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Government intervention in the market for electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS). The known, the unknown and challenges
|
[
"Price elasticity",
"Cost and benefit analysis",
"Cross price elasticity",
"ENDS",
"Excise taxes",
"Tobacco harm reduction products (THRPs)",
"Electronic nicotine delivery systems",
"Market failure"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: After 50 years of policy development, the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) became international treaty in 2003 and came into force in 2005 (Yach, 2014). Although 181 countries made a commitment to implement its measures, the average implementation rates, specifically on demand-reduction measures, are still uneven (WHO FCTC, 2012, 2016, 2018), and the pace of reducing smoking prevalence and averting premature tobacco deaths is slower than expected (Warner, 2014; US Department of Health and Human Services (US DHHS), 2014; Levy et al., 2018).\nMethodology: This paper reviews economic studies on selected ENDS regulatory measures - specifically, taxation, youth access and marketing restrictions. We gather data from ECigIntelligence, Euromonitor and regulation databases (Vapor Products Tax (VPT), 2020, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health IGTC website and the Public Health Law Center at Michell Hamline School of Law), the CDC GTSS database on GATS, the EU Commission Excise Tax database, and the World Bank, Health, Nutrition and Population (HNP) database. Simulation analysis uses results from existing evidence, underlying assumptions and available data.\nBackground: Harm reduction theory and evidence on e-cigarettes (electronic nicotine delivery systems)\nFindings: The e-cigarette (electronic nicotine delivery systems) market\nEncouraging companies to reduce harmful components: Tobacco harm reduction product (THRP) innovation must continue, and markets and governments should encourage entrepreneurs to improve existing products and develop new ones with increasing efficiency, effectiveness and safer product structure (e.g. packaging and content). There is no existing evidence that examines how extant and proposed THRP regulations would influence innovation; however, product introduction bans clearly impact innovation. Marlow (2014) argues that suppressing the ENDS market would devastate product innovation and discourage companies from developing safer and more effective THRPs.\nConclusion: This paper provides a brief overview of main regulatory challenges on ENDS and the results of recent economic studies examining consequences of select ENDS regulations (e.g. taxation) on smokers' behaviors and potential health outcomes if ENDS are added through government-sponsored measures to the toolkit of smoking cessation products. However, one must assess these measures carefully, as demand and revenue are concerned. For example, it is not clear how consumers subjectively value ENDS, considering the reduced harm perception constant. For ENDS, it is common practice to base tax on ml of e-liquid, and the comparability argument holds. Current cited evidence just scratches the surface with respect to ENDS: as the types of THRPs vary, substitutability options increase for the smokers. Consequently, there are many questions with respect to differential taxes, such as tax rate adjustment on ENDS and their level of substitutability among other THRPs and with cigarettes (cross-price elasticities). Although cited research provides evidence on ENDS and cigarettes through available data, further research is needed to understand consumers' demand behavior and how they value health when choosing between nicotine products. Furthermore, given global information failure, future research must evaluate how information failure influences the demand for ENDS and its consequences on public health. Last, but not least, these findings suggest that additional research should be conducted to understand the potential impact of innovation in more effective cessation products, and to address the unexplored opportunity for governments to provide incentives to the private sector to innovate in this space. These significant research gaps must be addressed to understand the full benefits and costs of regulatory measures and government support of ENDS by considering their impact on whole populations, especially on vulnerable smokers (e.g. people of limited economic means, and women) and other stakeholders.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to describe the various government measures that regulate the market for novel tobacco harm reduction products (THRPs), with an emphasis on e-cigarettes [electronic nicotine delivery systems (\"ENDS\")], and evaluates the public health impact of excise taxes levied on these products.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper reviews the economic research on the impact ENDS. Using cited evidence, the paper compares the tax treatment of ENDS and cigarettes and provides a simulation of potential lives that can be saved under alternative tax treatment of ENDS.\nFindings: ENDS are considerably less harmful than cigarettes. Imposing the same tax burden on them (per unit of \"harm\") as on cigarettes leads to poorer health outcomes. Differential tax treatment of ENDS will encourage more cigarette smokers to switch to ENDS and could save millions of lives worldwide.\nResearch limitations/implications: Country experiences with regulatory measures on ENDS are limited to those with high THRP penetration. The paper's simulation analysis used evidence from a limited number of studies. Rigorous economic analysis is needed to understand how ENDS could save lives and could prevent expected one billion premature deaths by the end of this century.\nOriginality/value: The paper uses research evidence in its analysis of the impact that the differential taxation of cigarettes and ENDS would have. It also provides a rough estimate of the number of lives that could be saved if more smokers who are trying to quit can make the switch to ENDS.\n",
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An exploration of objectivism and social constructivism within the context of disaster risk
|
[
"Disasters",
"Disaster risk",
"Objectivizm",
"Social constructivizm"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The devastating consequences and the financial and human crises that typically follow catastrophes can often be traced to policies unsuited to the emerging scales of the problems they confront (Handmer and Dovers, 2013). These policies and practices, as Shefali (2009) noted, have been influenced by conceptual shifts in the academic discourse of disaster risk. As such multiple conceptual and thematic foci have emerged from a variety of origins (Oliver-Smith, 1999), emanating from the internal complexity of the phenomenon and the diversity of the disciplines and actors active in the field of disasters and disaster risk management (Warner et al., 2002). In disaster risk, when disciplines join forces to study certain risk objects or phenomena, clashes may become evident of competing paradigms, research traditions, epistemologies and modes of thought (Van der Waldt, 2014). Consequently, of concern in disaster risk, regulatory decision making has been whether disaster risk should be viewed as an objectively identifiable phenomenon (objectivism) or a subjective, socially constructed process (constructivism). As with nearly all conceptual processes, the epistemological foundations and context are crucial (Cardona, 2004) in understanding disaster risk. This paper aims to investigate, ontologically and epistemologically, what is meant by the concepts of social constructivism and objectivism within the context of disaster risk. In particular, the paper attempts to explore the implications of constructivism and objectivism in disaster risk which is essential in explaining why disaster risk has different nuances and consequently policy responses. It is conjectured that the findings will stimulate further debate about the theoretical conditions that inform disaster risk policy.\nResearch questions and methodology: On the basis of what has been stated above three research questions have been identified:\nObjectivism vs social constructivism: Objectivism may be viewed as the cornerstone of naturalism or scientism which advocates the application of natural science to society (Mills et al., 2010). It can be described as both an ontology and epistemology. Ontologically, objectivism claims that there is a reality \"in itself,\" existing independently of the human mind (Mills et al., 2010, p. 619). According to Lakoff (1987, p. 160), reality consists of entities that have fixed properties and relations holding them at any instant. Lakoff (1987) further argued that, reality exists through the structures of these entities and is independent of any human understanding. Epistemologically, reality may be known by the human mind (Mills et al., 2010, p. 619). The mind functions as a mirror of nature, creating representations of the real world that require a correspondence to the external world and to know is to have these correct representations (Lakoff, 1987). For Mills et al. (2010), it is possible to be objective by first dividing the world into subjects and objects and then by focusing attention on those potential phenomenon of study that are reducible to being studied as objects in universal and value-free ways. Objectivism thus underpins the positivist stance, a theory of knowledge that assets the possiblity of generating objective knowledge through the value-free collection of empirical data. Positivism is based on the belief that there is an objective reality and that knowledge exists as something that can be observed and measured. According to Eriksson and Kovalainen (2008) positivism implies that the social world can be known methodologically through the use of objective instruments of measurement operated by a rational and neutral researcher. Positivists argue that knowledge can be deduced from careful processes of hypothesising, variable identification and measurement within experimental designs (Grbich, 2007). Positivism thus refers to a belief that social science must be scientific in the same way as physical sciences are. Causalities are identified and predictions are made about facts which have been properly evaluated by mathematical logic. This positivist approach has generally led to the use of quantitative research methods. Advocates of the quantitative approach are therefore described as \"objective scientists committed to the discovery of quantifiable information\" (Duffy, 1986). In short, positivism is said to be objective, deductive, nomothetic, quantitative, explanatory and universal (Mills et al., 2010; Grbich, 2007; Duffy, 1986)\nIn pursuit of social constructivism: This paper proposes that disasters are best conceptualised as non-routine social problems. The article contents with Adam and Thompson's (2002) argument that managing risks should abandon objectivism and embrace constructivism - the idea that risk is inherently subjective: something that we project onto whatever it is that is \"out there\". This is because as Bongo et al. (2013) argues, when people experience hazard events and disasters, they perceive these phenomena through lenses that are largely shaped by their local day-to-day experiences and some external influence. There are at least two major arguments that can be advanced in support of constructivism: first, increasing evidence of disasters as a social construction; and second, the policy intuitive appeal of constructivism.\nThe policy intuitive appeal of constructivism: While the academic literature since the early 1970s had long established the importance of the social constructivism perspective in disaster management (Shefali, 2009), explicit policy acknowledgement of the constructivism perspective has been lacking. Yet conceptually, and increasingly empirically, disaster risk is being accepted as endogenous to human development (Lavell and Maskrey, 2013, p. 6). With this realisation the need to develop public policies that minimise disaster risk and build resilience has been emphasised since the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, the Southern Africa Development Community Regional Disaster Risk Reduction Strategic Plan, the Hyogo Framework for Action (2005-2015) and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030). Moreover, in recent years there have been calls for a new framing of disaster risk problems by moving away from the overemphasis on natural and anthropogenic hazards, to that of understanding underlying vulnerability and underlying drives which generate disaster risk in the first place and limits at-risk populations to achieve higher levels of resilience through development (Van Niekerk, 2014, p. 2). As Mariyani-Squire (1999) notes, social constructivist position entails some political and policy desirable qualities. He argued that social constructivism allows for a \"democratic\" plurality of perspectives on an issue, because all perspectives are social constructions, each and every perspective has an equal \"right\" to be judged as possibly valid and true for the agents holding to their respective constructions. This is in line with what has been described as the \"argumentative turn\" by Fischer and Forester (1993). According to Fischer (2007) argumentative turn starts from recognition that multiple perspectives are involved in the interpretation and understanding of social and political reality and the competing definitions of policy problems to which they give rise. In any society there is no one fixed definition of an issue, it is subject to the interpretative manoeuvres of the protagonists (cf. Grafton and Permaloff, 2005). In this light, social conflict becomes a process of successive, competitive problem definitions by opposing sides angling for advantage and issue expansion. An argumentatively oriented deliberative policy analysis therefore, seeks to disarm epistemologically the one-dimensionality objectivity of conventional policy analysis, often advanced as value-neutral scientific policy analysis (Fischer, 2003). Thus social constructivism opens up the possibility of greater integration of traditional democratic activities and the regulation of scientific practices according to the public interest (Mariyani-Squire, 1999).\nConclusion: This paper contextualised objectivism and constructivism in the context of disaster risk. It is important to note that objectivism has dominated the field of disaster risk and has influenced the discourses, arguments and language used in disaster risk. Objectivism has viewed disaster risk as the real, quantifiable product of nature's impact on society; independent from the social constructions of a society and has adopted the technocratic or hazard-centred approach to disaster risk. Whilst objectivism has contributed considerably to the understanding of disaster risk, it has failed to elicit generalisation on the concept of disaster - it remains illusory to construct an objective or universal meaning of disaster (Cafe, 2012). Its major shortcoming has been its failure to incorporate the social aspects in dealing with disaster risk. Recently, since the 1980s, anthropologists, sociologists and geographers have increasingly challenged the technocratic, hazard-centred approach to disaster. Constructivism, presents an alternative paradigm to objectivism as it suggests that investigating policy is reliant on how risk is constructed, and dealt with in particular historical, socio-cultural and political contexts. Disasters are viewed as socially produced through the formation of a common and shared definition and are rooted in the social structure and reflects the processes of social change. This perspective has advanced framing of disasters as a result of vulnerability of humanity. However, while the academic literature since the early 1970s had long established the importance of the constructivism perspective in disaster management (Shefali, 2009), explicit policy acknowledgement of the constructivism perspective has been lacking. Further research is therefore needed to explore why governments have been reluctant to come up with disaster risk policies that are based on the social constructivism perspective.\n",
"role": "user"
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{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand the meaning of social constructivism and objectivism within the context of disaster risk from which disaster risk policy can be analysed. In particular, the paper attempts to explore the implications of social constructivism and objectivism in disaster risk which is essential in explaining why disaster risk has different nuances and consequently policy responses.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A literature survey was used to explore social constructivism and objectivism within the context of disaster risk. The survey involved documentary searches from academic books, journal articles and disaster risk reports to serve as primary research data.\nFindings: The analysis revealed that viewing and managing disasters through the lens of objectivism might not yield the desired results of minimising risk as it conceals the vulnerabilities to disaster risk. The objectivist perspective is therefore in itself considered inadequate for the study of disaster risk and that social constructivist assumptions are required in order to analyse disaster risk. Towards this end, social constructivism offers a discursive approach to disaster risk policy science; one that more optimally illuminates competing local perspectives.\nOriginality/value: An epistemological and ontological assessment of social constructivism and objectivism in disaster risk can assist greatly in understanding the discursive dimension of disaster risk through explanations of how and why disasters are framed the way they are framed and the implications of this on policy formulation and implementation.\n",
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Student internships bridge research to real world problems
|
[
"Graduates",
"Communities",
"Partnership",
"Knowledge sharing",
"Canada"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: York University, Toronto is the third largest university in Canada, with a student enrollment of 50,686. York University promotes an interdisciplinary approach to learning, and has a strong commitment to social justice (www.yorku.ca/web/about_yorku/quick_facts.html). These values are reflected in its long history of community engaged scholarship and teaching and, most recently, in York's leadership in knowledge mobilization (KMb) in the Canadian context. Reflecting its commitment to community engaged scholarship, the KMb unit offers student research internships that provide funding for graduate students to work collaboratively with community partners. As detailed elsewhere (Phipps and Shapson, 2009) these internships are but one aspect of the KMb services provided by the KMb Unit. This paper reports an evaluation of whether these relatively unstructured internships succeeded in meeting their goals: to build research capacity among students and community partners; to create new knowledge; and to promote enduring community-student partnerships.\nKnowledge mobilization in theory and practice: The term knowledge mobilization dates back to the 1990s in the field of education (Bhatti, n.d.). Knowledge mobilization is defined in a variety of ways but the core of these definitions includes three elements (Levin, 2008; Mitton et al., 2007; Phipps and Shapson, 2009):1. the creation of knowledge;2. the use of knowledge; and3. the processes that connect knowledge creation and use.This is distinguished from knowledge translation, in which knowledge creators merely transform their findings for transmission to knowledge users (Mitton et al., 2007).Although building connections between research evidence and policy and practice is not new, interest in building these connections has increased dramatically in the last 30 years (Levin, 2008). With the increased activity comes a greater awareness of how to strengthen these connections, and ensure that research and evidence are taken up by policy makers, practitioners and the general public. One key theme that has emerged in successful strategies is the active involvement of stakeholders throughout the research process (CIHR, 2008). Although this may not be appropriate for all research endeavors, engagement of the user in knowledge creation has been found to increase the likelihood that the research will be relevant and put into action (Israel et al., 1998).\nThe York University Knowledge Mobilization Unit: The KMb Unit at York University, Canada, has developed a knowledge broker model for promoting partnerships (Lomas, 2007; Phipps and Shapson, 2009). The role of the knowledge broker is to bring together researchers in the university with knowledge users in the government or community, and to help direct them to possible sources of support for their research partnerships. Through a range of outreach activities, including community presentations, partnerships with governmental and not-for-profit organizations, and an interactive website, the York KMb Unit has solicited, received and acted on requests for research partnerships from community members and university researchers. Since 2006, 148 projects have been brokered, 37 of which have actively engaged or been led by students. An additional 24 partnerships were supported through graduate student internships, facilitated by dedicated funding in the KMb Unit's original grants. York students have made a significant contribution to building KMb as a credible and respected program for York, as well as, and more importantly, providing expertise and capacity to meet unique research and knowledge-based needs of community agencies. The critical question for this paper, however, is how the engagement with community partners through these internships benefited these graduate students.\nStudent engagement and engaged scholarship: Student engagement, community-university partnerships, service learning and experiential education are all commonly used terms to describe student education extending beyond the academy. The concept of student engagement emerges from the belief that universities the world over should be playing a role in civic engagement and in strengthening and supporting social responsibilities (Ostrander, 2004). The KMb Unit's approach to student engagement is grounded in the concept of engaged scholarship, which focuses on knowledge creation rather than on service provision (Barker, 2004; Boyer, 1996) and on the idea that practitioners and academic researchers possess different forms of knowledge and can learn from each other (Van de Ven and Johnson, 2006).Most student internships in North America occur in the context of service learning, where undergraduate or high school students integrate practice with specific subject knowledge by participating in required work-related activities for academic credit. The relationship is primarily between the community and academic institution, and the work is assigned to the students (Eyler, 2000; Rehling, 2000). In contrast, the York KMb internships were voluntary, self-directed and student initiated. Graduate students were equal partners in developing and carrying out jointly developed community research projects. Students did not get course credit towards their degrees and were not supervised by academic faculty. The focus on graduate students and emphasis on partnership is uncommon (Savan and Sider, 2003), and the students' independence in choosing and developing their research partnership is, to our knowledge, unique.This kind of equal participation in research partnerships should allow all members of the partnerships to build on their unique knowledge to improve both the quality and the relevance of the knowledge generated. This framing of student engagement emphasizes that the benefits of participation go beyond the acquisition of skills, practical application of knowledge, and civic engagement (e.g. Astin and Sax, 1998) to include the creation and understanding of new knowledge. Moreover, in contrast to criticisms that have been made of other approaches to student engagement, this approach should benefit the community as much as the student (Barker, 2004), and promote sustained relationships between students and community partners, relationships that may themselves provide additional benefits, such as future employment, networking opportunities, and ongoing research collaboration potential (Rehling, 2000; Savan and Sider, 2003).More specifically, the York University graduate student internships were intended to achieve three goals:1. Build research capacity: A primary goal of the KMb internships was to increase the skills and knowledge of students and community partners. The training of students would further contribute to community research capacity by training highly qualified personnel with a greater appreciation and understanding of research, and skills in finding and using relevant research in decision making and practice.2. Create new knowledge: By working on projects developed in cooperation with their community partners, community interns would create new knowledge that meets the specific needs of their community partners and aligns with the student's program of graduate studies.3. Promote partnerships: The relationships that developed between students and community partners would ideally be sustained outside of the work of their internship. This includes ongoing volunteer experiences as well as employment opportunities for students with their community partners following graduation and ongoing research partnerships.\nMethods: Participants\nResults: Student goals for applying to the internship\nDiscussion and conclusions: Consistent with the KMb Unit goals and findings from undergraduate student internship programs (e.g. Astin and Sax, 1998; Rehling, 2000), graduate student interns reported that they learned new skills, maintained partnerships with their community partners and built new networks and relationships. Importantly, they also generated new knowledge in partnership with the community, and recognized the different forms of knowledge that existed in the community and academia, both of which define engaged scholarship and the principles of knowledge mobilization (Barker, 2004). Moreover, they achieved this in a self-directed, voluntary internship, rather than through an internship integrated into a formal curriculum.Students believed they had strong general research skills at the outset of the internships. Not surprisingly then, few reported hoping to acquire research skills but rather, focused on deepening their theoretical or disciplinary knowledge. Students did report learning more about their own fields of expertise but many also reported that the internship helped them build and refine specific research skills such as survey design or qualitative data analysis. It is possible that they initially underestimated how much they could learn about research in a non-academic community setting and how much relevant knowledge the community possessed emphasizing the value of internships for promoting recognition of community knowledge.Students described learning a wide range of professional skills that they anticipated applying in their future careers. Similarly, students reported being motivated by an interest in making professional connections and a desire to find employment, which is not surprising given that so many graduate students pursue non-academic careers (Bloom, 2009). The relationships developed could also later assist in, or lead to, employment. More generally, at least 14 students maintained ongoing relationships with these not-for-profit agencies regardless of employment opportunities, showing how internships can provide a strong grounding for ongoing civic engagement (Ostrander, 2004; Rehling, 2000).Critically, from the perspective of the KMb Unit, these internships provided a genuine benefit to the community partners. Most of the students were motivated by a desire to create positive change for the community and/or the organization they partnered with and, indeed, the students reported a range of important and useful outcomes to their research. Although space limitations prevent the reporting of the results here, similar interviews and surveys conducted with community partners confirmed students' evaluations of the internships' usefulness. Because student interns sustained these relationships after the internship was completed, opportunities for additional knowledge coproduction in the future were also created.The students made several excellent suggestions for improving the internships, many of which are consistent with Eyler's (2000) call for the need for reflection to allow service-learning to deepen students' understanding of social issues and dealing with complex social problems. These included having a longer period of time in which to partner, perhaps during the school year rather than the summer, and the addition of mechanisms for more mentorship, both from each other and from faculty. These changes could benefit students and community partners alike.Students' improved skills and knowledge were only being measured through self-report, and more objective measures of these changes would be preferred. Moreover, the sample of students is small and may reflect only the perceptions of students who were already interested in and committed to this kind of scholarship. The large number of applications for this novel program (100 in two years) suggests that the desire for this kind of engagement among graduate students is quite strong but it is not clear if these benefits would extend to students who did not share these interests.With these limitations in mind, however, we feel that the KMb Unit was successful in meeting its objectives of creating engaged scholarship through self-directed graduate student research internships. We have increased students' knowledge, skills, and opportunities for employment; we positively influenced the community's capacity for conducting and applying research; and we expanded the range of ways in which the university can partner with the community, benefitting students, communities, universities, and society as a whole.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The aim of this paper is to report on student perceptions of 24 graduate student internships funded in 2007-2008 by York University's Knowledge Mobilization (KMb) Unit. These internships provided opportunities for students to engage in research with community agencies around real world problems.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The principal sources of data were semi-structured student interviews, conducted as part of an overall evaluation of the unit by an evaluation team, and student responses to surveys administered by KMb staff.\nFindings: - The significant findings were that students reported acquiring research and professional skills, plus a new understanding of theoretical knowledge, and that projects generated concrete outcomes for their community partners. Several students maintained ongoing relationships with their organizational partners beyond the terms of their internship, creating opportunities for ongoing benefits to both students and community partners. Students also identified areas of potential improvement, notably, there is an opportunity to strengthen the experience through integration into a formal curriculum.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Limitations to this study are the relatively small sample size (n=20) and reliance on self-report measures.\nPractical implications: - As universities explore their relationships with their local communities, graduate student internships appear to have tremendous potential for supporting research and knowledge-based needs of local communities, while providing valuable skills and training to a cohort of students in bridging academic research to real world solutions.\nOriginality/value: - This article makes an original contribution by focusing on benefits to graduate students in scholarship of engagement programs that prioritize true partnership between students, universities and communities.\n",
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Knowledge transfer in knowledge-intensive organizations: the crucial role of improvisation in transferring and protecting knowledge
|
[
"Knowledge protection",
"Knowledge transfer",
"Improvisation",
"Barriers to imitation",
"Knowledge translation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Knowledge imitation, knowledge transfer and knowledge protection are coexisting strategies implemented by the current leaders of knowledge-intensive organizations (KIOs). KIOs learn from other firms' failures and successes through vicarious learning while seeking to protect key knowledge from rivals (Rivkin, 2001). Inside the firm, knowledge transfer involves either actively communicating to others what one knows or actively consulting others to learn what they know (Van den Hoof and De Ridder, 2004). The ability to transfer knowledge across units has been linked to firm performance (Argote and Ingram, 2000; Darr et al., 1995; Epple et al., 1996). We adopt Kumar and Ganesh's (2009, p. 163) definition of knowledge transfer as \"a process of exchange of explicit or tacit knowledge between two agents, during which one agent purposefully receives and uses the knowledge provided by another\". A key question for leaders of KIOs is how to manage the tension between promoting knowledge transfer inside the firm and preventing knowledge imitation from outside the firm. The difficulty is that if something is hard to imitate, it may also be hard to transfer within the firm, and if something is easy to transfer within the firm, it may also be easy to imitate by rivals (Faria and Sofka, 2010; Jensen and Szulanski, 2007; Szulanski and Jensen, 2006; Van Wijk et al., 2008).\nTheoretical background: The idea that transferring knowledge while protecting it is paradoxical originated from the distinction between explicit and tacit knowledge (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). Tacit knowledge is not easily visible and expressible, deeply embedded in personal beliefs, attitudes, values and experiences that give it its meaning and is not easily formalized and communicated to others. In contrast, explicit knowledge can be codified and documented, making it easily and cheaply available to large number of people at little or no marginal cost. These differences significantly influence the ways in which tacit and explicit knowledge can be shared (Hislop, 2002; Jasimuddin et al., 2005). In addition, depending on the external context, the importance of transferring tacit or explicit knowledge shifts: tacit knowledge becomes more important to decision-making and strategic positioning in high velocity/turbulent environments (Jones and Mahon, 2012). A practice-based philosophy provides, however, an interpretivist view in which tacit and explicit knowledge are not two separate types of knowledge but, rather, knowing is enacted continuously in daily practice (Blackler, 1995; Boland et al., 1994; Cook and Brown, 1999; Lam, 1997; Polanyi, 1967; Tsoukas, 1996).\nConceptual model: Figure 1 depicts our model. Although firms and groups rely on implementing experimental cultures and minimal structures and promoting the practice of storytelling and shared mental models to support knowledge transfer, we argue that improvisation processes will augment the positive effects of these factors on both knowledge transfer and protection.\nImplications: This paper addresses the role of knowledge workers' improvisation processes in enabling effective knowledge transfer inside KIOs while protecting knowledge from imitation from rivals. We argue that although there might be instances where direct knowledge replication seems possible (e.g. highly standardized production and Six Sigma practices), effective knowledge transfer can only be achieved by translating the knowledge in action in the new context. Although previous research has looked into the material artifacts, such as technology and templates, that can facilitate the translation of knowledge within and across communities (Carlile, 2002; Jensen and Szulanski, 2007; Kane and Alavi, 2007), we delve into the question of how the translation of knowledge actually happens. Our answer is that effective improvisation processes are inherent in, and important for, successful knowledge translation within KIOs. The better knowledge workers are at improvising their way through knowledge transfer, the better they will be at translating and absorbing the transferred knowledge inside the firm and the harder it will be for external rivals to imitate the knowledge.\nConclusions: This paper proposes knowledge workers' improvisation processes as the underlying mechanism that enables effective knowledge transfer inside the firm while creating barriers to imitation from outside the firm. Improvisation can help us to understand the different interpretations around routines, what individuals bring to the routines and the type of context that allows knowledge transfer to be effective and costly to imitate. We hope to spark further debate and integrative work among KM researchers about improvisation as the process that helps to explain how newness comes out of oldness in knowledge transfer and protection through the translation that occurs every time knowledge is transferred to a new setting.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to answer the question: how do knowledge workers' improvisation processes promote both knowledge transfer and protection in knowledge-intensive organizations (KIOs)? A model is proposed identifying how effective improvisation can strengthen the effect of four specific knowledge transfer mechanisms - an experimental culture, minimal structures, the practice of storytelling and shared mental models - on knowledge transfer inside the organization and knowledge protection outside of it.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper builds on a knowledge translation perspective to position improvisation as intrinsically intertwined with knowledge transfer and knowledge protection.\nFindings: Improvisation is proposed as the moderating factor enhancing the positive impact of an experimental culture, minimal structures, storytelling practice and shared mental models on knowledge transfer and knowledge protection.\nPractical implications: The paper argues against a \"plug-and-play\" approach to knowledge transfer that seeks to replicate knowledge without considering how people relate to the routines and the context and highlights to leaders of KIOs the importance of developing awareness, understanding and motivation to improvise to internalize new knowledge being transferred and to create imitation barriers.\nOriginality/value: The paper proposes that KIOs' success in transferring and protecting knowledge emerges not directly from formal knowledge transfer mechanisms but from knowledge workers' improvisation processes.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Policy suggestions for combating domestic violence in West Africa
|
[
"Domestic violence",
"Legislative approach",
"Men mentoring men",
"National taskforce on domestic violence",
"Policy suggestions"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Violence pervades the lives of many people around the world, and touches all of us in some way. To many people, staying out of harm's way is a matter of locking doors and windows and avoiding dangerous places. To others, escape is not possible. The threat of violence is behind those doors - well hidden from public view. And for those living in the midst of war and conflict, violence permeates every aspect of life (Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director-General, World Health Organization, 2002).\nOverview of theoretical and empirical literature on DV: It has become the view of many scholars that men's violence against women (VAW) is a serious issue in Africa and in the global society at large. Several studies show evidence of high proportions of women reporting violence by a male partner or by a male kin (Abrahams et al., 2006; Diop-Sidibe et al., 2006; Ghana Statistical Service, 2009; Hassan et al., 2004; Johnson et al., 2008; Kishor and Johnson, 2006; Loseke and Kurz, 2005). Comparative multi-country studies have indicated that the proportion of women experiencing physical violence from a male partner ranges from 15 to 71 percent across countries (Garcia-Moreno et al., 2006; Hindin et al., 2008). Perhaps it is statistics from these large-scale and local-level studies which informed the United Nations Children's Fund's (2000) position that \"Violence in the domestic sphere is usually perpetrated by males who are, or who have been, in positions of trust and intimacy and power [...]\" (p. 3).\nDV in West Africa: the case of Ghana: The geographic region called West Africa lies in the western part of the larger African continent. West Africa consists of 16 countries which constitute a subset of what is popularly known as sub-Saharan Africa. Among the countries of West Africa are Benin, Cape Verde, Ghana, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, and Togo. Countries in West Africa have the common history of being former colonies either of Britain or France. West Africa also boasts of Nigeria as the most populous African country, Liberia as the first African country to have a female president, and Ghana as the first country in that region to gain independence from colonial rule. Among the myriad socio-cultural problems in West Africa is DV, particularly VAW (see International Rescue Committee, 2012). According the International Rescue Committee (2012) \"A woman is unsafe in her home during times of both peace and conflict in West Africa\" (p. 7). In this section I use Ghana as a case example to look at the issue of DV in West Africa. Ghana is a good test case for this discussion because the country has a reputation for taking a pioneering role in researching to understand social issues and creating the legislative and policy framework to address them (see Issahaku and Neysmith, 2013). Regarding DV, Ghana has pioneered the research (see Coker-Appiah and Cusack, 1999; Ofei-Aboagye, 1994) to estimate its scope and legislation (see Republic of Ghana, 2007) to address it.\nAn assessment of the legislative approach: In 2007 Ghana passed a law, the DV Act, 2007 (Act 732), which criminalizes DV. By this Ghana has declared that she is combating DV through the legal approach. This step made Ghana a pacesetter in the West Africa subregion in terms of taking action against DV. To put this in perspective, at the present time countries such as Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, and Senegal, among others in West Africa have no explicit legislative Acts against DV. The passage of this law by Ghana was seen as a significant milestone in the cause of gender equality and women's rights advocates, especially, the National Coalition on Domestic Violence Legislation (Ampofo, 2008). A Graphic Online news story (General News of Friday, September 30, 2011) captured the sentiment as follows: \"More than two years of civil advocacy, political agitation and parliamentary wrangling, yesterday culminated in an applause in Parliament, to celebrate the passage of the hotly debated Domestic Violence Bill.\" Apart from activists' work, research evidence significantly influenced the thinking that produced the law. In its preamble the law is seen as \"An Act to provide protection from domestic violence particularly for women and children and for connected purposes\" (Republic of Ghana, 2007, p. 3).\nProposed policy measures: It is clear from the case analysis of Ghana that overreliance on the criminal approach is not doing much to eliminate DV. On one hand, many people are not reporting their experiences and, on the other hand, law enforcement agencies seem overwhelmed by the number of cases being reported. The questions that arise include: what is being done to stop DV which is not reported? In the medium to long term, what is being done to ensure that DV that is reported does not recur? To combat DV in West Africa we need to look beyond deterrence and rescue and rehabilitation to preventative measures; measures and action steps that bring about social transformation by changing mindsets and negative beliefs and practices which form the bases for harmful habits. This is what is put forward in this section. Policy operationalizes legislation by acting as the conduit through which the intended benefits of legislation reach the people. Policy also makes more sense to the ordinary person than legislation because it defines actions and gives focus and direction to these actions. Therefore, it is important to have a policy on DV that outlines preventive interventions while catering to the needs of victims and perpetrators. Such a policy will fill the gap identified in the current approach to combating DV. The measures suggested here are built on the patriarchy framework which speaks to the Ghanaian society as to any typical West African society. In these societies DV/IPV is largely men's VAW which stems primarily from men's position of power and control over women. As Jewkes et al. (2002) have noted about DV in African societies:\nConclusion: DV is a global and local challenge which calls for policy action. Various countries have taken measures to address DV, among whom Ghana is a pacesetter in West Africa. By enacting a law on DV Ghana has taken a bold step toward dealing with the issue. Ghana's approach, similar to frameworks adopted in Europe and North America, regards an act of DV as criminal misdemeanor that should be reported for possible arrest, prosecution, and punishment. This requirement is a serious limitation of the approach because, unlike Europe and North America, reporting domestic misdemeanor cases to law enforcement is not a familiar cultural practice in West Africa. This means that no one is held liable and no one is a subject of rescue and rehabilitation if violence is not reported. Further, the emphasis on deterrence rather than on socially empowering interventions is a limitation of the legislative framework since there is no convincing evidence on the effectiveness of deterrence in combating crime. More importantly, the approach lacks a theoretical perspective on DV and how to address it and the simplistic criminalization of the issue may be driving much of it underground. Therefore, there is need to expand the scope of policy on DV to emphasize empowering, transformative, collective, and communal interventions to prevent the phenomenon rather than merely react to it.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess West African countries' approach to address the issue of domestic violence (DV) in order to identify limitations and suggest policy measures. The paper situates DV in West Africa in the context of international literature and examines the question: what are the limitations of approaches to combating DV in West Africa and what is the way forward? The paper focusses on Ghana as a case example of efforts at addressing DV in West Africa. This is because Ghana is a pioneer among the very few West African countries that have developed a legislative cum policy framework to combat DV. A critical review of Ghana's approach provides useful lessons for the way forward on policy against DV in the West Africa subregion.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The methodology adopted consists of a survey of existing literature - theoretical and empirical - on DV in the international and Ghanaian contexts, a critical reflection on Ghana's DV law, and synthesis of the emerging knowledge combined with familiarity with the context to make policy suggestions. A general review of literature on DV provides background understanding of the phenomenon globally and in the context of West Africa. Then an examination of Ghana's law against DV helps to identify the limitations of the legislative approach. Finally, the paper makes suggestions on how to combat DV in West Africa at large.\nFindings: There is a high prevalence of DV in West Africa, particularly violence against women, although men also experience it. Some countries in the subregion, Ghana being an example, have adopted a legislative approach to deal with the problem. This approach criminalizes DV and requires victims or witnesses to report to the police. Perpetrators may be arrested and arraigned before a court and, if found culpable, fined or imprisoned while victims are promised protection and subsistence. The legislative approach is reactionary and cold, requiring reporting of violence even though this is not culturally expedient. The approach also frustrates victims who are willing to report by being cumbersome and costly. Finally, the approach is not built on any notable theory of DV.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings reported in this paper are based on secondary information. As a result, the analysis and conclusions are limited to what could be drawn from the documents reviewed and the experience of the author.\nPractical implications: The paper suggests specific measures for combating DV in West Africa. These include setting up a national taskforce on DV to coordinate actions and activities toward ending violence, using traditional, and religious leadership structures to campaign against DV, designing mentoring groups for men and women who are preparing to get into marriage, using social workers instead of the police to support victims of violence, institutionalizing assessment and care for DV victims at the hospital, and setting up funding for DV research. These measures could go a long way in combating DV in West Africa.\nOriginality/value: This critical assessment of the legislative approach to combating DV in West Africa is about the first of its kind and therefore makes an original contribution to the literature. Also, the specific measures suggested in the paper are rare in reviews of its kind and therefore offers something of great value to policy makers and professionals in West Africa.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The costs of networking in nonwork domains: a resource-based perspective
|
[
"Networking",
"Career self-management",
"Work–family conflict",
"Work–life balance",
"Work home resources model"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: As the responsibility for advancing and promoting one's career has shifted from organizations to the individual, career self-management (CSM) has gained importance in the literature (e.g. King, 2004; Hall et al., 2018). As research shows, one important CSM strategy is networking, which has shown to positively affect career outcomes, e.g. salary (Wolff and Moser, 2009), promotions (Forret and Dougherty, 2004) or job mobility (Porter et al., 2016). The practitioner literature also echoes this positive view and recommends \"networking, networking, networking\" (Watanabe, 2004, p. 812; see also Anderson, 2015). Recently, however, scholars have begun to question whether this focus on the positive consequences of networking is too simplistic and have called on researchers to examine the negative outcomes of networking (e.g. Gibson et al., 2014). This emerging area of research has found that networking causes moral discomfort (Casciaro et al., 2014), and that in their decision to network people do take potential costs into account (Bensaou et al., 2013).In line with this literature, the present paper further examines the potential costs of networking. More specifically, we argue that research has overlooked \"opportunity costs\" or how networking affects outcomes on nonwork domains, such as work-family conflict or work-life balance. We have limited knowledge about the effects of networking on the interplay of work and home (exceptions include Baumeler et al., 2018; Hall, 1972; Sturges, 2008), although there exists a tension between the advice to \"network, network, network\" and people struggling to keep up with family demands. We draw on the work home resources (WHR) model (Ten Brummelhuis and Bakker, 2012) to link networking to resource investments and outcomes in the nonwork domain. We suggest that networking requires the investment of energy resources and thus reduces the energy available for nonwork demands. This, we predict, creates work-family conflict (e.g. Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985; Ten Brummelhuis and Bakker, 2012) and work-life imbalance (e.g. Casper et al., 2018; Gropel and Kuhl, 2006), two concepts broadly covering the nonwork domain (Beigi et al., 2019). We also examine whether one energy resource, the amount of time people invest in work, mediates the relationship between networking and nonwork outcomes.The study contributes to the literature in three ways. First, it contributes to emerging scholarship seeking to explain why people abstain from networking (e.g. Bensaou et al., 2013; Kuwabara et al., 2018). Costs are one reason and knowledge about those costs provides a more balanced perspective on networking: it allows people to make informed decisions about how to use networking (or refrain from networking) and may allow organizations to implement more effective network-building human resources (HR) practices (e.g. Collins and Clark, 2003) that take potential costs into account. Second, we broaden the perspective on networking by showing that the WHR model provides a viable lens to examine networking processes. We, thus, go beyond statements that networking is linked to resources (Gibson et al., 2014; Porter and Woo, 2015) and depict networking as a resource investment that in turn yields resource gains and losses. Finally, this study goes beyond the limited focus on the work domain and links networking to work-family conflict and work-life balance. Given that networking is an important CSM strategy, we thus heed to calls for CSM scholarship to focus on how careers are embedded into individuals' entire lives (Greenhaus and Kossek, 2014). In sum, we thus hope to contribute to a more fully developed and balanced discussion of networking among scholars as well as practitioners.\nTheoretical background: Networking\nMethods: Sample\nResults: Table 1 shows the correlations between study variables. Figure 1 depicts the model of our substantive hypotheses. Note that while Figure 1 depicts standardized coefficients, we report unstandardized coefficients in the text. H1 predicts direct effects of networking on (a) time-based and (b) strain-based WFC. As networking is unrelated to time-based WFC, b = 0.12, SE = 0.23, p = 0.303 (one-tailed), H1a receives no support. Supporting H1b, networking is positively associated with strain-based WFC, b = 0.04, SE = 0.02, p = 0.015 (one-tailed).H2 predicts the mediating effects of work time between networking and (a) time-based and (b) strain-based WFC. The indirect paths are significant, as networking is significantly associated with work time, b = 3.68, SE = 1.15, p < 0.001, and work time is significantly associated with time-based WFC, b = 0.10, SE = 0.02, p = 0.008, and also strain-based WFC, b = 0.55, SE = 0.26, p = 0.030. To test for significance, we examine the product of indirect effects (labeled ab) using nonparametric bootstrapping (10,000 replications). The indirect effect of networking via work time on time-based WFC is significant, ab = 0.36, 95% CI [0.15, 0.63] and also the indirect effect on strain-based WFC, ab = 0.16, 95% CI [0.05:0.36]. Thus, H2a and H2b receive support. With no direct effect of networking on time-based WFC, work time fully mediates the effect of networking on time-based WFC, whereas the significant direct effect of networking on strain-based WFC indicates partial mediation. Of further note, neither networking nor work time are associated with behavior-based WFC.H3 predicts an inverted U-shaped effect of networking on WLB. We model this nonlinear relationship using a linear and a quadratic effect. Both the linear effect of networking on WLB, b = 0.21, SE = 0.09, p = 0.012 (one-tailed) and, more importantly, the quadratic effect are significant, b = -0.28, SE = 0.14, p = 0.024 (one-tailed). In addition, deletion of the squared effect significantly reduces model fit, -2DLL(1) = 5.83, p = 0.015, indicating that it adds explanatory power over and above the linear effect. Figure 2 shows individuals' factor scores on networking and WLB and the line denotes predicted values derived from model parameters. Its inverted U-shape supports H3.Post hoc analyses\nDiscussion: Recently, scholars have started to examine the potential negative consequences of networking, and this study shows that negative consequences are not limited to the work domain, but extend into the nonwork domain. On a broader level, the study shows that the WHR model (and its base: conservation of resources) provides a viable lens to shed further light on networking. We believe that this is an important strength, because it fills the blank space in career theories on how networking, or more broadly CSM, is related to outcomes such as WFC. Availability and lack of personal resources are hardly domain specific and thus represent a mechanism or \"currency\" by which effects are transmitted across domains.Our study is the first to examine the costs of networking and shows that beyond anecdotal evidence, networking is related to negative consequences in two ways. First, networking is associated with negative outcomes in non-work domains, WFC and also WLB. The study adds to scholarship showing that constructs that yield benefits in the work domain sap resources and thus affect nonwork domains (e.g. Halbesleben et al., 2014). While networking yields career benefits such as salary, promotions and job mobility, networkers' focus on the work domain comes at a cost that is evident in difficulties to meet conflicting demands from the family domain. Networking has, therefore, negative consequences beyond work-related attitudes and feelings (Casciaro et al., 2014; Kuwabara et al., 2018); consequences extend into the nonwork domain, because energy resources are finite and cannot be invested twice. Corroborating our theorizing, this applies in particular to strain- and time-based WFC, but not behavior-based WFC, and alternative explanations (e.g. common source bias) would have to account for this pattern of findings.Second, we identify an important mediator, showing that the employment of networking behaviors is associated with an investment of energy resources, as networking is related to longer work time. While Bensaou et al.'s (2013) show that people are aware of these costs, our findings show that these costs are not mere subjective impressions, but also become manifest in more objective measures of effort, such as work time. The findings literally highlight the word stem work in networking that individuals should consider potential benefits in the light of potential costs of networking. In this vein, work time is associated with both time- and strain-based WFC, and this finding supports assumptions (e.g. Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985) that work time is a broad indicator of energy invested into work (i.e. of \"work\") and thus affects not only time-based, but also strain-based WFC.The study also shows that, though hardly considered, the general linkages between work and nonwork apply to networking, and, on a broader level, to CSM. Scholars often neglect potential negative consequences, in particular those in nonwork domains (cf. Greenhaus and Kossek, 2014), and we show that evaluating the benefits of networking and CSM need to take nonwork consequences into account. Given that careers increasingly require CSM, it might well be reframed as an additional demand that stands in conflict with nonwork demands. Note that a thorough assessment requires information on positive spillover caused by networking. Recently, and while this study was already in progress, Baumeler et al. (2018) showed that some networking behaviors result in work-family enrichment. As the Baumeler et al. study and our study considered only one direction each, neither allows the calculation of a net effect of costs and benefits.Given this potential caveat, our findings on WLB may alleviate some of these concerns. Some scholars (cf. Beigi et al., 2019) suggested that balance indicates that enrichment processes outweigh conflict, and imbalance indicates the opposite pattern. WLB may, thus, provide an integrative assessment of costs and benefits. Indeed, going beyond the negative relationship between networking and WFC, WLB may be an indicator of a net effect. An average amount of networking behaviors yields the highest balance and little as well as excessive networking yield lower WLB. In light of this curvilinear relationship with WLB, networking is not per se detrimental, and intermediate amounts of networking contribute to WLB, because individuals obtain satisfaction and positive spillovers from work (e.g. Baumeler et al., 2018). Yet, costs outweigh benefits for those who show excessive networking behaviors. The adage that there is \"too much of a good thing\" is also true for networking.Practical implications\nConclusion: This study represents a call to academics and practitioners to adopt a balanced perspective on networking. It shows that networking is not the ultimate, consequence-free CSM strategy. Acknowledging that networking does yield work and career benefits, it also represents an investment that yields costs beyond the work domain. In contrast to the optimism pervading the practitioner literature and public media, our study shows that the current picture of networking is oversimplified, and a more balanced evaluation of networking and its consequences is viable.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: While studies have established that networking is an investment in an individual's career that pays off, recent research has begun to examine the potential costs of networking. This study suggests that prior research is limited in scope, as it remains focused on the work domain. Drawing upon the work home resources model (Ten Brummelhuis and Bakker, 2012), the authors broaden this perspective and develop a framework of negative consequences in nonwork domains. The paper proposes that networking generates costs in nonwork domains, because it requires the investment of finite energy resources in the work domain, and people lack these resources in other domains.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study uses structural equation modeling of multisource data from N = 306 individuals and their partners to examine how networking affects two distinct nonwork outcomes: work-family conflict and work-life balance.\nFindings: Analyses support the general framework: networking is related to time- and strain-based work-family conflict, and work time mediates the relationship between networking and these forms of conflict. Moreover, networking exhibits an inverted U-shaped relationship with work-life balance, indicating that excessive networking as well as a lack of networking decrease work-life balance.\nOriginality/value: This study adds to the emergent literature on the negative consequences of networking. The findings suggest that employees and organizations should adopt a broader and more balanced perspective on networking: one that takes the well-known benefits - but also potential costs in work and nonwork domains - into account.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Digital access to cultural heritage material: case of the Moroccan manuscripts
|
[
"Document management",
"Collections",
"User studies",
"Communication technologies",
"Digital libraries"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: E-research is more and more a daily reality in occidental universities. But this is far from being true for third-world research communities (Genoni et al., 2006). Cultural heritage digitization projects are widely visible around the world. It is no longer the strict area of specialization of government agencies. A number of institutions have set up huge and immense digitization projects for cultural material of diverse nature (UNESCO, 2007). Third-world countries find themselves faced by the same challenges. However, in their case it is even more difficult to make progress because of national priorities and funding limitations.One of the most interesting areas for digitization in Morocco is their trans-national type of manuscripts. This material offers a window into the society and its intellectual tradition and history from the late seventeenth century onward. For decades these manuscripts have been largely inaccessible and ignored. They are now under big threat from a variety of sources, both natural and human. The idea of this paper is to study the possibility of digitizing a selection of the manuscripts and make them available to a national and international scholarly audience and, at the same time to support critically important conservation and cataloguing efforts. But this raises many questions:* For whom may the project really be interesting?* Are researchers ready for the change?* Would it be worth the digitization cost?* Would it be used?* And what to do or think if there is no demand from the research?* What is the information and communication technologies level of the potential users?\n2. Presentation of the collections: Kept in poor conservation conditions in the private libraries of some individuals, the manuscripts and their covers demonstrate a sophisticated visual and technical artistic quality and reflect a rich intellectual and scholarly tradition. They cover a diverse range of topics and genres, including:* old fascicules of the Koran;* the natural and physical sciences (astronomy, mathematics, botany, and medicine);* the literary arts (poetic verse, panegyric texts about holy men, families or caliphs, grammars);* Islamic religious sciences such as theology, jurisprudence and legal opinions; and* historical accounts.Many of the manuscripts are written in Moroccan Arabic script. Charts, diagrams, commentaries, and marginalia are abundant; some describe complex genealogies of local prestigious families and scientific theories, while others record intellectual disagreements among scholars, teachers, and commentators.During the past two centuries, most of the manuscripts have been concealed, often buried or hidden to safeguard them from colonial agents. Partly as a result of the conditions in which the manuscripts were stored, they face an array of conservation challenges, including damage from insects, desiccation, and the fading of certain inks. And what is really sad is that a lot of documents simply disappeared or were torn into shreds.The digitization and preservation of Morocco's fragile manuscripts involves a series of serious challenges:* ubiquitous dust, termites and other insects;* humidity;* variations in temperature;* a lack of technological infrastructure; and* most importantly, the fragile and precarious condition of the manuscripts themselves, simply kept in boxes with no preservation perspectives.\n3. An academic issue: Universities and local and international NGOs should be working together to preserve and make these manuscripts available to a broad community of scholars, students, and researchers. Despite the discouraging nature of the challenges involved, meaningful and lasting progress can be made. If some of these manuscripts were to become available in digital form, this would revolutionize how students and scholars in the country and people around the world could access this literature for research and study or simply for appreciating the beauty of cultural items. Furthermore, by offering a selection of the manuscripts through the internet in the framework of a digital library, we can hope to raise awareness among national and international scholarly communities and local political authorities and academics of the immensity of the challenge, but also the rewards to be gained, inherent in preserving and cataloguing these materials.We can find this type of documents written with the same \"Moroccan calligraphy\" all over North Africa and part of Africa (Mali and Niger) as a vestige of Islamic influence. And a lot of documents written in Tamasheq (the Berber language) and African languages and dialects were also written in Arabic born during propagation of Islam throughout the continent; the Arabic alphabet was indeed adopted by a dozen African languages, including Bambara, Fulfulde, Shrugged, Malinke, Mandingo, Somali, Songay, Swahili, and Wolof.The manuscripts add great depth to our understanding of this part of the world's history and its civilization. By studying and translating these texts, which would require a huge effort, scholars and students of Islamic studies, Arabic and Berber anthropology, and historiography have an opportunity to play a unique role in discovering new insights about the contribution of the Maghreb to the history of ideas. By working to preserve and make available Arabic manuscripts from Morocco, we show our commitment to building a rich scholarly resource about Morocco by working with a diverse array of partners and organizations. In order to build technical capacity, better infrastructure and institutional involvement is needed. The unique patrimony of Morocco's manuscripts must be safeguarded and preserved for current and future generations to interpret, and understand.\n4. Literature review: In our opinion technology should be serving the scientific community needs anywhere and in any research area. Technology developers and managers should do so to \"enable the extension of the reach of research and education, an improvement in the quality of learning\".Digitization is even more urgent in developing countries (see, for example, Rajan, 2008) where everything is lacking: government funding and involvement, civil society action and international cooperation. In most of these kinds of projects, users and potential users are not consulted. Users come from different cultures and have different backgrounds: therefore we cannot generalize user studies in the USA and apply them in third-world countries; the difference is mainly economical. Great effort should be made in order to ensure access to all information for all people through a well-defined policy of preservation and an enhanced access (see, for example, Forde, 2007]. The digitization of cultural heritage material is very special because it is an emerging field with high relevance to education. Chen et al. (2005) stressed the importance of this idea while analyzing different elements such as cultural understanding; collaboration at different levels was recommended. Collaboration should increase between librarians and researchers in the sense that the huge volume of patrimonial documents to be managed is overwhelming; thus researchers should give them a helping hand. Researchers could contribute by adding their comments and annotations through an automated system (see, for example, Lalou, 2001). But some questions are still to be answered: why digitize, what to digitize, the audience for and packaging and discovery of digitized material, and finally the sustainability of such enterprise.All actors in a digitization project should formulate answers to a number of questions related to this kind of project: planning, cataloguing, handling copyright issues, technology evolution over time (see, for example, Lopatin, 2006). Developing countries are very demanding in the area of technology, while their resources are weak. Some efforts have been made; the Library of Congress has already created and added to its digital collections a series of scanned documents of Arabic manuscripts from Timbuktu. Although it is not what we could call a digital library, at least it shows the increasing interest and the emergency of the situation of these valuable documents. Another interesting project for developing countries is the Aluka project (see, for example, Rajan, 2008). The organization Aluka has created an online platform offering scholarly content to the whole international scientific community (see, for example, Ryan, 2010). Content owners (we focus more on their Timbuktu manuscript digital library, which is similar to Moroccan manuscripts collections) offer their collections to an international audience, but a lot of actions are still needed, mainly at an acquisition level. Here issues related to copyright are still to be cleared, even though the owners are enthusiastic about the idea of a digitization project. Pantalony (2008) noted that \"IP law developed to regulate the ownership [...], and is a system of laws that confers enforceable rights upon the person responsible for the intellectual output, so that the creator or owner of IP can exercise a measure of control over its future use\". Moroccan laws on intellectual property seem to be favorable for the digitization of old manuscripts since diffusion is free for anyone (see, for example, Bulletin Official Marocain, 2006).Digitizing must have clear goals. It should lead to the reduction of handling of fragile material, possibility of access to what previously was not accessible, and protection from all kind of risks (Hughes, 2004). Scholarly communities are changing around the world. They are changing their habits and orientations in documentation are more and more electronic. Librarians now have a more important role than ever in mediation (Genoni et al., 2006).\n5. Methodology: We chose to employ a survey using a questionnaire in order to assess users' potential attitudes towards a digital library containing collections of rare manuscripts. An online questionnaire system (phpsurveyor, now limesurvey) helped with the data collection and analysis.5.1 Selection of sample\n6. Results: The results are summarized in Tables I and II and Figure 1.The study showed that even though the researchers realize and appreciate the importance of digitization of the manuscripts for their work (see Table II), they still prefer accessing the collections directly by requesting access to the physical locations from the owners (see Table I). This can be explained partly by the fact that they can benefit from rich commentaries and the point of view of the owners of the manuscripts.This study is important in the sense that it forms a unique point of view. It gives shape to an angle in digitization - i.e. the user attitude and opinion - before the construction of the digital library destined to give users a unique opportunity to access digital versions of the documents they wish to consult. We should not forget that we are in Morocco and that ICT expansion is new and above all the use of the ICT is limited to communication (e-mail chatting, etc.). In that sense users were shown a sample of a digital library to see whether that would influence their attitude.The opinion of the researchers, i.e. the preference to manage alone the access to the subject of their research, is not enough. This suspicious opinion is certainly due to a lack of confidence in local universities and in the Ministry of education Erograms and not to a lack of interest in new information and communication technologies. This may be the first time that a user survey has analyzed the opinion of researchers in such projects. As we know that digital organizations in universities in Morocco are not well developed and that students still use library card catalogues (there are very few OPACs), then our findings are not surprising after all; perhaps the response of the researchers can be considered even as a normal, expected reaction.The need to digitize old manuscripts is also a cultural heritage issue. Considered from this point of view, this user behavior analysis would represent a modest participation in safeguarding a threatened cultural heritage material. In Moroccan universities the penetration of ICT is now great. More and more access to digital content is guaranteed, but initiatives like digitizing and evaluating user needs in relationship with the manuscripts are needed because they do not form part of the digital scene.Of course the questionnaire has other findings. We focused on the responses that meet our hypothesis, which was that it is obvious that that they need digital surrogates of the manuscripts (and thus knowing if a digitization project is really necessary for these persons or not). Other interesting findings that may be exploited in the future are the use of ICT (which is widely common between the community members), the fact that they find some difficulty accessing the collection, mainly because the owners are usually busy, and that the type of work is mainly bibliographical.\n7. Recommendations: We think that future surveys should also cover other stakeholders at the national and international levels. This would be interesting to understand how viable digitization projects are. Future research should not only be planned but ought to be deepened and varied. It may include university authorities and evaluate their involvement in this kind of digitization project; it should also be investigated whether digitization can be integrated in their digital programs for the universities.We decided for the future digitization project to have a simple plan. We outlined two levels of decision-making. The first set of decisions is specific to aspects of collection development:* Selecting source material.* Dealing with copyright, as Moroccan law on intellectual property is clear - the owner of the manuscript has the right to deliver copies or delegate diffusion to a third but cannot transfer the right of publishing. Also, he can give it as a gift.* Defining the scope of the collection. This collection is one of many similar others in the country. The importance of these collections is that they represent another source of history that is closer to the people and sometimes more accurate than any official history: events from the past that are written by much less known local writers. But some collections contain priceless official documents about the colonial period; others contain epistolary correspondence in Spanish between local authority representatives of the Sultan and the Spanish protectorate administration.The clearance of permission to include material in the collection in national copyright laws is still to be studied more closely. A recently Moroccan law stated that the copyright stays with the owner, this owner cannot interfere if anyone wants to publish the material.The second set of decisions is specific to aspects of project management:* defining project objectives and milestones;* deciding on technical aspects;* workflow (or work plan); and* execution and staff decisions.The order of these aspects of planning are not always so clear and decisions at a phase may precede the phase that was planned before it. The conditions in reality may not be as good as we may hope. A specific point in the planning of a digital collection is finding sources for funding and developing a budget.\n7. Conclusion: In this paper, we focused on the researcher's attitudes and expectations of the use of digitized material and especially old manuscripts collections in Morocco. Through a survey, we found that they do not seem to be willing to use a potential digital library that would ease access to these documents. The results show though a tendency to prefer physical access to manuscripts, while questions were centered on willingness and inclination to use the digital library.The present research is limited, partly because there is very little practical research done to explore the users' attitudes in special scientific areas. Also, we cannot generalize definitively as ICT grows faster every day in the country. Progress has been made in providing access to electronic information (especially e-journals) in universities.In the beginning of our work, we set up the hypothesis that a digital library issuing from a digitization project would be welcome by researchers in history in Morocco. After a survey of their opinions about this subject we concluded that they are hesitating and are not very enthusiastic about the idea. They still prefer physical access even if it is difficult and at times not possible.A digitization project is necessary anyway to save the documents, which are under real threat of total disappearance. And more comprehensive and more qualitative surveys should complete the work already done to analyze these questions more profoundly. More studies should be conducted to discover what users really regarding the manuscripts.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to study the readiness of academic researchers in history in Moroccan universities to change their habits and ways of accessing old manuscript collections from direct access to on/offline access to digitized versions of the same documents.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A survey was conducted with a sample population of about 30 researchers, both students and teachers. This survey used a questionnaire distributed directly.\nFindings: - This user study came to the conclusion that though people appreciate the possible existence of a digital library for manuscripts (on- or offline), they have some hesitation to use it solely because they are afraid of losing a precious and fruitful human interaction with the private holders of manuscript collections.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The study is considered as a basis for future studies that could enhance the concepts and the methods. The limitations in this research are mainly due to the local scope of the survey.\nOriginality/value: - The survey is unique in the sense that it is the first one. The manuscripts have been studied previously at several levels except a user needs perspective.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Learning from socially driven service innovation in emerging economies
|
[
"Emerging economies",
"Base of the pyramid",
"Culture",
"Technology",
"Inclusion",
"Indigenous innovation",
"Socially driven service innovation",
"Solution-focused business models"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Innovation is the lifeblood of organizations; in service industries, innovation not only sets a firm apart from its competitors but often creates new markets. True service innovators undertake conceptual transformations and create markets that previously have not existed. Service innovation offers a powerful mechanism of dramatic, rather than incremental, change, and this conceptual transformation through innovation contributes to the success of many service firms.\nSolution-focussed model of social innovation: Innovation in any context has little value unless it benefits customers. In emerging economies, innovation tends to entail the unique elements of a service that provide solutions with social, not just economic, merit. These innovations generally are local in focus (solutions to a problem facing that society) and require an indigenous mindset. In turn, many social innovations stem from untraditional methods or knowledge systems (Mehta and Mokashi-Punekar, 2008); they evolved from within the society to address a particular need that previously has not been fulfilled. Whereas a service focus aims to fulfill customer needs, a solution focus also requires the active engagement of the community (i.e. customers) that will benefit from the solution. In most cases, it requires a continuous, close, collaborative relationship between the solution provider, the recipient, and the society at multiple stages. In contrast with commercial service contexts, solution-focussed service innovators address the needs of the customers, not those of society. For example, to provide low interest rate banking for the poor, a solution focus would include ways to establish birth and residency documentation to help the poor become eligible to open bank accounts. Limited access to resources in emerging economies also makes sustainability and careful resource management a natural criterion (Hockerts and Wustenhagen, 2010; Schaltegger and Wagner, 2011). Social innovations thus appear grounded in three core principles: service (i.e. the solution), technology (i.e. creativity), and sustainability (i.e. effective use of limited resources), often brought together through entrepreneurship within the society, as we show in Figure 2.\nChanging dynamics of emerging markets: Figure 3 depicts a gradual shift in how the developed world perceives and connects with emerging economies, prompting changing dynamics in knowledge and innovation. Specifically, various charitable organizations identified emerging economies as sites in need of support and assistance, and information technology proliferated, leading to the growth and emergence of these economies as potential markets (Brugmann and Prahalad, 2007; Pitta et al., 2008; Prahalad, 2004). Exposures to market opportunities and technology motivated people in emerging economies to seek knowledge as a source of wealth and to lower social barriers. For example, India has become a knowledge reserve for many global firms (Spencer, 2008).\nToward socially inclusive service innovations: Socially focussed, entrepreneurial models of innovation can be nurtured by complex, informal ecosystems. For example, more than 40 percent of Mexico's population lives in poverty (CEPAL, 2010), which leads to continuous growth in the informal employment sector, leaving workers with virtually no job security, low income, no access to health service, no social protection, and limited opportunities to benefit from globalization. Even with jobs, many people do not earn enough to overcome poverty (UN, 2011; WTO and ILO, 2009). In 2010, the informal sector represented 34.2 percent of Mexico's active population and generated 12.9 percent of GDP (ILO, 2011; INEGI, 2012). Low-income people participate as both customers and entrepreneurs, but considering its massive spread, people from other socio-economic segments also must participate in the informal economy, making it highly complex. Recognizing this complexity is key to understanding inclusiveness, in the sense that the entire society can benefit from social innovation (Reynoso, 1999, 2000).\nRole of culture and technology in social innovation: Service innovation means treating customers not as passive buyers or recipients but as operant resources, involved in the innovation process. Service innovations that are socially focussed are contingent on the context, such that they takes different forms in emerging, compared with advanced, economies (Chesbrough, 2011). As Figure 2 reveals, service innovation in emerging economies integrates limited resources, which are distributed across different social segments; their integration depends on the strength of the interactions among stakeholders (see Figure 4). At a fundamental level, culture determines how people perceive, interact, and engage in the integration of resources (Kitayama and Cohen, 2007; Viswanathan and Rosa, 2010).\nFuture research directions: Indigenous, solutions-based models\nContributions and the role of social innovations: As Govindarajan and Trimble (2012) observe, emerging economies are very different. Most literature on innovations refers to the enhancement or offer of new products and services; we cite social innovations, which focus on enhancing value for the people within the society. A customer orientation helps social innovators gain the trust, commitment, and engagement of customers, as well as from networks of support mechanisms within society. With their solution focus and customer orientation, social innovators think beyond the context of service delivery and also provide support, through the entire consumption process. A solution focus allows the firm to establish meaningful, long-term relationships with customers and the community. Considering that firms in advanced economies seek ways to engage customers and establish relationships, a solution focus suggests valuable insights and new directions. In particular, it helps social innovators solve societal needs by creating shared value among the firm, customers, and society. Porter and Kramer (2011) highlight the importance of addressing societal needs, not merely the conventional economic needs of customers, to create lasting impacts in any market.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into indigenous, solution-based business models and their relevance for inclusive service innovation within specific social contexts in emerging economies, with particular emphasis on the role of culture and technology.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A proposed framework illustrates four factors that nurture socially driven service innovation in emerging economies: solution, inclusion, culture, and technology. Extant literature from studies in India, Latin America, and China illustrates distinct indigenous innovations and service relationships that exist at the base of the pyramid (BoP), which provides a foundation for a better understanding of socially inclusive service innovations.\nFindings: A conceptual model of inclusive service innovation reflects an integrated, virtuous cycle, composed of service relationships that stem from the BoP at various levels of analysis across different income segments. These findings suggest notable research directions.\nPractical implications: This study reinforces the importance of a solution orientation as a competitive business model to gain customer engagement.\nSocial implications: Researchers and practitioners in emerging and advanced economies can use the approach suggested by this paper in their efforts to build sustainable business cultures and improve the well-being of society.\nOriginality/value: Previous research has not addressed the social or communal roles of service innovation; this study proposes an innovative switch from a traditional strategy of selling services toward a proactive approach that involves low-income customers as active resources to co-create social and business value.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Diversity management in tourism and hospitality: an exploratory study
|
[
"Cross-cultural management",
"Diversity",
"Tourism",
"Challenges",
"Hospitality"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Globalization is a current trend having a great impact on the hospitality and tourism industry (Reisinger, 2009). Accordingly, people from diverse backgrounds work together which help an organization differentiate itself in the industry. Diversity helps in bringing new perspectives and innovative ideas to execute events and has many advantages if managed successfully. However, with diversity, there is an increase in the number of conflicts in the organization, particularly the hospitality and tourism industry, which has great dimensions with cultural diversity.\n2. Discussions: 2.1 The beginning of multicultural environment: globalization\n3. Conclusion: Gradual globalization of companies has led to an increasingly competitive world economy with rapid changes in the demographic trends and labor structure of organizations in the hospitality and tourism sector. A multicultural workforce is becoming the norm and companies must effectively respond to an expanding diverse staff, an increasing multicultural customer base and growing competition for \"market share\" (Campbell, 2006). Understanding and managing a cross-cultural workforce has, thus, become important for any business to have an edge in the industry. A culturally managed and diverse workforce offers great advantage to any company. However, these companies are still facing management issues like discrimination, communication obstacles, stereotypes and biases.\n4. Recommendations: The research paper is focused towards the analysis of the current face of diverse workforces with regard to an inclusion of multicultural environment among people, based on previously conducted studies. Hence, for a more contextual approach to the topic, a primary research can be adopted so as to get a hands-on view of the current scenario in the field of hospitality and tourism. The perceptions and requirements of the employers and the employees in terms of developing, implementing and maintaining good relations in a multicultural environment may be studied in this way.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The hospitality and tourism industry has seen an increase in organizations operating internationally, bringing people from diverse cultural backgrounds together. The authors aim to help clarify that with a lack of awareness and understanding about diversity, many problems arise in terms of effective intercultural communication between managers and employees and employees and the customers. This paper helps in answering the questions related to the importance of cross cultural management, the intercultural issues faced by an organization, the best practices for diversity management and the future of cultural diversity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors have carried out a review-based research of 60 papers relevant to the topic. The study has been restricted to secondary data consisting of research in the area of managing cultural diversity.\nFindings: The researchers have concluded that there are different dimensions of cultural diversity and thus policies and programs to manage it have to be carefully implemented and integrated. Also, managers need to identify the current gaps in the organization in terms of diversity management to take the necessary steps for building a harmonious relationship between expatriates and the local employees.\nOriginality/value: The study addresses the complex nature of cultural diversity and the management issues of multiculturalism within the hospitality and tourism industry. The authors have made an effort to identify the best practices and programs for managing a diverse workforce which may also improve engagement and retention levels through radical inclusion of employees.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Impact of total quality management, organisational excellence and entrepreneurial orientation on organisational performance: empirical evidence from the public sector in UAE
|
[
"Organisational excellence",
"Total quality management",
"Entrepreneurial orientation",
"Structural equation modelling",
"Organisational performance (OP)"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Businesses face major challenges in adjusting to the changing competitive business climate in the age of economic liberalisation (Soliman, 2013; Enquist et al., 2015). The significance of implementing various quality assurance strategies to improve business performance is emphasised by these challenges (Arumugam et al., 2009).In the last few years, the value of performance has been increased amongst organisations around the world to remain in the competitive environment. At present, value, as a final goal, is not an option but a necessary policy to please consumers and improve company performance. Organisations have begun searching for best practices and approaches to achieve excellence and a starting point and success as well as the final destination for this reason. Amongst these strategies and practices is total quality management (TQM), which many researchers consider a prerequisite philosophy for achieving the desired goals of enhancing the quality of the products and services that make customers happy (Douglas and Judge, 2001).Many studies focus on TQM's important role in improving organisational performance (Abdullah and Tari, 2012; Chopra and Mendl, 2013; Thai and Jie, 2018). They discuss the role of TQM and its dimension, such as leadership, strategic planning, human resource management (HRM), customer focus, continuous improvement, benchmarking and information and analysis, in addition to help organisations achieve their goals and improve their performance. However, many questions are asked about the relationship between TQM and organisational excellence relationship, and how they can affect and complement each other to maximise efficiency and performance.An organization whether in public or private sectors seeks to achieve the highest level of performance and excellence. Organisational excellence has several core values, that is, focus on results and customer satisfaction, leadership and specific goals, process and fact management, employee development and involvement, learning, innovation, creativity and social responsibility (Goetsch and Davis, 2014; Houshi and Taleghani, 2016). Organisational excellence is the creation and execution of strategies for achieving operational performance in accordance with an organisation and its environment, maintaining the process of executing these plans and reviewing them according to total quality control approaches, continuous improvement and organisational learning (Perkmann et al., 2011; Goetsch and Davis, 2014; Houshi and Taleghani, 2016).A central component of entrepreneurship and strategy is entrepreneurial orientation (EO) (Smith and Jambulingam, 2018). They argued that it reflects managerial vision and informs the organisational efforts required to produce innovations that create value for customers and businesses that serve them. In short, EO represents the proclivity of organisational decision-making to support entrepreneurial activities within a firm (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996). EO is the particular style and approach of strategic guidance, decision-making and business execution. EO means that companies are willing to participate in product innovation and are prepared for the challenges of developing and introducing new and unpredictable products or services into new markets. EO also suggests that such companies accurately discover new opportunities before their competitors (Lan and Wu, 2010).Owing to the crucial importance of TQM, organisational excellence and EO for any organisation, an empirical investigation is conducted to understand their total effect on organisational performance in the public organisation. The present study aims to focus on the collective factors to impact performance, especially in public sector organizations. Therefore, our study makes two contributions to advance the literature on performance management and collective power of TQM, excellence and EO. First, we developed and tested a model that collect the most important factors that influence organisational performance in public organizations. Second, this study suggests implications for theory and practice as researchers, managers, practitioners and decision makers can have a benefit of the study model and its results.The paper is arranged wherein next section presents the theoretical literature and hypothesis development. Section 3 and Section 4 deal with methods and results followed by discussion, implications and limitations of the study in Section 5.\n2. Theoretical literature and hypothesis development: Theoretically, Barney (1991) developed the resource-based view (RBV) theory to focus on internal capabilities that can help companies enhance performance and gain competitive advantages over competitors. As intangible resources that can differentiate companies in the competitive market, TQM, organisational excellence and EO are important internal factors for any organisation. 2.1 Organisational performance\n3. Research methodology: A quantitative analysis technique was used to analyse the significant relationships amongst the variables in this study to evaluate the proposed theoretical framework. A survey questionnaire was used to gather data from the Dubai Police as a field of study for this purpose. 3.1 Survey instrument and measurement\n4. Statistical analysis and results: The partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) has become popular in the management literature as a non-parametric model testing technique.Wold (1982) proposed the modelling of the PLS-SEM. PLS is a common method used in path models for measuring latent constructs in the estimation of casual relationships. In addition, the PLS algorithm is primarily a sequence of regression to achieve convergent fixed-point equations.PLS can predict a small number of test path models despite their highly skewed distribution (Bagozzi, 1994).Before testing the hypotheses, the measurement model was examined on the basis of model validity and reliability. 4.1 Measurement (outer model)\n5. Discussions and implications: The main goals of this study are to explore the effects of the organisational performance of TQM and organisational excellence. Given the inconclusiveness of the relationships amongst these variables in previous results, a new model is developed to further assess these relationships. Data are therefore required to evaluate the generated model. Such data are collected from the Dubai Police Department and analysed by SmartPLS using the PLS-SEM methodology.The results of the statistical analysis support the hypotheses. The relationship between TQM and organisational performance is positive and significant, thus supporting H1 (b = 0.411, t = 3.003, p < 0.05).The findings related to the effect of TQM on organisational performance have been confirmed by other previous studies (Abdullah and Tari, 2012; Chopra and Mendl, 2013; Chong and Rundun, 2004; Faisal et al., 2011; Hassan and Kerr, 2003; Gunday et al., 2011; Hendricks and Singhal, 2001; Joiner, 2007; Kumar et al., 2009; Miyagawa and Yoshida, 2010 Thai and Jie, 2018).H2 is also verified because organisational excellence positively and significantly affects organisational performance (b = 0.318, t = 2.939, p < 0.05), which is consistent with the finding of Al-Dhaafri et al. (2016a, b), Ahmad (2019), Calvo-Mora et al. (2014) and Lasrado and Uzbeck (2017). H3 is confirmed, as EO positively and significantly affects organisational performance (b = 0.215, t = 2.200, p < 0.05). This result is in line with the findings of other studies (Bititci, 2015; Bititci and Taheri, 2019; Cho and Lee, 2018; Homburg et al., 2012; Lechner and Gudmundsson, 2014; Sainaghi et al., 2017; Smith and Bititci, 2017; Wales, 2016).It is clear from the above results that all hypotheses were accepted. Middle managers in Dubai Police understand the importance of TQM, organisational excellence and EO for enhancing organisational performance. The Dubai government support public organisations in general and Dubai Police in particular to implement innovative strategies and practices to achieve their goals. There is excellent awareness among Dubai Police leaders and employees to accelerate speed of performance that will reflect pioneering in all processes and services. 5.1 Theoretical implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Drawing upon the resource-based view, the authors examined empirically the total effect of total quality management (TQM), organisational excellence and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) on organisational performance\nDesign/methodology/approach: Hypotheses were formed to be tested using primary data collected through a survey questionnaire. The data were collected from the Dubai police organisation as a field of study. Out of the 500 distributed questionnaires, 280 questionnaires were returned. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyse the data for measurement and structural models.\nFindings: The statistical results that were extracted using PLS-SEM confirmed the positive and significant effect of TQM, organisational excellence and EO on organisational performance.\nPractical implications: In this study, many valuable implications were found from the results. The outcomes of this study can help managers, decision makers and practitioners in considering the importance of implementing practices, such as TQM, excellence and EO in their organisations. Therefore, the outcomes can help in achieving the best desired performance.\nOriginality/value: The present study is one of the most important empirical research studies that examine the total effect of TQM, organisational excellence and EO on performance relationships.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Corporate social responsibility management in Uganda: Lessons, challenges, and policy implications
|
[
"Management",
"Corporate social responsibility",
"Motivation",
"Communication",
"Lessons",
"Challenges",
"Policy"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nBackground: The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is premised on the idea that business is part of society (Freeman, 1984), and that it should manage its operations in ways that honour its co-existence with society's various stakeholders (Freeman, 1998; Lantos, 2001; Freeman et al., 2004). However, management of CSR activities and projects has been recognized as a fairly complex issue. Around the world, CSR management has become a business management issue (Stamm, 2004). This has necessitated international bodies such as United Nations Global Compact (UNGC, 2002), Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and International Organization for Standards (ISO), among others, to develop guidelines on the management of CSR. For example, the UN Global Compact has issued The 10 Principles (UNGC, 2002); the OECD has issued its Guidelines for Multinationals to Engage in CSR; and ISO has recently (November 2010) finalized the ISO 26000 standard. In developing countries, including Uganda, where strategic CSR is relatively new (Nkiko and Katamba, 2010), its management has become more challenging, especially given the scenario where there is no definitive consensus on what CSR actually means (KPMG, 2008). Borrowing from management academics such as Peter Drucker and James Stoner, the concept of management is simplified to include, among others; motivation, communication, initiation, planning, implementation and monitoring, which can lead to finding a solution to the issue of CSR management. Studies elsewhere (UNIDO, 2005a, b) have suggested that clustering of business entities would simplify understanding and management of the CSR concept. Earlier research had suggested that the improper management of CSR would harm a firm's reputation within society (Fombrun, 1996; Fombrun and Van Riel, 2004). This may have prompted some scholars to propose that CSR management issues should be indispensible to business strategy (Porter and Kramer, 2002, 2006). Thus, CSR management should be part of the overall management strategy. To realize this, they suggest various issues including consultations, staff development and policy formulation to be strategically addressed and cross-examined if firms are to realize the benefits both to themselves and to the wider society (Porter and Kramer, 2006).Given this background, this study aims to establish what CSR management entails in a developing country like Uganda, including the challenges it faces and whether there are lessons that can be learned. For the purposes of this research, the practice of CSR management is conceptualized from a combination of general management theories, especially motivation theories, behaviourist theories and stakeholder theory (Lantos, 2001). These are the key questions addressed in this paper:RQ1. What motivates companies in Uganda to engage in CSR activities/projects?RQ2. How do companies instil CSR behaviour and buy-in among their staff?RQ3. What is the annual financial resource commitment to CSR management?RQ4. What common channels do companies use to communicate their CSR activities?This paper starts with the background to the research questions. This is followed by a review of the existing literature. It then provides the methodology before proceeding to the findings, analysis of these findings, and finally a conclusion. The last section contains both policy and practical recommendations for the improvement of CSR management in Uganda, and in other developing countries.\nLiterature review: Motivation for undertaking CSR\nMethodology: Research design\nFindings and discussions: Motivators for CSR\nThe challenges of implementing CSR: The respondents were asked to \"Indicate the challenges their companies experience in implementing CSR issues\". We grouped these into three broad categories. These included physical, institutional and operational challenges. The physical challenges revolved around inadequate infrastructure, such as roads and communication networks, around the country. Institutional challenges involved lack of policy guidelines, both at the state level and the organizational level. This is evident in the absence of top executives in the implementation of CSR projects in various companies in this study. On the other hand, budgetary limitations, inadequate or lacking data in a number of sectors, and a lack of expertise in CSR among the staff of companies implementing CSR all equate to serious operational challenges. Many financial allocations for CSR projects are so limited that they are insufficient even to allow for completion of the planned activities.\nOther CSR management issues: Initiating, implementing and monitoring CSR activities in companies\nConclusions: After analyzing the above data we concluded that motivating factors for engaging in CSR are ideal and well-intentioned. However, a lack of policy guidelines both at institutional and organizational level has led top management to leave the implementation of CSR projects to lower cadres in the management hierarchy, which significantly undermines the effectiveness and sustainability of CSR because the projects remain underfunded and, hence, sporadic and inconsistent.\nRecommendations: Despite continued criticism of developing countries' governments with regards to their failure to enforce CSR (Kakabadse et al., 2005), we see a similar trend of frustrations from participants in this study. Thus, the government needs to take a lead in guiding both national and international agencies involved in CSR activities, and both public and private companies, to improve their contribution to social development. This would regulate CSR activities so that they cease to be intermittent and inconsistent. The costs of the governments' failure to enforce CSR are huge (Visser, 2011). Practically, Uganda and many sub-Saharan African Governments could emulate South Africa, where CSR is relatively better implemented when compared with most of the other countries on the African continent (CSI Handbook, 2010, 2011), and/or consider other Western governments' responsiveness with regards to promoting or enforcing CSR. In South Africa, for example, businesses responded weakly to the pressures from the Companies Act 61 of 1973, and the King II and King III reports that explicitly address the need for businesses to acknowledge stakeholders and to adopt a \"triple-bottom line\" approach (Fig, 2005; Skinner and Mersham, 2008). The government's Black Economic Empowerment legislation, which requires businesses to consider all stakeholders when performing their internal and external operations, promotes and extends business engagement in CSR. Beyond Africa, several European Union Governments have legislation making environmental reporting mandatory for businesses, and also enforce Restriction of Hazardous Substances legislation and the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Act. Similarly, in the USA, the Toxics Release Inventory is administered and legalized through the Environmental Protection Agency. Such legislation may help in regulating CSR activities so that they cease to be intermittent and inconsistent.In the examples above, governments have worked in partnership with wider stakeholders along the supply chains, such as donor agencies and buyers, in embracing CSR policies and procedures within businesses. Thus, we hope that the 10 per cent of companies who were identified in this study as not engaging in any CSR activities will be encouraged to begin to do so. Lastly, we recommend that the incentives offered to companies involved in CSR should extend to tax reduction, regardless of whether they are small or large companies.\nLimitations and directions for further research: We used a small sample, as this was an exploratory study to stimulate discussion on the subject of CSR in Uganda, so the views presented may not be representative of the bigger picture. Also, we conceptualized our study based on management principles, particularly those relating to controlling, communication, motivation and planning. We therefore suggest that more studies from a developing country perspective should be undertaken to assess the contribution and development impact of companies characterized by good CSR management.\nAcknowledgements: The authors would like to dedicate this article their co-author, Mrs Jean Hensley Kekaramu (RIP), who never saw the final output of this published paper. She died on Friday, 25 November, 2011. The authors also wish to thank Makerere University Business School (MUBS) - Faculty of Marketing and Hospitality Management; and National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) - Uganda, for their support that has seen this article published and for their support towards CSR scholarship in Uganda.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this study is to investigate how business enterprises in Uganda manage their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and projects.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The investigations focused on a limited number of management facets. Using a cross-sectional survey design, the researchers collected data through both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. These included semi-structured interviews with managers of selected enterprises, as well as non-participant observation of CSR activities and projects.\nFindings: - The findings show unbalanced engagement in CSR for business managers in Uganda. Managers are largely motivated towards CSR by external factors such as attracting and retaining customers, enhancing reputation and operational efficiencies to achieve competitive advantage, rather than internal factors such as CSR policies, employee welfare and CSR reporting. Another significant finding is that the responsibility to initiate, administer, and monitor CSR activities is largely vested in middle-level managers. These factors pose many challenges to CSR implementation amongst managers in Uganda.\nOriginality/value: - This study was a follow-up of a baseline survey, \"CSR in Uganda: perceptions, approaches, and needs of companies\", which was conducted earlier by the lead researcher. The value of this paper is that it provides an in-depth insight into the status of CSR management in Uganda, which in turn will help both the public and private sectors to identify potential gaps, weaknesses and/or needs for improvement. In the long run, this will improve the image, development impact and performance of CSR undertakings for the benefit of all stakeholders in Uganda.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
When do job insecure employees adapt to change?
|
[
"Job insecurity",
"Adaptive performance",
"Changes to core tasks",
"Task adaptivity"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Job insecurity is an enduring part of modern employees' work experiences (Lee et al., 2018; Colbert et al., 2016), with recent estimates of job insecurity ranging from 7 to 40 percent internationally (Laszlo et al., 2010; Kuroki, 2015; Gallie et al., 2017) and an upward trend expected (Lee et al., 2018). Amidst the increasing strain placed on workers due to job insecurity, employees must be able to anticipate and react to task changes at work resulting from recent (and continuing) transformations in the nature of work such as increases in knowledge work, technological advancements, and globalization (e.g. Rocha et al., 2006; Uhl-Bien et al., 2007). Consequently, employers have begun placing more emphasis on adaptive performance (AP) (Griffin et al., 2007; Jundt et al., 2015), a core dimension of work role performance focused on adjusting to changes in work and encompassing behaviors such as adopting new practices, learning new systems and adjusting workflow (Jundt et al., 2015; Pulakos et al., 2000). Given the developing shift from routine task performance to AP, it is time for research to explore job insecurity's impact on AP.\nJob insecurity and adaptive performance: Job insecurity entails \"a threat to the continuity and stability of employment as it is currently experienced\" (Shoss, 2017, p. 1). Our focus here is on potential loss of the job as a whole, which is sometimes labeled quantitative job insecurity (Hellgren et al., 1999) to distinguish this uncertainty from uncertainty over the loss of desired job characteristics (qualitative job insecurity). Given the importance of work for people's identities, psychological needs and manifest resources, job insecurity has been associated with a host of detrimental well-being effects and job attitudinal effects (De Witte et al., 2016; Vander Elst et al., 2012).\nMethod: Participants and procedure\nResults: Correlations, descriptive statistics and internal consistency reliability estimates for all measures are displayed in Table I.\nDiscussion: As AP is increasingly crucial for organizational success, it is important to understand how job insecurity and changes in task work influence it. While job insecurity and changes to core tasks may sometimes share organizational change or external environmental change as a common antecedent (Keim et al., 2014), our study sought instead to investigate changes to core tasks as a moderating factor that could ameliorate the harmful effects of job insecurity on AP. This research is particularly important given findings suggesting that perceptions of job insecurity may be based in more structural aspects of economic environments, past work experiences or features of employees' work positions (Anderson and Pontusson, 2007; Ellonen and Natti, 2015; Keim et al., 2014). Our study found a negative relationship between job insecurity and AP when changes to core tasks are low, but this relationship disappeared at moderate-to-high levels of changes to core tasks. Unexpectedly, we did not find a main effect of job insecurity on AP, indicating that job insecurity was not detrimental for AP. However, the limited available studies examining AP in particular (Mader and Niessen, 2017; Niessen and Jimmieson, 2016) have not produced consistent findings. This null main effect finding further emphasizes the importance of examining situational features as moderators to better understand inconsistent results. The test of our interaction hypothesis revealed that employees experiencing greater job insecurity engage in similar levels of AP as their counterparts when facing substantial changes to their core job tasks. This finding is consistent with past research that has found that situational cues moderate the impact of job insecurity on behaviors at work (Probst, 2004; Wang et al., 2015; Konig et al., 2010). We extend this line of work by considering how changes to core tasks shape the relationship between job insecurity and AP.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between job insecurity and adaptive performance (AP), contingent on changes to core work tasks, which we position as a situational cue to employees regarding important work behaviors.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Employees and their supervisors were invited to participate in the study. Supervisors were asked to provide ratings of employees' AP and changes to core tasks; employees reported on job insecurity.\nFindings: As predicted, changes to core tasks moderated the relationship between job insecurity and AP. Job insecurity was negatively related to AP for those experiencing low levels of change, but was not related to AP for those experiencing high levels of change. Counter to expectations, no main effect of job insecurity was found.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study employed a fairly small sample of workers from two organizations, which could limit generalizability.\nPractical implications: The study identifies changes to core tasks as a boundary condition for the job insecurity-AP relationship. Findings suggest that organizations may not observe deleterious consequences of job insecurity on AP when changes to core tasks are high.\nOriginality/value: Few researchers have examined boundary conditions of the impact of job insecurity on AP. Furthermore, inconsistent findings regarding the link between job insecurity and AP have emerged. This study fills the gap and expands upon previous research by examining changes to core tasks as a condition under which job insecurity does not pose an issue for AP.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Equipment supplier/user collaboration in the process industries: In search of enhanced operating performance
|
[
"Process management",
"Operations management",
"Supplier relations",
"Manufacturing industries"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Background and introduction: equipment supplier/user collaboration in the process industries: The process industries include several different industry sectors such as minerals and metals, pulp and paper, food and beverages, chemicals and petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals, and therefore constitute a large part of all manufacturing industry. Companies in the process industries may focus on being efficient commodity producers, or producers of more functional products, or both. Regardless of strategic focus, however, an efficient production process ensures that production costs can be kept low with subsequent higher profit margins and less price sensitivity.One way to improve production performance is to invest in better and more efficient process technology (Skinner, 1992). Trott and Cordey-Hayes (1996, p. 91) have noted that:The building of a new plant sets the need for inward technology transfer, and is the catalyst to bringing in new technology. At these times, the business tends to be very receptive to new technology, particularly in the concept and design phase of a new plant.The design and installation of new process technology or even erection of new process plants is, however, a rather complex undertaking which normally involves several industrial actors. The role of contractors and contractor R&D is discussed in detail by von Emloh et al. (1994).Figure 1 shows a situation where the equipment to be purchased and installed is already available on the market. Depending on the situation, the process plant owner (operator and purchaser) can take care of both design and plant/process erection, while in other cases the equipment manufacturer takes care of design and process/plant erection. A contractor is sometimes involved as an intermediate step in this process. The complex relationships between contractors and process firms has been studied in detail by Hutcheson et al. (1996), and as part of their findings, they also conclude that more efforts should be directed towards the growing importance of equipment manufacturers as sources of innovation. Although this study was published more than a decade ago, knowledge on this important topic remain scarce. Hutcheson et al. further notice that equipment manufacturers should play an increasingly important role in refining existing technologies and improving equipment reliability and capabilities. Such efforts are facilitated by close co-operation with the operating companies, who contribute process expertise which often is lacking on the part of equipment manufacturers (Hutcheson et al., 1995).The process industries have a long tradition of often successful collaborative development between process firms and suppliers of new technology (Aylen, 2010), today often denominated as \"open innovation\". Historically, it can be seen how many equipment-manufacturing companies have grown from collaboration with domestic process firms to the point where they now serve customers primarily active on the global market. In the process industries of today, it is thus rather uncommon for individual process firms to develop their own process technology or even manufacture new process equipment. This fact makes them highly dependent on various kinds of equipment suppliers in their efforts to acquire new process equipment to secure and/or improve their operating performance. In this context, we use the performance concept mainly on the company and production level. While Sink lists effectiveness, efficiency, quality, profitability, productivity, quality of work life and innovations as different categories of performance, we will intentionally not distinguish among those measurable categories in this framework (Sink, 1985). From another perspective, productivity can also be used as an overall concept as the ratio between input and output from a system. Productivity then reflects the results as a function of effort, i.e. when productivity improves, it means that more results are being obtained for a given amount of effort (Brinkerhoff and Dressler, 1990).In our further discussions of collaboration as a means of improving the output on both the production and the company level, we will use the concept of performance and performance improvements to emphasise that there may be a number of different kinds of gains and losses from such an increased collaborative behaviour. Since collaborative development, manufacturing and sale of new or improved process technology/equipment constitute only the infancy of its full life cycle, one route to additional improvement for both parties may be even stronger collaboration during the operational part of the equipment's full life cycle, although such integration may pose specific problems as well.1.1 A full life-cycle perspective on collaborative development and operation of process technology/equipment\n2 A point of departure: technology diffusion and technology transfer: Although inter-company collaboration is typically discussed in the context of various forms of collaboration structures like alliances, joint ventures and partnerships, the inherent collaborative activities within each structure require an exchange of information between the parties involved (Frishammar and Horte, 2005). Consequently, successful collaboration depends on adequate management of information flows and sharing of knowledge among stakeholders. In the specific context of collaboration between equipment manufacturers and process firms, one important issue is thus to improve such desired information exchange in different kinds of collaborative settings. On the other hand, it may be equally important to understand how undesired information sharing or information leakage can be avoided. The dissemination of information is at the heart of the concepts of \"technology diffusion\" and \"technology transfer\", which are sometimes used interchangeably, causing confusion and hampering communication among practitioners and scholars. In an effort to clarify the distinction between these concepts, Stewart (1987) talks about the company's intentional desire to sell its products or process technology on the market as \"diffusion of use\". Normally, the company has no desire to sell the embodied technology in the product or the production technology for its manufacture. Such intentional delivery is labelled \"technology transfer\", when the company, at a suitable price, is prepared to sell the right to produce its new product and the knowledge needed to do so. Diffusion of use is thus restricted by demand whereas, technology transfer is constrained to the supply side (Stewart, 1987).In this paper, we follow the distinctions proposed by Stewart and consequently use the concept of \"technology diffusion\" as the spontaneous flow or meandering of information and knowledge about a technology whereas, we use the concept \"technology transfer\" to label a company's intentional transfer of information and knowledge.2.1 Technology diffusion\n3 The development of a theoretical framework: In the light of the presented background and the review of technology diffusion and technology transfer, there are three general issues which this theoretical framework addresses:RQ1. Why collaborate?RQ2. When to collaborate?And finally:RQ3. How to collaborate?Comprehensibly, we define collaboration as a cooperative arrangement in which two or more parties work jointly towards a common goal (Lager and Frishammar, 2009). We start out with the RQ1 of why to collaborate and elaborate upon pros and cons with process firm/equipment manufacturer collaboration for improved operational performance. Although it may be counterintuitive to start with potential outcomes resulting from collaboration, we will nevertheless do so, since this is where an industry professional would like to begin.3.1 Why collaborate: positive and negative outcomes from collaboration\n4 Conclusions and outlook: A theoretical framework addressing collaboration between suppliers and users of process technology has been constructed, based on the input from a review of previous publications related to this subject area and a review of technology diffusion and transfer, and using some practical previous experience from the authors and some industry representatives. The proposed framework and related discussions may first of all be used by industry and industry professionals as some sort of reminder of the importance of this subject area, which has been very sparsely addressed in scientific journals or in other industrial publications. It is hoped that this paper will serve as a source of inspiration and possibly initiate more in-house fact-based discussions. The tentatively compiled lists of pros and cons is intended to be used in internal brainstorming exercises in order to be supplemented by more company-specific drivers for collaboration in some sort of ranking order. In planning collaborative projects to enhance operating performance, such a platform should be jointly discussed and agreed upon between equipment suppliers and process firms in order to ensure long-term and trustful collaboration.A new conceptual model for the full operational life cycle of process technology/equipment is presented, relating potential drivers for collaboration and success factors to be investigated to different phases of the operational life cycle. Further on, a matrix for collaboration has been constructed using the dimensions \"type of technology capability\" and \"expected performance improvements\" as key determinants. The matrix is introduced as a part of the theoretical platform, first of all to be used to determine whether a collaborative mode is desirable and if so to select alternative forms for collaboration. Further on it may be used in the development of success factors for such collaborations during different main phases of the operational life cycle of process equipment.Returning to the question that was initially posed in the beginning of this paper, whether a win-win situation can be created by collaboration, it seems in conclusion that the question may have been erroneously formulated. Improving the operating performance of the process firm is thus not only the objective for the process firm! To improve operating performance for the equipment manufacturer, the same objective must be pursued by them. A satisfied customer is the overall target for the equipment manufacturer, not just profitable marketing and sales of process equipment. In other words, the creation of a win-win situation in collaboration is thus not only desirable but essential for both parties and a common objective for staying competitive in the future.Choosing among the different organisational forms is something that must be partly guided by company-specific considerations (while never forgetting future competitive implications), and the suggested matrix can serve as a tool for this as well. Better control of in-house process technology and a strategy for protection or dissemination of such technology should be high up on companies' agendas. Because of this, when collaboration takes place in different plant and corporate operating environments, these issues are of the highest importance and ought also to be discussed at top management level.4.1 A proposed research agenda\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to provide theoretical insight and practical guidance on how both process firms and equipment manufacturers can address the challenges posed by collaboration during the operational stage of the process technology/equipment life cycle.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Motives and driving forces for entering collaborative projects far from always converge, and while some projects require deep and long-lasting relationships, others call for pure transactions and arms-length relationships. The questions of why, when and how collaboration should take place and be organised and managed are addressed and discussed in the light of the literature on technology diffusion and technology transfer, and supplemented by ideas from industry professionals.\nFindings: - A tentative list of potential pros and cons has been compiled to serve as an embryo for further creation of a more complete set of expected outcomes with a view to developing a firm benchmarking instrument for establishing new collaborative relationships. Subsequently, a conceptual model of the full life-cycle of process technology/equipment is developed to create a platform for determining collaboration intensity and success factors during different phases. Finally, a matrix with the dimensions \"type of capability\" and \"expected performance improvements\" is introduced as a tool for selection of different forms of collaboration.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The main limitation is that so far this is only a theoretical framework, but as such it will serve as a new platform and a guide for further empirical studies of this important yet under-researched area.\nOriginality/value: - This area of technology and innovation management research for the process industries has not been addressed before in depth. The new framework can already be deployed by industry professionals in their efforts to improve inter-company collaboration and technology transfer, but also as a means of avoiding unintended technology diffusion.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Evaluating hotel guest technologies: does home matter?
|
[
"Hotels",
"Technology adoption",
"Customer Satisfaction",
"Hospitality",
"Guest technologies"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The significance of guest technologies and the extent to which they are integral to the lodging product is well recognized (Cho and Olsen, 1998; Beldona and Cobanoglu, 2007). As information technology changes, hospitality ventures must adapt by acquiring or developing new capabilities for use (Piccoli et al., 2013). It follows then that a judiciously executed technology adoption strategy could positively affect the hotel's profitability (Hua et al., 2015), foster service innovation and induce competitive advantage (Victorino et al., 2005; Bilgihan et al., 2011; Bilgihan and Wang, 2016). However, hotels have for long struggled with the \"when, what and how\" of guest technology adoption, and are even viewed as laggards in the technology adoption lifecycle (Cho and Olsen, 1998; Namasivayam et al., 2000). In fact, a survey by a leading consulting firm found that hotels were laggards and ranked the lowest in the digital economy when compared with 15 other sectors of industry, such as finance, retail, etc. (Friedrich et al., 2011). The reasons for this slowness, and often inadequacy, of guest technology adoption vary considerably (Reino et al., 2013).\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 The concept of home\n3. Hypotheses: As the review of the literature outlines, home is the key frame of reference as to how guests will evaluate hotel guest technologies (Figure 1). Importantly, the quality, modernity and the level of technology at home serve as the baseline, meaning that a hotel's technological offerings have to be greater along these lines when compared with home, for guests to evaluate them favorably. In this study, this is conceptualized as the relative standard of a hotel's technological offerings when compared with that at home. It is defined as the summary judgment of the quality, modernity and level of technologies at the hotel when compared with one's home. We therefore posit that:\n4. Data, Measures and Methods: 4.1 Data\n5. Findings and discussion: Figure 2 illustrates the findings of the model with the paths showing the relative magnitudes of the relationships. The results support both hypotheses. H1, which posited that greater the relative standing of a hotel's guest technologies when compared with home, higher will be the satisfaction with guest technologies in the hotel, was supported (b = 0.63, p < 0.001). H2 posited a positive relationship between guest technology satisfaction and customer satisfaction and it was supported as well (b = 0.64, and p < 0.001).\n6. Conclusion: In summary, the findings of this indicate that when hoteliers debate over:\n7. Implications: 7.1 Theoretical implications\n8. Limitations and future research: 8.1 Limitations\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: With the advent of the smart home, where connectivity is facilitated by the internet of things, the provision of guest technologies in hotel service delivery has acquired greater significance. This ubiquity of technology implies that hotels need to view their technological offerings as facilitating guest's broader lifestyles, and not just services in isolated spaces. This study aims to examine the role of \"home\" as a socio-technological unit, and how customers' ownership of technologies at home affects evaluations of guest technologies at hotels.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data are collected from a sample of US lodging consumers using Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Partial least squares, which is a component-based structural equation modeling technique with SmartPLS 3.2, is used to test the hypotheses and meet the study's objectives.\nFindings: The findings show that hotel guest technologies should be of a higher standard than those at home, for guests to be satisfied with them. This relationship was robust across all hotel types, and both leisure and business visitation. Also, satisfaction with guest technologies has a relatively stronger impact on customer satisfaction in mid-scale and economy hotels compared to that in upscale and luxury hotels.\nResearch limitations/implications: By empirically validating \"home\" as a frame of reference in the evaluations of hospitality experiences, it opens up the potential for future research to study how home affects the evaluation of the hospitality experience as a whole.\nPractical implications: Hotels need to identify viable technologies that have the potential to become mainstream, and be ahead of customers in the technology adoption curve.\nOriginality/value: This study is the first to look at home as a conceptual entity that is integral to hospitality using a socio-psychological lens, and evaluates its impact on evaluations of guest technologies at hotels.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Lessons from the military speed leadership development at Walmart: Academy accelerates high-potential people's rise to the top
|
[
"Management development",
"Leadership",
"Supermarkets",
"United States of America",
"Leadership development",
"Training techniques"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: A supermarket giant facing demand to open stores faster than it could produce qualified managers has launched a leadership academy to develop high-potential talent and increase the speed at which managers are ready for promotion.\nCourses developed and delivered by operational leaders: \"With Walmart, we created a customized leadership-development system. By combining development, training and operational activities in the context of the company's day-to-day needs, the leadership academy delivers far greater impact and relevance than generic management training. Key to our integrated approach to business leadership is having courses that are developed and delivered by operational leaders.\"Much of its approach is based on the methods successfully applied at the British military's renowned colleges, such as Sandhurst and Lympstone, and particularly the Ministry of Defence's staff college - the Joint Services Command and Staff College at Shrivenham.\"Since its implementation, almost 500 managers from across the US have graduated from the Walmart program - run from its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas.McKinney Rogers and Walmart already had an ongoing relationship where the consultant was helping to create alignment throughout the US stores business. Bill Simon wanted to ensure that he had a readily identified and trained pool of talented leaders who could be promoted to support the firm's ambitious growth agenda.\nHow the training works: \"The training takes participants through a number of developmental, training and inspirational experiences,\" said Damian McKinney. \"The outcome is a group of graduates who think of themselves as leaders and who hit high targets in all areas of the training program. Crucially, in line with the staff-college model, leaders at all levels are made to think two levels up in the context of the business and across functional areas.\"The training consists of on-the-job experience, master classes, virtual-classroom environments, instructor-led events, self-pace study, student-led activities, experiential exercises, service projects, distance learning and small-group discussions.\"The program promotes value and empowerment in the graduates,\" Damian McKinney continued. \"They are given the instruction to pass these skills across to their teams, which promotes further learning and employee engagement.\"The precise make-up of the course varies according to the level of the managers being trained. Typically, however, it includes three blocks of two-week residential work, followed by peer-group and individual-project work on the front line.The leadership academy ranges from courses for future store managers through market and regional-manager level, where it includes leaders for supporting functions.\nWhat the participants think: \"This class changed my life and is changing how I live,\" enthused one store manager. \"I feel good because I am more confident ... I have noticed, being back in the stores, that the associates look at me in a different way. I just know this class makes me alive inside. I want to be a teacher and leader, not just a manager. I never looked at my role before as I look at it now. I set the tone for others. I must add that I am honored to be a part of this experience. I am humbled and I can say you made a difference in my life!\"\"After having some time to reflect on the experience, I recognize that this opportunity has truly shaped me as a leader and changed how I approach and view the business,\" a market manager commented. \"I am currently seeking out ways that I can expand my breadth of experience so that I may get and sustain a more global perspective of the business.\"I am also applying much of the key learning that I experienced into developing my store managers and already recognize growth within each one of them. Words really cannot express how much I took away from this experience.\"\nThe Walmart view: \"We know our associates are our greatest asset. Investing in the development of our future leaders is essential. Through the leadership academy, we have developed talented leaders, managers and associates around the country, providing immersion training and broader development for our leaders,\" said Celia Swanson, senior vice-president of talent development for Walmart US. \"We appreciate the partnership with McKinney Rogers and its support in developing a world-class training program that focuses on building the high-performing teams relevant in today's business environment.\"\nNote: David Pollitt, Human Resource Management International Digest editor, wrote this article.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to describe how supermarket-giant Walmart, facing demand to open stores faster than it could produce qualified managers, has launched a leadership academy to develop high-potential talent and increase the speed at which managers are ready for promotion.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Explains the reasons for the program, the form it takes and the results it has achieved.\nFindings: - Details the involvement of business-execution expert McKinney Rogers, whose approach is based on leadership lessons from the military.\nPractical implications: - Explains that, by combining development, training and operational activities in the context of the company's day-to-day needs, the leadership academy delivers greater impact and relevance than generic management training.\nSocial implications: - Shows how skills honed by the military - such as being able to quickly execute complex missions in the most demanding environments - can be applied to benefit multinational corporations.\nOriginality/value: - The paper discusses an unusual approach to accelerated management development.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
On the decision to reprice stock options: almost never
|
[
"Corporate governance",
"Stock options",
"Pricing"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Executive compensation has been the subject of animated debate for years. Critics remind us that in 1980, CEOs' compensation was 40 times that of the average worker; by 1990, that factor had increased to 80 times; more recently, the estimates range from 250-500 times that of the average worker. Not only has the amount of pay changed substantially, but so has its composition. Today, more than half of CEOs' pay is composed of stock options, a form of payment relied on by virtually all publicly-traded companies in the USA.\nAn example of stock options: The issue of executive stock options raises more eyebrows than a suite of plastic surgeons, and for a variety of reasons. Consider an example. Suppose that the current stock price for a hypothetical company is $40 and the CEO is given an option to purchase 100,000 shares for that rate at some future time. Assume that five years later, the shares are trading at $60. The CEO could purchase 100,000 shares at $40 ($4 million), sell them at $60 ($6 million), and - setting aside the tax effects - pocket the difference, $2 million. This transaction is not usually controversial because other shareholders, too, have benefited as the price of the stock has substantially increased over the period. Fair enough, in principle.But, what happens if the price of the shares had decreased, say from $40 to $20? It is a special treatment of stock options under those circumstances that is the most controversial aspect of executive compensation - the repricing of options.\nAn example of repricing: With the value of the stock falling from $40 to $20, the problem is obvious. Presumably, no one would purchase 100,000 shares at $40 and sell them at $20. The reality, then, is that the 100,000 options are virtually worthless; they are, in the vernacular, \"underwater,\" or \"out of the money.\"The question is what should the board of directors do? In many cases, the options are repriced. Repricing involves exchanging existing options (i.e. the underwater options) for new options with a lower exercise price. The board, for example, could reprice the options to $20, the current value of the stock. Now if the stock price increases to $30, these \"new\" options are in the money for $10 (i.e. $30 stock price less the $20 option) instead of underwater ($40 option price minus the $30 current stock price). There are other approaches for minimizing the impact of underwater options. The company, for example, could authorize even more options (say 200,000 at the lower option price. It could also purchase the options at the current value or they could issue an equivalent value in restricted stock. Whatever, the tactic, the result is to restore value to the underwater options, which are essentially worthless.\nWhy are some observers against repricing?: A common element in the answer is that repricing or its equivalents amount to rewarding failure. The rationale for stock options is to align the interests of executives with those of shareholders. All of these players benefit when the price of the common stock increases. So, why should the board reward executives for ushering this hypothetical company into a situation where half of its value ($40 to $20 per share) was lost?The institutional investment community has been outspoken in its criticism of repricing. The Director of Research for the Council of Institutional Investors, an organization of pension funds controlling some $1.5 trillion in assets, suggested that \"our members generally detest [repricing] and consider it antithetical to the whole concept of incentive compensation.\"Also, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) released \"Accounting for Certain Transactions Involving Stock Compensation\" (FIN 44 - March, 2000). This was designed to apply prohibitive financial accounting consequences for repricing options. For a variety of technical reasons (e.g. extending underwater options, more frequent grants of smaller options, corporate purchases of options at current value, bounded stock appreciation rights [SARs], sale of options to a third party, grants of additional options, grants of paired options, replacing options with stock grants), however, FIN 44 has not been effective.Other critics argue that repricings are not always a reaction to poor stock performance; rather, they are in anticipation of poor stock performance. Consider, for example, a survey reporting that 43 percent of companies intended to compensate their executives if their options were to be underwater. This strikes us as a bit of the proverbial \"putting the cart before the horse.\"\nThose in favor of repricing: in defense of the \"do-over\": Corporations provide three major arguments in favor of repricing. First, repricing facilitates the retention of CEOs and the top management team, without whose continued services the repricing firms will founder. The other rationales are related. Without repricing, the motivation of the remaining executives will markedly decrease because a major part of their compensation has been compromised. Given this, and the turnover of CEOs and top management team members, the financial performance of the firm will not recover.Individuals, for any number of reasons, may prefer one set of arguments to the other on the issue of the efficacious use of repricing. Clearly, though, evidence marshalling favor for option repricing would have to include a reduction in CEO and top management team turnover and improvement in firm financial performance.\nThe evidence: repricing under the microscope: There have been three recent studies that, in concert, address these issues. First, there is no evidence whatsoever that repricing reduces CEO turnover. On the contrary, over the two-year period after repricing, CEO turnover is approximately twice as high for repricing firms compared to a matched group of firms that did not reprice.For top management turnover, the results are similar. Top executives also left the firm at a much higher rate than their counterparts in firms that did not reprice. Moreover, whether relying on accounting returns (ROA) or market returns (returns on common stock), there is no evidence that repricing firms perform better after the repricing.\nThe verdict: For us, the preponderance of evidence substantiates the position that repricing stock options does not meet its stated objectives. But, we will be among the first to join those who would consider an exception. If the driving issue is to motivate high levels of employee performance in the interests of the firm, then repricing options may actually be a responsible practice, but not for the current CEO and top management team that ushered the firm into poor performance. A new set of stock options, however, may be a best practice to welcome a new top management team to lead the firm and its shareholders into a more prosperous future. Stock options - yes. Options repricing - almost always no.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Looks at the issue of repricing stock options for CEOs and other senior managers when existing option are under water. The board of directors has the option of exchanging existing options (i.e. the underwater options) for new options with a lower exercise price.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Opinion piece.\nFindings: - There is no evidence that repricing reduces CEO or top management turnover. In fact, top executives left a firm at a much higher rate than their counterparts in firms that did not reprice. Moreover, whether relying on accounting returns (ROA) or market returns (returns on common stock), there is no evidence that repricing firms perform better after the repricing.\nPractical implications: - Provides boards and senior managers with information with information showing that repricing of options is almost never justified except possibly when hiring a new CEO.\nOriginality/value: - Of particular value to CEOs and other board members\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Family socio-cultural values affecting early marriage between Muslim and Santal communities in rural Bangladesh
|
[
"Bangladesh",
"Early marriage",
"Family socio-cultural values",
"Muslim and Santal community"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Early marriage intended to legitimate sexual relation and reproduction as well as to strengthen child development, mutual social support and adaptation (Goode, 1983; Murdock, 1960) is a historical and socio-cultural issue across the less-developed societies, including Bangladesh. Family socio-cultural approaches (Dixon, 1971; Goode, 1983; Murdock, 1960; Smith, 1980; South, 2001; Vygotsky, 1986) rather than bio-psychological developmental (Buss, 1989; Bancroft, 2002), socio-demographic and socio-economic development (Singh and Samara, 1998) indicate that early marriage patterns are deeply rooted in family socio-cultural values and its related practices in the less-developed societies. Purpose of the study is to examine and predict how family socio-cultural values perpetuate early marriage patterns that may vary between Muslim and Santal ethnic groups in rural Bangladesh. The first term \"family socio-cultural values\" refers to the norms, ideas and preferences of family pattern, residence pattern, ascriptive gender division of family status and role, marital and power arrangement (Revillard, 2006; Stone, 1994). The second term \"early age at first marriage\" refers to the timing of first marriage, especially before legal marital age prescribed for both man and woman in a given country when the prospective bride and groom are not physically, socially and psychologically matured enough to bear sexual, reproductive and social responsibilities to the marital and family life (United Nations Children's Fund, 2001).\nTheoretical background and hypothesis: Theoretical background\nData and method: Sample\nResults and analysis: Differences in family socio-cultural values\nDiscussion: Based on family socio-cultural framework and its underlying principles we hypothesized family socio-cultural values (e.g. preferences of family patterns, residence patterns, educational and occupational attainment before marriage and marital arrangement) would induce variations in early age at first marriage between Muslim and Santal couples in rural Bangladesh. In order to test the general hypothesis, including five categorical hypotheses 585 pairs of first time married couples from both the communities (295 samples for Muslim and 290 samples for Santal) were randomly selected from Talonda of Rajshahi district, Bangladesh and interview method with structural questionnaire was applied to collect reliable data on the IVs and DVs. Overall frequency distributions of the kh2 tests showed that the Santal couples' age at first marriage (average age 19.69 years for husband and 14.64 years for wife) was earlier than the Muslim ones (average age 21.12 years for husband and 15.48 years for wife) in association with their family socio-cultural values practiced for marriage. The results of the kh2 tests suggested that the indicators of family socio-cultural values and early age at first marriage were significantly different (at p<0.01 and p<0.05 level) between the Muslim and Santal couples in Talonda union of Bangladesh (Uddin, 2009). In addition, the overall results of BLR analysis suggested that the indicators of the family socio-cultural values, that were significant (at p<0.01 and p<0.05 level) were the best predictors to persist earlier age at first marriage among the Santal couples than the Muslim ones in the study area of Bangladesh. These findings of the study were consistent with the principles of family social and cultural theories (Dixon, 1971; United Nations, 1988, 1990). These findings were supported by previous cross-cultural studies (Raley et al., 2004; Reley and Sweeney, 2009) conducted in abroad and Bangladesh (Uddin, 2009).\nConclusion and implications: This study examined how family socio-cultural values induced variations in early age at marriage between Muslim and Santal couples in rural Bangladesh. The results of the study suggested that early age at first marriage of the Santal couples compared to Muslim ones was significantly different in association with their family socio-cultural values in Talonda of Bangladesh. Although the indicators of family socio-cultural values consequently contributed to the model developed, it was concluded that ethnicity, family pattern, residence pattern, ascriptive educational (illiteracy) and occupational status were higher risks (two to three times) factors to predict early age at first marriage among the Santal couples than the Muslim ones in the study area of Bangladesh. These findings were strongly supported by our general hypothesis as well as some categorical hypotheses examined (Dixon, 1971; United Nations, 1988, 1990) and were also replicated in some cross-cultural studies (Raley et al., 2004; Reley and Sweeney, 2009) conducted in abroad and Bangladesh (Uddin, 2009).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Family socio-cultural values and its practices have pervasive effects on early age at first marriage in every society. The purpose of this paper is to examine and compare how family socio-cultural values and its practices exert effect on early age at first marriage between Muslim and Santal couples in rural Bangladesh.\nDesign/methodology/approach: First of all through snow-ball process and checking of marriage documents the author carefully identified 598 couples from Muslim and 560 from Santal who were married the first time between 1995 and 2005 years and whose age range was 12-48 years for husbands and 10-45 years for wives. Then, 585 pairs of couples (295 for Muslim and 290 for Santal) were randomly selected from the Talonda of Rajshahi district, Bangladesh. Data were collected, applying interview method with semi-structural questionnaire in family setting. Then the collected data were analyzed, using kh2 test and binary logistic regression (BLR) technique.\nFindings: The frequency distribution showed that most of the Santal couples compared to the Muslim ones were married before the minimum legal age in Bangladesh. The results of kh2 test of the frequency distribution were significant at p<0.01 and p<0.05 level. In addition, results of BLR analysis suggested that early age at first marriage was significantly (p<0.01 and p<0.05) associated with family socio-cultural values studied. It is argued that ethnicity, family pattern, residence pattern, illiteracy and ascriptive occupational status were the risk factors to persist early marriage among the Santal couples than the Muslim ones in rural Bangladesh.\nPractical implications: Although the findings are suggestive to understand differences in early marriage associated with family socio-cultural values between the ethnic couples, further cross-cultural study should be conducted on how socio-psychological factors affect early marriage between the ethnic groups. In spite of the limitations these findings may have implications in comparative social policy practice to prevent early marriage associated with changes in family socio-cultural values between the ethnic groups in Bangladesh.\nOriginality/value: The findings in the paper are original in linking between family socio-cultural theory, its related policy and practice to prevent early marriage between the ethnic couples in Bangladesh.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Destination image of Indian tourism destinations: An evaluation using correspondence analysis
|
[
"India",
"Destination image",
"Correspondence analysis",
"Affective image",
"Cognitive image",
"Domestic tourism"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Given its myriad topography, history, culture and traditions, India represents one of the most promising tourism markets in the world. However, unlike large countries such as the USA, China and Australia who have developed a robust domestic tourism industry (Baker, 2013), India has yet to realize the potential of its burgeoning domestic tourism base. Estimates prepared by the World Tourism Organization indicate that global domestic tourism flows are at least ten times greater than international tourism flows: in 2000, there were at least 6,980 million domestic arrivals (World Tourism Organization, 2007). Unfortunately, despite the immense economic potential of domestic tourism, until the National Policy of Tourism 2002 followed by related strategic action plans, it had received scarce attention by Ministry of Tourism (Department of Tourism, Ministry of Tourism\nDomestic tourism in Asia Pacific and India: Tourism economy of any country is based on both international and domestic tourism. Recent travel analysis provided by World Tourism Organization (2013) reported that domestic tourists traveling within their country form the bulk of world tourist traffic. Domestic tourism contributions, in comparison with international visitor contributions, are as high as 60 percent of the total tourism income (http://www.wttc.org/~/media/files/reports/economic%20impact%20research/regional%20reports/world2014.ashx). Asia is fast coming into its own where tourism growth and opportunities are concerned. A joint study by the Singapore Tourism Board, Visa and McKinsey\nDestination branding and destination image: a synoptic literature review: Destination branding\nResearch objectives: To be successfully promoted as a product in a specific market, \"a destination must be favorably differentiated from its competitors, or positively positioned in the minds of the consumers\" (Echtner and Ritchie, 2003, p. 37). Further, any destination image or tourism promotion projected by the local tourism industry should be anchored to some extent on a true destination identity (Govers, 2005). Thus, there arises a fundamental need to make a periodic empirical assessment of the destination's image. The criticality of which had been highlighted in the previous section too. Further, given its vast geography domestic tourists in India have a plethora of choices for leisure tourism and several destinations act as close competitors. The stakeholders of destination marketing would therefore greatly benefit from an attribute based comparison of destinations to develop, cultivate and manage their destination image. Accordingly, the objectives of this paper are twofold - first, to measure the destination image of selected tourist destinations on the cognitive and affective dimensions; second, to illustrate their relative positioning across specific attributes. Based on these objectives we seek an enquiry to the following questions:\nResearch methodology: Selected destinations\nResearch findings: Descriptive data analysis\nAcademic implications: The empirical results of the study provide tenable evidence of the generalizability of cognitive-affective model in capturing destination image. The study is amongst the first to measure the destination image of specific Indian tourist destinations on attributes which have been well acknowledged by the extant literature in the west. Also, it is amongst the few studies which had on-site data collection rather than capturing past visit experiences, a limitation pointed in the past (Byon and Zhang, 2010). Thus, the scale may be further adopted in Indian settings to develop models that examine the impact of destination image factors on - tourist's behaviors such as future intention to visit and inclination for word-of-mouth/electronic word-of-mouth; and role of moderating factors (socio-economic and travel-related characteristics) in image formulation. One of the primary theoretical contributions of this study is to illustrate the efficacy of correspondence analysis in deriving an attribute wise comparison of several destinations. Because this output is graphical in nature it can be used in presentation or as a pictorial anchor (Yavas and Shemwell, 1996) in aiding a detailed analysis of destination image. Further, the technique offers tremendous flexibility in term of the types of data it can analyze. The only data requirement for correspondence analysis is a contingency table of non-negative entries (Yavas and Shemwell, 1996).\nPractical implications: The analysis yields several insights. The destinations are mostly clustered around the same set of attributes. This makes them close competitors and the need for each destination to cultivate an unique image is obvious. If we were to examine the results for each attribute of cognitive scale and the affective scale we could draw a number of conclusions. First, all these destinations blessed with naturally attractive settings found support in the descriptive statistics with high ratings (more than the mid-value of 3.5) on the attribute natural attraction (overall and item-wise too) for all destinations. Correspondence analysis reveals that destinations have a clear association with natural attraction but they are not particularly differentiated on this. This indicates that although there is a continuous need to showcase and highlight their natural setting the destination marketers need to refrain from stereotypical approaches but build a distinctive appeal in their marketing communications. In contrast, the recent campaigns of some Indian states such as Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu Kashmir, etc. (Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, 2013b) are firmly ingrained in showcasing their natural beauty in the stereotypical approach.\nConclusion: At a time when the Indian tourism industry has found an all new focus on its promising domestic tourists' base, it becomes imperative for them to understand their consumers (tourists) and the kind of image they hold. Marketing and tourism researchers need to undertake qualitative and quantitative analysis which can assist destination marketers in their market segmentation and positioning activities. This study has been in the same direction where it measures and evaluates the destination image of tourist destinations using correspondence analysis.\nFuture directions: In this research the destination image of hill stations has been evaluated. It is recommended to evaluate the destination image of other type of destinations like beaches, desert, etc. Future studies may also include the socio-demographic and travel-related characteristics of respondents to illustrate the destination image by employing correspondence analysis.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate tourist destinations' image based on the attributes obtained from the extant literature using correspondence analysis.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study is aimed at measuring and illustrating destination image of tourism destinations perceived by domestic tourists. Five tourism destinations - Ooty, Shimla, Manali, Mussoorie and Mount Abu were selected as the subject of the study. Based on a representative sample of 800 respondents from the surveys across destinations, correspondence analysis was employed to illustrate an attribute based comparative analysis of the destination image of the tourist destinations.\nFindings: Findings reveal that the attribute natural attraction was positively perceived by respondents across all destinations and the attribute infrastructure emerged as an area in need of dire attention. Further, the most dominant attributes which marked destinations' positioning were - local cuisine and food outlets, hotels and restaurants, famous handicraft and parking facilities.\nResearch limitations/implications: The findings of this study need to be integrated with qualitative studies to explore the underlying reasons for the perceived destination image.\nPractical implications: These results provide direction to policy makers and practitioners to visualize their destinations' competitive standing relative to their competitors' strengths and weaknesses. This tourist-derived intelligence presents an opportunity to take advantage of its current position, or if necessary, optimally reposition itself.\nOriginality/value: This paper documents research that was the first to systematically capture and comparatively illustrate the destination image of Indian tourist destinations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
An empirical investigation of perceived relational benefits and brand engagement in restaurant services
|
[
"Brand management",
"Brand image",
"Hospitality",
"Restaurants",
"Brands",
"Brand engagement",
"Relationship marketing",
"Perceived relational benefits"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The past two decades have witnessed a significant attention given to the subject of brand engagement from the academic and practitioner communities (Bahri-Ammari et al., 2016; Brodie et al., 2011). According to Vivek et al. (2012), the root of brand engagement can be traced to the relationship marketing literature. Scholarly works on the subject continue to uphold that brand engagement is a potent marketing tool which produces several favourable outcomes, among which are customer loyalty and positive word-of-mouth recommendations (Raies et al., 2015; Brodie et al., 2013). In addition, findings from Brodie et al. (2013) suggest that loyalty in relationships has the potential of driving brand engagement. Given its roots in relationship marketing, other studies have also shown that consumers enjoy some benefits in relationships (relational benefits), which can engender their engagement with brands (Gummerus et al., 2012; Mimouni-Chaabane and Volle, 2010). These consumer-perceived benefits, arguably, fluctuate across various contexts and under different economic settings.\nContext of the study: The restaurant sector in Ghana is one area that has experienced an unwavering growth rate. Arguably, restaurants are among the top competitive businesses in the hospitality sector in the country. Consumer patronage of restaurant services appears to have a consistently rising pattern, resulting in the segment becoming a significant contributor in the services sector. Restaurant services and the hospitality industry, in general, have, in recent years, been commended for their significant contributions to the country's gross domestic product (Ghana Statistical Service, 2013). The sector consists of both indigenous brands and multinational brands offering both local and continental dishes. Furthermore, the sector's customers cut across the globe - Europe, Africa, Asia and the Western worlds. The oil and gas boom, coupled with other flourishing economic factors, has contributed to the increase in customers of restaurant services from other developed and developing countries.\nTheoretical background and hypotheses development: Relationship marketing theory\nMethodology: Sampling design and data collection\nPresentation of results: Demographic profile of respondents\nTest of hypotheses using regression: To test the hypotheses stated in this research, we used regression analysis to specify the extent to which the independent variables predicted the dependent variable (Hair et al., 2006). The averages across the multi-items constructs were taken to create composite scores as a way of reducing model complexity. Following from the hypotheses, brand engagement was used as the outcome variable while the independent variables consisted of monetary savings, exploration, entertainment, recognition, and social benefit. Results from the model assessment are presented in Table V.\nMultinomial logistic regression: Given the possibility of different levels of consumer brand engagement, we further assessed the impact of the perceived relational benefits on brand engagement across three levels (low, medium and high brand engagements). A K-means cluster analysis was initially used to classify the respondents into consumers with low, medium and high brand engagement levels. K-means cluster analysis is an analytical tool designed to assign cases to a fixed number of groups (clusters) whose characteristics are typically not known but could be determined by a set of variables specified by the researcher. Consequently, the variables measuring brand engagement were used in clustering the consumers. A major benefit of this method is that it is not sensitive to outliers in the data, as classification is based on multiple iterations. All the measures were statistically significant (p < 0.001) in contributing to the clustering process.\nDiscussion and conclusions: The study examines and empirically tests the effects of consumer-perceived relational benefits (conceptualised as monetary savings, exploration, entertainment, recognition and social benefits) on brand engagement in a restaurant setting. Results on research data from 500 customers of 25 restaurants in an emerging market demonstrate various facets of the predictor measures in line with the outcome measure. The results show that three relational benefits (social benefit, exploration and entertainment) were germane to consumers' brand engagement in the study setting. Our findings bear congruence with past studies in a number of ways.\nContributions and implications: Findings from the study offer three key contributions to the literature on brand engagement. First of all, we extend the concept of brand engagement in a restaurant setting to make contributions to services marketing and the contemporary hospitality management literature. The services marketing literature characteristically appears to have a plethora of research works carried out in sectors such as banking and hotels, with relatively scanty works focusing on restaurant services. Our tests of the interdependencies among the constructs and their relationship effects across different consumer segments provide a new twist to the literature. We present our findings from a food service setting, which is generally different from the other services settings. Secondly, we make a contextual contribution by providing evidence from an emerging market economy in sub-Saharan Africa. Research on the theoretical constructs examined is fairly non-existent in the marketing literature on hospitality management. As a result, our empirical findings offer thoughtful contributions towards the development of marketing theory that may (or not) be applicable to other emerging and/or developing economy contexts.\nLimitations and directions for future research: As is the case with several research works, we point out some limitations of this study which are intended to offer avenues for further research. First, we tested our hypotheses in a single service sector, as well as within a single country from a developing economy context. We are therefore limited in imposing our findings on other countries and sectors operating in the services industry. Opportunities exist for other studies to confirm the constructs used in the current study in other contexts to validate claims in the literature. In addition, our aim was to examine associations between elements of relationship benefits and brand engagement from general customers (consisting of both local and international backgrounds) of restaurants. This was outside the remit of this study, as our data did not allow us to demarcate the hypothesized relationships among local and foreign customers' separate perspectives. Research design aimed comparing perspectives of both local citizens and foreigners on the subject matter could present valuable complement to the current research. A possible reverse directional relationship of brand engagements on perceived relational benefits (Sprott et al., 2009) is also anticipated.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The paper aims to examine the nexus between perceived relational benefits and brand engagement within a restaurant setting in a developing economy context.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper used a survey research design, obtaining data via self-administered questionnaire from 500 customers of 25 restaurants. A five-stage analysis involving exploratory factor analysis, ANOVA, multiple regression, cluster analysis and multinomial logistic regression was carried out using SPSS 22 for Windows.\nFindings: Results from the study show that three relational benefits (social benefit, exploration and entertainment) contribute significantly to consumers' brand engagement in a restaurant service setting. Variations across consumers with low, medium and high brand engagement levels are also provided.\nOriginality/value: The paper extends the current understanding of brand engagement from a restaurant setting. It provides evidence to issues of potential research and managerial interests and offers insightful implications to the academic and practitioner communities.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Back to basics: international collection development on a shoestring
|
[
"Collections management",
"Financing",
"Librarianship",
"School libraries",
"Turkey"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: An old saying admonishes \"when opportunity knocks, open the door.\" In 2008, I heard knocking for a unique opportunity to travel to Ankara, Turkey and volunteer as a professional librarian at Oasis International School. Working with an international pre-kindergarten through high school library may not seem an obvious opportunity for an academic music cataloging librarian, but I will never regret opening the door to an expanded world of librarianship beyond the confines of my comfortable American library.The present article uses my work with Oasis International School as a starting point to explore collection development for international school libraries with an extremely restricted budget. Strapped domestic libraries and librarians interested in volunteering or international travel will also learn from this case study. Throughout, I include concrete advice that can be transferred to a diverse range of individual situations.\n2. Background: Though Oasis International School is not a Turkish national school, the country's history and culture set the stage for the school's operating environment. Turkish civilization stretches back to the very beginnings of ancient history, and the region's first libraries are now historic relics; however, the current Republic of Turkey was only founded in 1923, and modern librarianship is still in its infancy.Oasis International School is a new and growing (founded 2004) international school in Ankara, Turkey's capital and second largest city. The school provides an English, American-based international education to pre-kindergarten through 12th grade students of many nationalities. The library began from the ground up when the school opened, was initially overseen by volunteers, and contained approximately 5,000 books available for checkout when I visited in 2008. For the 2008-2009 school year, Oasis hired its first full-time librarian[1]. I began consulting with the librarian via phone and email in late 2007, and eventually planned a two-week onsite visit in October 2008.\n3. Literature review: A survey of the literature revealed only four articles on Turkish librarianship, all focusing on Turkish national libraries and populations. Scepanski (1998) offered a thorough, well-documented overview and timeline for the history of Turkish librarianship. Onal (2005) described \"the history, growth, and development of school libraries in Turkey from 1923 to 2004,\" concluding that libraries are key to Turkish education but need to be improved and standardized in numerous specific ways. Yilmaz (2008) summarized the history and current status of \"Public Libraries in Turkey\" from the dawn of civilization to the present. In an earlier study, Yilmaz surveyed 1,800 public library users in Ankara, Turkey and concluded the community was \"not using the public library enough\" (Yilmaz, 1998).In addition, there exists a small body of literature on international schools worldwide and the work of American librarians at national schools outside the US. Fryling (2003) told of an American librarian's experience at a South African national school, and Skirrow (2003) described a well-funded Austrian international school. American librarians interested in coordinating and enjoying international librarianship will discover useful advice from Groves (2007). Throughout this literature, there is scant focus on collection development. The current article fills a gap in library scholarship through a case study focusing on collection development issues facing international school libraries with an extremely restricted budget.\n4. Two paths to international librarianship: American librarians interested in practicing internationally often seek opportunities through formal, established programs. There are many advantages to such programs, including that much of the planning and legwork is done by the sponsoring organization, which may also provide training and information on best practices. For more information on international librarianship opportunities, see Groves (2007). However, I discovered Oasis International School through word-of-mouth and so coordinated my work directly with the school without the aid of any outside program. Specifically, the school's librarian was my own sister. While not everyone has a relative at an international library, it pays to keep your eyes and ears open via listservs, community and religious groups, and other networks, and to spread word of your interest to friends, acquaintances, and colleagues. You never know when or where an opportunity will arise.Especially since I did not work through a formal organization, my work with Oasis is ongoing. I recommend that librarians who coordinate an international experience outside a formal program be particularly prepared to correspond, plan, and cultivate a relationship before their onsite experience, and to engage in ongoing contact after returning home. Both the visiting librarian and the host library will profit from such an understanding, and modern technology makes it much easier to stay in touch even at great distances.\n5. Challenges in collection building: Oasis International School faces many collection building challenges, some specific to the Turkish environment, but many shared with other international and domestic libraries because they emanate from two main factors: tight funding, and the international environment. The first factor, funding, is certainly not a unique problem; many libraries face budget constraints. Small libraries associated with schools, community organizations, religious groups and the like may particularly feel this strain. The second factor, the international environment, creates challenges that will be shared by international schools worldwide. The challenges created by these two factors are: obtaining books and supplies, building a donation-based collection, collection inventory and management, and the school's international focus.5.1 Obtaining books and supplies\n6. Solutions to collection building challenges: 6.1 Targeted donations of materials\n7. Final advice: I offer a few final words of advice to anyone in a similar situation, whether as an outside consultant or as an insider in charge of a library.7.1 Seek the advice of experts\n8. Conclusion: Even libraries challenged with an extremely restricted budget and the complexities of an international environment can take steps towards improving their collection. Strategies include: seeking targeted donations from publishers, granting organizations, individuals, and others; intelligently exploiting non-targeted donations; utilizing volunteers; carefully balancing preservation and access; and implementing a basic inventory/circulation system. My work with Oasis is just one story of success in a difficult situation. I encourage others to learn and share their knowledge and skills through work with libraries throughout the world.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This article aims to explore collection development for small libraries facing an extremely restricted budget, with an additional focus on international school libraries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Drawing on the author's experience as a professional consultant for Oasis International School, Ankara, Turkey, this case study provides collection development advice, tips for librarians interested in volunteering or international travel, and a literature review.\nFindings: - An extremely restricted budget and the complexities of an international environment need not prevent libraries from taking steps towards improving their collection. Strategies include: seeking targeted donations from publishers, granting organizations, individuals, and others; intelligently exploiting non-targeted donations; utilizing volunteers; carefully balancing preservation and access; and implementing a basic inventory/circulation system.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Similar case studies undertaken at other libraries would add to the sparse literature on restricted budget and international school library collection development.\nPractical implications: - International and domestic school libraries facing a restricted budget will gain concrete advice on collection development. Librarians interested in volunteering or international librarianship will find practical guidance.\nOriginality/value: - This article fills a gap in library scholarship by focusing on collection development issues facing international school libraries with an extremely restricted budget.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Relationship between personality traits and digital literacy skills: a study of university librarians
|
[
"Skills",
"Personality",
"Digital",
"BFI scale",
"ICT skills",
"Librarians skills"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The rapid advancements in information and communication technologies (ICTs) improve the work environment, help the professionals' in their activities (Ala-Mutka, 2011). Hence, \"ICTs\" have brought a great revolution in every field of life such as industries, education, health and agriculture. Moreover, the behavior of individuals regarding the use of information has completely changed with the emergence of smart phones, computers and internet (Noh, 2017). In the current society, libraries are not exception to these fast pace changes. Now, ICTs have approximately changed the complete function of libraries. It is considered imperative for libraries to adopt an ICT-based infrastructure and information systems to provide relevant and prompt information services to users (Bansode and Viswe, 2017). According to Trepanier (2012) it is essential that librarians should have the capability to use digital information systems including computer hardware and software with appropriate security measures and protect digital information. In another study Ilomaki et al. (2011) pointed out that librarians should have digital skills for the usage of digital technology in the modern information environment of libraries. Because, ICTs have introduced new teaching methods and education facilities for students such as online learning and research cooperation (Thanuskodi, 2011). Nwachukwu (2005) defined \"ICT as a device or tool that allows for the collection, storage, processing or the communication of information\". Therefore, in this era of information, ICTs competencies can help to achieve the organizational goals where storage, organization, access and assessment of information have become vital requirements in the society in which we live, which is described as \"the information society\" (Li, 2007). Mansour (2017) claimed that librarians and other people can overcome many issues regarding the access, organization, evaluation and use of information through acquiring of digital literacy skills. Literacy is very important for national development which often effect on social, culture and economic development. In 21st-century, it is necessary for every individual to become an adequately digital literate for enjoying life, living healthy and for participation in social activities within societies, retrieve the knowledge and expressing one's ideas (Christopher, 2010). Digital literacy skills is a complete set of system, which comprise of different tools and designed to gather, store, process and communicate information (Haneefa and Shukkoor, 2010).\nReview of the literature: The literature review has been organized to observe the relationship of personality traits with the SNS, internet addiction, knowledge sharing behavior, information-seeking behavior and academic performance. Further, the researchers have shared some appropriate studies in the field of digital literacy skills and have discussed about some different digital literacy skills that a library professional possess.\nRelationship between personality traits and internet addiction: Some researchers examined the relationship of personality traits with the internet addiction, SNS and Facebook addiction. For example, Kayis et al. (2016) identified the relationship of internet addiction with the personality traits. They found that internet addiction was positively interlinked with the neuroticism while, agreeableness, extraversion, openness to experience and conscientiousness were negatively correlated with internet addiction. In another study Wang (2017) examined the relationship between extraversion, drive for entertainment, neuroticism and egotistical behavior on \"SNS\" SNS among Chinese adults. He found that adults with superior in extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to new experience revealed a greater level of SNS use. Similarly, Yesil (2014) identified the relationship of personality traits with the use of Facebook among students of Necmettin Erbakan University. He found that students of conscientiousness, openness and agreeableness significantly predict the Facebook use while, personality traits of neuroticism and extroversion did not predict significantly the Facebook use. Moreover, Muller et al. (2016) examined the relationship between psychosocial distress, use of SNS and symptoms among adolescents of Germany. They found that adolescents of extraversion trait were positively link with the using frequency of SNS. Moreover, the majority of the adolescents revealed higher psychosocial distress and often more classified with internet addiction while using SNS. Gil de Zuniga et al. (2017) identify that how personality traits were correlated with the frequency use of social media and their news among 20 countries of the world. They found that conscientiousness, agreeableness and extraversion were positively linked with the using frequency of social media and their news while, emotion stability and openness to experience were negatively interlinked with them. In another study Amichai-Hamburger and Vinitzky (2010) conducted a study to check the connection between users personality and their behavior on the internet. They found a strong relationship between the personality of the users and their behavior on Facebook. Tang et al. (2016) examined the causes of Facebook addiction among college students in Taiwan. The results revealed that agreeableness, neuroticism and conscientiousness were negatively interlinked with Facebook addiction. They measured that neuroticism and online interpersonal relationships were the prominent predictor of Facebook.\nRelationship between personality traits and academic performance: Cohen and Baruth (2017) examined the relationship of student's personality with their satisfaction of online academic courses. They found a positive correlation between satisfaction of online academic courses with openness to experience and conscientiousness while, no relationship was found between extroversion, neuroticism and agreeableness with the satisfaction of online academic courses. Moreover, Nye et al. (2013) conducted a study in which personality traits were associated with academic performance among Russian university students. They found that openness to experience; agreeableness, neuroticism and extraversion were significant for academic success while, conscientiousness was not observable ties to academic performance. In another study Tsai and Kim (2012) examined the relationship between personality traits and using the source for course work problems among first-generation college students. They found that extraversion and agreeableness students used human source more frequently for course work problems. Moreover, openness to experience and neuroticism students used information sources while, consciousness students consulted with professor and advisors for academic problems. On the other hand, Ghazi et al. (2013) examined the impact of personality traits on academic achievement among students of Khyber Pakhtunkha, Pakistan. They found no significant relationship between academic achievement and personality traits of students while, conscientiousness and agreeableness traits had a somewhat positive effect on the students' academic achievements.\nRelationship between personality traits and information-seeking behavior: Andreassen et al. (2013) examined the relationship of personality traits with the addiction behavior among university students of, Norway. He found that extraversion and neuroticism traits were positively linked with the addiction of study, exercise, compulsive buying, mobile phones, Facebook and also with internet addiction while, conscientiousness, agreeableness and openness to experience traits were negatively associated with them. In another study, Sin et al. (2011) identified the relationship between personality traits and acculturation of information seeking among international students of USA. They found that students of openness to new experience use SNS more frequently than other traits for needed information. Furthermore, they observed individuals having different personality traits prefer online material for their different information needs. Moreover, Al-Samarraie et al. (2017) measured the impact of personality traits on the user's online information-seeking behavior. They found that users had high in conscientiousness, agreeableness and extraversion traits performed information-seeking tasks more fast as compared with neuroticism and openness to experience. In another study, Halder et al. (2010) explored the influence of personality traits on information-seeking behavior among university students of India. They found that students' behavior of information seeking was positively interrelated with the conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness to experience and extraversion while; neuroticism was negatively linked with the student's behavior of information seeking.\nLevel of digital literacy skills: Some studies were conducted to check the level of digital literacy skills among library professionals. For example, Umeji et al. (2013) measured the level of information literacy skills among librarians of Madonna University, Okija. They found that librarians possessed a very low level of digital literacy skills so that's why services they provided to the users of the library were also affected. Moreover, most of the ICT resources were available in the library but librarians were not interested to use them for delivery of services. In another study Batool (2010) examined the status of technological expertize of librarians from university of the Punjab. They found that librarians possessed IT skills, which were necessary to automate the library. However, they required more advanced technological skills for provision of information services to the users. Moreover, Thanuskodi (2011) measured the digital literacy level among library professionals of engineering college libraries of Tamil Nadu. He found that majority of librarians had adequate knowledge of internet and literacy in computer fundamentals while; only few librarians had adequate knowledge in computer programming. Similarly, Pratap and Singh (2018) conducted a study to find the digital literacy skills among research scholars and students of law school, Banaras University, India. They found that most of the respondents were using digital resources daily to bring up to date their knowledge. Moreover, research scholars and students were using a search engine and basic searching techniques for access the needed information. Bansal (2015) access the level of digital literacy skills among college students of F.C for women, Hisar. The results of the study show that proficiency in using the desktop computer, laptop and Smartphone's was very high. Moreover, proficiency to send email was moderate while, proficiency in using the Skype, twitter and blogs was very low.\nResearch methodology: Study design\nResults of the study: First of all, the relationship between library literacy and five dimensions of PT; extraversion, openness to experience, neuroticism, conscientiousness and agreeableness checked through Pearson's product-moment correlation. Table 2 shows the standard deviations, mean and relationship between matrix. Overall, a statistically significant positive correlation was found in the level of library literacy and library professionals across four different personality traits groups from 0.198 to 0.598 while, a negative significant correlation was found in the level of library literacy with the personality trait of neuroticism -0.305. The highest variance (36%) has been explained by conscientiousness in the respondents' scores toward library literacy. The moderate variance has been explained by openness to experience (4%) while, lowest variances (9% and 10%) have been explained by agreeableness, extraversion and neuroticism, respectively, in the respondents' scores toward library literacy. The study results according to the expectations of connections between library literacy and personality traits factor of conscientiousness. Hence, library literacy is an important component seems to a good enabler of conscientiousness toward personality traits among library professionals.\nDiscussion: Personality traits can play a very important role in the study of human behavior. An individual personality is a combination of life experiences and inheritance. People use their physical traits and cognitive to interrelate with the outer world. The reaching of our goals exhibits our consistent methods, which are directly correlated to the experiences of experiment and errors with feedback. An individual personality is finally figured by such process. It is decide by the psychological parameters that human behavior is connected with personality. Moreover, in 21st-century library professionals require awareness of digital literacy skills to provide better services to the library users. Keeping in view the importance of the field of personality traits, the researcher tried to explore the impact of personality traits on digital literacy skills among university librarians of Punjab. A digital literacy skill is a broad topic and to walk in the current digital environment, it is very necessary for every individual to learn these skills.\nConclusions and recommendations: The current study was an effort to examine the relationship between personality traits and digital literacy skills among university librarians of Punjab. Results of this study show that library professionals of different dominant personality traits behaved to divergent aspects of information and communication technologies. The study concludes that library professionals have diverse personality traits and having a different level of digital literacy skills. The study also revealed a significant relationship between personality traits and in all the five constructs of digital literacy skills including, (library literacy, computer literacy, tool literacy, information retrieval literacy and research support literacy).However, no significant correlation was found in the level of research support literacy with the personality traits of conscientiousness and neuroticism. On the other hand, among personality traits factors, the extraversion trait found more important factor toward digital literacy skills factors including (library literacy, computer literacy, tool literacy, information retrieval literacy and research support literacy). Furthermore, the level of digital literacy skills can play a significant role in bringing confidence among librarians to provide better services to library users.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to examine the relationship between personality traits and digital literacy skills among university librarians of Punjab, Pakistan.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Five research hypotheses were established to achieve the study objectives. Two instruments; namely, \"big five inventory (BFI)\" scale of personality traits and a structured questionnaire of digital literacy skills (library literacy, computer literacy, tool literacy, information retrieval literacy and research support literacy) were used to collect the data. Pearson correlation test and correlation research design were used to examine the relationship between digital literacy skills and personality traits of university librarians.\nFindings: The findings of the study revealed significant relationships between personality traits and all digital literacy skills. The study concluded that librarians having the extraversion trait are more inclined toward digital literacy skills and they can perform well in the libraries as compared to professionals with other traits.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study measures the digital literacy skills among the librarians of \"higher education commission\" recognized universities of Punjab, Pakistan. The study conclusions and findings are limited in scope to only the librarians of these universities. Such topic has no previous research.\nPractical implications: This study has practical implication for university libraries, library associations, librarians and library professionals. The results of the study are also useful for librarians to acquire digital literacy skills, which are necessary in the current digital environment to manage the libraries.\nSocial implications: Library professionals can get digital literacy skills to face the challenges of digital age.\nOriginality/value: Some researchers examined the relationship of personality traits with the social networking sites, internet addiction, knowledge sharing behavior, information seeking behavior and academic performance. This study in particular identified the relationship of personality traits with the digital literacy skills, which are essential for managing the libraries. It helps libraries to find suitable library professionals and also help managers in assigning the duties based on these personality traits and digital literacy skills.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Embedding collaboration through standards - part 1
|
[
"Partnership",
"Value chain",
"Competitive advantage",
"Strategic alliances"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: This is the first of two articles reviewing the benefits of business collaboration and partnering, with special reference to the world's first national standard, BS 11000, to address collaborative business relationships.\nEmbedding collaboration through standards - part 1: In her book Collaborative Advantage, Elisabeth Lank presents the case for collaboration, recognising that the changing trends towards wealth and strategic assets are more about creating value through knowledge and relationships rather than owning and controlling tangible things. This was a key aspect of the Partnership Sourcing Limited (PSL) research in 1999 which resulted in the publication of \"Vision 2010\". This report focused on future supply or value chains and supported the view that future competitive edge would be driven by harnessing the most powerful value network. The concept of supply chains is often dismissed by those focused on \"go to market\" collaborations, partnerships or alliances but it should always be remembered that we are all part of someone's supply or value chain.The concepts of collaboration, partnering and alliances have been around for a long time. Collaborative working is not simply about cutting cost. It offers an alternative and enhanced capability to build new value propositions beyond the capabilities of an individual organisation.The world is changing and at a faster rate than perhaps ever could have been envisaged. Globalisation is now a fact of life. Emerging nations are changing the face of economics. Communications technology has condensed the marketplace but it has still to conquer the cultural divide. The networked economy is re-writing traditional business thinking of ownership and creating alternate business models based on interdependent and complimentary alliances. The supply chain is giving way to the concept of a more holistic value chain, value networks and ecosystems. Competition is growing to reflect the demands of a more informed customer. Consumer choice is starting to influence the way organisations behave both ethically and in terms of sustainable responsibility. In this turmoil, one factor remains constant: relationships are a core ingredient for successful business. Staying ahead of the curve requires organisations to look beyond their traditional structures and develop both the skills and the processes to meet these challenges.PSL's research identified the trend towards greater reliance on alliances, partnership and collaborative networks. Subsequent work discovered the lack of skills development to manage in this arena and the wide variety of approaches being proffered as to how organisations should build these collaborations. The obvious outcome was the need to create a degree of uniformity through the development of a standard framework, which could address the key principles, accelerate engagement and provide a structure for skills development.\nDynamic leadership: Dynamic leadership is a key facet of every successful business venture. Morten T. Hansen, in his book Collaboration, provides valuable insight into high profile successes and failures born out of a breakdown of internal collaboration, whether in the private sector or in public bodies.Developing an effective team focus is a challenge in most business environments but, where the traditional command and control structure is replaced by cross functional operations, the coordination and direction of activities is even more complex and one where motivation and influence are vital to success. It is also the single most common point of failure. Where complex relationships are driven and sustained by senior individuals on either side of these relationships, they are particularly vulnerable when faced with a departure on either side.At the executive sponsorship level as well as the key management roles level, understanding the skills, capabilities and knowledge of collaborative managers is key to building and developing the business case and operational approach as well as ensuring success. Those managers that have shown high levels of success within a traditional business structure may not be effective when faced with a collaborative venture where influence has a greater impact than positioning or power.The implementation of integrated business operations requires cross-organisational management and effective relationship management to underpin processes and drive success. As such, the managers need to be able to draw on support not only from their own organisations but also from those of their partners. The management role is also likely to be stretched over distance and geographic boundaries.This means that management have to rely more on trust and local initiative. The coordination and motivation of remote teams towards common goals is far more complex than in co-located operations.Collaborative leaders need to recognise that their role is to be the advocate of the collaboration within their own organisations. This may often be at conflict with internal structures. Making the shift from a traditional \"master and slave\" relationship to co-creators often demands both organisational and personal realignment of thinking and approaches. The fostering of internal collaboration is equally important to maintain the focus on objectives and outcomes. The importance of the right leadership cannot be underestimated. This concept is captured in William Tate's The Search for Leadership, which explores the view that even heroic leaders are no better than the systems they work in.Historically, the way to deal with interface challenges has been to focus predominantly on culture of organisations; the behaviours of its people, and to build and maintain those relationships which are both critical and fundamental to business success. The challenge is that investment in cultural and behavioural development and training initiatives is so often diluted or wasted when business processes kick in and effectively mandate by default \"business as usual\".So, if we can recognise the potential benefits of collaboration, alliances and partnering approaches it is impractical to rely on individuals and osmosis to deliver collaborative working behaviours. We also need to ensure that the policies, processes and systems are in place to ensure robust and sustainable relationships that are less reliant on charismatic champions.\nThe conflicts of behaviours and policy: Meeting or creating market demand is the essence of business success. Being there with the right solution or value proposition at the right time defines winners and losers. As the demands of the market increase, so the development of alternative operating models, especially alliances and partnerships, become more prevalent.These relationships may now embrace both vertical and horizontal collaborations. They are often customer driven but also engage customers in the collaboration. This has been particularly apparent in various aspects of public sector programmes. A common drawback comes when the euphoria dissipates and people have to get down to delivering outcomes; meeting internal processes and performance measures. It is at this stage that organisations revert to \"contracting for failure\" or business as usual (Figure 1).Organisations, whether developing and marketing a collaborative approach or seeking to find a suitable collaborative partners, need to look beyond traditional evaluation criteria and assess:1. Attributes. In terms of how their business operates.2. Ability. In terms of their \"experience capability\" to work collaboratively.3. Attitude. In terms of an embedded culture/ethos of collaboration\nThe benefits of collaboration: Collaboration draws its strength from the ability to work in an open and honest way, to build trust between both organisations and the individuals involved. Trust is frequently extolled as a prerequisite for collaboration and new relationships have to start from a leap of faith. However, trust cannot be contracted. It must be developed and nurtured over time.The enduring nature of integration of culture is driven by policies and processes that the organisation deploys, both in terms of operational effectiveness and throughout the selection, development and management of the people who represent the public face of the organisation.If collaboration is, then, to be adopted as a repeatable business model it cannot be solely dependent on behavioural training, teambuilding or individual skills focusing on the so-called soft issues. The concept must be embedded in the governance and processes of the organisation and reinforced in every aspect of the business through policy, process and systems.How people are managed, targeted, measured, incentivised and rewarded has a major influence on how they interface with others, either internally or externally. Thus, if there is a conflict between the collaborative principles being promoted and how they are evaluated and driven, it is easy to guess which will have the dominant impact. Similarly, if the processes by which they have to operate are robustly structured and enforced but the business objectives do not clearly reflect a collaborative approach, the less forthright will revert to traditional \"business as usual\" and take the low risk option. So, despite organisations investing in skills development programmes and cultural initiatives, the conflict will force people to adapt their level commitment, enthusiasm and engagement in line with Maslow's hierarchy or \"what's in it for me?\"Corporations fall largely into two categories: those that pay lip service and those that live it. The interesting correlation is that those that live it also, in the main, shine in terms of their collaborative and partnering profiles. Thus, outward-looking organisations are predisposed to consider others alongside themselves and, so, make good partners. This may be a consideration for those seeking to identify potential partners.The challenge is how does an organisation embed and sustain a collaborative approach given the vagaries of the market, the transient nature of its people, variability of skills and experience and the historical focus of exploiting trading relationships?This dilemma gave rise to the CRAFT programme and, subsequently, was instrumental in the creation of the world's first, a national standard: BS 11000 (collaborative business relationship management). This standard provides a consistent model around which organisations can build more sustainable relationships.\nBenefits of working with standards: Collaborative business relationships have been shown to deliver a wide range of benefits, which enhance competitiveness and performance while adding value to organisations of all sizes. Collaboration between organisations may take many forms - from loose tactical approaches to longer-term alliances or joint ventures.The publication of BS 11000 is a landmark for business. It is the first national standard in the world to address collaborative business relationships. It does not represent a one-size solution but, rather, provides a consistent framework, which can be scaled and adapted to meet particular business needs. The structure of the framework is drawn from the CRAFT framework and methodologies supported by a wide range of tools and guides, which have been established over some 20 years of involvement in relationship management (Figure 2).BS 11000 does not enforce a single rigid approach. Rather, it has been focused on providing a framework that can complement existing approaches where these are already in place. It also recognises that every relationship has its own unique considerations. For those organisations with well-established processes, the framework provides a common language that can aid implementation and engagement. For those that are starting out on the journey, the framework creates a road map for development.The adoption of any standard has to be balanced against the value that it can deliver to the organisations that chose to use it, whether this is for improving internal performance or to enhance confidence in the market. In this respect, BS 11000 is no different to other internationally recognised standards such as ISO 9000. The BSI certification programme, launched in April 2009, establishes a measurable independent assessment for internal benchmarking of continuous improvement and people development, together with independent validated pan-industry recognition of an organisation's collaborative capability in the marketplace.\nA robust framework: The standard creates a robust framework for both the public and private sector to provide a neutral platform for establishing effective collaborative programmes for mutual benefit. Its core value is commonality of language and application between delivery partners leading to improved integration. Acting as a bridge between cultures to form a more robust partnership or alliance it reduces confusion, provides confidence to participants and lays a foundation for innovation.As it was developed through pan-industry input and, thus, is not sector-specific, the standard provides a basis for broader adoption and engagement. It also provides a common foundation and language for relationships between the private and public sectors as well as international cultures, to provide uniformity of understanding. It provides a platform for developing repeatable models to enhance communication and engagement and, thus, build confidence (Figure 3).The standard provides a basis for benchmarking the collaborative capability of organisations both internally and externally through BSI independent assessment. This assessment will enhance partner evaluation and selection, together with establishing market differentiation. It establishes a consistent yet flexible approach that provides a foundation for efficiency and repeatability across programmes as well as increased opportunity to focus on developing value.It creates a measure to promote customer confidence and a focus for more effective joint risk management - both related to the challenges of specific programmes and those linked to relationship aspects of collaborative working. It reduces the likelihood of misunderstandings and a mismatch of objectives. Moreover, it constrains hidden agendas and reduces the probability of conflict.It establishes a consistent and structured approach to facilitate a focus on integration of collaborative working within operational procedures, processes and systems. This creates a platform for more effective governance. It establishes a baseline to support resource development and training to increase collaborative capability to enhance skills and interchange ability of personnel.In short, this standard framework promotes better engagement and effectiveness through strengthened business processes, while improving risk management, enhancing dispute resolution and providing a basis for skills development. Most importantly, it improves the potential for sustainable relationships that deliver value.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to expand the debate around the catalysts required to develop, promote, implement and maintain effective collaborative practice.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A review of the benefits of business collaboration and partnering, with special reference to the world's first national standard, BS 11000, to address collaborative business relationships.\nFindings: - Collaborative working is not simply about cutting cost. It offers an alternative and enhanced capability to build new value propositions beyond the capabilities of an individual organisation. The concept of the supply chain is giving way to the concept of a more holistic value chain, value networks and ecosystems. Amid all the changes, one factor remains constant: relationships are a core ingredient for successful business. Staying competitive requires organisations to look beyond their traditional structures and develop both the skills and the processes to meet today's business challenges. It is impractical to rely on individuals and osmosis to deliver collaborative working behaviours. Collaboration must be embedded in the governance and processes of the organisation and reinforced in every aspect of the business through policy, process and systems. The world's first national standard: BS 11000 (collaborative business relationship management) provides a consistent model around which organisations can build more sustainable relationships.\nOriginality/value: - This paper explores the interdependence between operational practices and the behaviours that underpin performance and outcomes.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Methodological review of studies on educational leaders and emotions (1992-2012): Insights into the meaning of an emerging research field in educational administration
|
[
"Emotions",
"Leadership",
"Emerging research field",
"Methodological review"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: The present study is inspired by prior published reviews of research in the educational administration (EA) community addressing or focusing on methodological issues (e.g. Bridges, 1982; Hallinger, 2011). The present review complements the authors' narrative systematic review of the content of research on educational leaders and emotions published in peer-reviewed journals during 1992-2012 (Berkovich and Eyal, 2015). The present review does not focus on the contents of the studies, but limits its focus to methodological issues related to studying educational leaders and emotions in the last two decades. Following Hallinger's (2013) claim that \"reviews of research play a critical role in the advancement of knowledge\" (p. 127), we argue that methodological exploration of an emerging research field in EA may be informative about the practices and norms of the EA community that underlie the production of research knowledge in EA.\nEducational leaders and emotions as a domain of EA research: The scholarly interest of the EA community in educational leaders and emotions cannot be addressed without a broad discussion of the changing status of emotion research in the field of organizational behavior (OB)[1], a field that has influenced the EA community greatly (Oplatka, 2014). Until the 1990s, emotions were considered as an illegitimate focus of research in OB (Ashkanasy et al., 2002). This marginalization of emotions as a field of research may be viewed as linked with the dominance of a specific manifestation of managerial rationality that could be termed \"masculine\" (Domagalski, 1999). At the same time, there has been a rise in non-rational approaches in management - the growing legitimacy of qualitative research (Brinkmann et al., 2014) has inspired the interpretative stream led by influential scholars (e.g. Weick, 1995). As a result, the \"cold shoulder\" shown to the topic of emotions by the OB community has been \"reevaluated\" as emotions became not only a legitimate focus, but also a highly popular one, particularly with regard to leadership (Gooty et al., 2010).\nTwo perspectives on scientific knowledge production: Scholars recognize two opposite approaches to the sociology of science or knowledge: one that draws on functionalist or quasi-economic logic, and another based on social construction logic (see Knorr-Cetina, 1982; Sismondo, 2010). The functionalist perceptive on scientific work has been articulated most clearly by the American sociologist, Merton (1973). According to him, science preforms the social function of providing reliable knowledge, a function supported by four norms: communalism (research is basically a co-promotion and co-ownership of scientific discoveries); universalism (valuable research knowledge is impersonal and universal); disinterestedness (research is motivated by the will to promote the common scientific enterprise and not personal interests); and organized skepticism (research is committed to critically testing each claim). Merton's view of scientific work ignores or minimizes the social aspects involved in the practice. Among the noted critics of this functionalist view of science are European scholars such as Bloor, Bourdieu, Callon, Knorr-Cetina, Latour, and Luckmann. Callon (1984) suggested that it is impossible to separate the structure and the content, and therefore objective universal knowledge is in essence particular and subjective. For example, Berger and Luckmann (1967) argued that knowledge varies between perceivers as a function of culture and time. Bourdieu (1975) further contended that science is a conflictual arena, in which individuals and groups compete on legitimacy, prestige, and fame, with the aspiration to acquire a monopoly on scientific authority. In sum, the literature offers two main sociological perspectives for understanding the production of scientific research: functionalist and critical (Table I).\nMethod: Data collection\nResults: First, as shown in Figure 2, the analysis of publications by national context indicates that the highest interest in educational leaders and emotions is in the USA, with 26.5 percent of publications, followed by the UK with 22.4 percent, Australia with 14 percent, and Canada with 10.2 percent. Exploring the distribution of publications by country with the conventional lens of language or region indicates a clear interest in educational leaders and emotions in the English-speaking community, which includes the USA, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa (77.5 percent). A geo-cultural breakdown of the publications shows a second community with high interest in educational leaders and emotions located in the Mediterranean region, including Israel, Cyprus, and Turkey (14.3 percent).\nDiscussion: Following our earlier efforts to promote the interest in educational leaders and emotions (Berkovich and Eyal, 2015), we sought to advance the understanding of the methodological nature of the educational leaders and emotions field of research by shedding light on the methodological patterns and trends that emerged. We suggest that these patterns provide broader insights into the meaning of an emerging research field in EA.\nConclusion: Our study provides a methodological review of research on educational leaders and emotions based on patterns in research methods. We believe that methodological exploration of studies on educational leaders and emotions can produce not merely knowledge in this specific field, but also broader insights as a case study of an emerging field in EA. In our interpretation of the findings of the study, we aimed to provide both functional and critical insights on the meaning of an emerging field of research in EA. We view scientific knowledge production as an integrated professional effort and a social activity, and recognize that the two are often difficult to distinguish from one another. But making sense of this duality must be a central commitment of a research community if it aspires to promote the field.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to do methodological review of the literature on educational leaders and emotions that includes 49 empirical studies published in peer-reviewed journals between 1992 and 2012.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The work systematically analyzes descriptive information, methods, and designs in these studies, and their development over time.\nFindings: The review suggests that scholarly interest in educational leaders and emotions has increased over time, and identifies methodological patterns in this body of research. The results are compared with methodological data from other syntheses in the disciplines of educational administration (EA) and organizational behavior for the purpose of using the findings to produce broader insights into the meaning of an emerging research field in EA.\nOriginality/value: The findings of the methodological review are interpreted from two conceptual perspectives: functionalist and critical. Together, they offer a holistic portrayal of the meaning of producing scientific knowledge in an emerging research field in EA.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Risk assessment in commercial real estate development: An application of analytic network process
|
[
"Entrepreneur",
"Risk",
"Risk assessment",
"Commercial real estate",
"Analytic network process",
"Real estate development"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Real Estate, compared to other industries, has been making a significant contribution to the economy of the country during the last three decades. As a result, Real Estate has been a field of interest of many entrepreneurs. Investors who are keen on real estate development tend to invest on various types of developments irrespective of the risk. Property development is inherently a riskier business, due to the difficulty of predicting the stage at which a developer must face with risk and uncertainty. In the development process, from the conceptual design to construction, stage, letting on rent occupying the building or the handover stage, risk is a common encounter.\nRisk assessment criteria: Environmental risk\nMethods: Data and data collection\nData analysis method: The analytic network process (ANP) introduced by Saaty 2005) as a novel approach to risk assessment in commercial real estate development was used in this research to analyze risk factors in commercial real estate development. The ANP was built using Super Decision software. Generally speaking, the management is mostly undertaken based on the three basic steps, which consist of risk identification and initial assessment, response and mitigation and further risk analysis (see other methods in Figure 1). According to Figure 1 (portion colored in red), the first step is to build an ANP model using the software. Then a paired comparison process is conducted to form a super matrix of quantified interdependency between paired criteria and alternatives of development plan. According to the synthesized value, the best development project in Gampaha, Ja Ela and Ekala areas can be identified. The results can also be useful to support risk mitigation action undertaken later. However, the authors noted that the traditional approaches to risks assessment mostly depend on the derived from either panel discussion or ranking method, which are sometimes not convincing enough due to the lack of quantitative measurements using reliable tools or instrument with strong theoretical bases. It is assumed that developers use alternative method such as Bayesian belief network, Monte Carlo simulation, multi-criteria decision analysis, etc. As an existing method of risk assessment, the ANP is used.\nScale of pair-wise comparisons: Notes\nTypes of risk prioritization: Prioritization of the key risk factors affecting to the commercial real estate development process is important in making decisions, as it helps to comprehend as to what risk factors are the highly affected and the least affected risk factors in the commercial real estate development process. Table V demonstrates the risk type and prioritized value.\nRisk management: After assessing the risk some risk cannot be avoided, thus risk management is an important concept. If organizations are attempting to manage the corporate real estate risk, then they need a framework to identify the sources of risk in a similar way to that developed for strategic business risk by Simons 1999 cited in Frodsham (2007); Simons conducted a survey into risk management practice and disclosed that, while investing in the commercial real estate assets, it will deliver a return in the form of an income stream, but the income stream is uncertain to forecast as well as any events which would affect the income stream. On the other hand, Strischek (2007) suggested that some mandatory data should be added into risks measurement criterion, including original appraised value, bank-adjusted appraised value, capitalization rate from appraisal and loan to value at inception.\nConclusion and recommendation: The results revealed five major risk factors, i.e. environmental, social, economic, technological and political risk and 32 sub-risk factors. According to the super matrix calculation, the synthesized values for three projects were 0.0704, 0.0532 and 0.0431, respectively. Ward City being 0.0704 indicates that it is comparatively less risky, and hence, can be categorized as the best development. Considering the sub-risk factors; the results show that the highly affected risk factors for the development are: the council approval process, climate changes and natural disaster, and the least affected risk factors are confidence to the market, lifecycle value, investment return and currency conversion factor. Duration, cultural compatibility and community acceptability moderately impact on commercial development. Therefore, policy formulation should focus on minimizing the risk in the highly affecting risk factors in Sri Lanka. Further researchers should concentrate on improving different network structures using the ANP model with regard to risks.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the commercial property development risk factors from the entrepreneur's point of view against social, economic, environmental, technological and political risk assessment criteria. After that, this study aims to assess the risk factors based on the analytical network process (ANP) model and to prioritize the key risk factors to identify which risk factor is highly affected to the commercial development process.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data were collected through face-to-face interviews using a structured questionnaire. The analysis of the risk factors involved the ANP model using super decision software.\nFindings: The results revealed that there are five major risk factors such as environmental, social, economic, technological and political risk, and 32 sub-risk factors. According to the super matrix calculation, the synthesized values for three projects were 0.0704, 0.0532 and 0.0431, respectively. It was identified that Ward City was 0.0704, indicating that it is comparatively less risky and, hence, can be categorized as the best development and considering the sub-risk factors; the results show that the highly affected risk factors for the development are: the council approval process, climate changes and natural disaster, and the least affected risk factors are confidence to the market, lifecycle value, investment return and currency conversion factor.\nPractical implications: The paper includes implications for the development of commercial properties, risk and risk assessment criteria to make risk management strategies and policy implementation.\nOriginality/value: The research findings are helpful in improving risk management strategies in the country, and policy formulation should focus on the above identified three risk factors in order to mitigate the risk in every stage and to achieve sustainable project development while increasing the satisfaction of long-term investment goals.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
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An exploration of servicescapes' exclusion and coping strategies of consumers with "hidden" auditory disorders
|
[
"Exclusion",
"Servicescapes",
"Coping strategies",
"Disabled consumers"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The emerging stream of transformative service research (TSR) has encouraged the rise of studies dedicated to human well-being (Anderson et al., 2013; Rosenbaum et al., 2011). Service organizations have indeed been criticized for overlooking or even harming consumer well-being (Rosenbaum et al., 2011). While well-being can be based on the consumer's sense of welcome and belonging, some consumers remain \"regularly underserved, ignored, or excluded on a regular basis from the marketplaces that they seek to experience\" (Kaufman-Scarborough, 2015, p. 157).\nMethodology: The objective was to explore how people with hidden disabilities experience exclusion in servicescapes and how they cope with this phenomenon. Therefore, our research is exploratory, consumer-centric and guided by an existential-phenomenological approach, which is an appropriate way to obtain first-person descriptions of individuals' life experiences (Thompson et al., 1989). We conducted in-depth interviews with 15 informants suffering from either tinnitus or hyperacusis. Tinnitus is a subjective acoustic perception in the absence of any external source (Riedl et al., 2015), while hyperacusis is a challenging disorder of loudness perception characterized by a low tolerance for ordinary environmental sounds (Baguley, 2003). Both disorders are hidden disabilities, undetectable at first sight and poorly understood by others. In both France and Belgium, the acknowledgment of such disabilities is still hampered by their invisibility, which makes their objectification difficult. Conversely, in North America and Scandinavia, for instance, these disabilities seem better recognized, although there is still much work to be done. Decreased sound tolerance remains a little-understood topic, whose mechanisms \"are still speculative and unproven\" (Jastreboff and Jastreboff, 2015, p. 385). Nevertheless, more and more initiatives - albeit recent - aim to raise awareness about hyperacusis, such as the International Conference on Hyperacusis, whose third edition will be held in Guildford, UK, in 2017 (http://hyperacusisresearch.co.uk/). Given that in extreme cases, sufferers are severely handicapped in their everyday life, it is a suitable research context in which to explore how such consumers experience servicescapes and may feel excluded.\nDiscussion: We referred to the coping strategies previously mentioned in the literature on vulnerable consumers (Adkins and Ozanne, 2005; Baker et al., 2001), but our findings provide a deeper understanding of servicescape exclusion by showing differences, firstly in terms of individual characteristics (the degree of exclusion and coping strategies vary according to each individual's degree of impairment), and secondly in terms of the link between coping strategies and the type of servicescapes. The stronger their disability, the more sufferers distance themselves from servicescapes and are on the brink of exclusion if not excluded outright. Similarly, Pavia and Mason (2014) previously emphasized the influence of the degree of impairment on vulnerability by highlighting the difference between straightforward resolvable situations leading to vulnerability (e.g. broken leg) and complex, dynamic and unresolvable situations resulting in vulnerability (e.g. progressive neuromuscular disease). Building on their research, we connect this progressive process to the issue of servicescape exclusion. In our study, it appears that individuals with severe and incapacitating hyperacusis are more deeply entrenched on a path towards long-lasting exclusion than individuals who report suffering from weak hyperacusis or tinnitus. The latter insist on maintaining a form of regular shopping, which we refer to as a partial relationship with the servicescape, and deploy coping strategies to support their decision.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is both to explore how people with \"hidden\" auditory disorders experience exclusion in servicescapes and to unfold the coping strategies they set up to deal with it.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Findings from 15 semi-structured interviews and participant observations with individuals suffering from auditory disorders are presented through the paper.\nFindings: The findings indicate that individuals with auditory disorders deploy three types of coping strategies when exposed to sensory overload in servicescapes: choosing between physical servicescapes, opting for electronic devices and e-servicescapes and delegating shopping to relatives.\nPractical implications: The study underlines how, through temporary or permanent modifications of servicescape cues, service providers give consumers opportunities to bypass situations involving sensory overload. Implications for e-servicescapes and public policy are also raised.\nOriginality/value: The findings reveal how the coping strategies used by individuals with auditory disorders contribute to their exclusion from the marketplace on the basis of both individual characteristics and types of servicescapes.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Perceived job quality, work-life interference and intention to stay: Evidence from the aged care workforce in Australia
|
[
"Australia",
"Job quality",
"Intention to stay",
"Aged care employee"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In recent years, population ageing in Australia has been placing significant pressure on the provision of aged care services (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2015). As of June 2015, 172,045 older Australians were receiving permanent residential aged care at 2,681 residential aged care facilities, costing Australian governments nearly 16bn Australian dollars in 2014-2015 (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2015). To service increased demand, it was predicted that the number of aged care workers needed in Australia would triple over the next quarter century (Hugo, 2009). At the same time, employee turnover in the aged care sector is high and can have serious consequences. For example, employee turnover is linked to an increased mortality rate for residents in aged care (Antwi and Bowblis, 2018). Attracting and retaining competent staff in the aged care sector is, hence, crucial for ensuring aged care quality and population well-being.\n2. Literature review and hypotheses development: In labour economics, wage level is often used as a major indicator of job quality, while working and other conditions are considered important aspects of job quality in sociology, management and industrial relations studies. For instance, Clark (2015) categorises job quality into pay, working hours, future prospects, hard work, job content and work relationships (to be further discussed). In 2009, the Stiglitz Commission (Stiglitz et al., 2009) proposed that more research was needed to examine the relationship between multidimensional job quality and well-being in the OECD. Such calls come on the back of increasing recognition that individuals are working longer hours across the globe and that this is placing strains on work-life balance. The multidisciplinary and multidimensional approach to job quality is enriched by the development of surveys and studies into subjective and objective job quality and other dimensions of employee well-being.\n3. Data, measures and model: 3.1 Data\n4. Results: In this section, each table presents the results by intentions to stay in one year (model 1) and three years (model 2).\n5. Discussion and conclusion: The results of this study support the predictions that job quality influences the intention to stay in current aged care facility both directly and partly through its effect on work-life interference in the full sample and in some of the sub-samples.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between aged care employees' perceived job quality and intention to stay in current aged care facilities, mediated by work-life interference.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper uses the nationally representative employee-employer matched data from the 2012 National Aged Care Workforce Census and Survey in Australia. It applies the theoretical lens of the Job Characteristics Model and a mediation analytical model that controls for a rich set of employee, employer and regional characteristics.\nFindings: This paper finds that higher perceived job quality positively correlates with greater intention to stay and that work-life interference mediates the relationship between perceived job quality and intention to stay.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper cannot make inference about causal relationship. Future studies on the aged care workforce should collect longitudinal data so that time-invariant unobservables can be eliminated in econometric modelling.\nPractical implications: Efforts by the aged care sector to design quality jobs are likely to have significant positive correlation with the intention to stay, not only because employees are less likely to leave higher quality jobs per se, but also because higher quality jobs interfere less in the family lives of aged care workers, which itself is associated with greater intention to stay.\nOriginality/value: The results add to a small literature that has investigated how work-family variables can mediate between interventions that organisations put in place to improve work-life balance, and employee outcomes.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Assessing the desirability and feasibility of scenarios on eco-efficient transport: a heuristic for efficient stakeholder involvement during foresight processes
|
[
"Participation",
"Scenario planning",
"Sustainable transport",
"Socio-technical transition",
"Desirability",
"Stakeholder involvement"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: A transition of the transport sector to greater sustainability and eco-efficiency is high on the political agenda of the European Union and of most of its member states. The 2011 White Paper on Transport of the European Commission spells out a series of long-term targets for 2030 and 2050 (CEC, 2011). Scenarios are often used to provide orientation for such long-term socio-technical changes (Elzen et al., 2004); they are increasingly considered a useful tool in foresight-related processes, in particular with regard to how complex technology-infrastructure systems, such as the transport sector, can be designed in the future.\n2. Theoretical and conceptual background of this paper: The approach presented in this paper combines scenario building with a stakeholder assessment of these scenarios and its elements. One of the advantages of the scenarios is that they enable a broader, systemic outlook to the future by being able to integrate different kinds of knowledge from different sources and to create linkages across different dimensions. Thus, scenarios are a valuable tool for coping with the complexity and uncertainty that is inherently associated with the transition of a socio-technical system.\n3. Methods applied in the Science and Technology Option Assessment panel of the European Parliament project: The approach described in this paper was applied in the context of a project on \"Eco-Efficient Transport\" that was carried out for the STOA panel. In the project, scenarios of eco-efficient transport futures were designed, so that stakeholders could subsequently assess these scenarios and their inputs (Schippl et al., 2013). The basic principles and the inputs were made transparent by following a straightforward and logical approach for the design of the scenarios. In addition, the transparency of the assessment was increased by distinguishing between the feasibility and desirability of the scenarios and constituent factors.\n4. Main results of the Science and Technology Option Assessment panel of the European Parliament project: As the focus of this paper is on the methodology used in the STOA project, only a brief overview of the results is provided in this section for illustrative purpose. (For more information, see Schippl et al., 2013.)\n5. Discussion: This section provides a critical reflection on the methodology and a discussion of the results. This is primarily done along the following questions:\n6. Conclusions: This paper demonstrates that scenarios can provide a very valuable heuristic for achieving stakeholder involvement, in particular if they are designed primarily to facilitate a more efficient and rational debate. The principles applied in the presented approach were, first, to use an easily understandable framing and design of the scenarios; second, to look not only at the outputs but also at the inputs of scenarios; and third, to apply the distinction between feasibility and desirability to the scenarios in general and, in particular, to some of the key assumptions which the scenarios were built on. In conclusion, the distinction between desirability and feasibility appears very useful, for this approach can increase transparency; it highlights not only the areas in which consensus prevails but also where not and for what reasons. The questionnaire served as a tool that facilitated collecting a huge amount of useful information, in a structured way and in a relatively short time. This information served as the basis for having a well-structured, rational and, thus, efficient debate. In practice, this factor is relevant because processes of stakeholder involvement are usually constrained by time, money and the cognitive capacities of participants.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to illustrate and discuss how stakeholder assessment of scenarios can be used to trigger a structured and, therefore, more efficient debate amongst stakeholders about future options for achieving a more eco-efficient transport system in Europe. Particularly, it wants to explore the extent to which a distinction between the desirability and the feasibility of a potential future development can render such debates more rational and transparent.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper is based on a project on eco-efficient transport for the Science and Technology Option Assessment panel of the European Parliament (STOA). Key elements of the methods used in the STOA project were easily understandable scenarios and a survey of the main assumptions underlying the scenarios. Both the scenarios and the survey were used in a stakeholder workshop to assess the desirability and the feasibility of approaches towards establishing a more eco-efficient transport system.\nFindings: The methodological approach proved helpful for collecting a large amount of valuable information in a relative short time. In particular, the distinction between desirability and feasibility was useful in mapping out the patterns of opinion amongst stakeholders and for understanding where there is common ground, where there are differences and what the reasons behind these differences are. It helped in identifying promising pathways towards more eco-efficient transport futures and in getting a better understanding of barriers and of the ways to overcome them.\nPractical implications: The approach served as the basis for having a well-structured, rational and, thus, efficient debate. In practice, this factor is relevant because stakeholder involvement is crucial when it comes to transitions of socio-technical systems, such as the transport system. Keeping stakeholders motivated to take part in such participatory processes is only possible, however, if they perceive that these processes are well-structured and, therefore, efficient.\nOriginality/value: In contrast to many other scenario-based approaches, the scenarios in this project were understood as an input to the discussion and not as the result of a process. Furthermore, not only the results but also the underlying assumptions of the scenarios were explicitly made a topic for assessment. The differentiation between desirability and feasibility was used as a guiding dimension for the assessment.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Spillover effects in the European financial services industry from internal fraud events: Comparing three cases of rogue trader scandals
|
[
"Event study",
"Financial services industry",
"Spillover effects",
"Internal fraud",
"G14",
"G32"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Previous studies show that large operational loss events can lead to significant spillover effects on other non-announcing firms in terms of market value (Szewczyk, 1992; Docking et al., 1997; Hertzel et al., 2008; Cummins et al., 2012; Kaspereit et al., 2017). The direction of spillover effects (positive or negative) depends on various factors, such as the firm type, the type of the underlying event, the similarity or the geographical distance between the firms, with the extent being stronger for firms of the same organizational form (Yu and Lester, 2008; Jonsson et al., 2009), if firms are being perceived as similar (Jonsson et al., 2009) or if the announcing firm is a central organization in the industry network (Yu and Lester, 2008). Cummins et al. (2012) found that negative spillover effects in the general financial services industry are particularly pronounced in case of large internal fraud events. However, internal fraud events in investment banks on average lead to significantly less negative spillover effects than internal fraud events in other banks (Cummins et al., 2012), which is surprising. Hence, the goal of this paper is to study spillover effects following internal fraud events in investment banks in more detail with the aim to gain a better understanding of the results in Cummins et al. (2012).\n2. Literature review and hypotheses development: Previous empirical studies show that operational loss events can lead to significant market value losses of the announcing firm, which may even exceed the original operational loss due to additional reputational losses (Sturm, 2013). This is especially the case for internal fraud events (Cummins et al., 2006; Fiordelisi et al., 2014), which makes potential spillover effects on other banks and insurers caused by internal fraud events more likely. We thus assume our first hypothesis as follows:\n3. Data and methodology: 3.1 Data description\n4. Event study results for the three rogue trader cases: In what follows, we first provide a short description of each case before we present the results of the respective event study and then compare the results of the three cases.\n5. Summary and comparison of cases: In this article, we investigate the effects of three large internal fraud events by focusing on large trading losses because of rogue trader scandals at Company 1 (1995) ($1.4bn loss), Company 2 (2008) ($6.8bn loss) and Company 3 (2011) ($2.3bn loss) among the ten largest competing banks and insurance companies and thus the largest players in Europe (overall twenty firms) based on event study methodology by measuring CARs for various event windows around the announcement date.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Previous research observed that large internal fraud events in the general financial services industry imply negative spillover effects, whereas internal fraud in investment banks can imply significantly positive effects for other banks. This paper aims to shed further light on this contradictory result.\nDesign/methodology/approach: For this purpose, the authors compare the spillover effects of the three largest cases of rogue trader events in investment banks (Company 1, 1995; Company 2, 2008; Company 3, 2011) on the largest competing non-announcing banks and insurance companies in Europe based on an event study.\nFindings: The results show that while the respective announcing firm suffered significant market value losses that even led to bankruptcy in case of Company 1, spillover effects on other banks and insurers were twofold. In particular, in case of Company 2 and Company 3, spillover effects on other financial firms were significantly positive depending on the event window, indicating a dominating competitive effect, whereas the Company 1 event with its resulting bankruptcy led to significantly negative spillover effects and thus contagion.\nOriginality/value: The results offer a first indication that the severity of the event in terms of its consequences for the announcing firm is crucial, as internal fraud events have the potential to significantly worsen the market values of other financial services firms, which is in contrast to the typically observed positive effects.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Validating the relationship between trust, commitment, economic and non-economic satisfaction in South African buyer-supplier relationships
|
[
"South Africa",
"Trust",
"Commitment",
"Business relationships",
"Economic satisfaction",
"Non-economic satisfaction"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Satisfaction is widely considered as a guiding philosophy of business relationships (Yeung et al., 2013). Empirically, its importance is evidenced by the many studies that have found satisfaction to be an important factor for the success of business relationships (Del Bosque Rodriguez et al., 2006; Hutchinson et al., 2012; Human and Naude, 2014; Hashim and Tan, 2015). Reviews of literature on studies that have focused on the quality of business relationships, especially in the context of direct and indirect channel relationships, show that satisfaction is closely related to trust and commitment (Voldnes et al., 2012; Mpinganjira et al., 2014), with Walter et al. (2003) and Sarmento et al. (2014) describing the three constructs as key indicators of relationship quality.\nConceptual framework: Figure 1 presents the conceptual model used in this study to examine the relationship between satisfaction, trust and commitment to validate (i.e. verify or falsify) the findings of the original study by Ferro et al. (2016). As noted before, the three constructs are widely accepted in relationship marketing as key indicators of relationship quality. The ability of any firm to build high relationship quality is key to ensuring that customers do not defect to competitors but maintain long-term business relations with a supplier (Mpinganjira et al., 2013; Gronroos and Helle, 2012). It helps ensure that a supplier is not only able to attract but also keep customers (Sheth et al., 2015; Ravald and Gronroos, 1996). The model used in this study starts with an assessment of economic satisfaction and argues that this has a positive influence on the development of trust and commitment, which, in turn, positively affects non-economic satisfaction. The model also postulates that economic satisfaction exerts a positive direct influence on non-economic satisfaction.\nMethodology: Research context and sample\nAnalysis and results: The data were analysed using version 21 of SPSS/AMOS software. The measurement and structural properties of the research model were tested using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling. Confirmatory factor analysis was run with a four-factor measurement model and 12 indicator variables. The results presented in Table I show satisfactory goodness-of-fit measures for the measurement model as per Hair et al. (2010).\nDiscussion and implications: The South African business environment is characterised by growing levels of competition. One way in which firms can enhance their chances of success is by harnessing measures that help in maximizing value creation. Establishing and maintaining good business relations with channel members, particularly their suppliers, can help firms work towards this end (Miguel et al., 2014). The primary purpose of this study was to test a nomological framework with a set of hypothesised relationships that can serve as a guide to the development and maintenance of good buyer-supplier relations in business-to-business markets.\nConclusion: Using relationship marketing theory, this study examined and tested a research framework that looked at the relationship between satisfaction, trust and commitment in business relationships. Specifically, the study focused on the buyer-supplier relationship in South African business channels. Satisfaction was looked at from the dual perspective of economic and non-economic satisfaction. From the findings of the study, a number of main conclusions can be drawn. Firstly, from the results on assessment of the measurement model, the study provides support for believing that satisfaction in business buyer-supplier relationships is a construct consisting of two distinct dimensions of economic satisfaction and non-economic satisfaction. The economic satisfaction component is associated with tangible benefits of the economic exchange, while the non-economic satisfaction component is associated with affective social elements relating to relationships. The second conclusion drawn is that as distinct constructs, the presence of one does not mean the presence of the other. Specifically, the findings of the study show that economic satisfaction does not have a direct positive influence on non-economic satisfaction. Rather, economic satisfaction influences non-economic satisfaction through its influence on trust. Positive valuations of economic benefits in buyer-supplier business relationships result in the development of trust among members. The third conclusion drawn is that economic satisfaction influences commitment through its influence on trust. In other words, the presence of economic benefits does not necessarily lead to commitment to a business relationship. In the absence of trust, economic satisfaction will not result in commitment. The last main conclusion drawn from the findings of the study is that both trust and commitment are key precursors of the non-economic dimension of satisfaction. The empirical findings indicate satisfactory goodness-of-fit measures for the structural model and provide support for four of the hypothesised relationships.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The paper aims to validate the relationship between satisfaction, trust and commitment in South African business buyer-supplier relationships. Satisfaction was looked at from the dual perspective of economic and non-economic satisfaction.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A research model showing hypothesised relationships between the constructs was tested using data collected from 250 large companies in South Africa. Structural equation modelling using AMOS software was used to analyse the data. The results provide support for the distinctiveness of both economic and non-economic satisfaction and the mediating effect of trust.\nFindings: The findings show that economic satisfaction exerts a direct influence on trust, which, in turn, has a direct influence on commitment. Trust and commitment were both found to have a positive influence on non-economic satisfaction.\nResearch limitations/implications: The tested nomological network of business relationship quality dimensions validates some of the recent findings by Ferro et al. (2016) in the South African context of buyer-supplier relationships.\nOriginality/value: The study contributes to a better understanding of satisfaction and its relationship with other relationship quality constructs, especially in the context of large companies in South Africa.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Condition based maintenance: a survey
|
[
"Condition based maintenance",
"Maintenance",
"Data mining",
"Artificial intelligence",
"Sensors"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nI. Introduction: For many years maintenance (Jardine and Tsang, 2005) has been an expensive and daunting element of supporting the product lifecycle of any given system. Various approaches have been investigated to minimize failures or correct the historical failures of a system (Lorna et al., 2010) - typically, by increasing the frequency of maintenance actions. One after another improvement concept has been attempted to overcome the difficulties and inefficiencies faced by the previous generation maintenance system. Typically, maintenance approaches have been divided into two main categories: preventive and corrective maintenance. This paper discusses a third option, condition-based maintenance (CBM), typically categorized under preventative maintenance, but may be considered as a new tenant of maintenance for some professionals.The concept of CBM[1] was first introduced by the Rio Grande Railway Company in late 1940s and initially it was called \"predictive maintenance.\" The railway company used CBM techniques to detect coolant, oil, and fuel leaks in the engine by trending changes in temperature and pressure readings. The CBM monitoring techniques served as a great success in terms of reducing the impacts of unplanned failures and identifying when to fix a leak or replenish a coolant or oil sump. The US Army caught on to this idea very early and later on adopted it as a key maintenance strategy for supporting their military equipment.CBM concepts and applications have emerged in several industries throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s. Automotive, aerospace, military, and manufacturing are the main industries where CBM has been embraced and have shown several benefits in both efficiencies and cost savings. Now very large organizations and companies are investing and involved with CBM technology applications including the US Department of Defense (army, air force, navy, marines) and companies like GM, Honda, GE, Digitech, Honeywell, and others. Advancements in information technology have added accelerated growth in the CBM technology area by enabling network bandwidth, data collection and retrieval, data analysis, and decision support capabilities for large data sets of time series data. The targeted data monitored from a vehicle or any system can give deeper insight on system performance, system health, root cause of failures, along with forecasting the remaining useful life of the system or a subsystem. This serves as a huge advantage for sustaining the mission critical systems used in aerospace, military, maritime, automotive, manufacturing, and other industry domains. These valuable applications and benefits have pushed CBM as a key capability area to apply to a company's product line - be it automobiles, planes, weapon systems, or other products requiring regular maintenance. These industries are focussing on CBM concepts and maintenance strategies by designing CBM technology enablers into their current and future system architectures.As industries move into the future, where machines are unmanned and human monitored as closely as they have been in the past, the need for CBM will increase. Robotic systems, unmanned vehicles, windmill systems, manufacturing systems, and oil pumping systems are just a few system examples that could gain many benefits out of CBM concepts and maintenance strategies. Businesses could save significant money or improve operational efficiencies if they adopt CBM as a maintenance strategy. It may mean reduction in staff, reduction in supply footprint, cost avoidances on second- and third-order failure effects, reduction in downtime, and other benefits applicable to their business domain.\nII. Maintenance concepts and strategies: A. Reliability centered maintenance (RCM)\nIII. CBM technology enablers: A. Diagnostics\nIV. Survey of recent developments in CBM: Various research communities are actively contributing in different ways to mature CBM capabilities. The US Air Force is highly involved in developing CBM+[5] applications for the Joint Strike Fighter. They are also planning to take CBM+ into consideration while designing and developing new weapon systems. \"Condition Based Maintenance Plus (CBM+) is the application and integration of processes, technologies, and knowledge-based capabilities to improve the reliability and maintenance effectiveness of Department of Defense systems and components.\" CBM+ uses a systems engineering approach to collect data, enable analysis, and support the decision-making processes for system acquisition, sustainment, and operations. Using a CBM+ strategy is found to be more efficient and helps save money across the lifecycle of a given system.Maintenance strategies have always been a point of concern and costly portion of any degradable system. In the past, various attempts have been made to improve maintenance processes. Recently the focus has been shifted toward CBM due to its predictive nature and positive impacts on the supply chain and fleet management. CBM intelligence is centered on the prediction algorithms used for fault prognosis. In the following section, we have addressed some existing efforts toward improvement of fault prediction and CBM.Yang (2002) examined the Kalman filter (KF) for one-step-ahead prediction in DC motor maintenance. KFs are computationally efficient especially for the applications having large states. Mr Yang reports the error estimated in one-step prediction is acceptable. While it is not acceptable for highly critical systems, it is complicated and computationally expensive.Grall et al. (2002) proposed a very nice and general approach applicable to any degradable system. But they restricted the approach with certain limitations and dependencies which does not seem to be very practical in real life applications.Ferrell (2000) presented a strategy for the detection of the abnormal behavior of the system based on the analysis of normal behavior. They proposed a general support vector representation of a machine for one classification of a non-stationary class as well as additional stationary classes. It deals with data even if some classes are missing by creating new classes. This method helps to better predict the future health of the system.Lu et al. (2007) investigated a predictive CBM capability to predict a deteriorating system's future condition. The degradation states are modeled as continuous states and fault probability is dependent on random variables. The proposed strategy is centered on the maintenance cost, while prediction accuracy becomes the most important factor. Specifically when CBM is applied for critical systems it is primarily to detect and predict the fault conditions within very small intervals. According to the authors, a good maintenance system has to have good balance between prediction accuracy and maintenance cost.Furthermore, Rausch (2008) has investigated a CBM methodology that establishes the relationship between continuous state/time degradation model and CBM systems. This approach is not dynamic as he mentioned in his future research. This has been a center of attention in our proposed system.Chen (Chen and Trivedi, 2002) presents a closed form analysis for the system when it deviates from the normal course of operation and meets poison's failures. Authors investigate a closed-loop solution to optimize inspection intervals to maximize the system availability, minimize the operational cost, or mean time to failure under certain system availability constraints. The uptime of the system using a polynomial equation-based solution is found to be deterministic, faster, and suitable for real life applications.Yam et al. (2001) have developed an intelligent decision support system for CBM. This system is based on a recurrent neural network that adds capability parameters to predict future fault conditions. The neural network approaches are efficient, but relatively slow. These approaches also require large set of data for training which turns out to be a big restriction for a real-time application.Angel et al. (2000) has presented a nice method for failure prediction by focussing on accuracy, precision, and confidence. In short their results show that 5 percent deviation in expected failures, which is still high for critical or real time applications.Baruah et al. (2006) have presented a generic framework for diagnostics and prognostics. They have designed an online approach which does not require interaction with the physical system, and in turn, reduces manpower. This framework is based on multi-basis clustering as well as optimized cluster tracking. It has some drawbacks due to some of the subjectivity bias caused by human decision inputs. Kwon (Kwon et al., 2009) has also proposed a similar methodology as in (Baruah et al., 2006) because both of them discussed the online maintenance approach. This paper focusses on the analysis of data available through internet for the remotely located systems. Mainly the robot's harmonic drive is connected to the web and all the real-time data are available to a remote off-line analyzer. A mathematical model has been developed to predict the failure of any subsystem of the robot. The experimental results show that this strategy is more helpful to increase the system's uptime. The various optimization methods have also been proposed to optimize CBM enabled systems in practice.Chen and Trivedi (2005) used semi-Markov's decision process (SMDP) for optimization of a CBM policy. Chen has proved that optimization over inspection rate as well as maintenance policy is better than that of only over inspection rates. SMDP is well-established approach and good for modeling numerous failure scenarios. On the other hand, it requires a large data set for training and it is not well suited for time-dependent degradations. As a result, it makes SMDP as not very useful for CBM applications, especially for highly critical and time varying types of failures.Schmitigal and Moyer (2005), discussed an oil condition monitoring system for diesel engines. In this research project, they tested mainly two major issues: soot accumulation and oil oxidation using an on-board sensor system. The results from the on-board sensor systems and the results of on-site analysis were compared to check the accuracy of the results from the on-board sensor system. Results found that this particular on-board sensor system could be utilized to predict the oil quality directly from the fleet without the help of an oil analysis lab.In the paper, Sondalini proposes that 15-20 percent of equipment failures are due to aging/degrading factors and the remaining (80-85 percent) are random failures. The random failures can be predicted only by analyzing failure patterns or using some failure prediction models. Schedule-based maintenance is useless for such unpredictable failures while some factors other than aging/degrading factors are also responsible for failures.The paper authored by Zachos and DeGrant (2009) discusses the enhancement of a smart wireless internal combustion engine (SWICE) device that has been treated as a mini-vehicle computer system. The SWICE includes a smart wireless diagnostic sensor (SWDS) which enables reach in to the vehicle subsystems through a wireless link from an at-platform device such as a ruggedized laptop. SWDS helps in establishing a network on an ad hoc basis with an off-platform fleet data collection terminal. Some usage data like miles, hours, faults, temperature, pressure, and other vehicle parameters can be downloaded from the wireless interface of the device and used to directly analyze the vehicle data.\nV. Application areas of CBM: CBM has wide variety of applications in manufacturing plants, process industry, military, naval, air force's ground vehicles, IT infrastructure, commercial vehicles, and aviation/aircraft. We provided the brief direction on engine oil, vibration analysis, and temperature analysis for IT infrastructure. These are the few applications areas for CBM. Manufacturing is a highly targeted domain where CBM is being applied.A. Automobiles\nVI. Open research challenges: CBM is a very useful and powerful maintenance approach, but on the other hand the initial costs of deployment can be fairly expensive. Even though initial deployment is expensive, it can be very effective to meet long-term maintenance and supportability goals. Next generation systems are highly equipped with sensors for various purposes. It is easier to build a CBM application with minimal changes within an existing infrastructure. Some specific components need to be monitored as well as data transferred over wired or wireless networks to maintenance management systems and enterprise resource planning systems. There are also some other factors to be considered in the planning process. Below is a list of several but not all open research challenges.There are various concepts outlining different CBM architectures. Different research communities are following different architectures that stovepipe many of the system designs. It also leads to lack of interoperability and promotes proprietary solutions. A standard and scalable CBM architecture is needed to maintain interoperability. Interoperability seeks to assist with integrating components from many vendors to build efficient CBM applications and meet the specific requirements for customers.A. Real-time prognostics\nVII. Conclusion: Maintenance has always been an integral part of any system support plan. Most of us have been following recommended maintenance procedures without giving much thought about actual system condition and remaining useful life of removed parts. We have been performing it to avoid sudden failures or because the maintenance manual tells us to do it as part of a schedule. This has led to vast waste in terms of time and money. In this paper, we have turned the reader's attention toward CBM concepts which has been proven to be more efficient than traditional maintenance approaches in various respects. The brief review of literature provides how actively researchers are engaged in the advancements in technology that enable CBM capabilities. This paper also provides an overview of some of the key enablers for CBM like diagnostics, prognostics, data mining, and artificial intelligence. Finally, the paper concludes with a few open research challenges to improve CBM enabling technologies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief overview of condition based maintenance (CBM) with definitions of various terms, overview of some history, recent developments, applications, and research challenges in the CBM domain.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The article presents the insight into various maintenance strategies and provides their respective merits and demerits in various aspects. It then provides the detailed discussion of CBM that includes applications of various methodologies and technologies that are being implemented in the field. Finally, it ends with open challenges in implementing condition based maintenance systems.\nFindings: - This paper surveys research articles and describes how CBM can be used to optimize maintenance strategies and increase the feasibility and practicality of a CBM system.\nPractical implications: - CBM systems are completely practical to implement and applicable to various domains including automotive, manufacturing, aviation, medical, etc. This paper presents a brief overview of literature on CBM and an insight into CBM as a maintenance strategy. CBM has wide applications in automotive, aviation, manufacturing, defense, and other industries. It involves various disciplines like data mining, artificial intelligence, and statistics to enable the systems to be maintenance intelligent. These disciplines help in predicting the future consequences based on the past and current system conditions. Based on the authors' studies, implementation of such a system is easy and cost effective because it uses existing subsystems to collect statistical data. On top of that it requires building a software layer to process the data and to implement the prognosis techniques in the form of algorithms.\nSocial implications: - The design of CBM systems highly impact the society in terms of maintenance cost (i.e. reduces the maintenance cost of automobiles, safety by providing real time reporting of the fault using prognosis).\nOriginality/value: - To the best of the authors' knowledge, this paper is first of its kind in the literature which presents several maintenance strategies and provides a number of possible research directions listed in open research challenges.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
A vision for valuation
|
[
"Valuation services",
"Valuers",
"Professional standards"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nWhy does valuation matter?: Property underpins a major proportion of financial decisions in mature economies. Failure to ensure assets are properly valued risks financial exposure for a wide range of stakeholders. For example:* banks that use property as collateral for loans;* shareholders that have invested in quoted companies and the companies themselves that become vulnerable to take-overs and asset stripping if the properties they own are not regularly and correctly valued in the balance sheet;* house-buyers;* future pensioners whose savings are invested by funds; and* whole economies that depend on stable banking systems.A series of corporate financial crises around the world have proved that the dangers of wider financial collapse are real (see below):The domino effect of poor valuation\nWho provides valuation services?: Globalisation has led to a significant increase in use of international valuation standards, but a worldwide convergence towards adopting a single consistent basis for valuation services is a long way off. This is partly because of wide differences in entry to the profession, in the training of valuers or appraisers, in client or public perceptions of them and in the ability of valuers to contribute to wider financial or economic activity.Becoming a valuer can mean little more than going through a relatively undemanding state licensing process in some countries. However, in other countries a much more rigorous approach is required involving a minimum standard of a university degree and period of supervised experience, further examinations and peer assessment.In the USA, the licensing of appraisers is controlled on a state-by-state basis and the recognition of licences between states is very limited. Entry requirements are low. After a two to three year experience requirement, anybody who has passed the basic State-set test and submitted samples of their work product for approval by the State's Appraisal Board, can work as a certified appraiser in that state.Although there are some large, well known appraisal companies in North America, the market tends to be characterised by small firms (Appraisal Institute of Canada, 2002) with most appraisers working in only one or two states. Training is focused on appraisal and so even the big companies are unable to provide, or the market is unwilling to accept, the provision by valuers of wider property services like agency and investment. Indeed separate licences are required for brokerage services. Many commentators argue that state licensing in the USA has done little, if anything, to improve standards. Relatively low entry requirements, limited job prospects and a low opinion among graduates and school leavers about a career in appraisal have contributed to significant decline in recruitment in North America (Appraisal Institute of Canada, 2002). The profession is left an ageing profile (the so called \"greying profession\"), exacerbated in many States by restrictions placed on the number of trainees (typically only two) permitted under any one experienced supervisor.Elsewhere the situation is very different. In the UK a regulatory framework is set by the leading professional body, RICS. Training is based on a broader university education in property, and valuation as a discipline tends to be more highly regarded by clients and institutions (Wyatt, 2001).Arguably, the UK has one of the most developed markets in valuation services, partly because it has a highly developed commercial property market in which banks, pension funds and insurance companies invest heavily and a mature housing market with a high proportion of homeowners. Elsewhere, the slow development of a property market has held back the evolution of a valuation profession.Pressures driving demand for a profession of valuers include:* valuation induced financial crisis (e.g. Germany, Thailand) or the determination to avoid such a crisis (e.g. Poland);* the move towards market economies (former Soviet bloc, developing countries); and* property tax reform (e.g. Portugal).While commercial property related valuation in mature markets has become an increasingly sophisticated process, there are parts of the world where demand is yet to start. Here, much valuation work is still generated by the state and may, for instance, arise from privatisation or be property tax related. In China, for example, where there is a very limited property market, valuers largely work for government departments.A number of banks in mainland Europe are state owned or backed and have in-house valuation teams. The banks' desire to improve efficiency could well lead to a further trend towards outsourcing this valuation work to external valuers, which may in turn change the way the profession is organised.In many countries valuation is a distinct profession, with valuers working either as sole practitioners or in firms of valuers. These valuation firms have generally developed separately from firms providing other real estate services. In some cases this is simply the result of the way the profession has evolved; in others, such as Spain, it results from a statutory requirement to separate out valuation services.In the UK, however, few commercial firms offer valuation services alone. This means the market is dominated by multidisciplinary practices where valuation is often one of a package of services offered to clients, including other more lucrative property-related work. This model has been successfully exported by the large international practices across the world.\nWhat are the dynamics of the valuation marketplace?: The basic purpose of valuation is to give an assessment of what a defined interest in an asset is likely to realise if sold on the open market or its value to the occupying business. Why clients need to know this information and what they want to do with it, influences the type of valuation and the professional service offered. However, in order for valuers to provide the best possible service, they must also understand the dynamic drivers of the marketplace, both in the commercial property and the residential property sectors.Some of the drivers in the current market throw up potential new opportunities; some point towards an uncomfortable future for some valuers; and others threaten the credibility of valuation as a public interest profession. This part of the paper focuses on some of the biggest changes likely to affect the market for valuation services in the short to medium term.1. Secured lending dynamics\nA vision for valuation?: The problem for professionals is that the future of valuation is not altogether clear and a raft of issues is creating change, which is bringing mixed blessings. Valuers and their professional bodies are going to have to tackle these issues head on. Failure to do so, or a fudging of the issues, will only damage perceptions of valuation and leave valuers under-equipped to deal with changes in their market.Increasingly exacting clients are demanding analysis, interpretation and application of property information, managed and delivered through technology. Are valuers up to the job of meeting the challenges ahead? Are firms delivering the types of changing services that clients need? Do valuers have the expertise required by financial regulators, accountants and clients? Can the best work be provided at a fee that demonstrates its worth?\nPolarisation of valuation service providers: Although client perceptions of valuers tend to be higher in the UK than they are in, say, the USA, a recent study revealed that clients have a narrow view of the role of valuers. It concludes that \"despite valuers becoming increasingly involved in measuring corporate efficiency and valuations being used for this purpose, business occupiers do not recognise valuers in a strategic role. Instead, many firms see valuers as providing a single valuation service, the estimation of market value for purchase/sale decisions and corporate disclosure\" (Wyatt, 2001).The challenge for valuers, valuation firms and the professional bodies is to convince clients of the worth of those valuers with broad business skills that include strategic thinking and an awareness of business issues.Boards of companies are concerned with managing their cost base but many lack a real estate strategy and apply no performance measures to their property. Real estate is increasingly on the boardroom agenda - as the second largest cost after employment, it should be - but often for the wrong reasons. Valuers have every opportunity to add value to the business through innovative property solutions.Should professional valuation service providers be positioning themselves more with the business and financial world than the real estate world? RICS has recognised that if its members are to offer a wider suite of real estate services they need to have a broad-based understanding of business. Valuers in this market should be competing much more on standard of service, not simply on price. The price is what you pay; the value is what you receive.There is certainly a need for top class property consulting services. A well educated professional valuer with the right training and experience, who is independent and acts according to recognised standards, will be able to provide a value-added advisory and analysis service. By providing the client with advice that goes beyond the scope of the original information requested, the valuer may actually be providing something of greater benefit than what was requested. This is about valuers helping their clients make the best possible property decisions. The more clients are aware that this service is available, the more they will be willing to pay a fair price for it.Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for ... Customers pay only for what is of use to them and gives them value (Peter Drucker).While professionals offering financial or business skills are needed in one part of the valuation services market, those with a base of more technical skills are needed in another part. The profession will have to consider how to train more technicians equipped to handle more of the routine work and who are better able to compete on price. These valuers will need to be skilled to work on the design and implementation of software as well as in risk assessment of AVMs. More importantly, the professional bodies will need to maintain control of the educational and professional standards of these technicians.Nevertheless it is vital for the public interest that quality across the spectrum is maintained and improved. Professional bodies are ideally placed to ensure quality control (see Figure 1).\nPolarisation of approaches: Is there a serious case to be made for the multi-disciplinary approach? As business service providers aim to offer clients a \"one stop shop\" and where no individual can have all the skills required, it is increasingly likely that valuers will find themselves as part of a multidisciplinary team. This means that the valuer will need a broader based training to be able to understand fully the roles of the others in the team and how they interact.What is clear is that those valuers and firms with training and experience in the broader property and business sector will be better able to diversify into other areas if markets and opportunities shift. The cost pressures on valuation are high. Those trained into a narrow valuation field may find their future too restricted.However valuers organise themselves, the public interest remains key.\nWhat needs to be done?: Clients are sending conflicting messages. Funds want quality of service but they do not want to pay for it; they want cheaper valuations but they do not want more automation. Mortgage lenders do want more automated processes to cut costs but have no desire to damage the interests of their borrowers.Valuers\nStill a people business: To ensure that professional competence matches the expectations of the public and the users of valuation services, it is up to the leading professional organisations in the world to ensure that collectively and individually they attract into the profession the best possible candidates.They must also retain the most talented people with the knowledge, skills, flexibility and ideas - the most valuable of the intangible assets. Loyalty can no longer be taken for granted and so businesses need to be encouraged to build cultures, financial and benefits packages and career paths for their people. Only by having the right people will the profession establish itself and grow on a worldwide basis.A global profession with a clearly defined public role and reputation for quality, but which also has scope for development into new areas like capital markets, property financing and intangible assets, will excite young recruits. The challenge is for professional bodies to get this message out so that the best young people become tomorrow's valuers. A professional qualification, such as that provided by RICS, is increasingly becoming the \"international passport\" of choice for young graduates wanting to work across borders.\nConclusions: Market forces are putting pressure on valuation as we know it. Valuers cannot resist market forces: the consequence of failing to respond is inevitable decline in the long term. Some changes, like increased automation, bring new opportunities as well as threats, and the ability of the profession to capitalise on the opportunities depends largely on its ability to deal with the threats.There is a bright future for the valuation profession as long as valuers and their professional bodies understand the market dynamics and do not shy away from change, even when it is uncomfortable or unwelcome. Keeping the status quo today is in reality going backwards. Is the valuation profession flexible enough to adapt to change and still meet its service delivery criteria? This is what it must do.Valuation is a public interest profession. It needs to take care in how it handles the new challenges it faces to ensure that its integrity and independence are maintained. If it loses credibility, confidence in it will be damaged and the protection that sound valuation offers will be weakened. Automated valuation will be a key test. It is up to professional valuers and their professional bodies to define transparent and consistent standards in this area and then to lobby governments where necessary to adopt appropriate safeguards.The valuation world needs to address three key questions. Failure to so will undermine the ability of the profession to face emerging opportunities and threats.1. How can valuers persuade policymakers to recognise the worth of good quality valuation?2. Are valuers listening to their clients and adapting in response to changing market circumstances?3. Do the valuers' professional bodies appreciate what they must do to meet the changing skillset requirements of their members?However individual states organise their valuation professionals, whether self-regulated or state-regulated, and whatever the market dynamics, the quality of professional valuation should be key.For valuation is a public interest profession - and every self-respecting country should have one.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to stimulate debate amongst valuers and users of valuations over what action is needed to ensure the provision of the valuation services that the modern economy requires.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This paper looks at developments and trends affecting the nature of and the need for valuation services around the world in the short to medium term.\nFindings: - There is a bright future for those valuers who understand the dynamics in their market and anticipate or always respond to change. The consequence of failing to respond is inevitable decline in the long term. More automated valuation processes and products have an important role to play in the future provision of valuation services. The valuation community must rise to the challenge of developing a professional class of valuers in emerging economies. Governments should insist on good quality valuation in their jurisdictions as they have a major role to play in consumer protection. The leading professional organisations in the world must ensure that collectively and individually they attract the best possible candidates into it.\nOriginality/value: - Whatever the drivers of change in the valuation marketplace, it is fundamental for the survival of professional valuation services that the public interest is protected. This paper considers the challenges and opportunities in a range of areas brought about by these changes - a vision for valuation.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Sites of intersectional identity salience
|
[
"Gender",
"Ethnicity",
"Intersectionality",
"Identity salience"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In this paper, I describe the sites that raise individuals' awareness and prompt construction of intersecting gender, ethnic and senior identities in organisations. This paper draws on data from my doctoral research investigating identity-heightening episodes and the ensuing identity construction processes experienced by Black, Asian and minority ethnic male and female managers in the UK. In this paper, I present an analysis of the critical incidents reported by respondents as raising personal awareness of their identities as Black, Asian and minority ethnic women and men in senior positions. First, I introduce the identity construction and identity salience literature, emphasising its pertinence to minority experiences in organisations. Then, I present intersectionality as a framework for examining identity construction processes of individuals' multiple, mutually constitutive identities. Next, I describe the methodology used to elicit intersectional identity-salient episodes. Following this, I present a descriptive typology of the 101 episodes emerging from the data as raising the salience of respondents' intersecting senior, gender and ethnic identities. The episodes constitute material sites of intersectional identity salience. Then, drawing on Syed and Ozbilgin (2009), I adopt a multilevel, relational perspective on identity salience. Using this framework, I analyse my personal identity-salient experiences as a researcher as well as the data from respondents. I present how gender, ethnic and senior identities shift in meaning, in relation to each other (at the micro-, intrapersonal level), in relation to others (at the interpersonal level) and in relation to organisational context (at the meso-level). This paper contributes to literature on intersectionality and identity by revealing the dynamics of intersectional identity salience in everyday experiences. Gender, ethnic and senior identities infuse each other with significance and meaning simultaneously and consecutively, in complement and in opposition to each other, with differing implications within and across gender, ethnic and organisational rank or seniority group membership.\nIdentity construction and salience: The significance of identity construction in organisations is recognised across diversity and more \"mainstream\" management scholarship. Advances have been made in our understanding of identity construction processes for disadvantaged, stigmatised and lower-status individuals. Kanter's (1977) \"tokenism theory\", derived from her organisational gender studies in the 1970s, suggested identity-based implications for women in numerical minority positions. In small numbers, contrasts between gender categories were exaggerated, leading to the \"tokens\" isolation. Women either accepted the isolation (resulting in \"friendly but distant\" peer relationships) or became insiders, shedding \"women's ways\" and becoming \"one of the boys\". Scholars have focused on the effort of constructing positive self-views for individuals, assumed to have tension-filled and/or low-status identities, across a range of populations from homeless people (Snow and Anderson, 1987) to homosexual priests (Creed et al., 2010). For instance, Grandy (2008) demonstrates the variety and complexity of processes through which exotic dancers work to create a favourable sense of self to counter the taint of their \"dirty work\" on their self-constructs. This effort of self-construction is termed identity work. Identity work forms a part of identification, an ongoing internal process, wherein personal meaning and significance are achieved as one locates one's place in a given social context (Atewologun and Sealy, 2011). Identity work is the mindful part of identification, defined as \"the ongoing mental activity that an individual undertakes in constructing an understanding of the self that is coherent, distinct and positively valued\" (Alvesson et al., 2008, p. 15). It captures individuals' effort in constructing self-understanding in interaction with their environment (Alvesson et al., 2008; Beech, 2008).\nIntersectionality and identity salience: Identities are multifaceted; scholars have long argued for a level of sophistication in examinations of disadvantage that account for individuals' simultaneous positioning across multiple identity dimensions (Adib and Guerrier, 2003; Frable, 1997; Settles, 2006). When considering the dynamic and shifting nature of salience, this becomes particularly pertinent. For example, the salience of one's professional identity (e.g. engineer) is likely to be more meaningful at its intersection with female, compared to male, gender (Hatmaker, 2013).\nMethodology: Scholars conceptualise how individuals' response to perceived identity threat is related to self-concept in two main ways. People respond to threat to either minimise self harm (threat response as an identity protection response) or to seize an opportunity for change, development and growth (threat response as an identity restructuring process) (Petriglieri, 2011). I was mindful that the notion of identity threat or \"challenge\", especially in the context of inequalities and disadvantage, may elicit vivid, non-routine instances of personal attacks on one's identity (such as overt cases of discrimination or abuse). However, instead of positioning gender and ethnic status as states to be endured or resisted, the research aim was to examine everyday (rather than atypical) experiences. Thus, the less emotive term, \"identity-heightening episodes\", was used with respondents to elicit intersectional identity salience. These episodes were described as any moment or experience in which mindful attention was paid (by self or others) to respondents being senior minority ethnic women or men.\nMaterial sites of intersectional identity salience: The identity-salient episodes included a spontaneous conversation around office water coolers that signalled exclusion, a formal appraisal in which shared minority status was unacknowledged and a new client meeting in which senior status and competence were questioned. Petriglieri (2011) hypothesises that both individual and social experiences can serve as sources of identity threat. My findings were consistent with this: reported episodes comprised reflective and interactive experiences.\nMetaphorical sites - the multilevel nature of intersectional identity salience: Proceeding to Wolcott's (1994) analysis and interpretive stages, I began to focus on a more abstract level, to further understand the nature of intersectional identity salience and the impact on the values, meaning and enactment of the identities of interest (Petriglieri, 2011). I adopted a multilevel relational framework (Syed and Ozbilgin, 2009) for this. While Syed and Ozbilgin (2009) advocate their framework for instigating multilevel change in diversity management practices, I found it useful for examining the multilayered nature of the sites of intersectional identity salience.\nConclusion: In this paper, I integrated identity salience with intersectionality and a multilevel relational framework to illustrate the material and metaphorical sites in which gender, ethnic and senior identities are heightened. This paper has offered some insights into how intrapersonal, interpersonal, organisational and socio-cultural factors raise intersectional identity salience and what this may mean for the value, meaning or enactment of the pertinent identities.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore experiences relating to and the nature of the episodes that raise individuals' salience of their intersecting gender, ethnic and senior organizational identities. This paper is based on a presentation given at a British Academy of Management Joint Gender in Management and Identity Special Interest Groups Research Seminar entitled \"Exploring Intersectionality of Gender and Identity\".\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on identity-heightening incidents elicited through diaries and interviews from minority ethnic women and men in middle- and senior-management positions, the paper adopts a multilevel, intersectional framework to present \"sites\" of intersectional identity salience. Identity-salient sites were analysed from accounts of episodes that raised the salience of gender, ethnic and senior identities for respondents. Researcher reflections on identity salience are also analysed.\nFindings: This paper draws on subjective accounts of identity salience from researcher and respondent experiences on pre-defined identity dimensions.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper uses rich, in-depth accounts of everyday experiences to reveal the dynamics of intersectional identity salience. Gender, ethnic and senior identities infuse each other with significance and meaning simultaneously and consecutively in everyday experiences.\nOriginality/value: This paper's originality is drawn from the advancement of intersectionality studies through empirical research based on collecting identity-heightening qualitative data.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
The multidimensional nature of production competence and additional evidence of its impact on business performance
|
[
"Production processes",
"Competences",
"Strategic manufacturing",
"Business performance"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: In literature and in business practice, it is widely accepted that \"manufacturing matters\", that is, that the manufacturing strategy may help improve business competitiveness. Nevertheless, there are different theories and approaches for explaining this link. One of these is the production competence theory (Cleveland et al., 1989; Vickery, 1991; Kim and Arnold, 1993; Vickery et al., 1993, 1994; Droge et al., 1994; Safizadeh et al., 2000; Schmenner and Vastag, 2006). This theory proposes production competence as a measure of strategic manufacturing positioning and argues that firms are able to improve their competitiveness by ensuring that their manufacturing capabilities are consistent with their market requirements.Despite the extent of literature on this topic, the measurement of production competence and the relationship between production competence and business performance continue to be subjects of interest for operations strategy researchers since Cleveland et al. (1989) first dealt with this question. They originally defined production competence as \"the preparedness, skill, or capability that enables manufacturers to prosecute a product-market specific business strategy\" (Cleveland et al., 1989, p. 655) and developed a theory in which the fit between manufacturing strategy and business strategy was considered the foundation of higher business performance. Subsequent researchers have delved deeper into related factors such as business strategy alignment (Vickery, 1991; Vickery et al., 1993; Joshi et al., 2003), process type (Safizadeh et al., 2000), and advanced manufacturing technologies (Zhang et al., 2006) that affect this relationship. More recently, other authors have extended the idea of \"strategy alignment\", which underlies the production competence concept to other functional areas, such as marketing, product development (Droge et al., 1994) and purchasing (Narasimhan et al., 2001; Gonzalez-Benito, 2007).Although production competence has been accepted as an important theme in manufacturing strategy literature, and notable steps have been taken in the development, refinement and discussion of the concept (Vickery, 1991; Kim and Arnold, 1993; Vickery et al., 1993, 1994; Droge et al., 1994; Safizadeh et al., 2000; Schmenner and Vastag, 2006), few studies have measured and managed it as a multidimensional construct. However, this paper defines and proposes production competence as a multidimensional construct (a second-order factor structure) that covers the fit between manufacturing competitive priorities and manufacturing capabilities in five underlying dimensions: cost competence (CC), flexibility competence (FC), quality competence (QC), delivery competence (DC) and environmental protection competence (EC).Additionally, despite reports in previous studies on the positive impact of production competence on business performance, this relationship is a topic that merits revisiting from time to time in order to incorporate evolution in practices and operating environments. As stated by Schmenner and Vastag (2006, p. 909), \"as technology moves forward and as manufacturing becomes an evermore global activity, it would be reassuring, periodically, to confirm the tie between production competence and business performance\".Taking all of the above into account, this paper has a dual objective. First, it aims to develop a multidimensional production competence construct based on valid measurement scales. Second, it empirically tests whether production competence (taken as the degree of fit between the manufacturing capabilities or strengths developed and the manufacturing objectives that meet market requirements) has a positive effect on business performance. These two objectives are achieved by proposing scales for measuring the importance given to (competitive priority) and the strength developed in (capability) five manufacturing objectives that are generally recognised in the literature - cost, flexibility, quality, delivery and environmental protection, and by using two different operationalisation indices that add robustness to our results.By including environmental protection as a manufacturing objective, our paper follows the recommendation of many researchers, practitioners and of society that greater attention should be paid to this subject, thus filling a gap in the manufacturing strategy literature.The rest of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 presents the background to the literature and establishes the research proposition and hypothesis. Section 3 discusses the methodology used. Section 4 presents the analyses and the results obtained in relation to the operationalisation of the production competence construct and the effect of production competence on business performance. Section 5 discusses the results and presents the main conclusions, some limitations and suggests future research lines.\n2 Literature on production competence and hypothesis: 2.1. Analysis of production competence\n3 Research methods: 3.1. Research design and data\n4 Results: 4.1. Empirical validation of the multidimensional measure of production competence\n5 Discussion and conclusions: This study looks into production competence theory by proposing a multidimensional production competence construct and offering additional empirical evidence regarding the contribution of production competence to business performance. For this purpose, it uses more recent data than that used in Schmenner and Vastag (2006), the latest work published to date on production competence.Although previous works only consider the four manufacturing objectives that are most widely-accepted in the literature and for which the manufacturing area traditionally has maximum responsibility (cost, quality, flexibility and delivery), this paper justifies the inclusion of environmental protection as a fifth manufacturing objective in the production competence analysis. This inclusion is supported by the increasing importance that environmental protection is gaining as a projected objective in the manufacturing strategy of industrial firms (Angell, 1989; Greeno, 1989; Arnst et al., 1997; Azzone et al., 1997), and by the fact that it may enhance the measurement of production competence.Unlike previous studies, we provide a multidimensional operationalisation of the production competence construct. In our study, production competence is defined as a second-order factor in terms of five underlying dimensions: CC, FC, QC, DC and EC. Knowledge of the constituent dimensions of production competence could help managers in developing and measuring performance in specific action programs that aim to increase production competence.To our knowledge, this is the first empirical attempt at defining and validating the multidimensional nature of production competence. In doing so, two different single fit indices (PC1 and PC2) were used for computing each of the 22 dimensions (importance and strength) of the five manufacturing objectives considered. The first single index is an adaptation of the multiplicative index developed by Cleveland et al. (1989) and refined by Vickery et al. (1993), whereas the second one has been developed more recently by Gonzalez-Benito (2007) to overcome the drawbacks of previous production competence indices, especially the common method bias. By using these two different indices, we have confirmed the robustness of our production competence measure and the validity and consistency of the empirical results. At the same time, although we cannot assure that our study is totally free from the consistency motif problem (Podsakoff et al., 2003), by using the PC2 index we have limited the sources of common method variance or bias in the analysis of our proposition and hypothesis.The evidence provided in this paper suggests that the manufacturing function significantly contributes to business performance. In particular, this research indicates that manufacturing capabilities and their alignment with business strategy (reflected in the manufacturing competitive priorities) must be taken into account to explain the contribution of manufacturing to business performance. Our findings are consistent with previous research (Cleveland et al., 1989; Vickery, 1991; Kim and Arnold, 1993; Vickery et al., 1993, 1994; Droge et al., 1994; Safizadeh et al., 2000; Schmenner and Vastag, 2006), and enable us to conclude that production competence is a determinant of business performance. Our study found that approximately 10-12 per cent of total variation in sales turnover and 8 per cent of total variation in ROA performance could be attributed to production competence, whereas its impact on the growth of these performance measures is also significant but slightly lower.These findings have important managerial implications. Top managers must consider that, in order to achieve greater competitive advantage from manufacturing, the firm should focus on the development of manufacturing capabilities that are key for the market (and consistent with the business strategy) instead of trying to develop a portfolio of capabilities inconsistent with market requirements. To achieve this, the production function should be integrated into the strategic planning process of the overall business strategy throughout different initiatives, such as:* changes in the organisational structure, giving the same organisational status to the production function as to other functional areas;* production managers actively participating in the strategic planning process;* a business strategy properly communicated to production workers;* allocation of the proper technical and human resources to the production function; and* the establishment of training and incentive schemes aiming to achieve the projected manufacturing objectives and overall business objectives, etc.Although this research contributes to the literature on production competence, it has limitations that offer opportunities for future research. On the theoretical side, the studies by Vickery et al. (1993), Choe et al. (1997) and Schmenner and Vastag (2006) considered that the effect of production competence on business performance is moderated by the business strategy. Nevertheless, this research does not directly consider business strategy in the analysis. It would be useful to analyse the effect of choosing a specific business strategy on production competence and on business performance in order to ascertain whether there are any differences amongst manufacturers with differentiation or cost leadership strategies.We do not control the effect of the production system configuration on the relationship between production competence and business performance. Safizadeh et al. (2000), for example, suggest that production competence only leads to improved business performance for batch processes, whereas Schmenner and Vastag (2006) refute this argument. Taking into account the existence of empirical contradictions, future research should clarify the role played by the type of production process. Manufacturing capabilities and other functional capabilities may also be influenced by the industry. Although we do not assess how industry characteristics affect the relationship between production competence and business performance, future research might clarify whether the industrial sector the firm belongs to is a relevant variable in the explored relationship. In order to obtain more specific conclusions from an industry/business perspective, the partial least squares method should be considered in future research for the predictive analysis of the causal relationship between the production competence construct and business performance.It is considered that the production competence theory should be updated to take the resource-based view into account (Section 2.1.2). The production competence paradigm adopts a top-down approach so may be insufficient if the manufacturing strategy becomes the essence of the business strategy rather than just adjusting to it (bottom-up approach). Application of this approach to the production competence concept would make it possible to open new lines of research in the field of manufacturing strategic management and, specifically, in relation to the influence of the manufacturing area on business competitiveness.On the methodological side, this study uses managerial perceptions to measure the variables and self-reported data for the independent and dependent variables included in the final test. Even though we have assessed the reliability of the responses by correlating reported data for business performance measures with objective data from a different source, the possibility of respondent bias cannot be ruled out. The use of objective measures and multiple respondents in future research could improve the validity of our results. Also, some scales used in this study show averaged variance extracted (AVE) values below 0.5 (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). Although the different tests have offered results that support the reliability, convergent and discriminant validity of these scales, future research should aim to improve or refine them.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to look into production competence theory by proposing and validating a multidimensional construct, and offering additional empirical evidence regarding the contribution of production competence to business performance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Production competence is defined as a second-order factor/construct in terms of five underlying dimensions: cost, flexibility, quality, delivery and environmental protection competence. Different scales are used to measure the construct, validated by a multi-step process. Data from 274 manufacturing firms and structural equation modelling as the main technique are used for the analysis.\nFindings: - The paper suggests that manufacturing capabilities and their alignment with the competitive priorities pursued must be considered to explain the contribution of manufacturing to business performance. The provided evidence suggests that the manufacturing function significantly contributes to business performance, and enables us to conclude that production competence is a determinant of business performance.\nPractical implications: - Firms should focus on the development of manufacturing capabilities that are key for the market (and consistent with the business strategy). To achieve this, the production function should be integrated into the strategic planning process of the overall business strategy.\nOriginality/value: - Most research works to date deal with production competence as a one-dimensional construct and reduce its measurement to a single index, fussing variables of different types. This paper provides a valid multidimensional operationalisation of production competence, considering environmental protection as a fifth manufacturing objective. It also offers additional empirical evidence regarding the positive link between production competence and business performance.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Consumer response to negative celebrity publicity: the effects of moral reasoning strategies and fan identification
|
[
"Moral reasoning",
"Purchase intention",
"Brand attitude",
"Celebrity endorsement",
"Fan identification",
"Celebrity transgression"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Celebrity endorsement is known to have positive effects on the trustworthiness, believability, likeability and persuasiveness of advertising products (Freiden, 1984). Celebrity endorsement attracts consumers' attention to ad contents, increases brand recall and awareness and shapes the brand's image by extending the endorsers' identities and personalities onto the advertised products (Agrawal and Kamakura, 1995; Atkin and Block, 1983; Choi and Rifon, 2007; Kamins et al., 1989). However, associating a brand with a celebrity endorser is not without risk. Negative publicity or information about celebrity endorsers is particularly problematic because not only does it tarnish the celebrity's own reputation, but it also generates adverse consumer perceptions of endorsed brands and companies (Bailey, 2007; Edwards and La Ferle, 2009; Fong and Wyer, 2012; Till and Shimp, 1998; Um, 2013; White et al., 2009).\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 Negative celebrity publicity and severity of transgression\n3. Method: A between-subjects online experiment with two conditions representing high- and low-severity celebrity transgressions was conducted. A total of 160 participants were recruited from a U.S.-based online survey panel. Sixteen participants who failed the attention check question were excluded, and the data collected from the remaining sample of 144 participants (63 males and 81 females) were used in the analysis. Participants' ages ranged from 18 to 54 years, with a mean age of 36.28 years. Most of the participants (73 per cent) were Caucasian, followed by 17 per cent of Asian, 7 per cent of African American origin and 3 per cent other ethnic groups. Forty per cent of the participants had received a high school degree or equivalent, 43 per cent had completed a bachelor's degree and 17 per cent had earned a postgraduate degree.\n4. Results: 4.1 Manipulation check\n5. Discussion: 5.1 Theoretical implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: In the context of celebrity endorsement, this study aims to demonstrate that the ways in which consumers adopt moral reasoning strategies (i.e. rationalization, decoupling and coupling) are largely dependent on the severity (i.e. high vs low) of celebrity transgressions and the degree to which they personally identify with the celebrity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A between-subjects online experiment (N = 144) with two conditions, representing high- and low-severity celebrity transgressions, was conducted. Participants' attitudes toward the celebrity and endorsed brand, their purchase intention for the endorsed product and the degrees to which they identified with the celebrity and adopted the three types of moral reasoning strategies were assessed.\nFindings: The rationalization and decoupling strategies mediate the effects of highly negative information about a celebrity on consumer attitudes toward the celebrity and endorsed brand as well as on purchase intention for the endorsed product. In addition, consumers who identify strongly as fans of the celebrity in question are more likely to activate rationalization and decoupling strategies to process and evaluate transgressive behaviors than those with weaker fan identification.\nOriginality/value: By exploring the ways in which moral reasoning and fan identification work in processing negative information, this study provides insights into the psychological process through which negative news coverage of a celebrity endorser influences consumer attitudes and purchase intention.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Non-medical health centers - directions for service researchers
|
[
"Health care",
"Well-being",
"Health services",
"Service delivery",
"Quality of life",
"Transformational service",
"Social connectedness",
"Therapeutic landscapes",
"Third places",
"Stress coping"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Most people long to form meaningful social ties with others, to feel part of a community and to belong. More than a passing yearning, social connection represents a fundamental human need (Baumeister and Leary, 1995). Indeed, a growing body of evidence confirms its significance as a powerful social determinant of health (Pinker, 2014), for social connection can result in necessary access to caring, supportive and trusting interpersonal relationships that help people cope effectively (Ryan and Deci 2001). Social isolation, in stark contrast, predisposes people to poor health outcomes (Pantell et al., 2013). Remarkably, the harmful consequences of social isolation compare with well-established risk factors for mortality and illness, including lack of access to health care, poor environmental quality, lack of immunization, injury and violence, obesity, poor mental health, risky sexual behavior, sedentary activity, smoking and substance abuse (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2015). To put it simply, human connectivity matters to our health and well-being because it offers the social support we need to cope with the challenges we face in life.\nSeeking social support from similar others: Social support buttresses our ability to manage life's stresses in important ways. Levine et al. (1997) argued caring relationships provide a psychological security net for those who belong to them, therein enabling people to carry forward in their day-to-day lives with the understanding that someone is or will be available to support them should they stumble. Moreover, they emphasized that social support provides people with specific resources they need to cope with stressful life events. Whether these resources include emotional or esteem support or tangible aid and information support, our social connections make these resources available to us (Iwasaki and Mannell, 2000). Importantly, the benefits of social support assist us in responding to stressful life circumstances.\nThe importance of place-based social supports and servicescapes: Rosenbaum's development of a conceptual framework that theorizes the social supportive role of cancer resource centers in the lives of men with cancer draws attention to the importance of place-based social supports and servicescapes for men coping with health issues. Similar to our own findings with women who were living with or were survivors of cancer (Glover and Parry, 2009; Glover et al., 2013; Parry and Glover, 2010; Parry and Glover, 2011), Rosenbaum underscores the need for men to seek out gender-sensitive interventions to assist with their treatment, coping and recovery. Moreover, he introduces relevant quality-of-life domains, such as guidance regarding treatment, reassurance about a health situation, positive interactions with like-others and access to tangible assistance, that stem from place-based social support and have the potential to enhance physical, psychological and existential quality of life. The framework presented adds to a growing literature that suggests there is tremendous merit in examining the therapeutic benefits of non-medial cancer centers.\nAreas of future exploration: Whether friend-shopping or friend-shipping, a shared identity with a medical affliction may not be enough to bring people together. As a result, in many service contexts, including Men's sheds, Gilda's Club and the like, leisure plays a fundamental role in attracting people to socialize together and encourages its participants to build meaningful relationships that can lead to the development of durable social support networks (Colistra et al., 2017). Leisure draws people together because of its intrinsic value. It promotes sociability, which is alluring to individuals, making it crucial to the development of social ties. The sense of freedom leisure affords opens up lines of communication and allows us to transcend the boundaries of our various social identities, including race, gender and sexual orientation. In so doing, it serves as an indispensable social lubricant for the development of social networks and access to necessary resources (Glover, 2016). The connection between leisure and the provision of non-medical health services introduces the need for service marketing researchers and leisure scholars to explore their intellectual connections and mutual interests in achieving optimal health outcomes for consumers.\nConclusion: All told, Rosenbaum's work moves the field forward by adding to the growing literature on non-medical health centers and introducing new questions that deserve wider attention from the service research field. The expansive body of work on various diseases, medical treatments and clinical practices would only benefit from a complementary examination of the non-medical services and servicescapes available to consumers to help them cope more holistically with a serious medical condition. By engaging in this transformative research agenda, we can demonstrate our commitment as service researchers to improve life for those afflicted with serious health conditions. We can play a role in improving the social support consumers need to cope with the challenges they face in life.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide directions for research on non-medical health service and servicescapes by building off Rosenbaum's study of social support for men at a resource center for testicular cancer.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper cites literature and introduces directions for future research.\nFindings: This paper contains insights on non-medical health services and servicescapes, including the salience of social connection for coping, the need to connect with others who are experiencing the same health issue, the relevance of place and face-to-face contact, the role of leisure in drawing people together and the need to look at these environments critically.\nOriginality/value: This viewpoint provides insights to anyone interested in transformative service research, particularly those who apply this approach to study health-care services.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Small retailer's new product acceptance in emerging market: a grounded theory approach
|
[
"India",
"New product development",
"Channel relationships",
"Fairness",
"Salespersons relationship",
"Small retailer"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Many organizations today face competitive environments due to proliferation of new technologies, accelerated product obsolescence, and rapidly changing consumer requirements. To compete successfully, companies need to develop and introduce innovative products constantly and at an increasing rate (Bhattacharyya et al., 2015; Eisenhardt and Tabrizi, 1995; Gielens, 2012). New products introduced in the market pass through a distribution channel to reach to the final consumers. At the end of the distribution channel is the retailer who directly deals and interacts with the final consumer. Retailers serve as gatekeepers in the introduction of new products to final consumers as they decide what products will enter their stores. Presumably, continuous patronage from the channel partners especially the retailer is a prerequisite for the success of new product. Hence, the selection of distribution channels is regarded as a strategic issue at the firm level (Porter, 1980).\nLiterature review: Marketing literature views new products mainly from the perspective of marketers, focussing selectively on strategies and tools deployed for maintaining and enhancing market performance. It gives excessive emphasis on the analysis of mechanisms involved in the development of new products and test marketing while completely ignoring and disregarding the role played by retailers in the success of new products (Rao and Mahi, 2003). The review of literature suggests very little information on the small retailers' assessment and acceptance of new products.\nMethodology: Design\nFindings and discussion: The interview data obtained during the interviews was used to propose a small retailers' new product acceptance model embedded within the emerging market context of India. The prominent themes that emerged post analysis of the interview data are represented in Figure 1. The study identified theoretical linkages between the themes that emerged during analysis. Through these linkages study proposes a conceptual model of retailers' new product acceptance grounded in data using inductive logic.\nConclusions: The study also contributes to the new product literature by highlighting the importance of the distribution channel in new product success. The main contribution of this study is the construction of the small retailers' buyer behavior model to explain new product acceptance decisions using inductive logic. The study contributes to new product adoption literature, which is very scant with very few empirical studies reported regarding small retailers new product acceptance decision. Small retailers consider multiple criteria, while taking a decision on new product acceptance. The awareness level of consumers about different products in metros is considerably high and hence the small retailers cannot influence the decision making of the consumer. Whereas the awareness level of rural consumers is considerably low and hence the retailers in rural areas influences the decision making of the rural consumers.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose a model of small retailers' new product acceptance criteria using a grounded theory approach in an emerging market, India.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Empirical research on retailers' new product acceptance either takes survey design or modeling approach. This study uses grounded theory approach to systematically collect and analyze data to generate a model for the small retailers' new product acceptance in an emerging market, India. In depth interviews with ten small retailers, five situated in small market town and five in a metro were conducted.\nFindings: Retail margin on offer is the first and foremost criteria considered while accepting a new product along with product and market-related factors. The small retailers spelt out the tradeoff decision on retail margins while accepting a new product. The tradeoff criteria that emerged during the analysis are trade and promotional support, sales potential of the product, salesperson relationship with the retailer, aspects of fairness in the relationship, corporate reputation, relevant product information, and availability of the product with other retail competitors.\nPractical implications: The study suggests that marketers have to maintain healthy relationship with the channel partners especially the retailers who are in direct contact with the final consumer. The findings of the study suggest that marketers specifically need to take into consideration aspects of fairness and encourage salespersons to build and foster relationships with small retailers.\nOriginality/value: This study is one of the few study which uses grounded theory approach to propose a retailer's new product acceptance model.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Human capital flows in failing organizations: an integrated conceptual framework
|
[
"Business strategy",
"Human capital",
"Human resource management",
"Assets",
"Closure"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Over the past couple of decades, a burgeoning stream of research has demonstrated that when companies are collapsing or experiencing declining performance, some highly skilled individuals jump ship to avoid being stigmatised and stereotyped (Jiang et al., 2017; Semadeni et al., 2008; Sutton and Callahan, 1987; Pozner, 2008). Indeed, threat of business failure has an emotional and psychological effect which then influences employees' mobility just before or after the collapse (see Shepherd, 2003). Given that top-management team members are often stigmatised by failure, it makes sense for some to jump ship (Wiesenfeld et al., 2008). Nevertheless, there might be another side of the coin where some highly skilled individuals and reputable organisations decide to get \"on board\" such failing firms. Indeed, human capital accumulation can play a pivotal role in reversing the business decline process (see D'Aveni, 1990). Yet the theoretical grounds on which the current streams of scholarly works have been reformulated and examined have yet to fully embrace and explore both dimensions of human capital flows just before business collapse.\nBusiness failure: a review and overview: The concept of a business failure is not new to practitioners or academics. The past few decades have seen a growing body of theoretical and conceptual research on business failure across the social science domains. For analytical clarity, business failure is conceptualised as when a firm facing severe performance decline falters in its attempt to reverse the deterioration, culminating in the closure of the business (Hamilton, 2006). Over the years, different political, economic, social and legal factors have played a role in precipitating failures (Amankwah-Amoah, 2015a, b; Amankwah-Amoah and Zhang, 2015). One stream of research attributes business failures to personal deficiencies of the managers or founders such as managerial incompetence and lack of relevant industry experience (Bruderl et al., 1992). Explanations for the causes of business failure have focused mainly on either firm-level factors such as inferior resources and capabilities, or external factors such as competition and demand (Mellahi and Wilkinson, 2004).\nHuman capital: a review and overview: Scholars have long recognised high human capital accumulations as an essential ingredient in delivering superior firm performance, whilst human capital depletion can reverse superior performance or lead to sub-optimal performance (Becker, 1964; Price, 1977). In the last half a century or so, the general management literature has become increasingly replete with concepts and phrases such as top talent, star performers, top executives and star managers to capture the intense competition for highly skilled individuals in many industries (Gardner, 2002; Groysberg, 2010; Groysberg and Abrahams, 2006; Groysberg and Lee, 2009; Rao and Drazin, 2002). These individuals are also often rewarded with a \"golden parachute\", \"golden handshake\", \"golden hello\" or \"golden goodbye\" before their arrival, upon arrival or after departure from an organisation even in the wake of business failure (see Dash, 2011). Broadly speaking, these capture the human capital accumulation and human capital losses linked to business failure.\nBusiness failure process: inward and outward flow of human capital: Having set out a detailed overview and dynamics of the conceptual framework, we now turn our attention to the pillars.\nHuman capital depletion (outflow): Human capital depletion or outward human capital flow refers to the spread of knowledge, skills and expertise from the declining or departed organisation to outside firms through employees' inter-organisation mobility. In seeking to avert collapse and reverse performance decline, some firms may also offer an incentive package to offload some existing staff as a means of improving the balance sheet. Such a strategy can also be a means of eliminating overlapping activities and underperforming units and employees. In light of growing global competition, organisations are under increasing pressure to incentivise to retain and attract highly skilled individuals (Cappelli, 2008a, b). This becomes more difficult during periods of decline not only because of the pressure on limited resources, budget restrictions and a shrinking resource-base which curtails rewards, but also individuals begin to question their future prospects. Accordingly, they become more open to employment offers from external (Groysberg, 2010).\nHuman capital accumulation (inflow): Human capital inflow is where employees of outside firms decide to join the focal firm. This can be attributed to the better prospects of promotion and high rewards offered by the firm. Much of the research on human capital accumulation is rooted in the \"upper echelons perspective\" (Hambrick and Mason, 1984) and resource-based view (Barney, 1991). These emphasise that assembling or parachuting in highly skilled individuals during the process of decline can help to halt the processes by injecting new perspective and insights into solving the organisation's problems. Accumulating new sets of expertise and repertoires of knowledge by replacing existing executives with new ones in a declining organisation has long been regarded as a recipe for recovery (Bibeault, 1982). Managers and executives might seek highly skilled individuals to firefight the organisational problems in an attempt to generate a turnaround. Early warning signals of failure can trigger a quest for new sources of talent to revitalise the organisation to avert failure. There is a growing recognition that deficiency in human capital during the period of performance and organisational decline can hamper a firm's ability to generate a turnaround. To make matters worse during the struggle to stay afloat some valuable and rare knowledge and skills leak as a result of employees' mobility. Besides depriving the firm an opportunity to utilise accumulated known-how to reverse the decline, such leakages could also strengthen rivalry, further hampering the firm's chances of success (Shaw et al., 2013).\nInward-outward interactions: It is suggested that, based on the foregoing analysis, the inward and outward flow of human capital might be connected to some extent. It is contended that the flows are predicated on activities of third parties, who connect the current firm to the outside firm and vice versa. We conceptualise the activities of head-hunters/talent brokers and management consultants as inward-outward connecters. Indeed, one of the primary roles of head-hunters/talent brokers is to connect the outside firm with the current firm during the poaching process (Finlay and Coverdill, 2002). This entails identifying the target employees, and discussing rewards and pay, if she or he decides to accept the unsolicited offer to interview and job change (Finlay and Coverdill, 2002). In the past, most large organisations attempted to reverse declining performances by seeking to exploit their own human resources and capabilities.\nDiscussion and conclusions: At the outset of this paper, it was noted that much of the existing literature has focused on either human capital accumulation or human capital depletion. As such, we lack a complete picture of the nature of human capital flows in the business failure process. In an attempt to address this lacuna in our understanding, we developed an integrated conceptual model which explicates dynamic inward and outward flow of human capital in processes leading to business failure. The detrimental effects of the departure of highly skilled individuals from declining firms include hampering turnaround efforts and depleting the knowledge base of the firm. However, the analysis emphasises the benefits of the departure of highly skilled individuals in declining firms in paving the way to bring in new blood and perspectives to restore and develop the business. The analysis also highlights that inward flows may stem from actions to generate a turnaround by turning to highly skilled individuals and organisations with prior experience of generating successful turnarounds. The analysis indicates that outflows can be triggered by factors such as attempts to mitigate stigmatisation, diminished value of human capital and pursuit of more promising opportunities elsewhere. Thus, we provide a comprehensive set of factors that influences the direction and flow of human capital just before business failure. The inflows and outflows are linked through third-party organisations such as talent brokers and management consultants, who play a pivotal role in not only influencing the pace of decline leading to collapse but also in signalling to markets the benefits of fresh human capital inflows.\nContributions to theory and practice: From a theoretical standpoint, in light of the growing scholarly quest for a better understanding of business failure, the study integrates research on business failure and human capital to deepen our understanding of the inward and outward flow of human capital from the perspectives of originating firms, employees and recipient firms. Another point of departure from much of the existing research on financially distressed firms heading towards business failure has been the focus on selling of assets or divestment as a strategic response to averting failure (see Altman and Hotchkiss, 2010). The analysis contributes to our growing understanding of the human capital dimensions inherent in the business failure process. Although past studies have illuminated our understanding of business failure (Amankwah-Amoah et al., 2016, 2017; Shepherd, 2003), the dimensions of inward and outward human capital flows during the business failure process remains largely underexplored. In an attempt to explain these flows, this paper developed a conceptual framework linking the inward and outward flow of human capital in the processes leading to business failure. The argument that highly skilled individuals are sought in the quest to reverse organisational decline is not new (e.g. D'Aveni, 1990) but the dynamics and nature of flows remain underexplored. In this direction, our study deepens our understanding of human capital flow by exploring the interactions between inflows and outflows, and factors that influence the flows.\nLimitations and directions for further research: Although some of our arguments should be valid for firms in different industries, there are some limitations which must be borne in mind. First, the analysis assumed that organisations exist, experience performance decline and then eventually collapse. Many organisations that collapse do not pass through these clean phases. The integrated framework is limited in the sense that some organisations collapse suddenly with no prior notice; this is often attributed to natural disasters. There are also organisations that exist purely through legislative mandates (Freeman, 1979) and as such withdrawal of such mandates effectively leads to collapse. Indeed, business failure could also be accelerated or slowed down by national laws on bankruptcy, social norms and national culture which have not been accounted for in our model. There is a need for future studies to explore these intricacies and paths through which different organisations collapse. In addition, it seems reasonable to conclude that factors preceding failure may be shaped by other firms' experience of failure and its consequences. Future research could tell us whether this issue has such an effect.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the dynamics of human capital accumulation and human capital depletion in the processes leading to business failure.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Building on the human capital theory, strategic human resource and business failure literature, this paper develops a conceptual framework which links the inward and outward dimensions of human capital flows in the business failure process.\nFindings: The analysis sheds light on why some highly skilled individuals may opt to flee declining firms to avoid being stigmatised whilst others become motivated to joint such firms.\nResearch limitations/implications: The paper suggests that understanding the nature and dynamics of both flows are essential when seeking to avert collapse.\nOriginality/value: In spite of a growing body of research on business failure and intense competition for top talent, much of the existing literature has circumvented the relationship between them. This study develops a unified model towards enhancing our understanding of the human capital flows.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A robust pricing of specific structured bonds with coupons
|
[
"Bond pricing",
"CIR model",
"Euler–Maruyama Monte Carlo",
"Structured bonds",
"Classification: G12, G17, G2"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In recent years, complexity has dramatically increased in the market of financial products. Financial institutions' ability to create innovative products that provide state-contingent payoffs tailored to the investor's desires seems to play a crucial role in improving market inefficiencies (Tufano, 2003), helping market integration and reducing the volatility of economic activity (Dynan et al., 2006). Structured products (SPs hereafter), which can be seen as an application of financial innovation, are complex financial instruments with cash flows depending on the performance of underlying assets or embedded derivatives. A possible explanation for the rapid growth of these products is that they allow the combination of different instruments to generate any desired payoff and to match any desired wealth distribution. In this way, SPs can be designed for any investor's risk profile, even for those seeking capital protection while taking advantage of increasing markets as well. What is more, according to Fusai and Zanotti (2011), the use of SP leads to a positive contribution to the efficient frontier construction by allowing an improvement of the risk return profile. SPs are also useful not only as hedging but also as investment tools, given that they permit investors to earn enhanced yields and obtain exposure to assets and markets they may not otherwise be able to access. This can be seen as the positive force of financial innovation. However, the ability to create such instruments with tailored payoffs also has negative repercussions, which will be discussed later in this section.\n2. Model implementation: We assume that interest rates dynamics are described by the Cox et al. (1985) model. Thus, the term structure of interest rates is obtained by solving the partial differential equation:\n3. Data and results: As an illustration we evaluate a hypothetical US SB, but our procedure could also be applied to any other bond with a different structure. Our main goal is to find the fair value of this hypothetical bond in March 2013. We assume that the US bond issued in 03/2013 with a due date of 02/2023, consisted of the following interest rate series: a ten-year swap vs LIBOR, a two-year swap versus LIBOR and a three-month LIBOR. In our structure, we are assuming floating coupon rates that are paid quarterly according to the following rule: if the spread between the ten-year and two-year swaps is > 1 per cent, then the coupon rate will be equal to a three-month LIBOR plus 1.50 per cent. If the spread is < 1 per cent, then the coupon will be equal to 5 * spread. Notice that the estimated price of the SB will probably be quite sensitive to the structure of the coupons, which is why we check for different coupon structures in Section 4. All data are on monthly basis and have been taken from the Federal Reserve Economic Database. The estimation period runs from 07/2000 to 03/2013 covering a total of 154 observations.\n4. Robustness checks: After we have estimated the true price of our product as P = $113.13, we stress test our model to check for the robustness of our results. Our stress testing procedures include the following modifications. First, we change the value of the mean reversion level Th and the level of volatility parameter s. Second, we change our model selection by assuming that interest rates are generated by two alternative interest rate processes. Finally, we modify the structure of our bond.\n5. Conclusion: There is no doubt that financial innovation is helping economic agents achieve a desired function in the presence of one or more market inefficiencies or imperfections (Grinblatt and Longstaff, 2000). The development of new financial instruments has also created opportunities for households and companies to improve their management of financial risks and has facilitated the smoothing of their lifetime consumption and investment. However, there is a dark side to the ability to create such highly advanced instruments with tailored payoffs, which becomes obvious when things turn nasty for the investors and the economy in general.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present an innovative model to evaluate the fair price of a subset of structured products for a hypothetical US structured bond.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors assume that interest rates dynamics are described by the Cox-Ingersoll-Ross process. They conduct robustness checks by stress testing against parameter and model uncertainty.\nFindings: The fair value of the bond is robust under any parameter or model misspecification. In addition, a change in the price seems to be more sensitive to long-term yields rather than short-or mid-term yields. The authors provide a better understanding of the relationship between bond prices and business cycles: a slight change in the current structure would have a significant effect on the bond price only during economic expansions.\nSocial implications: The recent global financial crisis has led policymakers and the financial press to blame financial innovation through accusations of structured products being highly complex. Much of the criticism is based on the fact that investors were not able to properly price and fully understand the risks of their investments. Regulators should ensure proper pricing of these products to protect both the investors and the system. Fair pricing is important for bond issuers, governments or corporations to design their product at an attractive price for investors.\nOriginality/value: This paper fills a gap in the extant literature by providing an innovative model based on an Euler-Maruyama Monte Carlo scheme to price structured products.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Davabirzhaot! Conflicting claims on public space in Tbilisi between transparency and opaqueness
|
[
"Public policy",
"Urban development",
"Social exclusion",
"Youth",
"Post-socialism"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In summer 2014, I spent few weeks in Tbilisi for my PhD on Georgian hospitality. My previous visit in the Georgian capital dated back to 2009. Over five years, the city and the country experienced dramatic changes. Tbilisi's landscape was \"enriched\" by new buildings and infrastructures, mainly concentrated around the old town and the riversides. A big glass pedestrian bridge, named Mshvidobis khidi\nBirzha as an object of study: With the notable exception of few works (Frederiksen, 2012, 2013; Zakharova, 2010), birzha is an utterly neglected subject in social scientific research[2]. The phenomenon escapes straightforward categorisation. With reference to Georgian history and tradition, birzha can be associated to brotherhood. In Bardavelidze's (1984) ethnography of historical relations between Georgian mountain and valley populations, the institution of modzeoba (adoptive brotherhood) is depicted as a link of spiritual kinship serving to build social and political allegiances within and beyond the Caucasus' borders.\nResearch methods and ethnographic challenges: My interest in birzha dates back to my first experience in Georgia, which lasted 17 months between 2008 and 2009, and was followed by a six-week research trip in summer 2014. While my first visit was driven by other purposes than the present research, I spent part of my stay in a household located outside from Tbilisi's centre. Social life in the neighbourhood followed patterns which are referred to as Georgian \"cultural bases\" (Dragadze, 1988; Mars and Altman, 1983): individuals' reliance on extended families (including close friends and neighbours), strict gender divisions, informal knowledge (from household management, to manual work, to appropriate social behaviour) passed on through generations. Teenagers and young men hanging out in the streets were a permanent feature of the local landscape. Residents referred to such gatherings as birzha. Birzha seemed to be inseparable from the neighbourhood landscape and its social life. As both Frederiksen and Zakharova note, regardless people's different degrees of involvement in street life, the understanding of its dynamics and rules is shared knowledge among the neighbourhood's inhabitants.\nEveryone's space? Birzha in Soviet Tbilisi: Public space has a particularly contested meaning in socialist and post-socialist societies. The issue of public space is related to the broader question of blurred boundaries between \"public\" and \"private\" in a Soviet-type system. The view of a \"public\" realm penetrating all aspects of social life, limiting the \"private\" to the domestic context, is misleading. An \"intermediate\" \"social\" realm - encompassing the complex world developing between the top level of the party-state and family and friends networks - was organised not only through ideological, meritocratic, or authoritarian principles, but also \"along lines of bargaining, reciprocal favours, mutual dependencies, networks of connections, dissimulation, circumvention of regulations and procedures\" (Garcelon, 2007, p. 317). The domestic realm, unlike in \"Western\" societies, served as an underground milieu for dissident practices and opinions.\nNo one's space? Shattered post-Soviet urban and social landscape: The lack of functioning institutions throughout the 1990s dragged newly independent Georgia into poverty, unemployment, and ethnic conflict (Dunn, 2008). Organised crime, which was previously linked to communist power by dual dynamics of support and subversion, penetrated and took over state institutions (Slade, 2014). Corruption paralysed the public sphere, from business, to transport, to education. The Georgian population, which in Soviet times enjoyed life standards second only to the Baltic countries, was deeply impoverished and lacked social security somehow previously provided by the state (Shelley et al., 2007).\nRevolution from the top: what public space in Saakashvili's Georgia?: The Rose Revolution unfolded along with a transformation of the public cityscape. Forerun by 2001 student protests against Shevardnadze government's seize of TV channel Rustavi 2 (Manning, 2007), changes were welcomed as the awakening of a western-style \"civil society\" in Georgia. A western-educated political elite rose to power as a result of people's discontent towards corruption and inefficiencies of the post-Soviet establishment. These events saw Georgians reappropriating spaces in the public sphere, such as the parliament and Tbilisi's main squares and avenues (Broers, 2005). The new government's pledge to rebuild shattered institutions from scratch was to go hand in hand with the reconstruction of ruined cityscape and infrastructures. Saakashvili's presidential inauguration on the grave of King David the Builder (d. 1125) (Rekhviashvili, 2010) consecrated the new leader as Georgia's \"architect-in-chief\" (Collin, 2010).\nFuture ban vs present imprisonment: transparency and opaqueness in the public space: Political narratives of the \"old\" vs the \"new\" extended from projects of urban restyling and institutional renovation to a radical reform concerning the way Georgian society should look like. Informal networks, personal connections, second economy, and backward traditions (when they were not instrumental for fostering nationalism) were labelled as \"old\", therefore \"evil\". Conversely, the \"new/good\" was represented by viable institutions, anti-corruption, free market, and membership in the circle of western-style democracies. Georgian society was split between \"undesirable\" and \"worthless\" groups belonging to the \"past\", and \"new\" social formations with full membership in the country's bright future (Gotfredsen, 2014)[4]. Depicted by the state as remnants of a past of political turmoil and organised crime, birzha young men are excluded from a future which, made visible in the hectic construction pace of shiny buildings and infrastructures in cityscapes, starkly contrasts with their present lives' immobility (Frederiksen, 2013).\nConclusions: The analysis of birzha points out contradictions in western-style images of public space as a free and safe area presented by Saakashvili government's political narrative. Birzha is taken as the case for bottom-up claims to public space alternative to state control and mismanagement in Soviet and post-Soviet times. Birzha's (re)creation of sociability in urban public space contrasted with projects of top-down reconstruction of the city brought about after the Rose Revolution by political elites' \"modernisation\" projects. In the government's focus on a future of order, transparency, and democracy, birzha is an inappropriate reminder of a despised informal and corrupted past. As a result, birzha is banned from futuristic projections of the public space in the present, and secluded in a peripheral spatial and temporal landscape. At the same time, public space in urban neighbourhoods, neglected by institutional renovation plans, is made increasingly hostile through state control and repression.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the form of young male socialisation referred to as birzha, in its relation to public space in Georgia. Birzha defines a group of young men who meet regularly in urban open spaces in Tbilisi's neighbourhoods. Partly considered as the initial step of a criminal career, belonging to birzha is a mark of identification with one's local group. The contested nature of public space is illustrated by the conflicting relation between birzha's bottom-up use of public space and top-down projects of urban renovation sought by Saakashvili's government.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Drawing upon literary and media sources, and analysing fieldwork data collected in 2008-2009 and 2014, this study explores how the announced (re)construction of public space under Saakashvili resulted in institutional interventions from above which curtailed public space's accessibility.\nFindings: The present analysis points out contradictions in Saakashvili's government's political narrative on public space. In the institutional focus on a future of order, transparency, and democracy, birzha is an insistent reminder of an informal and corrupted past. Banned from futuristic projections of the public space, in the present birzha is annihilated by state repression, enforced in opaque zones out of public sight.\nOriginality/value: Focusing on a largely overlooked phenomenon in social science research, the paper highlights the ways in which conflicting approaches to public space affect the relation between political institutions and citizens. Delving into ambivalent public/private divides in post-socialist societies, the study of Georgian birzha offers an original angle for investigating the contestation of urban public space in relation to political legitimacy and transparency.\n",
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] |
The impact of a career development and mentoring programme on female mental health nurses: A longitudinal, qualitative study
|
[
"Mentoring",
"Career development",
"Personal development",
"Comparison group",
"Glass ceilings",
"Mental health nurses"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: What is already known about this topic?\nIntroduction: It is widely acknowledged that mentoring relationships affect the career and personal development of mentees (Eby et al., 2008; Nolan et al., 2008; Tolar, 2012). Empirical research, mostly conducted in North America on informal mentoring relationships (i.e. those that develop on an ad hoc basis) has highlighted positive outcomes of mentoring for mentees. Such outcomes include enhanced career mobility (Bozionelos et al., 2011) and increased job satisfaction (Eby et al., 2008; Sarri, 2011). Authors have also highlighted the reciprocal nature of mentoring relationships based on \"social exchange theory\" (Allen et al., 2000) and recognise that mentors too, can benefit in terms of increased job satisfaction, increased visibility and acquiring knowledge and information (Allen et al., 2006; Allen and Eby, 2004; Woolnough et al., 2006). Furthermore, individuals who have been mentored are more likely to mentor others, thereby sharing their knowledge and experience (Eby et al., 2010).\nBackground: Within nursing, formal mentoring, as a concept, is widely recognised as a necessary and important tool to develop practitioners and their practice. The term mentoring, however, is often used interchangeably with other development relationships common to the nursing profession, e.g. preceptorship and clinical supervision (Gopee, 2011; Hallin and Danielson, 2009). Mentoring is more concerned with the longer-term acquisition of skills in a developing career (Garvey et al., 2009; Vance and Olsen, 2002) rather than the immediate improvement of performance and development of skills by a form of tutoring or instruction (Foster-Turner, 2006).\nThe programme: The theoretical integration of mentoring and career development for women in the workplace and glass ceiling issues, fed into the design of the \"Challenging Perceptions\" programme (Davidson and Burke, 2011; Scandura and Pellegrini, 2007). The \"Challenging Perceptions\" multi-faceted career development and mentoring programme involved a cohort of 27 female mental health nurses from six UK NHS mental health trusts and was specifically designed to aid participants in their attempts to break the glass ceiling.\nThe study: This study formed part of a larger evaluation of the \"Challenging Perceptions\" programme (Woolnough et al., 2006). The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of the \"Challenging Perceptions\" multi-faceted career development and mentoring programme on the career and personal development of the cohort of female mental health nurses, at four time intervals compared to a matched comparison group (randomly non-selected applicants to the programme) over 18-months.\nData collection: Data were collated through the use of semi-structured telephone interviews conducted with mentees and the comparison group at four time points at six-month intervals. Semi-structured interviews focussed on themes, derived from relevant in-depth literature reviews, were utilised to elicit in-depth information specifically relating to trends and changes among mentees compared to the comparison group over the course of the study. This method of data collection was preferred as semi-structured interviews focussed on main themes have been shown to be particularly useful in longitudinal studies seeking to reconstruct specific experiences (Ruspini, 2002). Interviews lasted approximately 40 minutes with mentees and 25 minutes with members of the comparison group and were conducted over the telephone due to time and geographical constraints. The authors engaged in member checks with a number of participants at each time point in their attempts to achieve credibility of the qualitative data (Ryan and Bernard, 2003). Additionally, the triangulation of data enhanced the dependability of the qualitative data (Denzin and Lincoln, 2011). The semi-structured interview materials explored the following key themes at each time point linked to the study's main objectives:\nEthical considerations: At the time the study commenced, representatives at the NHS Multi Research Ethics Committee determined that formal ethical review would not be required as the study did not involve patients. The authors adhered to ethical guidelines prescribed by the British Psychological Society (BPS), The University of Manchester and the NHS trusts involved throughout the study to ensure good practice was maintained, including written and oral informed consent and confidentiality guaranteed to all participants. Specific ethical considerations were considered for the comparison group due to their status as research participants without the benefits of experiencing the \"Challenging Perceptions\" programme. All members of the comparison group were invited to participate in leadership training once the study had ended. Although the authors stressed the importance of completing research measures, mentees and the comparison group were notified that participation was voluntary and that they could withdraw from the study without notice at any time.\nData analysis: Semi-structured interviews\nValidity and reliability: The research materials were examined by the authors for face and content validity. The semi-structured interview materials and the questionnaire were piloted at each time point to assist validity and reliability. Few amendments were required at each time point. The authors engaged in member checks with a number of participants at each time point in their attempts to achieve credibility of the qualitative data (Richie and Lewis, 2006).\nResults: The findings reported in this paper are structured around themes related to the programme itself, and the analysis of data. The quotes highlighted from the qualitative thematic content analysis are presented in a way to ensure confidentiality.\nDiscussion: This longitudinal study was conducted to examine the effect of a career development and mentoring programme on mental health nurses' career and personal development. The \"Challenging Perceptions\" 12-month, multi-faceted career development and mentoring programme was specifically designed to aid participants in their attempts to break the glass ceiling, which can be apparent within senior levels of the UK NHS. The study results demonstrate that mentee participants experiencing the \"Challenging Perceptions\" multi-faceted career development and mentoring programme were more likely to break the glass ceiling compared to the matched comparison group over time (18-months). Over the course of the study, mentees experienced considerably more promotions (n=15) than members of the comparison group (n=7). Arguably, the high number of promotions shows that the programme did affect the ability of mentees to break the glass ceiling (Davidson and Burke, 2011).\nConclusion: The findings from this study highlight significant issues in an area where empirical research is lacking. These findings provide vital support for the continued development and implementation of formal mentoring programmes to assist female nurses reach senior roles (Finkelstein and Poteet, 2007; Wanberg et al., 2006; Tolar, 2012). Whilst this study has its limitations, it is hoped that the results presented in this paper provide the catalyst for further discussion and research into the benefits of mentoring relationships for female nurse participants across the globe and indeed their mentors, particularly in relation to fostering developments in nursing education and practice and managing diversity within healthcare organisations (Allan, 2010; Woolnough et al., 2006).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Literature has shown that mentoring and career development programmes can assist women and minority groups in pursuit of more senior roles. The Challenging Perceptions 12-month, multi-faceted career development and mentoring programme was specifically designed to aid female mental health participants in their attempts to break the glass ceiling, which can be apparent within senior levels of the UK National Health Service. This study aimed to investigate the effects of a career development and mentoring programme on female mental health nurses' career and personal development compared to a matched comparison group.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A longitudinal, qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews conducted with female mental health nurse participants and a matched control group at four time points, six months apart over an 18-month period. Female mental health nurses at F, G, H, I and Nurse Consultant Level who applied to participate in the programme were selected by a panel consisting of members of the project team and subsequently randomly allocated a group. Twenty-seven female mental health nurses experienced the programme and 27 female mental health nurses constituted a comparison group.\nFindings: Experience as programme participant influenced the career and personal development of participants, particularly compared to the matched control group. Career development outcomes included promotion and additional learning/study. Personal development outcomes included increased self-confidence and increased satisfaction with ability to deliver quality patient care.\nOriginality/value: Career development and mentoring programmes designed to affect diversity have an important role to play in fostering the career and personal development of nurses in healthcare organisations.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Providing digital reference services: a Namibian case study
|
[
"Library services",
"Service evaluation",
"Digital reference",
"Digital reference services",
"Reference services",
"Reference service evaluation"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Digital reference services are defined as \"Internet-based question-and-answer services that connect users with individuals who possess specialised subject or skills expertise\" (Lankes and Kasowitz, 1998, p. 8). These services are also known as Ask a librarian services and use human intermediaries or a librarian to clarify information needed by a library user, as well as provide answers to the users (Wasik, 1999).\nProblem statement: The International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) digital reference guidelines (IFLA, 2008) stipulate that libraries introducing digital reference services should conduct user surveys of both patrons and staff to monitor concerns, problems and questions from staff and patrons and should implement changes to digital reference services based on statistical analysis and librarians' and patrons' feedback. The evaluation of digital reference services should be equivalent to and be part of a library's regular evaluation of all its reference services. The evaluation results should be used to improve the service, as needed, through the adjustment of staffing, training and any other improvements indicated by the evaluation results (Reference and User Services Association [RUSA], 2004).\nResearch questions: The study was guided by the following research questions:\nThe purpose and significance of the study: The purpose of this study was to evaluate digital reference services at the UNAM and NUST libraries. Two aspects were evaluated, namely, \"resources\" and \"elements of the general digital reference model\". The focus of this evaluation was the library-focused perspective, and librarians were used as the unit of analysis.\nMethodology: This study adopted a descriptive case study approach and used qualitative research methods, which comprised interviews and an observation checklist. The study was conducted at NUST and UNAM libraries, and the population consisted of librarians working at the two libraries. Sampling was purposive for librarians working with digital reference services in the two libraries comprising reference librarians, subject librarians, IT librarians, circulation librarians and their supervisors (senior librarians). The number of participants from the two institutions was 16.\nLiterature review: Digital reference services and their types\nPresentation and discussion of findings: This section is divided into the following sub-headings based on the thematic areas of the interview guides and observation checklist drawn from the research questions.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate digital reference services at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) and the University of Namibia (UNAM) library. Two aspects were evaluated, namely, \"resources\" and \"elements of the general digital reference model\".\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study adopted a descriptive case study approach and used qualitative research methods, which comprised interviews and an observation checklist. The population consisted of librarians working at NUST and UNAM Library.\nFindings: The research findings showed that these libraries used the general digital reference model in providing responses to the library users. The study established that the two libraries did not follow the International Federation of Library Associations and Reference and User Services Association standards of staffing and training of librarians working with digital reference services. The study further found that a lack of ability to fully demonstrate to users how to access various library services was one of the major problems that the librarians experienced.\nResearch limitations/implications: The study was limited to two academic libraries: UNAM and NUST.\nOriginality/value: The study could contribute to a better understanding of digital reference services provided by NUST and the UNAM libraries and contribute to the body of knowledge on the subject of digital reference services, especially in an African context, where few studies have been conducted on this subject. The two libraries could use the findings to improve digital reference services, plan for intervention and develop the services.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Strategic implications of nanotechnology
|
[
"Nanotechnology",
"Management strategy",
"Change management",
"Design and development"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Industrial progress is marked by periodic, significant scientific discoveries or revolutions that drastically affect the way organizations conduct business strategy. Among these were the Industrial Revolution, the airplane, the computer, and the internet. Many predict that developments in the nano-sciences or nanotechnology will be at the forefront of a new paradigm shift, changing protocols in many different fields and even creating whole new industries that will influence the way we interact with people, businesses, and other machines and systems. To cope with this new environment, companies will have to consider new business models, policies, and sources of competitive advantage. New skills and competencies will be required of firms and their leaders. As scientists advance in the nano-sciences, existing technologies may become obsolete and organizations will be required to continuously adapt and re-evaluate their strategies in order to serve their mission and that of society.\nNanotechnology implications on business strategy: Strategy is the driver of any business, and a successful strategy is one that is aligned with the company's environment. A company's attitude towards environmental changes will define its destiny. In other words, companies that are not flexible, creative, and disciplined enough to ride through major technological shifts will suffer dire economic consequences such as witnessed in the automobile, entertainment, and other industries. We examine nanotechnology's potential effect on business strategy focusing on industry life cycles, strategic groups, environmental forces, strategic implementation, and business leadership.Industry life cycles\nSummary: Nanotechnology, the ability to manipulate materials on the atomic and molecular level, changing their properties and thus creating new structures and materials, is at the forefront of a new paradigm shift whose impact may equal or surpass that of computers and the internet. We examine nanotechnology's potential effect on business strategy, focusing on industry life cycles, strategic groups, environmental forces, and strategic implementation - sourcing, innovation, efficiency, quality and customer orientation. Several examples of companies involved in nanotechnology are explored, such as IBM, HP, SkyPharma, and Lucent Technologies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - Nanotechnology, the ability to manipulate materials on the atomic and molecular level, and thus create novel structures and materials, is at the forefront of a paradigm shift whose impact may equal or surpass that of computers and the internet. To cope with this new environment, companies will have to consider new business models, policies, and sources of competitive advantage.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In this article we examine nanotechnology's potential effect on business strategy, focusing on industry life cycles, strategic groups, environmental forces, and strategic implementation. Several companies involved in nanotechnology are examined, such as IBM, HP, SkyPharma, and Lucent Technologies.\nFindings: - Numerous conclusions can be inferred from our analyses. First, a company must formulate and execute a dynamic strategic approach to nanotechnology or suffer the consequences. Second, this approach must be reconciled with the strategic group to which the company strives. Third, firms will need to align their business strategies with the changing social, legal, and political forces in the new environment in order to compete successfully. Fourth, companies should leverage research and development efforts in nanotechnology to implement improvements in quality, efficiency, identity and the satisfaction of customer needs.\nPractical implications: - Companies and leaders alike must be prepared to explore this frontier prudently and strategically to make right decisions for their organizations' success.\nOriginality/value: - Ultimately the article seeks to prompt an understanding of the truly significant potential of nanotechnology to revolutionize industries and businesses, and subsequently firms' strategic paradigms.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Disability and social cohesion among older adults: a multi-country study
|
[
"Disability",
"Social cohesion",
"Older adults",
"SAGE study"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: More than 1bn people in the present world live with some form of disability, of whom nearly one-fifth experience substantial difficulties in physical activities and functioning (World Health Organization (WHO) and World Bank, 2011). That said, the problem of disability is more prevalent among the older adults; for example, the study by World Health Survey reveals that among the 60 years and older (60+) aged people in the whole world, about 38 percent are suffering from disability with a lot of disparity across the countries (WHO and World Bank, 2011). Also, the World Health Organization (WHO) (2010) reports that 80 percent of persons with disabilities live in low-income countries.\n2. Data and methods: 2.1 Data\n3. Results: 3.1 Descriptive and bivariate analysis\n4. Discussion: Studies indicate that health and social care services required by disabled older adults will be a major burden as well as a societal concern in the coming decades as the proportion of older adults is going to increase exceptionally (Beck and Stuck, 1996; Fried and Guralnik, 1997). A reasonable response to this situation is to devise strategies for preventing or delaying the onset of disability. That said, our study is a timely attempt to analyze the association of disability and social cohesion in the context of low and middle income countries. Also, the findings of our study are consistent with the existing studies and add on to the evidence presented in them. For example, existing literature corroborates our findings that individuals with disability have lower social cohesion (Avlund et al., 2004; UNHCR, 2011; Sundar et al., 2016). Studies describe that there is a significant association between social cohesion and disability indicating that not engaging in any social activity increases the vulnerability of disabled (Andrews et al., 2001).\n5. Conclusions and recommendations: Schmitt (2002) has emphasized that social cohesion has a potential to change the dynamics of public health discourse and will become a central policy goal as far as studying the vulnerable populations particularly people with disability is concerned. Given this scenario, we in this study have comprehensively examined the association between disability and social cohesion for the disabled older (50+) adults from six middle and lower-income countries spread across the globe. While doing so, we have used a holistic, comprehensive and broad conceptualization of both disability and social cohesion. Also, we have used IRTPCM approach to generate disability and social cohesion scores both varying from 0 to 100. Further, we have used bivariate, multivariate and path analysis methods to examine the above mentioned association.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Disabled are often vulnerable to social exclusion due to the lack of social protection schemes. Therefore, in the absence of adequate social welfare systems, social cohesion is of enormous importance for the disabled older adults. That said, the purpose of this paper is to explore the link between disability and social cohesion among the older adults in China, Ghana, India, Mexico, Russia and South Africa.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data from the Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health (SAGE) conducted in China, Ghana, India, Mexico, Russia and South Africa during 2007-2010 have been used for the analysis. Disability scores and social cohesion scores have been constructed using the Item Response Theory Partial Credit Model. Also, bivariate, multivariate and path analyses have been used for the examination.\nFindings: Results show that disability substantially and significantly restricts social cohesion of the older adults in the selected countries. Moreover, path analysis indicates that, among others, disability affects physical activity which, in turn, leads to a lower socially active life. In addition, social cohesion is significantly lower among the older adults who are females, residing in urban areas, in poorer classes, widowed, not working and not having formal education.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the authors' search, this study is perhaps the first attempt to look into the association between disability and social cohesion in a comprehensive and holistic manner in a multi-country context. A socially cohesive society provides a sense of belonging, participation, inclusion, and recognition to all. So, it is high time to create a socially as well as economically sensitive environment which can provide due recognition and inclusion to the disabled older adults.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
An integrative framework of supply chain flexibility
|
[
"Supply chain flexibility",
"Market-oriented flexibility",
"Network flexibility",
"Supply chain complexity",
"Contingency"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Many firms are beginning to recognize that supply chain flexibility (SCF) is crucial to build sustainable competitive edge in coping with uncertainty and complexity (Turner et al., 2018; Leeuw et al., 2013; Strom et al., 2013). More than two-thirds of supply chain executives responded, in the global supply chain and risk management survey (Strom et al., 2013), that greater flexibility needs to be built in their supply chain network. Unfortunately, SCF is a complex, multidimensional and hard-to-capture concept. The confusion and ambiguity about SCF seriously inhibit its effective implementation and actualization of its benefits (Singh et al., 2019). The answers to the research question of \"do improvements in one supply chain flexibility dimension affect improvements in another?\" will be meaningful to practitioners in designing supply chain strategy.The mainstream of research on supply chain flexibility views supply chain flexibility as a logical extension of manufacturing flexibility and understands it from process-based view and operational perspective (Vickery et al., 1999; Lummus et al., 2003; Tiwari et al., 2015). Only a limited number of cases and conceptual and empirical studies explore flexibility across supply chain from network perspective but that does not seem sufficient (Manders et al., 2016; Oh et al., 2013; Stevenson and Spring, 2007; Zhang et al., 2002). There has been a call for attention to develop theoretical foundations in order to create proper understanding of SCF for the operationalization and application (Tiwari et al., 2015). In particular, Stevenson and Spring (2007) argued that a holistic view should be taken to create proper insight of interrelated supply chain flexibility at different levels. This study integrates market-oriented and network-oriented perspectives of supply chain flexibility. The market-oriented flexibility is also defined as market flexibility, representing the ability of the system to meet customer demands when market changes (Sethi and Sethi, 1990; Chang, 2012). It directly demonstrates competitiveness of the market and shows the outcome of supply chain system capability. Alamro et al. (2018) described market-oriented flexibility as \"outside-in.\" Then the network-oriented flexibility can be viewed as \"inside-out\" that represents the ability of the supply chain network system to adapt. These two types of flexibility are valuable to help firms maintain effectiveness and efficiency in business. Achieving flexibility can be expensive if a firm decides to implement every aspect of flexibility in supply chain context (He et al., 2012). More empirical studies are needed to explore the interactions between two types of flexibility and within the multidimensional supply chain flexibility concept to further provide guidance of practicing flexibility in different forms.Through a review of the literature on supply chain flexibility, Fayezi et al. (2017) highlighted the lack of attention given to contingency factors. What aspects of supply chain flexibility are needed to fit different contexts thus becomes one of the core concerns for supply chain executives willing to pursue the flexibility strategy. A few previous empirical studies explain how supply chain flexibility should be aligned with environmental uncertainty (Yu et al., 2015; Luo and Yu, 2016; Merschmann; Thonemann, 2011). However, complexity in supply chain network structure as a major contingency remains poorly understood. Firms are increasingly operating within more complex and dynamic networks; Thome et al. (2014) suggested that the impact of network, of institutional and infrastructure contextual dimensions, on flexibility types should be understood in multi-tier supply chain. The aim of this study is to address the above-mentioned research gap by examining SCF by (1) conducting an empirical research into supply chain flexibility from both network-oriented and market-oriented perspectives, (2) exploring the interrelationships among the dimensions and (3) investigating the effect of contingency factor - supply chain complexity - on flexibility.The structure of the paper is as follows. Section 2 provides literature review on supply chain flexibility, followed by the discussion of supply chain flexibility dimensions. The research framework and hypotheses are presented and discussed in Section 3. Section 4 describes the methodology, and Section 5 presents the statistical analysis and results. Finally, the paper concludes with the potential theoretical and managerial implications.\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 Supply chain flexibility\n3. Conceptual framework and hypotheses: The purpose of the paper is to understand the association among supply chain flexibility dimensions and how the relationships are moderated by the number of tiers in a supply chain. According to Zhang et al. (2002), external capabilities are founded on the internal competencies of a supply chain, and supply chain network competences become the foundation for external, customer-facing capabilities. Market-oriented flexibility is viewed as external capability to provide products and services, adapting to rapidly changing business environment. Since interorganizational networks are strategic resources that managers design and develop over time in order to meet their objectives, the ability to change the supply or logistics networks over time in response to competition changes enables the supply chain to take advantage of opportunities to improve its operational performance (Madhavan et al., 1998). Therefore, this paper proposes that the flexible network shapes a portfolio of external capabilities to respond quickly to unforeseen events, and further help to improve the performance. Figure 1 depicts the proposed model and hypotheses that are developed in the following paragraphs.In this increasingly information-intensive work environment, linking stakeholders of organizations through vital information networks is the noticeable practice of the excellent supply network performance (Flynn et al., 2016). Information sharing between supply network partners is essential to handle uncertainty related to lack of information synchronization and chaos from uncertainty (Leeuw et al., 2013). With information being considered as an integral part of supply chain network, spanning flexibility should also be regarded as an essential ingredient to provide accurate and relevant information to enhance the network performance. The focus on visibility of information in a broad range of areas is one of the variables of the quick response to supply network described by Sanchez and Perez (2005). The spanning flexibility enhances the quality and breadth of information sharing, which further allows business to reconfigure the supply network. As a result, the supply chain partners can better identify new opportunities and be more ready for potential risks, enabling a flexible network to cope with sudden changes in both the supply and customer sides. This study therefore suggests the following hypothesis:H1. Spanning flexibility positively influences supply network flexibility.The logistics network is becoming more complex since most supply chains include multiple logistics and distribution firms across the chain. Supply network flexibility enables moving products across the supply chain on a timely basis. Coordination among the supply bases is the key to attaining the flexibility necessary to enable them to progressively improve logistics processes in response to rapidly changing market conditions (Goyal et al., 2018). Poor coordination among the chain members can cause dysfunctional operational performance (Jafari, 2015). Negative consequences of poor coordination include higher inventory costs, longer delivery times, higher transportation costs, higher levels of loss and damage and lowered customer service (Lee et al., 1997; Simatupang et al., 2002). Therefore, a positive effect of supply network flexibility on logistics network flexibility is proposed.H2. Supply network flexibility positively influences logistics network flexibility.Customers' requests for more frequent, small-quantity deliveries require greater ability of distribution channels to coordinate in a cost-effective manner. Higher level of logistics flexibility implies that links between logistics nodes can be established quickly and efficiently to move physical products across the supply chain. Consequently, logistics network flexibility enhances delivery flexibility because a flexible system can cope with unplanned and unexpected events resulting from both logistics process and supplies (Naim et al., 2006; Hartmann and de Grahl, 2011). In an attempt to explore causal relationship among various supply chain flexibility dimensions, Singh et al. (2019) concluded that that ability of transportation of goods quickly supports firms to fulfill customer requirements. Logistics flexibility deals with changing demands in shipping volume or frequency while maintaining a satisfactory level of performance (Zhang et al., 2005; Stevenson and Spring, 2007).H3. Logistics network flexibility positively influences delivery flexibility.H4. Logistics network flexibility positively influences volume flexibility.Firms are buying supplier's capabilities. Sometimes, the supply side's capabilities limit the manufacturer's ability to respond rapidly to customer requirement changes. Supply base with capabilities in responding to changes has direct impact on downstream supply chain flexibility. Some researchers provide certain empirical support for such theories in the context of flexibility. Nishiguchi (1994), after an in-depth analysis, attributed Japanese car manufacturers' flexibilities primarily to a supply base distinguished by strong manufacturing flexibility capabilities including volume and mix. Having a network of key suppliers able to synchronize their production with the requirements of the company is preferred for a short life cycle or for innovative products (Yi et al., 2011; Singh et al., 2019). With a supply base designed with change in mind, as the company sees the need to change partners to adjust volume and mix of product, new partners with the required capabilities will be found in a prompt manner.H5. Supply network flexibility positively influences volume flexibility.H6. Supply network flexibility positively influences mix flexibility.Facilitated by the spanning flexibility, synchronized replenishment plans can be created, leading to closer matching of production and distribution to current demand (Lee and Whang, 2005). A responsive information sharing system will support the information interchange between the customer and the entire supply chain, so that firms can use the information to support diverse strategies for distribution (Lau and Lee, 2000). Cisco has been one of the most successful companies engaged in using agile information sharing system for improving delivery lead time and customer responsiveness. With elaborate web-based information systems linking Cisco and its supply chain partners, all the necessary information flow is utilized to make information visible across the supply chain.H7. Spanning flexibility positively influences delivery flexibility.Supply chains with more tiers exhibit greater uncertainty and complexity (Beamon, 1999; Milgate, 2000). Hierarchical levels contribute to uncertainty within a supply chain in three different ways. First, small failures (e.g. late delivery) in a single tier may generate greater ripple effect in a longer supply chain, which would eventually cause a major disruption spread throughout the whole supply chain (Bode and Wagner, 2015; Milgate, 2000; Chen et al., 2000). Second, having more tiers in a supply chain makes it harder for effective information processing and transparency, and therefore more difficult to detect early warning signals (Bode and Wagner, 2015; Vachon and Klassen, 2002). Finally, supply chain management literature has highlighted supply chain as a social network consisting of a variety of relationships and interactions among the suppliers. With more hierarchical levels in a supply chain, there are more interactions (between suppliers) that are not visible to the focal firm (Caridi et al., 2010). It is more challenging to oversee and manage a supply base with two interrelated suppliers than a supply base with two non-linked suppliers. Recognizing that sources of uncertainty stem from the structure in the supply chain as well as the external environment, it is expected that the supply chain flexibility performance in different aspects is contingent on the complexity of supply chain.H8a. Supply chain complexity moderates relationship between spanning flexibility and supply network flexibility.H8b. Supply chain complexity moderates relationship between supply network flexibility and logistics network flexibility.H8c. Supply chain complexity moderates relationship between logistics network flexibility and delivery flexibility.H8d. Supply chain complexity moderates relationship between logistics network flexibility and volume flexibility.H8e. Supply chain complexity moderates relationship between supply network flexibility and mix flexibility.H8f. Supply chain complexity moderates relationship between supply network flexibility and volume flexibility.H8g. Supply chain complexity moderates relationship between spanning flexibility and delivery flexibility.\n4. Research methodology: 4.1 Measuring supply chain flexibility and supply chain complexity\n5. Results: 5.1 Measures\n6. Discussion: 6.1 Contributions to research in supply chain flexibility\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: It is crucial to recognize that supply chain flexibility is important to build sustainable competitive edge in coping with uncertainty. This study puts forth an empirically supported integrative framework to understand supply chain flexibility from market-oriented and network-oriented perspectives, interrelationships among its dimensions and the effect of supply chain complexity as a contingent factor.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The online survey data were collected from 201 manufacturing companies and checked for common method variance, validity and reliability. Structural equation modeling was then used to test the hypotheses.\nFindings: The results of this study demonstrate that there are interrelationships among market-oriented and network-oriented supply chain flexibility dimensions. It is the flexibility embedded in the supply chain network configuration that plays critical roles in superior performance in flexibility capabilities to create customer values. The interrelated effect among flexibility dimensions is contingent on the magnitude of the supply chain complexity corresponding to the number of supply chain tiers.\nOriginality/value: This study takes a step to advance understanding of supply chain flexibility from an integrative point of view consisting of market-oriented and network-oriented perspectives. This study is expected to provide practitioners the foundation to implement supply chain flexibility considering the interrelationships among flexibility dimensions. Our results suggest that to carry out a supply chain flexibility strategy, the vertical complexity of the supply chain structure needs to be taken into consideration.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Technological disruptions in services: lessons from tourism and hospitality
|
[
"Co-creation",
"Disruption",
"Sensory experiences",
"Personalization",
"Automation",
"Tourism and hospitality"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is revolutionizing the development of products and services. From assembly lines to multi-stakeholder complex systems that combine hardware, sensors, data storage, microprocessors, software, connectivity and offer a new wave of smart technologies that reengineer best practice and propel service providers to optimize their performance dynamically (Guttentag and Smith, 2017). Smart, connected products accelerated by processing power and ubiquitous network connectivity restructure markets, disrupt value chains and reengineer business processes and economies (Porter and Heppelmann, 2014). This has implications in life, work and travel as it introduces dynamic formations for every aspect. This revolution is taking different forms and shapes. Increasingly economies are formed as distributed networks of owners/suppliers/intermediaries/stakeholders who interact dynamically with customers/demand over distributed platforms. In the pre-sharing economy era, when transport was offered only by authorized professionals, there was little choice other than owning your vehicle or to pay professionals and organizations to transport passengers (trains, authorized busses or taxis). In the sharing economy era, personally owned Uber cars or dockless scooters, such as Lime and Bird in the USA, have eliminated the stranglehold of transportation companies and introduce flexibly adapted shared resources, disrupting market structures and dynamics. All these require reconfiguration to become and remain competitive in smart networked environments at the micro level reflecting structural influences of changes in marketplace practices at the macro level.\nTechnological advancements for service management: Recent technological advancements impact on service firms, customer engagement strategies and their expectations (Helkkula et al., 2018). Figure 1 provides an overview of those technologies that have immediate implications for service industries, distilled from a systematic review of recent research into emerging and new technologies. A range of enabling technologies (i.e. technologies that can drive a disruptive change) supports the synthesizing innovations identified that underpin the application of technological advancements applied within the firm/customer domain. These enabling technologies have unprecedented impacts at macro-societal and micro levels that create disruptions in industry structures resulting in a breadth of service innovations. Theory of value co-creation provides a useful lens by which to evaluate their impacts (Edvardsson and Tronvoll, 2013). Helkkula et al. (2018) argue that service experience and service systems are resource integration archetypes of service innovation that have evolved as a consequence of technological advancements in recent years. The service experience archetype takes the perspective of a customer in a social context as its premise, where value co-creation may not necessarily involve a direct service and more broadly reflects Vargo and Lusch's (2008) comment \"value is always uniquely and phenomenologically determined by the beneficiary\" (p. 7). Importantly, Helkkula et al. (2018) suggest that technologies are not the central service but a means to delivering service to the customer. The service systems archetype emphasizes the social connectedness and dynamic interplay of resources, where the customer is the central actor. This draws on S-D logic as a means by which to synthesize and provide a more dynamic and holistic view of how value is co-created (Vargo et al., 2015). With this in mind, we review the technological advancements and their potentially disruptive impacts for service innovation and management.\nTourism as a technology-enabled co-creation ecosystem: Instead of captivating audiences via technology trends that lack true value, travel companies need to envision brands as technology-driven platforms for enhancing customer experience and value co-creation (Weissenberg, 2017). Such platforms are constituents of a tourism ecosystem that consist of micro-experiences across online travel agencies, accommodation, transport and destination activities. We therefore position technological advancements as an enabler of co-creation in the hostile service ecosystem of tourism.\nTechnology-driven disruptions for service industry structures: Disruptive innovation occurs when new entrants and conditions challenge and alter industry structures and behavior of actors. In the travel sector, these have affected relationships between stakeholders, resulting in changes to market structures (Viglia et al., 2018). Airbnb is an example of technology-led disruption (Guttentag and Smith, 2017), where a platform enabled hosts and guests to connect and co-create value. Ultimately, Airbnb became a competitive force because it connecting customers with locals at destinations directly, in lieu of standardized hotel offerings. Travel and industry structures were thereby disrupted as customers sought cheaper, authentic and local experiences direct from citizens. The IoT is now paving the way toward smart ecosystems in tourism because of the connectivity of devices and systems that travelers can in turn customize (Gretzel et al., 2015).\nThe Epilogue: emerging smart disruptive innovations for service management and marketing: Rapid and radical technological developments create the need for extensive research in service management that examines how value is co-created between the service actors and distributed in the marketplace. At the macro level, governments globally invest in smart city initiatives to optimize resources, ensure sustainability and improve the quality of living through innovative technologies, a collaborative economy and collective decision making (Saunders and Baeck, 2015). Smart cities emerge as places that require a balance between hardware and software, technology and human capital, in order to realize and guarantee a quality of life for citizens and stakeholders (Mattoni et al., 2015). A range of frameworks for strategic smart sustainable development emerge primarily for urban environments (Bibri and Krogstie, 2017) with transferable opportunities for different types of region. Smartness requires technologies, leadership, innovation and social capital supported by human capital to develop a customer-dominant logic-based ecosystem, that provides hyper-personalized and beyond-automated experiences, and achieve sustained competitive advantage and enhancement of quality of life for both residents and tourists in smart tourism destinations.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Technological disruptions such as the Internet of Things and autonomous devices, enhanced analytical capabilities (artificial intelligence) and rich media (virtual and augmented reality) are creating smart environments that are transforming industry structures, processes and practices. The purpose of this paper is to explore critical technological advancements using a value co-creation lens to provide insights into service innovations that impact ecosystems. The paper provides examples from tourism and hospitality industries as an information dependent service management context.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The research synthesizes prevailing theories of co-creation, service ecosystems, networks and technology disruption with emerging technological developments.\nFindings: Findings highlight the need for research into service innovations in the tourism and hospitality sector at both macro-market and micro-firm levels, emanating from the rapid and radical nature of technological advancements. Specifically, the paper identifies three areas of likely future disruption in service experiences that may benefit from immediate attention: extra-sensory experiences, hyper-personalized experiences and beyond-automation experiences.\nResearch limitations/implications: Tourism and hospitality services prevail under varying levels of infrastructure, organization and cultural constraints. This paper provides an overview of potential disruptions and developments and does not delve into individual destination types and settings. This will require future work that conceptualizes and examines how stakeholders may adapt within specific contexts.\nSocial implications: Technological disruptions impact all facets of life. A comprehensive picture of developments here provides policymakers with nuanced perspectives to better prepare for impending change.\nOriginality/value: Guest experiences in tourism and hospitality by definition take place in hostile environments that are outside the safety and familiarity of one's own surroundings. The emergence of smart environments will redefine how customers navigate their experiences. At a conceptual level, this requires a complete rethink of how stakeholders should leverage technologies, engage and reengineer services to remain competitive. The paper illustrates how technology disrupts industry structures and stimulates value co-creation at the micro and macro-societal level.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Agri-fresh food supply chain quality (AFSCQ): a literature review
|
[
"Literature review",
"Supply chain quality",
"Agri-fresh food",
"Agri-fresh food supply chain quality"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The agri-fresh food segment is perhaps a profitable venture of all farming activities as it provides ample employment opportunities and scopes to raise the income of the agricultural community. In the last decade, there are dramatic changes in the supply chain of agri-fresh products. Agri-fresh food products compose a significant position of the world economy as well as they are the supplies for various food processing industries. Inside agri-fresh food supply chains, raw food stuffs are transformed through packaging, distribution and related services. In this process, it is very important that not only the product quality is ensured but the supply chain quality should be maintained as well. The supply chain quality is defined as a set of practices that emphasize on continuous process improvement among partners (firms) in the supply chain in order to enhance performance and achieve customer satisfaction through prominence in learning (Mellat-Parast, 2013). The agri-fresh supply chain quality (AFSCQ) is distinct and peculiar in some aspects which makes the management of such supply chain typical and difficult. In order to review these characteristics of the AFSCQ, a review is carried out in this paper. AFSCQ indicates a group of organized practices or exercises that stress upon advancement of continuous process improvement among supply chain stakeholders in order to enhance sustainable performance and protect shelf-life of a product.\n2. Methodology: This review consists of a six-step research approach. The first step is the time period (1994 to mid-2016), the year 1994 is taken as the starting point of article collection because the word \"supply chain quality\" initially appeared in this year itself. The second step is to collect research publications, the publications were selected from management science publishers such as Emerald Online, Taylor & Francis, Wiley Interscience (earlier Blackwell Synergy) and Science Direct. The third step is the selection of research publication from the database using various search keywords such as supply chain quality, agri-food, agri-fresh, agri-food supply chain, food supply chain, vegetable supply chain, fruit supply chain, agri-fresh food supply chain, and perishable food supply chain. The Fourth step is separation or sorting of publications to remove duplication of articles and then analyzing the filtered articles. In the last step, selected articles are classified under several categories: number of research publication per year, journal-wise articles classification, number of studies across countries, empirical research growth in AFSCQ, performance measurement, categorization based on tools utilized or data analysis methods, and classification based on supply chain quality issues. These steps are explained as follows:\n3. Results and analysis of AFSCQ literature: All the papers in the field of AFSCQ are presented in Table I. This table classifies the publications with respect to country of research, research design and discusses their contribution to research.\n4. Discussion: The primary objective of this paper is to discover the gaps existing in the literature of AFSCQ by reviewing selected research publications. As the days are passing by, research publications on the AFSCQ are increasing. Nearly 50 percent of the publications were published in past five to six years; it also shows that research toward AFSCQ is increasing. Hence, there is a need to prescribe proper direction for further research in AFSCQ. Another finding is that 60 percent of the research publications are focusing on the issues of developed countries though merely 40 percent of the research publications are directed to the issues of developing countries. Shukla and Jharkharia (2013) also discussed that limited concentration is paid in developing countries while huge emphasis is on developed country issues like innovative research environment and infrastructure while in developing countries focus on availability of fund, infrastructure, and information technology were prime concerns.\n5. Research implications and directions for future research: This review delivers more opportunities of further research in the field of AFSCQ. The outcomes of the review reveal following implications for investigators or researchers:\n6. Conclusion and limitations: This paper presents a review of the AFSCQ literature, discussing foremost supply chain operational issues responsible for AFSCQ. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the directions and opportunities of research in AFSCQ. To sustain this objective, literature is picked from four management science publishers over a phase of 23 years (1994-mid2016). The literature review is methodically classified and analyzed to provide a better insight of the research in the past two decades. To sustain the significance of the complete process, the organized research process is followed in both the collection and content investigation of the literature.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to deliver a structured literature review of existing literature on agri-fresh food supply chain quality (AFSCQ) over a period of 23 years (1994 to mid-2016) and provide a platform for practitioners and researchers trying to identify the existing state of work, gaps in current research, and future directions in the field of AFSCQ.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The existing literature is classified on the basis of several classes like number of publications per year, journal-wise publications, studies across various countries, growth of empirical research, data analysis methods or tool used, issues related to supply chain quality as well as performance measurement (with respect to entity of analysis, level of analysis and element of exchange).\nFindings: Most of the research publications discuss issues in developed countries, while relatively lesser publications are available on issues in developing countries. Hence, larger opportunities in the field of AFSCQ are available in developing countries. Empirical research is also growing in the field of AFSCQ. Largely research publications make use of \"case study\" research approach and \"statistical analysis\" as a quantitative tool of research. The literature is also categorized under the various issues of supply chain quality such as sustainability management, information management, logistic management, collaboration and coordination management, strategic management, demand management, inventory management, food safety, performance management, supply chain integration, supplier management, quality management, etc. It was found that in the majority of articles, information management, sustainability management, and logistics management are very critical issues as far as AFSCQ is concerned. Performance measurement of agri-fresh food supply chain is also on a growing stage. It is also an integral part of AFSCQ.\nOriginality/value: Most of the prior reviews are concentrated on a particular issue as production and distribution planning for agri-foods, temperature monitoring, corporate and consumer social responsibility, traceability system and ignore the wider perception. There exists a necessity of having a detailed review to cover up all the issues in AFSCQ. This review fills this gap in the extant AFSCQ literature.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Regulation of uncovered sovereign credit default swaps - evidence from the European Union
|
[
"Financial crisis",
"Credit default swaps",
"Financial regulation",
"European financial reforms",
"Market stability"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: During the European sovereign debt crisis, the Credit Default Swap (CDS) market in Europe was perceived to show market anomalies. CDS spreads of entities increased remarkably. The government of the European Union (EU) found that one cause of rising CDS spreads was the speculation on the default of sovereign entities. CDS were used for speculation rather than hedging against the entity's default. Since the financial crisis with its peak in 2008 and the European debt crisis beginning in 2009, CDS have had a bad reputation. Authorities blamed the over-the-counter (OTC) traded instrument for causing systemic risk and being one trigger of the crisis (Barnier, 2010; Das, 2010). This led to a prominent discussion on restricting CDS. In particular, the EU identified speculations on uncovered CDS as an important factor for apparent market failures during the sovereign debt crisis. The EU does not totally prohibit CDS, but they should not be used as a speculative instrument (e.g. for short selling). The idea is to prevent speculative traders from betting on a default without actually being a creditor. The regulation bans uncovered short positions on EU sovereign debt through CDS and requires real net (short) positions to be privately notified to the relevant national regulator. To establish a permitted sovereign CDS position, investors must now hold offsetting risk, such as the underlying sovereign bond or other exposures related to the sovereign's debt.\n2. Literature review and hypotheses development: In comparison to stocks and bonds, CDS are relatively new financial products that were conceived in the 1990s. Studies on CDS do not have a long history, primarily starting in the year 2000, but its importance as a subject of empirical research rose considerably with the expansion of the CDS market. The CDS market has been shown to lead stock markets (Acharya and Johnson, 2007), bond markets (Blanco et al., 2005) and even rating agencies (Norden and Weber, 2004) in terms of information discovery. Pollege and Posch (2013) find that the CDS market is faster in anticipating risks than the bond market, not only for corporate but also for sovereign entities. Norden and Weber (2009), Trutwein et al. (2011), Trutwein and Schiereck (2011) and Imbierowicz and Wahrenburg (2013) analyze the relationship between equity and debt markets, and Cao et al. (2010) analyze the information content of option-implied volatility for CDS, whereas the impact of rating announcements on CDS is another strand of research (Hull et al., 2004; Norden and Weber, 2004; Galil and Soffer, 2011; Finnerty et al., 2013).\n3. Data and methodology: 3.1 Data sample\n4. Results: 4.1Regulation (EU) no. 236/2012 specific announcements\n5. Summary and conclusion: Since the financial crisis with its peak in 2008 and the European debt crisis beginning in 2009, CDS spreads of EU member countries were highly volatile. The EU adopted multiple legislations with the objective to reduce the volatility. Since the year 2008, bailout programs have been initiated to support European entities in distress, for example, GIIPS countries. In October 2010, it was decided to create a permanent rescue mechanism, the European Stability Mechanism, which aims at preserving the financial stability of the European Monetary Union. In July 2012, Mario Draghi, the President of the ECB, has pledged to do \"whatever it takes\" to protect the Eurozone from collapse. The main objective of these measures is to reduce the default probability of the members of the European Monetary Union. Among these measures, the EU introduced Regulation (EU) No. 236/2012. The aim of this regulation is to reduce the CDS spread level and to rein in the increasing costs of sovereign issuers by reducing speculation in the sovereign CDS market.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to analyze the impact and effectiveness of the regulation on the European sovereign Credit Default Swap (CDS) market. The European sovereign debt crisis has drawn considerable attention to the CDS market. CDS have the ability of a speculative instrument to bet against a sovereign default. Therefore, the Regulation (EU) No. 236/2012 was introduced as the worldwide first uncovered CDS regulation. It prohibits buying uncovered sovereign CDS contracts in the European Union (EU).\nDesign/methodology/approach: First, this paper measures spread changes of sovereign CDS of the EU member states around regulation specific event dates to detect whether and when European sovereign CDS reacts to regulation announcements and the enforcement of regulation. Second, it compares the CDS long-term stability of the EU sample with a non-EU sample based on 44 non-EU sovereign CDS entities.\nFindings: The results indicate widening CDS spreads prior to the regulation, and stable CDS spreads following the introduction of the regulation. In particular, sovereign CDS of European crisis-hit entities are stable since the regulation was introduced.\nOriginality/value: The results show that since the regulation of uncovered CDS in the EU has been enacted, the sovereign CDS market is stable and less volatile. Based on the theory about speculation on uncovered sovereign CDS by betting on the reference entity's default, the introduction of Regulation (EU) No. 236/2012 appears to be an appropriate measure to stabilize markets and reduce speculation on sovereign defaults.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The microbiological quality of Slovenian raw milk from vending machines and their hygienic-technical conditions
|
[
"Food safety",
"Microorganisms",
"Raw milk",
"Hygiene",
"Vending machine",
"Disinfectants"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Milk is a complex biological fluid and thus represents a good growth medium for many microorganisms. Because of specific production methods, it is impossible to avoid the contamination of milk with microorganisms; therefore, the microbial content of milk is a key feature determining its quality (Rogelj, 2003). The number and types of microorganisms in milk are affected by factors such as animal and equipment cleanliness, season, feed and animal health, and the contamination levels from the air, faeces, grass, soil, etc. (Rogelj, 2003; Coorevits et al., 2008).\n2. Materials and methods: 2.1 Sampling plans\n3. Results and discussion: In recent years, some major milk producers have not marketed all fresh raw milk to dairies but have been offering it directly to individuals with self-service milk VM. Milk VM are automatic devices, and their technical characteristics vary depending on the manufacturer. The owners themselves are in charge of the hygienic condition of the milk and VM. The procedures and methods for cleaning and maintenance are different and should be established within the HACCP system.\n4. Conclusions: The observed VM did not fulfil all the hygienic-technical requirements in accordance with EU Regulation (EC) 852 (2004) and EU Regulation (EC) 853 (2004). About 53 per cent of the milk samples from VM, collected in three different seasons, met the requirements set out in the guidelines from EU Regulation (EC) 853 (2004). Regular cleaning and disinfection of the filling nozzles and the tapping area were not ensured in 11.8 per cent of the observed VM. Because of the potential microbiological risks and inadequate hygienic-technical conditions of VM, better and more frequent controls have to be provided to ensure the safety and quality of raw milk. More effort should be made to educate the consumers in food hygiene and not only the milk producers and owners of the VM.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the microbiological quality of raw milk delivered by 17 vending machines (VM) owned by different Slovenian milk producers.\nDesign/methodology/approach: For the determination of hygiene-technical conditions of VM, an observation list that included criteria for estimation of hygiene-technical suitability was made. A total of 51 milk samples were collected in three different seasons. The swabs and the cleaning liquid (eluates) of dispensing nozzles and chambers were also sampled. The main groups of microorganisms were determined by colony count technique according to international standards in all collected samples.\nFindings: The aerobic colony count was higher than 100,000 CFU/mL in 20 (39.2 per cent) of milk samples. Its mean value was 4.8 log10 CFU/mL. The mean values of Enterobacteriaceae, psychrotrophic microorganisms, lipolytes, proteolytes, yeasts and moulds together, coagulase-positive staphylococci and somatic cell count were 3.3 log10 CFU/mL, 4.1 log10 CFU/mL, 3.2 log10 CFU/mL, 3.9 log10 CFU/mL, 2.2 log10 CFU/mL, 2.8 log10 CFU/mL and 5.3 log10 cells/mL, respectively. E. coli was found in 33.3 per cent of milk samples, while Listeria monocytogenes and antibiotics were not detected. The inner surface contamination of the dispensing nozzles and chambers was estimated in the range from 1.8 log10 CFU to 6.0 log10 CFU/cm2. The presence of detergents and disinfectants in supply valve eluates was determined in more than one-third of the samples. The hygienic-technical conditions of observed VM show some deviations from specified hygienic-technical requirements which could influence the safety of raw milk.\nResearch limitations/implications: The data about construction and the cleaning practice of VM, included in the experiment, were not available during the inspection facility.\nOriginality/value: In the paper the pathogenic and also the spoilage microorganisms in milk in the combination with hygienic conditions of inside surfaces of VM were studied.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Sovereign wealth funds and shareholder activism: applying the Ryan-Schneider antecedents to determine policy implications
|
[
"Investment funds",
"Corporate governance",
"Shareholders",
"Sovereign wealth funds",
"Shareholder activism"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nI. Introduction: State-owned investment vehicles known as sovereign wealth funds (\"SWFs\") play a significant role in the markets: they fight in highly contested mergers and acquisitions battles, infuse cash into failing banks, and invest in bonds, commodities, currencies, equities, and other asset classes globally. This study focuses on the role of sovereign wealth funds as equity investors; it highlights their impact on corporate governance and applies tested financial models in order to determine the potential propensity of sovereign wealth funds for shareholder activism.As defined by Ryan and Schneider (2002), investor activism is \"the use of power by an investor either to influence the processes or outcomes of a given portfolio firm or to evoke large-scale change in processes or outcomes across multiple firms through the symbolic targeting of one or more portfolio firms.\" Activist behaviors include submitting shareholder proposals, frequently contacting firm management, and voting proxies to oppose management positions (Ryan and Schneider, 2002). Activism can also include letter writing and asking questions at general meetings (Sjostrom, 2008). These behaviors are intended to affect the firm's strategic direction or to indirectly influence them through corporate governance modifications (Ryan and Schneider, 2002).Forms of activism range from cooperative to hostile. Some institutional investors first intervene behind-the-scenes and engage in private negotiations with management. If the tactic fails, the investors may then contact board members and firm advisers. As a last resort, they may go public with their concerns. Public forms of investor activism, which may also be perceived as hostile, include media campaigns, shareholder proposals, and proxy voting (Ryan and Schneider, 2002). Such actions have been classified as \"voice activism\" by Marler and Faugere (2010), who also add exit as a form of activism, where dissatisfied shareholders punish corporate management by selling their shares.In addition to the two types of activism - voice and exist activism - there are two kinds of motivations behind activism. The first type is financial activism, where shareholders pressure the managers and/or directors to improve financial results by spinning off losing business segments, decreasing executive compensation, or issuing more dividends to the shareholders. The second type is social activism, where shareholders are motivated by issues such as labor conditions and the natural environment (Judge et al., 2010).Previous scholarship addressing SWF activism has focused broadly on the potential strategic and political implications of shareholder activism by sovereign wealth funds (Backer, 2010; Rose, 2008; Slawotsky, 2009) and calls for stripping SWFs of shareholder voting rights altogether in order to thwart politically-based equity investments (Gilson and Milhaupt, 2008). To advance the debate about the SWF role on corporate governance, this study applies, for the first time, financial models to SWFs in order to determine whether they have \"built-in\" activist tendencies. The approach is important in order to take out the guessing game from whether SWFs will at some point become activist investors, given that, so far, they have largely been passive players. Relatedly, this study will highlight potential challenges that policymakers face on the issue of regulating SWF activism and will recommend future research topics that could contribute to public policy deliberations.\nII. Sovereign wealth funds: Overview\nIII. The Ryan-Schneider model: The Ryan-Schneider model may be utilized to predict institutional investor activism (Ryan and Schneider, 2002). The model identifies 12 key antecedents/determinants of institutional activism. They are:1. fund size;2. investment time horizon;3. performance expectations;4. pressure sensitivity;5. the size of corporate holding;6. the proportion of the holding in relation to the rest of the portfolio;7. the proportion invested in equities;8. legal restraints;9. the distinction between defined-benefit and defined-contribution in the case of pension funds;10. the distinction between actively or passively managed funds;11. the distinction between internal and external fund management; and12. the retention or release of proxy voting rights.Rubach and Sebora (2009) tested six of the 12 variables utilizing a sample of 102 institutional investors. The sample included private pensions plans, public pension plans, bank trusts, insurance companies, money managers (including mutual funds), foundations and endowments. They found institutional shareholder size, investment time horizon, and internal portfolio management to be significant determinants of institutional shareholder activism. They did not find performance expectations, pressure sensitivity, and legal restraints to be significant antecedents (Rubach and Sebora, 2009).This paper will exclude the three variables in the Ryan-Schneider model that did not pass muster when tested by Rubach and Sebora. It will also exclude the defined-benefit and defined-contribution pension plan variable, as it is not relevant to sovereign wealth funds because SWFs have no explicit pension liabilities and workers do not directly pay into the funds. Accordingly, eight of the 12 Ryan-Schneider variables will be used. These variables will be classified under three categories:1. inherent variables;2. environment-dependant variables; and3. fund-specific variables.Inherent variables\nIV. Discussion: With the exception of Singapore's Temasek and Norway's Government Pension Fund Global, sovereign wealth funds are not generally activist investors. But, based on their size and long investment time horizons, SWFs possess a natural tendency toward shareholder activism. Some are more likely to engage in shareholder activism than others. Sovereign wealth funds with a higher proportion of their assets invested in equities, those with portfolios fully or partially constructed to emulate the broader financial markets through indexing, and those that depend less on external fund managers are the likeliest candidates for activism. Regardless of their propensity toward shareholder activism, however, the legal, regulatory, political, and public opinion environment can curb the natural SWF inclination for activist behavior.As policymakers ponder the regulation of sovereign wealth funds, and, in particular, the SWFs' potential influence over corporate governance structures through shareholder activism, they must take a holistic approach. The calls for vote suspension and golden shares to curb SWF control do not address the heavy utilization of external managers by sovereign wealth funds or their potential usage of exit activism. Furthermore, the calls for SWF vote suspension would essentially make sovereign wealth funds second class shareholders, a feat with potentially adverse consequences. Taking away SWF voting rights - a basic tenet of stock ownership - may drive sovereign wealth funds away from the relatively visible stock markets to the far less transparent ones and may compel SWFs to use hedge funds, which generally favor short term trading strategies over longer term stock ownership and can impact market volatility.Any discussion of SWF regulation must also include their positive role in the markets. During the financial crisis, sovereign wealth funds have helped salvage numerous banking giants. Alienating them may not be the best policy, especially given the still-fragile nature of the world's economies. Additionally, sovereign wealth funds benefit other shareholders (Fernandes and Bris, 2009). Their activism, if allowed and when used for improving corporate governance or directed at maximizing profits, can create wealth for others. This notion is supported by strong empirical evidence suggesting that shareholder activism aimed at improving corporate governance and shareholder rights improves shareholder value (Barber, 2007). The California Public Employees' Retirement System (\"CalPERS\"), for instance, has created enormous wealth for other shareholders by well-reasoned interventions through financial activism (Barber, 2007). This so-called \"CalPERS Effect\" is well-documented in financial literature (Guercio and Hawkins, 1999; Nesbitt, 1994; Smith, 1996; Wahal, 1996). While not a sovereign wealth fund, the CalPERS example can be utilized in future research to examine whether the Effect may be applied to sovereign wealth funds. Temasek Holdings' financially-driven voice activism would be of particular value in such research.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine the propensity of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) for shareholder activism and their potential impact on corporate governance.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The study highlights the relationships between SWFs and corporate governance and also applies eight antecedents/determinants of institutional activism to analyze whether SWFs have a predisposition for shareholder activism.\nFindings: - The study only finds two instances of SWF activism. Additionally, it finds that despite their mostly passive investments, SWFs possess a natural tendency toward shareholder activism. Some are more likely to engage in activism than others, however. SWFs with a higher proportion of their assets invested in equities, those with portfolios fully or partially constructed to emulate the broader financial markets through indexing, and those that depend less on external fund managers are the likeliest candidates for activism. The study also finds that the regulatory environment can curb the natural SWF inclination for activist behavior.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Due to the lack of transparency within the SWF universe, this study largely depends on the limited data available for sovereign wealth funds.\nPractical implications: - Given the growing importance of SWFs, managers, directors, and policymakers must assess SWF activism, its influence on corporate governance, and its implications for public policy deliberations.\nOriginality/value: - This project, to the best of the author's knowledge, is the first study that applies tested financial models to SWFs in order to determine if they have inherent activist tendencies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Citations to chemical databases in scholarly articles: to cite or not to cite?
|
[
"Citation analysis",
"Bibliometrics",
"Database citation",
"Chemical databases",
"Chemistry",
"Scholarly communication",
"SciFinder",
"Reaxys",
"PubChem",
"ChemSpider"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Source citation is fundamental to scholarly work and an essential part of research (Smith, 1981). Citing indicates intellectually honest research. To this end, few peer-reviewed articles in the literature contain no references. Cronin (1984) has pointed out that:Metaphorically speaking, citations are frozen footprints on the landscape of scholarly achievement; footprints which bear witness to the passage of ideas. From footprints it is possible to deduce direction; from the configuration and depth of the imprints it should be possible to construct a picture of those who have passed by, whilst the distribution and variety furnish clues as to whether the advance was orderly and purposive. So it is with citations in respect of the growth and development of scientific knowledge; they give substantive expression to the process of innovation, and, if properly marshalled, can provide the researcher with an analytical tool of seductive power and versatility(p. 25).\nObjectives of the study: The aim of this study is to analyze how chemical databases are referenced in the scientific literature to fuel debate and spark informed discussion on the issue of citing resources for improving scholarly communication. SciFinder is arguably the most comprehensive and trusted index of chemical literature, going back to the 1800s (Chemical Abstracts Service, 2018, 2019; Schenck and Zapiecki, 2014), enabling a search for information by topic, property data, substance and reaction. On average, approximately 7,000 references, 20,000 substances and 400 reactions are added to SciFinder daily (Chemical Abstracts Service, Personal Communication, April 17, 2019). Reaxys (Elsevier, 2018, 2019; Lawson et al., 2014) is a chemical database whose content goes back to the 1700s and combines searchable information from the Beilstein Handbook of Organic Chemistry (containing the most important and reliable structural, physical and chemical data of organic substances); the Gmelin Handbook of Inorganic and Organometallic Chemistry (the inorganic chemistry counterpart to Beilstein); the Elsevier Patent Chemistry Database; and information drawn from other sources, such as selected core chemistry journals. SciFinder and Reaxys are complementary resources in that both are web-based search-and-retrieval systems used to search bibliographic data, substances and reactions. Such resources have a century-long history of information that has now been captured in databases and used by academic and industrial scientists in virtually all areas of chemical research. Historically, the print formats of Chemical Abstracts (ACS Publications, 2007), Beilstein Handbook of Organic Chemistry (Huntress, 1938; Luckenbach, 1981; Richter, 1938) and Gmelin Handbook of Inorganic and Organometallic Chemistry (Becke-Goehring, 1973; Lippert, 1970; Walden, 1954) have been used and cited regularly by chemists. However, the bibliographic and chemical content from these print resources is now accessible in databases such that the content's origins are seldom acknowledged. An issue associated with citing subscription-based databases is that the resource may not be helpful to researchers who do not have a subscription for access to it; however, freely available complementary resources may eliminate that issue.\nMethodology: Clarivate Analytics (2019a) maintains the Web of Science (WoS) database. The WoS Core Collection is part of WoS that incorporates ten indexes including, the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), the Social Sciences Citation Index and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index. The SCIE contains over 8,300 major journals across 150 scientific disciplines and provides access to all cited references from indexed articles. The WoS \"Cited Reference Search\" mode with the SCIE was used in combination with Boolean operators to extract citations to chemical databases from 2000 to 2016 (inclusive). The databases selected for investigation were SciFinder, Reaxys, PubChem and ChemSpider. Searches for each chemical database using the truncation function (*) were respectively performed for SciFinder*, Reaxys*, PubChem* and ChemSpider* using the search fields \"Cited Work\" and \"Cited Author.\" The results from the \"Cited Reference Search\" (i.e. \"Cited Work\" and \"Cited Author\") were combined in the search history of the WoS database. The scholarly journal articles were filtered from other document types and analyzed using the \"Analyze Results\" function in WoS. The incident of citation to each database was compared by document type as well as article citation count by year, country, organization enhanced, journal and WoS subject category. The keyword occurrence for each database (i.e. SciFinder*, Reaxys*, PubChem* and ChemSpider*) was also searched in WoS in the fields of \"Title\" and \"Topic\" from 2000 to 2016 (inclusive). All data were collected between October and November 2018 and further repeated in April 2019 to confirm the reliability of counts.\nFindings and discussion: Document types and time curves of article citations to chemical databases\nLimitations of the study and future work: The study is limited to journals in SCIE from the WoS Core Collection. Although the journals indexed in SCIE are peer-reviewed, they represent only a small portion of all journals in the scientific literature. The study used the database by name and did not consider other citation formats, such as the print versions of the resources or older client software (e.g. Chemical Abstracts, Beilstein, Gmelin or MDL CrossFire). In-text citations to databases were not analyzed, because some researchers cite resources in the text, but not in the reference list. Future work could expand the research to conduct a qualitative analysis of the actual citations as well as to survey chemists on their information-citing behavior toward chemical databases.\nRecommendations from the study: Publishers should develop and agree on a wider database citation policy requirement for implementation to journals.\nConclusion: This study shows that the total number of article citations to SciFinder, Reaxys, PubChem and ChemSpider has steadily increased since 2000. The study determined that authors at academic institutions worldwide reference chemical databases in high-impact journals. Further, many of these journals are from notable publishers covering mainly the field of chemistry and other related fields. The benefits to standardizing the process of database citation would provide supportive evidence for conducting a thorough review; guide researchers and subject librarians to help identify useful resources within subject-specific research fields; make readers aware of the use of specific resource types used in different research fields; acquire evidence through citation statistics to support subscription renewal of a resource by authors' institutions' collection development departments; promote the value of a resource; provide an understanding of scientists' information-seeking behaviors; give credit and recognition to the resource vendor; and maintaining a historical record on the use of different resources.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Chemical databases have had a significant impact on the way scientists search for and use information. The purpose of this paper is to spark informed discussion and fuel debate on the issue of citations to chemical databases.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A citation analysis to four major chemical databases was undertaken to examine resource coverage and impact in the scientific literature. Two commercial databases (SciFinder and Reaxys) and two public databases (PubChem and ChemSpider) were analyzed using the \"Cited Reference Search\" in the Science Citation Index Expanded from the Web of Science (WoS) database. Citations to these databases between 2000 and 2016 (inclusive) were evaluated by document types and publication growth curves. A review of the distribution trends of chemical databases in peer-reviewed articles was conducted through a citation count analysis by country, organization, journal and WoS category.\nFindings: In total, 862 scholarly articles containing a citation to one or more of the four databases were identified as only steadily increasing since 2000. The study determined that authors at academic institutions worldwide reference chemical databases in high-impact journals from notable publishers and mainly in the field of chemistry.\nOriginality/value: The research is a first attempt to evaluate the practice of citation to major chemical databases in the scientific literature. This paper proposes that citing chemical databases gives merit and recognition to the resources as well as credibility and validity to the scholarly communication process and also further discusses recommendations for citing and referencing databases.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Understanding and improving the care pathway for children with autism
|
[
"Care pathways",
"Education",
"Healthcare",
"Quality improvement",
"Autism",
"Improvement"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Globally, public service providers continue to struggle with managing increasing demands coupled with limited or shrinking resources. To provide the level and quality of care expected by service users, providers know they must do something different (Burgess and Radnor, 2013). To date, the focus has largely been on acute services, and the need for easily accessible, user-friendly, patient-centred healthcare delivery (Mercieca et al., 2014). However, with the shift in emphasis to primary care and community services, improvement activity also needs to extend to the wider healthcare system and beyond.\nMethodology: This study used a mixed-methods approach to combine information on optimal service provision with the narratives of service users and providers and produce high-level process maps of the current pathways for ASD.\nResults: The high-level map and the rich picture of the care pathway as described by each group are shown in Figures 1-3. The discussion of the findings below is based on the identified themes from the data and the hotspots; a visual representation of these is given in Figure A1.\nConclusions and recommendations: Our findings highlight differing views of the ASD care pathway, and show the healthcare and educational systems operate independently with little crossover of activity. The expectations of the different professional groups were unclear and it was not apparent they understood their specific roles within the pathway. Parents often assumed the responsibility of coordinating the services in a bid to link the two independent pathways. There also appeared to be a hierarchical relationship between the two systems, with education practitioners delivering interventions day to day but having to rely on healthcare professionals to issue diagnoses to release additional funding or support.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe current care pathways for children with autism including enablers and barriers, as experienced by health professionals, education professionals and families in South Wales, UK.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study is based on a mixed-methods approach using focus group discussions, creative writing workshops and visualisation using rich pictures.\nFindings: The experiences of the care pathways differed significantly across the three groups. Health professionals described the most rigidly structured pathways, with clear entry points and outcomes. Education professionals and parents described more complex and confusing pathways, with parents assuming the responsibility of coordinating the health and education activity in a bid to link the two independent pathways. All three groups identified enablers, although these differed across the groups. The barriers were more consistent across the groups (e.g. poor communication, missing information, lack of transparency, limited post-diagnosis services and access to services based on diagnosis rather than need).\nPractical implications: This research could inform the design of new services which are premised on multi-agency and multi-disciplinary working to ensure children with Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) receive joined up services and support.\nOriginality/value: Although this study did not represent all professional groups or all experiences of autism, the authors examined three different perspectives of the ASD pathway. In addition, the authors triangulated high-level process maps with rich pictures and creative writing exercises, which allowed the authors to identify specific recommendations to improve integration and reduce duplication and gaps in provision.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Is distributed leadership a driving factor of innovation ambidexterity? An empirical study with mediating and moderating effects
|
[
"Knowledge sharing",
"Distributed leadership",
"Connectedness",
"Innovation ambidexterity"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: The business environment faced by enterprises grows increasingly volatile on a daily basis, and firms should be capable of adapting to this environment (Serban and Roberts, 2016). Innovation plays a crucial role in coping with the pressure of such an increasingly competitive situation (Kraft and Bausch, 2016). In the long run, firms must simultaneously engage in exploratory and exploitative activities (Jansen et al., 2006). This concept is often referred to as innovation ambidexterity (Siren et al., 2012). Organizations that can handle these two contradictory activities flexibly will become highly competitive because they are capable of exploiting existing products and processes for short-term returns and exploring new ideas for innovation (Gibson and Birkinshaw, 2004). However, ambidexterity is difficult to achieve for most firms because exploration and exploitation entail distinct skills and divide attention and resources (March, 1991). Given the importance and difficulty of pursuing ambidexterity, researchers focused increasingly on investigating how firms can overcome these hurdles to engaging in both exploratory and exploitative innovation (Kortmann, 2015; Kraft and Bausch, 2016).\n2. Theory and hypotheses: 2.1 DL\n3. Methods: 3.1 Data collection and samples\n4. Data analysis and results: 4.1 Common method bias\n5. Discussion: Although a substantial body of research has emphasized that DL plays a key role in innovation (Rao-Nicholson et al., 2016), the underlying mechanisms that explain how and when DL influences innovation, especially innovation ambidexterity, remain unclear. Consistent with the organizational learning theory, the findings support the predominant view that DL is critical for promoting innovation ambidexterity (Hannah and Lester, 2009), as well as those of recent studies indicating that DL can use different approaches to manage ambidexterity (Rao-Nicholson et al., 2016). DL, as a shared-goal-driven, collaboration-centered practice method, results in the distribution of leadership across the organization or the group in a way that affects the achievement of common goals (Thorpe et al., 2011). This task-oriented approach can introduce flexibility and develop an ambidextrous organization (Cao et al., 2010; Rosing et al., 2011). Consistent with the knowledge creation theory, the results further reveal that DL promotes innovation ambidexterity through promoting knowledge sharing (Cannatelli et al., 2017). DL builds the foundation of a shared purpose, vision, and core values that govern knowledge-sharing activities, and equips the organization with the capability to collect, share, evaluate, and apply organizational knowledge (Zhang and Faerman, 2007). These benefits create opportunities for the learning, application, and creation of new knowledge, which is beneficial for different types of innovation outcomes (Pee and Lee, 2015). Moreover, organizational learning and knowledge creation theory both underline the importance of organizational structure and context. In terms of the relationship between knowledge sharing and innovation ambidexterity, connectedness increases both the quality of knowledge and the integration of information, and may increase the likelihood of finding solutions and improve the quality of these solutions by enhancing the members' ability to identify the ways to recombine the existing knowledge and resources (Mihalache et al., 2014). In this way, connectedness can promote the organizational members' adoption of a frame of mind that values exploration and exploitation. As shown in the results, connectedness magnifies the relationship between knowledge sharing and innovation ambidexterity, thereby providing guiding principles for nurturing informal social interactions and encouraging organizational members to try such interactions. These findings are consistent with what has been suggested by the theoretical arguments of previous studies (Jaworski and Kohli, 1993). However, the non-significant moderating effect of connectedness on the relationship between DL and knowledge sharing further suggests that firms cannot stimulate connectedness to promote knowledge sharing. The failure to stimulate connectedness may come from the firm's inability to sufficiently identify the motivations of the members of the organization, which is necessary to develop knowledge sharing (Hsu et al., 2007).\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how and when distributed leadership (DL) enhances innovation ambidexterity by considering knowledge sharing as a mediator and element of organizational structure as a moderator.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data obtained from 269 questionnaires were analyzed empirically to reveal the relationship of the variables.\nFindings: The results suggest that DL has a positive effect on innovation ambidexterity, and the relationship was partially mediated by knowledge sharing. Connectedness positively moderated the relationship between knowledge sharing and innovation ambidexterity.\nPractical implications: The complexity and ambiguity that organizations often experience increases the difficulty for a single leader to successfully perform necessary leadership functions. The results show that DL is crucial to the promotion of innovation ambidexterity.\nOriginality/value: By building on organizational learning theory and integrating insights from knowledge creation theory, this study extends the prior research by uncovering the mechanism through which DL promotes innovation ambidexterity and the moderating effect of informal organizational structure.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Beyond the negative relation between return and conditional volatility in the wine market: Is fine wine particularly luscious for investors?
|
[
"Economics",
"Econometric model",
"Economic sectors",
"Time series"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Central to empirical asset pricing finance and risk management is to measure and unravel volatility (Andersen et al., 2006). Most asset classes, including commodities, are volatile, and volatility itself is typically time-varying and asymmetric. Ignoring these effects may lead to misleading inferences.\n2. Factors effecting wine prices: While wine literature often indicates that supply factors such as age effects, external quality ratings, climate conditions, grape quality and production technology affect wine prices, it stresses on the crucial role of demand (Hadj et al., 2008).\n3. Review of related literature: 3.1 Hedge and safe haven properties of fine wine\n4. Data: We carried out the empirical investigation with monthly prices of the Liv-ex Fine Wine Investables Index covering the period from January 1988 to September 2013. While daily prices of other Liv-ex fine wine indices are available, they have only shorter data samples. The choice of a Liv-ex index to represent fine wine prices resides in the fact that there is no global wine price similar to that of other commodities such as crude oil or gold. The Liv-ex indices[1] are used by several wine investment funds to value their wine stocks (The Wine Investment Fund in Bermuda, Lunzer Wine Fund in British Virgin Islands, Patrimoine Grands Crus in France, among others). The Fine Wine Investables Index is calculated monthly using Liv-ex mid-prices which are derived from live bids and offers transactions on the London International Vintners Fine Wine Exchange, the global trading platform for investment-grade wine. This sterling-denominated Liv-ex index consists of Bordeaux red wines from 24 leading chateaux, with an in-bottle score of 95-points or above from Robert Parker. The latter gives wine numerical ratings on the basis of a score based on a 50-100-point quality scale, ranging from a vintage score of 50-59 for appalling wines to 96-100 for extraordinary wines. Using the database of Reuters DataStream, we used a total of 309 monthly observations. For each series, we calculated monthly returns as the log differences of monthly prices. Figure 2 represents the level series and returns of fine wine prices. We can see that the return series returns displayed volatility clustering where large changes tend to be followed by further large changes and a series of small changes tend to be followed by further small changes.\n5. Model specification: This section presents the basic econometric model to examine the safe haven property of fine wines. First, we introduce the model to examine time-varying and asymmetric volatility. Second, we address the safe haven property of fine wines by testing the asymmetric term of volatility.\n6. Empirical results: 6.1 Main findings\n7. Conclusion: The recent behavior of the fine wine market compared to conventional assets has increased the need to examine its possible safe haven property and implications for hedging possibilities. Prior literature that focused on return and risk in the wine market has overlooked the asymmetric volatility of fine wine prices. As previous studies consider fine wines to be an asset class on its own, the wine existing literature needs to be extended beyond the simple framework of risk and return trade-off. In this paper, we focused on the asymmetric reaction of wine returns on its volatility to investigate whether the fine wine market serves as a safe haven. Empirical results indicated that the wine market volatility is characterized by asymmetric responses to news. However, the nature of the reported return-volatility relation in the wine market is opposite to that found in the stock market. Positive shocks of wine increase its volatility more than negative shocks, leading to an inverted asymmetric volatility phenomenon. Following Baur (2012), we conjectured that neither the leverage effect nor the volatility feedback can be applied to commodities, including fine wines. Instead, we argued that this effect is related to the safe haven property of wine.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine fine wine's safe-haven status with respect to US equity movements.\nDesign/methodology/approach: We use a generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity model and its variant to measure the asymmetric reaction to positive and negative shocks.\nFindings: Our empirical results show an inverted asymmetric volatility in the wine market; positive shocks increase the conditional volatility more than negative shocks. That is the opposite reaction in the volatility of equity returns occurs in the wine market. As leverage effect and volatility feedback effect do not adequately explain this reaction, we follow the work of Baur (2012) and propose the safe haven effect. Several robustness tests largely confirm the empirical findings, with major implications for wine investors. Finally, we provide further evidence on the benefits of adding wine investments to an equity portfolio through an increase in risk reduction effectiveness.\nResearch limitations/implications: Based on the results of the robustness analysis, the recommendations in terms of including fine wines in portfolios must be issued with caution.\nPractical implications: Our findings are crucial to the needs of market participants who are interested in including wine assets in their equity portfolio.\nOriginality/value: No previous study investigates the safe haven property of fine wine return, and accounts for risk reduction effectiveness when adding wine assets to a portfolio of US equities.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Revisiting the mediating effect of normative commitment in B2B bank relationships in Nigeria
|
[
"Normative commitment",
"Social bonding",
"Satisfaction",
"Advocacy",
"Nigeria",
"Collectivist culture",
"West Africa"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Commitment is well established in building closeness and longevity in business-to-business (B2B) relationships (Morgan and Hunt, 1994; Barnes et al., 2005; Alteren and Tudoran, 2016; Hessling et al., 2018). Its importance has been established in the industrial (Morgan and Hunt, 1994), services (Bansal et al., 2004; Fullerton, 2011, 2014) and of particular relevance to this study, the financial services literature (Ndubisi and Wah, 2005; Aurier and N'Goala, 2010; Ojeme et al., 2016, 2018). Meyer and Allen's (1991) seminal work on employee commitment identified three types of commitment, namely affective commitment (a desired relationship), continuance commitment (a need to stay in the relationship) and normative commitment (should stay in the relationship) (Bansal et al., 2004; Kim et al., 2018). Affective commitment is driven by a customer's emotional attachment to the organisation (Bansal et al., 2004; Fullerton, 2011, 2014; Ojeme et al., 2016, 2018); continuance commitment is underpinned by the customer's calculation of the benefits gained and the cost of leaving the organisation; and finally, normative commitment is driven by the customer's feeling of moral obligation to stay based on the psychological feeling that it is the right thing to do (Bansal et al., 2004; Fullerton, 2011, 2014; Ojeme et al., 2016, 2018).Of the three types of commitment, normative commitment has emerged as the most problematic, often ignored and least understood construct (Bansal et al., 2004; Bloemer and Odekerken-Schroder, 2007; Beatty et al., 2012; Cater and Cater, 2010; Fullerton, 2011, 2014; Ojeme et al., 2016). Fullerton (2014, p. 660) attributes this to the complexity of the construct and calls for scholars not to ignore the normative commitment construct. However, Cater and Zabkar (2009, p. 793) point to \"the fact that multidimensional commitment has mostly been studied in countries that are known to be very individualistic... in these cultures; the normative component is present to a lesser extent and does not significantly influence the continuation of marketing relationships\". This view resonates with Meyer and Parfyonova (2010) in their re-conceptualisation of normative commitment in the workplace. They noted that non-Western societies, predominantly collectivist in nature, can potentially have a greater obligatory commitment relationship than Western countries where the culture is more individualistic in nature. Individuals in a collectivist culture are more likely to internalise in-group values and experience normative commitment as a moral duty to continue a relationship (Meyer and Parfyonova, 2010). This echoes the call from Handelman and Arnold (1999) for marketers to appeal more to the institutional environment in marketing activities; consideration should therefore be given to the social norms defining such an environment.The purpose of this study is to revisit the mediating effect of normative commitment in B2B relationships and to examine this effect within the context of a collectivist culture, namely Nigeria. Accordingly, it responds to the call from Handel and Arnold (1999) and Fullerton (2014) and furthers the work of Meyer and Parfyonova (2010). In addition, previous researches in the areas of commitment, cause-and-effect relationships (Fullerton, 2011, 2014; Bansal et al., 2004) and institutional environment (Handelman and Arnold, 1999) give value to the investigation of the normative commitment model in a Nigerian collectivist business setting. Moreover, using the institutional theory put forward by Handelman and Arnold (1999), the study argues that moral obligatory feelings are most likely to be enhanced and sustained by internalising values of group influence which are prevalent in a collectivist setting (Meyer and Parfyonova, 2010; Hofstede, 1983).The unit of analysis for this study is the relationship between small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and their bank in Nigeria. Two major studies have classified Nigeria's national culture, namely Hofstede (2003) and the GLOBE study conducted by House et al. (2004). Although studies on national cultures have been criticised (see e.g. Venaik and Brewer, 2013), they continue to be the most frequently accepted and cited models by researchers. The characteristics of these studies can vary, but all identify that people belonging to one culture have shared values, beliefs and behaviours that separate them from other people in other countries (Triandis, 1994). These shared traits are revealed in their decisions and behaviour (de Mooij, 2017). Nigeria is positioned in both the aforementioned studies as a collectivist culture underpinned by a strong belief in loyalty, the fostering of long-term commitment and relationships with other members of a group such as family, the extended family and neighbours (Hofstede, 2003; Haffar et al., 2016; Mordi, 2017). This long-term commitment is, for example, illustrated by the attitude to divorce and separation which has been traditionally frowned upon as the needs of individuals are compromised for the benefit of the entire family (Nwadiora, 1996). SMEs have long been recognised as important to economic growth worldwide (Day, 2000) and in developing countries such as Nigeria (Eniola and Ektebang, 2014). In addition, the relationship between SMEs and their bank is of interest to both academics and practitioners, not least because most SMEs rely on their banks for financing (Vegholm, 2011).\nLiterature review: Normative commitment\nMethodology: Measurement items\nResearch findings: Tests of convergence and discriminant validity\nDiscussion: The analysis identified the positive and significant effects of overall satisfaction and social bonding on both normative commitment and advocacy. Overall satisfaction relates to the SME's confirmation of a positive experience with their bank. Such notions included confirmation of frontline service expectations and overall good feelings about the banking relationship. This positive confirmation and feelings are an enhancer of a business mindset of moral duty to stay in the banking relationship. Most studies tend to link satisfaction with the positive affirmative construct, such as affective commitment (Fullerton, 2011; Bansal et al., 2004). The findings from this study suggest that overall positive confirmation of service is an enhancer of a business moral duty to continue in such a relationship. Interestingly, satisfaction predicts advocacy intention and is in line with Fullerton (2011) and Bansal et al. (2004) commitment research. Our study suggests that SMEs are engaging in word-of-mouth behaviour with business partners as long as their overall experience with their customers remains positive. Examining the two pathways of satisfaction in the model suggests that SME's overall satisfaction can both enhance a moral duty mindset and predict advocacy behaviour.Equally, the social bonding pathway is suggestive of a predictive impact on normative commitment and advocacy behaviours. The concept of social bonding examines meaningful associations between the SME and bank account officer. Social bonding engenders a moral obligation when the SME representative feels that strong liking and interpersonal relationship with their bank positively affect moral duty to continue in such relationship. Particularly, this finding is of significance given the high nature of national collectivism in Nigerian. That is, the in-group relationship is of high importance and most likely to be internalised as the right thing to do as opposed to out-group or an individualistic relationship which is mostly likely to be self-seeking attitude (Meyer and Parfyonova, 2010).An assessment of the social bonding pathway to advocacy behaviour indicated a positive relationship. This finding implies that social bonding between the SME and bank can engender a positive feeling on the part of the SMEs to say positive things about their banks to other business partners, family and friends. In so doing, this study supports the work of Wilson (1995) and Rodriguez and Wilson (2002), who stated that the building and strengthening of social ties are important in sustaining long-term business relationships.In terms of normative commitment as a key mediator of advocacy, the study found moral duty to advocate their banks as redundant. This finding contradicts suggestions that normative commitment is a predictive nature of relationship (Fullerton, 2014; Meyer and Parfyonova, 2010). These scholars argued that the moral obligatory aspect to a relationship is significant in engendering long-term positive relational outcomes. Meyer and Parfyonova (2010) contended that collectivist cultures will enhance normative commitment based on the mindset of sensitivity of group values and experience and normative commitment as a moral duty to comply with the relationship. In this study, SMEs ought to have a sense of duty to continue the relationship with their banks and take steps to advocate positive comments to others. Contrarily, normative commitment turned out to be a weaker construct in mediating the relationship SMEs had with their banks. There are a number of reasons that could explain the outcome of this study. The context of this research appears to have influenced the lack of validity of moral obligation for relationship maintenance. SMEs are recognised to have insufficient funds for business sustainability and tend to require financial support from their banks (Baas and Schrooten, 2006; Berger and Udell, 2006); therefore, a relationship based on benefit assessment can be argued to be more relevant than a relationship underpinned by feelings of moral obligation to act on. That is, as SMEs secure financial support towards their operational cost, there is a stronger tendency to advocate (tell) others about such experiences and financial support in business conferences, to business partners, family and friends. Furthermore, the study's findings of redundancy of normative commitment highlight the problem previously identified in the literature. For example, Cater and Zabkar's (2009) study found normative commitment to be insignificant in predicting client's loyalty to a market research service provider in Eastern Europe. Cater and Zabkar (2009) argued that affective commitment that is underpinned by a strong sense of attachment to an organisation (usually referred to as a global commitment construct) is more prevalent in the literature as a key predictor of loyalty behaviour. Others have argued that normative commitment is relevant when associated with affective commitment (positive desire-based relationship) and/or calculative commitment (cost/benefit-based relationship) (Meyer and Parfyonova, 2010). Illustratively, a moral duty mindset may correlate a positive desire-based attachment to relationship continuity (Bansal, et al., 2004). Alternatively, an association of normative commitment/calculative commitment is referred to as moral cause of action based on the indebted benefits of the relationship (Meyer and Parfyonova, 2010). This study's assessment of commitment uniquely from a moral obligation duty orientation perhaps explains why it was ineffective in explaining relationship continuity, particularly when businesses tend to be more rational in decision-making. In other words, when a business just feels that \"I ought\" to stay in a relationship with my bank is necessary, but does not have a sufficient condition to enhance advocating behaviour in terms of telling business partners about such a relationship. It is therefore suggesting that feelings of moral duty remain an internalised business mindset as opposed to telling other professionals about their banks.\nConclusion: This paper proposed a theoretical model that validates how the relationship between SMEs and their bank can be sustained within a collectivist culture, namely Nigeria. The theoretical contribution is that NC appears to be ineffective in B2B relationships in a Nigerian collectivist setting, contrary to the expectation from the literature that NC should be active in an in-group culture and business setting. The proposed model highlights pathways that enhance a positive relationship. In this study, overall satisfaction with the banking relationship served as an enhancer of SME advocacy attitude and behaviour. Equally, overall positive confirmation of the banking relationship supported the SME's feeling of \"I ought to\" continue in the banking relationship. The study also identified that social bonding predicates moral duty and the recommended attitudes and behaviours of the businesses. However, a moral obligatory mindset hypothesised to support positive recommendation was not supported. Such findings indicate that the notion of moral obligation is not robust enough to underpin the relationship.Managerial implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study examines the mediating effect of normative commitment, that is, a customer's feeling of moral obligation to stay in a relationship based on the psychological feeling that it is the right thing to do. Previous studies have neglected normative commitment due to its complexity and poor fit with predominantly Western individualistic cultures.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An empirical study was conducted in the collectivist culture of Nigeria, West Africa. The unit of analysis was the business-to-business (B2B) relationship between small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and their bank.\nFindings: This study arrived at two key findings. First, normative commitment is insignificant in acting as the mediator of a relationship in both overall satisfaction and social bonding on advocacy. Second, overall satisfaction and social bonding are positively significant in predicting normative commitment and advocacy.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study focussed solely on an SME's perception of their relationship with their bank and does not consider the dyadic nature of such relationships, that is, the bank's perception of this relationship.\nPractical implications: This research demonstrates that the SME/bank relationship can be developed based on satisfaction and social bonding as background variables. Caution should be exercised for relationships developed on the basis of a moral obligatory commitment.\nOriginality/value: Regardless of a collectivist cultural setting, normative commitment was found to be ineffective in enhancing relationships in a business-oriented setting in Nigeria, contrary to emerging propositions within the literature.\n",
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The influence of platform service innovation on value co-creation activities and the network effect
|
[
"Value co-creation",
"Service innovation",
"Longitudinal case study",
"Network effect",
"Platform service"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: It has been suggested that \"the wealthiest and most disruptive organizations today are almost all multisided platforms\" (Kelly, 2016, p. 124) and \"platforms will soon be a fact of life for managers and companies\" (Thomas et al., 2014, p. 198). Alibaba is such an online wholesale and retail platform which provides fundamental technology infrastructure and marketing reach to help sellers to connect with buyers. In 2010, it launched a platform-based service called \"Cloud Call Center Service,\" which encourages leading users to serve as online customer service representatives of the Alibaba platform, and related training and certification programs were designed for these people. By 2015, the number of registered external service representatives had increased to 200,000 and they were serving 1,470,000 online stores on the Alibaba platform. This platform service innovation significantly motivated value co-creation activities and stimulated the network effect.\n2. Theoretical motivation: 2.1 Platform services and platform service innovation\n3. Research methodology: 3.1 Case study methodology and the inductive research process\n4. Findings and research propositions: Figure 2 shows the overall relationships among platform service innovations, value co-creation activities, and the network effect at the emergence stage, expansion stage, and maturity stage.\n5. Conclusions and implications: By examining the evolution of four platforms driven by their service innovations, this study offers a new understanding of the micro-mechanisms of how three types of platform service innovation - product innovation, process innovation and business model innovation - affect value co-creation activities and the network effect longitudinally, over the course of the evolution of a platform. Overall, it sheds light on service design and innovation in the platform context and suggests how the network effect can be stimulated by leveraging platform service innovations and value co-creation activities.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the properties of platform service innovation and its relationship to value co-creation activities and the network effect. This is done over the course of a platform's evolution through three stages: emergence, expansion and maturity.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based on grounded theory, this study adopts a multiple case study research design. An in-depth analysis of the case data is done using ATLAS.TI software.\nFindings: At the emergence stage, platform service innovations focus on building infrastructure. Platform owners stimulate the network effect directly via platform service innovations, rather than indirectly via value co-creation activities. At the expansion stage, the platform service innovations focus on building relationships among platform owner and different sides of participants. Platform owners stimulate the network effect indirectly, via value co-creation activities, rather than directly via platform service innovations. At the maturity stage, platform service innovations focus on building an environment for the platform ecosystem. Platform owners stimulate the network effect indirectly, via value co-creation activities rather than directly.\nOriginality/value: This research contributes to the service innovation literature by exploring the properties of platform service innovation and its relationship to value co-creation activities and the network effect from a longitudinal perspective. The principal managerial implication is that platform managers need to consider the developmental stage of the platform, as a mismatching of stage of development (emergence/expansion/maturity) and focus (an orientation toward building infrastructure, relationships or environment) may lead to a failure to stimulate or enhance the network effect.\n",
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Happy employees make happy customers at Elior UK: Contract caterer among Britain's best employers
|
[
"Customer service",
"Hospitality industry",
"Training",
"Empowerment",
"Involvement",
"Awards"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: A contract caterer with the lowest staff turnover in the industry has been named one of the best big companies to work for in the UK by workplace specialists Best Companies.\nOrigins of the eXperience program: Just over a year ago, a focus group of employees and managers defined Elior's eXperience standards - the standards required for employees to ensure a great customer experience.Training and communication materials were produced, including:* flash cards to facilitate discussion around best practice and eXperience standards;* a film showing how to deliver great service; and* credit-card size presenters summarizing the program.The program was launched to 640 site managers at a road-show. Some 570 service champions - employees on site who have been chosen to communicate the standards and training to the rest of the business - have been trained. These champions have since facilitated sessions throughout the 11,000-employee business.Service champions are vital to the program's success. They encourage a culture of sharing, and empower their teams to make changes rather than telling them what needs to be done.Progress is checked regularly with service champions. Advice and support are offered while they pass best practice on to their teams.The training program is built around Elior's employees. Their input and buy-in have been instrumental to its success.The program is delivered in 20 short, interactive modules, facilitated by service champions to colleagues on-site using games, cartoons and practical tasks that bring the modules to life. The service champions help to ensure that all employees know what is expected of them and that they are equipped to deliver an excellent customer experience.Each service champion coaches his or her team to make sure that standards are maintained and that an excellent customer experience is being delivered on-site. Service champions also hold regular meetings to review customer feedback and to look for ways to build on the standards and make the customer experience even better.Arran McDowell, Elior UK's HR director, commented: \"There is a definite benefit to having eXperience delivered by a member of the team. It makes people feel that they are in charge of their own personal development and creates a less-formal atmosphere that allows everyone to relax and speak their minds.\"As the eXperience program grows, additional modules will continue to be added, to keep Elior's customer experience relevant.\nResults of the program: Michele Moore, head of people development, and the team are already seeing great results:* Elior has the lowest staff turnover in the industry - 19 percent compared to an industry average of 40 percent. This figure has dropped from 22 percent - a reduction on 3 percent year on year that can, in part, be attributed to the customer-service strategy.* Employees are taking pride in their roles. This is being noted by Elior clients and customers. One said: \"At Waterstone's Liverpool, Joseph, who was fantastic during the champion training sessions, has taken this back to the site. We have already had two customers comment on the fantastic service. One actually said that the staff made the coffee shop the best in Liverpool.\"* Elior is now offering all its service champions a National Vocational Qualification in customer service. More than 80 have so far taken up the offer.* Site managers were surveyed within the first six months of the launch of the program. They were already noticing results driven by a more engaged team. Almost 80 percent had noticed a significant attitude change. Some 78 percent commented on better client relationships. Around 80 percent reported more effective interaction with customers. And 99 percent commented upon better teamwork on site.Elior's focus on its people is raising standards for all across the food-service industry:* Customers get delight, pleasure and service with a smile.* Clients get the reassurance that the whole experience reflects their ethos, high standards and care for the people that matter to them.* Staff get careers in an organization that recognizes their importance to the business and supports them.* Suppliers get to work closely with an organization that celebrates great food and drink and supports their contribution to sustainability and local sourcing.Elior now has an engaged workforce, which puts customers at the heart of the operation to effectively meet their needs.\nCustomer-satisfaction measurement tool: In January 2012 a comprehensive customer-satisfaction measurement tool - believed to be the first of its type in the market - was introduced to evaluate the success of the training and the level of customer experience delivered on site.The tool combines three elements delivered by customer-satisfaction specialist Market Force: mystery-shopper visits, online surveys and paper surveys.Mystery shoppers visit sites on a monthly basis to evaluate the whole experience provided on site and give feedback on the customer \"journey\". The latest round of mystery shoppers scored Elior sites at 86.1 percent.Customers on-site are offered prizes to provide feedback on Elior's sites online. This can be done on a bespoke website or by scanning a code and completing a questionnaire.At sites where online surveying is not permitted or practical - for example, in care homes and schools - paper-based surveys are used to gather feedback.Some 95 percent received service when they needed it, 94.1 percent said the staff member met their needs and 81.3 percent said the staff member was friendly and built up a rapport.This research has shown that happy customers are spending an average of PS1.36 more than unhappy customers, so a great experience directly links to sales.Elior scored an average of 76.3 percent - 1.3 percent above target - across all feedback methods. There has been a huge improvement in employee confidence.A client at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority noted: \"I have noticed a positive difference in Maia's confidence and customer service over the last few visits to the cafe. I do not know how much this is to do with Sue's training and the new customer-service program, but I suspect it is working and hope that Maia continues to grow in confidence.\"Tracey El Sayed, of the NCR Corporation, commented: \"I just wanted to feed back to you how refreshing it is to receive such great service from the Elior team at the cyber cafe. It is all delivered with a can-do attitude and smile. It is an absolute pleasure to do business with them\"\nComments of service champions: Carole Fudger, service champion at the Royal National Institute for the Blind, Peterborough, said: \"Being a service champion has really increased my confidence and brought me out of myself. The training has helped me to explain and pass on to others how to make our customers happy.\"The eXperience program encourages me and the team to take time to make our customers feel special. The customers are smiling back at us - we know most of their names and they appreciate it when we remember their likes and dislikes.\"It has been great to get the feedback from them. They say I cannot leave because they would miss me too much, which is a lovely feeling for me.\"We now work more closely as a team. At our regular meetings we are happy to give each other feedback, talk about our service and discuss how we can help our customers more.\"Sales are up. Customers are coming back and we are gaining new ones.\"One customer said that I am wonderful with the customers like her, remembering what they like and always with a smile. That is why they come in, which makes me feel like we are appreciated here.\"Ethan Dewitt-Bukater, area customer champion and eXperience master trainer on the Tesco contract, commented: \"Being a customer champion is something I am really proud of. It is all about getting the best out of the team members and ensuring that their personalities and passion shine through to our customers. The positive feedback and recognition received from our clients and the external awards our team has won for customer service prove it works.\"A third service champion commented: \"I knew that I had a good rapport with my customers, but thought nothing of it, and had no idea what being a service champion entailed.\"I soon found out. Over two days, I attended a course with a group of like-minded people from other sites in the area. We were shown how to help our teams to achieve the same level of success as we did at providing excellent customer service.\"There is a definite benefit to this being delivered by a member of the team as opposed to someone external or even a site manager. It makes for a less-formal event, enabling the team members to relax and speak their minds. I feel proud to be a service champion and hope that I can make a difference to my team and the company with what I have learned and what I can pass on to others.\"Feedback from site managers is also excellent. \"A number of clients have remarked on the improvement and how this has been noticed by their workforce and has helped with their company morale,\" said one. \"The Marketforce information has helped to strengthen our position with clients as we have been able to certificate great service.\"\nElior benefits commercially: There are increased sales and profitability at sites where customer feedback is positive. The company has won a contract extension at Linklaters, Inmarsat, and Port Vale, and new contracts at Henley College Coventry, Wiltshire County Council and Michelin Tyres.Consistently top-performing locations, in terms of customer feedback, have enjoyed month-on-month growth since the inception of the program. Employees are happier, staying in their roles and embracing the training.Tim Hammond concluded: \"The eXperience program and our emphasis on two-way communication give our employees a sense of inclusion and are a huge part of our culture. We may be a big organization but every employee has an identity, is referred to by name and affects the customer experience through his or her daily roles.\"Any organization can copy another's ways of working, but you cannot copy their culture and what makes people feel proud. And, it might sound simple, but happy employees equal happy customers.\"\nNote: David Pollitt, Human Resource Management International Digest editor, wrote this article.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to explain that Elior UK, a contract caterer with the lowest staff turnover in the industry, has been named one of the best big companies to work for in the UK by workplace specialists Best Companies.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - It examines the reasons for the award, concentrating on the eXperience training program that helps to deliver service excellence.\nFindings: - The paper describes the reasons for the program, the form it takes and the results it has helped Elior to achieve. It highlights the role of the company's service champions in delivering the training.\nPractical implications: - The paper reveals that customers get delight, pleasure and service with a smile; clients get the reassurance that the whole experience reflects their ethos, high standards and care for the people that matter to them; staff get careers in an organization that recognizes their importance to the business and supports them; and suppliers get to work closely with an organization that celebrates great food and drink and supports their contribution to sustainability and local sourcing.\nSocial implications: - It highlights how service-industry jobs - often marked by poor working conditions and high employee turnover - can be transformed into attractive careers for the long term.\nOriginality/value: - The paper gives the inside story of a training program that is transforming customer service and bringing significant commercial benefits into the bargain.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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Young parents' personal and social information contexts for child feeding practices: An ethnographic study in British Columbia, Canada
|
[
"Uncertainty",
"User studies",
"Information studies",
"Information services",
"Generation and dissemination of information",
"Individual behaviour",
"Models",
"Information research",
"Personal needs"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Food is a basic human need, yet feeding practices are socially, politically, and morally situated. Health issues across the lifespan, ranging from type 2 diabetes to osteoporosis, are linked to food consumption, placing dietary guidance within the purview of government, schools, mass media, and health care systems. Parents - most often mothers - are targeted by \"healthy eating\" messages with the goal of improving child and maternal health. Mothers are expected to actively seek information and accept unsolicited advice (McKenzie, 2002, 2006; O'Kay and Hugh-Jones, 2010; Stearns, 1999).\n2. Related work: Research on parents' information behaviors has focused on the role of information in the feeding intentions of women pregnant with twins (McKenzie, 2006), pregnancy-related information needs of low-income mothers (Shieh et al., 2009), breastfeeding discourse in public health education materials (Wall, 2001), the everyday life information needs of new mothers (Loudon et al., 2016), playgroups as information grounds (Tardy, 2000), and sources of information influencing introducing infants to solid foods (Arden, 2010; O'Kay and Hugh-Jones, 2010). Common in all of these studies is the ambiguity of parenting information sources. Incomplete knowledge, contradictory information, and difficulties deciphering norms and values within a given setting create uncertainty in parenting practices (Boholm et al., 2013) and are compounded by \"intensive mothering\" ideologies in western society (Hays, 1996).\n3. Methods: 3.1 Research Participants\n4. Findings: McKenzie (2003), amongst other LIS scholars, has posited that information is not always actively sought; individuals may stumble upon information or have it arrive unsolicited (and unwanted) in everyday life settings. McKenzie's two-dimensional model describes how people connect and interact with information. Derived from her work with expectant mothers of twins, this framework was suited to this study. In the highly surveilled and stigmatized lives of YPs some of the more active forms of interacting and connecting with information were curtailed by YPs' lack of autonomy or authority, insufficient resources, and need to comply with rules and social norms. In the following section, McKenzie's modes of interacting and connecting with information (i.e. active seeking, active scanning, non-directed monitoring, and by proxy) are explored with respect to YPs child feeding practices. These modes are then considered according to what McKenzie called the \"individual-in-context,\" where various factors are described that constrain YPs use of information to make child feeding decisions.\n5. Discussion: The YPs in this study described negotiating breastfeeding, formula feeding, and the introduction of solid foods within a heavily surveilled atmosphere with different and conflicting levels of information and other supports. Child feeding practices were informed by active seeking, active scanning, non-directed monitoring, and by proxy, but these manifested somewhat differently for YPs than for the older expectant mothers upon whom McKenzie's original model was derived. Child feeding decisions, and use of child feeding information and recommendations, were influenced by a host of physical, financial, and social factors, as such practices are situated within familial and education environments, as well as broader social and policy discourses.\n6. Conclusions: This study used McKenzie's two-dimensional model to paint a richer picture of YPs' information practices related to child feeding, and the role of their physical, geographical, financial, and social contexts. The findings demonstrated that active seeking by YPs was often discouraged by authorities, and more passive practices of information encountering and receipt of information from proxies were accepted and expected. In alignment with previous research, child feeding was affected by conflicting information and intensive parenting ideologies. However, these issues were amplified for YPs. As Laantera et al. (2011) noted in their study of breastfeeding counseling, \"[p]rofessionals and lay supporters do not always understand that supporting women is not the same as giving advice to them\" (p. 78). These study findings suggest that child feeding informational support should, rather than being universally prescriptive, take into account the complexities of YPs' relationships and daily lives, as well as the social structures that shape their experiences as parents.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to utilize McKenzie's two-dimensional model of information practices to situate child feeding practices as complex, socially situated information practices. Further, the authors examined a host of contextual factors (financial, physical, and social) that enabled and constrained information practices within the tightly controlled environment that defines the lives of young parents (YPs).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Methods of investigation were ethnographic in nature and data collection methods included naturalistic observation and interviews in two communities in British Columbia, Canada over a period of several years. Data collection and analysis was ongoing. During the initial stages of data analysis, a conventional approach to content analysis was used to identify key concepts, preliminary themes, and illustrative examples. Working within the broader category of child feeding practices, the authors used a constant comparative process of directed content analysis to identify sub-themes, namely, distinct physical, social, and financial influences on child feeding practices.\nFindings: The YPs in this study described negotiating breastfeeding, formula feeding, and the introduction of solid foods within a heavily surveilled atmosphere with different and conflicting levels of support and information. The findings demonstrated that active seeking by YPs was often discouraged by authorities, and more passive practices of information encountering and receipt of information from proxies were accepted and expected.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study used McKenzie's two-dimensional model to paint a richer picture of YPs' information practices and their physical, geographical, financial, and social contexts.\nPractical implications: These findings suggests that child feeding informational support should, rather than being prescriptive, take into account the complexities of YPs' relationships and daily lives, as well as the social structures that shape their experiences as parents.\nSocial implications: Child feeding practices are influenced by a host of physical, financial, and social factors, and are situated within familial and education environments, as well as broader social and policy discourses.\nOriginality/value: This research utilized McKenzie's two-dimensional model of information practices with a sample of YPs. Evidence suggested that child feeding practices were informed by active seeking, active scanning, non-directed monitoring, and by proxy, but these manifested differently for YPs than for the older expectant mothers upon whom McKenzie's original model was derived. Using ethnographic methods, the authors situated child feeding practices as complex information practices that are informed by conflicting information, physical, social, and financial factors and intensive parenting ideologies. This reinforces the need for information science researchers to understand contextual factors that influence practices.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
So you're thinking of buying an ERP? Ten critical factors for successful acquisitions
|
[
"Manufacturing resource planning",
"Computer software",
"Critical success factors"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software is a suite of application modules that can link back-office operations to front-office operations as well as internal and external supply chains. It conjoins functional areas and business processes in an integrated environment that provides a broad scope of applicability for organizations (Verville and Halingten, 2001; PricewaterhouseCoopers, 1998). While considered a viable alternative to in-house development (Verville, 2000; Eckhouse, 1999; McNurlin and Sprague, 1998), the acquisition of ERP software is not without its challenges. It is considered a high-expenditure activity that consumes a significant portion of an organization's capital budget. It is also an activity that is fraught with a high level of risk and uncertainty. Why? Because, first of all, if a wrong purchase is made, it can adversely affect the organization as a whole, in several different areas and on several different levels, even to the point of jeopardizing the very existence of the organization. This highlights the obvious need for making the right choice of software. It also brings to light the need for finding the best means for acquiring this type of software so that the right choice can be made (Verville and Halingten, 2001; Hill, 1999).In light of these concerns, a research project was undertaken to determine the best way to acquire ERP software. However, with little research found on the topic of ERP acquisitions, it first became necessary to find out what indeed the process is that organizations go through to buy ERP software (Esteves and Pastor, 2001).The focus of this paper, then, is on the critical success factors of the acquisition process for ERP software. The paper will begin with a literature review and continue with the research methodology used for the study. Finally, the critical success factors expressed by the practitioners will be presented.\nLiterature review: A review of the literature in the field of MIS shows that research conducted in the area of ERPs has concentrated on implementation and post-implementation issues (Esteves and Pastor, 2001; Verville, 2000). The type of problems and issues that arise from the implementation of ERP systems range from specific issues and problems that can come up during the installation of an ERP, to behavioral, procedural, political, and organizational changes, etc., that manifest subsequent to the installation. For instance, Gibson et al. (1999) argue that ERP implementation requires a different approach which focuses on business process design, software configuration and project management by de-emphasizing the technical side of implementation. Another research area is that of organizational change. In this area, Boudreau and Robey (1999) present a framework to guide research on ERP-related organizational transition (i.e. organizational change as a process). Another study by Koh et al. (2000) uses a framework, based on a process theory approach, to understand and explain the ERP implementation experiences of organizations. Another subject of research within the area of organizational change is the roles of individuals within organizations. In this vein, Davenport (1998) states that ERP implementation process roles, responsibilities and skill sets change substantially from those associated with a traditional implementation. Other interesting topics for research include user buy-in, commitment (management, team, organization, etc.), ERP adoption, leadership, organizational culture, stakeholders, organizational learning, organizational effectiveness, business process modeling, ERP development issues, and communications, to name but a few (Chwen et al., 2004; Verville and Halingten, 2003a, b; Chung and Snyder, 2000; Everdingen et al., 2000; Kumar and Hillegersberg, 2000; Lee and Lee, 2000; Markus et al., 2000; Stafyla and Stefanou, 2000; Soh et al., 2000; Glover et al., 1999; Miranda, 1999; Riper and Durham, 1999; Sutcliffe, 1999; Appleton, 1997; Best, 1997).As for the literature that combines critical success factors and ERP software, all the articles (Al-Mashari et al., 2003; Akkermans and Van Helden, 2002; Hong and Kim, 2002; Nah et al., 2001; Soliman et al., 2001; Scott and Vessey, 2000; Bingi et al., 1999; Holland and Light, 1999) explicitly focus on the critical success factors for the implementation process.The issue of the acquisition process for ERP software is for the most part being ignored. This issue is important, however, because as the stage preceding the implementation process, it presents the opportunity for both researchers and practitioners to examine all of the dimensions and implications (benefits, risks, challenges, costs, etc.) of buying and implementing ERP software prior to the commitment of formidable amounts of money, time and resources. Hence, a clearer understanding of the critical factors could amount to substantial savings in terms of economics (actual cost), time, and improved administrative procedures, and could lessen the risk and uncertainty associated with the acquisition of these types of systems (Verville, 2000).Verville and Halingten (2003a, b) divide the acquisition process into six stages:1. the planning process;2. the information search process;3. the (pre-)selection process;4. the evaluation process;5. the choice process; and6. the negotiation process.During the planning process, the acquisition team is formed. This team plans and addresses as many issues as possible related with the other stages. During the information search stage, information about technologies and vendors is not only found, but screened, and its sources are evaluated. During the (pre-)selection process, a short list of possible vendors and technologies is created. The elements of this list will be evaluated in the next stage. They include a vendor evaluation, a functional evaluation and a technical evaluation. The choice stage is the result of the evaluation process. A final recommendation is made. It will finally be followed by a negotiation process, which could be concluded by a final contract.\nResearch methodology: The research strategy for this study was a multiple-case design with three organizations that had completed the purchase of ERP software. This approach provided the means for an in-depth analysis of the construct of the ERP software acquisition process. This approach was particularly well suited for this study because it unveiled a multitude of factors and dimensions that make the acquisition of ERP software such a complex process. The rationale for the multiple-case design was that as a research strategy, the focus could be directed to understanding the dynamics and complexities present within each case, these being the processes, critical issues, and influences of the software acquisition within the organization (Yin, 1989; Miles and Huberman, 1994).Site selection for the study was made according to the following criteria:* the acquisition had a significant impact on the organization;* the acquisition was significant, totalling several hundred thousand dollars or more;* the type of packaged solution that was acquired was of a complex nature such as ERPs;* the acquisition was a new purchase; and* the acquisition of the software was recently completed.Data collection consisted of semi-structured interview questions. Interviews were conducted with 15 individuals, each lasting approximately one hour and 15 minutes. The three organizations (pseudonymously named, with the exception of Keller) are described below.OMEGA\nCritical success factors: It is noted that one critical factor alone is not going to make the ERP acquisition process a success. It is rather the combination of several critical factors that will result in its successful outcome. Table I gives an overview of the critical success factors. They can be divided into two groups:1. factors related to the acquisition as process; and2. factors related to people within the process.Planned and structured process\nConclusion: The acquisition of ERP systems is a complex task fraught with a high level of risk and uncertainty. It is important, therefore, to understand which critical factors would lead to a successful ERP acquisition outcome. This study identified ten factors critical to the successful outcome of an ERP acquisition. Their omission would have resulted in a less than optimal outcome for the organization. For each of the three cases, the acquisition of ERP software was a new experience. Hence, each organization planned and structured an acquisition process that would provide them with a sense of order, control, and direction. Omega's Project Manager, for example, stated that his teams attributed their project's success to the fact that the process was very structured and well planned. In addition, in all three cases, a \"partnership\" approach was adopted by the teams (organizations) with the vendors (for a long-term relationship) and, specifically in the cases of OMEGA and Keller, the user community(ies) within their organizations. OMEGA's Project Director stated that the creation of a \"partnership approach (internally) with the various user communities, [let] them come up with a recommendation that they felt comfortable with\", and led to the users giving their full buy-in to the acquisition. Thus, user buy-in for both OMEGA and Keller was considered by each of these organizations to be very important to the successful outcome of their acquisition process. According to Keller's Plant Manager, they wanted to have full user buy-in to ensure the success of the acquisition and hence, they involved the users early in the process. All in all, in each of the cases, a clear and unambiguous authority was essential to a successful outcome.While each CSF is important, it should be noted that no one CSF alone is going to make an ERP acquisition successful. It is rather the combination of several critical factors that will result in its successful outcome.The next phase of research will aim at comparing these critical success factors with those found in the literature regarding the implementation of ERPs in order to answer the following questions:* Are they comparable?* Do they complement each other?An analysis of the CSFs from both areas will lead us to a more integrated view of ERP's key management issues and will span ERP's life cycle from acquisition to implementation.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to present a discussion of the critical success factors (CSF) that affect the acquisition process for enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The research strategy was a multiple-case design with three organizations that had recently completed the acquisition of an ERP solution. The rationale for the multiple-case design was that, as a research strategy, the focus could be directed to understanding the dynamics and complexities present within each case, these being critical success factors of the ERP software acquisition process within the organization.\nFindings: - This study identified ten factors critical to the successful outcome of acquiring an ERP solution. Their omission would have resulted in a less than optimal outcome for the organization. For each of the three cases, the elements that stand out the most are as follows: clear and unambiguous authority, a structured, rigorous and user-driven process, its planning, the establishment of criteria, and the sense of partnership that the team works to establish not only with various user commitments, but also with the potential vendor.\nOriginality/value: - It is important to note that no one CSF alone is going to make an ERP acquisition successful. It is rather the combination of several critical factors that will result in its successful outcome.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Revisiting the price-volume relationship: a cross-currency evidence
|
[
"Volume",
"Price",
"Currency futures"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Many of the fundamental variables such as interest rates differentials, money supplies and balance of payments were the primary determinants of exchange rates under the fixed exchange rates regime (Mougoue and Aggarwal, 2011). However, none of these fundamentals are able to explain the increased variability in the exchange rates in the floating periods at least in the short- or medium term (Frankel and Rose, 1994). Therefore, to account for the lack of explanations, other alternative models are required which would be doing well in modeling the changes in exchange rates. One such potential area of research is the market microstructure models where trading volume, among other variables, better explains the movements in exchange rates (Lyons, 2001). The price-volume relation contains information about market structures (Karpoff, 1987) and helps decide upon the success or failure of futures contracts.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Contemporaneous returns-volume relationship\n3. An overview of the Indian currency futures market: The currency derivative segment (CDS) of NSE is called National Exchange for Automated Trading (NEAT)-CDS) trading system, which provides a fully automated screen based trading on a nationwide basis and at the same time an online monitoring and surveillance mechanism as well. The NEAT-CDS is an order driven market where the orders match automatically on the price and time basis. An order is an active order the time it enters the trading system. As soon as it finds a match on the opposite side of the book, a trade is generated. The contracts traded on NSE have a 12-month expiry cycle. All the contracts expire two days before the last two working days of every expiry month (subject to holidays) when the contract ceases to trade at 12.00 noon. Simultaneously a new contract would appear with an expiry of 12 months ensuring the availability of 12 monthly contracts for trading at all points in time. The final settlement day is the last working day (except Saturdays) of the expiry month.\n4. Data description: The data for all the currency futures series has been taken from NSE which represent the daily settlement prices along with trading volume. The first trade in the currency futures in India started on August 29, 2008 when NSE introduced the USD-INR currency pair. Therefore, for USD-INR, the data ranges from August 29, 2008 to December 29, 2014 with a total of 1,518 daily observations. Riding on the huge success of the USD-INR futures trading, later, in 2010, NSE launched the contracts for other currency pairs (e.g. EUR-INR, GBP-INR and JPY-INR) as well. Therefore, the range of data for all other currencies is less (from February 1, 2010 to December 29, 2014), that is, a total of 1,188 daily observations. The exchange rates are denominated as Indian rupees per unit of foreign currency except for Japanese yen which is represented as Indian rupees per 100 units of Japanese yen.\n5. Methodology and empirical results: 5.1 Contemporaneous relationship between returns and volume\n6. Cross-currency causal relationship: This section examines the causal relationships among futures returns, volatility and trading volume across currencies. Table IV presents the results of Granger causality between future returns and trading volume while Table V for Granger causality between volatility and trading volume across currencies. I document following interesting observations.\n7. Robustness tests: In this section, I investigate the robustness of my results considering some major events happening in the Indian currency futures market which could have induced structural changes in the data. For instance, on December 15, 2011, the RBI prohibited the rebooking of forward contracts on the Indian rupee[8]. Further, on July 8, 2013, RBI disallowed the proprietary trading by Category-I banks and Securities and Exchange Board of India decreased the position limits and raised the margins on currency futures contracts traded on exchanges[9]. To examine the impact of these major events on my results, I classify the data into three sub-periods. I break the data first on December 15, 2011 and then on July 8, 2013 for all futures contracts.\n8. Conclusion: This paper investigates the relationship between futures returns and their volatility and trading volume by using the daily data for four currency futures contracts USD-INR, EUR-INR, GBP-INR and JPY-INR. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first study to examine the relationship between futures returns (and volatility) and trading volume using the data on currency futures contracts from the NSE where currency futures trading was introduced only in August 2008.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the contemporaneous and causal relationship between returns (volatility) and trading volume in the Indian currency futures market for selected currency pairs; USD-INR, EUR-INR, GBP-INR and JPY-INR, from August 2008 to December 2014.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The data for all the currency futures series has been taken from National Stock Exchange of India Limited which represents the daily settlement prices along with trading volume. The contemporaneous returns-volume relation is tested using the generalized method of moments, and Granger-causality framework impulse response function is used to test the predictive ability of returns (volatility) and volume for each other.\nFindings: The author reports a positive contemporaneous relationship between futures returns and trading volume which persists even after controlling for heteroskedasticity providing support to mixture of distribution hypothesis. The results show a unidirectional Granger causality from futures returns to volume. However, there is a significant bidirectional Granger causality between returns volatility and volume lending support to sequential arrival of information hypothesis. Next, the results for cross-currencies show significant influence of US dollar on the volume and returns of all other currencies. Overall, the author suggests that the short- to medium-term movements in the currency markets are dominated by market microstructure and not by fundamentals.\nPractical implications: The findings of this paper are very important for the participants in the market and regulators. The participants in the market require alternatives to diversify their risk. The significant relationship between futures returns (volatility) and trading volume implies that the current trading volume help predict the futures prices and should lead to creation of more reliable hedging strategies for investment purposes. Further, it may interest the regulators who need to decide upon the appropriateness of their policies in the currency futures market. Based on returns-volume relation, they need to set forth market restrictions such as daily price movement and position limits.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the knowledge, no study has yet investigated the forecast ability of trading volume to price changes and their volatility in the Indian currency futures market. Given that currency futures market is one of the largest markets in the world, and Indian rupee has seen wide fluctuations in the recent years, it seems exciting to explore the price-volume relationship in the Indian currency futures market.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The influences of contract structure, contracting process, and service complexity on supplier performance
|
[
"Service contract",
"B2B services",
"Perceived supplier performance",
"Service complexity",
"Service purchasing",
"Transaction cost economics (TCE)"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Reflecting the global transition of industrial firms' business models toward increasing reliance on services, service purchasing has become a more salient activity in inter-organizational exchange (Axelsson and Wynstra, 2002; Pemer et al., 2014; Van Der Valk and Wynstra, 2012). This transition gives rise to the rationale that companies can improve their performance by focusing on their core activities while letting specialist service providers take care of other activities (Ellram et al., 2008; Stouthuysen et al., 2012). Hence, there is an increasing need for companies to improve their service purchasing.\n2. Theory and hypotheses: 2.1 Perceived supplier performance\n3. Methodology: Since the focus of the study is on the effects between the observed constructs, it uses a quantitative research approach. Among the four principal research strategies of the experiment, field research, survey and archival data (Singleton and Straits, 2009), the survey research design is the most suitable. Experiments are difficult to arrange, suitable archival data on service purchasing could not be found, and conducting enough case studies to allow quantitative analysis requires immense resources. Quantitative survey is an effective research strategy because the phenomenon of service contracting has already been studied in the case study literature (Forza, 2002; Singleton and Straits, 2009). The constructs that are not specific to the B2B service context (perceived supplier performance and three control variables) used in this study are well-defined in the literature. Other constructs (definition of responsibilities, performance criteria, incentives and follow-up management) and the relationships between contracting and performance are generally well-established in previous case studies. Building on the research on contracting, this study develops a research model and empirically tests it through the data collected.\n4. Results: 4.1 Description of respondents\n5. Discussion: 5.1 The effects of contract structure on perceived supplier performance\n6. Conclusions: This study examines the effects of contract structure and follow-up management on supplier performance from the perspective of TCE in the context of global B2B services. It also investigates the moderating effects of service complexity in these relationships. In so doing, the present study extends the explanatory power of TCE by developing and empirically testing a research model that covers essential aspects of service contracting structure and the contracting process. Based on an analysis of data collected from 177 purchasing professionals in 25 countries, the study makes four contributions to the literature of service purchasing.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: To build a more comprehensive understanding of factors affecting the success of service contracting, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the influences of service complexity, contract structure and contracting process on the buyer-perceived supplier performance in business-to-business (B2B) services.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A research model is developed based on transaction cost economics and the research on service contracting. The model is tested by the survey data collected. Professional focus groups on LinkedIn are used to generate the list of potential respondents. The sample consists of 177 purchasing professionals from 25 countries.\nFindings: The results indicate that three major contract dimensions and follow-up management practices positively influence buyer-perceived supplier performance. Furthermore, service complexity amplifies the effects of incentives designed in the contract and the buyer's follow-up contract management on perceived supplier performance.\nResearch limitations/implications: The sample consists of respondents from 25 countries and provides good geographic coverage. However, the results should be generalized with caution because not all countries were represented equally.\nPractical implications: The study suggests a framework and guidelines for purchasing managers to improve the design and management of service contracts to secure good performance from their supplier.\nOriginality/value: This paper contributes to understanding the performance-enhancing aspects of designing and monitoring service contracts in B2B contexts. It also adds to the knowledge of the role of service complexity in successful B2B service purchasing.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Risk factors contributing to truck drivers' non-driving occupational accidents
|
[
"Risk management",
"Interview",
"Stakeholder",
"Safety management",
"Critical incidence technique",
"Occupational accident",
"Truck driver",
"Work outside the cab"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In addition to the actual driving, truck drivers inspect and maintain their equipment, refuel and load, unload and secure the cargo. Often, they are also responsible for the associated paperwork. To accomplish their tasks, they enter and exit from the cab or trailer repeatedly during a workday (Apostolopoulos et al., 2014; Olson et al., 2009; Smith and Williams, 2014). Thus, truck drivers carry out both static driving and manual work (Wioland, 2013). High prevalence of work-related musculoskeletal disorders, and high accident rates are associated with the trucking industry globally. Furthermore, the constant need for a skilled workforce is emphasised (Apostolopoulos et al., 2010; Douglas and Swartz, 2016; Shibuya et al., 2010; Smith and Williams, 2014; van der Beek, 2012). Driving, road safety, and vehicle accidents have been discussed in various studies, such as the ones by Corsi et al. (2014) and Mitra (2016). However, in the present study, we focus on a seldom-studied part of truck drivers' work that is related to their tasks outside the cab. Several studies (see Chandler et al., 2017; Friswell and Williamson, 2010; Reiman et al., 2015; Shibuya et al., 2010; Wioland, 2013) have shown that the vast majority of these occupational accidents (referred to below simply as accidents) occur while performing tasks outside the cab.\nBackground: Transportation work contains special characteristics. During each workday and work shift, a truck driver encounters different variables, such as the routes, weather, traffic conditions and different delivery locations, thus making each workday and shift different (Douglas and Swartz, 2017). The mode of the transportation also poses varying challenges. For instance, the tasks involved in local and short hauls (L/SH) differ from those when driving long distances. In addition, practices at the home terminal may differ; for example, the driver may participate in loading, or this may be done by terminal workers. Rough estimations by, for example, Hanowski et al. (2000) and Salmoni et al. (2008), indicate that in L/SH operations only about one-third of the work associated with such operations involves actual driving, the remainder being performed outside of the truck cab.\nMaterial and methods: Because our focus was to obtain a nuanced and detailed in-depth understanding of the participants' experiences of accidents in an attempt to identify contributing factors, a qualitative and inductive approach was considered appropriate. This study was pre-approved by the regional ethical review board at Karolinska Institute, Stockholm.\nResults: Factors contributing to CIs\nDiscussion: Previous investigations have consistently shown that the vast majority of occupational accidents involving truck drivers occur outside the cab, which is why we chose to focussed on such work and did not consider traffic accidents. Swedish truck drivers who had been involved in an accident were interviewed; here, we utilised the CIT to identify contributory factors. We found that various factors, either alone or in a combination, can contribute to these accidents. Our findings parallel the holistic work system categorisation of truck drivers by Murphy et al. (2018), underscoring the need to pay attention to factors in several domains. According to Murphy et al. (2018), drivers' work systems are composed of an array of different work tasks that the drivers perform by using (or not using) technical equipment in certain work environments. Drivers' actions are guided and supported by organisational support and practices. As in their study, our study focussed on and discussed truck drivers' microergonomic work systems, that is, the focus was on singular drivers as a unit of analysis and discussed the practical work environments in which the tasks were performed. Similarly, as in the work system categorisation, we took a holistic approach, and discussed the organisational and social conditions, in addition to work equipment and environment.\nConclusions: Truck drivers face physical and psychosocial risks that can lead to occupational accidents. The current study focussed on risk factors outside the cab in various kinds of work environments, such as home terminals, the premises of clients and public places. Safety management in such work environments is challenging because the employer cannot provide continuous supervision. Thus, occupational safety depends on the drivers' skills and abilities to cope with the risks they face.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify various individual factors and combinations thereof that can contribute to truck drivers' occupational accidents, particularly connected to work performed outside the cab in various work environments.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In total, 74 accidents were analysed through in-depth interviews with truck drivers. These interviews were conducted employing the critical incident technique, and analysed utilising a qualitative content analysis approach.\nFindings: The contributing factors identified were categorised into 14 categories. In all, 13 of these were grouped into four sections reflecting the drivers' work outside the cab: \"Goods and equipment\", \"Loading/unloading area\", \"Loading/unloading tasks\", and \"Organisation\". A single risk factor was associated with 40 accidents while the other 34 involved combinations of factors.\nResearch limitations/implications: Although the tasks performed by truck drivers in different countries are probably similar, one limitation might be that all the accidents characterised occurred in one country: Sweden.\nPractical implications: The findings reveal that complex combinations of risk factors often contribute to accidents. In addition to the transportation company itself, other stakeholders, such as clients, and designers and manufacturers of technology, may influence the occupational safety of truck drivers. Different stakeholders who could contribute to managerial decision making that is designed to prevent accidents are identified and discussed.\nOriginality/value: This investigation contributes to an in-depth understanding of the causes of accidents in the transportation industry. The findings are discussed from the perspective of the stakeholders and safety management in an attempt to identify key stakeholders who can improve accident prevention.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Institutional influences on women's representation on corporate boards : An Australian case study
|
[
"Australia",
"Gender",
"Leadership",
"Women on boards"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: While much has been written about women on corporate boards (WOCB), a common criticism of the work in this area is that it is descriptive (Judge, 2010; Terjesen et al., 2009). We know the proportions of women on boards (WOB) remain low, but the theoretical analyses of what drives this remains sparse. Part of the explanation for the lack of theoretical insight derives from the preoccupation with \"body counting\" that dominates the WOCB agenda. The headline grabbing indices of women's poor representation on boards in Australia, and internationally, has been favoured over investigations going beyond descriptive statistics (Terjesen et al., 2009).\nWOB: As women's underrepresentation on boards has gained more attention internationally, the number of sites monitoring the relative proportions of WOB has grown (30 Per Cent Club, 2011; Catalyst, 2012; Governance Metrics International, 2013; Sealy et al., 2011). Like many heuristic devices measuring ratios, the percentage of WOB has become a simple yet powerful organising principle for explaining a complex phenomenon. Table I shows the percentage of board roles held by women varies across countries, with Norway reporting the highest (at 36.3 per cent) and Saudi Arabia the lowest (at 0.1 per cent). Comparisons can provide a pressure point for change, with \"best\" and \"worst\" performers internationally often cited in leading indices of gender representation on boards (Sealy et al., 2011). That there are different forms of \"regulation\" surrounding these numbers is often overlooked.\nInstitutional theory: Institutions are the rules of the game in a society, giving shape to collective and individual experience (North, 1990; Scott, 2001). Institutional theory is concerned with the processes by which structures, including norms and routines, are entrenched as authoritative guidelines for social behaviour. These structures, norms and routines are not static and as they change so, too, do the human behaviours they shape (Dacin et al., 2002). Moreover, changing structures, norms and routines create costs. Social structure is not merely a side-effect of human activity; it requires human agency (Tolbert and Zucker, 1994). In understanding women's representation on corporate boards, and the apparent \"destructuration\" of the norms and routines which had limited their access, it is instructive to reflect on pressures that led to the \"restructuration\", whereby women are now being sought for board positions in Australia.\nAustralian corporate governance: There are nearly 2,200 companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (Australian Securities Exchange, 2012). The ASX oversees compliance with its operating rules and promotes standards of corporate governance among listed companies. At the end of 2011, the ASX's total market capitalisation ranked it the sixth largest in the world. Consistent with trends in Canada and the UK (Davies et al., 2011), Australian board sizes are decreasing whilst board member workload and accountability are increasing (Ross-Smith and Bridge, 2008). The ASX recommends a majority of independent directors be appointed from outside the company and the board chair should be an independent non-executive director. In Australia, an independent director is \"a non-executive director who is not a member of management and who is free of any business or other relationship that could materially interfere with - or could reasonably be perceived to interfere with - the independent exercise of their judgement\" (ASX Corporate Governance Council, 2010, p. 16). In 2011, 83 per cent of ASX 200 companies had non-executive directors as a majority.\nMethods: One of the enduring challenges for academics and practitioners has been to explain different rates of change of WOCB occurring internationally. In seeking to address the why and how of these changes, using a case study can be a powerful tool (Yin, 2009). By developing a single country case study, Australia, we foreshadow our analysis will prompt an emergent theoretical framework with wider application.\nAnalysis: To analyse these dynamics we have drawn on Campbell's (2007) application of institutional theory to the factors influencing whether corporations act in socially responsible ways. Campbell (2007) presents a framework for making sense of institutional factors as they influence corporate behaviour, which we have adapted to explain women's representation on boards. From this, we posit the following set of institutional conditions as relevant to understanding women's changing representation on boards:\nPublic and self-regulation regulation: Norway's decision to impose quotas requiring at least 40 per cent representation of each gender for board members in companies listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange triggered international debate about WOB. This law was proposed in 2002 but the enforcement of the law did not begin until 2008, by which time almost all affected Norwegian companies were compliant. This action attracted considerable attention internationally women's representation on Norwegian boards skyrocketed from 6 per cent in 2002 to almost 40 per cent in 2008 (Huse, 2011), while progress in other countries had stalled or slipped backwards (Sealy et al., 2008). The successful outcomes in Norway pointed to the apparent effectiveness of legislation in enforcing compliance and prompted considerable debate among key stakeholders. In Australia, Norway's success was cited by the Sex Discrimination Commissioner as having \"shown that such measures can radically alter gender equality outcomes for the better\" (Broderick, 2009b).\nNon-government and other independent organisations monitoring corporate behaviour: It is not only the presence of oversight that matters, but also the capacity of stakeholders to monitor corporate behaviour and act on perceived transgressions that will influence the norms (Campbell, 2007). A key alliance in this domain is between the ASX and the AICD provides a regular monitoring of the \"success\" of the ASX actions[2]. The AICD is a national, member-based, not-for-profit organisation for directors and corporate governance, with nearly 30,000 members (Australian Institute of Company Directors, 2011a). It is the peak body for monitoring corporate compliance with regulation, providing a complementary role to the ASX as the regulator, and had been a vocal opponent of quotas being introduced. It actively lobbied for self-regulation, and saw itself playing a role in this process in educating its members about the value of board diversity. Following the amendment to ASX Principle 3, the AICD includes a \"real-time\" report on their web site, tracking women's representation on boards (www.companydirectors.com.au/Director-Resource-Centre/Governance-and-Director-Issues/Board-Diversity/Statistics).\nInstitutionalised norms about appropriate corporate behaviour: Organisations demonstrating culturally approved activities and forms, endorsed by normative authorities and approved by legal bodies, are more likely to endure than those that do not (Scott, 2001). Zuckerman (1999) found the value placed on a commercial organisation depends on both its economic performance and its conformity to cultural cognitive categories. Institutional theory suggests companies gain symbolic legitimacy from women being visible in senior positions (Blum et al., 1994; Baum and Oliver, 1992), as this flags to employees and external stakeholders their commitment to the advancement of women. In Australia, in terms of institutionalised norms about appropriate corporate behaviour the lead is being taken by the ASX 50 companies, where women now make up almost 19 per cent of directors compared with 13.5 per cent of directors in the ASX 200 (Lamont and Williams, 2012).\nAssociated behaviour among corporations: Greenwood et al. (2002, p. 59) point to the role of professional associations as regulatory agents and how associations \"can legitimate change by hosting a process of discourse through which change is debated and endorsed\". With respect to WOB, both the ASX and AICD have played an educative role in prompting members to increase the representation of WOB. They provide resources for members to assist in attracting more WOB, and in senior management. Two high-profile activities are the mentoring programme managed by the AICD and the availability of scholarships for women to the AICD Company Directors course.\nOrganised dialogues among corporations and their stakeholders: The ASX Principle 3 represents an example of organised dialogue between the company and \"regulator\", which in this case is the body that can delist the company from the stock exchange. In requiring companies to include in their annual report evidence of their gender diversity policy and the sex profile of the organisation, there is pressure to engage with the question of why there are not more women. It is unclear what will make up a satisfactory explanation from the listed companies if they have not introduced such a policy and/or cannot report on the numbers of women. What the \"regulator\" (the ASX) will deem as unacceptable will be critical to sustaining the \"restructuration\" of the governance arrangements.\nDiscussion: The work of Grosvold and Brammer (2011) and Terjesen and Singh (2008b) points to the importance of national institutional systems in explaining cross-country differences in women's representation on boards. Understanding cross-country differences will only build through deeper analyses of particular contexts, such as we have done for Australia, where we have analysed the interplay and overlap among a range of institutional factors. How the factors play out in national contexts will depend on their particular institutional configurations.\nConclusion: The regulative, normative and cultural cognitive elements at work in the Australian corporate board context in 2009-2012 have been disrupted. What had been an intermittent annoyance in the corporate sphere when pressures for more WOB had been raised previously, gained traction. As one of the board members interviewed noted \"I'm optimistic that we're at a tipping point\" (Interviewee 2). The interplay and overlap of these institutional factors and actors unlocked inertia (Hoffman, 1999). No longer could the underrepresentation of women be ignored.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to interrogate changes to women's representation on boards from an institutional perspective in a particular national context (Australia).\nDesign/methodology/approach: Drawing on institutional theory at the legal, political and social levels the paper identifies the factors through which women's underrepresentation on corporate boards in Australia gained traction over the period 2009-2012.\nFindings: Through the analysis of the Australian context over the period 2009-2012, the paper proposes a framework to represent the multiple, differentiated and often conflicting spheres affecting women's representation on boards and how this may have wider application internationally.\nResearch limitations/implications: In focusing on the institutional factors, the paper does not mean to underplay organisational factors relevant to women's access to board positions; rather the authors seek to draw attention to how the organisational factors may be shaped by changing institutional \"rules\". From the interrogation of the conditions under which women's underrepresentation on corporate boards in Australia gained traction, the paper provides a conceptual foundation for the emerging study of institutions and women's representation on corporate boards internationally.\nPractical implications: The purpose of documenting these institutional changes in Australia is to be instructive to others addressing the practical problem of how to increase women's representation on boards and what institutional factors may need to be considered to prompt change.\nOriginality/value: The conceptual framework adds to the as yet relatively under-theorised field of women on corporate boards.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Opting-out and opting-in: a review and agenda for future research
|
[
"Women",
"Careers",
"Career breaks",
"Opting-in",
"Opting-out",
"Reentry to workforce"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: \"Opt-out,\" a term referring to the exodus of professional women from the workplace, has become an increasingly common phrase within women's career-related vernacular ever since Lisa Belkin coined the phrase in her 2003 New York Times Magazine piece. Even amidst the media's spotlight on an opt-out revolution, recent trends also point to an opposing movement as women \"opt-in\" to the workforce. Interestingly, employment data shows that women's participation in the workforce has actually grown from 36 percent in 1960 to 53 percent in 2013, with 70 percent of those women being working mothers (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014). Furthermore, US women are better educated and hold more mid-level management positions than ever before (Peter and Horn, 2005; US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014). Thus, women's success in education and the workforce may raise questions regarding the actual existence of the opt-out movement. However, it is important to look beyond the education and employment data and look deeper into the career literature to gain a deeper understanding of the opt-out and opt-in movements.\nTheoretical foundations: Within the past several years, women's careers have become a burgeoning literature area (e.g. August, 2010; Cabrera, 2007; Powell and Mainiero, 1992; Sullivan et al., 2009), due to the recognition that women and men may experience a divergence in career trajectories. Prior to this recognition, traditional conceptualizations of careers for men and women focused on the traditional linear career path, in which employees worked continuously to move up through different levels of organizations toward set career goals (O'Neil et al., 2008). However, scholars have recognized that the unique complexities of women's work and non-work lives may not allow them to adhere to the traditional linear career model that men typically adhere to (e.g. Powell and Mainiero, 1992). Despite the fact that worker demographics have changed dramatically over the years (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014), many organizations continue to cling to the traditional notion that employees will seek career advancement through the traditional linear career model. This has put career-oriented women in a double bind, as they attempt to reconcile traditional expectations for linear career progression with societal expectations prescribing devotion to non-work demands (Cabrera, 2007).\nIntegrative framework of women's opting-out and opting-in experiences: Research studies on women's opting-out and opting-in experiences have focused on a variety of issues such as examining the reasons women opt-out, understanding barriers to opting-in, and opting-in strategies and outcomes (e.g. Cabrera, 2007; Hewlett and Luce, 2005; Lovejoy and Stone, 2012; Panteli, 2012). Given that this research spreads across several areas of study, several of the previously discussed career models have been employed (Arthur and Rousseau, 1996; Briscoe and Hall, 2006; Mainiero and Sullivan, 2005). In this section, we present an integrative framework (as depicted in Figure 1) that systematically reviews the current state of the literature. Following this framework, we begin by summarizing the literature on women's career situation prior opting-out and progress through the opt-out experience. We then focus on the opting-in experience, which includes reasons for returning to the workforce, career changes, barriers to opting-in, and opting-in strategies and end our review with the outcomes associated with opting-in. Intertwined with the review of the empirical literature are theoretical perspectives from the KCM (Mainiero and Sullivan, 2005), which provides a theoretical lens from which to better understand the empirical research on women's opting-out and opting-in experiences.\nPractical implications: Up to this point, we have focused on gaining a more nuanced understanding of the opting-in and opting-out experience beyond the media's spotlight. Although there is great importance in knowing the struggles women face deciding to opt-out and striving to opt-in, it is also critical for both individuals and organizations to be aware of the strategies that can be used to support women's reentry to the workforce following a career break.\nFuture research: Although our paper has highlighted the increasing media and scholarly attention to women's opting-out and opting-in experiences through the review of theoretical foundations of the KCM (Mainiero and Sullivan, 2005) and the most current empirical findings, several avenues for future research remain. One of these future research areas includes the opt-out and opt-in experiences of men, particularly how their experiences compare to or differ from women's experiences. A limited number of scholars have noted that men opt-out less often and for different reasons, compared to women (Hewlett and Luce, 2005; Powell and Butterfield, 2013), however future research could identify the barriers that men experience as they seek reentry and if their career values shift from pre- to post-career break. It would also be interesting to examine whether men experience greater penalties for diverging from the traditional linear career model, which gender-role expectations prescribe them to follow, if they instead adopt boundaryless or protean careers. Similar to much of the qualitative research on women's opting-out and opting-in experiences (e.g. Grant-Vallone and Ensher, 2010), qualitative research would also provide unique and valuable insights on men's experiences.\nConclusion: Women's opting-out and opting-in experiences is a quickly growing topic in both the popular press and academic literature. The purpose of this review was to provide a synthesis of this expanding literature by presenting a framework that integrates the theoretical perspectives on women's careers with the existing literature on women's opt-out and opt-in experiences. This framework not only summarizes the literature, but also provides a greater understanding of the complexities of women's careers as well as potential avenues for future research.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to highlight an emerging and evolving area within women's careers literature - women's opting-out and opting-in experiences. Highlights from several career theories, extant research, and a framework for women's opting-out and opting-in experiences are discussed as well as future research considerations for women's career breaks.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The present study provides the first synthesis of the theoretical and empirical work on women's opting-out and opting-in experiences, by providing a framework that integrates existing research with the kaleidoscope career model. Published works from 1986 until the present were considered from psychology, management, sociology, and economics literatures.\nFindings: This paper provides information about how women's experiences of opting-out and opting-in to the workforce have emerged and evolved over the past few decades. Theoretical foundations, quantitative and qualitative research findings, and considerations for future research are discussed.\nPractical implications: This paper is a useful source of information regarding an emerging and evolving area of studying within the women's career literature. The paper discusses considerations for scholars and practitioners regarding developing, supporting, and retaining female talent amidst women's career break experiences.\nOriginality/value: This paper provides an integrative framework that provides theoretical and empirical perspectives on the changing nature of women's career values and choices, which influences their experiences of opting-out and opting-in to the workforce. Given both the changing demographics of the current workforce (e.g. increased women's participation in the workforce) and women's career values, research on women's career breaks is warranted.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Determinants of brand resurrection movements: Why consumers want dead brands back?
|
[
"Nostalgia",
"Brand resurrection movement",
"Functional utility",
"Perceived brand superiority",
"Social-adjustive utility",
"Value-expressive utility"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: In the past few years, a number of once-dead brands have been resurrected. After having made the difficult decision to say goodbye to a brand, companies who have deleted poor performing brands from their portfolio are bringing some of them back to life. While resurrecting a brand is odd enough from a strategic, organizational and portfolio perspective, the driving force behind these recent resurrections is even more bewildering: consumer power. Consumers who did not buy enough of a brand and led the brand to its death, years later demand its comeback. Cadbury Wispa, discontinued in 2003, was brought back to the market in 2008 and sold 41 million bars in the first 18 weeks of relaunch when the company finally heard the voice of Wispa lovers. Coca-Cola Surge, discontinued in 2002, was brought back to the market in 2014 after more than 200,000 people joined a Facebook page named \"Surge Movement\" and rallied to bring back the brand. Crystal Pepsi was resurrected at the end of 2015, and fully relaunched in Canada and the USA during the summer of 2016, after Crystal Pepsi fans and celebrities, including \"LA Beast\" who has more than 1.2 million subscribers to his YouTube channel and Kevin Strahle YouTube celebrity and competitive eater, led the #BringBackCrystalPEPSI social media campaign. Most recently, Nokia relaunched its iconic 3310 phone in response to consumers' interest in simplicity and longer battery life.\nTheoretical background and hypotheses: Brand resurrection movements\nMethods and results: Considering their high level of social media usage, millennials - the 18-29-year-old segment of the population - are the primary drivers of social engagement, with a reported social media usage of 90 per cent in 2013 (Duggan et al., 2015). Millennial consumers are, therefore, an appropriate population to engage with, to study brand resurrections, given their role as primary actors behind these campaigns and their high levels of social media usage and digital engagement (American Press Institute, 2015; Duggan et al., 2015; Kennedy and Guzman, 2016; Taylor, 2015). Millennials spend a vast majority of their time on social media and are most likely to participate in campaigns, events and provide user-generated content (American Press Institute, 2015; Taylor, 2015). In addition, the primary brands for which brand resurrection movements were initiated online were the ones that were discontinued (such as Blockbuster and Sprite Remix) in the 1990s (Smith, 2015). Most of these brands were primarily used by millennials who were teenagers during that period.\nDiscussion and research implications: The purpose of this study was to examine the antecedents of participation in a brand resurrection movement. On the basis of extant literature (Bhat and Reddy, 1998; Brown et al., 2003; Cuneo et al., 2012; Dion and Mazzalovo, 2016; Grewal et al., 2004; Narvanen and Goulding, 2016; Park et al., 1986; Wiedmann et al., 2012), three utilities - functional, social-adjustive and value-expressive - along with perceived brand superiority and nostalgia (as moderator), are seen as influencers of participation in a brand resurrection movement. As such, the findings address the gap in understanding the factors that are leading to the ever-growing brand resurrection movements.\nManagerial implications: While the results of the study provide several implications for managers, we acknowledge that the sampling approach used has its limitations, and a probabilistic sampling method would be more ideal. We, thus, request the reader to take these implications with caution. First, it is important to note that all the brand resurrection movements have been initiated and led by consumers through user-generated content. Organizations have mostly played a passive role in this value co-creation process. This is primarily driven by the concern that usually the demand for these defunct brands are in mature and/or declining markets. Managers are skeptical about relaunching brands in such markets, especially, given the extent of competition and growth of the market. However, there are other factors that organizations should consider. More specifically, organizations should pay attention to the timing of the brand relaunch, the level of exposure and hype around the defunct brand. If enough excitement has been created about the brand, the relaunch of the defunct brand has a good chance of being profitable, even in a mature/declining market. Nostalgia may influence this process as well by highlighting the good times consumers had with these defunct brands. For example, Coca-Cola Surge successfully relaunched the brand at a time when nostalgia, the perceptions about the brand utilities and brand superiority had gathered enough momentum. Thus, the timing of the brand relaunch could determine the role of nostalgia in consumers' preference for the defunct brands.\nLimitations and future research implications: While this study provides an insight into consumer perceptions about defunct brands, there are a few limitations. The relatively low R2 (0.228) indicates that there are several other factors that need to be considered in determining consumer motivations toward participating in brand resurrection movements. Specifically, future studies could delve deeper into each of the utilities and identify the role of factors such as past customer experience, pressure of brand communities and brand trust in determining participation in brand resurrection movements. In addition, the current study only captures the hedonic aspect of value-expressive utility and does not measure the other aspect of value-expressive utility that is expressing one's values to others. Future studies can measure this part of value-expressive utility. The brand equity of defunct brands may also enhance the explanation for customers' participation in brand resurrection movements. Researchers could also examine the impact of these factors on other dependent variables such as commitment (affective, normative and continuance) and purchase intentions. We encourage researchers to continue research in this relatively unexplored area of brand management.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: There is a growing trend of brand resurrections that are driven by consumer power. Millennials play a critical role in initiating most of these brand resurrection movements using social media. This study aims to explore the factors that drive consumers' participation in brand resurrection movements - an outcome of brand cocreation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data were collected using self-administered survey. This study uses the partial least squares-structural equation modeling to empirically examine the factors that motivate consumers to participate in brand resurrection movements.\nFindings: The results indicate that consumers' beliefs about the functional and value-expressive utilities, and their judgments of the perceived brand superiority of the defunct brand are significantly associated with brand resurrection movements. Nostalgia moderates the relationship between social-adjustive utility and brand resurrection movement, which shows that consumers' social-adjustive utility becomes relevant when triggered with a strong sense of the past.\nResearch limitations/implications: From a theoretical perspective, this study contributes to literature on reviving defunct brands. This study also identifies additional factors that determine the success of brands that are being relaunched.\nPractical implications: From a managerial perspective, the study provides insights into when and how organizations can consider bringing back defunct brands. Future studies should introduce additional variables to the model such as product category involvement that may be associated with consumers' willingness to bring back defunct brands.\nOriginality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first of its kind that empirically examines the motivations behind consumer participation in bringing back defunct brands. The importance of this study is highlighted in the fact that several defunct brands are being revived by organizations due to consumer-brand co-creation movements.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
International sourcing, social responsibility and human assets: a framework for labor procurement negotiations in baseball's talent supply chain
|
[
"Corporate responsibility",
"Business ethics",
"Sourcing",
"Sports",
"Social responsibility",
"Dominican Republic"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The desire to cut costs by securing cheaper inputs from developing countries is a salient feature of the global economy (Lee and Kim, 2009). However, the sourcing of cheaper inputs comes at a cost. Recently, a garment factory in Bangladesh, that made clothes for European and US companies, collapsed killing over 1,000 workers. The subsequent investigation cited unethical failings including serious safety issues as well as poor pay for the workers. It is becoming increasingly clear that the owner invested little in safely measures and infrastructure yet still generated financial returns until the collapse. The European Union, which is the largest trade partner of Bangladesh, announced that they would explore possible trade sanctions against the country. Regardless of the extent of any possible sanctions, what is clear is that the reputation of the textile industry in Bangladesh has been tarnished. This example highlights problems companies and industries encounter regarding offshore sourcing.\nTheoretical background: Numerous fields of inquiry have evolved from corporate social responsibility (Aguinis and Glavas, 2012). We have chosen to view the subject matter through the lens of SRB. Socially responsible buying/sourcing is a subfield of corporate social responsibility and corporate citizenship. Not surprisingly, there are a plethora of different interpretations of these terms. Drumwright (1994, p. 1) states \"SRB fits under the general rubric of noneconomic buying criteria - criteria other than price or the trade-offs made between price and the many, varied dimensions of quality\". Park and Lennon (2006, p. 230) note that SRB \"entails a system-wide consideration of causes and impacts of the buying/sourcing decisions on all constituents of society, which includes considerations of employment/human rights, environment, consumer safety\". A further definition ties the inclusion of social issues advocated by organizational stakeholders into purchasing decisions (Maignan et al., 2002). Recent research exploring sustainability in purchasing and supply chain management has noted a focus on environmental, instead of social, sustainability (Miemczyk and Johnsen, 2012). Park and Stoel (2005, p. 237) note \"selecting the most appropriate source of supply has long been regarded as one of the most important functions of buying/sourcing\". Corporate attitudes toward responsible sourcing often note that business has only a fiduciary obligation to maximize shareholder wealth within legal limits; any other expenditure not toward that aim was a waste of corporate funds. However, globalization has forced numerous industries to acknowledge different cultural standards and norms when conducting business around the world (Ogrizek, 2002).\nAnalysis: The principal relationship we will model is that of the MLB franchises. Due to the age of the players, MLB owes more to the prospects it recruits from the DR than to other stakeholders (Spagnuolo, 2003; Hanlon, 2013). This relationship has as its core an investment decision by the individual franchises: should they incur costs to ameliorate the context in which the prospects find themselves, or not? The costs of investment, whether it is in academies, general education, a revision of recruiting policies or something else, must be weighed against the negative externalities that are likely to result if the exploitation of the DR recruits becomes common knowledge to other stakeholders, particularly the public. The franchises also must consider the moves that other franchises are making, i.e. they are playing a competitive game with respect to the investment decision. MLB also has an indirect effect on the prospects by way of the buscones, who themselves have a direct effect. The power of these two primary actors, MLB franchises and DR prospects, needs to be balanced with their obligations to other stakeholders (Figure 1).\nDiscussion: Theoretical contributions\nConclusion: This paper examines a situation where the product MLB sources from the DR is human talent. From a managerial standpoint what makes this scenario unique is the age of the players. The DR players recruited by MLB franchises are not adults. We posit that due to the age of the players, they are not capable of making informed decisions. As such, the suggestions offered in the previous section, particularly the regulations articulated by the Commissioner's Office as well as the franchises, must address concerns about what exactly MLB owes to certain stakeholders, including the underage players.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the question: how does socially responsible buying/sourcing applies to human talent? The authors examine this question in the unique context of Major League Baseball's (MLB) relationship with the \"buscones\" (agents) representing prospects from the Dominican Republic.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using game theory, the authors model how MLB teams create rules to curb unethical behavior within the supply chain. The principal relationship the authors will model is that of the franchises and the prospects. This relationship has as its core an investment decision by the individual franchises: should they incur costs to ameliorate the context in which the prospects find themselves, or not? The costs of investment, whether it is in academies, general education, a revision of recruiting policies or something else, must be weighed against the negative externalities that are likely to result if the exploitation of the DR recruits becomes common knowledge to other stakeholders, particularly the public.\nFindings: The model shows that when investments are roughly evenly distributed, the teams successfully vote to outlaw unethical behaviors and thus collectively avoid the negative externalities. However, when investments are asymmetric, the teams invested in the current system vote against a ban to maintain a competitive edge, even though the system imposes costs on all of those involved.\nOriginality/value: This paper serves as the initial paper that examines international sourcing, social responsibility and baseball. As international sport clubs/franchises continue to source athletic talent from around the globe, the issues discussed in the paper are both original and pertinent.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Creating a supportive environment among youth football players: A qualitative study of French and Norwegian youth grassroots football coaches
|
[
"Health promotion",
"Motivation",
"Empowerment",
"Sports",
"Adolescents",
"Education",
"Self-determination",
"Qualitative methods",
"Physical activity",
"Achievement",
"Goals"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Globally, the increase in overweight and obesity in populations across the world has been characterized by the World Health Organization (2000) as a global epidemic with severe consequences for public health. This epidemic is by large linked to physical inactivity in the general population and among youths. Up till now sport organizations as health promoting setting have been under-utilized (Kokko et al., 2014). The White Paper on Sport (European Commission, 2007) suggests that the sport movement constitutes a supportive environment especially at grassroots level, which has the potential to foster health-enhancing physical activity and needs to be developed.\nAims of this study: Despite an extensive literature supporting the tenets of SDT and AGT to create a supportive environment in the sport realm (e.g. Ommundsen et al., 2006; Reinboth et al., 2004; Sarrazin et al., 2002) and the potential health benefits attributed to a positive motivational climate (e.g. Quested and Duda, 2010), to our knowledge, only quantitative studies using players' perception (e.g. Quested et al., 2013) or observation studies using observers' assessment (e.g. Tessier et al., 2013) have explored coaches' practices and support of players' basic needs. There is a lack of rigorous studies evaluating interventions aimed at improving coaches' ability to create a positive motivational climate (Duda et al., 2013; Langan et al., 2013). There are gaps in the literature regarding how football coaches reflect on their own coaching practice and how they respond to training programs aimed at creating a health promoting and supportive environment.\nMethod: The present study included data generated within a project entitled \"Promoting Adolescent health through an intervention aimed at improving the quality of their participation in Physical Activity,\" the PAPA project (www.papaproject.org). The PAPA project is an intervention study that aimed to develop, deliver and evaluate a theoretically-grounded and evidence-based coach education program that guides grassroots football coaches in promoting quality motivation and make youth football more supportive, engaging and enjoyable. Qualitative methods are concerned with experiences, understanding, values and meanings that persons ascribe a phenomenon (Creswell 2012). As the aim of this study was to address the coaches own reflections and perceptions of their coaching practices after attending the program a qualitative method with in-depth interviews were selected.\nResults: To structure the presentation of findings, a theoretical approach has been used, ordering the main themes in relation to the SDT (Deci and Ryan, 2000), considering how coaches applied strategies for the dimensions autonomy support, interpersonal involvement and task-involving structure within their practices. An inductive approach helped to define subthemes (presented in italic) illustrating the tenets of this theory.\nDiscussion: The first aim of the present study was to address sport organizations as health promoting settings by exploring how French and Norwegian grassroots coaches reflected on their coaching practices and motivational climate, and if they perceived that they had changed their coaching practices after participating in the Empowering CoachingTM training program. A second aim was to cross-compare the two countries. This study is one of few to explore qualitatively the impact of an intervention based on SDT (Deci and Ryan, 2000) and AGT (Nicholls, 1984) regarding what football coaches think about their coaching practices.\nLimitations: The interpretations rely only on coaches' perceptions of their own behaviors. Previous studies (Haerens et al., 2013) have underlined an important difference between players' perceptions of coaches' behaviors and observations and the coaches' own perceptions. In the same vein, one could argue that the coaches' reporting of change in practice due to participation in the program may not be a good indicator of the actual, \"objective\" changes that might have occurred (Skinner and Belmont, 1993). Having been voluntarily involved in the program, the coaches may be biased to over-report the influence of the program, and to report more positive perceptions of the motivational climate they create due to social desirability. Despite the chance of self-report bias, coaches' opinions about how the program affected them are still valuable given that coaches act as gatekeepers and change agents for improvement of the motivational climate in the sport context (Mageau and Vallerand, 2003).\nConclusion: The findings suggest that coaches who participated in a six-hour workshop (the Empowering CoachingTM training program), aimed at having coaches become more aware of the nature of and ways to create a supportive environment and enhance their players' sport experience, felt that the program had an impact on their coaching practice. They expressed the view that the program changed the way they coach, in particular with regard to their use of several of the program strategies aimed at supporting the players' basic needs for autonomy, relatedness and competence, acknowledged to support positive sport experience and long-term participation in sport (e.g. Quested et al., 2013). The coaches' understanding of the theoretical and philosophical basis for high-quality motivation seemed to reflect the content of the program, indicating that they understood and internalized the main messages of the program.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The health promoting benefits of sport participation are under-utilized and should be further developed, particularly at the grassroots level. The purpose of this paper is to examine how grassroots coaches in youth football perceive their coaching practices after participating in a community-based coach education program aimed at optimizing their experiences in youth sport, namely the Empowering Coaching(tm) training program, based on self-determination theory (SDT) and achievement goal theory (AGT). It compares French and Norwegian coaches to suggest whether the principles of the Empowering Coaching(tm) training program can be applied successfully in the two countries.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The Empowering Coaching(tm) training program is a six hour workshop and was delivered at the beginning of the 2011 football season. At the end of the season, the grassroots coaches' reflections on their coaching practices were examined through a qualitative approach with in-depth interviews of 18 coaches in France and Norway, applying a hybrid analyses and comparing country-wise.\nFindings: All coaches expressed the intention to embrace the philosophy of the program, and to apply several of the strategies they had learnt during the workshop. The coaches perceived that the program supported their efforts to develop and implement strategies to stimulate intrinsic motivation, enjoyment and long-term participation among the players. There were some differences between coaches from France and Norway (e.g. rules and involvement), but the similarities were more evident, supporting the universality of applying SDT in the youth sport setting.\nSocial implications: The findings are encouraging for sport as a health promoting setting and for the development of the personal skills in grassroot coaches, as they imply that coaches who feel competent in how to structure practices and matches that provide the players with positive sport experiences are likely to enable players to feel supported and motivated.\nOriginality/value: This study explores qualitatively the impact of an intervention based on SDT and AGT, focussing on football coaches' reflections on their coaching practices.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Balancing codification and personalization for knowledge reuse: a Markov decision process approach
|
[
"Knowledge sharing",
"Knowledge management",
"Decision making",
"Modelling",
"Cost/benefit analysis",
"Knowledge reuse",
"Markov decision process"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: If only HP knew what HP knows, we would be three-times more productive (Lew Platt, a former Chief Executive of Hewlett-Packard).\n2 Theoretical foundation: The purpose of this section is to present the relevant literature that forms the foundation of the theoretical framework. The first subsection starts with a discussion of the type of knowledge with which this paper is concerned. The second subsection presents the implications of following a codification or personalization strategy. The next subsection outlines the costs/benefits associated with knowledge reuse, while the fourth subsection discusses the knowledge reuse process. The authors conclude this section by pointing out parallels with other applications of Markov decision process (MDP).\n3 The model: This section develops a model of balancing codification and personalization for knowledge reuse. The first subsection presents the stage model of knowledge reuse processes, and illustrates the applicability of an MDP model. The second subsection analyzes the corresponding costs/benefits under codification and personalization strategies, and the mapping of them from individual level to organizational level. Finally the third subsection details the proposed MDP model for decision-making.\n4 Optimality analysis of a typical reuse scenario: 4.1 A simplified model for a typical reuse scenario\n5 Numerical examples and comparative analysis: The purpose of this section is to illustrate how this model might be applied in practice and what the effect might look like. Parameters (Table IV) are set by referring to existing literature (Chen and Edgington, 2005; Chai and Nebus, 2012). Some adaptations are made based on the cost/benefit analysis and documented case studies (MacCormack and School, 2002; Umemoto et al., 2004).\n6 Conclusion: Balancing codification and personalization strategies is crucial for improving knowledge reuse within an organization. This study proposes a comprehensive framework for organizations to analyze knowledge reuse processes and make the right KM strategy. That is, organizations can first analyze their reuse context (costs/benefits, number of reusable knowledge items, reuse pattern, etc.) and then systematically integrate these considerations into their decision-making with the proposed MDP model. The comparative study shows that organizations need to take into account the effects of the number of reusable knowledge items, of reuse patterns, and of interest alignment between employees and the company.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to provide a systematic framework for organizations to analyze their knowledge reuse processes, and balance codification and personalization within their knowledge strategy according to cost/benefit analysis.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This paper divides knowledge reuse process into a sequence of five stages, and accordingly analyzes costs/benefits under codification and personalization strategies. Markov decision process, a mathematical framework for multi-stage decision-making, is employed to optimize a mixed strategy for knowledge reuse processes within an organization.\nFindings: Organizations need to consider factors such as the number of reusable knowledge items, reuse patterns, and intra-organizational interest alignment which are critical to determine their optimal mix between codification and personalization. Companies should determine a knowledge strategy based on their knowledge reuse contexts instead of following success cases blindly.\nResearch limitations/implications: This paper presents an illustrative example to show how this framework might be applied by an organization. However, the validity and reliability of strategic decision-making also depends on the accuracy of the model's parameter values. Firms can adopt many methods as surveys, Delphi method, to determine the parameter values.\nPractical implications: The proposed framework offers an opportunity for firms to gain insights by setting the model's parameters to their own reuse contexts/characteristics and conducting what-if analysis.\nOriginality/value: This paper proposes a formal framework for analyzing knowledge reuse processes and offers organizations guidelines about decision-making of knowledge strategies.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Behaviorally-based management training: linking behaviors to employee satisfaction
|
[
"Management training",
"Behaviour",
"Career satisfaction"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: As organizations reinforce the importance of competitive advantage through people, managers play an integral role. A common career transition for individuals involves promotion to a management position from a technical or professional position. Managerial roles require different competencies and skills than do technical or other types of professional jobs. Managers who employ unsupportive or negative tactics to manage subordinates will unwittingly invite subordinates to develop disapproving attitudes toward them. Ineffective managers can cause subordinates to become stressed (Balshem, 1988) and depressed (Repetti, 1993).\nBehaviors that define managerial effectiveness: An extensive literature review revealed few studies (e.g. McColl-Kennedy and Anderson, 2002) where employee input was considered or compared to managers' beliefs about effective management behaviors (Amabile et al., 2004; Shipper and Davy, 2002). Multiple taxonomies of managerial skills (Buckingham and Coffman, 1999; Caudron, 2002; Collingwood and Kirby, 2001; Eckert, 2001; Haapaniemi, 2002; Schaeffer, 2002; Stone and Sachs, 1995; Wall Street Journal Editors, 2002) suggest effective managerial behaviors identified by managers. This literature provides guidance for creation of the managerial behavior items used in the study.Communication\nMethod: A structured questionnaire was created. Based on the literature review described in the previous sections, 15 items were created to describe managerial behaviors. On a seven-point scale ranging from 1, \"Not at all important,\" to 7, \"Very important,\" respondents answered the question, \"How important do you think it is that managers exhibit the following behaviors?\" Using a five-point scale ranging from 1, \"Does not do very well\" to 5, \"Does very well,\" the items were repeated with a different question: \"How well does your manager exhibit the following behaviors?\" Respondents indicated their level of satisfaction with quality of supervision received, company/agency as an employer, and job assignments using a seven-point Likert scale from \"Very dissatisfied\" to \"Very satisfied\".Respondents came from two organizations, a non-profit social services agency and a manufacturer of test equipment supplying primarily the automotive industry. Respondents held different positions. Questionnaires were distributed to the agency through the company's internal mailing system and were distributed and collected by the researchers in the manufacturing organization.The questionnaire was administered or sent to 254 employees, and 134 were returned, for a response rate of 52.76 percent. The sample contained 48 men (37.4 percent) and 83 women (62.6 percent). The majority were in the 41-60 year-old category, white Caucasian (90.3 percent), had a high school degree or some college (57.6 percent), and were in technical/professional jobs (80.7 percent). The most frequent job tenure was four to five years (24.4 percent).Measures\nResults: Analysis revealed that, in conjunction with research findings, employees thought previously identified managerial behaviors were important for managers to exhibit. The mean for \"How important do you think it is that managers exhibit the following behaviors?\" was between 5.43 and 6.53 on a seven-point scale for all items. Both the goal orientation and autonomy scales for \"How well does your manager exhibit the following behaviors?\" showed significant and positive correlations to employees' satisfaction with the quality of supervision they received, as well as satisfaction with their company/agency as an employer. The \"Connection with employees\" scale for \"How important do you think it is that managers exhibit the following behaviors?\" is significantly and positively correlated with employees' satisfaction with their job assignments.\nDiscussion: The importance of this study is twofold. First, specific managerial behaviors have been identified by employees as effective. Second, those managerial behaviors were found to relate significantly and positively to employee satisfaction variables; Goal setting and Autonomy to satisfaction with quality of supervision received and satisfaction with company/agency as an employer, Connection with employees to satisfaction with job assignments.Behavioral items that make up the three scales provide behaviors on which to build training scenarios and promote meaningful rehearsals of useful behaviors. Behavioral modeling, shown to be an effective training method for managers (Pescuric and Byham, 1996), as well as role playing techniques are likely to yield positive transfer to the workplace. Both behavior modeling and role playing require behavioral displays to familiarize trainees with a manager's behaviors. For the three behavioral categories, training ideas will be suggested.Training ideas for goal setting\nConclusion: Reflecting on the behaviors necessary to produce employee satisfaction is a way to help individuals identify whether or not they possess the qualities necessary to become a good manager. Identifying whether one possesses the characteristics and the will to be an effective manager could stop many individuals from making early career mistakes by accepting a management position to which they are ill-suited.Future research should include employees' perceptions of what constitutes effective managerial behaviors as a way to connect managers' behaviors to employee satisfaction items. Behaviorally-based learning experiences for individuals preparing to take on managerial roles increase the likelihood of a positive return on a company's training and development investment. Trained in actual behaviors, managers can be given explicit guidance for improving managerial performance, as opposed to general instructions such as \"Communicate with your subordinates.\" Not only will future managers appreciate better those behaviors considered by employees to be effective, but also recognize that those behaviors may have some connection to positive employee outcomes.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to identify behaviorally-based training for management trainees with a foundation in employees' beliefs about effective managerial behaviors, and the relationship of these behaviors to employees' satisfaction with supervision, company as employer, and job assignments.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Manufacturing organization and social services agency employees (N=134) were surveyed by questionnaire and asked \"How important do you think it is that managers exhibit the following behaviors?\" and \"How well does your manager exhibit the following behaviors?\" Factor analysis produced three factors: Connection with employees, Vision, Autonomy. Employee satisfaction questions were included.\nFindings: - Vision and Autonomy scales for \"How well does your manager exhibit the following behaviors?\" showed significant, positive correlations for satisfaction with quality of supervision, and with company/agency as an employer. Connection with employees scale for \"How important do you think it is that managers exhibit the following behaviors?\" showed significant, positive correlations for employees' satisfaction with job assignments\nResearch limitations/implications: - Future research should include employees' perceptions of what constitutes effective managerial behaviors. Study should be replicated in larger, multicultural organizations to assess the universality of these managerial behaviors.\nPractical implications: - Specific recommendations for behaviorally-based manager training of management trainees, based on employee-identified behaviors, are provided.\nOriginality/value: - The paper is creative in its inclusion of employees in data collection of definition of effective managerial behaviors and is valuable to those interested in management trainee programs linking behaviorally-based development to employee satisfaction outcomes.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Health care professionals' views about supporting patients' self-management
|
[
"Patient",
"Education",
"Counselling",
"Patient centred",
"Health education",
"Nurses"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Background\nMethods: Data, methodology and aim of the study\nResults: Three themes emerged to describe health care professionals' views about their patient education skills and how to develop them: patient-centred counselling; supporting self-management; and continuous development.Patient-centred counselling\nDiscussion and conclusion: The health care professionals in this study experienced that they should develop their patient education towards patient-centredness. This result is supported by the previous study of Kaariainen (2007), in which she concluded that patient education should be more focused on the patient's individual needs, and that the patient's life-situation should be taken into account.In the study, the nurses noticed that it would be important to make a shift from professional-led education and counselling towards a relationship in which the professional and the patient are equals and represent different kinds of expertise. Similarly, in their literature review, van Dam et al. (2003) concluded that interventions which are directly focused on enhancing the patient's participation seem to be the most powerful ones. Moreover, Kaariainen (2007) states that quality patient education includes facing the patient as an active and responsible expert of her or his life situation; in addition, the patient's values and beliefs should be respected.The participants in this study experienced that it is necessary for them as patient educators to acknowledge their own abilities, beliefs and values in order to be able to develop their patient education skills. This is noteworthy because appreciating and acknowledging the importance of reflection is one prerequisite for the paradigm shift from the traditional patient education model towards the patient-centred education (e.g. Funnell and Anderson, 2004).According to the results of this study, it seems that the paradigm shift from the traditional professional-led care and patient education towards patient-centredness is a challenge, as Anderson and Funnell (2010) suggest. The nurses in this study, however, acknowledged the need for change and development towards patient-centredness and patient self-management in care and patient education. It seems that assessing and reflecting upon one's own communication and patient education skills is the most important factor in initiating the development towards patient-centredness. Moreover, the professionals in this study recognise the need to develop the methods of the patient education; versatile methods and programs are needed because of patients' individual needs (see also Barlow et al., 2002; Jedeloo et al., 2010; Sarkar et al., 2008). In relation to the development of patient education methods, the professionals in this study experienced that they have insufficient skills for group education; however, according to the research (e.g. Barlow et al., 2002) using peers in education, for example, could be one means to develop patient education and maybe also its cost-effectiveness.Society in general is increasingly developing toward equality, participation and citizen rights (e.g. Adolfsson et al., 2008). Consequently, it is important to take this development into account in health care and patient education as well, because long-term success will be achieved only by supporting the patient's self-management as a consequence of the co-operation, support and facilitation of health care professionals (see also Trento et al., 2008).Practice implications\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The aim of this study was to describe nurses' and other health care professionals' views about their patient education skills and how to develop them.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The data for the study were collected from the participants of the online education course on patient education. The data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis.\nFindings: - The results show that, in the experience of health care professionals, it is important to make a shift from the professional-led education and counselling towards an education relationship in which the professional and the patient are equals and represent different kinds of expertise and to develop patient education towards patient-centredness supporting the patients' self-management.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The sample used in the research is small.\nPractical implications: - The participants in this study experienced that, as patient educators, it is necessary for them to acknowledge their own abilities, beliefs and values in order to be able to develop their patient education skills. This is noteworthy because appreciating and acknowledging the importance of reflection is one prerequisite for the paradigm shift from the traditional patient education model towards patient-centred education. Consequently, it is important to investigate further the best ways of facilitating the development of health care professionals' skills with regard to patient-centred education.\nOriginality/value: - The study showed that, through education and training, health care professionals can recognize the need to develop their patient education towards patient-centredness.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Implementing an employee career-development strategy: How to build commitment and retain employees
|
[
"Motivation",
"Recruitment",
"Retention",
"Career development",
"Employee development"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Fixed graphic\nFive ways organizations mismanage career development: There are several reasons why organizations mismanage career development. The common mistakes could be called the five \"Ps\" of poor career-development management. They are:\nFoundations for a career-development strategy: A successful career-development strategy has several important characteristics. They include beginning early, communicating clearly, partnering employees, facilitating internal movements and taking action frequently.\nCareer-development activities: Internal careers day\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Demonstrates how to build commitment and retain employees through a career-development strategy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Shows how organizations often mismanage career development and how they could do better.\nFindings: Describes the five \"Ps\" of poor career development, the foundations of a career-development strategy and a number of career-development activities.\nPractical implications: Highlights the importance of beginning early, communicating clearly, partnering employees, facilitating internal movements and taking action frequently.\nSocial implications: Advances the view that employee disengagement and high employee turnover are expensive and often avoidable.\nOriginality/value: Argues that the lack of career development continues to be a major cause of employee dissatisfaction and turnover and shows how this can be avoided.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Between global and local: hybridized appeals in China web auto ads
|
[
"Globalization",
"Advertising",
"China"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: With rapid economic development for the past decades, China has experienced a rise from a Wen Bao (enough to eat) society to a Xiao Kang (well-to-do) society; and the Chinese people have enjoyed much more disposable income for consumption (Chan and Chan, 2005; Zhang, 2001). While 80 percent of the Chinese population in 1978 earned less than Y=1 per day (World Bank 1998), the annual average disposable income for urban residents in 2004 reached Y=9,422 (http://finance.sina.com.cn). The market for the automobiles has also been shifting from being oriented towards the institutional purchasers in the 1980s to the individual/family consumers in the 1990 and early 2000s (Shao, 2001). On a microeconomic level, the automobile industry in China has long been a bastion of local protectionism; nonetheless, the vast majority of the Chinese consumers, at all income levels, favor the Western and foreign brands (Doctoroff, 2005). Employing effective communication strategies to reach the new Chinese consumers has thus become critical in transnational auto management and communication in China (Jia, 2005).\"Act local, think global\" has become the axiom for today's business communication (Goodman, 1995). The concern of resolving the paradox of globalization and localization in international or transnational advertising has manifested itself in the form of the \"globalization\" versus \"customization\" debate and in numerous attempts of examining \"standardization\" versus \"adaptation\" strategies used in global advertising and marketing (Grant and Short, 2002; Heileman, 1997; Kanso, 1991; Mueller, 1992). With the accelerated growth of advertising in China, accelerated attention in the past decades has also been paid to examining its practice. Nonetheless, most of the previous studies in Chinese advertising have been confined to the examination of advertising content or cultural themes (Cheng, 1994, 1997; McIntyre and Wei, 1998; Wong, 2000) and/or to the increase of westernization/globalization in the Chinese advertising (Feng, 2004; Feng and Wu, 2007; Lee and So, 2007), with few (Wang, 1997, 2000; Wu, 2007) looking at the possible intertwinement between the global/western and the local/eastern/Chinese elements. Therefore, the present study attempts to take into account both the global and the local elements in the textual construction of China web auto ads. To embrace both the global in the local and the local in the global, a sample of ads were collected as representing different types of enterprises/products in China, i.e. the local enterprises and products, the joint-venture enterprises and products, and the foreign enterprises and products.With accelerated global interactions, increasing attention has also been paid to the tension between cultural homogenization and cultural heterogenization. Alternative to the notion of globalization, Robertson (1995) proposed the concept of \"glocalization\" to represent the interlocking duality of globalization and localization in cultural change and formation. The concept of glocalization is important and significant for it has challenged the thesis of Western imperialism (Schiller, 1971) and overcome its limitations in emphasizing the development of cultural convergence and slighting the heterogenizing force of local cultures in the change process. Wang (1997, 2000) extended and applied the concept of glocalization to the study of foreign advertising in China and concluded that in China today, we cannot speak of global without the local, and vice versa. Furthermore, Wang (2000, p. 108) conjectured that there could be three possible scenarios of the global-local fusion, i.e. Scenario 1: where there is strong globalization but weak localization, entails \"the production of similar kinds of subjects on a global scale\"; Scenario 2: where there is a more balanced correspondence between global and local elements; Scenario 3: where there is strong localization but weak globalization, i.e. in Friedman's words, \"the local assimilates the global into its own realm of practiced meaning.\"Inspired by Wang's conjecture of the three scenarios as well as by the intricate and profound changes taking place in contemporary China, the present study attempts to investigate further the possible patterns as representing the scenarios of global-local fusion in China web auto ads and the cultural trends of China these patterns are reflecting and constructing. Nonetheless, different from the concern of Wang (1997, 2000), this study will focus on the discursive construction of the Chinese advertising and on examining the textual variations of the web auto ads in relation to the different enterprises and products they represent, i.e. the local enterprises and the products, the joint-venture enterprises and products versus the foreign enterprises and products.\n2 Method of the present study: The present study aims to investigate the possible patterns and scenarios of global-local fusion as manifested in the three significant dimensions constructing the discourse of the web auto ads from People's Republic of China - value appeals, language appeals and visual appeals. Specifically, the major research questions are:RQ1. What are the overall distribution and general characteristics of the global appeals versus the local appeals in the China web auto ads?RQ2. What are the possible patterns as representing the scenarios of the global and local fusion in the discourse of Chinese advertising?RQ3. What cultural trends of China these patterns are reflecting and constructing?2.1 Defining global and local appeals\n3 Results: 3.1 Overall, distribution of global and local appeals\n4 Discussion and conclusion: The paper has presented a review of the issue of glocalization in transnational advertising and made a further attempt by investigating the possible patterns of global-local fusion as manifested in the discursive construction of automobile advertisements in People's Republic of China. A sample of 110 web ads was collected between 2004 and 2005, representing product branding from the local enterprises, the joint-venture enterprises, and the foreign enterprises in the automobile industry in People's Republic of China. A tripartite framework has been developed to examine the patterns of global-local fusion in these ads along three dimensions: value appeals, language appeals, and visual appeals.It is found that among the three dimensions of appeals constructing the advertisements, the global appeals tend to be used more frequently in the value dimension while the local appeals tend to be used more frequently in the language dimension, but there is not much difference in the frequency of distribution in the global versus the local appeals in the visual dimension. Furthermore, different from some previous assumptions and studies which emphasized the increased westernization/globalization in the Chinese advertising, the results of this exploratory investigation have indicated that a large number of the Chinese advertisers tend to hybridize both the global appeals and the local appeals, e.g. the global value of \"success/status\" was intertwined with the local value of \"family\"; Chinese and English were used parallel to each other in the brand name and furthermore were mixed in the headline and slogan of an ad; the local Chinese model was used and placed against the modern buildings with distinctive western colours and settings.Apparently, in China today, we cannot speak of global without local, and vice versa. Looking at the total number of the global versus the local appeals for each ad, we can observe three possible patterns as representing the scenarios of the global and local fusion in the discourse of Chinese advertising:1. weak globalization but strong localization;2. strong globalization but weak localization; and3. a balanced correspondence between the global and local elements.The most prominent pattern from this ad sample was \"weak globalization but strong localization,\" the less prominent patterns were \"strong globalization but weak localization\" and \"a balanced correspondence between the global and local elements,\" Furthermore, comparing the distribution of the three patterns of global-local fusion in the ads from the three different types of enterprises, we can observe that a much higher percentage of the ads from the local and the joint-venture enterprises tend to embrace \"weak globalization but strong localization,\" while a much higher percentage of the ads from the foreign enterprise \"strong globalization but weak localization.\"The phenomenon of the global-local hybridity in Chinese advertising merits our special attention. The presence of both the global and the local elements in the Chinese advertising have reflected and constructed a hybrid cultural space that is simultaneously local and foreign, i.e. a cultural mix. We can observe that as cultural boundaries in contemporary China are blurring with increased transnational practice, a new Cultural China is emerging integrating the local with the global. Furthermore, it should be noted that cultural boundaries are socially constructed and will continually be defined and redefined, especially with accelerated global interactions when all cultures and communities of practice have become increasingly interconnected and interdependent. Chan (2002) pointed out that it is through the hybridization of the foreign and domestic cultures that cultural development is achieved. In other words, what is considered to be foreign at a time will be rendered indigenous if it is successfully synthesized and the resultant hybridized culture will then serve as a new basis for further hybridization and change. In short, the process as well as the product of glocalization in Chinese advertising and in other forms of corporate practice in contemporary China as well merits our further and constant attention.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to present the issue of glocalization in transnational advertising and to investigate various patterns of global-local fusion in the discursive construction of automobile advertisements in People's Republic of China.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A sample of 110 web ads is collected between 2004 and 2005, representing product branding from the local enterprises, the joint-venture enterprises, and the foreign enterprises in the automobile industry in People's Republic of China. A tripartite framework is developed to examine the patterns of global-local fusion in the ads along three dimensions: value appeals, language appeals, and visual appeals.\nFindings: - The paper finds that the global appeals tend to be used more frequently in the value dimension while the local appeals tend to be used more frequently in the language dimension, while there is not much difference in the frequency of distribution in the global versus the local appeals in the visual dimension. Furthermore, a large number of the multinational advertisers tend to hybridize both the global and the local elements and there are three possible patterns as representing the scenarios of the global and local fusion in the discourse of Chinese advertising: weak globalization but strong localization, strong globalization but weak localization, and a balanced correspondence between the global and local elements.\nOriginality/value: - The paper has developed a tripartite framework for systematically examining the phenomenon of global-local hybridity in the discourse of Chinese advertising and calls for attention to the process as well as products of glocalization in the other forms of transnational corporate practice.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Interview with Professor Bob Garratt, author of The Fish Rots from the Head
|
[
"Corporate governance",
"Corporate strategy",
"Boards of directors",
"Learning"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Bob Garratt has consulted internationally for over 25 years on five of the six continents. He is known for his discreet work on corporate governance; board review and development; director mentoring; top team development; and strategic thinking.\nWhy did you decide to revise your bestselling book: The Fish Rots from the Head?: I decided to revise the book, because the second revision was in 2003 and the context both nationally and internationally for corporate governance has changed so much, that it needed a major revision.\nIn the book, you argue for both competence and diversity around the boardroom table. Why do you think it is so common for diversity to be overlooked at board level?: It is still very common for people to choose from a very narrow band of people within society. The most obvious cases are in family businesses, which range from very small, to huge multinational conglomerates. That is the most extreme case, but if you look at a lot of the larger companies around the world, they do tend to select from very narrow bands, and that is partly because the brief they give to head-hunters (rather than doing the selection themselves) has a very narrow view of who would be appropriate. The way the briefs are written often specify that they must have a particular mix of experiences, which actually stops diversity occurring.\nWhat would you say is the best way to address this issue?: I am often surprised when I talk directly to boards, and I talk to lots of boards. When I ask them if they want to add diversity to their board, so they are not all the same age, same sex, same business backgrounds, same educational backgrounds, etc., a lot of ideas actually flow, but if you leave it to the chairman and perhaps the HR director (although it is normally just the chairman) to actually write a brief, the brief tends to be not very creative.\nYou stress the need for systematic and detailed induction of directors on starting their role. In your experience, do many organizations offer this facility?: It is still fairly unusual. It is getting better, but it is still unusual. It is the job of the chairman to actually lead on the induction process. Technically (and legally) the chairman is the architect of their board, they have to design and then develop their board. A lot of chairs do not fully understand that. There is however, also one other person who is very critical to effective induction, and that is the company secretary, who people often do not think about at all. It is the combination of a good chairman who understands what they are doing, and a good company secretary who sets the legal boundaries and goes through all the administrative processes for the board which are so important.There is a huge differentiation between being a director and being a manager. Most people who become directors are managers, and do not really realize that difference. Part of the difference is just the vast amount of law which a director has to work within, whereas most managers do not. There is a lot more law about what a director does than what a manager does. In fact, the Companies Act[1] is entirely about that. Would you believe that our new Companies Act is 1,800 pages and there is not a mention of a manager in it. It is only the chairman, the board of directors and the company secretary.You need the company secretary to give you all those boundaries and to explain your personal liabilities. Most directors do not realize that they have unlimited personal liability, and they often panic when they find that out. Managers do not have this liability, but because we often will only recruit senior executives (managers) to become directors, then you get the managerial mindset flowing through into the boardroom, rather than the director's mindset, which is very different and much more strategic.\nWhat would you say are some of the main reasons for the collapse of so many large corporations over the past few years?: I think it is a lack of basic direction. A director's job is two-fold. If you look at the origin of the word governance, it derives from the Greek verb kuberna`o (kubernao)[2] which means two things; one is \"to steer\", or the steering of a ship, so showing the way ahead; the other is the translation into modern cybernetics, so is about fast feedback, fast learning and creating loops from that fast direction. The board's role is to always balance the two. You will never get it completely right, so you have got to have regular board meetings, I would say at least once a month. In these meetings you need to look at both how you are progressing, and also how the company's learning is going in relation to that. You can then feed that back and discuss it with the managers, but managers often get caught up in the technical details of things, without looking out towards the horizon to see the bigger picture, which is where the board comes in. The issue is then that most directors are ex-managers, or existing managers in other companies, so they struggle to do that.\nHow can organizations go about creating a climate for development and learning? What is the board's role in this?: Well, that is one of the big questions. What we have been doing is some very rigorous benchmarking, first of all of the board and its learning, and separately, an organizational capability survey, which actually assesses the whole of the organization, either through individual interviews or focus groups, dependant on the size of the organization and what their particular needs are. We do gap analysis on each of the dimensions of the capability analysis[3], and that often shows at different levels of the organization, and in different departments or divisions, that there are hugely different perceptions of what the gaps are in the way it is organized.What we then do is feed that back to the board, and also to the top management, and we begin to get some priorities for the total organizational development. So, we are trying to link the development of the board itself with the development of the whole of the organization, and the consequent performance from both. It is rigorously done, with careful gap analysis in two ways. The first is a statistical gap analysis and the other is a factor analysis of the very words and mindsets used by the people within the organization, so we do a lot on interviewing both individuals and groups through focus groups.\nTo what extent are sustainability and corporate social responsibility now an integral part of overall company strategy?: To be honest, to the most part it is not. However, there are some very interesting things going on at the moment. Currently, the two leading countries in the world in terms of redeveloping the system of corporate governance are the UK and South Africa. South Africa has recently gone further than the UK, by stating that the corporate governance laws now apply to every registered organization in the country, whether it is public, private, not-for-profit, government, etc. So that is step one, but the other thing that they have done which we have got more than half way towards is to say that in future we will start reporting not a financial bottom line only, but actually a triple bottom line. All organizations have to report financially once a year at their annual meeting, but now under the triple bottom line, you have to report and audit separately your environmental impact, around the notion of sustainability. The third bottom line is your impact on your local community.South Africa is very radical, and is only just starting this, but if you look at our Companies Act, which was written in 2006, but did not really come into action until 2008, there is actually a requirement that you must begin to report on your environmental impact, and beyond that, if you read if very carefully, you can see the outline (although it is not explicit) for reporting on your impact on your local community.Corporate social responsibility as a phrase is beginning to drop out of the picture a bit, because this idea of the triple bottom line is seen as a much more attractive way of doing things.\nDo you think that different rules apply to corporate governance within the public and private sector?: There is a nonsense in the public sector at the moment about which I have written quite a bit, which is that whilst a lot of public sector people are being encouraged to become more autonomous in their boards, in their organizations, they cannot be because first of all most public sector organizations are not separate entities - they do not have a legal form. Because of that, you have not got any law in which you are operating[4]. The other problem, which is a massive issue, is that the head of an organization like that is not the chairman, which is who he/she should be. He/she is the chief executive, who in civil service terminology is called the accounting officer. Because the accounting officer is actually the head of the organization, they can override their board and go to their minister if they do not like what the board is doing. So, it cuts out the whole notion of the importance of the board in corporate governance.\nHow can the board of directors go about ensuring the long-term health of their business?: Well that is the interesting part of it, because now, under our new Companies Act, the board is actually charged with ensuring that we do have a long-term future. That is the first time that has happened in the UK. Up until now, as long as the chairman signed the accounts as true and accurate, having been audited by an external auditor, that was all you had to do. You never had to say that the company had a future. Over the last couple of years, this has changed, and that is proving quite difficult, particularly in a recession, because it is a legal obligation to say that. It is really focusing people on how the board actually defines the future that the organization is going to have.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to provide an interview with Bob Garratt, author of The Fish Rots from the Head. Bob has consulted internationally for over 25 years on five of the six continents. He is known for his discreet work on corporate governance; board review and development; director mentoring; top team development; and strategic thinking.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - This briefing is prepared by an independent interviewer.\nFindings: - Bob Garratt discusses his reasons for revising of his bestselling book, and how the role of the board needs to function within an organization, in order to get the best from the business and have long-term success.\nPractical implications: - The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.\nSocial implications: - The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that can have a broader social impact.\nOriginality/value: - Bob comes from a background where organizational learning and development are underpinned by the rigor action learning and the blending of human behavior with the feedback mechanisms of cybernetics. Bob wrote the first book called The Learning Organization in 1986 and has experience working with large-scale organizational changes in the engineering, financial services, defense electronics and non-profit sectors as well as in government.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Teacher peer excellence groups (TPEGs): Building communities of practice for instructional improvement
|
[
"Instructional leadership",
"Teacher professional development",
"Community of practice"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Research suggests that variation in student-learning outcomes is partially attributable to the structure, focus, and quality of teachers' work, much of which may be observable and subject to both external stimuli for improvement and internal drive for professional-community building (Bruce and Ross, 2008; Levine and Marcus, 2010; Louis et al., 1996). Today the idea that teacher collaboration contributes to instructional improvement is widely accepted by schools and districts, where more resources and time have been designated to encourage teachers to work together, and various pathways have been explored to create collective learning opportunities (Desimone, 2009; Louis et al., 1996; Youngs and King, 2002). Despite significant and continued efforts, however, states, districts, and schools have not seen consistent and sustainable effect on the improvement of practice in the average classroom (Hiebert et al., 2002; Levine and Marcus, 2010).\nCommunities of practice for instructional improvement: What are the fundamental aspects of productive communities of practice? A rich set of perspectives is available from literature generated in recent decades. Much has also been discussed about the optimal environment that may foster and sustain the impact of structural changes and support teacher collaboration that lead to instructional improvement. While largely conceptual and exploratory, previous studies have helped put together a multifaceted picture depicting the purpose, outcome features, and enabling school conditions for such communities.\nThe TPEG model: TPEG design and state context\nMethods: Data\nFindings: RQ1 - TPEG participation and changes in instructional collaboration\nDiscussion and implications: Existing literature highlights instruction-focused collaboration and deprivatized practice as desired features of productive communities of practice. However, efforts to building more collaborative communities of practice must be considered in the context of school conditions. Among them, research indicates that principal instructional leadership, teacher trust, teachers' sense of school-wide professional community, and teacher efficacy may help foster and sustain the impact of PD interventions.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the viability of implementing a protocol-guided model designed to provide structure and focus for teacher collaboration from Shanghai in today's US public schools. The authors examine whether the new model, Teacher Peer Excellence Group (TPEG), fosters the desired key features of productive communities of practice where teachers can jointly construct, transform, preserve, and continuously deepen the meaning of effective teaching. The authors also explore the extent to which existing school conditions - principal instructional leadership, trust, teacher efficacy, and teachers' sense of school-wide professional community - enable or moderate the desired outcomes.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Data for this paper are drawn from a series of surveys administered to teachers from 24 pilot schools in six school districts over two school years. Descriptive and multilevel modeling analyses are conducted.\nFindings: The findings provide encouraging evidence that, given sufficient support and guidance, teachers report higher levels of engagement in deprivatized practice and instructional collaboration. These findings also hold after controlling for key enabling conditions and school characteristics.\nSocial implications: The TPEG approach challenges school leaders to take on the responsibilities of helping teachers make their practice public, sharable, and better - three critical objectives in the shift to develop the profession of teaching.\nOriginality/value: The indication of TPEG model's positive impact on strengthening the features of communities of practice in selected public schools provides the impetus for further efforts in understanding the transformational changes needed and challenges ahead at the classroom, school, and district levels.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Cause-related marketing strategy types: assessing their relative effectiveness
|
[
"Cause-related marketing type",
"Customer-brand identification",
"Fashion brand distinctiveness",
"Fashion brand credibility/attractiveness",
"Fashion brand attitude",
"Customer loyalty"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Over the past decade, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has evolved from a \"nice-to-have silo\" to a \"fundamental strategic priority\" for businesses (McPherson, 2017). CSR as a concept refers to the idea that corporations should take responsibility not only for the economic consequences of operating a business but also for any impacts that the business has on social and environmental issues (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2008). One strategy that falls under the umbrella term of CSR is cause-related marketing. Cause-related marketing (CRM) involves mutually beneficial cooperative efforts between a company and a non-profit organization (NPO) designed to promote the company's sales and the NPO's cause (Grantspace.org). CRM impacts consumer's behavior as the 2017 Cone Communication CSR report noted 87 percent of US consumers are likely to purchase a product from a business that advocated for issues they cared about. Then, can companies \"do well by doing good\" through strategically practiced CRM?\n2. Related literature: 2.1 Types of CRM strategies\n3. Method: 3.1 Pilot test I: assessment of the four CRM conditions\n4. Results: 4.1 Participant characteristics\n5. Discussion and implications: Across all CRM strategies investigated, all hypotheses tied to the conceptual model were supported. For each CRM strategy, if participants rated the brand's image as socially responsible, they also indicated the brand was distinct and credible. When participants indicated the brand was distinct and credible, they rated the brand as attractive. When participants indicated the brand was attractive, they identified with the brand. The higher participant's identification, the more participants indicated a positive brand attitude and a willingness to engage in loyalty behaviors. Customer's identification with the brand influenced customer loyalty both directly or indirectly through brand attitude. Thus, marketers can choose any of the four CRM strategies to stimulate consumer's positive responses related to the brand. In addition, in support of Curras-Perez et al.'s (2009) model, our results are also consistent with previous investigations examining causal relationships between CSR image and brand perception, C-C identification, brand attitude and customer loyalty (e.g. Bigne-Alcaniz et al., 2010; Deng and Xu, 2017; Lii et al., 2013). The results support Yoon et al.'s (2006) idea that consumer's favoritism toward socially responsible brands allows them to project their personal identity by associating with a socially responsible brand and to reward the socially responsible brand through behavioral commitments (e.g. product purchase).\n6. Limitations and suggestions for future study: First, young consumers were invited as participants because this age group tends to be sensitive to corporate marketing practices. Future researchers could extend the pool of consumer participants as other age groups exposed to CRM practices may respond to them in different ways. Second, this study focused on CRM enacted by fashion brands. Since sponsorship-linked marketing (e.g. Panera bakery's donation of unsold bread), transaction-based CRM (e.g. Yoplait's Pink Ribbon campaign), cause-related event marketing (e.g. Target's social media event to choose a donation site) and cause-related experiential marketing (e.g. Bank of America's charity walk) are used across industries, the effectiveness of CRM types could be tested in other business categories. Third, although the four types of CRM included were identified as distinct types, they could possibly overlap or be intertwined in empirical settings. For example, some event marketing can involve transaction-based CRM. Future researchers could investigate synergy effects when two or more CRM types are combined. Fourth, before developing the hypothesized model, we tested a few alternative models (e.g. a model that contains a sole indirect effect of C-B identification on customer loyalty). To figure out the most reasonable model, future researchers could test all possible indirect and direct effects between variables. Fifth, future researchers could investigate the effect of moderating variables (e.g. consumer's involvement in a cause, tendency to trust in business practices, or sensitivity to marketing) on the relationship between CRM strategy and consumer responses.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of four types of cause-related marketing (CRM) strategies on consumer responses to a fashion brand and to assess the relative effectiveness of each.\nDesign/methodology/approach: An experiment was conducted with young adult consumers (n=344) and undergraduates (n=415). Using a between-subject design, each participant was randomly assigned to one of four CRM scenarios and completed a questionnaire.\nFindings: Across all CRM conditions, the effect of CRM strategy on consumer responses (e.g. perceived brand distinctiveness/credibility/attractiveness, customer-brand identification, brand attitude, customer loyalty) was significant. The effect of corporate social responsibility image on perceived brand distinctiveness was strongest for cause-related event marketing, followed by cause-related experiential marketing, transaction-based CRM and sponsorship-linked marketing.\nPractical implications: By providing information about the relative effectiveness of four types of CRM strategies, this research aids fashion marketers in their selection of the CRM strategy that generates the best performance. Adding an event component to their CRM activity would increase the effect of CRM strategies on consumer responses.\nOriginality/value: This research contributes to the extant literature on CRM by identifying types of CRM strategies, their relative effectiveness, and key variables (e.g., C-B identification) that explain the impact of CRM strategies on consumer responses.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The early bird and the late bird: which catches more worms in Australia?
|
[
"Stock market",
"Australian market",
"Intraday data",
"Trading time"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Can the early bird catch more worms than the late bird? The timing is critical in the investment world, and thus \"when is the optimal time to trade\" is an everlasting question for investors. Improvements in the availability of high frequency financial data have enabled academic researchers and financial market traders to conduct intraday technical analysis on stock markets. By utilising such data, we examine when the best time of a day is to trade in the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX).\n2. Data, method and results: The data originate from the Thomson Reuters Tick History database via the Securities Industry Research Centre of Australia (SIRCA) portal, and covers the period October 2, 2000-October 2, 2015, with a total of 3,788 trading days. It consists of intraday observations measured at 15 min, which are aggregated to compute 30-min blocks of the spot prices of the S&P/ASX 200 market index. Each trading day has six hours of trading at the ASX, spanning from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.\n3. Conclusion: To answer the question \"when is the optimal time to trade\", we conduct a study by dividing the ASX trading session into 12-time blocks and analyse the intraday high and low prices of selected assets traded on the ASX. We find that for the period 2000-2015 the prices are usually lowest during the 10-10:30 a.m. block, which is the best time to buy; and the lowest in the last time block before the close, which is the best time to sell. In light of this, we develop a simple trading strategy wherein investors buy a unit of the S&P/ASX 200 in the early morning and sell it in the time block just before the close when the excess overnight price volatility is negative. By filtering the expected excess variation of the intraday price in executing the trading, our day-trading strategy achieves statistically higher returns than other 66 possible day-trading combinations through dividing the trading hours into 30-min blocks. The risk-adjusted returns obtained by using the Sharpe ratio also support our trading strategy. The results thus confirm that the early bird can catch more worms than the late bird in the Australian stock market. This simple trading method potentially benefits both institutional and individual investors include those who do not possess resources to implement complex trading strategies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine what the optimal time is in a typical trading day for investors to buy/sell stocks in the Australian stock market.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study mainly focuses on the S&P/ASX200. Each trading day, between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m., is divided into 30-min blocks. The effectiveness of easily implementable trading strategy to purchase the index in the morning and sell at the close is tested. The study controls for the excess overnight price volatility to improve the effectiveness of the investment strategy. This trading strategy is compared against other 66 possible day-trading combinations.\nFindings: The results show that the trading strategy of buying in the first 30 min of the trading session and close off the position during the last 30 min obtains higher returns than other 66 strategies.\nPractical implications: The day-trading strategy proposed in this study is very simple and therefore can be easily implemented by investors including individual investors.\nOriginality/value: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study which constructs a trading strategy using the J- or U-shaped intraday return pattern.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Failure mode and effects analysis based on fuzzy utility cost estimation
|
[
"Failure mode and effects analysis",
"Utility theory",
"Risk management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) is a tool widely used in the automotive, aerospace, and electronics industries to identify, prioritize, and eliminate known potential failures, problems, and errors from systems under design before the product is released (Stamatis, 1995).In FMEA, the potential failure modes and their effects are brainstormed. The severity of the effect of failure mode, the occurrence of the failure mode, and the detection of the failure mode are scaled from 1 to 10. The risk is measured by the risk priority number (RPN), which is the product of severity, occurrence, and detection. A larger RPN represents a higher risk.The disadvantages of traditional FMEA are: The three indices used for RPN calculation are ordinal scale variables. The cost due to failure cannot be defined by these ordinal numbers. Thus, the product of these three ordinal numbers is not meaningful.Several studies on alternative FMEA approaches have been conducted. Tarum (2001) studied identifying and prioritizing the process part of potential problems that have the most financial impact on an operation. Based on a critical review of the method of FMEA and in particular of the risk priority number (RPN) used for ranking failure modes, Gilchrist (1993) proposed an alternative procedure, based on a simple model and using expected costs as the basis for ranking failure modes. Kmenta and Ishii (2000) developed scenario-based FMEA using expected costs. This method provides a cost based decision-making tool. However, the disadvantages are that the cost and probability are difficult to estimate without data. How to take into account experts' different opinions remains a problem.In this paper, a fuzzy utility theory based FMEA approach is presented. This approach uses utility theory and fuzzy membership functions for the assessment of severity, occurrence, and detection. The utility theory accounts for the nonlinear relationship between the cost due to failure and the ordinal ranking. The application of fuzzy membership functions better represents the team opinions. The Risk Priority Index (RPI) is developed for the prioritization of failure modes. The application of the method is demonstrated through two case studies.\nApproach: Failure modes and effects assessment\nCase study: Case study 1\nConclusions: The traditional FMEA uses RPN to prioritize failure modes. Since the three indices used for RPN calculation are ordinal scale variables, the product of these three ordinal numbers cannot define the actual cost due to failure. In this paper, a fuzzy utility theory based failure mode and effects analysis is presented. This approach uses utility theory and fuzzy membership functions for the assessment of severity, occurrence, and detection. The utility theory accounts for the nonlinear relationship between the cost due to failure and the ordinal ranking. The application of fuzzy membership functions better represents the team opinions. The Risk Priority Index (RPI) is developed for the prioritization of failure modes. The two case studies conducted show that the FUT-based FMEA can take into account the actual cost due to failure and better prioritize failure modes. Thus, this approach provides a convenient cost-effective tool for failure analysis. It improves the performance FMEA in the risk and failure analysis for product design and manufacturing/assembly process.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to provide a cost effective failure mode and effects analysis tool to overcome the disadvantages of the traditional FMEA that the cost due to failure is not defined.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - The method presented in this paper is based on the fuzzy utility theory. It uses utility theory and fuzzy membership functions for the assessment of severity, occurrence, and detection. The utility theory accounts for the nonlinear relationship between the cost due to failure and the ordinal ranking. The application of fuzzy membership functions better represents the team opinions. The Risk Priority Index (RPI) is developed for the prioritization of failure modes.\nFindings: - The advantages of the FUT-based FMEA are demonstrated through cases studies. It shows that it can take the cost due to failure into account when prioritizing failure modes.\nOriginality/value: - The FUT-based FMEA presented in this paper provides a convenient cost-effective tool for failure analysis. It improves the performance FMEA in the risk and failure analysis for product design and manufacturing/assembly process.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Consumer ethnocentrism vs. intercultural competence as moderators in intercultural service encounters
|
[
"Service quality",
"Competence",
"Consumer ethnocentrism",
"Interaction comfort",
"Intercultural",
"Service encounter"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Intercultural encounters involve interactions between customers and employees from different cultural backgrounds (Stauss and Mang, 1999). Due to recent advances in globalization, there is a rapid rise in international travel and migration, which, in turn, has resulted in a dramatic increase in the frequency of intercultural service encounters (Etgar and Fuchs, 2011; Teng, 2011; Wang and Mattila, 2010). Therefore, it is becoming quite important for international service firms to acknowledge the importance of intercultural service encounters and to understand the unique challenges posed by the differences in the perceptions, expectations and evaluations of their customers and employees shaped by their diverse cultures (Sharma et al., 2009, 2012).\nConceptual framework and hypotheses: Perceived cultural distance\nMethodology: Sample and procedure\nData analysis and findings: We began with an assessment of the psychometric properties of all the scales, using confirmatory factor analysis with AMOS 19. The measurement model shows an excellent fit (kh2 = 263.35, df = 212, kh2/df = 1.24, CFI = 0.98, NFI = 0.97, RMSEA = 0.035, SRMR = 0.046) with all the fit indices better than their cut-off values (CFI > 0.95, NFI > 0.90, RMSEA < 0.06, SRMR < 0.08, 1 <= kh2/df <= 3). All the factor loadings are higher than 0.60 with significant (p < 0.001) t-values and no major cross-factor loadings (all less than 0.40). Table I shows the properties of all the scales.\nDiscussion and contributions: In this paper, we extend the growing research on intercultural service encounters with a comprehensive conceptual framework (Figure 1), which incorporates direct effects of service outcome and PCD on IC and service quality, as well as their indirect effects on customer SAT. We also hypothesize that CE would negatively moderate the influence of service outcome on IC and service quality, whereas ICC would positively moderate the influence of PCD on IC and service quality.\nManagerial implications: Besides the above conceptual contributions, our research also offers many useful managerial insights. First, it shows that it is not enough for service managers to study service failures and try to improve their performance through service recovery; instead, it is equally important to understand that customers may also have biased perceptions and evaluations even in successful service encounters. In other words, managers in service firms engaged in intercultural service encounters would find it useful to track not only service failures but also successful encounters, which they would normally ignore assuming that customers would not have any negative perceptions about such encounters.\nLimitations and future research: Despite its useful conceptual contributions and managerial implications, our research has a few limitations that may be addressed in future research. First, we manipulated service outcome with only two conditions - failure and success - in a service recovery scenario, to compare the differences in their influence on customer perceptions and evaluations. However, many service encounters may be more complicated and consist of multiple instances of failure and success, which may lead to some ambiguity or ambivalence in customer perceptions. Future research may address this by measuring the level of failure or success as a continuous variable (say, degree of failure or success) and use it as a predictor of IC, service quality and SAT. We think this would help provide deeper insights about the influence of service outcome.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This paper aims to explore the moderating effects of consumer ethnocentrism and intercultural competence on the impact of service outcome and perceived cultural distance, respectively, on interaction comfort and perceived service quality in intercultural service encounters.\nDesign/methodology/approach: A 2 x 2 between-subjects experimental design with university students was used, using service encounter scenarios to manipulate service outcome (failure or success) and photos of service employees to manipulate perceived cultural distance (low vs high).\nFindings: As hypothesized, the impact of service outcome on interaction comfort and perceived service quality is moderated negatively by consumer ethnocentrism, whereas the impact of perceived cultural distance is moderated positively by intercultural competence.\nResearch limitations/implications: An experimental design using imaginary service scenarios was used in a single service context (i.e. restaurant) with university students as participants, which may restrict the generalizability of our findings.\nPractical implications: Managers in service firms with multicultural customers should try to recruit service employees with high intercultural competence and low consumer ethnocentrism. They should also develop employee training programs that help minimize the adverse impact of these variables on interaction comfort and service quality in intercultural service encounters.\nOriginality/value: This paper extends prior research by exploring the moderating effects of consumer ethnocentrism and intercultural competence on the direct and indirect effects of service outcome and perceived cultural distance on interaction comfort, service quality and satisfaction.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Economic growth effect of private capital inflows: a structural VAR approach for Nigeria
|
[
"Economic growth",
"Nigeria",
"Private capital inflows",
"Shocks",
"SVAR"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: One of the major constraints of economic growth in developing countries is the inadequacy of savings and investments (Jagadeesh, 2015), and one way of easing the constraints of the low level of domestic savings and investment is to attract inflows of private capital (Obadan, 2004). Private capital inflows, which are transmitted through foreign direct investment (FDI), portfolio investment and remittances (Obadan, 2004), constitute a crucial channel through which resources are transferred from the rich-developed countries to the poor-underdeveloped countries (Chatterjee and Turnosky, 2007). Private capital inflows, according to Carkovic and Levine (2005), Ralhan (2006) and Ocharo (2013), help to broaden and deepen the financial markets, increase liquidity, and facilitate the transfer of technology and management expertise. Furthermore, private capital flows promote the creation of new job opportunities and boost economic growth (Ajayi, 2006).\n2. An overview of the role of private capital inflows in growth: Figure 1 represents the percentage contribution of FDIs to gross domestic product (GDP), portfolio investment to GDP, and remittances to GDP between 1994 and 2017. The graph also depicts the growth in GDP in the period. The trend reveals that the contribution of FDI to GDP has been fairly stable over the period. However, the contribution of portfolio investment to the nation's GDP has been relatively unstable particularly in 2004/2005, which marked the commencement of a bank consolidation exercise by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). The contribution of portfolio investment also experienced a major setback in 2008 following the global financial crisis. It rebounded, however, in 2010, and since then has maintained a relative stable contribution to the nation's GDP. Remittances, as depicted in Figure 1, have been contributing immensely to the nation's GDP. The country experienced a surge in remittances between 2004 and 2005, which marked the era of the bank consolidation exercise. The contribution of remittances, however, declined drastically in the aftermath of the global financial crisis but began to rise again in 2014. The decline, notwithstanding remittances, among other components of private capital inflows, has contributed tremendously to the nation's GDP. The trend signals the fact that the country needs to formulate policies geared toward the development of the financial market in a bid to stimulate portfolio investment. It is also pertinent for the nation to create an enabling environment that will cause FDI to thrive, thus contributing to the nation's GDP.\n3. Review of empirical literature: There are several studies on the relationship between private capital inflows and economic growth. While a number of studies found a positive relationship between private capital inflows and economic growth, other studies noted either a negative relationship or an ambiguous effect of private capital inflows on economic growth. For instance, Bailliu (2000) examined the relationship between private capital flows, financial development and economic growth in 40 developing countries in a bid to know whether capital inflows exert a significant effect on growth. The study employed a dynamic panel technique on time series data in the period 1975-1995 and found that private capital inflows induce higher economic growth. Similarly, Soto (2000) analyzed the effect of the various components of private capital inflows on economic growth employing a dynamic panel of 44 developing countries over the period 1986-1997. The findings of the study revealed that FDI and portfolio equity flows have a strong and positive relationship with economic growth. In the same vein, Berument and Dincer (2004) used monthly data in the period 1992-2001 to 2001-2006 to analyze the effect of capital inflows on macroeconomic performance in the Turkish economy. The study used the vector autoregression (VAR) estimation technique and found that a positive innovation in capital inflows increased the level of output in the economy. Sethi's (2008) study on economic reforms, capital flows and macroeconomic impact on India in the period 1995-2006 also noted a long-run relationship between private capital inflows and economic growth. The study concluded that FDI has a positive effect on economic growth. Using data from 100 countries during 1990-2010, Aizenman et al. (2013) investigated the relationship between the various types of capital inflows (FDI, portfolio investment, equity investment and short-term debt) and economic growth. The study found that a strong relationship exists between FDI and economic growth while the relationship between equity flows and growth is weak and unstable. Saibu (2014) examined the role of trade openness in capital inflows and the growth nexus in the Nigerian economy. The study employed principal component analysis to form an index of capital flows. The outcome of the study revealed that capital inflows exert a positive effect on growth especially when it is interacted with trade openness. A recent study by Jugurnath et al. (2016) investigated the effect of FDI on growth in 32 sub-Saharan African economies over the period 2008-2014 and found that FDI has a positive and a significant effect on economic growth.\n4. Theoretical framework: The study is hinged on three theories in explaining the relationship between the various private capital inflows and economic growth. These theories include the technological change model, the two-gap model, and the self-interest theory. Each of these theories attempts to explain the linkage between the different types of private capital inflows and economic growth. The technological change model was proposed by Hermes and Lensink (2003). The theory noted that the extent to which an economy can experience growth is dependent on the degree to which an economy can adopt and implement new technologies and ideas, and the main channel in which developing countries can adopt and implement new technologies is through FDI inflows. According to Hermes and Lensink (2003), FDI can help to enhance growth through the introduction of new technologies, managerial skills and new varieties of capital goods. Kinoshita (1998) and Sjoholm (1999) noted that the spillover effect of FDI can occur through imitation, competition, and linkage. The spillover via the imitation channel explains that technologies employed by foreign companies are more sophisticated than the ones used by local firms; hence, the local firms may imitate the advanced technology used by the foreign companies, thus making them more productive and experience growth. The spillover through competition emphasizes that the entrance of foreign companies stirs up competition in the local market thus forcing local companies to become more efficient, which can culminate in upgrading existing technology and enhancing managerial skill enhancing productivity and economic growth. The spillover effect through a linkage channel posits that foreign companies can transfer new technologies to firms via transactions in the form of raw materials or intermediate goods, which can result in buyer-seller relations with local firms in the host nation.\n5. Methodology and data: 5.1 Methodology\n6. Results and discussion: 6.1 Stationarity test\n7. Conclusion and policy recommendations: The study analyzed the effect of shocks in the various components of private capital inflows on economic growth in Nigeria over the period of 1986Q1-2016Q4 using impulse response (IRF) and the FEVD of the SVAR model. Findings from the IRF showed that FDI inflows exert a positive impact on economic growth. This implies that FDI flows into Nigeria have contributed to growth through increased factor productivity, efficient use of resources and transfer of managerial skills and advanced technology. It was also found that portfolio investment flows have a positive impact on the growth of the Nigerian economy. The impact is exerted through increased financial liquidity, which has made funds available for productive investment. The IRF, however, showed that personal remittances have not resulted in the growth of the Nigerian economy. The study also noted that from the FEVD, FDI accounts for the major variation in economic growth. This phenomenon is due to the fact that FDI constitutes the most stable components of private capital inflows.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of shocks in the various components of private capital inflows on economic growth in Nigeria using quarterly data in the period 1986Q1-2016Q4.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The study employs the impulse response function and the forecast error variance decomposition of the structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model.\nFindings: The research result shows that shocks in foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows and portfolio investment inflows have a positive and significant impact on economic growth in Nigeria. In addition, FDIs accounted for significant variation in the growth of the Nigerian economy followed by portfolio investments, while personal remittances exerted the least variation in growth.\nPractical implications: The government should promote a favorable macroeconomic environment for existing and potential foreign investors to ensure the continued inflows of FDI and portfolio investment.\nOriginality/value: The novelty of this study lies in disaggregating private capital inflows and analyzing the effect of the shock of each component on the growth of the Nigerian economy using SVAR.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Mental health promotion through supported further education: The value of Antonovsky's salutogenic model of health
|
[
"Health education",
"Mental health services",
"Further education",
"Learning"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Health and education\nThe supported education programme: Programme details\nMethod: Research questions\nResults: Research questions 1 and 2\nDiscussion: Strengthening of SOC\nConclusions: The results of this study show that:* Supported education can substantially raise the SOC13 score of those individuals with low entry scores (i.e. below 52). A statistically significant positive improvement was found for this group.* Antonovsky's (1987) \"salutogenic model of health\" is a suitable perspective upon which to base \"health promotion\" interventions and to evaluate them afterwards.* It is the activity of learning that improves health, not just the benefits its attainment brings later.* For the allied professions, encouragement of Peer Support through team building and Positive Affect through providing purpose and growth is worthy of investment of time and money.* An alternative, non RCT methodology has been developed that is suitable for social interventions both in respect to rigour and ethics.\nRecommendations: In order to address the items identified in this study, it is recommended that:* Antonovsky's (1987) \"salutogenic model\" is a valuable framework for the planning and evaluation of mental health promotion;* allied health professions need to be more aware of the model and the contribution of Peer Support and Positive Affect through Learning Effects in strengthening SOC;* supported education programmes of the type studied here should be more widely developed, monitored and evaluated;* a wider range of health measures should be adopted in such monitoring and evaluation;* health planners and fund holders should give consideration to the pathogenic / salutogenic balance in healthcare provision and the consequent ratio of spend with respect to effectiveness;* health planners and fund holders should give consideration to the balance of short-term / long-term initiatives in healthcare provision and the consequent ratio of spend with respect to effectiveness; and* health planners and fund holders should pursue the financial benefits in the collaborative use of existing funding.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this research is to report on an evaluation of a programme of supported education in a Further Education context for students with long-term mental health problems, based on Antonovsky's Salutogenic model of health. The students are referred by the Community Mental Health Team.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Three consecutive cohorts of students (n=148, 93 male, 55 female; average age 39.5 years) undertaking the programme, completed Antonovsky's Short-form Sense of Coherence scale (the SOC13) on entry to the programme, and when exiting from it. Qualitative feedback from the second cohort of students was examined to establish the processes at work in the programme. This identified a number of themes relating to the processes at work in the programme and its outcomes (Peer Support, Learning Support, Learning Effects, Symptom Reduction and Positive Affect) and provided a basis for designing short questionnaires, which were completed by the second cohort. Data from these questionnaires and the SOC13 were used to build a causal model of the processes at work in the programme.\nFindings: - The overall change between the entry and exit SOC13 scores was not significant. However, students with SOC13 scores below 52 (total n=81, 52 male, 29 female; average age 42.8 years) made statistically significant positive gains. In this initially low scoring group, 70 per cent improved their exit SOC13 score, 2 per cent remained constant, and 28 per cent reported lower exit SOC13 scores. The causal model from the whole of the second cohort of students suggests that peer support is the initial factor contributing to the success of the programme by positively influencing learning effects of the programme and the uptake of learning support. In turn, learning effects reduced symptoms and this had the effect of raising positive affect. Raised positive affect reduced the need for learning support and was positively linked to entry and exit SOC13 scores.\nPractical implications: - This research has implications for budget holders, health promotion staff and allied professionals in the collaborative use of resources to help people recovering from or managing mental health difficulties move forward in their lives.\nOriginality/value: - This study highlights the need for community collaborative social initiatives to be properly funded and validated. Approaches to evaluation could usefully be formulated on the basis of Antonovsky's model. Professionals need to consider investing in creating peer support and positive affect when working with people with mental health needs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Quick response code scanning for children's informal learning
|
[
"QR code",
"Children",
"Informal learning",
"Mobile learning",
"E-learning",
"Mobile technologies",
"Field study"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: Educators are increasingly interested in promoting a diverse range of informal learning through mobile technology. Quick Response (QR) code scanning, for example, can be a versatile tool for stimulating and scaffolding active learning among child users in informal learning environments (Bell et al., 2009; Naismith et al., 2004). The purpose of the present study is to empirically examine the impact of QR code scanning on young users' informal learning. By applying Bell et al.'s (2009) ecological framework of informal learning, we demonstrate the potential for QR code scanning to transform the way child users access information for learning goals in everyday activities (Martin et al., 2011). Empirical research on the effectiveness of mobile technology use in achieving desired learning outcomes in informal environments is rather limited. For example, personal mobile technologies have been used to support both formal and informal learning in new and engaging ways (Naismith et al., 2004; Ozcelik and Acarturk, 2011; Scanlon et al., 2005) and for diverse learning goals (Clough et al., 2008). However, their effectiveness has been studied largely in formal education contexts (e.g. Lindberg et al., 2017), particularly with adult learners (e.g. Chen et al., 2011).\nQR code scanning for formal and informal learning: Research on the application of QR code scanning to formal education demonstrates the significant promise of these tools for enhancing particular learning goals (Norazah Mohd Suki, 2013), such as reading comprehension (Ozcelik and Acarturk, 2011). In addition to facilitating learning effectiveness, integration of QR code scanning into the formal learning environment also enhances the users' attitudes toward the learning materials and experience (Huang et al., 2010).\nMethod: The quasi-experiment field study reported here was designed based on prior studies of informal learning (e.g. Crowley, Callanan, Tenenbaum and Allen, 2001) for evaluating the two hypotheses presented above using the iQ Zoo project. iQ Zoo was an educational project to connect PBS Kids content with zoo animal exhibitions through personal smartphones and QR codes, and a joint effort between WQED, the local PBS station, and the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium. QR Codes were permanently installed around the zoo at 14 different animal exhibits. This research study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the iQ Zoo project. When a user scans the code in Figure 1 on a smartphone, the barcode scanner application would translate the code into an URL address would take the user to the iQ Zoo mobile site that contains information about elephants.\nResults: H1: QR code scanning and interest\nDiscussion: The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of QR code scanning on two informal learning outcomes of child users specified by Bell et al. (2009): increased interest and greater knowledge understanding. Our findings suggest that most children's interest in learning about animals was either maintained or increased as a result of the experience. This finding provides empirical support for Bell et al.'s (2009) view that effective informal learning tools promote the user's interest in the topic. Our findings provide little evidence that QR code scanning may interfere with the informal learning objective of inspiring user interest. While only short-term rather than long-term gains were assessed, qualitative analyses indicated that children expressed being motivated to and interested in learning more about animals in the future. Thus, this study supported Bell et al.'s assertion that informal science learning can be used to support increased future learning.\nConclusion: This paper reports empirical findings from a quasi-experiment field study of QR code scanning for children's informal learning. Results from this study indicate that QR code scanning can serve as an effective, informative and engaging tool for supporting informal learning. Children aged 5 to 12 demonstrated significant knowledge gains by using QR code scanning to access informational content in informal learning settings. The use of QR code scanning enhanced retention and retrieval of declarative animal knowledge in some cases, and maintained children's interest in informal learning about animals. This research has significant implications for human-computer interaction research on child users, as well as e-commerce research on children and families as mobile consumers.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Mobile technologies, such as QR codes, play a particularly important role in scaffolding the child user's active learning in informal environments. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of QR code scanning on two informal learning outcomes: increased interest and greater knowledge understanding.\nDesign/methodology/approach: In total, 91 children and their families participated in the study as part of the iQ Zoo Project. Children in both the smartphone group and the control group completed were assessed qualitatively and quantitatively before and then after their zoo visits.\nFindings: Qualitative findings suggest that most children's interest in learning about animals was sustained as a result of the experience. Quantitative results reveal that QR code scanning was effective in promoting knowledge gains, especially on subjects that are challenging for the informal learner. Findings were comparable across the younger (5-8) and older (9-12) age groups.\nOriginality/value: This study provides empirical support for the value and usefulness of mobile technologies such as QR code scanning for children's learning in informal environments.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Constructions of the patient in healthcare communications: six patient figures
|
[
"Healthcare management",
"Strategy",
"Document analysis",
"Patient-centred care",
"Health communication",
"Situational analysis"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Over the past decades, patient-centred communication has become a key concern for healthcare organizations and thus a focal point of their policies, programmes and daily work practices. Healthcare institutions today create communication strategies and employ communication professionals to improve their communication with patients. Patient-centred communication has now become an organizational object of attention in various streams of patient-centred care, not only in the face-to-face interaction between doctor and patient in clinical settings (Epstein et al., 2005) but also as a practice permeating all organizational activities from top management to clinics (Liberati et al., 2015).\nOrganizational patient-centred health communication: In most developed countries, organizational health communication has been institutionalized since the 1990s (Kjaer et al., 2016), and most studies of this institutionalization in diverse healthcare settings have put a strong instrumental focus on how these efforts influence health outcomes (for an overview, see Apker, 2012; Thompson et al., 2011; Hamilton and Chou, 2014). However, in a Scandinavian context, organization and management research sees strategic health communication from a more analytical perspective as an effect of New Public Management (Byrkjeflot and Neby, 2008; Johansson et al., 2010; Nordgren, 2003, 2009; Sahlin-Andersson, 2003; Vikkelso and Kjaer, 2008; Vrangbaek, 1999; Vrangbaek and Ostergren, 2006). In this perspective, hospitals' communication efforts are chiefly studied within an institutional framework of organizational legitimacy and identity (Byrkjeflot and Angell, 2007, 2011; Ihlen and Robstad, 2004; Wasen and Wickstrom, 2009; Waeraas et al., 2008, 2011), but research with this perspective bypasses discussions of how patients are constructed in organizational communication efforts.\nTheoretical framework - patient figures and documents as organizational actors: Organizational health communication shapes and is shaped by the discourses of healthcare institutions and policy. Relationships and roles are to some extent defined by the discourses in which organizational reality and relations are represented and configured (Deetz, 2003), and strategic communication programmes are embedded in discursive formations that are both reproduced and reworked by organizational actors. According to Nicolas Rose, the governance and management of individuals such as patients are constituted by and changed through discourse and social practices:\nMethod - mapping strategic patient-centred communication: The documents used in this paper were collected and selected as part of an ethnographic fieldwork at a Danish University Hospital, where I studied the development, implementation and closure of a communication programme called \"The Perspective of the Patient\" from 2007 to 2009 (see Pors, 2012, 2013, 2014). In particular, I examine three core programme documents and a patient leaflet produced within the programme framework.\nEmpirical material: document contents: As the title \"The Perspective of the Patient\" indicates, the communication programme has a patient-centred view of the hospital's services. It offers guidelines and tools for improving the hospital's communication and information material. Three of the documents analysed in this paper provide the framework for the hospital's formalized organization of patient communication in 2007-2009. These documents were produced in the Communication Unit and functioned as the backbone of the hospital's work on strategic communication during this period. The fourth document is a leaflet on planned caesareans, produced in cooperation between the Communication Unit and the Obstetric Care Unit. The Communication Policy from 2006 forms the basis for the drafting of \"Plan for the Perspective of the Patient 2007-2008\" (hereinafter referred to as the Plan), \"Handbook for Health Professionals on Patient Information\" from 2009 (hereinafter referred to as the Handbook) and, finally, the leaflet \"Information on Planned Caesareans\", developed in 2008 and published in 2009 (hereinafter referred to as the Leaflet).\nAnalysis of patient figures in strategic patient-centred communication: The following paragraphs describe six patients figures identified across the four documents: first, the affective patient - a passive receiver of care; second, the target group patient - a homogenized recipient; three, the citizen with rights; four, the patient as a competent resource; five, the user as active partner; and six, the consumer - an active customer.\nA positional mapping of patient figures: To clarify the relationships between the various patient figures, I sum up the analysis with a positional mapping that illustrates how the patient is displaced within/the displacement of the patient in the six identified patient figures. The mapping illustrates a tension between a care- and market-oriented mode of organizing in contemporary healthcare. By pointing to the co-existence of market and care as dual organizing modes, I endeavour to soften Mol's dichotomy of market and care as mutually exclusive (and exhaustive) logics. I combine care and market as respective organizing modes that entail different levels of expectations to the patient. The scale of action runs along an action continuum based on three classic understandings of the receiver drawn from communication theory: the passive recipient, the reactive co-actor, and the active partner[2]. The three categories of receivers are based on variations of a simple model of organized communication processes in which the individual is exposed to communication from a sender that affects the individual, who then acts in relation to the initiated action (see, e.g. Sepstrup and Fruensgaard, 2010, pp. 39-54). This categorization captures the displacements of the patient figure as he or she moves from playing a classic passive patient role (Parsons, 1964) to becoming a responsive receiver - a possibly recalcitrant actor - and ultimately a more active partner. These shifts along the action continuum constitute the vertical axis of the map, while care and market constitute the horizontal axis. In Figure 1, I use these axes to show and order the key differences between the six patient figures covered in the analysis.\nDiscussion: We find it important for patients to leave the hospital with a positive experience. It depends on how well we communicate with them [...] patients are not capable of assessing the medical quality of our work, but they know how we communicate with them and whether we show them respect or not (medical director, interview, October 2009).\nConclusion: the flexible patient figure as a manageable management tool: Strategic patient-centred communication is institutionalized in public hospital services in line with a greater exposure to market conditions. With patient communication as a priority, the patient is the focal point, both as a sensitive patient and as a demanding customer who requires both empathic care and well-informed choices. Moreover, it is precisely these choices that seem to reinforce the need for considerate information and caring communication. The patient perspective calls for both care and market. However, the discursive patient figure is a depersonalized perspective - a \"view from nowhere\" - assigned to various positions. The patient figures are connected with different understandings of problems and solutions, in which communication, on the one hand, is articulated as a flexible concept that allows both content and style to be negotiated in constant collaboration with the patient. On the other hand, the documents stage a high level of order and manageability through a focus on literacy, standards and objective criteria for written information material. I see the inconsistency and variability of patient figures as productive contrasts: Communication is performed as a possible and necessary object of management in a hospital operating on market conditions. At the same time, patient-centred communication is framed as an evolving and complex field where \"good communication\" can take different forms in relation to the patient\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how strategic, patient-centred communication plays a part in the discursive management of expectations posed to patients and healthcare organizations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper provides an analysis of four documents collected as part of an ethnographic case study regarding \"The Perspective of the Patient\" - a Danish Hospital's patient-centred communication programme. Mapping methods inspired by Grounded Theory are used to qualify the analysis.\nFindings: The paper shows that strategic patient-centred communication addresses both a care-oriented approach to the patient and deploys market perceptions of patients. Market and care is seen as co-existing organizing modes that entail expectations to the patient. In the communication programme the patient is constructed in six information-seeking patient figures: affective patient; target group patient; citizen with rights; patient as a competent resource; user as active partner; and consumer. As a result, the patient-centred communication programme renders the patient as a flexible figure able to fit organizational demands of both care orientation and market concerns.\nOriginality/value: This study contributes to qualitative research in organizational health communication by combining two subfields - patient-centredness and health communication - in an empirical study of how market and care are intertwined in a patient-centred communication programme. The argument goes beyond the prevalent prescriptive approaches to patient-centredness and healthcare communication, instead providing a critical analytical perspective on strategic communication and patient-centredness and showing how expectations are posed to both patient and organization.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
"Should we sell human organs?" Correction of a faulty analysis
|
[
"Body systems and organs",
"Transplant surgery",
"Economic value analysis"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1 Introduction: In a recent issue of this journal, Ms Heather Kolnsberg (Ms K) raises the question: \"should we allow the sale of human organs?\" (Kolnsberg, 2003, p. 1067). The response she provides is: \"The answer seems to be no\" (Kolnsberg, 2003, p. 1067). And, incredibly, the reason given for that response is that: \"In all scenarios, the donor does not gain profitably in the long run\" (Kolnsberg, 2003, p. 1067). Moreover, that surprising conclusion is reached after allegedly conducting a literature review in which \"... little discussion was found on the possible economic outcomes related to the question of selling human organs\" (Kolnsberg, 2003, p. 1051).While raising an extremely important public policy question, the economic analysis presented in this paper is so fundamentally flawed that, if left uncorrected, it could set this debate back at least 20 years (and economic science back 200 years). Moreover, despite the unproductive literature review, the correct analysis of this question has, in fact, appeared numerous times in a variety of readily accessible publications[1]. In short, Ms K's faulty analysis along with her failure to read the relevant literature has led her to reinvent the wheel - and it came out square.A detailed correction of all the errors contained in this paper is (thankfully) unnecessary - the interested reader can simply consult the relevant literature cited above. Nonetheless, a brief rebuttal of some of the most egregious flaws is needed both to demonstrate the overall quality of the analysis and explain why the answer provided is patently wrong. Therefore, the following sections will deal with two of the principal shortcomings of Ms K's \"analysis\".\n2 The focus on living donor sales is misguided: With the exception of a superficial one-and-a-half page discussion of cadaveric organ sales (at pages 1054-1055), Ms K focuses her entire analysis on living donor sales[2]. No justification is provided for this limited focus, and it is contrary to the bulk of the literature in this area. Indeed, several authors have (I believe correctly) viewed the current heavy reliance on living donors as a symptom of our failure to allow cadaveric organ markets to form[3]. Moreover, there are some very good reasons to direct the analysis of organ sales primarily, if not entirely, to cadaveric donors only.First, with the exception of a very small (and controversial) number of partial-organ transplants of livers and lungs, the only solid organ for which living donors constitute a technologically viable source of supply is kidneys (Vastag, 2003). As a result, the shortage of non-renal organs - principally hearts, livers, and lungs - is not, as a practical matter, addressable through living-donor supply, whether the donors are paid or not[4]. The only feasible solution to the shortage of these life-saving organs is cadaveric organ sales.Second, despite Ms K's assertion to the contrary, no one, to my knowledge, has advocated a policy that would allow living donor sales while continuing to proscribe cadaveric organ sales. Consequently, if we were to permit living donor organ sales, it is virtually certain that cadaveric organ sales would be legalized as well[5]. And in that environment, it appears likely that the latter would, to a large degree, drive out the former.Some recent evidence suggests that an active, well-functioning cadaveric organ market would be fully capable of satisfying transplant demands at market-clearing prices below (perhaps well below) $5,000 per donor[6]. That figure, in turn, implies individual organ prices that are under $1,000. It then appears that, while some limited demand for living donor kidneys might persist due to their somewhat higher success rates, there would not be many suppliers - at least in the US - willing to undergo a nephrectomy at anywhere near these prices. And, with a sufficient number of cadaveric organs to eliminate the shortage, US citizens would not be compelled to seek out living donors in other countries. Consequently, the market for living donor sales would largely dry up, and the only living donor transplants performed would rely upon related donors who wish to provide the recipient with the best possible chances of a successful outcome. All, or virtually all, sales would then be confined to the cadaveric organ market. Therefore, if one is opposed to the use of living donor organs - obtained from either paid or unpaid suppliers - then one should support cadaveric organ sales.Third, while Ms K confines her discussion to economic issues, it is obvious that any potential ethical concerns related to organ sales are likely to carry substantially more weight for living donor transactions. As Professor Lloyd Cohen has pointed out, cadavers are neither rich nor poor - they are simply dead[7]. As a result, any concerns pertaining to \"exploitation\" or, more importantly, health issues stemming from organ donation largely disappear for cadaveric donors. Here again, however, even a cursory look at the relevant - in this case, ethics - literature is informative. For the most part, philosophers, theologians, and ethicists who have considered the ethical issues associated with organ sales - from either cadaveric or living donors - have generally found no support for a legal ban on such sales (Dworkin, 1993; Radcliffe-Richards, 1996). Indeed, at a recent ethics conference in Munich, a vote was taken on this question. The outcome was 30-4 that no fundamental ethical principles are violated by organ sales.Thus, both economics and ethics suggest that Ms K's focus on living donor organ sales is misguided. The more realistic and attractive option is a market in cadaveric organs. And, to a large degree, that has been the focus of the literature in this area.\n3 Ms K's economic criterion is invalid: By far the most egregious error contained in Ms K's \"analysis\" is her reliance upon what is, frankly, an absurd criterion for determining whether or not organ sales (either cadaveric or living) should be allowed. The standard economic approach to questions of this nature, which has been well established and widely accepted for many years, is to examine the impact of the proposed policy on social welfare, which is defined as the sum of consumer and producer surplus. If the policy in question would increase such welfare, then, absent other non-economic objections, it should be implemented. Instead of this traditional criterion and the huge amount of literature that exists to support it, Ms K comes up with her own novel standard - whether the suppliers of living donor organs will be able to earn significant positive economic profits in the long run. If the answer is no (as she attempts to demonstrate) then she argues that such sales should continue to be banned; despite the fact (which she conveniently ignores) that that ban is currently causing the deaths of over 6,000 patients each year[8].Interestingly, if Ms K's zero economic profit criterion were applied generally, it would lead to legal proscription of all competitive markets. As any principles of economics text explains, long-run equilibrium profits are always driven to zero under competitive market conditions. Given Ms K's proposed decision rule, then, all such markets should be outlawed. This non-sensical result demonstrates the fundamental illegitimacy of the proposed standard.What happens, then, if the correct - social welfare - standard is applied? Once again, if Ms K had actually taken a look at the relevant literature, she would have found the answer, which was published over a decade ago. Specifically, a paper by Barney and Reynolds (1989) with a technical correction by Kaserman and Barnett (1991) demonstrates that social welfare is unambiguously increased by legalization of organ sales. And my recent book with Kaserman and Barnett (2002, Appendix 3A) provides a conservative estimate of a social welfare increase of over $320 million per year just for kidneys. The inclusion of other organs appears likely to push the overall social welfare increase to over $1 billion per year. Thus, using the standard economic criterion, we find that organ sales are unequivocably warranted.Figure 1 shows the relevant framework. Here, the curve labeled D is the demand for a particular organ - say kidneys - and S is the associated supply curve. Under the current policy, which proscribes sales at any positive price, Q0 kidneys are supplied and Q1 kidneys are demanded, yielding a shortage of Q1-Q0. If this policy were changed to allow the organ market to equilibrate, price would rise to PE and the number of kidneys acquired (and transplanted) would rise to QE. The minimum increase in social welfare resulting from these sales then would be the sum of areas A (consumer surplus) and B (producer surplus)[9]. Again, the increase is unquestionably positive and likely to be quite substantial.Thus, when we substitute the correct economic standard for Ms K's proposed criterion, we reach a conclusion that is 180deg opposite of hers. Organ sales - particularly cadaveric organ sales - should be allowed on economic grounds. And given the lives that would be saved, they should also be allowed on humanitarian grounds.\n4 Conclusion: The above discussion demonstrates that Ms K has applied a faulty analysis to an extremely important policy question to provide a patently wrong answer. Indeed, if I were to state that over 6,000 lives could be saved annually by allowing organ markets to form but that we should not do so because certain input suppliers in those markets would earn zero economic profit in the long run, a reasonable person would (and should) be highly skeptical of the validity of the analytic framework that I relied upon to reach that conclusion. And, as I have shown, that skepticism would be well founded. In a nutshell, Ms K's position is that these 6,000 plus patients should be allowed to die unless we can cure poverty with organ sales.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this research is to correct the flawed analysis contained in a recent paper by Kolnsberg that appeared in this journal.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - In her paper, Kolnsberg raises the extremely important question of whether we should allow the sale of human organs for transplantation. She concludes, mistakenly, that we should not allow such sales. The error that leads her to this incorrect conclusion is the application of a nonsensical criterion for determination of whether sales of a good should be allowed. Specifically, she argues that, if the suppliers of living donor organs will be unable to earn substantial economic profits in the long run, then such sales should be banned. This arbitrary (and erroneous) criterion ignores: the social welfare gains achievable through organ sales; the much greater promise offered by cadaveric donor payments; and the very real and tragic consequences of the current ban on such payments - over 6,000 lives lost unnecessarily each year in the US alone.\nFindings: - The principal finding of the corrected analysis is that, contrary to the conclusion reached by Kolnsberg, paying cadaveric organ donors would save both money and lives.\nResearch limitations/implications: - Given the compelling case for cadaveric donor payments, trials need to be conducted to reveal both the magnitude of compensation required to resolve the shortage and the most efficient payment mechanisms.\nOriginality/value: - Given the historical failure of the current altruistic organ procurement policy, asserts that a revised system that incorporates organ donor payments is essential to a successful resolution of this shortage.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Making sense of the lack of evidence discourse, power and knowledge in the field of sport for development
|
[
"Power",
"Evidence",
"Sport for development",
"Discourse"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: The increasing international focus on sport, sport development and sport for development (SFD) (see Coalter, 2007, 2010, 2012; Houlihan and White, 2002; Grix and Phillpots, 2010) has hastened demands and requirements to provide appropriate evidence for governments, funders, donors and accountable organisations (Taylor, 2009) to demonstrate the effectiveness and impact of programmes being delivered in return for the investment made. On a global stage neoliberalism, as an ideology; new public management (NPM) as a mode of governance; and modernisation as a policy package, provide the architecture that enables and controls the contexts and frameworks within which SFD operates (Christensen and Laegried, 2001; Finlayson, 2003; Hood, 1995; Steger and Roy, 2010). These intertwined elements have ensured that committing to professional management, involving auditing and performance management and embracing contractualisation, in relation to how organisations work together, has become the standard bearer of neoliberal inspired public management (Budd, 2007; McLaughlin et al., 2002; Skalen, 2004).\nThe (lack of) evidence discourse: The neoliberal derived emphasis on NPM[2] places performance management and accountability to the fore, and given that each of these aspects of public management are located within centralised technological and political frameworks (Diefenbach, 2009) it follows that power has become centralised in the governance of sport (certainly in the UK, see Grix and Phillpots, 2010). Certainly the importance of considering the nature of evidence in the context of SFD is that institutional landscapes featuring public policy actors have become increasingly blurred and fragmented across the many organisations represented by stakeholders (Stoker, 2000). What is clear, however, is the applicability to SFD of the broader recognition of the complexity and fragmentation that exists across different areas of public policy (Skelcher, 2000). Indeed while complexity, as an essential feature of NPM, has arguably led to the shift from government to new modes of governance (Pierre and Stoker, 2000), some have also argued that the paradoxical centralising of power gives rise to asymmetries of power in the march towards decentralisation (Courpasson, 2000; Diefenbach, 2009; Grix and Phillpots, 2010). In short the SFD field has come under enormous institutional pressure to expand its activities to include a range of partners in a number of loose arrangements that cross institutional boundaries and yet is under enormous central pressure to provide evidence for programme development as much as programme outcome. Consequently a lack of evidence discourse has emerged around SFD; where sport programmes are often justified post hoc in the name of social change and then criticised for apparent failure. In this section we examine two broad themes underpinning the notion of the lack of evidence discourse.\nFoucault's power and the manufacturing of (the \"lack of evidence\") discourse: A Foucauldian lens\nConclusion: This paper has analysed and interrogated the area of M&E within the field of SFD. It has addressed the key questions of whose interests are served in the generation of evidence, and what the lack of evidence discourse is. In locating the argument within a Foucauldian framework it is essential to recognise that any analysis of evidence within the contemporary climate is affected by the neo-liberal context. The march to modernisation has ensured that neo-liberal disciplines dominate the contexts and frameworks that SFD operates within.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore and analyse the power dynamics and vested interest groups that shape the lack of evidence discourse, which is critical of the way evidence is produced within and for the sport for development (SFD) field. This examination recognises that an understanding of the dominant neoliberal context within which SFD is located is critical.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Using a Foucauldian conceptual framework, power, knowledge and discourse relating to political actors in SFD - funders, policy makers, academics and sport development practitioners (SDPs) - are assessed. This paper addresses two key questions: How is the lack of evidence discourse constructed, and what is its impact? And whose interests are served in the interpretation, generation and reporting of evidence?\nFindings: This paper concludes that although in a Foucauldian sense power surrounding evidence is everywhere, the neo liberal context, which situates SFD, favours the privileging of evidence discourses associated with and derived from funding organisations, political and academic interest groups to the detriment of evidence discourses associated with SDPs. Clearly then there is a major tension concerning knowledge transfer, power and process, and the way that evidence can be used to inform practice.\nOriginality/value: The paper attempts to highlight the power dynamics influencing the way evidence is produced within SFD and that much is needed to move the field forward in a more united approach for what counts as evidence for all political actors.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Emerging market firms: measuring their success with strategic positioning maps
|
[
"Competitiveness",
"Emerging markets",
"Emerging multinationals",
"International intensity",
"Market capitalization",
"Strategic positioning map (SPM)"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: During 2011 only ten Indian firms made it to the Forbes Top 500 global corporations list: Reliance Industries, the State Bank of India, Oil & Natural Gas, Indian Oil, ICICI Bank, NTPC, Tata Motors, Bharti Airtel, Coal India and Tata Steel. Most of these companies belong to infrastructure sectors such as banks, oil and gas, metals and mining, and are operating primarily in domestic markets. The question that arises is how scholars can compare the relative strengths of firms from emerging markets to well-established global peers originating from developed markets.\nMethod: Our sample is the top 100 Indian firms by revenue, drawn from the ET500 (a list released by The Economic Times) and the top 100 global firms from the Forbes Global 2000 list for the year 2011. From the base sample, we excluded the subsidiaries of foreign firms since they are considered global by nature of their association with their parent. Similarly, firms from the financial sector and government-owned firms were not considered, as they have different operating characteristics. After satisfying above criteria, our sample has 54 Indian firms and 69 global firms. The industry composition of the samples is not comparable, and, given the conceptual nature of our analysis, we ignore it. The four variables used to compare Indian with global firms are:\nStrategic positioning at global level: Global firms expand internationally because of smaller or/and saturated home markets and, eventually, their foreign operations can represent most of their growth and value. Our analysis shows that the geographic reach (scope) of global players is consistently higher across all deciles of equity size. However, no such pattern is visible for foreign sales ratios (scale). Table I shows average values on the four constructs - i.e. book equity, market performance, scale and scope of international operations - used in our analysis. Indian firms score better compared to global majors on market performance, while global firms enjoy better numbers on the other three parameters - i.e. intensity (both scale and scope) of foreign operations, and book equity size. Global players have large equity at $47bn (the lowest being $2.2bn) compared to Indian firms (average book equity $2.7bn), but Indian firms command relatively higher market price-to-book ratios (MBR) because of better returns, and growth rates enjoyed in general by emerging markets. The difference in MBR persists even after controlling for the book equity differences.\nStrategic positioning maps: To compete on a global basis, firms must think of their positioning in terms of two dimensions - i.e. international intensity and market capitalization, as shown in Figure 4. They can improve their positioning by taking three possible routes or a combination of them:\nConclusion and implications: Globalization is driven by economic liberalization and technical progress. These drivers have led to expansion in global manufacturing activities as well as increased competition in home and host markets. But globalization affects developing countries unevenly because of inadequate technology transfer from global innovation firms, given their fragmented institutional and organizational structures. Of late, emerging markets are witnessing an influx of multinationals. Seven emerging economies - i.e. China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, Turkey, and Indonesia - are expected to contribute about 70 percent of global GDP growth[8] by 2025. Multinationals from developed markets see emerging markets as key growth areas and are allocating significant incremental capital expenditures to these markets. Consider BASF, a leading chemical company focused on emerging markets. It intends to increase its revenue share from emerging markets to 45 percent by 2020 from 33 percent in 2011 through additional capital expenditure of 10bn (one-third of the total) during the period in emerging markets[9].\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand and map the global competitiveness of firms in emerging markets. The authors refine a framework (called the \"strategic control map\", or SCM) that looks at market capitalization - using two parameters of book equity (size) and price to book ratio (performance) - as a key driver of the competitiveness of firms. However, the SCM has limited value in the context of smaller and largely domestic firms, as is the case in emerging markets. To develop a more comprehensive understanding, additional vital metrics such as the degree of internationalization need to be considered.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors compare top 100 Indian firms against global firms on four dimensions - i.e. market price to book ratio, book equity, scope and scale of international operations. The authors consider data for the year 2009-2010 to make comparisons.\nFindings: The SCM, formulated with a developed market focus, is not suitable in the context of emerging markets as it fails to consider internationalization as essential to compete at the global level. Accordingly, the authors propose a new conceptual framework, referred to as the \"strategic positioning map\" (SPM).\nOriginality/value: In this paper, the authors argue that \"international intensity\" and \"market capitalization\" can be two important dimensions to map the relative paths of growth for firms from emerging markets.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The power of workers: Knowledge work and the power balance in Scandinavian countries
|
[
"Employee relations",
"Power",
"Institutional theory",
"Knowledge work"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: This paper addresses a core topic in sociology of work and organizations: the control and power of workers. Two trends in the labour market accentuate the need to know more about the power balance that exists between employees and employers. First, there has been an expansion in higher education over recent decades. This has led to researchers arguing that there is a shift in the transfer of power from the employer to the employee (Reed, 1996). Second, in many European labour markets, there is a trend towards more flexibility for employers in employment decisions and less security for workers (Heyes, 2011). These two trends may have distinct consequences for employees and may influence the power of occupational groups differently. In this paper, we examine employees' perceptions of the balance of power across occupations in three \"inclusive\" employment regimes.\nTheoretical background: Defining knowledge work\nData, variables and methods: Data\nResults: Autonomy, transferability of skills, and education\nConclusions and discussion: In this paper, we have examined how employees perceive the power balance vis-a-vis their employers in three countries. The paper contributes to discussions concerning how much control and power knowledge workers have. Furthermore, the paper addresses the extent to which institutions in labour markets shape the power balance by studying three countries that are similar in many respects but different regarding some crucial institutional features.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how occupations and the institutional setting shape the power balance (individual bargaining power) between employees and employers. It builds on theoretical approaches on knowledge work and institutional theory.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper uses the European Social Survey data in 2010/2011 to compare the power balance between employees and employers in three countries: Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Multinomial logit regression was employed.\nFindings: The results show that occupation and the institutional setting shape the power balance between employees and employers. Employees in highly skilled occupations perceive greater power vis-a-vis their employer, and employees in Denmark, characterized by greater flexibility for employers, perceive less power than in Sweden and Norway. In addition, age and gender are important demographic factors determining employees' perceived power towards their employers.\nOriginality/value: The literature makes a number of assumptions with regard to the attitudes and behaviour of knowledge workers. However, research that compares employees in knowledge work with other occupational groups is scarce. This paper adds to the literature by comparing employees in highly skilled knowledge work with employees in lower skilled occupations. It also empirically shows how different approaches to definitions of knowledge work correspond.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Managing strategic supplier relationships: antecedents and outcomes
|
[
"Marketing strategy",
"Relationship management",
"Supplier relationships",
"Management",
"Service quality",
"Suppliers"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Effectively managed strategic supplier relationships involve the selection and development of suppliers with similar goals and with the willingness of the supplier to adapt to the needs of the buyer (Wathne and Heide, 2000, 2004). Organizations develop strategic relationships with suppliers to reduce costs, improve quality and to develop competitive advantage (Petersen et al., 2008). Effectively managed strategic supplier relationships are reported to contribute to higher levels of customer service and reduced costs (Stank et al., 1999). Despite the importance of managing strategic supplier relationships, much of the previous research in the area has focused primarily on supplier selection (Sarkis and Talluri, 2002). Specific research that addresses the factors that influence effectively managed strategic supplier relationships has not been previously reported, although related work has been reported on business-to-business and supply chain buyer-seller relationships (Cannon and Homburg, 2001; Cousins et al., 2006; De Ruyter et al., 2001; Heide and Miner, 1992; Palmatier et al., 2006, 2007; Rinehart et al., 2004). In addition, research has not been conducted on the factors that contribute to strategic supplier relationships in conjunction with the performance results that may occur.\n2. Managing strategic supplier relationships: The literature indicates that there are organizational and technical preconditions for effectively implementing supply chain management practices (Kotzab et al., 2011). It involves the firm and its business-to-business suppliers developing strategies that contribute to their joint success and selecting suppliers with similar goals (Wathne and Heide, 2000; Wilson, 1995). This notion involves the selection of appropriate suppliers with common goals and strategies, and managing this process in an ongoing manner. Strategic supplier relationships share common goals that are accomplished through joint purpose and execution (Wilson, 1995). The nature of common goals is related to the strategy of the firms involved, but it is also based on the culture of the organizations. Strategically linked organizations share cultural characteristics such as a willingness to share risks and rewards, and a desire to share resources (Chen and Huang, 2007; Mello and Stank, 2005). Common goals and having similar values and beliefs are related to a shared cultural perspective (Chen and Huang, 2007; Mello and Stank, 2005; Weiss and Jap, 1995; Wilson, 1995). This also is related to positive outcomes. Firms that have similar values, beliefs and practices can achieve synergy and improved results (Weiss and Jap, 1995). An important component of this initial step that has been cited in the literature is the selection of suppliers that are not opportunistic and are seeking only benefit for themselves (Wathne and Heide, 2000). In a strategic supplier relationship, partners work with each other toward a common goal and not in their own self-interest alone (Anderson and Narus, 1990; Sarkis and Talluri, 2002; Wathne and Heide, 2000).\n3. Method and results: An online survey was conducted by a research firm of US retail business owners and executives. The sample was limited to top management or business owner, as the issues under study could best be understood from a key decision-maker's perspective. These respondents were selected because they are most likely to engage in leadership behaviors such as establishing strategic supplier relationships. While there is some debate about online surveys, research suggests that Internet panels do not have a significant negative impact on the data (Dennis, 2001; Pollard, 2002) and allow researchers to conduct high-quality research (Braunsberger et al., 2007). A total of 1,429 respondents were invited to visit the online survey. Respondents who did not answer \"yes\" to the key question, \"do you interact frequently with your key suppliers?\" were not allowed to continue through the survey. An additional control was used that asked if these respondents interacted with suppliers more than three times per month. Of those who answered \"yes\" to this question, 318 completed the survey. Twenty-three of these completed surveys were dismissed due to incompletion, leaving 295 complete surveys with a final response rate of 20.6 per cent. To rule out any potential non-response bias, early-to-late responders were compared across all study variables and demographics. No significant differences were found between early and late respondents across these study variables. The respondents represented a wide cross section of retail firms by size and industry.\n4. Discussion: This study has made a contribution to the marketing literature by, for the first time, identifying and testing the factors that contribute to the effective management of strategic supplier relationships. The contribution also stems from examining the outcomes of these strategic supplier relationships. Specific research that addresses these relationships was not previously reported, despite the importance of this area. The findings of the research have important implications for both theory and for managerial practice. In terms of theory, the literature indicated that top management support of the goals of an organization would contribute to its success (Van Egeren and O'Connor, 1998). This was confirmed by the linkage observed from top management support to effectively managed strategic supplier relationships and subsequent financial performance. Top management support was also seen in the literature to be related to the firm's customer outcomes as well as to partner collaboration (Sandberg, 2007). Again, this was confirmed in the present research where top management support in combination with the management of strategic supplier relationships had a positive influence on quality outcomes that can be observed by the end-user. Technological preparedness was viewed in the literature to efficiently control operations and to contribute to favorable performance for the relationship partners (Richey et al., 2007; Wilson, 1995). The results again support these relationships as technological preparedness in conjunction with effectively managed strategic supplier partnerships improve customer quality outcomes and, in turn, positively influence the firm's financial performance. Trust was identified in the literature as being related to the strength and length of a partnering relationship (Geyskens et al., 1998; Kumar and Van Dissel, 1996). The results of the present research support this relationship.\n5. Summary and directions for future research: This paper has made a contribution to the literature by identifying the influence of firm and partnering-related antecedents on the effective management of strategic supplier relationships and by indentifying the results of this process as measured by quality improvements for the customer and financial performance for the firm. Several areas for future research should be considered in light of the present work. This research was conducted using retailers as the basis for understanding strategic supplier relationships. The retailer was a valuable unit of analysis for the setting of this research as the role of the retailer is increasing in today's competitive economy. However, future research can evaluate strategic supplier relationships from the perspectives of manufacturers or distributors.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper was to examine the antecedents of strategic supplier relationships in conjunction with outcomes of product and service quality and financial performance. The management of strategic supplier relationships involves the selection and development of suppliers that share common goals and strategies of the partnering organization.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Structural equation modeling using partial least squares is used to verify and test these relationships.\nFindings: Top management support, technological preparedness and trust were found to have significant positive influences on the management of strategic supplier relationships. Strategic supplier relationships were found to have a positive influence on product and service quality outcomes and financial performance.\nResearch limitations/implications: The results provide new and original empirical evidence on the relationship between the antecedents and outcomes of strategic supplier relationships.\nPractical implications: The findings can contribute to the management of supplier relationships, resulting in improved product and service quality outcomes and financial performance.\nOriginality/value: The research adds empirical evidence to the literature on the factors that contribute to effective supplier relationships and the customer- and firm-related outcomes of this process.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Overcoming transience and flux: routines in community-governed mass collaborations
|
[
"Governance",
"Wikipedia",
"Virtual community",
"Web 2.0",
"Organizational theory",
"Mass collaboration"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Wikipedia, Mozilla, Mechanical Turk, Digg: these are all examples of efforts to mobilize and organize large groups of people to create valuable assets (Wilkinson and Huberman, 2007; Stvilia et al., 2008; Javanmardi and Lopes, 2010; Hansen et al., 2009). Central to these efforts is the use of information technology to capitalize on otherwise lost time and resources. Individuals are mobilized, supported by the affordances of new technologies, such as wikis (Wagner, 2004; Wagner and Majchrzak, 2007), to make small contributions. Separately, these contributions have little value, but within mass collaborations, the work of others and the information technology aggregate the contributions to create significant, valuable artifacts.\nTheoretical background: The nature of routines and structures in formal organizations has been studied extensively (Weber, 1958). While they can support work, highly developed and structured routines can also result in deliberations being constrained (Olsen, 2006), rules being followed without consideration for context, persons abusing power they are granted, and the goals of the organization superseding the needs of the individual to the point of harm and/or inappropriate inequity (Olsen, 2006; Merton, 1957). Once established, bureaucracies and their routines can become increasingly intransigent to change, as mechanistic organizations are more apt to resist change than organic ones (Pierce and Delbecq, 1977).\nRoutines in community-governed mass collaborations: Community-governed mass collaborations set and achieve goals in spite of the impediments of a volatile and transient population and a fluctuating governance system. Although they appear on the surface to be unlike formal organizations, mass collaborations still must solve the problems that routines address in traditional settings. Involved participants must be able to form expectations of behavior, including how work should be managed, constructed, and formatted (Forte and Bruckman, 2005). If anything, the rapid expansions in their sizes, the transience of their participants, and the lack of central development or maintenance of their rule systems make these fundamental organizational needs more difficult to meet in mass collaborations. Yet, because of the mutually reinforcing nature of the different aspects of routines and their ability to support clear and regular patterns of group behavior (Kriplean et al., 2007), routines may play an important role in mass collaborations managing these organizing challenges.\nContext and methods: To empirically test the proposed hypotheses, data were collected from English-language Wikipedia, a 13-year-old mass collaboration effort with the goal of the development and maintenance of a freely available, high-quality encyclopedia. Wikipedia is a relatively open mass collaboration that brings together millions of voluntary participants to work toward this goal. As such, any person may start an article on any topic, work to expand or refine existing articles, and/or devote effort to the organization as a whole, to adjustments and developments of its policies and procedures, to ongoing discussions about each article and each sector of the organization, and to additions of tags or shortcuts, etc. In addition, any person may, through time, effort, and devotion, rise in the ranks of the organization to hold one of several higher level positions such as administrator, checkUser, bureaucrat, or steward.\nResults: Logistic regressions were performed where the dependent variable is dichotomous (H1a, H1b, H2a, H2b, H3a, and H3b), and linear regressions were estimated using OLS regression for the continuous dependent variable (H2c, H3c) in SPSS v22. To check for distortion of the results due to multicollinearity, linear regressions were run on all models in order to calculate variance inflation factors (VIFs); all VIFs were less than 10, indicating that multicollinearity was not an issue for any of the estimated models.\nDiscussion: In this paper, we explored how routines function in a successful community-governed mass collaboration, Wikipedia, and how they contribute to its success. Building on Feldman and Pentland's theory of routines as sites of both stability and flexibility, we hypothesized different ways that artifactual, performative, and ostensive aspects of routines manifest in and impact mass collaborations. We then tested how these aspects of routines contribute to the functioning of Wikipedia by examining actions and outcomes from Wikipedia's AfD deliberations, a process central to the identity, goal, and functioning of this mass collaboration.\nConclusion: Much of mass collaboration's potential arises from its ability to aggregate the time and energy of individuals on a large scale. Marshalling these resources in ways that consistently contribute to the mass collaboration effort is essential for accomplishing the collective goals. While technologies, such as wikis, provide platforms which make mass collaboration efforts possible, successfully balancing adaptability and consistency is also required for these systems to succeed. Routines combine artifactual, ostensive, and performative aspects to support both stability across contexts and situated change (Pentland and Rueter, 1994). Artifactual aspects develop and preserve a repository of correct procedures for the particular organization. Performative aspects model appropriate behaviors in a transient population. The ostensive aspects of routines in the context of a governance system in flux allow individuals to work toward common goals in spite of the shifting populations of participants, goals, and technologies.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Community-governed mass collaborations are virtual organizations in which volunteers self-organize to produce content of value. Given the high turnover of participants and the continual development and modification of governance modules, questions arise about how mass collaborations can succeed. Based on organizational routine theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how different aspects of routines can support the goals of mass collaborations.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Proposed hypotheses are developed and tested with data from a critical decision-making area of a successful community-governed mass collaboration - Wikipedia's content review process.\nFindings: The findings support the arguments that routines that reinforce governance serve important roles in enabling mass collaboration in the presence of transient participation and dynamic task demands in addition to creating a greater likelihood of success as outlined by the collaboration.\nResearch limitations/implications: One limitation of this study is that it examines these types of routines in only one context, Wikipedia's content review process, and Wikipedia is an unusually successful, community-governed mass collaboration. However, this can be considered a conservative test as mass collaborations in more formal contexts or in traditional organizations face fewer hurdles due to more stable social norms, routines, and participant populations.\nPractical implications: Greater understanding of how community-governed mass collaborations \"get the work done\" in spite of participant transience and governance flux can guide developers in managing flourishing communities.\nOriginality/value: While routines have been studied in traditional organizations, little work has been done with routines in community-governed mass collaborations and how they enable both stability and flexibility.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Japanese government venture capital: what should we know?
|
[
"Government venture capital",
"Japanese government venture capital policy",
"New technology-based firm",
"Venture capital market"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: New technology-based firms (NTBFs) play a crucial role in the development of innovative technologies and employment creation as well as economic growth (Audretsch, 1995). Venture capital (VC) has a critical effect on NTBF's growth by providing enough capital to conduct R&D over a long period of time (Pfirrmann et al., 2012) and promote the professionalization of NTBFs through a variety of value adding activities (Bygrave and Timmons, 1992, Hellmann and Puri, 2002). The contributions of VCs are credited for the remarkably rapid growth of NTBFs such as Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon, which are referred to as US-style VC models (Gompers and Lerner, 1999). Governments of Asian-Pacific and European countries have realized the significance of VCs and adopted policies to create US-style VC market as a necessary preliminary step to support the generation of NTBFs (Colombo et al., 2010; Schertler, 2006).\nWhat is government venture capital?: Government VC is a government-funded entity that makes equity or equity-like investments in young firms to encourage other intermediaries to make such investments in the VC market (Lerner, 2002). There are three main categories of government VC:\nJapanese venture capital market and government venture capitals: According to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the annual investment in Japanese VC market in 2015 is US$1.105bn, the 4th largest in the world after the US, Canada and Israel. Japan's annual VC investment ratio to GDP is 0.02405 points, which is about from one out of 16 to one fourth compared with Israel's 0.38113, US' 0.33264 and Canada's 0.11760 (OECD, 2016). Compared with countries such as Germany and France, which are considered as bank-centred capital market, Japan ranked even lower (Black and Gilson, 1998, Milosevic and Fendt, 2016). It is noted that the Japanese VC market is not as well-developed as its counterparts when it comes to its ratio to the country's GDP. This situation is the main reason why Japanese government has set a challenging political KPI.\nMethodology: This study uses the academic literature design to answer the following research questions:\nAcademic literature review on government venture capital: What do government venture capitals do?\nDo government venture capitals contribute to their portfolios?: This section discusses the contribution of government VCs to the portfolios based on a total of 30 related peer-reviewed papers (Table III). Regarding the exits of their portfolios, many studies observe that government VCs do not have positive correlation with their portfolio's exits (Munari et al., 2015; Cumming and Johan, 2010; Cumming and Johan, 2008; Munari and Toschi, 2015; Cumming et al., 2014; Tykvova and Walz, 2007). It seems that government VCs have not encouraged their portfolios to have successful exits compared to private VCs. There are also negative results of government VC's contribution to the improvement of productivity and efficiency (Alperovych et al., 2015) and to the employment of their portfolio firms (Standaert and Manigart, 2018). On the contrary, there are positive results on the firm's growth (Lerner, 1999) and employment increase (Link and Scott, 2012), as indicated in the cases of SBIR in the US and Innovation Investment Funds in Australia (Cumming and Johan, 2014)[4].\nDo government venture capitals contribute to the development of the venture capital market?: This section discusses the contribution of government VCs to the VC market based on a total of 15 related peer-reviewed papers (Table V). There are positive results among previous research papers that the establishment of government VCs has led to the development of the VC market (Wonglimpiyarat, 2016; del-Palacio, Zhang and Sole, 2012; Avnimelech and Teubal, 2006; Avnimelech and Teubal, 2004) and it has partially contributed to the VC market (Owen and Mason, 2017; Baldock, 2016; Avots et al., 2013; Lim and Kim, 2015).\nImplication of government venture capitals in Japan: What do Japanese government venture capitals do?\nDiscussion: Based on the academic literature review on a total of 45 related peer-reviewed papers, this paper analysed the current state and issues of the Japanese government VC policies regarding these research questions: RQ1, RQ2 and RQ3.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the implication of Japanese government venture capital (VC) policies for future research and to provide basis for policymakers and practitioners.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This is an academic literature review of available peer-reviewed publications on government VC policies. This paper discusses and analyses the current state and issues of the Japanese government VC policies regarding three research questions: What do Japanese government VCs do? Do they contribute to their portfolios? and Do they contribute to the development of VC market?\nFindings: There are mainly two findings in this paper: It is effective to establish a complementary relationship with private VCs for Japanese government VCs to contribute to their portfolios; Japanese government should simultaneously continue to make and review policies for the VC market, the stock market, the entrepreneur sector and the environment surrounding them by its strategic long-term commitment to contribute to the development of VC market and new technology-based firms in Japan.\nOriginality/value: As there are only a few studies on recently strengthened Japanese government VC policies, this paper provides an in-depth discussion on these Japanese VC policies, which can be used for future research and as a valuable resource for policymakers and practitioners.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Scanning and design thinking: organizational roles for innovation
|
[
"Foresight",
"New product development",
"Occupations",
"Scanning",
"Design thinking",
"Future innovation management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction and research question: It is important for various organizations, e.g. companies, research institutes, to capture not only apparent needs but also potential needs to develop breakthrough products, as customers are often unable to express their demands or explain them well (Goffin and Lemke, 2004). According to March (1991), the source of innovation is divided into two types: exploration and exploitation. Exploratory innovation is caused by new knowledge, products and services for emerging customers and markets, while exploitative innovation is based on building upon existing knowledge and extending existing products and services for existing customers. In contrast to exploitative innovation, which based on apparent needs, exploratory innovation results from insight into hidden needs. The Sony Walkman is a good example of exploratory innovation. According to Sony Corporation (1999), market watchers as well as Sony employees were skeptical about the profitability of the Walkman during its development because they judged it to lack value for customers as the Walkman did not have a recording function. Regardless of such shortcomings, the development team believed that there was a potential need for a portable stereo as a means for consumers to enjoy personal music entertainment. Another example is Apple's series of portable devices. Steve Jobs had an intuitive insight into the importance of online retail, and integrated the iTunes Music Store and iPod (Adner, 2012). Even the hidden need for mobile internet was sought out and realized in another innovative product, the iPhone. On the other hand, the examples of exploitative innovation correspond to products and services of sustaining innovation (Christensen and Bower, 1996), such as expensive high performance hard disk drives for existing customers. However, new product development (NPD) within the scope of hidden needs always carries a higher risk of failure to achieve market penetration compared with NPD that relies on apparent needs because the hidden needs may or may not be genuine. Who takes the initiative in challenging NPD to meet hidden needs, despite the high risk of failure?\nWhat is scanning-based foresight method?: Aguliar (1967) argued \"the knowledge of information about events and relationships in a company's outside environment would assist top management in its task of charting the company's future course of action\". Scanning, or what has recently been called horizon scanning, is a method developed by Stanford Research Institute in the 1970s and has been used by various companies in their consulting services since the 1980s (Loveridge, 2008). Scanning provides companies with a clear vision of the ongoing surrounding environment in terms of a market scenario by consolidating information about multiple factors, including even those which may seem to be very external. Some studies investigated how to apply the scanning method to company strategies (Fahey and King, 1997; Mueller and Smith, 1984), and various types of scanning method have appeared (Ansoff, 1975a; Stoffels, 1994; Albright, 2004; Lesca, 2011). The efficacy of the scanning method for strategy planning has been reported by several former studies. It reduces cognitive bias and increases flexibility in strategy planning (Meissner and Wulf, 2013; Phadnis et al., 2015; Wright and Goodwin, 2009). An extension of scanning, SBFM integrate scanning-derived future consumers' lifestyles with future technological scenarios on the supply side in order to generate future product ideas (Washida et al., 2009).\nComparisons between scanning-based foresight method and design thinking method in new product development: Design thinking (Brown, 2008) is a method similar to SBFM through which companies envision new products in the process of NPD, which will be introduced in potential markets. By showing points that design thinking and SBFM have in common or on which they differ, SBFM focal areas in NPD will be explained. This manuscript also shows that SBFM is a method that has both high potential and is effective method for companies' future workings.\nWho is more eager to realize future innovation?: After showing the differences between SBFM and design thinking, the authors continue to reveal the relationship between SBFM and occupations. An open-ended questionnaire survey and an in-depth interview were adopted to examine actual situations in practice through both quantitative and qualitative approaches.\nAnalysis: Based on the theoretical examination of the NPD strategic framework including SBFM, as well as significant findings by the survey and the in-depth interviews, the authors propose three practical implications for company managements or strategists, as follows.\nDiscussion: Functional transition of in-house design departments\nConclusion: The purpose of this manuscript is initially to suggest scanning focal areas in NPD strategies by comparing with design thinking and, second, to uncover what people in different occupations expect of NPD based on future scenarios. Through comparing with design thinking by using the theoretical framework of product-market strategies, the authors have found that innovations generated through scanning can cover the most difficult and uncertain areas in practice. Based on the theoretical examination of the NPD strategic framework including SBFM, as well as significant findings by the survey and the in-depth interviews, the authors summarized three practical implications for company managements or strategists, as follows. First, the four occupation groups can be classified into two other groups: the rapid-fire NPD expectation group, which consists of marketing and engineering experts, and the late bloomer NPD expectation group, which comprises design and research experts. Second, based on this relationship between occupations and stages of the NPD process, it is clear that the late bloomer NPD expectation group particularly consists of people engaged in the upstream portion of the NPD process where innovative ideas need to be generated. By contrast, people in the rapid-fire NPD expectation group, i.e. marketing or engineer groups, have to look severe aspects of NPD, such as profit or cost of products, because they are engaged in downstream as well as the upstream NPD. Finally, design experts take on an important role in leading NPD to satisfy hidden and future needs by conducting SBFM. They have a desire to share and diffuse their own ideas with others through SBFM. The authors expect that those implications can give managerial contributions for companies in conducting SBFM to realize NPD satisfying hidden and future needs.\nLimits and future research: This study has some limitations mainly as regards the survey samples. First, the subjects were recruited only from among Japanese business persons who had participated in the seven workshops. The samples may be biased, to some extent, toward cooperating to resolve cultural differences. Second, the questionnaire responses were collected from only four types of occupations. Third, the sample size is small, especially for research experts. Consequently, further research is needed using a broader range with a larger sample size that includes other countries as well as other occupations.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to first suggest scanning focal areas in new product development (NPD) by comparing with design thinking and, second, to uncover what people in different occupations expect of NPD based on future scenarios.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Authors place scanning and design thinking into a matrix of product-market strategies. In addition, this study adopts several open-end-type questionnaire surveys of employees at Japanese companies who have taken part in idea generation workshops that take a medium- to long-term perspective.\nFindings: Authors found that innovations generated through scanning can cover the most difficult and uncertain areas in practice compared with design thinking. This manuscript also reveals occupational categories can be divided into two groups according to different expectations of NPD: the rapid-fire NPD expectation group and late-bloomer NPD expectation group. The former group which consists of marketing and engineering experts tends to expect that NPD is simply a response to existing needs and that profit will be gained expeditiously through NPD, while the latter, which comprising design and research experts, tends to expect that NPD will realize future innovations.\nOriginality/value: This study shows some common and different points between scanning and design thinking by using a theoretical framework of product-market strategies. Also, this study reveals who will lead innovation based on foresight in business.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Patient safety analysis linking claims and administrative data
|
[
"Patient safety",
"Clinical risk management",
"Adverse events",
"Medical management",
"Quality control"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Within the framework of health structure evaluation, one of the more recently investigated dimensions is the monitoring of adverse events, defined as unintentional injuries or complications caused by healthcare management, resulting in disability, death or prolonged hospital stay for hospitalized patients (Harvard Medical Practice Study Investigators, 1990).The interest in monitoring adverse events is essentially motivated primarily by the priority of reducing the incidence of medical errors in the health sector (Vincent, 1997, 2001; Kohn et al., 2000). The seminal US report \"To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System\" (IOM 2000) as cited by (Kohn et al., 2000), dramatically influenced the debate over clinical errors in healthcare, both in the US and internationally, establishing healthcare safety as a fundamental issue for health stakeholders and public opinion. While the drive to reduce medical errors has been strengthened by public pressure and research, the monitoring of adverse events in hospitals has an ulterior priority motivated by the financial pressures of risk and liability insurance costs and reimbursements for damages to patients.National context\nMethodology: The central methodological aim of this paper is to evaluate the relationships between clinical error occurrence in the health structures and accreditation-type measures (context outcomes) and other health structure characteristics. In the merged dataset (HDR and claims data), we chose specialties (responsible for clinical errors and where the patient was charged in a specific year) belonging to a particular hospital (from here on referred to as health structures) as a unit of analysis. However, since the relatively small intersection period of both data sources and the underestimation of claims in more recent years have prevented drawing robust indications in a longitudinal perspective, the statistical analyses were performed considering the entire triennium 2004-2006 as the reference period.Methodologically, count data regression techniques have become popular options for the examination of the association and effects of several explicative variables (in our case, the accreditation-type measures and health structure characteristics) with outcome variables expressed as rates or percentages. The most widely used regression model for multivariate count data is the Poisson regression model (PR, Cameron and Trivedi, 1996). However, PR has often been criticized for its restrictive assumptions resulting in an underestimation of the outcome variability (Lambert, 1992; Cameron and Trivedi, 1996). In fact, in real-life applications, count data often exhibits over-dispersion (Lambert, 1992): Table I demonstrates that the variance of surgical error distribution and that of errors causing lesions distribution are about four times the mean, implying the possibility of over-dispersion. One classic cause of over-dispersion is the presence of the excess of zeroes in the analyzed outcome distribution (for example, when many health structures are not responsible of clinical errors).Ignoring over-dispersion seriously compromise the goodness-of-fit of the model, also leading to an overestimation of the statistical significance of the explicative variables. Although adjustments have been provided by specifying an over-dispersion parameter in the PR model, other count models, such as the Negative Binomial Regression model (NBR, Cameron and Trivedi, 1996) appear to be more flexible. NBR is able to model count data with over-dispersion, because NBR is the extension of PR with a more liberal variance assumption, modeled by means of a dispersion parameter (\"alpha\"). Other methodologies, called Zero-Inflated regression (Lambert, 1992) such as Zero-Inflated Poisson regression (ZIP, Cameron and Trivedi, 1996), address the issue of excess zeroes in their own right, explicitly modeling the production of zero counts. Zero-inflated models are based on the idea that there are two different processes generating the counts of the outcome: the overall population is partitioned into two groups: one producing zero counts (e.g. zero errors) and one producing positive counts. To compare competitive regression models, three goodness-of-fit statistics are helpful: the deviance, essentially measuring the difference between the observed and expected counts of errors across health structures, and two similar measures (AIC and SBC) which monitor the sample size and the addition of ulterior explicative variables in the model.Additionally, in order to assess the associations between clinical error percentages and explicative variables (offering a better interpretation of count data regression results), we propose regression tree-based techniques as additional methodological instruments. These techniques have been employed with increasing frequency in a variety of medical studies (Rolph et al., 1991). Regression tree techniques are able to capture complex interactions between explicative variables used to organize observations (health structures) in homogenous groups according to the outcome variable of interest (occurrence of errors). Specifically, we used CART (Breiman et al., 1984), a recursive-partitioning algorithm. In the first step, CART identifies the single explicative variable or hospital characteristic that most strongly differentiates health structures across amounts of clinical errors, thus dividing the entire population of health structures into two sub-groups, defined by the presence or absence of this characteristic (or by the levels of this characteristics), each being more homogeneous in its amount of clinical errors than the overall population. Further, each sub-group is then divided using another explicative variable that best discriminates the amount of clinical errors for those subgroups. The process continues iteratively until the last subgroup candidate either consists of only one health structure or is too small to be split further.\nClaims data in Lombardy: The Lombardy Region (Circular 46/SAN/2004) defined the operating strategy, activities and modalities for the implementation of a regional risk management strategy with the aims to reduce medical errors, improve safety for patients and minimize financial loss for hospitals and doctors (Lombardy Region, 2004). Clinical errors are classified by the following typologies (RVA, 2006):* diagnostic error (such as misdiagnosis leading to an incorrect choice of therapy, failure to use an indicated diagnostic test, misinterpretation of test results and failure to act on abnormal results);* surgical error (involving surgery, care related to surgery, surgical procedures related to an operation, or an alleged failure to provide a timely and appropriate surgical procedure);* therapeutic error (as the concomitant use of medications known to interact toxically, the use of a treatment known to be contraindicated in a specific condition or failure to adequately monitor a treatment, collateral effects, drug dosage prescription or administration, lack of communication between hospital personnel);* invasive procedure error (caused by diagnostic or therapeutic invasive procedures);* anaesthesia error (events occurring under the anesthesia/intubation phase);* prevention error (event as a result of omitted procedures of patient prevention and not considered in the previous types of errors);* infection (such as nosocomial and post-surgical wound infections); and* equipment failure error.A regional database (Monitoring incidents for Public Liability and Employer's Liability of Regional Health System (RCT/O) was established to collect, organize and monitor claims by patients (or their legal representatives), hospitalized in regional healthcare structures. Claims were defined as written demands for compensation for medical injury as a result of an incident. The above (clinical errors) classification reflects the definitions contained in the Lombardy Region laws aimed at implementing the Regional Healthcare Risk Management Plan (Lombardy Region, 2004).Results: the RCT/O database\nModelling error occurrence: variables and results: In the empirical investigation of the association between the occurrence of clinical errors and Hospital accreditation-type measures, we consider the three following outcomes as dependent variables to be modeled (occurrence of clinical errors):1. the percentage of surgical errors to the total surgical discharges in the triennium (y1);2. the percentage of clinical errors resulting in patient death to the total discharges in the triennium (y2); and3. the percentage of clinical errors causing lesions to the total discharges in the triennium (y3).Other clinical error typologies proved too rare to be modeled.Furthermore, as accreditation-type measures to be utilized as explicative variables, following international evidence (Ibrahim et al., 2007; IQIP, 2004; AHRQ, 2002), we selected a set of \"context outcomes\" which could indicate malpractice, such as the total number of readmissions for the same Major Diagnostic Category (MDC, groups of diagnoses corresponding to a specific organ system) within a year per 1,000 discharged patients (T_readmiss_MDC), unscheduled surgical returns to the operating room within 48 hours (T_readmiss_Room), per 1,000 discharged patients at risk (referring procedures with ICD-IX surgical code) and the total number of discharges against medical advice per 1,000 discharged patients (T_discharge_AMA). For these indicators, infants under two years, day hospital and day surgery discharges, long-stay patients and patients in rehabilitation were excluded.Moreover, as additional explicative variables, we selected the following health structure characteristics to summarize the case-mix of hospitalized patients:* the percentage of discharged males (%Male);* the mean age (Mean_age);* the mean length of stay (Mean_LOS);* the percentage of patients with urgency admission (%Urgency);* the mean number of comorbidities of involved patients (Mean_Comorb);* the percentage of patients with oncological diagnosis (%Onco); and* the percentage of patients with cardiologic diagnosis (%Cardio).Results\nConclusion: The main objective of this article was to shed light on the potential utility of claims data.To this end, for the first time, international data and information on occurrence (and rates) of clinical errors by type and consequence were collected in the Lombardy region. We then explored the feasibility of simultaneously analyzing clinical administrative records and claims data in order to empirically investigate the association between the occurrence of errors and context indicators. The paper has furnished two important empirical findings. First, empirical evidence supports the connection between context indicators (extracted from HDR) and the incidence of clinical errors. Particularly, both the NBR and CART analysis found that the rate of unscheduled readmissions to the operating room significantly affects the occurrence of surgical errors. Second, the rate of readmissions for the same MDC and the rate of discharges against medical advice significantly affect the incidence of errors causing patient death (not confirmed by the CART analysis).The empirical exploration of relationships between hospital characteristics and types of clinical errors has suggested that:* surgical errors occur more frequently in unspecialized health structures hosting low percentages of patients with oncologic or cardiologic diagnosis with planned admissions and short periods of hospitalization; and* increasing percentages of cardiology patients and emergency admissions are significant risk factors for errors causing death.Two practical implications arise from these empirical findings. First, we found little evidence that claims related to surgical type or errors resulting in patient lesion were sufficiently concentrated to permit negligence reduction strategies targeted at health structures (60 percent of involved health structures were responsible for surgical errors, 82 percent of them causing at least one lesion). In fact, when clinical errors are more diffusely distributed, targeting individual structures may be a less efficient strategy than investigating the clinical processes in which many physicians are involved. This confirms the need to improve clinical processes in the spirit of continuous quality improvement, emphasizing careful examination, statistical analysis, and adjustment of clinical processes. To this end, specific adjustments are recommended to overcome the technical difficulties inherent to the merging process (e.g. the adoption of uniform coding schemes to identify hospitals, health agencies and specialties, according to the type of clinical error definition, established by international institutions or scientific societies).As a secondary implication, the evidence of significant causal relationships between error occurrence and accreditation-type measures suggests that available administrative data may be effective in prospectively determining situations in which clinical errors typically occur in the regional context, consequently aiding in the identification of priority intervention areas.More specifically, we suggest the strategy of monitoring specific context outcomes (quickly and easily extracted from administrative archives) which are significantly associated with the occurrence of clinical errors, in order to identify the health structures, processes and systems of care responsible for not only quality problems, but also for injury to patients.These advantages notwithstanding, although the integration of HDR and RCT/O administrative archives undoubtedly holds promise for the future, current applications remain limited. In fact, the presented data has confirmed that claims data is problematic in nature, given the limited number of claims generally emerging from administrative sources (underreporting, underestimation due to gaps, or lack of close calls or near misses/errors that do not result in injury), and the lack of information on the causes of medical errors causing injury to patients (e.g. processes and systems of care that may be responsible).In conclusion, although much remains to be improved in the systematic measurement of patient safety, in regard to both routine monitoring and the detection of errors, the approach in the present paper provides an extremely cost-effective method of receiving timely, relevant information, offering regional stakeholders the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the problematic areas in clinical risk assessment.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to provide international data on the occurrence (and rates) of clinical errors, identified by type and consequence in the Lombardy region, and to assess empirically the association between hospital accreditation-type measures and clinical error rates by merging hospital discharge records and medical malpractice claim data in the Lombardy region (Italy).\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Data were drawn from the regional database collecting claims and demands for reimbursement declared by patients hospitalized in regional healthcare structures and regional archives collecting hospital discharge records. To model the variability of clinical errors rates, binomial negative regression models were applied. For improved interpretation of the results, a regression tree methodology was used.\nFindings: - The results demonstrated that the rate of readmission for the same major diagnostic category and the rate of discharges against medical advice significantly affect the incidence of errors causing patient death, whereas the rate of unscheduled surgical readmission in the operating room significantly affects the rate of surgical error.\nResearch limitations/implications: - The findings confirm that claims data is problematic in nature because of the limited number of claims generally emerging from administrative sources. The article proposes using proper regression models for count data, taking into account over-dispersion and excess zeroes and classification tree methods for a better interpretation of empirical evidence.\nPractical implications: - Health structures where quality outcomes have a significant impact on clinical error rates should be monitored in depth, investigating the medical charts of involved patients to identify quality problems and problematic areas.\nOriginality/value: - As a risk management strategy, the combined use of claims data and clinical administrative data is proposed to shed light on the more problematic, error-prone areas, allowing regional stakeholders to receive relevant, highly cost-effective and timely information and an in-depth understanding of the problematic areas in the assessment of risk.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
The fast are eating the slow: mentoring for leadership development as a competitive method
|
[
"Mentoring",
"Leadership development",
"Succession planning",
"Organizational development",
"Talent management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n__NO_TITLE__: An organization acknowledges a need for leadership development. Does it turn to external training, coaching, or mentoring to achieve their goals?\nCase study: no succession pipeline: My client, a leading global pharmaceutical company, found themselves without a succession plan and leaders for the future. They were fortunate in that they caught the problem before losing contracts - a situation which will later be discussed in our discussion of the case study that was presented by Mr Prentice.\nCase study: lost business due to lack of leadership depth: Fuel Learning's client, one of Europe's largest logistics and supply chain organizations, lost a PS160 million ($251 million) contract as a direct result of the fact that the organization had no leadership development initiative in place. Their prospect cited it as a deal breaker: because they did not see evidence that the logistics and supply chain organization had strong leadership management, the prospect became concerned that if they signed the contract, the logistics company would simply promote unqualified employees to fill the necessary leadership roles as they came into existence.\nSuccessful leadership development and the ability to compete: This returns us to our original point: in today's economy, the fast are eating the slow. Organizations simply cannot afford to put off leadership development efforts, as evidenced by both case studies presented. Doing so leads to a lack of leaders at times when leaders are most needed.\n",
"role": "user"
},
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"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to posit formal mentoring as cost-effective strategy for both developing leaders within an organization, as well as increasing organizational competitive ability in today's economy.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The paper presents two case studies originally presented in a webinar which the author, a US-based subject matter expert in the field of mentoring, cohosted with a UK-based subject matter expert in the field of leadership development.\nFindings: Formal mentoring offers a uniquely suited approach to leadership development because of its ability to capitalize on knowledge that is both internal and specific to the organization, develop as broad or as targeted a group as necessary, and be tailored to meet any organization's goals and objectives. Together, these points can be leveraged to make an organization more competitive - not only in strength of existing leadership, but in readiness of ability to develop leaders for the future.\nResearch limitations/implications: These are two case studies that examine the success of mentoring as a leadership development method within two large organizations.\nPractical implications: Formal mentoring for the purposes of leadership development can be leveraged to great competitive advantage in large organizations.\nSocial implications: Mentoring for leadership development has the effect of improving and solidifying company culture, as well as engaging employees through career and leadership development activities.\nOriginality/value: While using mentoring as a leadership development method is not a new concept, these case studies provide examples of how it can be practically applied, and to what ends.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Promoting brand engagement behaviors and loyalty through perceived service value and innovativeness
|
[
"Brand loyalty",
"Customer value",
"Relative advantage",
"Consumer brand engagement behavior",
"Service concept newness"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Both service innovation and customer engagement have received research attention in recent years, but the integration of the two research streams remain sparse. Prior studies (Jaakkola and Alexander, 2014; Ordanini and Parasuraman, 2011) have discussed the interrelationship between the two research streams through a service-dominant logic (SDL) lens and a service system perspective. SDL suggests that value is perceived and co-created by the beneficiary (customers) and all social and economic actors are resource integrators (Vargo and Lusch, 2016). A service system is a value creation configuration consisting of exchange parties (service firms and customers) and their networks (other institutions or stakeholders) that indirectly influence value co-creation (Edvardsson et al., 2011). It is also considered a dynamic configuration that bring people, technology and organizations together in creating and delivering value (Agarwal and Selen, 2011). Thus, service firms accordingly need to design resource integration mechanisms within the service system that support all actors to enhance service innovation (Edvardsson and Tronvoll, 2013). Customer engagement offers one alternate way that customers participate in a new service process beyond transactions to influence service organization outcomes such as loyalty.\n2. Theoretical background: 2.1 Service innovation\n3. Methodology: 3.1 Sample and data collection\n4. Findings: 4.1 Preliminary analysis\n5. Discussion: This study empirically examined how the characteristics of service innovation (perceived value, service concept newness and relative advantage) promote CBEBs and brand loyalty. The findings of our study suggest that the proposed drivers influence each dimension of the CBEBs differently. For example, collecting brand information is positively influenced by value, service concept newness and relative advantage. Participating in brand marketing activities is positively influenced by service concept newness and relative advantage. Interacting with others is positively influenced by value and service concept newness. It is surprising that perceived value does not influence participating in brand marketing activities. Perhaps, while customers may perceive value from service innovation, they initially invest cognitive efforts in actively paying attention to brand marketing activities and time to upload the mobile phone application to try out new services. Thus, a large initial investment of their resources may influence customer experience as well as value perception with the service innovation. It is also unexpected that relative advantage does not influence interacting with others. In other words, when compared to perceived value and service concept newness, the customers' expectation that the service innovation involves some degree of advantage over competitors' offerings does not influence their interaction with other customers. This suggests that customers are reluctant to talk to other people about the focal brand when the topic involves competing innovations. Future research is encouraged to explore this link and provide specific explanations that can be generalizable to other contexts.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of perceived value and innovativeness (service concept newness and relative advantage) in promoting customer brand engagement behaviors (CBEBs) and brand loyalty.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The conceptual model was empirically tested using nationwide survey data from 430 customers of Uber in Australia. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.\nFindings: The results of this study show that collecting brand information is positively influenced by perceived value, service concept newness and relative advantage. Participating in brand marketing activities is positively influenced by service concept newness and relative advantage. Interacting with others is positively influenced by perceived value and service concept newness. Subsequently, brand loyalty is positively influenced by participating in brand marketing activities and interacting with others. The direct impacts of perceived value and relative advantage on brand loyalty are also established.\nResearch limitations/implications: This study only collected data from Uber customers. Another limitation of this study is the use of cross-sectional data.\nPractical implications: To promote brand loyalty, service innovation needs to have both the right characteristics (i.e. perceived value, service concept newness and relative advantage) and practices that foster customer brand engagement behaviors.\nOriginality/value: Although service-dominant logic (SDL) is a theoretical lens used by research in the areas of service innovation and customer engagement, empirical studies that integrate the two areas remain limited. The findings of this study suggest a new mechanism in which service innovation can increase loyalty through increased CBEBs.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
Converging HRM practices? A comparison of high performance work system practices in MNC subsidiaries and domestic firms in Pakistan
|
[
"Training",
"Human resource management"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: An important strand in the HRM literature has long questioned whether a global model of HRM, centered on high performance work systems (HPWS), will emerge or whether country-specific models will prevail (Budhwar et al., 2016; Chen et al., 2005; Pudelko and Harzing, 2007; Brewster et al., 2016). Empirical studies have presented convincing evidence to support both positions; the debate, therefore, is far from over. We compare the HPWS practices and policies of MNC subsidiaries and domestic firms in Pakistan and assess any convergence/divergence among these policies.\nThe convergence-divergence debate in HRM: Globalization has increased interest in the convergence or divergence of firms' HRM practices in different national and cultural settings. Some research finds that, due to a common logic of industrialism, similarities in the organization of work throughout the world are increasing, leading to a convergence of HRM practices around those associated with US MNCs, as such firms are often seen as \"technological leaders\" despite the differences in national cultures, politics and ideology (Kerr et al., 1960; Hall and Soskice, 2001; Esping-Andersen, 1990). Other research finds that cultural and institutional differences between countries and regions prevail, resulting in persistent differences in management systems and practices (Hofstede et al., 2010; House et al., 2004).\nPakistani context: Pakistan is the world's sixth most populous country (190m inhabitants); two-thirds of Pakistanis are under the age of 30 (Statistics-PK, 2016). The institutional environment of a country, including its cultural norms, potentially has important implications for firms' HR policies. The unemployment rate is 5.6 percent and female participation in the workforce is low. The literacy rate is 58 percent (Ministry-of-Finance, 2015). In year 2013-2014, 0.31m students were enrolled in 3,300 technical and vocational institutes in the country. In the higher education sector, 1.60m students were enrolled in 161 universities. Thus, firms in Pakistan have access to skilled as well as unskilled workers to recruit from, potentially influencing the types of HR practices that local firms and MNC adopt.\nHypothesis development: This section develops hypotheses to examine the differences, if any, between key HPWS practices in subsidiaries of MNCs and domestic firms in Pakistan, a country with a distinctive institutional and cultural context. There is no consensus on which practices constitute HPWS; we, therefore, draw on the HPWS literature and select the following practices: selective hiring and sophisticated selection, extensive training and development, employee involvement and participation, high compensation contingent on performance, performance review, appraisal and career development (Marchington and Wilkinson, 2008; Guest et al., 2003; Guthrie et al., 2009).\nSample, research design and data collection: We targeted MNC subsidiaries and domestically owned workplaces in the banking, information technology and pharmaceutical sectors. All these sectors have enjoyed a steady inflow of FDI and a sizeable number of MNC subsidiaries operate in these sectors. The population for our sampling frame was identified by visiting the websites of the relevant industry trade associations. The respective trade associations from where the details of their members were identified are: Pakistan Bankers Association, The Software Export Board, Pakistan and Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association. The lists were comprehensive and provided the details of addresses and contact person in the relevant establishment.\nAnalysis: We ran a series of binary logistic regression models to test the hypothesized relationships. The regression coefficient estimates the impact of an independent variable on the probability of an event occurring. There is no suggestion of multicollinearity between predictor variables. The descriptive statistics with pairwise correlations, values for convergent and discriminant reliability are provided in Table I.\nResults: As hypothesized by H1, the coefficient of selective hiring and sophisticated selection (recruitment) is positive, but not statistically significant in Models 2 and 6, thus failing to support the hypothesis and suggesting that multinational subsidiaries and domestic firms do not differ with respect to their use of the practice. The coefficient of extensive training, learning and development (training) is negative and statistically significant the 0.1 percent level in Model 2 and at the 5 percent level in Model 6. Thus, MNC subsidiaries are more likely to provide extensive training, learning and development opportunities to their employees compared to domestic Pakistani firms.\nDiscussion and conclusion: We examined the HPWS practices of MNC subsidiaries and domestic firms to understand similarities and differences between these two types of firm, revealing that host-country institutions influence the adoption of some of these practices in MNC subsidiaries. Isomorphism seems to affect some HRM practices in MNC subsidiaries in Pakistan. Thus, no statistically significant differences were observed between the two types of firms with respect to selective hiring and selection and employee involvement and participation. Our finding of no statistically significant differences between MNC subsidiaries and local firm in terms of employee involvement and participation are in line with the previous research that indicates that the practice is increasingly gaining popularity in Asian countries (Torrington and Hall, 1998; Miah and Bird, 2007), despite the marginal role that unions play in Pakistan.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Existing work on convergence/divergence among HRM practices in MNCs and local firms mainly focuses on Europe and the USA. Limited research examines these organizations in Pakistan, hindering our understanding of what policies MNCs are likely to adopt there as well as the extent of any differences between HRM in MNC subsidiaries and local firms. The purpose of this paper is to examine the similarities and differences between the HRM practices of MNC subsidiaries and domestic firms to assess if there is evidence for convergence or divergence.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The authors targeted MNC subsidiaries and domestically owned firms working in the banking, information technology and pharmaceutical sectors in Pakistan. These sectors have enjoyed a steady inflow of foreign direct investment and have a sizeable number of MNC subsidiaries. Out of 1,081 companies, some 392 participated in a face-to-face survey (response rate of 36.4 percent). The authors ran a series of binary logistic regression models to test the hypothesized relationships between HR practices and nationality of ownership.\nFindings: The authors reveal that a small minority of both types of firm use some practices, such as high compensation contingent on performance and performance review, appraisal and career development. However, domestic firms use some practices, such as extensive training, performance appraisals and performance-related pay significantly less than their multinational counterparts. The authors argue that these differences reflect institutional influences in Pakistan as well as a potential opportunity for local firms to change their HRM practices. In other areas, such as recruitment and employee involvement, there are no differences between the two groups.\nOriginality/value: The authors deepen our understanding of the types of HR practices that local companies in an emerging economy are likely to adopt as well as those that they are unlikely to adopt. Existing research has tended to downplay HRM in Pakistan and the different use of individual HRM practices among MNC subsidiaries and local firms. This research reveals that some companies in Pakistan have sophisticated HRM practices in place in some areas; however, MNC subsidiaries make greater use of some HR practices, reflecting different cultural norms between the two groups.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A hybrid framework based on SIPOC and Six Sigma DMAIC for improving process dimensions in supply chain network
|
[
"DMAIC",
"Statistical process control",
"Paint process",
"SCM dimensions",
"SIPOC",
"Six Sigma"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: In today's highly competitive environment, supply chain (SC) performance is very vital for the survival of firms because customers judge the performance of firms based on their SC performance. Competition is no longer between firms but between entire SCs. So, SC has become an important dimension for firms to give maximum attention in order to excel in a competitive environment. The field of supply chain management (SCM) is growing day by day. More than 1,000 articles per year are published in different academic journals around the world. As per this evidence, SCM has become a key strategic factor/tool for firms to improve their performance and secure their competitiveness in a market place. In order to successfully implement SCM, all firms within a SC must reduce functional silos and adopt a process approach (Mentzer, 2001). In recent years, SCM performance has become very vital for the survival of the firms because customers judge the performance of firms based on their SC performance. From the literature it has been observed that a well planned and executed SCM will enable organizations to reduce their inventories, have better customer services and have reductions in costs and inventory turns (Chong and Ooi, 2008). The short-term objective of SCM is to enhance productivity and reduce inventory and lead time whereas, on the other hand, the long-term objective is to increase companies' market share and have external integration of the SC process (Tan et al., 1998; Li et al., 2006; Koh et al., 2007).\n2. Illustrative case: This case study deals with implementation of the proposed framework (based on SIPOC + Six Sigma) to improve process performance attributes related to SC. The company situated in northern part of India is in the process of an ongoing program of application of Six Sigma methodology with an aim to improve its SC performance.\n3. Results and discussion: One of the major objectives of this study is to introduce a hybrid framework (SIPOC+DMAIC) aimed at improving SCM performance attributes in terms of process/product quality, process capability and reduction in failure cost. The different metrics has been calculated such as AOQL which shows the maximum worst possible defective or defect rate for the AOQ to know the process performance. Process Z helps to know about sigma capability of the process. The control chart of shrinkage defect has been drawn to capture the variation by using I-MR charts, as shown in Figure 7. The Run chart has also been drawn as shown in Figure 10.\n4. Conclusions: Six Sigma is a process focussed program which aims to improve the process following a systematic methodology based on the DMAIC cycle. SCM is also focussed on processes within SC (Nabhani and Shokri, 2009). It has been argued that it is a good idea to use Six Sigma in SC projects in order to improve SC metrics. This has later been supported through daily 6s work in Samsung that 6s and SCM would be two pillars of business improvement (Yang et al., 2007). In our study we have tried to develop a hybrid model based on SIPOC and Six Sigma DMAIC for improving SC performance attributes related to process dimensions. The paper presents the step by step application of proposed methodology for reducing the level of defects in a paint manufacturing process. Several statistical methods were effectively utilized to realize the benefits of DMAIC methodology during the process. The proposed approach facilitates to identify the root cause of the problem. The use of tools like brainstorming, Pareto analysis, cause and effect analysis, etc. helps us to identify, prioritize the issues and find effective solutions to the problems. As shown in Figure 9, the percentage defective for shrinkage has brought down the mean 0.06317, and standard deviation 0.007417. Similar trends are obtained for other defects too. As a result, the percentage of defects for shrinkage was reduced from 15.44 to 6.32 (Figure 10).\nGlossary: AHP analytic hierarchy process\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce a hybrid framework (suppliers, inputs, process, output and customers+define, measure, analyze, improve and control (SIPOC+DMAIC)) aimed at improving supply chain management (SCM) process dimensions in a supply chain (SC) network.\nDesign/methodology/approach: Based upon the critical review of literature, process dimensions (average outgoing quality limit (AOQL), average outgoing quality (AOQ), process Z, defect per million opportunity) critical to SCM performance were identified. A framework consisting of three phases, i.e., design, implementation and results has been conceptualized and a case from paint industry is investigated. Implementation framework makes use of SIPOC model and Six Sigma DMAIC methodology. The goals of the study were achieved by using Six Sigma tools such as brainstorming sessions; root cause analysis, histograms, statistical tools such as control charts and process capability analysis.\nFindings: Authors made an attempt to propose a conceptual framework for improving process dimensions in a SC network. It is observed from the results that selection of appropriate strategies for improving process performance based upon experiences, and use of statistical tools by cross-functional teams with an effective coordination, guarantees success. Metrics such as AOQL shows the maximum worst possible defective or defect rate for the AOQ. Process Z helps to know about sigma capability of the process.\nResearch limitations/implications: The framework so developed is tested in a single company manufacturing batches of paint. The study has important implications for the industry since it tries to integrate SCM process dimensions which would help in successful implementation of SCM practices in firm by following the DMAIC process. The framework enables the practitioners to investigate the process and demonstrate improvements using DMAIC which makes use of statistical tools.\nOriginality/value: Although process dimensions related to SCM are critical to organization competitiveness, research so far has tended to focus on supply chain operations and reference model, balanced scorecard, total quality management, activity-based costing, just in time, etc., but in literature hardly any description of the SIPOC-DMAIC model to improve SCM process performance is provided. The use of statistics in DMAIC provides better insight into the process performance, and process control.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
A holistic and integrated approach to theorizing strategic alliances of small and medium-sized enterprises
|
[
"Strategic alliances",
"Social network theory",
"Small- and medium-sized enterprises",
"Entrepreneurship and innovation",
"Resource-based theory"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Researchers define strategic alliances based on their particular theoretical perspective. From a resource-based perspective, strategic alliance is defined as a long-term cooperative arrangement at the strategic level between two or more firms to improve their competitive position and performance by sharing resources and risks (Inkpen and Tsang, 2007). Das and Teng (2000a) categorize strategic alliances into four major categories: equity joint ventures, minority equity alliances, bilateral contract-based alliances and unilateral contract-based alliances.\n2. Literature review and proposition development: SMEs\n3. An integrated conceptual model of SME strategic alliances: In this section we present an integrated conceptual model of strategic alliances of SMEs which is built on the six propositions we have developed in the preceding sections. The theoretical basis of the model includes a combined approach to entrepreneurship and innovation, RBV, and social network theory. The model conceptualizes the precursor, motivation, selection, governance structure, outcomes and challenges of strategic alliances of SMEs and the relationships between them. Figure 1 summarizes and illustrates visually the model. Drawing on an integrated approach to entrepreneurship and innovation, the model proposes that SMEs use strategic alliances to develop and enhance their entrepreneurial and innovative capacity and obtain a competitive advantage, because the alliances help SMEs gain strategic resources and build critical mass.\n4. Implications of this study: This study tackles a largely underexplored area in the current SME literature as well as the entrepreneurship and innovation literature through establishing the connection between SME strategic alliances and entrepreneurship and innovation. The study addresses the challenges of building and managing SME strategic alliances to enhance their entrepreneurship and innovation capacities. By taking a holistic and integrated approach, the study is intended to deliver new and holistic insights into SME strategic alliances in terms of the precursor, motivations, selection, governance structure, outcomes and challenges of strategic alliances of SMEs and the relationships between them. Given the growing importance of using alliances as a strategy to SMEs, our study has practical and theoretical implications.\n5. Conclusion: Research suggests that SMEs can compete more effectively against large organizations if they adopt the strategy of co-opetition, that is, simultaneous cooperation and competition between SMEs (Nieto and Santamaria 2010). In today's competitive markets, SMEs need to collaborate to create economies of scale, mitigate risk, and leverage resources together (Hoffmann and Schlosser, 2001; Morris et al., 2007; Gnyawali and Park, 2009). Our study tackles the important issue of SME strategic alliances and develops an integrated conceptual model about SME strategic alliances in terms of the precursor, motivations, selection, governance structure, outcomes and challenges of strategic alliances of SMEs and the relationships between them. The model has both practical and theoretical implications as discussed in the paper.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to seek to deliver a new and holistic insight on small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) strategic alliances in terms of the precursor, motivations, selection, governance structure, outcomes and challenges of strategic alliances of SMEs and the relationships between them.\nDesign/methodology/approach: To better understand the entire process of SME strategic alliances, the author takes a novel approach which is based on a combined perspective of entrepreneurship and innovation, resource-based theory, and social network theory.\nFindings: The author develops a theoretical model which seeks to conceptualize the antecedents, process, and outcomes of strategic alliances of SMEs and the relationships between them.\nResearch limitations/implications: The conceptual framework provides the directions for future empirical testing and further theoretical research.\nPractical implications: This study may help managers better understand the importance of an integrated approach to entrepreneurship and innovation, and the process and outcomes of enhancing their entrepreneurship and innovation capacities through strategic alliances.\nOriginality/value: To the author's knowledge, this study is the first of its kind that takes a holistic and integrated approach to study SME strategic alliances.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Managerial trust and NPD team performance: team commitment and longevity as mediators
|
[
"New products",
"Product development",
"Trust",
"Job satisfaction",
"Turkey"
] |
[
{
"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: The significance of trust in organisations and indeed all social relationships has been explored by researchers (Lewicki et al., 1998; Rousseau et al., 1998; Hubbell and Chory-Assad, 2005). Although the concept has been the subject of research in many diverse fields (management, economics, and sociology, for examples), much less attention has been paid to the role of trust on the effective functioning of new product development (NPD) teams. Research on organisational effectiveness indicates that creating trusting dyadic relationships between supervisors and subordinates helps organisations seeking a way to gain competitive advantages generate an innovative atmosphere in which creativity and change take place (Clegg et al., 2002). Sonnenburg (1994) and Fairholm (1994), for instance, note that a trusting work environment increases employee morale and in turn creates an environment where innovation and productivity boost up. In addition, Tan and Tan (2000) indicate that subordinates trusting their supervisor will be more likely to be creative, as they feel safe in exploring alternative ways of doing things that lead to innovative behaviours.A large body of studies has investigated the importance of trust between partners in the distribution channel (e.g. Anderson and Narus, 1990; Moorman et al., 1993; Morgan and Hunt, 1994; Mohr and Spekman, 1994; Garbarino and Johnson, 1999). Although the importance of trust has been acknowledged in the product innovation literature (Madhavan and Grover, 1998; Koskinen et al., 2003; Akgun et al., 2005; Rodriguez et al., 2007), the matter of how managerial trust affects the performance of the NPD team has received little systematic theoretical attention. In the NPD team setting, managerial trust potentially can have several effects on the team's performance, it could increase team commitment and reduce team turnover (Dirks and Ferrin, 2001), for instance; these multiple possible consequences of managerial trust in the NPD team have not yet been adequately researched.The research objective of the present study is to develop and test a theoretical model that integrates the mediating impacts of team commitment and longevity between managerial trust and outcomes of increased managerial trust such as product success and team learning.In the next section, I build a theoretical model of the impact of managerial trust through team commitment and longevity on the performance of NPD teams. In subsequent sections, I test hypotheses using a sample of teams from Turkish firms engaged in product innovation. I conclude by deriving theoretical conclusions and implications for managers.\nTheory and hypotheses: Conceptual framework\nMethodology: Sampling and data collection\nEmpirical analysis and results: Measurement of validity and reliability\nDiscussion and implications: Theoretical contributions\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating effects of team commitment and longevity between managerial trust and team performance (e.g. team learning and product success), using environmental turbulence as a moderator.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - To test the proposed model, data were collected from 335 team members and team leaders of 107 Turkish new product/project development teams.\nFindings: - The results of the structural equation model showed that managerial trust (as rated by team members) was significantly associated with team commitment and longevity; and team commitment and longevity significantly mediated the relationships between managerial trust and team learning, and managerial trust and product success. Moreover, the findings showed that the impact of managerial trust on team commitment and longevity was higher when environmental turbulence was high. However, the mediating impact of team commitment was significant regardless of market or technical turbulence; and team longevity had a significant mediating impact if environment was turbulent. Theoretical and managerial implications of the study findings were discussed at the end.\nOriginality/value: - The novelty of the research lies in the empirical test of managerial trust in the context of teams with innovation projects (e.g. product development teams). Furthermore, the inclusion of team commitment and longevity as moderators represents an added value of the study.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Ensuring volunteer impacts, legacy and leveraging is not "fake news": Lessons from the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup
|
[
"Women",
"Motivation",
"Volunteer",
"Sport events",
"Legacy",
"Social and human capital"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Mega-sport event (MSE) host communities often justify using public money and resources by claiming legacies will remain post-event of benefit to host communities (Dickson, 2017). This belief in the public-good of MSE belies the nature of public-goods being non-rivalrous and non-excludable, whereas the lived-experiences of MSE are that they are both rivalrous and exclusive (Veal, 2011). Legacies vary across dimensions, e.g. scale (legacy size), spatially (geographic area) and temporality (how long the legacy remains) (Dickson et al., 2011a). Two legacy categories are: built (e.g. new stadia, accommodation stock and transport infrastructure) and social (e.g. increased volunteering, volunteering as the welcoming face of hospitality for repeat tourism, sport participation and destination awareness). FIFA Women's World Cup Canada 2015 (FWWC15) promised the six host communities an array of legacies that were expected to remain as a result of hosting the event (FWWC15, 2014b). This is another in the long line of MSE raising host-community's hopes and expectations that the resources put into these events will be of lasting benefit to them (Ritchie, 2000; Davies, 2012; Kidd, 2010). Research is needed to evaluate the veracity of MSE's legacy claims to inform future event bids, planning and funding.\nTheoretical framework: The theoretical frame includes mega-events; impacts, legacy and leveraging; socio-ecological frames; event volunteering, theory of planned behaviour; and social and human capitals.\nResearch questions: To leverage the growing body of socially situated MSE volunteer research, these research questions are explored in the context of a single-sport, Tier 2, women's MSE in a country with a strong volunteering tradition:\nResearch context: This research's social context was Canada, a three-time OPG host (Montreal 1976, Calgary 1988 and Vancouver 2010), who were bidding to co-host the 2026 FIFA World Cup and considering a bid for the 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Thus, a successful FWWC15 could be an important step in bidding for these MSEs where having a pool of experienced, satisfied and willing MSE volunteers could be a strategic advantage in the bid and delivery of future MSEs. Prior to the FWWC15, Canada's volunteering levels were 47 per cent, with those 18-24 years having the highest levels, 58 per cent (Imagine Canada, 2013).\nResearch design: The research was part of a broader mixed-methods study examining the FWWC15 incorporating: online questionnaires; in-depth interviews; observation, documentary analysis and secondary analysis of management information systems. This volunteer legacies paper utilises the e-survey and the one-hour semi-structured interview of a VM, complemented by event observations in Vancouver and Winnipeg by two of the researchers over a month during the event period and a review of key documents. The name of the VM and the interview location are excluded to maintain anonymity. Hence, a triangulation of data was created providing multiple sources of validation for the research questions (Veal and Darcy, 2014).\nResults: The results are presented under the three research questions: who volunteered, what were their motivations and what is the legacy potential?\nDiscussion and conclusion: This research reinforces that MSE volunteering is socially-situated, drawing upon pre-existing community-wide SC and individual HC when recruiting predominantly skilled and experienced volunteers. For FWWC15, we have identified who volunteered, why they volunteered and what their legacy potential may be. As with previous MSEs, legacy has not been foregrounded when it comes to MSE planning, resourcing and execution. Yet a volunteering legacy can be an \"investment\" in future HC and SC that can be quantified as a benefit to host communities via cost-benefit analyses. Enhanced HC will be seen in skill development; greater SC will be reflected in increases in volunteering levels (i.e. giving back to the community) and expansion beyond the event context (here, women's football at any level of the sport development pathway). This can occur by strengthening individuals' connections to their local sporting organisations, increased networking of these organisations across different spheres of involvement (education; school involvement and HC development) and more resilient communities. The interplay of the two means that leveraging enhanced HC (skills) will increase the value of the SC legacy potential (volunteering) beyond the host community.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: This study aims to explore the legacy potential of the FIFA Women's World Cup (FWWC) 2015, for the host communities across Canada.\nDesign/methodology/approach: The mixed-methods study included a link to an online anonymous survey being sent to all volunteers at the FWWC that explored their prior volunteering experience, motivations for volunteering, perceived skill development and future volunteering intentions. Documents were reviewed, and key stakeholders were interviewed.\nFindings: The results support previous research that mega-sport event (MSE) volunteers are typically older females with prior volunteering experience. Those most likely to indicate they wanted to volunteer more are younger volunteers without prior volunteering experience. While legacy was discussed as a desired outcome, this was not operationalised through strategic human resource strategies such as being imbedded in the position descriptions for the volunteer managers.\nResearch limitations/implications: As this study was conducted in the real-world context of a sport event, the timing of the survey was determined by the organising committee.\nPractical implications: Mega sport events typically draw upon existing host-city social and human capital. For future event organising committees planning for and delivering a volunteer legacy may require better strategic planning and leveraging relationships with existing host-city volunteer networks. In the context of a single sport, women's MSE, multi-venue, multi-province event, greater connection was required to proactively connect younger women for volunteers to their geographic sport and event volunteering infrastructure.\nOriginality/value: This is the first research of volunteers for the largest women's mega single-sport event. There are three theoretical contributions of the paper to: the socio-ecological lens, motivational theory of single event MSE and the contribution of social and human capital to understandings of legacy.\n",
"role": "assistant"
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] |
An investigation into the relationship between political activity levels and political market orientation
|
[
"Politics",
"Market orientation",
"Stakeholder analysis",
"Public opinion"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Market orientation is unquestionably one of the most well researched commercial marketing concepts of the last 20 years (e.g. Deshpande and Farley, 2004; Gray et al., 1998; Griffiths and Grover, 1998; Harrison-Walker, 2001; Hult et al., 2005; Kohli and Jaworski, 1990; Kohli et al., 1993; Narver and Slater, 1990; Slater and Narver, 1995, 1999). However, only recently has it been amplified to investigate the political marketplace (Lees-Marshment, 2001a, b; Lilleker and Lees-Marshment, 2005; O'Cass, 1996, 2001a, b; Ormrod, 2005, 2006, 2007; Ormrod and Henneberg, 2006, 2008; Ormrod et al., 2007). It has been proposed that being market oriented describes when members of an organisation are responsive to the explicit and latent needs and wants of a variety of stakeholder groups in society (Gainer and Padanyi, 2005; Greenley et al., 2005; Ormrod, 2005; Padanyi and Gainer, 2004), which in the political context results in what political scientists term \"responsible democratic governance\" (Coleman, 2007). The political market orientation (PMO) may be affected by contact each member has with the relevant stakeholder group. For example, whilst professional politicians may have daily contact with competing parties, the inactive party members are likely only to have an indirect or at best peripheral contact with this group. Furthermore, the relative level of responsiveness is governed by the attitudes held by members regarding the importance of each stakeholder group, thereby facilitating the management and strategic marketing of their party. Whilst a rank-and-file party member may be inactive, their perception of which groups in society are important to the party and how this affects party behaviour could be much more nuanced than that of a professional politician.This paper develops a PMO concept that moves away from a focus on top managers as key respondents, and explicitly acknowledges in the nomological conceptualisation that a political market orientation is an important characteristic of all members of the party, in line with the argument by Schlosser and McNaughton (2007). By investigating individual member perceptions of party attitudes towards particular stakeholder groups, and subsequently how these perceptions affect the market oriented behaviours of the party, this article contributes to the political marketing literature by investigating the way in which the role and position of members affects their understanding of PMO. We therefore broaden the hitherto less well-researched area of PMO and link it to a comparison of different groups of respondents and different party activity levels. As such, our research is in line with Henneberg and O'Shaughnessy's (2007) argument for using state-of-the-art marketing theory to test its applicability in the area of political marketing.This article progresses by, first, developing the conceptual framework and parsimonious constructs of a political market orientation. Second, this is followed by an explanation of how these constructs are operationalised, and third, tested using a partial least squares method of modeling relationships between the constructs. The results are then presented, followed by a discussion of their implications. Finally, the limitations of the current investigation are outlined and avenues for future research proposed.\nConceptual framework and construct development: Commercial and political market orientation\nData and variable construction: The PMO model described above is operationalised in line with studies in the commercial marketing literature (Schlosser and McNaughton, 2007) and the political marketing literature (O'Cass, 2001a; Ormrod and Henneberg, 2008) in that different role categories (i.e. activity levels of key respondents) were assessed within the organisation, with the focus on a single party. To assess the perceptions of the PMO characteristics of their party, respondents were selected from key groups within the political party, specifically elected politicians, party professionals, members with a position of responsibility, as well as rank-and-file party members. As part of a self-categorising methodology, the perceptions of their own political activity levels were used to cluster respondents into groups. Member activity level was measured on a five-point scale, from 1: \"very active, I am involved with the Party at least once a week\", to 5: \"Not at all active, I am involved with the Party at most once or twice a year\". This provided the basis for a further combination of the categories into the \"very active\" (response categories 1 and 2), the \"moderately active\" (response categories 3 and 4) and the \"inactive\" members (response category 5).Pre-test and sample\nResults: Model evaluation\nDiscussion: The behavioural chain - the paths between the four behavioural constructs - was found to be strong and positive in the baseline model and the models representing each of the three activity levels. These results are similar to a different dataset analysed by Ormrod and Henneberg (2008). This means that although the inactive members may not actually be involved in any PMO activities as part of the behavioural chain, they assess their party activities in a similar way to active party members. The strength of the path coefficients has important implications for party managers. If the aim is to improve the consistency of the strategy implementation by all levels of the party hierarchy, from elected members to the inactive rank-and-file, then focusing on improving the ability and motivation for carrying out any of the market-oriented behaviours will have a distinctly positive influence.However, model 1 also shows that the effect of market-related information is perceived to diminish faster in the behavioural chain of the active members than in that of the inactive member model 3. This indicates that it is the very active members perceive to make the most of listening to the opinions of stakeholder groups, but the effect on PMO behaviour in general is greater in the perceptions of the inactive members.It is interesting to note that in none of the models did the media and lobby and interest groups have an impact, against the expectations found in the literature (e.g. Dean and Croft, 2001; Harris et al., 1999; Lock and Harris, 1996b; Newman, 2005; O'Shaughnessy, 1990; Roka, 1999). However, Ormrod and Henneberg (2006) found a similar tendency in British General Election manifestos. This could well be a result of the highly targeted behaviour of the macro- and meso-level groups (i.e. the media lobbyists, single-interest groups) external to the party which concentrate their efforts (e.g. negotiations, framing, provision of expertise) on a few key elected members and party professionals, and as such, they are perceived to have no impact on the general party. Lobby and interest groups, therefore, may help shape laws but not party strategy; the media may criticise policy but is not included in its development.The external group which did have an impact are the micro-level stakeholders, i.e. politically active yet unaligned citizens at the local level. The path coefficients for this subset of the External Orientation which are impacting on the behavioural constructs are stronger than those between the Internal Orientation and the behavioural constructs. However, the perceptions also show a progressively falling influence of micro-level stakeholders in the behavioural chain, indicating that this group is perceived to be consulted by the party but is seen as less relevant to the actual development and implementation of strategy. Especially those members who are highly active in the party (model 1) perceive the party orientation towards this group to be significantly lower than that of the moderately active and inactive members.The Internal Orientation construct had a similarly significant effect on the behavioural constructs in models 1 and 3, with path coefficients of generally between 0.10 and 0.17, whilst in model 2 only the paths to the internally focussed behavioural constructs (ID and MP) were significant. This can be an indication that moderately active members consider the importance of members to be related to inwardly-focused market oriented behaviours, in line with a \"leading\" posture (Henneberg, 2006). There are also noteworthy differences regarding the effects on dissemination activities between all three groups, while effects on the propensity for members to participate in strategy development were very similar overall. With regard to antecedents of the perceived consistency of the strategy implementation, the strongest relationships were to be found in model 1, indicating that those members with high political activity levels are more concerned with the less salient aspects of strategy development, that is, the importance of passing information on to those in the party who can act upon it, as well as ensuring the consistency of the strategy that is implemented.It is noteworthy that neither the Voter nor the Competitor Orientation constructs had any significant effect on the behavioural constructs, irrespective of the respondents' level of activity. The lack of a well-developed Competitor Orientation may be attributable to the specifics of the election and voting procedures. As a first-past-the-post electoral system, the UK usually faces stable parliaments with clear majorities. Therefore, when a party is in government they require the compliance of their own voters and members rather than cooperating with other parties. This may result in the situation where the inactive party members have more freedom to contemplate the views of other parties, thus leading to a significant difference between the models for very active and moderately active (focused perspective) and those for inactive member (dissipated perspective) regarding the path coefficients between the Competitor Orientation and Information Generation constructs.The general lack of an effect of the Voter Orientation construct presents an interesting conundrum - voters as a central element in political marketing (and for political science) seemingly have little importance placed on them as part of a PMO. The negative Stone-Geisser Q2 statistic in all four models for Voter Orientation means that the predictive relevance of the construct is in doubt. This finding is surprising in light of existing political marketing literature that gives a voter orientation a central conceptual position in political marketing (e.g. Butler and Collins, 1994, 1996; Dean and Croft, 2001; Henneberg, 2002; Lees-Marshment, 2001b; Newman, 1994, 2002; O'Shaughnessy, 1990). Our result could be related to the specific time at which the investigation was carried out (i.e. mid-term in the electoral period) as voters may well be considered by parties to be of importance only at election time, thus going against the general assumption in the literature of a \"permanent campaign\" addressing the electorate (Nimmo, 1999).With regard to the overall nomological model, the lower the activity level of our respondents, the more they assessed their own party as market oriented, as evident in the greater number of significant positive interrelations between attitudinal and behavioural constructs. For example, there were significant path coefficients to the Information Generation construct from all four attitudinal constructs for the inactive members, whilst for the very active members only the Internal and External Orientation construct had any statistical effect. This could be as a result of the nature of the party member-stakeholder interaction. Whilst moderately active and inactive members have a more arms-length contact with competitors, interest and lobby groups, the very active members have resource constraints that force them to prioritise and target certain groups which they believe are important for their party, according to perceived actual relevance. As such, it can be argued that the less active members are generally more market oriented in their mental model of how the political party operates than the very active members.Several key implications for political managers and party strategists can be derived from our analysis regarding a strengthening of a party's PMO. First, as a strong relationship exists between the four behavioural constructs, an improvement in the consistency in implementing party strategy needs to be based on strengthening processes addressing all different aspect of the behavioural chain, starting with generating and disseminating information, as well as stronger member participation in the actual strategy development. Second, to impact on certain behavioural aspects of PMO, the underlying attitudinal drivers must be the focus of attention. Such aspects of cultural change are of a longer-term nature. In this context it is a question of the direction of the overall strategy that dictates which of the attitudinal orientations are important: for example, while for a \"follower\" posture a strong Voter and Competitor Orientation is pivotal, for a \"leader\" posture a strong Internal Orientation has to be achieved (Henneberg, 2006). Finally, rather than educating the rank-and-file to be more responsive towards a multitude of stakeholders, society as a whole, our analysis shows that the most active members, including party professionals such as campaign managers, exhibit a certain \"political marketing myopia\" which limits their attitudinal focus and consequently their ability to achieve a wider PMO; this is in contrast with more open-minded rank-and-file members and should be addressed to ensure that those individuals who shape party organisational structures have a comprehensive view of the political market.Limitations and future research\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: - The key objective of this research is to investigate the relationship between party member activity-levels and perceptions of their party's political market orientation. Specifically, it aims to scrutinise the differences in the interplay of attitudinal and behavioural aspects of political market orientation.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - Using a wide variety of respondent groups within the party, the research draws on an existing conceptualisation of political market orientation and empirically test its relationship with party member activity levels. Three models, plus a baseline model, are developed and data from 1,156 questionnaires are used to investigate a structural equation model using the partial least square method.\nFindings: - While the baseline model exhibits a robust pattern of positive relationships between the attitudinal and behavioural constructs, the comparative analysis of the different models shows that party activity levels have a significant impact on these relationships. The study identified that less active members perceive a wider range of attitudinal concepts to be of significance, compared to active members, politicians and party professionals.\nOriginality/value: - This is one of a few studies empirically investigating the concept of political market orientation. Especially the focus on a wide range of respondents, in line with recent development in the literature on commercial market orientation, provides a nuanced analysis of the varying perception-patterns of party stakeholders.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Continuous improvement in a university - the first steps: a reflective case study
|
[
"Six sigma",
"Lean",
"Higher education",
"Continuous improvement"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\n1. Introduction: Public dissatisfaction with the cost and scope of government activities has been increasing over recent decades. Governments throughout the \"developed world\" are turning to downsizing as a way of reducing budget deficits and inefficiencies caused by state-led development strategies (Martin, 1999). Barton (2009) points to the rise of neo-liberalism and a view that government activities should be scaled back to a level of \"small government\". To achieve this and enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of these remaining activities, governments should be operated like business firms and adopt business principles and practices. Whatever about the argument for and against government agencies acting like private sector entities, there is an increased impetus within the public sector to explore the benefits of applying continuous improvement (CI) approaches that have a proven track record in the private sector (Radnor et al., 2006). While the education sector initially lagged behind other public sectors, most notably health, in recent years an increasing interest among higher educational institutions (HEIs) in Lean Six Sigma (LSS) is evident. Indeed recent changes to university funding across a number of countries (e.g. the UK (Thirkell and Ashman, 2014; Thomas et al., 2015), the USA (Waterbury, 2015) and Canada (Francis, 2014)) has been put forward as one the main reasons for an increased interest in LSS.\n2. Literature review: 2.1 Resource constraints in the higher education sector\n3. Methodology: Using Six Sigma (LSS) implementation literature as an organising framework, this paper explores the initial steps in a CI journey taken by an Irish university. Because this study is exploratory in nature, a case study is a suitable research strategy (Marshall and Rossman, 1989, p. 78). This research strategy is reinforced by Yin (1994), who suggests that the case study is the most appropriate research strategy where \"How\" or \"Why\" questions are being asked about contemporary events. The case study research strategy adopted involved participative research (Patton, 2002), since the aim of this was to reflect on and learn from experience to date (Busco and Scapens (2011). Indeed, Busco and Scapens (2011) discuss the role of participative observations in the context of an involved approach allowing for a better perspective from which to overcome obstacles as they arise from an organisation's culture. Chakraborty and Leyer (2013) state that \"Practitioner involvement is an important aspect in Six Sigma research\", highlighting that knowledge of the topic area is vital for qualitative research.\n4. Case study: The case study site is an Irish University with over 20,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students and over 2,700 staff members (including research staff). The university enjoys an international reputation and includes faculty across humanities, business, law, medicine, science and engineering disciplines.\n5. Learning from initial deployment: Given the increasing level of activity, a LSS black belt expert was engaged on a part-time basis in Q1 2015. This expert supported steering group activity from this point onwards, including a roadmap workshop and follow-up sub-group work. This roadmap was approved by UMT early in Q2 2015.\n6. Analysis and discussion: Analysis of the first steps of this CI journey reveal a number of key characteristics: top-down approach together with proposals from staff garnered during a consultative strategic planning process, emphasis on training, importance of a structured method, role of both internal expertise and external providers and importance of active leadership.\n7. Conclusions, limitations and directions for future research: This case study reports on the initial steps taken by an Irish university embarking on a CI journey. The paper is an output of the team's on-going evaluation and learning and hence a participative research approach was adopted. The five readiness factors as put forward by Antony (2014) provide for a useful evaluative framework as it provides a structure within which to frame the themes that emerged from the study and allowed for a structured reflection as to the import of the themes identified. Key findings point to the importance, in this case, of iterative learning between, on one hand, senior management discussion and decision-making and, on the other hand, experience gained from the steering group and training course participants each step along the way. The introduction of a LSS black belt expert to support this endeavour was crucial in order to maintain progress.\n",
"role": "user"
},
{
"content": "Purpose: Using Lean Six Sigma (LSS) implementation literature as an organising framework, the purpose of this paper is to explore the initial steps in a continuous improvement (CI) journey taken by an Irish university in order to identify the motivations, highlight key challenges and considers the capabilities required to initiate and sustain a CI programme.\nDesign/methodology/approach: This study focusses on one case organisation. A participative approach is adopted to learn from the initial steps taken in the establishment of a CI programme. Given this approach, the researchers had access to all documents and related archives associated with this initiative. Hence an iterative learning approach is adopted with the analysis of data from the first 12-month plan informing the next planning and implementation phase.\nFindings: This paper provides a reflective account of why and how a university went about commencing a CI programme. The motivation to establish the CI programme not only reflects the current fiscal environment but also one characterised by a need to respond to a number of increasingly demanding stakeholders. The insights gained highlight the importance of alignment with strategy, role of specialists and use of a structured method informed by a LSS approach. Of particular note is the role of expertise, both internal and external, and within this context the interplay between a formal top-down approach and the coming together enthusiast staff, some of whom had CI experience from previous employment. A number of practical implications were identified as a result of the study including the key role of the project sponsor; the criticality of an understanding of the fundamental LSS concepts and tools and techniques by management; and the key role played by improvement specialists.\nOriginality/value: While in recent times a strong case for the application of LSS in HEIs has been made, there is a paucity of case studies based on the reflective practice in the field. This paper is novel in that it aims to address this and contribute to an emerging body of CI literature in the HEI area.\n",
"role": "assistant"
}
] |
Bringing about change in patient-centred preventive care
|
[
"Health services",
"Patient care",
"Medical practice",
"Patients",
"Organizational theory",
"Denmark"
] |
[
{
"content": "Summarize the following paper into structured abstract.\n\nIntroduction: Many healthcare institutions worldwide face demands to improve patient care organization and to develop new models of healthcare services (Tallis, 2006). This is also true in Denmark (Regeringen, 2002). However, such changes in organizational practice are difficult (Crabtree et al., 2005; Dopson et al., 2002; Ferlie et al., 2000; Hulscher et al., 1997). Many initiatives have no impact on organizations or produce unintended results (Flocke et al., 2007; Sussman et al., 2006).Contemporary ideas about health include patient responsibility for a healthy lifestyle as well as patient free choice and autonomy (Cheek, 2008). Such ideas are important elements of the patient-centred perspective (Mead and Bower, 2002) in which one approach is lifestyle-oriented, preventive care that considers the patients' views on their health problems. There is considerable ambiguity about the exact meaning of such patient-centredness. The term is variously defined as good physical health or as patient responsibility for their healthcare (van Dulmen, 2003). Whatever the definition, the ideal of patient-centred preventive care is difficult to realize, although recently there has been a reawakening of interest in health behaviour (Cockerham, 2000).This article examines the implementation of a \"Preventive health project\" in which a significant element is the concept of \"Motivational interviewing\" (MI). The patient-centred spirit is regarded as essential to the practice of MI (Rollnick and Miller, 1995) because the motivation for change is the patient's interpretation of his/her health problems. Thus MI is an ideal in patient-centred care.This research explores how ten Danish health clinics transform the idea of patient-centred preventive care into organizational practice. The emphasis is on the translation of ideas to practice (Czarniawska and Joerges, 1996; Sahlin and Wedlin, 2008) and the influence of existing organizational practices. I first present the concept and context of MI. In drawing on institutional theory, I next consider MI as an organizational recipe, which is translated into being in existing, stable structures of healthcare practices. Then I present the research methodology, after which I explore the translation of abstract ideas on preventive care into specific activities in organizations. I conclude with a discussion of the implications for future patient-centred preventive care initiatives in healthcare organizations.\nResearch methodology, material and theoretical approach: Study object\nFindings: Translation of motivational interviewing\nDiscussion: This analysis reveals how abstract preventive care ideas are translated into specific activities according to existing rules of medical practice. In using MI, differences among the clinics related to local practices form local sets of editing rules, and variations arise in working towards the ideal of patient-centred preventive care. Some consultations are based on patients' interpretations of their health problems and others on medical experts' diagnoses. Thus the ideal of patient-centred care in MI differs significantly from the ideal of patient-centred preventive care in the medical expert context. As a result, the clinics' perception of patient-centred care mediates the ideal of patient-centredness prescribed by the preventive care concept.In adopting MI, the clinics alter the meaning of patient-centred care, possibly because there is no precise definition of patient-centred care in the literature (Mead and Bower, 2000; Mead and Bower, 2002; van Dulmen, 2003). Similarly, there is little clarity in defining the content, structure and meaning of the preventive concept of MI (Emmons and Rollnick, 2001). Both patient-centredness and prevention allow for flexible and ambiguous interpretations by healthcare providers, patients and health authorities. Yet generally it is the medical profession in established medical institutions that defines prevention. Routines at clinics are taken-for granted, and new ideas are interpreted using an overall medical approach.Making changes in health care organizations requires addressing both the spirit of a new concept and its relationship to tangible activities. In the clinics of this research, MI was the abstract ideal in patient-centred care. Its value was largely unquestioned as a type of preventive care. Yet many questions remain: Was MI really a fruitful way of providing preventive care? Would all patients benefit from MI? Who should perform MI? What professional skills are required?Everyone agrees that preventive care and patient-centredness have positive connotations. However, evaluations are only possible when ideas \"hit the ground\" and visible activities result in practice. I suggest that healthcare organizations that use MI should be more explicit about their goals, methods and different ideals of preventive treatment.I emphasize the value of promoting transparency in clinical practices and of paying attention to the mismatch between their own organizational capabilities and public, professional and political expectations of healthcare.\n",
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"content": "Purpose: - This paper aims to explore how healthcare organizations in Denmark transform modern ideas of patient-centred preventive care into organizational practice. Specific attention is given to the influence of existing organizational practices.\nDesign/methodology/approach: - A qualitative multiple case study design is used to explore \"motivational interviewing\", a health behaviour concept that was introduced in preventive consultations in ten Danish clinics. From an institutional perspective, the concept may be understood as an \"organizational recipe\" that translates into organizational activities. Data are generated by observations, interviews and document reviews. Theory and data provide the framework for an analytical phase model.\nFindings: - The paper reveals how abstract ideas on preventive care translate into specific activities in organizations following pre-existing, general rules of medical practice. Disparities between clinics are related to distinctive local practices, such as clinics' conditions and preventive treatment practices that form local sets of editing rules. Differences in clinic performances result in variations in achieving the ideal of patient-centred, preventive care prescribed by motivational interviewing.\nResearch limitations/implications: - It is acknowledged in medical practice that there are different conceptions of the ideal of preventive care. The paper points to the value of promoting transparency in clinical practice and of paying attention to the mismatch between external expectations and organizational capabilities.\nOriginality/value: - The paper adds to the understanding of organizational dynamics at the micro-level.\n",
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