manufacturing. Thus, we include work load, personal commitment to recruitment, union commitment to recruitment, employer opposition and the sector covered by the union officer. It may also be the case that the above factors have a direct influence on recruitment outcomes. In addition it might be expected that younger union officers, less socialised into the service model than older officers, will be more likely to adopt the organising model of union recruitment. A potential limitation in testing the organising model is that we assess the model through one narrow perspective - that of full-time union officials.Description of measures\nResults: The majority of respondents were male (80 percent) with an average age of 45. This indicates a considerable life experience in trade unions and industrial relations. Indeed, over the past five years the average number of cases in which officials were involved in attempts to secure union recognition from an employer was approximately seven. The main occupational groups represented by the officials are operatives (36 percent coverage), sales (16 percent), craft (14 percent) and clerical workers (14 percent) concentrated in the manufacturing and retail sectors. Approximately two-thirds of the officials had a direct responsibility for 1,000-5,000 union members.With regard to employer opposition, union officials reported a high level of opposition in union recognition campaigns they were involved in. A total of 35 percent of officials reported that the employer opposed recognition in every campaign, 32 percent of officials indicated opposition in three quarters of all campaigns and only eight percent experienced no employer opposition in recognition campaigns. Even less variability is evident in three other independent measures: autonomy, individual commitment to recruitment and the union's commitment to recruitment. All three exhibit low levels of variance with mean averages of eight or above from a possible range of 0-9. Thus, these measures are likely at best to be weak predictors of an organising approach. The majority of union officials reported an increase in both union membership generally and specifically new members. A total of 37 percent of officials indicated an increase of more than 10 percent in new members while 38 percent reported an increase of less than 10 percent. However, only 1 percent of officials believed that the recruitment of new members had decreased. This result is not surprising. Although union density in Ireland declined dramatically after 1990, union membership numbers actually increased by about 17 percent due to an increase in the size of the employed labour force (Roche and Ashmore, 2000).Multivariate analysis\nDiscussion and conclusion: Based on a survey of union officials this paper tested the relationship between various factors such as commitment to recruitment, employer opposition, membership/occupational coverage and union officers' choice of recruitment methods. Second, we test whether the use of an organising approach is associated with organising success as measured by changes in levels of membership and newly acquired members. In the former case we found only a weak relationship between the commitment level of officials and the use of organising methods. In the latter case the use of organising techniques by the officials surveyed had no significant impact on changes in membership numbers. However, the greater use of the organising model by officials had a significant and positive impact on reported changes in new members. Yet the variance explained by the use of the organising approach was extremely modest. Indeed, the results here give relatively scant support to the advocates of the organising approach to union recruitment. It may of course be the case that the specified model and measurements used here fail to provide an adequate test of the effectiveness of the organising model. This tends to be a perennial problem with survey-based research and its inability to capture the rich texture of everyday social processes. Clearly our data and methodology reflect the general weaknesses of this approach. In addition, as our findings are based on the experiences of full-time union officials, an area for future research would be to capture the attitudes and experiences of local activists of putting the organising model into practice.Using the interpretations of union officials, the theoretical weakness of the organising model is apparent. In practise union organising and servicing activities are likely to overlap, contributing to the difficulty in defining the boundaries of the organising model. In addition, some of the practices included in Table I could be categorised as traditional recruitment such as planned organising campaigns and paid lead organisers. Thus, during a \"recruitment\" campaign it may be difficult to distinguish where traditional recruitment ends and organising begins because the organising model fails to indicate how the organising process works and \" [...] fails to show any clear path from internal mobilization to external organizing\" (Fletcher and Hurd, 1998, p. 44).As our review of the literature suggests the organising model as a construct lacks definitional and conceptual rigour. In the absence of such rigour it is difficult to develop appropriate empirical measures of the dimensions that constitute the organising model (Gorz, 2005). There are also questions regarding the ambiguousness of the objectives of the organising model (de Turberville, 2004). Many of its advocates emphasise that the organising model's primary objective is not to recruit members but to foster activism and organising (Carter, 2000; Heery et al., 2000b). Recruiting members then becomes an indirect outcome of organising. In unionised workplaces it may be that organising will lead to the recruitment of new members. However, in firms where no union is established recruitment of union members would appear to be a necessary first step to create the conditions for an organising drive. In practice the organising model amounts to a collection of tactics and techniques defined more by their extent and intensity[1] than any qualitative difference from the long activist tradition in Irish and British trade unionism (Newsinger, 2003; Heery and Kelly, 1990). Yet activism such as participating in union affairs, canvassing for new members and commitment to the principles of trade unionism has always been confined to a critical minority of union members, in particular lay and full-time union officers and shop stewards (Flood et al., 1996; D'Art and Turner, 2002; Heery and Kelly, 1990). Full-time union officials are generally appointed after many years of shop-floor activism and tend to be highly committed trade unionists.The demands of the organising approach require great commitment in terms of time, enormous energy and the confrontation of often hostile employers. Unless substantial extra resources are available, it is unlikely that union officials would be able to sustain the \"permanent\" activism required by the organising model. Organising campaigns are also costly and there is a limit to the scarce resources of trade unions. Clearly there are also political avenues to increasing the membership and density of trade unions as well as organising campaigns by individual trade unions. Historical trends in union membership numbers and density across the developed industrial societies reflect in the main political and institutional developments rather than the extent or intensity of workplace activism and organising (Western, 1997). For example, the high union density levels in countries such as Sweden and Denmark derive from political conditions that created a relatively benign institutional environment supportive of union membership and collective bargaining. Nevertheless, employer hostility and weak institutional support from the state would appear to make renewed attention on organising and recruiting workers an imperative for Irish trade unions.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper seeks to explore the recruiting and organising methods used by Irish full-time union officials to recruit new members in the private sector of the economy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The analysis is based on a survey of full-time union officials in eight Irish trade unions.\nFindings: - Results indicate that the use of organising techniques by officials had no significant impact on changes in membership numbers but did have a significant and positive impact on reported changes in new members. However, the variance explained was extremely modest.\nResearch limitations/implications: - A potential limitation is that the organising model is assessed solely from the perspective of full-time union officials. An area for future research would be to capture the attitudes and experiences of local activists involved in organising.\nPractical implications: - The demands of the organising approach require great commitment in terms of time and financial resources for unions. Yet the returns from this investment may be slight as only a relatively weak relationship was found between the number of organising methods used and changes in membership numbers and the recruitment of new members.\nOriginality/value: - To date there has been little systematic study of either the recruitment methods used by Irish trade unions or the relative success of different approaches. Based on a survey of Irish full-time union officials, this paper attempts to address this lacuna.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Purchasing functional foods to stay fit	[ "Functional food", "Fitness", "Food consumption awareness", "Lifestyle adaptation", "Social media influence", "Willingness to purchase" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Malaysian competitiveness seems to pivot on its concern for fitness since the percentage of overweight and obesity among the population is continuously increasing. Out of 32.4 million Malaysians (Department of Statistics Malaysia, 2018), half of the population is considered as either overweight or obese due to an imbalance in their nutritional intake (Astro Awani, 2018). In Malaysia, the majority of the population is eating more than what they really need, and the sedentary lifestyle causes the excessive calorie intake to be retained in the body as fat. Accordingly, if no initiative is taken to reduce the excessive fat in the body, it will lead to overweight, and, if prolonged, to obesity. Obesity may begin in children as young as five or six years old or during adolescence (Vikneswaran et al., 2015). This unhealthy lifestyle behaviour is due to poor self-rated health (Chan et al., 2015). An individual is considered as overweight if the body mass index measurement is equal or more than 25, and obese if the body mass index measurement is equal or more than 30 (World Health Organization, 2018).\nLiterature review: Functional food\nResearch methodology: This research only focuses on four main variables - lifestyle adaptation, social media influence, food consumption awareness and the willingness to purchase functional food. The willingness to purchase functional food is placed as the dependent variable while the other three variables are placed as independent variables. This is because a few researchers have considered lifestyle adaptation (Goetzke and Spiller, 2014; Szakaly et al., 2012), social media influence (Chung et al., 2018; Tuten and Mintu-Wimsatt, 2018) and food consumption awareness (Bornkessel et al., 2014; Rosa et al., 2018) as possible determinants for consumers' willingness to purchase functional foods. Parallel to the former findings, the willingness to purchase functional food in this research is based on the three chosen variables, as these variables are part of the modern lifestyle, especially for those staying in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur. Hence, this research is developed based on a combination of the findings previously made by other research scholars and the surrounding lifestyle of the respondents. The objectives of this research are to:\nAnalysis and results: A total of 143 male respondents (71.5 per cent) and 57 female respondents (28.5 per cent) participated in this survey. All of the respondents have purchased functional foods. While those who never purchased functional foods have been excluded from this analysis. For individual income, 102 of the respondents (51.0 per cent) earn at least RM4,001 per month. This is followed by 49 respondents (24.5 per cent) who earn between RM3,001 and RM4,000 per month, and 28 respondents (14.0 per cent) who earn between RM2,001 and RM3,000. Only 13 respondents (6.5 per cent) earn less than RM1,000, and 8 respondents (4 per cent) earn between RM1,001 and RM2,000. The respondents earning less than RM1,000 are mostly students since the minimum wage in Malaysia is RM1,500 (Ismail, 2018). While those earning between RM1,001 and RM2,000 are a combination of students and working adults. In general, the respondents have a higher tendency to purchase more functional foods if they are earning a higher income. This can be seen from the percentage of the purchasing frequency of the respondents. There is a higher frequency percentage for those earning less than RM1000 than for those earning between RM1001 and RM2000 because the majority of students are well informed and knowledgeable concerning the significance of functional foods as a basic processed food necessity. This analysis is presented in Table I.\nDiscussion and recommendations: For the first research objective of the respondents' background, it is found that the tendency to purchase functional foods is higher for those people who are earning a high individual income. The higher the income, the higher the frequency percentage for the people to purchase functional foods. This is probably because those with a higher individual income normally have greater purchasing power. In line with this, the amount spent on functional food per week and functional food consumption per week also shows a similar trend to the individual salary range, in that those who are earning more will spend more and consume more functional foods.\nManagerial and policy implementations: Although Malaysians tend to be lavish in terms of food consumption, only a minority know about functional foods. Without basic knowledge, there is a high possibility that the population percentage of overweight and obesity will continue to increase and impact their health and fitness. Being physically fit is not just about having an attractive or presentable appearance, but also about the long-term health benefits. Hence, an alert about functional foods should be provided through official education in schools, universities, and to the public in general. Encouragement by the functional food producers through promotion will definitely disseminate the knowledge about functional foods consumption as a daily meal. Parallel to this, a proper policy is also needed to ensure that consumers are not misled by improper labelling by the food producers (Rezai et al., 2012). This is because, for the time being, there is no specific policy on how to label functional food packaging in the Malaysian market.\nFurther research: This research has been conducted based on respondents from the capital city of Kuala Lumpur. Further studies could be extended to other places in both suburban and rural areas. The comparison can be made based on the locations of the data collection. The purchasing pattern may also differ based on age, income, and lifestyle concern. In addition, qualitative exploratory research could be conducted from the producers' perspective. This is because, although the demand is created by the consumers, the food innovation is still introduced by the producers. Consumers will normally try new products on the market based on producers' recommendations. Education plays a huge role to shape the behaviour of societies within a community. Although basic health education has been introduced as a compulsory subject in Malaysian high schools, the impact of teaching the subject to the students is still vague. Due to this, research concerning the impact of exposing health education on food consumption preferences (Ammar et al., 2016) can also be conducted. Further enhancement of the existing health education syllabus can be made based on the research findings.\nConclusion: In Malaysia, functional foods are still in the early phase of the product development cycle. The momentum of this product development is still very slow even though the issue of overweight and obesity among the population has been drastically increasing. This is probably because there are too many food options on the market, and many people may automatically choose normal processed food instead of functional foods due to scepticism concerning the taste. The awareness of society about functional foods is still low and might lead to the health condition of society becoming even worse than today. Functional food producers should make an effort to gain this untapped market by focussing on the lifestyle adaptation, social media influence and food consumption awareness.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: Health fitness has become a major issue in Malaysia since the population of overweight and obesity is becoming critical. One of the ways to achieve optimum health fitness is by consistently consuming balanced diet meals. Hence, this paper aims to focus on the willingness of society to purchase functional foods as an alternative for their daily meals to stay fit.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research framework was developed based on a combination of findings by other research scholars within a similar field. The willingness to purchase functional foods to stay fit is positioned as the dependent variable, while lifestyle adaptation, social media influence and food consumption awareness are placed as the independent variables. Quantitative research was conducted by collecting primary data from respondents in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The collected data were analysed using descriptive and regression analyses.\nFindings: The willingness to purchase functional foods to stay fit is dependent on the lifestyle adaptation, social media influence and food consumption awareness.\nResearch limitations/implications: Although the current market for functional foods in Malaysia is still at a small scale, the market for this industry seems very promising. Nevertheless, greater awareness on functional food is still needed.\nPractical implications: Functional food producers should make an effort to gain the untapped market by focussing on the lifestyle adaptation, social media influence and food consumption awareness.\nOriginality/value: This research is a breakthrough to discover the willingness of Malaysians to purchase functional food to stay fit, which is influenced by lifestyle adaptation, social media and food consumption awareness.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Sharing economy and the lodging websites: Antecedents and mediators of accommodation purchase intentions	[ "Trust", "E-commerce", "Structural equation modelling", "End users", "Interactive media" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In today's global environment the internet is playing a major role in the online accommodation industry changing the way travelers search for information and book their accommodation. This shift in consumer behavior is a trend that is set to continue to an even greater degree in the future as the penetration of internet increases and more accommodation bookings are made online (Kim et al., 2011; Kannan and Li, 2017). Moreover, the internet has made the accommodation booking process more accessible and easier for travelers when compared to traditional channels in which the online accommodation market has positively benefited from the fast development where online transactions are leading and creating a new era for the tourism industry (Kim et al., 2011). In part, this is because the internet has increased rapidly at an unprecedented rate since its introduction in term of infrastructure and content, driving innovation, diverse network expansion and user engagement. With reference to the Internet Society (2016) Global Internet Report 2016, there were 3,893,587,260 global internet users in 2015. However, by early 2017, this figure was set to increase to 3bn users.\nLiterature review: The online lodging industry is referred to peer-to-peer exchange service for hospitality around the world in which hosts and guests exchange housing for money. During the application process, guests can find information about the host and reviews about the lodging in order to build trust in the marketplace. Moreover, the pioneer and most popular website in this industry is Airbnb whose revenue in 2013 was $250m and has seen a rapid growth since its launch in 2008 with over 1,500,000 listings worldwide (Forbes, 2015). However, there are other well-known websites, such as housetrip.com, holidaylettings.com, wimdu.com, among others, that follow Airbnb's steps in this industry. Moreover, these types of websites are part of the sharing economy which is becoming very popular as more and more people are realizing that it is cheaper to share resources than to purchase them and the fact that sharing could save time and money (Forbes, 2015).\nMethodology: To evaluate postulation associations, an online survey questionnaire is created in order to gather primary data and empirically investigate the relational connections among perceived lodging value, perceived lodging price, lodging information, online lodging reviews, trust with the host, website usability, perceived privacy/security and purchase intentions. The questionnaire design is divided into three parts: in the first part, participants are asked whether or not they use lodging websites: if participants respond \"No,\" they finish the questionnaire. After this, a factor measurement section is created which is followed by questions related to participants' lodging usage, influential factors and then demographic information. In terms of the measurement section, it consists of right categories that represent the eight main constructs. Five manifest variables are in each factor except for perceived lodging value that is made up of six items and purchase intentions that has four items. Moreover, the third part of the questionnaire aims to collect data regarding lodging usage, influential factors and demographic information. Demographic data provide background information of overall sample characteristics.\nAnalysis: Our research included eight latent factors: perceived lodging value, perceived lodging price, online lodging reviews, lodging information, trust with the host, website usability, perceived privacy/security of the website and purchase intentions. Each latent construct is made up of five manifest variables except for perceived lodging value and purchase intentions that consist of six and four items, respectively. A path diagram can be used to visualize the initial measurement model by using the \"semPlot\" package (Figure 2). Latent factors are shown by ovals and measured items are displayed by using squares. Double-headed arrows illustrate correlations among latent factors and errors of items/constructs.\nConclusion and implications: Even though the online lodging industry has become a potential threat to hotel companies and hotel comparison websites, this sector operates in a very competitive environment in which they have to compete with traditional hotel operators, bed and breakfasts and hotel comparison websites such as booking.com, TripAdvisor and Lastminute.com. However, one of the benefits of the online lodging industry is its low headcount when compared to traditional hotels, making the business model more competitive as they commonly offer lower prices (Fast Company, 2015). On the other hand, hotel chains argue that even though the lodging industry is growing at a fast pace, hotel operators as a whole offer more security, high level of service, more regulated control and an end-to-end customer experience (Wired, 2015). As a result of this competitive online environment, it is important to better understand the main drivers of purchase intentions in the online lodging industry and how to convert browsers into renters (Chen and Dubinsky, 2003). Moreover, in this industry, a great deal of effort has to be made before the actual buying decision and understanding how to positively influence online renters in the pre-purchase phase is important (Lien et al., 2015).\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand the main determinants that affect accommodation purchase intentions through lodging websites in sharing economy context. This industry differs from the hotel industry because it is a community marketplace with a growing community of users where renters can monetize their extra space and list their properties to an audience of millions while travelers can find unique accommodation at any price point.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors examine factors such as perceived lodging value, perceived lodging price, lodging information, online lodging reviews, trust with the host, website usability and perceived privacy/security of the website, and measure their relationships with purchase intentions. Based on an online survey data, the structural model test outcomes explain the direct effect of the exogenous variables on purchase intentions and the mediating effect of perceived lodging value between perceived lodging price and purchase intentions.\nFindings: The study demonstrates that the six latent factors and proposed associations have positive effects on purchase intentions. Thus, enterprises operating in the online lodging industry should consider these elements as key antecedents of lodging purchase intentions.\nOriginality/value: Lodging websites operate in a highly competitive market where they have to compete with hotel operators, hostels, bed and breakfasts and hotel comparison websites in current sharing economy. In addition, consumers usually spend a great deal of time and effort on online pre-purchase evaluation because of the ease of the information gathering process where consumers can find a wide variety of options online. Therefore, understanding the drivers that convert browsers into renters is a topic of great interest among marketing managers in the current sharing economy context.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Mitigating e-services avoidance: the role of government cybersecurity preparedness	[ "E-services", "User avoidance", "Government cybersecurity preparedness", "IS success model" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The frequency and sophistication of cyberattacks continues to grow, threatening financial operations that have thrived due to the wide-spread use of electronic services (e-services). A recent survey shows that approximately US$7bn was generated in 2015 from online grocery sales alone (Statista, 2017). With an estimated 40 per cent of USA internet users purchasing goods and services electronically, corporations are rapidly moving their operations online to tap into the growing popularity of the e-services market (Statista, 2017). Despite the growth of e-services, cybersecurity concerns continue to deter the use of e-services (Deloitte Consumer Review, 2015). For example, notwithstanding the benefits of e-services, it has been observed that individuals are willing to withdraw consent of information sharing as a mechanism for mitigating cybersecurity risks (Deloitte Consumer Review, 2015). These findings, combined with the call for research of institutional correlates of cybersecurity concerns (Liu et al., 2016), highlight the need to understand the determinants of e-services avoidance.\nLiterature review: Security concerns and perceptions of risk\nTheoretical background and hypotheses development: The overarching theory we adopt to answer the research question is the Information Systems (IS) Success Model (DeLone and McLean, 1992). The seminal work of DeLone and McLean (1992) describes IS success in terms of how well a system's design, implementation and/or use impacts the individual, organization, or society. The dimensions of IS success have been extensively tested in various contexts, and they include information quality, system quality, service quality, use, and user satisfaction (Delone and McLean, 2003). A measure of system success relevant to this work is actual system use (Dwivedi et al., 2015), which relates to whether the individual chooses to use the system or not. An individual's decision to use a system is driven by technical factors, such as system quality, and non-technical factors, which may include \"social, political, and institutional factors\" (Dwivedi et al., 2015, p. 9). Non-technical factors, such as facilitating conditions within an individual's external surroundings, play a role in the decisions regarding adoption and use (James et al., 2016; Klaus and Blanton, 2010; Ozdemir et al., 2017). A facilitating factor that has not yet been examined in the context of e-services avoidance is a government's level of security preparedness. This study aims to extend the current literature by developing an understanding of the role of government security preparedness in the decision-making process of whether to use e-services or not.\nMethodology: Data set\nResults: STATA 14.1 was used to recode the data and run the analysis using structural equation modeling (SEM). Estimates derived from the SEM analysis were used to test the research hypotheses. Models with latent multi-item constructs are best modeled with SEM (Blunch, 2012), however a disadvantage of SEM is its inability to handle dichotomous dependent variables. Models with binary dependent variable are usually handled using logistic regression. However, logistic regression may provide biased results when the predictor variables are latent unobserved variables (Kupek, 2006). Generalized SEM (GSEM) was the most appropriate method of analysis for this study because the predictor variables in the conceptual model are latent multi-item constructs and the outcome variable is binary (Yes/No) (Guardabascio and Ventura, 2014). GSEM refers to a structural equation model with generalized response variable in which we fit a logistic of Bernoulli family (Marlin et al., 2011).\nDiscussion: This research examines the influence of perceived government cybersecurity preparedness on two determinants of e-services avoidance: security concerns, and perceived risk of cyberattacks. All hypothesized relationships were supported by the data. Specifically, security concerns increase the likelihood of e-services avoidance. This finding is in line with the extant literature that adopts some variation of the privacy calculus model as a methodological lens (Baruh et al., 2017; Dinev and Hart, 2006; Kehr et al., 2015; Kordzadeh and Warren, 2017; Li et al., 2016; Liu et al., 2016; Sun et al., 2015; Zhu et al., 2017). Our findings also confirm previous studies, which found a negative link between security concerns and key aspects related to the use of the demand side of e-government services (Al-Hujran et al., 2015; Carter et al., 2016; Liu et al., 2014; Rana and Dwivedi, 2015; Warkentin et al., 2002). To a great extent, such security concerns are alleviated by the type of e-services platform, the content of the platform's privacy notice, and the information handling practices that an e-service provider uses (Ginosar and Ariel, 2017).\nConclusion: The objective of this research was to identify the determinants of e-services avoidance and to investigate the role of perceived government cybersecurity preparedness. The hypothesized model was empirically tested using structural equation modeling. Three conclusions can be drawn from this study. First, our findings show that security concerns and the perceived risk of cyberattacks, are both barriers to e-services use. The strongest determinant of e-services avoidance was security concerns. This finding confirms previous studies that found a negative link between security concerns and information disclosure (Hui et al., 2006; Malhotra et al., 2004; Taddei and Contena, 2013; Xu et al., 2011). In addition, we establish that this relationship is true in the context of e-services avoidance. Second, our findings showed that perceived government cybersecurity preparedness influences e-services avoidance indirectly through security concerns and perceived risk of cyberattacks. We establish that perceived government cybersecurity preparedness significantly reduces security concerns and perceived risk of cyberattacks. Third, the multi-group post-hoc analysis revealed several differences in how the hypothesized determinants affect e-services avoidance. The analysis between individuals with a bachelor's degree or higher versus those without a bachelor's degree showed that the effect of both security concerns and perceived risk of cyberattacks on e-services avoidance was greater for individuals without a bachelor's degree. The relationship between perceived risk of cyberattacks and e-services avoidance was not supported for individuals with a bachelor's degree or higher. In the context of perceived government cybersecurity preparedness, the effect on mitigating security concerns and perceived risk of cyberattacks was also greater amongst individuals who do not hold a bachelor's degree.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to understand why individuals choose to avoid using e-services due to security concerns and perceived risk when these factors are affected by the perceived degree of government cybersecurity preparedness against cyberattacks.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors adopt the information systems success model to predict the role of government security preparedness efforts in influencing the determinants of e-services avoidance. The conceptual model includes four variables: security concerns, perceived risk of cyberattacks, perceived government cybersecurity preparedness and e-services avoidance. Data from 774 participants were used to analyze our conceptual model.\nFindings: First, the findings show that security concerns regarding personal information safety and perceived risk of cyberattacks are barriers to e-services use, with the former having a stronger effect. Second, the findings showed that perceived government cybersecurity preparedness significantly reduces security concerns and perceived risk of cyberattacks. Third, the post hoc group analysis between individuals with a bachelor's degree or higher versus those without a bachelor's degree showed that the effect of both security concerns and perceived risk of cyberattacks on e-services avoidance was greater for individuals without a bachelor's degree. The same relationship between perceived risk of cyberattacks and e-services avoidance was not supported for individuals with a bachelor's degree or higher.\nOriginality/value: Extant privacy research fails to adequately examine the role of institutional factors, such as government efforts, and how these mitigate or amplify cybersecurity concerns and risks related to e-services. This research takes the first step toward addressing this limitation by examining the influence of government cybersecurity preparedness efforts on the determinants of e-services avoidance.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Electronic marketing orientation in the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises context	[ "Internet", "Innovation", "SMEs", "Social media", "Electronic marketing orientation" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Research indicates that e-marketing offers Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SMEs) a series of advantages, such as increased profitability via reduced costs and more extensive reach, while simultaneously offering better services to clients (Ainin et al., 2015; Caniels et al., 2015). Nevertheless, it remains a normal experience that we click into a website of one SME (e.g. local fast food chain) and find advanced online services through multiple digital channels, including mobile applications and social media networks. A competitor of similar size in the same industry and country might only have a simple Facebook page that provides a basic description of products and contact addresses. These and other related differences can be measured objectively via SMEs respective degrees of electronic marketing orientation (hereinafter referred to as EMO).\nElectronic marketing orientation: E-marketing generally refers to the use of electronic information and communications technologies, particularly the internet, to achieve marketing objectives. Terms such as digital marketing, internet marketing, online marketing and social media marketing are commonly used interchangeably by academics and practitioners, but the conventional term is e-marketing, although digital marketing is increasingly finding favor (Shaltoni, 2016). Please note that e-marketing in this research is not limited to having a website and using e-mails, it also includes other related information and communications technologies (ICTs) such as e-customer relationship management (e-CRM) solutions and social media applications that are available to SMEs.\nFindings and discussion: The results (see Figure 2) show that EMO consists of three main components, namely, management beliefs (philosophical component), initiation and implementation activities (behavioral components). The model shows a good fit with the data as indicated by the degree of the overall EMO competency results from the judgment of the three lower-order constructs. Causality is suggested as seen with the flow from the sub-constructs to the higher-order construct. Table I shows that the correlations among the three constructs of EMO ranged from 0.382 to 0.635 and all correlations are significant at 0.01 level. In addition, each of the three constructs is highly correlated (0.773 and above) with the overall measure of EMO and all correlations being significant at 0.01 level. In terms of multicollinearity among the three constructs of EMO, table one shows that the highest value of VIF was 1.708 for the philosophical component, which is far below the common cut-off point threshold of 5. This suggests that multicollinearity is not an issue. Regarding the final criterion (i.e. formative outer weight), table one also shows that the path coefficients between the three constructs and EMO are all significant at 0.01 level.\nConclusion and implications: This study examines EMO in the SMEs context and confirms that it combines philosophical and behavioral components. Each component addresses distinct yet related content, so they are not interchangeable, which indicates that the deletion of a component would critically alter the domain of the overall EMO. The results also imply that SMEs are more likely to be e-marketing oriented if they perceive that it provides greater benefits than existing methods and if it is compatible with their organizational culture and existing IT infrastructure. Perceived complexity is not significantly related to EMO; this could be explained by the rationale that e-marketing enabling technologies are becoming highly accessible by the majority of SMEs. External pressure, particularly from customers, also plays a major role in shaping SMEs orientation towards e-marketing. EMO can be generalized to a wide range of ICTs because it does not focus on any specific technology (i.e. semantic Web; internet of things, mobile applications). This is important given the rapid speed at which e-marketing technologies are developing and converging. To summarize, the major theoretical contribution of this study was to examine EMO in the SMEs context and to validate it as a high-order construct. Another important contribution was to identify a set of factors that affect organizational orientation towards e-marketing.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: There is an increasing interest in the role of business orientations in relation to why organizations vary in e-marketing adoption. Nevertheless, there is still scant evidence on electronic marketing orientation (EMO) within the Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SMEs) context. This paper aims to shed light on the key factors that affect the degree of e-marketing adoption among SMEs from an organizational orientation perspective.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study uses a cross-sectional survey of just over 135 European SMEs. The constructs are measured using multi-item indicators to capture the underlying theoretical domains.\nFindings: The results show that EMO in SMEs is a high order construct that consists of three main components, principally: management beliefs, initiation and implementation activities. The degree of EMO is primarily affected by perceived relative advantage and customer pressure.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study focuses on for-profit SMEs in developed economies. Future researchers may replicate this study using qualitative methods in different contexts (i.e. developing countries) across several technologies and platforms (i.e. websites, internet of things, mobile applications and social media networks).\nOriginality/value: This study further extends the literature on EMO and provides answers to the questions related to the variation in SMEs' e-marketing adoption. Practitioners can apply the EMO construct to evaluate their orientation towards e-marketing, and most importantly, to take the required remedial action to improve their performance in digital commerce.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
From intention to action: an organizational learning case of implementing Building Information Modeling	[ "Organizational learning", "Intention", "Action", "Building information modeling" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Without a doubt we all want our employees to utilize new technologies when designing our products to be more functional, efficient or cheaper. After all, we claim the same attitude with respect to ourselves. Why, then, do we often form intentions to improve our products or services with new (digital) approaches but do little to convert those intentions into actions? Theory offers different approaches to unbundle this phenomenon of change, including the theory of reasoned action (TRA) and the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Many studies applied these theories to better understand the so-called intention-action gap from a cultural perspective and investigated the conditions under which people convert their change intentions into actions (Gollwitzer et al., 2009; Ostroff et al., 2012). These streams of change implementation have generated important insights and proved the two theories to be very effective at predicting behaviors.\nClosing the intention-action gap through organizational learning: According to the theory of TPB, goals are the basis of intention and the content of specified goals can have an important bearing on the likelihood that they will be realized. From a behavioral perspective scholars and organization-development practitioners found that specific goals (e.g., \"use BIM to plan a new building\") lead to better performance than general goals (e.g., \"improve efficiency when planning a new building\"). Research also suggests that intentions are more likely to become actions when respective behaviors can be related to experiences gained from other projects (van Gelderena et al., 2015). Organizational support becomes key during this transition as actions are influenced by resources, skills and the time needed to realize the goal. In particular, experience from other projects can strengthen organizational learning and confidence in employees' ability to deal with challenges when converting intentions into actions. Moreover, such learning effects can also improve organizational culture and behavior by reducing avoidance-oriented emotions such as doubt, fear or aversion (Wilderom et al., 2012). This observation is in line with TPB scholars who emphasize the importance of how employees perceive the internal and external limitations to their behavior and how easy or difficult they believe it is to perform certain implementation behaviors.\nInsights from BIM experts at a German architectural firm: Following the critical incident technique (Flanagan, 1954) we examined one organization that very recently implemented BIM successfully. In particular, we considered one project the interviewees had personally experienced. With this technique, respondents can recall their subjective experience more easily when they are linked to concrete episodes and incidents. Besides several field visits and meeting observations, seven experts in this organization (e.g., architects, civil engineers, senior project manager) with direct experience from the implementation journey were interviewed. All in-depth interviews lasted between 90 and 120 minutes and focused on organizational learning experiences and the extent to which BIM provided an important method for planning excellence and staff development. Experts were also asked for recommendations to effectively implement such an approach. In this paper, we focus on opportunities for organizational learning when implementing BIM as a new paradigm.\nEncouraging organizational learning through a BIM pilot project: Developed under the umbrella of a regular building project, the project team engaged in a BIM pilot without informing the top management team. Keen to work on a new solution that could replace outdated methods the project team was staffed with experienced and engaged engineers, architects and other experts. Due to the budget and project hours available from the related project and a high level of perceived control, the project team managed to develop a prototype - without asking the top management team for permission or financial support. As a result the prototype was entirely convincing when this new digital method was introduced at the first meeting with the top management team. One senior project manager noted:\nRecommendations for implementing digital methods: Our interviewees in the case organization made the following recommendations for the implementation of a new digital work approach:\nConclusion: We used the BIM case to illustrate the intention-action phenomenon and what organizations can do to more effectively respond during technological change. This involves organizational learning and culture as the highlighted learning effects can improve culture by reducing avoidance-oriented emotions such as doubt, fear or aversion. This is of particular importance as it matters to organizations how employees observe, experience, and make sense of their work environment, and how easy or difficult they believe it is to perform certain implementation behaviors. However, scholars may want to continue to explore these behaviors to further understand the effect of the digital imperative and its impact on staff behavior and people development. Developing a new working routine through a pilot project can directly help to close the outlined intention-action gap. Investing in small projects that work and the corresponding behavioral change required, together with regular project reviews, all help to build unique capabilities and to frame a culture that supports organizational development. When converting intentions into actions, enacting the new behaviors in deeds as well as in words, and personally demonstrating top management commitment, can provide organizations with a unique opportunity to offer an effective product approach to its customers regardless of company size, market share or reputation.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the successful implementation of a digital work method named Building Information Modelling (BIM) and make recommendations to help organizations better test and implement innovative work approaches. Learning experiences not only provide insights into the building sector, but also into any organization interested in culture and effective response mechanisms during technological change.\nDesign/methodology/approach: By applying a critical incident technique, BIM experts at one mid-sized case organization were interviewed to examine the learning experiences from converting implementation intentions into actions. The information from these interviews was used to formulate a number of practical recommendations.\nFindings: The interviews outlined the various development opportunities that implementing new digital methods may offer for senior management and staff. Investing in small projects that work and the corresponding behavioral change required, together with regular project reviews, all help to build unique capabilities and to frame a culture that supports organizational development.\nOriginality/value: The discussion of the various benefits and conditions under which new technology implementation can improve organizational learning provides practitioners with insights into how effectively to convert change intentions into action.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Nordic local government: a success story, but will it last?	[ "Local government", "Decentralization", "Local government reform", "Amalgamations", "Nordic model" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: local government as a success factor of Nordic societies: In this paper I review the strong degree of local democracy, the local government system as a central element of the \"Nordic model\". I will use Stoker's (2011) theory on local government roles in society to critically analyse whether the system will work effectively also in the long run.\nFramework of analysis: local government roles and legitimacy: A key issue for every societal system is mission: what is the purpose for which it exists? What are the main tasks of the system? What role does it play? Who are the people and groups that the system serves when carrying out these tasks?\nThe role of welfare as a determinant of local government: The Nordic countries often form a distinct cluster in European comparisons (see e.g. Page and Goldsmith, 1987; Lidstrom, 1998; Rose and Stahlberg, 2005; Sellers and Lidstrom, 2007). If the Nordic municipalities are compared to the different traditions and models that exist globally, they indeed look very similar. Heavy service responsibilities, relatively broad autonomy and collective rather than individual decision-making traditions are typical of the Nordic municipalities (e.g. Norton, 1994; Lidstrom, 2003). The relationship between local government and state administration is the same and the countries borrow many ideas from each other when it comes to new experiments and local government reforms. A distinctive feature of local decision making and policies is related to the consensual nature of all the Nordic states. There is a strong tradition of consensus-seeking between different interests and avoidance of open conflict.\nOverload and sensitivity to reform as central development: During the last few decades, the welfare task has been accentuated further at the expense of other functions. In this respect the state and municipalities have advocated a similar policy; the state has consequently delegated new tasks and responsibilities to municipalities and local governments have usually welcomed them because they have been seen to increase local authorities' weight and influence in society. Nowadays, however, it appears more and more that this has been a double-edged sword, even a serious mistake from the point of view of local government, for two reasons. First, the ever-growing welfare task has become a burden to municipalities in the context of growing needs and shrinking state grants. Second, the growing welfare role has made local government vulnerable to state interventions.\nConcluding remarks: Nordic model under threat: The Nordic model has proved its success in recent decades and the situation is still good, at least if we believe international rankings. In view of the fact that it combines societal roles to a substantial degree, the Nordic system could be classified a strong local government and would probably be considered very sustainable according to Stoker's typology.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The Nordic narrative on local government highlights municipalities' role in social consumption, a model, which is often considered a success story. The purpose of this paper is to apply Gerry Stoker's (2011) theory on local government roles in society to critically analyse the sustainability of the Nordic model.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Drawing on literature review, documents and statistics of Nordic public authorities', the author formulates exploratory theoretical propositions on the sustainability of the Nordic model of local government.\nFindings: The emphasis placed on welfare task has made Nordic local government overloaded and vulnerable to central government intervention and reforms, resulting in a cumulative process towards an ever narrowing conception of local government.\nResearch limitations/implications: The research results are exploratory. Comparative empirical research is needed to verify the idea.\nSocial implications: The legitimacy of Nordic local government may be challenged because of municipalities' weakening possibilities to discharge their welfare role in a manner that would satisfy citizens' growing needs.\nOriginality/value: The paper is a critical analyses of the sustainability of local government system in Nordic countries. It discusses the possible negative consequences of the overemphasis of the welfare role of local government.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The influence of hierarchical organizational culture, supportive environment and sexual harassment on Korean women's work-to-family enrichment	[ "Hierarchical organizational culture", "Organizational support for women", "Sexual harassment", "Work-to-family enrichment" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: This study explores a mechanism related to how hierarchical culture in organizations affects the lives of female workers in South Korea (Korea hereafter). Over the past few decades, Korean society has experienced major changes. Korea has been recognized as a \"country of calm morning\" due to the deeply rooted traditional culture of Confucianism and Buddhism. However, Korea has transformed into one of the most dynamic industrialized countries including radical changes in social systems, norms and work-family-related values. In particular, Korea has been affected by Westernized cultures as it has transitioned from a traditional culture to a modern culture (Lim et al., 2012). One of these social changes is the increasing number of women in the workplace and dual-income families. Traditionally, there has been clear and rigid inequality and uneven role distribution between genders: a man is responsible for bread-winning and a woman is responsible for taking care of her spouse, children and household duties. The Korean cultural notions of gender inequality have created social norms such as respecting men and disrespecting women and a powerful husband and obedient wife (Suh, 2013). However, recent years have seen the ratio of women in economic activities in Korea soar up to 58 per cent and currently, more than half of married women work outside the family (International Monetary Fund, 2017).\nLiterature review: Hierarchical organizational culture and organizational support for women\nMethods: Sampling and data collection procedure\nResults: Assessment of the measurement models and construct validity\nDiscussion and implications: This study examined the relationships among hierarchical organizational culture, organizational support for women, sexual harassment and work-to-family enrichment in a Korean context. Key findings from the study are summarized as follows. First, hierarchical organizational culture was negatively associated with organizational support and was positively related to sexual harassment. As hypothesized, organizational support demonstrated a positive impact on work-to-family enrichment, while sexual harassment showed a negative impact on work-to-family enrichment. Our data analysis also showed that hierarchical culture produced a negative impact indirectly on work-to-family enrichment.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships among hierarchical organizational culture, organizational support for women, sexual harassment and work-to-family enrichment of working women in South Korea.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A total of 196 responses from married female employees who had a child (or children) in for-profit organizations in South Korea were analyzed by using structural equation modeling and bootstrapping analysis.\nFindings: The findings indicated that hierarchical organizational culture was negatively associated with organizational support and was positively associated with sexual harassment. In addition, an organizational atmosphere that is friendly and supportive to women had a positive effect on work-to-family enrichment. However, the more sexual harassment female workers experienced, the less positive the relationship between their work and family lives. Hierarchical organizational culture negatively affected work-to-family enrichment, but the effect was indirect through organizational support and sexual harassment.\nOriginality/value: These findings emphasize the importance of transforming the traditional culture in Korean organizations to reduce power distance to create a more female-friendly and supportive environment. With the dramatic recent increase in the number of female workers, building such an environment can enhance organizations' competitiveness by creating a positive spillover effect between women's work and family lives.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A tracking and summarization system for online Chinese news topics	[ "Chinese news summarization", "News topic detection", "TDT", "TF-Density", "TF-IDF", "TF-IWF" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: People want to know what is going on around them on a daily basis. In the past, people would read the newspaper or watch television to obtain new information. When people are interested in specific news stories, they often wish to track a news topic by, for example, learning when the event started, finding information on the event as it progresses, and learning when the event ends. In the past, considerable time would be required for individuals to clip individual news items from the newspaper and paste them into a scrapbook if they wished to keep track of all the articles on a single topic.\n2. Related works: In this section, we examine the pros and cons of standard TDT techniques and summarization algorithms. We also link our research strategy to other, similar studies. Several TDT techniques have been developed over the years (Yang et al., 1998), with the invention of new algorithms aimed at calculating the terms for clustering media streams. The TDT aims to extract useful terms by filtering out the noisy terms to render the overall process more accurate and efficient (Lee and Kim, 2008). The Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) (Yang et al., 1998; Brants et al., 2003; Zheng and Li, 2009) is a widely used algorithm in TDT and is defined as follows: If a term appears several times in a story, then it is considered important, and if that term appears in multiple sources, it is considered an important word in the story. TF-IDF specifically examines two features, document frequency (DF) and term frequency (TF), but in some situations, the importance of the term can be overestimated or underestimated.\n3. System architecture: Figure 1 shows the architecture of our proposed news tracking and summarization system, in which news stories are collected in Chinese by using an RSS crawler. RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated work (Wikipedia, 2015). We subscribe to the feeds from various Chinese news web sites and store the data on our crawler server; the news data are in XML format. We analyze the news data to extract useful data, including the titles and main bodies of the articles. In the third step, after extracting the titles and contents of the main body, we send the data to the Chinese Knowledge Information Processing Group (CKIP) system, which was constructed by Academia Sinica (CKIP, 2015), to break up the article into terms. We determine the word composition of the article and process the filter module that removes the noise words and stop words (such as is, are, you, I). Finally, a term list is created for each story. We create a term information table that includes term information for each story, such as TF, DF, and WT, all of which are useful for weighting the article. The table also includes the value of our proposed TF-Density algorithm to weight the term list for every story. We create a word vector for every story by using the term information table. We cluster the stories using cosine similarity according to the word vector of each story, and after running cosine similarity, we obtain many new topics. The generated news topics process summarization modules to obtain the results after weighting the sentences, centroid selection, and sentences selection steps. The details of the methods are further described in Section 4.\n4. Methods: Below, we describe the methods used for our proposed web news tracking and summarization system.\n5. Experiments: 5.1. Experimental data set\n6. Conclusions: This paper describes a new tracking and summarization system for web news topics. In this system, we proposed a new measurement scheme for words, TF-Density, and a new summarization algorithm. This system can track the news according to different topics and deliver summarizations of the topic to help readers understand topics more quickly. It also provides the information regarding cause and effect in a news topic to readers.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to design and implement new tracking and summarization algorithms for Chinese news content. Based on the proposed methods and algorithms, the authors extract the important sentences that are contained in topic stories and list those sentences according to timestamp order to ensure ease of understanding and to visualize multiple news stories on a single screen.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper encompasses an investigational approach that implements a new Dynamic Centroid Summarization algorithm in addition to a Term Frequency (TF)-Density algorithm to empirically compute three target parameters, i.e., recall, precision, and F-measure.\nFindings: The proposed TF-Density algorithm is implemented and compared with the well-known algorithms Term Frequency-Inverse Word Frequency (TF-IWF) and Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF). Three test data sets are configured from Chinese news web sites for use during the investigation, and two important findings are obtained that help the authors provide more precision and efficiency when recognizing the important words in the text. First, the authors evaluate three topic tracking algorithms, i.e., TF-Density, TF-IDF, and TF-IWF, with the said target parameters and find that the recall, precision, and F-measure of the proposed TF-Density algorithm is better than those of the TF-IWF and TF-IDF algorithms. In the context of the second finding, the authors implement a blind test approach to obtain the results of topic summarizations and find that the proposed Dynamic Centroid Summarization process can more accurately select topic sentences than the LexRank process.\nResearch limitations/implications: The results show that the tracking and summarization algorithms for news topics can provide more precise and convenient results for users tracking the news. The analysis and implications are limited to Chinese news content from Chinese news web sites such as Apple Library, UDN, and well-known portals like Yahoo and Google.\nOriginality/value: The research provides an empirical analysis of Chinese news content through the proposed TF-Density and Dynamic Centroid Summarization algorithms. It focusses on improving the means of summarizing a set of news stories to appear for browsing on a single screen and carries implications for innovative word measurements in practice.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Small businesses and risk contingent credit	[ "Small business finance", "Risk‐contingent credit", "Contingent claims", "Risk management", "Credit" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: Firms facing significant income volatility can be affected by downside risk such that return on assets (ROA) is insufficient to meet fixed financial obligations. While large corporations can circumvent this problem by issuing equity instead of taking on debt, small businesses generally do not have this option. Moreover, small businesses often cannot access bond markets to issue contingent claims debt instruments (e.g. commodity-linked bonds). Thus, a flexible credit solution is necessary for any small business facing high income volatility. Given small businesses account for more than half of private-sector employment and gross domestic product (GDP), credit constraints of small businesses are a significant economic issue[1].There is considerable literature that utilizes contingent claims approaches to credit risk and loan default by linking the payoff structure of a credit instrument to the value of an underlying asset (Schwartz, 1982; Cortazar and Schwartz, 1994; Ingersoll, 1982). For example, Miura and Yamauchi (1998), Atta-Mensah (2004) and O'Hara (1984) all provide models and discussion of commodity-linked bonds in a general context. Boyle and Schwartz (1977), Brennan and Schwartz (1977, 1979), Bacinello and Persson (2002) and Boyle and Tian (2008) discuss and provide models for valuing equity-linked life insurance or equity-linked annuities. Gray et al. (2007) show how sovereign debt with risk can be decomposed into options on fundamental assets that are highly correlated with sovereign credit risk, providing a structure for risk transfer. There also are some limited applications of agricultural commodity-linked instruments. Applications have been applied to agricultural risks in developing economies with a general focus on sovereign debt (Jin and Turvey, 2002; Turvey, 2006; Priovolis, 1987; Anderson et al., 1989; Myers and Thompson, 1989; Myers, 1992; Claessens and Duncan, 1993; Lu and Neftci, 2008). Related applications to weather and catastrophe bonds include Chantarat et al. (2008), Turvey (2008), and Xu et al. (2008).This paper develops a risk-contingent credit instrument that ameliorates exogenous income risk faced by small businesses that do not have the ability to issue equity or bond instruments. We demonstrate that structured credit products with an imbedded contingent claim or option can effectively reduce or eliminate financial risks by providing payouts that decrease the amount of principal and/or interest that the firm must repay under low income states. Moreover, the product can eliminate a significant agency issue that exists when/if small businesses hedge using commodity markets. Formulas for risk-contingent operating and collateralized loans are developed and simulated in the context of a specific sector of the agricultural industry; the dairy industry[2]. However, these products could be utilized by any small business with limited access to equity and/or bond markets and high income volatility which is linked to a commodity or derivative market. A number of non-agricultural small businesses also face commodity and/or weather related income risk (Mattioli and Needleman, 2011).The overall objective of this paper is to provide a means to mitigate exogenous income risk faced by firms through the design and application of a risk-contingent credit product that is tied to primary markets and simple to implement. In this context, risk contingency credit refers to a suite of financial products with payoff schedules (loan principal) that are linked to specific commodities or indices. We are in fact unaware of any commercial financial products of the type considered in this paper and thus our approach is a prescriptive solution to the identified problem. This paper addresses issues of not only finance scholars but also commercial and agricultural banks, insurance companies, investment banks, and other front line financial practitioners.\n2 Business risk, financial risk, and risk-contingent credit: Large corporations can issue equity to by-pass problems associated with high income volatility. However, small businesses generally do not have access to equity or bond markets. While many small businesses are not affected by price volatility, there are a substantial number of small business sectors that face significant income volatility. Specifically, there are many agricultural and non-agricultural small businesses that have commodity and/or weather related business risk (see Table I for specific examples). Hence, numerous business areas could utilize the proposed application of risk-contingent credit.Before proceeding to risk-contingent credit, we review conceptually the relationship between business and financial risks[3]. The starting point is the expected return on equity (ROE) and its relationship to the expected ROA and capital structure with weights for assets (A) and debt (D) as a proportion of equity (E): Equation 1 Total risk is defined by: Equation 2 and differentiating total risk gives the relationship between business and financial risk: Equation 3 The first part of the right hand side in equation (3) captures the change in business risk and this is added to the second term which captures financial risk. Not only does debt leverage higher expected returns in ROE, but also it leverages business risk. In other words, as business risks increase, the variability in ROE will increase linearly with financial leverage. Likewise as debt increases relative to equity, holding business risk constant, total risk will increase accordingly.Using equation (3) we can define financial risk as the incremental increase in the variability of ROE due to financial leverage. An alternative but equivalent definition of financial risk can be defined by setting equation (1) equal to 0 and solving for the breakeven ROA. We refer to this as the critical ROA: Equation 4 The significance of the critical ROA is that it defines the boundary in probability at which fixed financial obligations cannot be met through operating income. We define financial risk as the probability that the ROA will fall below the critical ROA: Equation 5 In equation (5) the probability distribution of the ROA is an amalgam of conditional risks tied to price (p) and other random factors (x) that are exogenous to the firm. In this context, financial risk increases as the interest rate and the debt to asset leverage ratio increase[4].To reduce financial risk as defined by equation (5), businesses can reduce debt, seek lower interest rates, or reduce the tails in f (ROA\|p, x). This can be accomplished through a variety of mechanisms including diversification, forward contracting, hedging with futures, or hedging with options. Forward contracts and futures will reduce probabilities in the upper and lower tails while options will reduce probabilities in the lower tails [put (call) option hedge against a price decrease (increase)].2.1 Additional benefits of risk-contingent credit\n3 Risk-contingent credit case study: agriculture - the New York State dairy industry: 3.1 Industry background\n4 Concluding remarks: The rising number of small businesses facing financial stress is an important issue that requires new financial products to better meet the needs of businesses while simultaneously reducing the credit risk to lenders. The types of credit products discussed in this paper offer a risk transfer mechanism that could provide significant stability to credit markets for small businesses. Using the New York dairy industry as an example, we have shown how structured financial products can be designed to balance both the business and financial risks. Although these products come with a higher interest rate, their potential to reflect the true market price of risk is beneficial to both borrowers and lenders alike. Removing income risk can beneficially improve credit demand since pledged collateral comes with much lower risk of loss. Moreover, lenders can increase supply to these types of borrowers due to the lower credit risk.For high volatility commodities the risk premium and interest rate would be higher than those reported here. Nonetheless, the increase in marginal rates on operating loans would still be below prevailing credit card rates. In the specific case of the dairy industry, the marginal cost of risk-contingent credit is less than 1 percent higher because of the time value of money and future payments. Nonetheless, we have shown that, across all possible states of nature, the average rate of interest after options indemnities have been paid is precisely the same as the loans without risk transfer.While small businesses do have other alternatives for risk mitigation, the products discussed have lower information and transaction costs which can be advantageous to small business owners. Furthermore, it has been shown that in certain industries (e.g. agriculture), small business owners that derive a higher percent of income from their small business, hedge less than those who derive a lower percent of income from their small business (Dorfman and Karali, 2010).There are important institutional considerations with regard to the product described in this paper. In the absence of regulatory changes for deposit taking institutions, this product would require a third party financial institution to originate and underwrite the structured financial product that could then be retailed through commercial lenders. While this third party provider could be either private or public, it would need to be regulated and/or insured by the government. Since small businesses are often the engine driving economic recoveries, this could be a useful government mechanism to spur economic growth.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - Firms facing significant income volatility can often suffer from downside risk such that return on assets is insufficient to meet fixed financial obligations. The purpose of this paper is to provide a prescriptive credit solution for small businesses facing exogenous income risk.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Formulas for risk-contingent operating and collateralized loans are developed and simulated in the context of a specific business sector.\nFindings: - The paper demonstrates that a structured credit product with an imbedded option can reduce or eliminate financial risks by providing payouts that decrease the amount of principal and/or interest that firms must repay under low income states.\nOriginality/value: - The overall objective of this paper is to provide a means to mitigate exogenous income risk faced by firms through the design and application of a risk-contingent credit product that is tied to primary markets and simple to implement. In this context, risk contingency credit refers to a suite of financial products with payoff schedules (loan principal) that are linked to specific commodities or indices. The authors are in fact unaware of any commercial financial products of the type considered in this paper and thus their approach is a prescriptive solution to the identified problem.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Literature review on design terror mitigation for facility managers in public access buildings	[ "Design", "Terrorism", "Facilities", "Disasters", "Property management" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nBackground: The target of terrorist groups is shifting from iconic buildings or structures to soft (unsecured and easily accessible) targets where a large number of people gather, like transportation systems and facilities, business and shopping centers, public spaces, schools, libraries, and hospitals (Decker, 2001; Gilbert et al., 2003; Fischer and Green, 2004; Sternberg and Lee, 2006). Then and Loosemore (2006a, b) assert that most buildings are subject to risk associated with:* premises;* personnel;* equipment; and* data, information, and knowledge.Since facility managers are responsible for the management of the buildings within an organization, their duties often incorporate activities such as planning, providing, and managing its security. In fact, this aspect is becoming an increasingly important feature of facility management (Then and Loosemore, 2006a, b). It is, therefore, important to identify the potential areas of terror risks and to create measures to reduce or eliminate such risks.This study involves an extensive literature review, including government documents, reports, peer-reviewed journals, dissertations, and other literary sources. The paper is limited to the analysis of site perimeters, space between site boundaries and the building, and building perimeters. Literature is analyzed in order to not only identify potential risks, but also to suggest recommendations to deal with security risks. Thus, the paper focuses on those parts in the literature on design terror mitigation that are relevant to the facility management community.\nLiterature review: Sternberg and Lee (2006) define facility as: \"a large and complex human occupied structure,\" and such structures may become the primary target for terrorist attacks because of their mass occupancy (Marshall, 2002). Elliott et al. (1992) discuss strategies that could protect built facilities from terror attacks, and they propose the following measures to ensure the security of a building protection through:* structural improvements, such as provision of structural members, joints, and prevention of progressive penetration;* legislation, codes, and standards, such as those governing setbacks, occupancy, material use, emergency preparedness, and standoff distance; and* building arrangements in planning and design, such as orientation, facade, standoff distance, physical barriers, natural barriers, and camouflaging primary structural members.Sagun et al. (2008) reveal that the design of the exterior facade, the site and its environment has an impact on the security level of a building, as these affect entrances, exits and circulation, which eventually govern the chances of forced vehicular entry into the site.The concept of crime prevention through environmental design\nResearch methods: For the purpose of this study, the qualitative research approach was chosen to collect, summarize, and interpret the data. In qualitative research, data are collected from different sources and evaluated in hierarchy to form new concepts and theories (Holliday, 2007). The data collection should be completed objectively and as comprehensively as possible for later interpretation purposes (Silvermann, 2000). Wolcott (2001) summarizes the significant implications of qualitative research:* It involves structuring multiple-choice criteria into a hierarchy.* It assesses the importance of considered criteria with respect to the major concerns of the study.* It involves both subjective and objective evaluation measures, thus reducing bias results in decision making.* The nature of this type of research is exploratory and open ended. Specifically, literature analysis involving peer-reviewed journal articles, dissertations, selected government and private organization documents, and reports is implemented in this study.As stated earlier, limited research has been conducted on facility managers' responsibilities to act or to prepare in case of a terror attack. The following benefits are identified, considering the implications of the qualitative research approach:* Multiple organizations' guidelines are studied. These guidelines state issues related to terror mitigation, and therefore, it will possibly help to identify the hierarchy of problems associated with these attacks.* Objective measures, based on the literature study, can be provided.* Based on the study, exploratory recommendations may guide facility managers to reduce the vulnerability of their buildings to terror attacks.Based on the literature, security strategies are driven by concerns about the operation of safe business; safety of staff, people, and security systems; and management, education, and supervision of the FM department's staff. Guidelines relating to security techniques, stated by FEMA, CPTED, the American Institute of Architects (as viewed by Demkin, 2004), and other state or federal organizations are chosen for the purpose of this study because of the following reasons:* they are all federally recognized and/or sponsored organizations;* they update databases related to security and safety on a regular basis; and* they incorporate details and strategies, as developed by other federally recognized organizations, such as the Critical Infrastructure Protection, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Operationally Critical Threat, Asset, and Vulnerability Evaluation, and the Office of Emergency Preparedness.Peer-reviewed journal articles, security reports from building consultants, books, and reports from overseas organizations are also included in order to attain a holistic literature review.Data related to the identification of risks, identification of consequences based on risks, and formation of strategies were collected from the guidelines provided by literary sources mentioned earlier, which refer to terror mitigation methods and techniques. Furthermore, the following concerns were of prime importance while collecting the information related to terror mitigation identifying:* methods and techniques within the scope of work of facility managers;* facility design and security planning criteria where facility managers play an important role during the operation and maintenance phases; and* post construction technological security and safety issues related to management and operations of facilities, and to the public safety.Four components of a facility were characterized as, vehicular and pedestrian circulation, surface parking and perimeter, utility systems, and building envelope. These components are related to the first and second lines of defense mentioned in the literature section. The purpose of choosing these four components was to cover the security aspects of site perimeter and building envelope of a facility in relation to terror attack, as these components could prove to be vital in governing the security level of a facility. As stated earlier, this study focuses on the areas around the proximity of a building, where the initial contacts with terrorists are made in a terror attack. FEMA (2003a), CPTED (2005) and Demkin (2004) have identified certain factors that govern the defensive nature of the facility. For this study, three aspects are identified, which are explored further in greater depth: site planning and building design, security planning, and surveillance of the building. Site planning and building design refer to the location of the facility in dense urban areas, entries and circulation, placement of activities, shape and form, and elements and materials used for construction. The security planning is studied in terms of the provision of required standoff distance and physical barriers. The surveillance of the building is reviewed in terms of site monitoring, site lighting, and site signage.\nFindings: The results are arranged in three tables that focus on the first two lines of defense, namely:1. Site perimeter, described in terms of circulation, parking and other perimeter areas, and utility areas.2. Building envelope. Three aspects of building planning are studied and presented for each of the four components mentioned earlier that are:* planning and design of a building and its site;* security planning; and* surveillance on site and within the building perimeter.Findings are presented in the form of potential risks identified by the literature in order to identify critical areas that need to be considered by facility managers.Risks and measures related to site planning and building design\nConclusions: One of the most crucial strategies suggested by the literature on the topic of design terror mitigation is to avoid and deter the terror attack before it reaches the main building. The first line of defense provides excellent opportunities to deter a terror attack. The second line of defense provides not only security to the core areas, but also holds potential for reducing damage due to such attacks. This paper resulted from a literature review study that was conducted from a point of view of a facility manager, as it identifies risks, presents literature recommendations, and suggests critical issues that the authors believe should be considered by facility managers in public accessed buildings.This paper provides a list of 42 recommended items, based on an extensive review of literature, for four key areas of a facility: vehicular and pedestrian circulation, surface parking and perimeter, utility systems, and building and envelope. These four components of a facility represent various lines of defense suggested by previous research in the field of design terror mitigation. The first line of defense incorporates the areas between the boundary and the building, as represented in vehicular and pedestrian circulation, and surface parking and perimeter. The second line of defense is the building envelope and the perimeter areas, addressed by utility systems, and building and envelope. These four components are studied in terms of planning and design of the facility, security planning, and surveillance of the facility.One of the most critical areas of a facility is the vehicular and pedestrian circulation that possesses potential for terrorist attacks because of the presence and the movement of vehicles and absence of restrictions. Explosive laden vehicle could be driven forcibly with intentions of ramming into the building and other occupied areas. Planning these areas with a security perspective, providing circulation routes with physical barriers to avoid forced entry, and categorizing and restricting certain circulation routes could effectively protect the facility from terror attacks.Parking and perimeter zones are typically located in the vicinity of the main building, thus, they are prone to acts of terror. Surface parking areas must be segregated and located sufficiently away from occupied areas of the facility through the provision of standoff distance. Landscape design and site planning could be helpful in providing effective security by creating barriers in the form of interesting features of the site. The standoff between the site boundary and the building consists of the perimeter areas that need to be secured against terror attacks.One prime target of terrorists is the utility system of a facility, which, if disrupted, could be more damaging to ongoing operations. A utility zone provides the opportunity to penetrate the building easily because of a low level of security and surveillance. Strategies like minimization of signage identifying critical utility areas, redundant utility systems, proper concealment of utility lines and increased surveillance could help provide a higher level of security to the facility.The building envelope forms the second line of defense to the occupied areas of the building; as such, it must be designed carefully in order to minimize damage. Design of the envelope and selection of materials used in the envelope skin could control the impact of a terror attack on the building. The material must be placed along the building's perimeter in such a way that it forms a cover to protect the building's core areas.This paper reviews and summarizes the literature available in the area of terror attack mitigation. It outlines potential risks, as well as a list of possible recommendations on how these risks can be effectively addressed. By concentrating on the aspects that are relevant to facility managers of public buildings, this paper creates a rough draft which can be further developed in future and continuing studies. Although each building is significant and unique in terms of its characteristics, functions, and needs, it is still important that facility management teams be able to draw a security measures picture for the top decision makers.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to identify key risks that are posed to the security of a site and building perimeters in the first and second lines of defense against terrorism, and are relevant to facility managers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A qualitative approach to the literature review was applied. This involved an extensive literature search of existing peer-reviewed research papers, as well as state and federal reports to mark crucial issues relating to the security of a facility. Strategies to deal with the critical issues pertaining to the security of a facility were reviewed, based on the literature.\nFindings: - The paper identifies major security risks suggested by the literature and lists strategies to address those risks. The paper also proposes recommendations made by the literature; their implementation may provide a higher level of security to key areas located in the first and second lines of building defense.\nPractical implications: - The site and building perimeter areas that offer great potential for avoiding and deterring terror attacks are often neglected in terms of security planning, which seriously hampers efforts to provide an enhanced level of security to the facility. The paper points out these areas and major security issues related to them, so they can be taken care of by design professionals as well as facility managers.\nOriginality/value: - The paper provides a comprehensive and detailed review of various aspects tied to the security level of critical areas of the building and site perimeters that could be useful to facility managers of critical facilities.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
A social role perspective on trust repair	[ "Gender", "Trust" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Trust, or willingness to be vulnerable based on an assessment of ability, integrity and benevolence (Mayer et al., 1995), plays a central role in organizations (Dirks and Ferrin, 2002; Dirks et al., 2009; Mayer et al., 1995; Urquhart, 2001; Webber et al., 2012). Scholars have only recently begun to examine trust repair, the efforts to restore trust following a perceived violation (Dirks et al., 2009). Kim et al. (2004) found apologizing is more likely to repair trust for ability-related violations (e.g. submitting typo-riddled reports), while denying responsibility is better for integrity-related violations (e.g. submitting falsified reports). If the transgressor apologizes, internal attributions that accept responsibility are best for ability-related violations, while external attributions that blame outside factors are best for integrity-related violations (Kim et al., 2006).\nLiterature review and conceptual background: Trust and trust repair\nSocial role theory and hypothesis statements: Social role theory suggests agentic traits which \"describe primarily an assertive, controlling, and confident tendency\" (e.g. independence, competitiveness) are consistent with a masculine role, while communal traits which \"describe primarily a concern with the welfare of other people\" (e.g. kindness, sensitivity) are consistent with a feminine role (Eagly et al., 2003, p. 783). Gender roles contain descriptive elements about what men and women are like, and prescriptive elements about what they should be like (Eagly, 1987; Eagly and Karau, 2002).\nDiscussion: This paper introduces a conceptual model which examines gender differences in trust repair through the lens of social role theory. Gender-incongruent violations may exacerbate the backlash for breaching trust, particularly in masculine cultures with strict role expectations (Hofstede, 1998) and in gender-incongruent job roles. Apologizing with gender-congruent attributions (internal attributions for men, external attributions for women) may be most successful. Because people make attributions about benevolence in a way that is similar to integrity (Conchie et al., 2011), denying responsibility for benevolence-based violations or apologizing with external attributions may work best (Kim et al., 2004, 2006).\nConclusion: In order to develop a more complete understanding, researchers must consider not only what Mayer et al.'s (1995) insightful model reveals, but what important factors may have been excluded (Parra et al., 2011). Violations and efforts to repair trust are extremely common. Social role theory opens meaningful avenues for research and may lead to fairer outcomes inside and outside of organizations.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to apply insights from social role theory to trust repair, highlighting the underexplored implications of gender. Trust repair may be more difficult following violations that are incongruent with the transgressor's gender role.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper reviews research on trust repair, particularly Kim et al.'s (2004, 2006) discovery that apologizing with internal attributions is best for ability-related violations and denying responsibility is best for integrity-related violations. Propositions about trust repair are grounded in attribution and social role theory.\nFindings: Trust violations may incur a bigger backlash when they are incongruent with gender roles, particularly for individuals in gender-incongruent professions and cultures with low gender egalitarianism. Men may find ability-related violations more difficult to repair. Women may find repairing benevolence and integrity-related violations more difficult. When apologies are offered, attributions that are consistent with gender roles (internal attributions for men, external attributions for women) may be most effective.\nPractical implications: Gender can be a relevant factor in trust repair. Policies and training addressing conflict should consider how these differences manifest.\nOriginality/value: Gender role differences have largely been overlooked in trust repair. By integrating social role theory and exploring benevolence-based violations, this paper offers a more complete understanding of trust repair.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Realizing the potential of interdisciplinarity in accounting research	[ "Interdisciplinarity", "Interdisciplinary accounting research", "Approaches to accounting research" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: There is rhetorical encouragement for interdisciplinarity within some academic circles. This encouragement tends to be based on a belief that interdisciplinarity will help researchers develop compelling new insights, although how it will do so is not always made clear. Neither is it always clear what constitutes interdisciplinary research.\nThe interdisciplinarity continuum: An obvious starting point for a discussion of interdisciplinarity in accounting research is an explanation of what we mean when we refer to a discipline. We are not here referring just to broad disciplines, such as management or accounting. Rather, we take the disciplinarity within interdisciplinarity to mean different schools of thought that have been established in the academic literature, often from fields outside accounting. Our understanding of the term interdisciplinarity is informed by a definition from the Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity which states that: \"interdisciplinarity covers both the integration of knowledge across disciplines, narrow and wide, and the intercourse between (inter)disciplines and society\" (Frodeman et al., 2012, p. xxx).\nInstitutional impediments to interdisciplinarity: Having made a case for furthering interdisciplinarity to extend beyond field-level interdisciplinarity, we now move to consider whether institutional arrangements in higher education foster or hinder such developments. In common with others, we have observed broad impediments to interdisciplinarity from such institutional arrangements. Many of these relate to a short term, \"paying-off mentality\" (Gendron, 2014) that now pervades many parts of accounting academia.\nRole and potential of AAAJ in fostering interdisciplinarity: Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal (AAAJ) has been at the forefront of fostering the development of interdisciplinary work in accounting. Given the issues discussed above, and the need for a journal to work with material that is available (as well as encouraging new material) the interdisciplinarity fostered by AAAJ has been largely at the field level. Encouraging further work of the nature suggested above, with interdisciplinarity within individual studies, would allow AAAJ to demonstrate even more clearly its commitment to innovative perspectives upon, and approaches to, accounting research topics. Our tentative suggestions should, however, not be read as part of \"a fad driven demand for theory\" (Guthrie and Parker, 2014, p. 8) but as a call for more openness to discovering new theoretical insights that satisfy a desire for both scientific and pragmatic usefulness. We are not advocating development of theory for theory's sake, that can be seen as a form of mere intellectual self-gratification.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the meaning of interdisciplinarity in accounting research and the possible benefits of moving toward a more integrated interdisciplinary approach. It also examines the drawbacks and institutional impediments to such a move.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper draws upon and synthesizes the authors' experiences of involvement in the interdisciplinary accounting community over the past two decades.\nFindings: The paper distinguishes between interdisciplinarity at the field level and interdisciplinarity within individual studies. Noting a lack of study-level interdisciplinarity within accounting research, it explores the potential for novel insights emerging from encouragement of such an approach.\nResearch limitations/implications: Institutional impediments to study-level interdisciplinarity need to be addressed if the accounting academy is to realize the potentially powerful benefits and social contribution of such an approach to research. A key limitation is that the paper is based primarily on the observations and perspectives of the authors.\nOriginality/value: The paper provides a distinction between field-level and study-level interdisciplinarity.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
The pond for markets: social and local	[ "Financial markets", "Stock exchanges", "Liquidity", "Globalization" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nBig liquidity pools from social, local ponds: Sitting above the Monte Carlo Casino in September 2007 watching Patrick Young's Exchange Invest Conference in Monaco, you find that the new \"stock exchanges\" of the future are an interesting bunch. New exchanges get their start because existing exchanges do not care about small, local markets. At the conference, Lamon Rutten described the firm of which he is Joint Managing Director, India's Multi Commodity Exchange (www.mcxindia.com), trading daily over $1.5 billion. MCX announced in February 2008 that is has agreed to sell 5 percent of itself to NYSE for $55 million. Not bad for a firm less than five-years old that distributes prices via bicycle as well as the internet. Existing exchanges ignore seemingly small and peculiar exchange opportunities. In the UK, Betfair (www.betfair.com), an online betting exchange less than a decade old has grown to be worth more, and have more transactions by volume, than the London Stock Exchange founded in 1761.While the larger, older financial exchanges talk about \"global liquidity pools,\" the newer exchanges focus on helping their customers get better prices with lower transaction costs. They are also quite innovative at finding new customer needs. For example, there is a plethora of \"prediction markets\" hoping to capitalize on \"The Wisdom of Crowds.\" Some will become quite large. InnoCentive (www.innocentive.com) is a new stock exchange that connects scientists and engineers (solvers) with cash prizes for finding solutions to corporate (seekers) technology problems.\nSocial exchanges: The new exchanges are social in two senses, they promote more direct social interaction and they are often socially responsible. For example, Kiva (www.kiva.org) is a social exchange that helps people lend to small entrepreneurs in the developing world in order to help them escape poverty. A New York Times article of January 27, 2008 by Rob Walker, \"Extra helping\", points out that Kiva and other similar initiatives are overwhelmed by donors. Intriguingly, in the developed world too there are several analogous exchanges for people who want to lend directly to other people, e.g. the UK's Zopa (www.zopa.com - a P2P/peer-to-peer social money lending service) or the USA's Prosper (www.prosper.com - an online auction site for borrowers and lenders). Zopa and Prosper are really just first-world micro-finance organizations, emulating Muhammad Yunus' Grameen Bank and its third-world lending in the developed world.People want to lend and invest within their communities. The problem is that \"community\" is many things, ranging from lending to people with similar ethnic, gender, or religious biases, to investing locally. Sure, every market starts small, and the most successful rise stratospherically, but an interesting thing to note is the resurgence of \"locality\". In the UK, a host of regional exchanges died by the 1980s as trading centered on London. In the USA, a century ago, there were hundreds of stock exchanges, but things consolidated on a handful of national platforms. This national consolidation is not just competitive success, or \"liquidity begets liquidity,\" it is frequently driven by regulatory or legislative forces that believe centralization, consolidation or size are important to regional or national success.\nLocal exchanges: Yet, geographic risk is real. If you want to invest wisely, it can make a lot of sense to invest in firms you see daily. As you pass by, you can see the customers' cars or bicycles, you meet the employees socially, you can tell whether the firm is well off, or not. Studies of venture capitalist investment note that there is a bias for successful investments to be closer to the headquarters. This makes sense. Geographic proximity reduces uncertainty by improving information quality and interpretation. The \"local\" venture capitalist knows more things of more relevance, and makes better investment decisions as a result. A simple, but real, example, when accompanying one venture capitalist on a tour of a potential foreign investment he remarked at how \"quiet\" the local economy seemed, not realizing that it was a local religious holiday. He declined to invest in what turned out to be a fantastic company.Often unremarked is the scale and organization of local barter networks or exchanges (e.g. www.nationaltradebanc.com or www.itex.com), but equally there are significant moves to create local exchanges for investors. In the UK, the regional development agency for the west midlands (i.e. the Birmingham area), Advantage West Midlands, has fought regulatory battles to get permission for a pilot project to build a local investment exchange, the LBX project. The basic idea is to promote investment opportunities in the region by matching local investors with local companies. It may sound strange, but it is hard to find local investment opportunities in a national or international environment. You can google investment opportunities half-a-world away, but not realize that the same opportunity might exist locally, around the corner from your house or office.\nThe pond for markets: So, what can we anticipate? First, many of the so-called third-world or developing economy micro-finance models seem equally appropriate in the developed world. The developed world has its poverty too. Moreover, if necessity is the mother of invention, look to the third-world for inspiration. So, expect more application of third-world ideas in first-world contexts, e.g. mobile-telephony-based exchange applications developed in Africa moving to the streets of New York city or London.Second, exchanges need to promote more social and local interaction. Too many exchanges believe that globalization should reduce social interaction. Actually, the more social interaction exchanges can provide, the more likely they are to keep their customers. Barry Fineberg promotes \"spatial ordering: communities of interest at appropriate levels of need\" as important for sanity as well as investment. Technology can help here, using geo-referencing and networking tools to create micro-clubs, but the human aspect is real people meeting other real people, not just cyber-bots transacting with avatars. So, expect to see as much investment directed towards social networking and tools, e.g. interest group meetings, conferences, or magazines, as towards trading technology investment.Finally, creative destruction shall continue, and existing exchanges need to think more like publishing firms than trading firms. In publishing, large publishers accept that among the numerous small new titles there will be some major successes. A successful large publisher needs an excellent scouting process that identifies winners early on, approaches them, and successfully consolidates them before the competition. The largest publishers follow a \"portfolio\" model, not a corporate delivery model. It is clear that many exchanges are already following a portfolio acquisition model. There are far too many exchange opportunities left, wherever risk or opportunity can be exchanged, direct peer-to-peer insurance, peer-to-peer pensions, property exchanges ... for any existing exchange to try and develop them all in-house. Just as many exchanges have abandoned the \"mutual\" model for the corporate model, so too do many need to move on and swap the corporate model for the portfolio model.Some of the new small ponds will attract enough liquidity to become great lakes. In turn, they will attract the attention of the biggest exchanges. Customers may want scale in technology and reach, but they also want it hidden behind a local face. Looking forward to Exchange Invest Monaco 2008, the challenge for exchanges will remain, as ever, \"to think global, act local, be social.\"\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to offer a commentary on new stock exchanges in the financial markets.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The approach is a critical commentary on new exchanges in the market and how they continue to evolve.\nFindings: - Existing exchanges need to continue to evolve though the key task for exchanges remains \"to think global, act local, be social.\"\nOriginality/value: - This commentary reflects on how established exchanges and investment focused on the global market where as newer established have found their place by not neglecting the local markets. It also offers an insight into the future of stock exchanges across the globe.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Once you can fake sincerity ...	[ "Authenticity", "Millennial Generation", "Generation X", "Crowdsourcing", "Advertising", "Internet", "Algorithms" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The advertising-media symbiosis by which advertising firms have for a century or more placed ads in newspapers, on television, and on the radio seems to be breaking down.\nCorresponding author: Patrick B. Marren can be contacted at: marrenp@aol.com\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine a new and possibly serious problem facing marketers and business in general - the breakdown of the marriage of media and advertising, and the concurrent perceived imperative for companies to achieve \"authenticity.\"\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Essay.\nFindings: - The breakdown of the advertising business model, and the rise of new, more powerful technological ways to contact customers, make it far more difficult for marketers to reach their customers without repelling them; a new way forward has not yet been found (or if it has, no one's talking).\nOriginality/value: - Examines these issues in what is hoped to be a unique way.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Information technology utilization for industrial marketing activities: the IT-marketing gap	[ "Information technology", "Database marketing", "Contemporary marketing practice", "Interaction marketing", "Network marketing", "Transaction marketing" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Industrial firms have for a long time endeavoured to gain a comprehensive overview of their business activities as well as of their customers and suppliers (Anjard, 1995). Information technology (IT) systems can support internal coordination of marketing and purchasing activities that are beneficial for the customer-focused company (Fournier and Avery, 2011; Trainor et al., 2011; Sheth et al., 2009). Gardiner et al. (2002) argue that integrated company-wide IT systems can speed up marketing cycles and enhance customer service, which can be beneficial for the relationship-oriented and networking company (Achrol and Kotler, 1999). To fully support an industrial firm's business, its IT systems must:\n2. Industrial IT systems and marketing practice: This review begins with a discussion of IT in industrial firms, the nature of different IT systems and how firms adopt IT. This is followed by a section discussing the CMP framework in which each marketing approach is related to how an IT system would need to be structured to support that marketing practice.\n3. A case study approach: The empirical portion of this study was carried out as an in-depth case study. The choice of the case study method is based on the underlying aim of the study, which is to challenge and expand the current knowledge on how IT systems are used in relation to industrial firms' marketing practice. The case study is considered suitable when researchers aim for a deeper understanding of a contemporary phenomenon (Yin, 2009), while it also offers a contextual awareness (Halinen and Tornroos, 2005; Holmlund, 2004; Johnston et al., 1999; Bonoma, 1985). Thus, the case study methodology is a suitable approach to obtaining an in-depth view of how IT systems are used for an industrial firm's practical marketing activities. A case study approach makes it possible to collect rich information from a single focal organization (Yin, 2009; Woodside and Wilson, 2003). Johnston et al. (1999) also stress that case studies may have greater influence on marketing managers than surveys, i.e. the new knowledge a case study offers is also easily transferred to managerial practice. As this study's aim and research questions require a deeper understanding of the role of IT in an industrial firm's marketing practice, the case study approach is applicable.\n4. Results and discussion: The following presentation and discussion evolves around the IT utilization and marketing behaviours that are evident in the empirical material. This section is structured following the CMP framework (Table I) and presents findings relating to each marketing practice (transaction, database, interaction and network marketing).\n5. Conclusions: The aim of this study is to offer an alternative understanding of why the potential of industrial firms' IT systems is not fully realized. The study is based upon the assumption that industrial firms' relationship-oriented marketing practice is not aligned with the logic of the IT that is used. To achieve this understanding, we propose an alternative use of the CMP framework (Coviello et al., 1997, 2002; Brodie et al., 2007) that is used to analyze and evaluate how the IT systems used correspond to the firm's marketing practice. The results have both theoretical and practical (managerial) implications and indicate the need for further studies of industrial firms' IT utilization.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: This study aims to investigates the possible gap between the logic of these information technology (IT) systems and industrial firms' marketing practices. Industrial firms rely extensively on IT systems for their business.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on the contemporary marketing practice (CMP) model, which depicts firms' marketing practice as ranging from transactional to more relational and networked-based, the logic of IT systems and how users in industrial firms adopt them are amended to create an extended model. The extended model is used to analyze an in-depth case based on 63 interviews regarding one industrial firm's business with customers and suppliers and how IT is utilized in this setting.\nFindings: Results show that industrial firms' relationship-oriented business is poorly supported by currently used IT systems. This gap between the IT systems, which are transaction-focused, and industrial firms' marketing practice, which is relationship-based, has severe effects on adoption and efficiency of IT systems. The marketers prefer local, non-integrated, IT with limited usefulness on an overall firm level while resisting the firms' comprehensive IT systems. This forms an IT-marketing gap given that current IT does not match the marketing practice of relationship-oriented industrial firms.\nOriginality/value: This study applies an extended CMP model in a novel way focusing one industrial firm, its customers and suppliers and the IT used in this setting. The study shows that all marketing practices of the CMP model can be found in one firm's business, albeit one category, i.e. interaction marketing (a relationship approach), is dominating. The use of the CMP framework offers new and valuable insights into the fundamental cause to the industrial marketers' limited use of integrated IT.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
What stories unfold: empirically grasping value co-creation	[ "Value co-creation", "Service-dominant logic", "Customer-dominant logic", "Customer sphere", "Narrative methodology" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Value creation, value co-creation, value formation. The on-going discussion in a service research about the concept of value is motivated in general by customer-centricity in the research field (Alam and Perry, 2002) and specifically by the role of the customer in the process of value creation (Rihova et al., 2013; Bharti et al., 2015). The discussion centres on the locus of value creation, based on distinctions between value-in-exchange, value-in-use, value-in-context and value-in-experience (Gronroos, 2008; Gummerus, 2013; Heinonen et al., 2013; Lusch and Vargo, 2014). The prevailing approaches share a broad perspective on value creation, but the concepts used, the meanings attached to them and the choices of methodology are still somewhat blurred (Tronvoll et al., 2011; Gummerus, 2013; Saarijarvi et al., 2013; Galvagno and Dalli, 2014). In particular, the service-dominant logic (S-D logic) perspective introduced by Vargo and Lusch (2004), the service logic perspective applied by Gronroos (2008) and the customer-dominant logic (C-D logic) perspective presented by Voima et al. (2010) have all contributed to the discussion, using process-oriented views of value creation that take the customer sphere as the point of departure. This implies an understanding that service and value are embedded in context and interaction, which, according to Tronvoll et al. (2011), calls for a paradigmatic discussion. It is argued that the shift in focus from company to customer has implications for the unit of analysis (Edvardsson et al., 2011, Tronvoll et al., 2011). Thus, service research on value creation is now treading on the ground of the customer and seeking to understand value from a customer perspective, which is why it is acknowledged that more empirical studies are needed, especially ones based on an interpretative paradigm (Wager et al., 2012, Rihova et al., 2013).\nValue co-creation in service research: Service research originates from the assumption that service is essentially different from production, which is why there has been an on-going focus on developing a vocabulary for service that is not embedded in product terminology (Vargo and Lusch, 2004). The perspective of S-D logic attempts to broaden the perception of value and service by addressing the logic of economic exchange in marketing theory (Vargo and Lusch, 2004). As such, the S-D logic positions itself in relation to the prevailing paradigm, which Vargo and Lusch refer to as goods-dominant logic (G-D logic). In G-D logic, service is understood as an intangible good, as an add-on that increases the value of a good or as a unique sector (Vargo and Lusch, 2004). In contrast, Vargo and Lusch (2008a, p. 256) define service as \"the application of competences (knowledge and skills) for the benefit of another party\". Service is not seen as units of output (as it would be if G-D logic were applied) but as a process (Vargo and Lusch, 2008b). As a result, the S-D logic perspective seeks to transcend the dichotomy between goods and services by taking the stand that service is a process of exchange irrespective of whether the unit of exchange is tangible (goods) or intangible (services). This broad concept of service, in the singular, is meant to embrace the logic of exchange and to adopt a historical understanding of service as something that is both relational and interactional. The mind-set of the S-D logic, therefore, rests on the following four axioms:\nThe narrative imperative: In social research, narrative theory is based on the assumption that it is essential for human beings to share stories - a condition that is referred to as the \"narrative imperative\" (Riessman, 2008). Stories are, therefore, seen as a pre-condition for living as human beings and as one way, among others, of uniting people (Holstein and Gubrium, 2000). Hence, in a sociological perspective, a personal story or narrative is about social worlds (Jackson, 2013/2002). According to Labov (1997), a narrative consists of six elements: abstract, orientation, complication, evaluation, resolution and coda. Stories are, therefore, characterized by sequentiality, plot and temporality, insofar as a story reports a sequence of events to make a point and because the plot is what structures the story around the moments that unfold as the story is told (Polletta et al., 2011). An aspect of plot is that most plots are familiar to the audience even though the particular story seems unique. Drawing on a cultural base of plots, stories communicate normative values associated with these plots. Despite their normative aspect, narratives are open to multiple interpretations and for this reason differ from explanations, descriptions and statements that rely on logic and proof (Polletta et al., 2011). Furthermore, narrative theory underscores the constitutive aspect of narratives, with a distinct focus on \"storied experience, not experience per se\" (Presser and Sandberg, 2014, p. 6). Consequently, the interplay between stories and behaviour is acknowledged, not as cause and effect but as a relationship, because stories organize perceptions and might symbolically restructure experience (Jackson, 2013/2002). Across disciplines, a narrative methodology is applied to obtain insight into subjective experiences and perceptions. In organizational studies, narratives have been widely used in theorizing on strategy (Boje, 1995; Barry and Elmes, 1997), in exploring sense-making in organizations (Rosile et al., 2013) and in understanding network processes by emphasizing the interplay between structure and agency (Makkonen et al., 2012). In service research, the methodology is applied in service development and innovation, either as a way to identify and study prevailing innovation narratives (Halliday, 2008; Bartel and Garud, 2009) or as a technique to support new service ideas (Helkkula and Pihlstrom, 2010). Nevertheless, it seems that the use of narrative methodology to refine our understanding of value co-creation in the sphere of customers is still underexplored.\nMethodology: Narrative inquiry is a way of conducting case-centred research, and analytically refers to methods that interpret text with a storied form (Riessman, 2008). The texts, or accounts, are analytically treated as units - an aspect of narrative analysis that makes it different from other category-centred methods that distil data into coding units to make thematic categories. In contrast, narrative analysis focuses on particular accounts and looks into how different themes and the internal shape of these accounts construct experience (Silverman, 2011). Context therefore becomes essential in understanding how meaning is created. Important questions when doing narrative analysis are what kind of story is it? How does the narrator position himself? How does the narrator position characters in relation to each other and himself? What is the context of the story and what purpose does the story serve? Narrative interviewing therefore focuses on how to understand the phenomena at hand, and is takes a critical view of what is being said (Riessman, 2008).\nEmpirical findings and analysis: To understand the life-world of residents and what the residents perceive to be valuable in being tenants, the data analysis focused on both the overall perceptions of BSS and stories of specific service encounters as illustrations of the service relationship. The analysis revealed three different types of stories: individual stories, collective stories and universal stories (Table I). The axioms are the most recent revision of the original nine foundational premises of the S-D logic (Vargo and Lusch, 2004).\nDiscussion: Using the understanding of value co-creation from service research, the study underscores the multi-faceted aspects of value creation by showing how value is (de)-constructed and negotiated in the social worlds of residents. The case shows that the residents' value perceptions and experiences of service are interlinked with other residents' perceptions and experiences that are deeply embedded in time. As such, the case is an empirical illustration of the main point in the S-D logic that service is a dynamic process and that, as in the perception of the C-D logic, value emerges and accumulates over time. The point of departure was the customer sphere, highlighting how value is negotiated among the residents on the basis of their understanding of value as a positive and constructive relationship between themselves and the housing association.\nConcluding remarks: This paper has particularly taken the mind-sets on value co-creation from S-D logic and C-D logic as its point of departure. The aim of the research was to explore how a methodology rooted in an interpretative paradigm, namely, narrative analysis, might elucidate the process of customer value creation in long-term service relationships like those of BSS. The application of narrative methodology opened up the social world of residents and increased the understanding of value-in-context, in the sense of network surroundings and of value-in-experience by integrating the emotional and social aspects of value creation. Rooted in the sphere of the customer the analysis revealed, in addition, that the concept of value might be further explored and nuanced - in line with the discussions concerning value co-destruction and the positive connotations of the concept of value. Nevertheless, the analysis identified contextual sensibility, historical asymmetry and service as a relationship as key factors in understanding service from a customer point of view. These factors emphasize that companies might need to increase their focus on the social and relational aspects of the service relationship and not concentrate merely on functional technical service aspects and service encounters. Thus, the paper argues that the perception of value creation (or formation), as embedded in past and present experience and as giving shape to future expectations, makes narrative methodology an especially suitable analytical strategy. This is an argument based on the intrinsically temporal and social aspects of narratives.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The aim of this paper is to give an empirical illustration of value co-creation and to argue for narrative methodology as a fruitful analytical strategy when exploring the processes of value co-creation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Through an in-depth case study in the non-profit housing sector in Denmark, the research explored how residents perceive and co-create value in a long-term service relationship. The point of departure is an understanding of value co-creation as a phenomenological construct determined by the beneficiary, and the research is based primarily on the perspectives of service-dominant logic and customer-dominant logic.\nFindings: The research elucidated how value is both socially created and deconstructed through stories. Moreover, narrative analysis revealed how residents' perceptions of services are deeply embedded in context and time. In this way, the study highlighted that the co-creation of value is inherently social and temporal.\nPractical implications: Understanding how value is perceived and negotiated by customers might assist practitioners to refine their understanding of value co-creation and lead them to address customers in more nuanced ways.\nOriginality/value: Prevailing streams in service research on value co-creation argue for more studies and empirically grounded examples of value co-creation processes, especially those based in the customer sphere. This paper contributes to such an enhanced understanding of the process of value co-creation and gives the outline of a new methodology for studies in this specific area of service research.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Toward a behavioral theory of vision in organizational settings	[ "Visual perception", "Organizational performance", "Leadership" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The emphasis on leadership has since the 1980s shifted from traits and leader behaviors to the need for leaders to articulate visions to their followers, particularly those in organizations undergoing major change (e.g. Bass, 1990; Conger, 1991; Conger and Kanungo, 1987; Lucey et al., 2005). Vision itself has alternated from being construed as a faddish and trendy concept, and being viewed as a fundamental attribute of effective leadership, a basis of one's power to lead and a force field leaders can use as a formative influence (e.g. Kouzes and Posner, 1987; Wheatley, 1999; Zaccaro and Banks, 2004). Shared vision among organizational members is also said to be fundamental to network organizations of the future (Avery, 2004). More critically, researchers (e.g. Avery, 2005; Hamel and Prahalad, 1989) have asserted that an organization with a well-articulated vision can achieve sustained competitive advantage over those organizations lacking such a vision. Many leadership scholars have endorsed vision as fundamental to leadership, strategy implementation, and change (Avery, 2004; Collins and Porras, 1994; Doz and Prahalad, 1987; Humphreys, 2004; Hunt, 1991; Kotter, 1990; Robbins and Duncan, 1988; Sashkin, 1988). Clearly, the importance of vision has been emphasized by leadership scholars in both theoretical discussions (e.g. Avery, 2004; Maccoby, 1981; Peters, 1987; Slater, 1993) and research (e.g. Kantabutra, 2008b; Kantabutra and Avery, 2007; Kotter, 1990; Larwood et al., 1995). Time and time again, if a corporate leader is successful, his or her vision is cited as the cause and lauded as the foundation of the leader's greatness (Humphreys, 2004). Although some managers argue against visions as relevant to business performance (see Rynes et al., 2002), businesses need a purpose (Avery, 2005). Handy (2002) argues that the purpose of a business goes beyond making a profit, to something \"better\", a higher-level purpose.\nTheory development approach: According to DiMaggio (1995), there are at least three views of what a theory should be. The first view is that theories should consist of covering laws: generalizations that, taken together, describe the world as we see (or measure) it. The second view of theory, especially prominent in the social sciences influenced by the humanities, is as a device of sudden enlightenment with the purpose not to generalize, but serve as a tool to enlightenment. A theory from this perspective is indeed a set of categories and domain assumptions aimed at clearing away conventional notions to make room for artful and exciting insights. The third perspective views theory as an account of a social process, with emphasis on empirical tests of the plausibility of the narrative as well as careful attention to the scope conditions of the account. This approach simply requires that hypotheses detailing regularities in relations among variables be accompanied by plausible accounts of how the actions of real humans could produce the associations predicted and observed (Collins, 1981). Since theories from this perspective are often intuitive, they may employ references, diagrams or graphic presentations of data, as rhetorical devices to elicit epiphanies (DiMaggio, 1995).This paper proposes a vision theory for further refinement by combining the three approaches of covering-law, enlightenment, and process (DiMaggio, 1995). The development of the proposed vision theory will be based on existing theoretical concepts and empirical evidence (e.g. Laughlin, 1995; Parker and Roffey, 1997; Whetten, 1989). As Weick (1989) pointed out, theory building calls for comparing a diverse set of plausible conjectures so that highlighting can occur. These plausible conjectures can be logical, empirical, and/or epistemological (Whetten, 1989). Since theory building is an ever-evolving process, the proposed vision theory may be modified, as additional information becomes available (Beard, 2000). Theorizing has also been considered as the development of new propositions for empirical testing (Beard, 2000). In developing the proposed vision theory, an initial set of questions, propositions, and generalizations are formulated to guide future research (Kaplan, 1998).Accordingly, the following sections advance existing knowledge about vision by integrating findings and relevant concepts into a coherent theory of vision in organizational settings, attempting to make generalizations about characteristics of visions enhancing organizational performance, serve as a tool to enlightenment about the effect of each vision attribute on organizational performance, and explain the process by which each vision attribute creates an impact on organizational performance. An initial set of propositions about relationships between the seven vision attributes and organizational performance for further research is also generated.\nVision definition: Despite its apparent importance, vision is still not defined in a generally agreed upon manner (Kantabutra and Avery, 2002), which is critical because theorizing on vision may be affected by the various ways in which vision has been defined. Considerable disagreement also exists over whether terms like mission, goals, core values, strategy, and organizational philosophy differ from vision (Kantabutra, 2008a). Clearly, little agreement appears to exist among academics as to what \"vision\" is. The situation does not appear very different among practitioners, as they are equally confused with the titles of mission, vision, values, beliefs, principles and strategic intent/direction (Baetz and Bart, 1996).Taking a practical approach to resolve the definitional confusion, Baum et al. (1998) chose to define the term vision as each leader defines it, because it is the leader's actual vision that guides his/her choices and actions. Later on, Mumford and Strange (2005) suggest that vision is ultimately a cognitive construction or specifically a mental model, a conceptual representation used to both understand system operations and guide actions within the system. Most recently, Kantabutra (2008a) adapted Locke et al. (1991) and Mumford and Strange's (2005) by defining vision as a mental model that a leader defines, given that it is the actual mental model that guides his/her choices and actions. This vision definition is adopted in the present paper.\nVision theory: Senge (1990) argues that two types of vision exist: positive and negative visions. Negative visions limit in three ways: by diverting energy that could be put into something new into prevention; by carrying the message that the group only pulls together when it is threatened; and by being inevitably short term. In fact, negative visions are more common than positive ones. Despite the diverging views on how to define a vision, many leadership scholars appear to agree with Senge by providing different attributes seen to be necessary for a vision to be \"positive\". Among the proposed attributes, there are seven commonly shared attributes, as shown in Table I that includes definitions derived from Baum (1996), Baum et al. (1998) and Locke et al. (1991) who are among a few scholars studying the commonly shared vision attributes.Empirically, a few studies have investigated the positive effect of the seven vision attributes on organizational performance. Baum et al. (1998) are among the first group of researchers who investigated the relationship between the seven vision attributes and organizational performance in American new ventures. They found that vision attributes of brevity, clarity, future orientation, stability, challenge, abstractness, desirability or ability to inspire impacted venture growth positively, both directly and indirectly, via vision communication. Later research also endorses the seven vision attributes as attributes for effective visions. Kantabutra and Avery (2007) found in Australian retail stores that when one or more of vision attributes were removed, the remaining vision attributes rendered no significant effect on organizational performance. On the contrary, when all seven attributes were combined, the vision turned out to be an indirect predictor of improved store performance via customer and staff satisfaction in Thai retail stores (Kantabutra, 2008b).Although the seven vision attributes have gained empirical support as attributes for effective visions, how each attribute could impact organizational performance is little known. Filling in the gap of the prevailing vision-based leadership theories (Bass, 1990; Conger, 1989; Conger and Kanungo, 1987; Tichy and Devanna, 1986; Westley and Mintzberg, 1989), the following vision theory extends the previous studies on seven vision attributes by exhaustively explaining the process by which each attribute creates a positive impact on organizational performance initially through emotionally committed followers.Essentially, vision-based leaders depend on emotionally committed followers who accept and help to execute their vision (Daft, 2005), given that the source of followers' commitment comes from the influence of the leaders' charisma and/or the shared vision (Avery, 2004). Followers of a vision-based leader are not expected to be passive, but have a responsibility to participate in the group, work towards the vision and make their voices heard in influencing what is accomplished (Avery, 2004). When each follower understands and embraces a vision, the organization becomes self-adapting (Daft, 2005). Although each individual acts independently, everyone is working in the same direction. In doing so, followers' use of their leader's vision in guiding their work is central (e.g. Conger and Kanungo, 1988; Lipton, 1996; Senge, 1990; Sergiovanni, 1990; Shamir et al., 1993). One function of a vision is therefore to facilitate decision making, initiative, and discretion by followers at all levels (Yukl, 1998). Visions characterized by the seven vision attributes improve organizational performance initially through follower commitment to espousing the vision.The process by which each vision attribute, interactively with the other six vision attributes, creates a positive effect on organizational performance through emotionally committed followers is explained below. Eight propositions are also advanced accordingly.Vision brevity\nFuture research directions: Clearly, research is needed to explore the eight propositions. One critical area is to explore is whether visions characterized by brevity, clarity, abstractness, challenge, future orientation, stability, and desirability are associated with improvements in organizational performance than visions without these attributes, across different organization sizes and industries. This area of research indeed is a significant contribution to the leadership field, given that there has been limited research that has specifically addressed the relationship between leadership behavior and organizational performance (Jing and Avery, 2008). Suggested areas for measuring organizational performance are financial outcomes, process improvements, customer and employee satisfaction. Moreover, one could also explore the process by which each attribute creates an impact on organizational performance, and how the seven attributes interact to create such an impact. Of equal interest is to identify relative importance among the seven attributes. Findings from future research will enhance our understanding about vision attributes and further refine the proposed vision theory. Eventually, by means of repeating studies systematically, researchers can compare and contrast results generated from several focal areas (Tsang and Kwan, 1999). This will lead to further refinement of the theory concerned, and help to identify its boundary.\nConclusion: Filling in the gap among the prevailing vision-based leadership theories, the present vision theory asserts that seven vision attributes of brevity, clarity, challenge, stability, abstractness, future orientation, desirability or ability to inspire interact to create positive effects on organizational performance initially through emotionally committed followers. A vision that is too brief will not positively impact organizational performance unless it is clear to followers what needs to be done, or it may not appear to challenge followers to do their best. A clear vision does not positively influence follower commitment because it may be too lengthy, preventing a leader to communicate it massively and frequently. It also may be too abstract, therefore possibly creating conflicts among groups with different specific purposes and not allowing for individual creative interpretation among followers. A too specific vision makes it difficult to form an effective group to carry out the vision. Moreover, abstractness reflects stability in the vision because it implies no dramatic change over time. An unstable vision suggests to followers a serious lack of managerial integrity and commitment to the vision, negatively affecting follower morale. A vision that is brief, clear, abstract, challenging and stable will not draw follower commitment in working toward the vision unless the vision is also inspiring or desirable. In addition, when a vision is not inspiring or desirable, it is unlikely to nurture a shared vision, which is critical to organizational performance. An inspiring vision that is clear, brief, abstract, challenging, and stable will not be able to attract affective commitment from followers unless it offers a compelling view of a better future. Without a desirable future picture, followers are unlikely to be drawn from where they presently are to work toward the vision. Eight propositions are advanced accordingly. Future research directions have also been pointed out.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to propose a behavioral theory of organizational vision.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Based on existing theoretical concepts and empirical evidence, this new theory development compares a diverse set of plausible logical, empirical, and/or epistemological conjectures so that highlighting occurs to form the substance of the new vision theory.\nFindings: - The approach takes the form of an emerging vision theory, which explains how vision attributes create an impact on organizational performance.\nOriginality/value: - While vision is core to the prevailing vision-based leadership theories, little is theoretically and empirically known about attributes for effective vision. Moreover, there is no existing leadership theory, which explains the process by which vision attributes create positive effects on organizational performance. The paper proposes a vision theory to fill this gap.\n", "role": "assistant" } ]
Impacts for implementing SDGs: sustainable collaborative communities after disasters. The city of Macerata at the aftermath of the earthquake	[ "Public policy", "Sustainable development", "Risk management", "Learning organizations", "Strategic planning", "Organizational politics" ]	[ { "content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Sustainable development goals (SDGs), as the 2030 Agenda declares, are universal, ambitious and comprehensive. Implementing SDG means to deliver positive developments that would radically enhance the prospects for building peaceful, just and inclusive societies by leveraging on collaboration and cooperation between communities with creativity and innovation (United Nations Organisations, 2015). Yet, it is also possible that negative developments in some (or all) have the potential to derail SDGs. This is the case of disasters associated with natural hazards which have become more frequent during the past 20 years worldwide[1]. Between 1996 and 2015, the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) estimated a total of 8,104 disasters related to natural hazards across all continents, with 4.1 billion people affected by these events, which is almost twice the level recorded between 1976 and 1995. With over 1.5 billion people killed, the financial cost of these disasters amounted to over $2.1tn globally over the last two decades. Hence, because there is no precise knowledge about what may happen, there is the need for a sophisticated policy response of preparedness, investment and cooperation in order to create and co-create public value.\n2. Theoretical frameworks: 2.1 Transition as a theoretical approach\n3. Methodology: Resilience is necessarily specific to contexts - time, space, livelihood and shocks (resilience of who/what? to what?), but this precludes generic indicators of it, and therefore, makes comparisons difficult. Plus, the multi-scale, dynamic and multi-dimensional nature of resilience means that many standard survey instruments are ill-suited to measuring resilience in a holistic way (Bene et al., 2016).\n4. Results: The matrix above contains four elaborated models. In the first model, a regression analysis has been conducted by considering the social factor that has produced a coefficient equal to -0.41. The same has been made as far as the second and the third model which has generated a coefficient -0.37, with respect to the cultural factor, and a coefficient -0.36 as far as the economic and political factor. The last model contains the resilience index determined by the integration of the three factors above cited.\n5. Discussion: The overview of Macerata's case on resilience studied through the econometric tool of factor analysis has demonstrated that the single concept of resilience is derived from three latent concepts of social, cultural, political and economic concerns. Each concept has been measured by several indicators. Additionally, as shown, each factor has been predicted by differing exogenous variables.\n6. Conclusions: The paper contributes to the discussion over 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in particular on, SDG11, and their meaning for disaster risk reduction by attempting to develop a scientific paradigm that would enable academics to analyse resilience through the analysis of collaboration, its unfolding processes, dimensions and challenges.\n7. Limitations and further research: Ultimately, it could be argued that the limitation of this paper is that the comparison between the two earthquakes is biased by the interviewees misleading responses on the provided questionnaires due to lack of memory about the 1997 shock and a higher perception of the latest quakes occurred in less than a year in 2016 and 2017.\n", "role": "user" }, { "content": "Purpose: The aim of this paper is to understand how resilience builds to achieve a management model for sustainable resilience, as advocated by sustainable development goals (SDGs), in distressed communities. The topic is addressed with the case of Macerata, an Italian city located at the epicentre of the devastating earthquake in 1997 and later, in a short time interval between August 2016 and January 2017. Necessary knowledge on modes and places of engagement and collaboration is delivered in the attempt to demonstrate that social and cultural factors have stronger impacts on devastated communities as they contribute to resilience for future incidents.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper uses a quantitative econometric approach. It unfolds in two steps. The first uses the estimation method through factor analysis of an index of resilience, a latent variable, and reveals that it comes from social, cultural, political and economic latent factors. The second uses a reduced equation model that elaborates and integrates two models: the one estimating the relationship between the level of development and the impacts due to natural disasters and the other containing the index of resilience, but only its most relevant ones. A rotated component matrix, which is the elaboration of the model, will be created.\nFindings: Although measuring resilience, in practice, is hampered by both conceptual and methodological challenges, including finding reliable and meaningful data, the attempt to measure resilience in this research has helped in testifying two important research hypotheses. According to H1, resilience is a fundamental variable to ensure faster economic recovery and has a negative impact on the dependent variable (deaths); hence, it is considered statistically significant. According to H2, social resilience develops and increases at the event's recurrence and leverages on the adaptive, self-organising community capacities in recovering from traumatic circumstances and episodes of distress.\nResearch limitations/implications: The limitation of this paper is that the comparison between the two earthquakes is biased by the interviewees' misleading responses on the provided questionnaires due to lack of memory about the 1997 shock and a more higher perception of the latest quakes that occurred recently in 2016 and 2017. There is a strong awareness of the fact that future research will improve the analysis suggested in this paper by attempting a quantification of the perception about the difference between the two occurred earthquakes by replacing the dummy variable (b6 improvement) with a cluster analysis.\nPractical implications: The paper fills the gap in the empirical literature on risk management and organisational resilience. This research represents a guide to support and accelerate building resilience by people engagement and empowerment, enthusiasm and commitment in a way that conventional politics is failing to do. In particular, it aims to support public organisations and policymakers at the front by providing them with reliable information on the factors and concerns that need to be considered to increase community's level of resilience, coherently with their endogenous characteristics, to ensure a steady, stable and sustainable recovery from the crisis.\nSocial implications: This research teaches that resilience depends on the existence of minimum preconditions for building resilience - political and economic opportunities, as well as cultural and social factors - as the measurement of tangible factors such as assets and financial capital may not capture everything that influences resilience. However, although it is common sense that disaster recovery processes are significantly hard to bear, it is important to acknowledge that they can offer a series of unique and valuable opportunities to improve on the status quo. Capitalizing on these opportunities means to well-equip communities to advance long-term health, resilience and sustainability and prepare them for future challenges.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to the discussion over the development of sustainable cities and communities by providing a resilience measurement framework in terms of indicators and dimensions of resilience. It emphasises on the endogenous adaptation capacity of territories partially analysed in the empirical literature with regard to resilience. The originality relates to the suggested model being a tool for social and territorial analysis, useful for ensuring a summary and comprehensive assessment of socioeconomic resilience; comparing different timelines (the first earthquake occurred in 1997 and the other two, occurring in a short time interval from one another, in August 2016 and January 2017).\n", "role": "assistant" } ]

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